50 
ry of his usefulness, his talents and his virtues, which it be¬ 
comes his country affectionately to cherish. He has him¬ 
self built his own imperishable monument, and inscribed his 
epitaph on the pillar of American liberty and independence, 
in the civil institutions of his native land, in the advance¬ 
ment of agriculture and the arts. In these we may read the 
works and the character of a true American patriot: by few 
equalled, by none surpassed. 
Robert Robert Livingston, was born in the year 1746.—* 
Providence, who determined that America should be free, 
ordering the time of his birth, so that the maturity of his 
mind and the acme of his political talents, should just coin¬ 
cide with the dawn of our liberties, which he was born to 
cherish. His father for many years previous to the revo¬ 
lution, filled, with great credit to himself, the office of judge 
of the supreme court. In the earliest part of the dispute 
between this country and Great Britain, Judge Livingston 
warmly espoused the cause of America. For this politi¬ 
cal heterodoxy, he was ejected from office in the year 
1775. The son , having laid the foundation of his future 
eminence in literature, science, and the arts, in the college 
of New-York, was appointed to the office of recorder of 
that city. This office he held for several years. But adopt¬ 
ing the obnoxious political tenets, he was dismissed from 
office at the same time with his father, by the Royal Gover¬ 
nor Tryon. The arbitrary and tyrannical measures of the 
British parliament against his native country, wedded him 
firmly to the cause of American liberty and independence. 
And this devotion to his country’s cause, ranked him 
among the foremost, as his talents placed him among the 
most influential, in the revolutionary councils. 
In the first American congress, which sat at Philadelphia, 
Robert R. Livingston was a member. He was not a silent 
or an inefficient member. When the great question of in¬ 
dependence was agitated, he exerted his great and distin¬ 
guished talents in its favor. And when it was determined 
by the majority of congress, that these states should be free 9 
