of Government, because such persons as the British Minister was pleased to point Out were not expressly exempted from bearing their due proportion of said Tax. And what seems to compleat our misfortune is, that an instruction is pleaded for refusing a Grant for the payment of Our Agents at the Court of Great Britain. Thus we are to be cut off, even from complaint, that last Resource of the wretched.

His Excellency is instructed not to sign any Grant for the payment of an agent, unless he is chosen by the three Branches of the Legislature. He cannot consent to the choice of any One who is proscribed in his instructions. It is against an administration in which Lord Hillsborough & his dependants are principal Actors, that we complain; but no One whom he disapproves must be allowed to manage Our Complaints!

It is difficult to restrain our indignation at the gross affront offered to our understanding in this affair. A capacity but little remote from Idiotism is sufficient to discover the fatal consequences of this Ministerial Plot.

The Town have in times past declared to their Representatives their sence of the Burthen laid upon the commercial interest of the community, by the extention of the powers of the Court of Admiralty. A Jurisdiction, in its very nature, repugnant to our constitution, & contrary to Magna Charta, as it invests one judge, appointed by the Crown, with Authority to determine concerns the most important to the property & liberty of the subject. And they express'd their sence of this Grievance, as sharpned by the contrast which appears in the same statute, between the Mother Country & the Colonies. For however it may be Urged, that the Court of Admiralty is established by the Charter of this Province, yet by the same Charter the People of this Province are intituled to all the Liberties, Privileges & immunities of free British Subjects. And to see the Brittish Parliament, by One & the same statute, taking from the Colonies an important right, namely, TRIALS BY JURIES, and securing that right to themselves, in cases of the same nature & importance, must be deeply affecting to us. We take this Opportunity of renewing our Protestation against the powers of that Court, which have already proved so vexatious to persons concern'd in Trade; & in a very recent instance, according to the best information we are able to obtain, have been made use of to disturb & harrass the industrious Farmer, & which, if not restrain'd, bid fair to render all property, either Real or Personal, to the last degree precarious. Thus Gentlemen, have we exhibited to you a View of many of the Grievances which distress this People, & we expect that you will use your Utmost influence, in the ensuing sessions of the General Court, to have them radically redressed; not doubting but you will receive the most ready & effectual assistance, from those wise Patriots who are or shall be Chosen to represent our Brethren in the several Towns of this faithful Province. In particular, we desire that you would use your influence that a Remonstrance be presented to his Majesty, (whose elevated station denominates him the Father of his People, & the tenure of whose Throne is the protection of his subjects) against the

Oppressions which we suffer: Laying open to his view in the fullest & plainest manner the true state of this his province of the Massachusetts Bay, & pleading with him, with that Freedom & Firmness which the Justice of the cause & the exigences of your Country demand. And that you may not fail reaching the Royal Ear, we instruct you to exert yourselves to procure a proper Grant from the House of Representatives, for the payment of the Agents who have served the Honorable his Majesty's Council, and the Honorable House of Representatives for some years past; & that you take timely care to know whether the same is concurred with, & consented to by the other two Branches of the Legislature, & if it is not, that you endeavour to Obtain a Resolve of the House for a Brief, for raising a sum sufficient for the defreying the Charges of a Agency for the year ensuing, that so we may at least in this way make use of Our Own money to purchase an Access to the ear of our King. There are Gent" many other matters of great importance to the Province, which will come before you and we are happy that we can with confidence commit our concerns to you. Hoping that by the favour of divine Providence, you will be greatly instrumental in restoring, and securing, both to us & our Posterity, our violated rights. Then Only may we with reason expect to enjoy the invaluable blessings of harmony & good Government.

A true Copy.

Att.

WILLIAM COOper,

Town Clerk.

FEBRUARY MEETING.

A stated monthly meeting was held on Thursday, the 9th of February, at eleven o'clock, A.M.; the President in the chair. The record of the preceding meeting was read.

The Librarian read his monthly list of donors to the Library. The President called special attention to a volume presented by Mr. Edward Doubleday Harris, of Cambridge, containing a record in manuscript, executed in a beautiful manner, of "Ancient Epitaphs contained in the old Burying Ground of Lexington, Mass., 1690-1799."

He also spoke particularly of a volume presented by the author, entitled "A Collection of Curious and Interesting Epitaphs copied from the Monuments of Distinguished and Noted Characters in the Ancient Church and Burial Grounds of Saint Pancras, Middlesex. By Frederick Teague Cansick.. London,.. 1869."

In presenting this volume the author said it would be followed by others, which he would also present to the Society as they appeared.

The thanks of the Society were returned for these gifts. The President now spoke of the decease, since the last meeting, of two Resident Members of the Society; namely, the Hon. David Sears, and George Ticknor, LL.D.:

It may be remembered that, at our last monthly meeting, it was proposed that we should hold a social gathering, at the house of the President, on some evening of the following fortnight. But events soon occurred which made it fit that this arrangement should be postponed. A few days only had elapsed before we heard of the death of one of our most venerable members; and on the very morning of the day for which the meeting had originally been fixed, a second honored name was stricken from the roll of our living associates.

I proceed, according to usage, before entering upon other business to-day, to make formal announcement of these events, so that they may be the subject of such notice in our proceedings and on our records as may be thought appropriate by the Society.

On a humble tablet in the graveyard beneath our windows, at the top of which is inscribed, "John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts, died 1649," may also be read the inscription, "Ann Winthrop Sears, the wife of David Sears, died October 2d, 1789, aged 33." This lady was a lineal descendant, in the fifth generation, of the old first Governor, and was an elder sister of the late Lieut. Governor Winthrop, a former President of this Society. She left at her death one child, a son, of about two years old, who bore the name of his father, and of whose death, on the 14th of January last, we are now called to make mention.

Born on the 8th of October, 1787, and deprived thus early of maternal care, he received the best school education which those days could afford; entered the University at Cambridge at sixteen years of age; and was graduated with the Class of 1807. The only son of a rich father was not likely to engage very earnestly either in business pursuits or professional studies; and, after a brief course of legal reading, Mr. Sears married a daughter of the late Hon. Jonathan Mason, and proceeded to make a tour in Europe. The sudden death of his father," an eminent merchant and excellent citizen," to whose enterprise and virtues a funeral tribute was paid by the Rev. Dr. Gardiner, then the beloved Rector of Trinity Church, devolved upon him, in 1816, the care of as large an estate as, probably, had ever passed into the possession of a single hand in New England. And

thus, before he was quite thirty years of age, Mr. Sears was called to assume that responsible position among the very richest men of our city, which he has continued to hold for more than half a century.

Building for himself a costly and elegant mansion, fit for the exercise of those generous hospitalities which belong to wealth, he began early, also, to make plans for doing his share in those acts of public and private beneficence, which are the best part of every rich man's life. As early as 1821, a donation was made by him to St. Paul's Church, in this city, with whose congregation he was then associated, which has resulted in their possession of a valuable library, a site for their lecture room, and a considerable fund for charitable purposes; and this was followed, in succeeding years, by various provisions for other religious, literary, or charitable objects, which, while accomplishing valuable purposes at once, may not exhibit their full fruit for a long time to come.

The Sears Tower of the Observatory at Cambridge, built at his cost, gave the first encouragement to an establishment which has since been munificently endowed by others, and to whose permanent funds he was also a handsome contributor.

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A stately rural chapel on the crowning ridge of yonder village of Longwood, after the design of the church of his paternal ancestors at Colchester in Old England, for which he had carefully prepared a form of service in correspondence with the peculiar views of his later life, and beneath which he had caused vaults to be constructed for the last resting-places of himself and those most dear to him, will stand as a monument of his aspirations after Christian Union.

A spacious block of houses not far from it, destined ultimately for the dwellings of such as have seen better days, and an accumulating fund, under the control of the Overseers of the Poor of Boston, which has already added not a little, year by year, to the comfort and support of a large number of poor women, the two already involving an amount of hardly less than $90,000,- will bear testimony to his thoughtful and wellconsidered benevolence.

We may not forget that our own Society owes to him the foundation of our little Historical Trust Fund, which, it was his hope, might be built upon by others, until it should have put us in a condition of greater financial independence.

Mr. Sears had often enjoyed such public honors as he was willing to accept, and had served his fellow-citizens acceptably as a Senator in our State Legislature; as an Overseer of the University; and as a member of the Electoral College at the

very last Presidential election. He had occasionally mingled in the public discussions of the day, and an elaborate Letter which he addressed to the late John Quincy Adams, on the best mode of abolishing slavery, while that was still a living question, will be particularly remembered among his contributions to the press. Living to the advanced age of eighty-four, it was only during the last year that his familiar form has been missing from the daily walks of our citizens. He will long be remembered by all who have known him, as one of those courteous and dignified gentlemen of the old school, of whom so few are now left to remind us of the manners and bearing of other days.

When the owner of great pecuniary wealth passes away, his possessions, whether divided among heirs or bequeathed to the public, are not lost. But when one is taken from us, whose whole life has been spent in amassing the treasures of literature and learning, there is nothing to supply the void, save as some part of those treasures may have been "embalmed for a life beyond life" in the written or printed page. Such a loss our community and the literary world have sustained in the death of Mr. Ticknor.

He was born in Boston on the 1st of August, 1791, and would seem to have been dedicated to letters from his childhood. He was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1807, at an age when boys, in these days, have hardly finished their schooling. During the next seven or eight years he was pursuing studies of many sorts in his native place, and he even proceeded far enough in legal preparation to be admitted to the Suffolk bar. But the modern languages and literature were destined to supply the field of his triumphs, and in 1815 he embarked for Europe, and entered systematically on the labors which were to be the crown of his life. Two years at Göttingen, and shorter terms successively at Rome, Madrid, Paris, and Edinburgh, made up the five years of study, observation, and travel, from which he returned to assume the newly established Professorship of Modern Languages and Belles Lettres at Harvard University.

His lectures, during fifteen years in this chair, served, as was well said by Prescott, "to break down the barrier which had so long confined the student to a converse with antiquity;" and "opened to him a free range among those great masters of modern literature, who had hitherto been veiled in the obscurity of a foreign idiom." But while he was thus employing his acquisitions for the instruction and inspiration of his