the army is large or small, there is no difference in the plan, though the business may be occasionally multiplied threefold.

But, however willing I might have been, heretofore, to subject myself to the fatigue and difficulties attending the duties of this office, justice to myself, as well as to the public, constrains me positively to decline it, under the present arrangement, as I do not choose to attempt an experiment of so dangerous a nature, where I see a physical impossibility of performing the duties that will be required of me. I am, therefore, to request congress will appoint another quarter master general, without loss of time, as I shall give no order in the business, further than to acquaint the deputies with the new system, and direct them to close their accounts up to the first of August coming.

The two principal characters on whom I depended for support, and whose appointment, under the for. mer arrangement, I made an express condition to my accepting the office, are now left out, and both have advertised me, that they will take no further charge of the business; and I am apprehensive that many others, who have been held by necessity and not of choice, will avail themselves of this opportunity to leave an employment, which is not only unprofitable, but 'rendered dishonourable.

Systems, without agents, are useless things: the one should be taken into consideration in framing the other. Administration seem to think it far less important to the public interest to have this depart. ment well filled, and properly ar. ranged, than it really is, and as

they will find it by future expe rience.

My best endeavours have not been wanting, to give success to the business committed to my care; and I leave the merit of my services to be determined hereafter, by the future management of it, under the direction of another hand. My rank is high, in the line of

the army; and the sacrifices I have made, on that account, together with the fatigue and anxiety I have undergone, far overbalance all the emoluments I have derived from the appointment; nor would double the consideration induce me to tread the same path over again, unless I saw it necessary to preserve my country from utter ruin and a disgraceful servitude.

I have the honour to be, &c.
NATHL. GREENE,
Q. M. General.

His Excellency,
Samuel Huntingdon, Esq.
President of Congress.

This plain and frank letter occasioned, at first, some feeling in congress, but it was somewhat allayed by an inquiry, on the part of one of the Connecticut delegation, whether it was not possible, that the reasons urged by General Greene, were founded in truth. It was, however, now too late to retract; and, as the resignation was decisive, nothing remained except to choose a successor to a post thus environed with difficulties. Col. Pickering was appointed on the 5th of August; and it is a subject of no ordinary praise, that he performed its complicated and arduous duties, so as to acquire the confidence of Washington; and that its extensive and intricate accounts were settled after the termination

of the war, to the satisfaction of congress.

From the year 1790 to 1794, Colonel Pickering was charged, by General Washington, (then president of the United States,) with several negotiations with the Indian nations on our frontiers. In 1798, he was appointed on a joint commission from Gen. Lincoln and Beverly Randolph, Esq. of Virginia, to treat of peace with the western Indians: and, in 1794, he was appointed sole agent to adjust all disputes with the Six Nations, which were terminated by a satisfactory treaty.

In the year 1791, Gen. Washington appointed him post-master general. In this office he continued till the close of the year 1794; when, on the resignation of General Knox, he was appointed secretary of war. In August, 1795, Mr. Edmund Randolph having resigned the office of secretary of state, General Washington gave Colonel P. the temporary charge of that department also. Some time before the meeting of congress, which was in December fol. lowing, he also tendered to Colonel Pickering the office of secretary of state, which was declined, but when congress assembled, Washington having nominated him to the senate, and the senate approving the nomination, he accepted the office. He continued in this office until May, 1800, when he was removed by President Adams, having differed with the president on the policy of his administration, and determined to act with General Hamilton.

Being in debt for new lands purchased some years before, and having no other resources-as soon as he was removed from office, in 1800, he carried his family from

Philadelphia into the country; and, with one of his sons, went into the back woods of Pennsylvania, where, with the aid of some labourers, they cleared a few acres of land, sowed wheat, and built a log hut, into which he meant the next year to remove his family. From this condition he was drawn by the kindness of his friends in Massachusetts. By their spontaneous liberality, in taking a transfer of new lands in exchange for money, Col. Pickering was enabled to pay his debts, return to his native state, and to purchase a small farm in Essex county, on which he lived many years, cultivating it with his own. hands.

At the close of the year 1801, Colonel Pickering returned to live in Massachusetts. In 1803, the legislature appointed him a senator to represent the state in congress, for the residue of the term of Dwight Foster, Esq. who had resigned. In 1805, he was again elected senator, for the term of six years.

Colonel P. continued to sustain the office of senator till 1811. Soon after, he was chosen, by the legis lature, a member of the executive council, and, during the late war, when apprehensions were entertained that the enemy contemplated assailing our towns and cities, he was chosen a member of the board of war, for the defence of the state. In 1814, he was chosen a represen. tative in congress, and held his seat till March, 1817.

In his retirement, he enjoyed the respect and esteem of his contemporaries, while his devotion to his favourite rural pursuits, his extensive correspondence with eminent and worthy men in various parts of our country; his love of literature and science, and his zeal in promotion

of the interests of our best institutions, furnished his mind with active einployment.

The activity of his life, and the magnitude and variety of his pub. lic labours, left him little leisure for solitary and continued applica tion to the pursuits of science and literature. He made no pretensions to either, yet few public men possessed knowledge so various and extensive. The productions of his pen bear testimony to his ability, power, elegance, and vigour as a writer.

In public life, he was distinguished for energy, fidelity, firmness, promptitude, perseverance, and disinterestedness.

His manners were plain and sim. ple, his morals pure and unblem. ished, and his belief and profession of the Christian religion was, through a long life, accompanied with practice and conduct, in ac. cordance with its divine precepts.

When the last indisposition of Colonel Pickering induced him to call a physician, he remarked that that was the first occasion he had had for the services of that profession since the siege of Yorktown. Till the last moment of his life, he enjoyed the possession of his mental faculties in unabated strength and vivacity.

SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.

May 30th, 1829.-At Geneva, Sir Humphrey Davy, aged 50.

The name of Davy is of ancient respectability in the West of Eng. land. Sir Humphrey's paternal grandfather had considerable landed property in the parish of Ludg. van, in Cornwall; and his father, Robert Davy, possessed a paternal

estate opposite St. Michael's Mount, called Bartel, which, although small, was amply competent for the supply of his limited desires. It is probable, therefore, that his profession, which was that of a carver in wood, was pursued by him as an object rather of amusement than of necessity, although in the town and neighbourhood of Penzance there remain many specimens of his art ; and among others several chimney. pieces, curiously embellished by his chisel.

Sir Humphrey Davy was born at Penzance, in Cornwall, on the 17th of December, 1778. Having received the rudiments of a classical education under Dr. Cardew of Truro, he was placed with a respectable professional gentleman of the name of Tonkin, at Penzance, in order that he might acquire a knowledge of the profes sion of a surgeon and apothecary.

It is not difficult to understand how it happened, that a person, en. dowed with the genius and sensibilities of Davy, should have had his mind directed to the study of mineralogy and chemistry, when we consider the nature and scene. ry of the country in which accident had planted him. Many of his friends and associates must have been connected with mining specu. lations; shafts, cross courses, lodes, &c. were words familiarized to his ears; and his native love of inquiry could not have long suffered such terms to remain as unmeaning sounds. Nor could he wander along the rocky coast, nor repose for a moment to contemplate its wild scenery, without being invited to geological inquiry by the genius of the place; for, were that science to be personified, it would be im

possible to select a more appropriate spot for her local habitation and favoured abode.

This bias he cultivated till his fifteenth year, when he became the pupil of Dr. Borlase of Penzance, an ingenious surgeon, intending to prepare himself for gradua. ting as a physician at Edinburgh. At this early age, he laid down for himself a plan of education, which embraced the circle of the sciences; and by his eighteenth year he had acquired the rudi. ments of botany, anatomy, and phy. siology, the simpler mathematics, metaphysics, natural philosophy, and chemistry. But chemistry soon arrested his whole attention. As far as can be ascertained, the first original experiment performed by him at Penzance was for the purpose of investigating the nature of the air contained in the bladders of sea-weed. His instruments, however, were of the rudest description, manufactured by himself out of the motley materials which fell in his way; the pots and pans of the kitchen were appropriated with out ceremony, and even the phials and gallipots of his master were without the least remorse put in requisition.

Before the formation of the Geological Society of London, which has been the means of introducing more rational and correct views in the science over which it presides, geologists were divided into two great parties,-Neptunists and Plutonists; the one affirming that the globe was indebted for its form and arrangement to the agency of water, the other to that of fire. It so happened, that the professors of Oxford and Cambridge ranged themselves under opposite banners: Dr. Beddoes was a violent and un

compromising Plutonist, while professor Hailstone was as decided a Neptunist. The rocks of Cornwall were appealed to as affording support to either theory; and the two professors, who, although adverse in opinion, were united in friendship, determined to proceed toge. ther to the field of dispute, each hoping that he might thus convict the other of his error. The geological combatants arrived at Penzance; and Davy became known to them, through the medium of Mr. Gilbert. Mr. Watt was also enthusiastic in his praise; and it so happening that at that time Dr. Beddoes had just established at Bristol his "Pneumatic Institution," for the purpose of investiga. ting the medical powers of the dif ferent gases, he proposed to Mr. Davy, who was then only nineteen years of age, but who, in addition to the recommendations that have been mentioned, had prepossessed the professor in his favour by an essay in which was propounded a new theory of heat and light, to suspend his plan of going to Edin. burgh, and to undertake the superintendence of the necessary experiments. This proposal Davy ea. gerly accepted.

Davy was now constantly engaged in the prosecution of new experiments; in the conception of which, as he himself candidly informs us, he was grealy aided by the conversation and advice of his friend Dr. Beddoes. He was also occasionally assisted by Mr. W. Clayfield, a gentleman ardently attached to chemical pursuits, and whose name is not unknown in the annals of science; indeed it appears that to him Davy was indebted for the invention of a mercurial air-holder, by which he was ena

bled to collect and measure the va rious gases submitted to examination. In the course of these investigations, the respirability and singularly intoxicating effects of nitrous oxide were first discovered; which led to a new train of research concerning its preparation, composition, properties, combinations, and physiological action on living beings; inquiries which were extended to the different substances connected with nitrous oxide, such as nitrous gas, nitrous acid, and ammonia; when, by multiplying experiments, and comparing the facts they disclosed, Davy ultimately succeeded in reconciling apparent anomalies; and, by removing the greater number of those diffi. culties which had obscured this branch of science, was enabled to present a clear and satisfactory history of the combinations of OXYGEN and NITROGEN.

These interesting results were published in a separate volume, entitled, "Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concern. ing Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration; by Humphrey Davy, Superintendant of the Medical Pneumatic Institution." Of the value of this production, the best criterion is to be found in the admiration which it excited; its author was barely twenty-one years old, and yet, although a mere boy, he was hailed as the Hercules in science, who had cleared an Augean stable of its impurities.

On obtaining the appointment of Professor at the Royal Institution, Mr. Davy gave up all his views of the medical profession, and devoted himself entirely to chemistry.

ced a series of lectures before its members; which he continued to deliver every successive session for ten years, modifying and extending their views, from time to time, in such a manner as the progress of chemical discovery required. These discourses were published in the year 1813, at the request of the president and members of the board; and they form the only complete work on the subject of agricultural chemistry.

He has treated the interesting subject of manures with singular success; showing the manner in which they become the nourishment of the plant, the changes produced in them by the processes of fermentation and putrefaction, and the utility of mixing and combining them with each other. He has also pointed out the chemical principles upon which depends the improvement of lands by burning and fallowing; he has elucidated the theory of convertible husbandry, founded on regular rotations of different crops.

In the year 1803, Davy was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; he subsequently became its secre. tary, and lastly its president.

The first memoir presented to the Royal Society by Mr. Davy, was read on the 18th of June, 1801; and is entitled, "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations, formed by the Arrangement of Single Metallic Plates and Fluids, analogous to the new Galvanic Apparatus of Volta; by Mr. Humphrey Davy, Lecturer on Chemistry in the Royal Institution; communicated by Benjamin, Count of Rumford, V.P.R.S."