thority for the confinement of the prisoners, known to Mr. M'Kean, was the copy of a letter from the vice-president to colonel Lewis Nicola. His situation, at the time, was such that he had not received a letter, nor seen a newspaper, from Philadelphia, for a fortnight; nor could he learn any particulars of the affair, except from the two persons who presented the writs, and who offered to him a pamphlet written by the prisoners, stating their case: this he refused to read or accept, observing that he would determine on the returns to be made to the writs, and nothing else. The habeas corpus act formed a part of the code of the Pennsylvania laws, and has always and justly been esteemed the palladium of liberty. Before that statute, the habeas corpus was considered to be a prerogative writ, and also a writ of right for the subject; and, if the king and his whole council committed any subject, yet, by the opinion of all the judges, in times when the rights of the people were not well ascertained, nor sufficiently regarded, a habeas corpus ought to be allowed and obeyed. And the distinction was, that in such case, upon the return, the prisoner was to be remanded; but, if the commitment was by part of the lords of the council, he was to be bailed; and if not for a legal cause, he was to be discharged. By the statute, all discretionary power in the judges was taken away, and a penalty of five hundred pounds sterling imposed, for a refusal, in the vacation, to allow the writ so that, if Mr. M'Kean had so soon forgotten the oath which he had, a few days before, taken, common prudence would have taught him neither to incur the forfeiture of ten thousand pounds, nor to subject himself, as a judge, to the just censure of the judicious and dispassionate; the more especially when no injury could arise from returning the writs, and bringing the parties before him, (except a

he was selected by the assembly to proceed to New York, and there to obtain copies of all documents relating to real estates in the lower counties on Delaware, prior to the year 1700; he faithfully discharged this duty, and the copies thus procured were established, by a law, as of equal authority with the original records. In 1771, he was appointed by the commissioners of his majesty's customs, collector of the port of Newcastle; and in October, 1772, he was chosen speaker of the house of representatives.

Owing to a change of ministers in the British cabinet, and the apprehension of a serious opposition on the part of the colonies, the stamp act was repealed; but, at the same time, an act was passed, maintaining the right of the parliament to bind the colonies by law in all cases whatsoever. Two years had not elapsed from this period, before the government resolved to test this right, and derive a revenue from their colonies, by imposing a duty on the importation of teas, paper, painter's colours, and glass, which were prohibited from any other place than Great Britain. The impost was so small, that little opposition was anticipated: but there were patriots in the colonies who had not forgotten the stamp act; who deeply reflected on the consequences of submission, and who were fully aware that it would be established as a precedent, and that many an error, by the same example, would creep into the state. A correspondence accordingly took place among leading and influential characters throughout the continent; a powerful opposition was organised; and measures concerted to render it effectual. Public meetings were held in the principal commercial towns, and it was finally agreed, that the colonies should appoint delegates from their respective houses of assembly, to meet in Philadelphia, on the fifth of September, 1774. Firm and decided, uniform and energetic, in resisting the usurpations of the

British crown, Mr. M'Kean, as he had before done in 1765, took an active part in the preparatory measures which led to the meeting of this congress; and was appointed a delegate from the lower counties on Delaware, although he had, a short time before, removed his residence permanently to Philadelphia.

An important era, not only in the history of America, but of man, had now arrived. Great events may not create, but they always will elicit and excite ability, and bring dormant talents into active operation; and, although the principal part of his life had hitherto been employed in laborious official engagements, Mr. M'Kean soon found that the times now required all the exertions of his mental and physical powers. On the fifth of September, he took his seat in the august assemblage, of which he became an invaluable ornament; and from that day, his country claimed him as her own. He was annually elected a member, until the first of February, 1783; serving in the great national council during the long, and uninterrupted, period of eight years and a half.

Two remarkable circumstances, connected with this epoch, are peculiar to the life of Mr. M'Kean. In the first place, he was the only man who was, without intermission, a member of the revolutionary congress, from the time of its opening, in 1774, until after the preliminaries of the peace of 1783 were signed; for, notwithstanding he was also engaged in other important public affairs, his residence in Philadelphia induced his constituents to continue to return him. It may be added, however, as a case very similar, that Roger Sherman, a delegate from Connecticut, was a member of congress from the time of its first sitting, in September, 1774, until the month of February, 1782, and what is more remarkable, he was a member during the long period of nineteen years, except when the laws required a rotation in office.

The other circumstance is, that while he represented the state of Delaware in congress, until 1783, and was, in 1781, president of it, yet, from July 1777, he held the office, and executed the duties, of chief justice of Pennsylvania. Each of these states claimed him as her own; and for each were his talents faithfully exerted.

Possessed of long tried ability and perseverance, apt in forming conclusions, and skilful in the details as well as general principles, of public business, Mr. M'Kean's career in congress embraced a series of unremitting and distinguished services. A few days after the first sitting, he was appointed one of the committee to state the rights of the colonies, the several instances in which those rights were violated or infringed, and the means most proper to be pursued for the restoration of them. He served diligently on the important secret committee to contract for the importation of arms and ammunition; and his talents were equally exerted in establishing the claims and accounts against the government; in superintending the finances of the states, and the emission of bills of credit; in hearing and determining on appeals brought against sentences passed on libels in the courts of admiralty; and in a variety of important and secondary transactions, connected with the general business of congress. On the twelfth of June, 1776, he was appointed a member of the committee to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be entered into between the colonies: on the same day a draft was reported, which, after many postponements, amendments, and debates, was finally agreed to, on the fifteenth of November, 1777. The articles of confederation, however, owing to the objections made by the states, were not signed by a majority of their representatives, until the ninth of July, 1778. The delegates from New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, then informed congress that they had not yet received

powers to ratify and sign the instrument. On the twentysixth of November following, New Jersey acceded to the confederation; and on the twenty-second of February, 1779, Mr. M'Kean signed and ratified the articles, in behalf of the state of Delaware. At length, the state of Maryland empowered her delegates to subscribe and ratify the act of union, and its final ratification took place on the first of March, 1781.

It has already been remarked that the signatures on the Declaration of. Independence do not, in more than one instance, merely indicate those who voted for it on the fourth of July, 1776; as several of the signers were not at that time in congress. But as regards some of the delegates another error also occurred, and among them Mr. M'Kean.

He was particularly active and useful in procuring the passage of the Declaration; nevertheless, although his name is subscribed to the original instrument deposited in the office of the secretary of state, he does not appear as a subscriber to the copy published in the Journals of Congress. The late Mr. Dallas, in the course of the re-publication of the laws of Pennsylvania, wishing to compile an accurate copy of the Declaration of Independence, addressed a letter, on the nineteenth of September, 1796, to Mr. M'Kean, requesting to know why such a variance existed. The answer to this inquiry is a valuable historical record: it is dated at Philadelphia on the twenty-sixth of September 1796, and is in these terms:

"Sir-Your favour of the nineteenth instant, respecting the Declaration of Independence, should not have remained so long unanswered, if the duties of my office of chief justice had not engrossed my whole attention while the court was sitting.