benefit to the country cannot be estimated at less than one hundred millions of dollars, and of which, more than any other individual, he is entitled to be called the Father, left him a poorer man than it found him.

And this leads me to a closing remark on the moral qualities of his character. I have already said that he was one of the very best men I ever knew. In an acquaintance commencing at the Academy at Exeter in 1807, and in a relation as intimate as can be without the cement of blood, I never saw in him the slightest trace of any of the sins which do most easily beset us, of selfishness, avarice, vanity, indolence, affectation, arrogance it would be an insult to his memory to add dishonesty or corruption to the list. He was the soul of justice, probity, and honor. A deep sense of religious obligation gave tone and steadiness to his moral principle; and, if he had not been human, I should have been almost ready to pronounce him faultless.

But he had his faults. The ancient philosophers placed moral perfection in the golden mean, equally removed from excess on either side. Mr. Hale carried the noblest virtue of which our frail natures are capable-disinterestedness-to an extreme which interfered with his own health, comfort, and prosperity; and going beyond the Scripture rule, which it is never safe to do, he loved his neighbor better than himself.

The resolutions were then unanimously adopted. The President subsequently appointed Dr. Lothrop to prepare a Memoir of Mr. Hale.

The President laid on the table a copy of Mr. Savage's "Genealogical Dictionary," sumptuously bound, a gift to the library from Mr. Tudor; for which the President was requested to convey the thanks of the Society to Mr. Tudor.

Count Agénor de Gasparin of Switzerland was elected an Honorary Member, Right Rev. George Burgess, Bishop of Maine, and George W. Green, Esq., of New York, Corresponding Members, and Francis E. Parker, Esq., and Mr. William H. Whitmore, of Boston, Resident Members, of the Society.

Messrs. Loring, Sturgis, and Washburn were appointed a Committee with full powers to advise with the Treasurer in regard to the funds of the Society, and to make any investment of the same which they may deem advisable. The President was added to this

Committee.

The Treasurer submitted the following report:

The Society, on the 13th of November, 1862, voted, That the Treasurer, under the direction of the Standing Committee, be authorized to sell the share of the Massachusetts Cotton Mills owned by the Society, and, with the extra dividend and the dividend due, invest the proceeds in the building now owned by the Society.

This share of the Cotton Mills was received, in part, as a legacy to the Society, from their late member, Nathaniel I. Bowditch, Esq., of one thousand dollars; the balance being two hundred dollars, which was invested in the building. The Standing Committee having authorized, by vote, the sale of this share, I have sold it. The share brought eleven hundred and fifty dollars; which, with the extra dividend of two hundred dollars and the regular dividend of fifty dollars, made the sum of fourteen hundred dollars; which has been invested as directed. This makes the sum of sixteen hundred dollars which has been received from Mr. Bowditch's legacy of one thousand, besides the regular dividends.

RICHARD FROTHINGHAM, Treasurer.

The President called attention to a communication in the January number of the "Historical Magazine," signed with the initials of the name of our Corresponding Member, George H. Moore, Esq.; which seemed to leave little doubt that the real name of the translator of Chastellux's "Travels" was John Kent; and that the name of Grieve (as given by Ebeling in the copy of Chastellux in the Harvard-college Library) was an alias, assumed for purposes of secrecy.

The President added, that he had received a letter from Mr. Moore within a few hours past, which concluded with the following passage:

6

"I have also recently met with a notice of New England and Morton's New-England Memorial,' which may interest you, if, indeed, you have not seen it before. The contemporary comparison of Old and New England in 1672 strikes me as very significant. The passage occurs in a letter of John Collins, a mathematician of some celebrity in his day, who was officially connected with the Council of Plantations at that time. Writing to Dr. Beale, Aug. 20, 1672, he says,

"Upon your mentioning of New England, I have this to say. I have been informed that there hath been an excellent map of New England some years since sent over to his Majesty; but now it is not, upon diligent inquiry, to be found. There is a 4to book printed in New England, entitled "New-England's Memorial," by William Morton; being a history or journal of the settlement and transactions in that colony. Your judgment about the civil conversation of New, and loose of Old England, demands remark. Their rigor in requiring real grace in church-members, and our looseness in a temporizing Arminianism to obtain preferment, I take to be contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England. I believe I have spent as much time to satisfy myself thoroughly in those controversies as I have done in the mathematics, and could wish all controversies stated in the method of the [ tific Men, i. 202.

proposal about trade.'" - Letters of Scien

Dr. USHER PARSONS, Corresponding Member, exhibited a large collection of curious relics of the Indians of Rhode Island, recently exhumed near the seashore, on ground which formerly belonged to the Sachem Ninigret.

Mr. FOLSOM reported a list of necessary books of reference for the Society's library; and mentioned that one of our associates had placed at his disposal the sum of fifty dollars, to be added to the amount which the Standing Committee might appropriate to the purchase of the books.

The President said he had brought for exhibition to the Society one of the old paper-notes of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, issued on the 10th of December, 1690.

This was the first issue of paper-money in Massachusetts, and, as he believed, in America. Sir William Phips had arrived in Boston only a few weeks before, bringing back his troops most unexpectedly, after an unsuccessful expedition against Canada. The Government was entirely unprepared for the return of the forces; and the soldiers, we are told, were upon the point of a mutiny, for want of their wages. It was utterly impossible to raise, in a few days, the amount which was necessary. "The extreme difficulty to which the Government was reduced, was the occasion," says Hutchinson, "of the first bills of credit ever issued in the Colonies as a substitute in the place of money."

Dr. Felt, in his "History of Massachusetts Currency," gives an account of the proceeding, together with a description of one of the notes. We learn also, that, as early as the 23d of October of the following year, the General Court ordered a committee to burn up all the bills collected by the Treasurer; and