school in Philadelphia. At the age of fifteen he entered the University of Pennsylvania, at which institution he was graduated, with the highest collegiate honours, in 1819. Among his classmates and associates were Mr. Walker, the present senator from Mississippi, and Mr. William B. Shepard, lately a representative in congress from North Carolina.

Immediately on leaving college he commenced the study of the law, and entered himself as a student in the office of Mr. Joseph R. Ingersoll, then as now a distinguished member of the bar of Philadelphia. At about this period, while thus engaged, and before the completion of the necessary term of his legal studies, a project of much public importance and interest was taken up, or rather revived, in Philadelphia-the construction of a canal to connect the waters of the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, so as to permit the passage of large vessels from the one to the other. This project had been strongly urged, and perhaps originally proposed, in several publications, by Mr. Gilpin's grandfather more than half a century before; and a correspondence of his with Dr. Franklin, and several papers containing the result of his observations made between the years 1767 and 1772, are probably among the earliest suggestions in regard to that and some others of the valuable public works which have since added so much to the prosperity and just pride of Pennsylvania. These publications also contain a great number of interesting facts and observations connected with the internal commerce and resources of that state in those early days, and are certainly remarkable as having been made at a time. when such improvements were in their infancy in Europe, and nearly unknown on our side of the Atlantic. On the revival of the project, and the organization of a company for carrying it into effect, by a number of the most respectable citizens of Philadelphia, as well as of the states of Delaware and Maryland, the post of treasurer and secretary was offered to Mr. Gilpin, though not then of age, and still a student at law. It was accepted by him—the more readily from the fact that the situation of his family had become so seriously affected by misfortunes arising out of the wide-spread commercial embarrassments which prevailed about the time, as to cast him entirely on his own exertions for support. He continued to hold the office for several years, and when at length he voluntarily retired from it, received a warm and unanimous expression of the thanks and approbation of the proprietors, passed at a public meeting. He was also elected a director of the company, which he continued to be as long as he resided in Philadelphia.

This occupation Mr. Gilpin did not permit to interfere with the study or the subsequent practice of his profession. The former he completed about the end of the year 1822, and was admitted as an attorney in the inferior courts of the city and county of Philadelphia. After the necessary term, he became a Counsellor of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and shortly VOL. VIII. NO XXXVI.-DECEMBER, 1840. I

after of the Supreme Court of the United States. For several years, before any opportunity fell in his way to test and exhibit his powers, he had of course to encounter all the difficulties attendant on the profession of the law in a city where the bar is very large, and the practice chiefly in the hands of men already distinguished by their professional ability as well as by their years.. He had no patronage to assist him, except what resulted from the proofs he gave of his ability and integrity, and from the individual friendships and general confidence which these enabled him to form and obtain.

In the year 1830, however, occurred a case at Philadelphia, involving legal questions of high public importance and interest, in which Mr. Gilpin so distinguished himself as to place him at once in an eminent rank of his profession, and to procure for him that official employment in it which shortly after followed. The Portuguese minister in the United States, Mr. Barrozo Pereiza, had been accredited in 1826 by the Princess Donna Maria. In 1829 he was superseded by Mr. Torlade d' Azambuja, who held his credentials from Don Miguel, at that time the actual sovereign of Portugal. The latter being officialy received by the American government, Mr. Barrozo demanded and received his passports! but before he left the United States was arrested at the suit of Mr. Torlade for the purpose, as was alleged, of obtaining from him the official archives of the legation. These Mr. Barrozo refused to surrender, as he would recognize neither the sovereignty of Don Miguel, nor the official rank of the minister accredited by him. This arrest, as a breach of diplomatic privilege, led to the institution of a criminal prosecution, at the instance of the government of the United States against the attorney who had acted in behalf of Mr. Torlade; and the District Attorney of the United States at Philadelphia, Mr. Dallas, having been connected with the case before it assumed an official character, the conduct of the prosecution was entrusted to Mr. Gilpin, as the junior counsel, and to an eniment lawyer since deceased, the late William Rawle. Probably no question has arisen in the United States which led to so full and luminous a discussion of the rights of diplomatic agents as that which took place on this occasion; and the circumstances connected with it, and arising out of the conflicting claims to the sovereignty of Portugal on which each party rested his justification, and the course of our own government, gave it an additional and peculiar interest. The indictment was tried and argued at large in the Circuit Court at Philadelphia; but previously to the verdict being taken, the judges having differed in opinion on some points involved, the case was carried up to the Supreme Court of the United States; and before a final decision was given by that tribunal, the whole matter was terminated by the President directing a discontinuance of the proceedings. Mr. Gilpin's argument of this case, embracing a wide range of discussion on the highest

ground of the principles of international law and public policy, was marked by such distinguished ability, that it did not fail to exert a very sensible effect on the extent of his professional business, while at the same time it secured for him that confidence of the national executive of which he afterwards received many and flattering proofs.

In the following year, 1831, Mr. Dallas, who then held the office of Attorney of the United States at Philadelphia, was elected by the legislature of Pennsylvania a Senator in Congress; and Mr. Gilpin was immediately appointed to succeed him in his office-an office to fill which might justly be regarded as a source of more than usual pride, from its having been successively held since the days of Washington by a Rawle, the two Dallases and Charles J. Ingersoll-names than which there are few more distinguished in the annals of the American bar. It is not undeserving of mention, that notwithstanding the bitterness with which the spirit of party had already begun to rage in Philadelphia, under the influence of the great Bank Question of which that city was the central point of interest and violence, Mr. Gilpin's appointment, firm and active a friend as he was of the administration and policy of General Jackson, was received with no less commendations by the opposition press than by that of his own party. He held this office for more than five years, having been reappointed in 1835, on the expiration of his first commission, without a dissenting voice from the majority of the Senate though that body was strongly opposed to the administration, and had taken marked and particular offence at his own course in regard to the exciting political questions of the day. During this period an amount of public business more than usually great devolved on the District Attorney, embracing both civil and criminal cases of much magnitude and importance, and of a character to task the most eminent professional powers. And when it is remembered how conspicuous a part Mr. Gilpin was called to perform during that period, in the very hottest fury of the struggle of parties in Philadelphia, as one of the Government Directors of the Bank of the United States, and also the vigilance, ability, and unflinching fearlessness with which that part was performed, the reader will readily appreciate how high a compliment to Mr. Gilpin's professional and personal merits was contained in the fact that on his resignation of his District Attorneyship, to accept the appointment of Solicitor of the Treasury at Washington, in 1837, a public dinner was tendered to him by a number of the most respectable citizens of Philapelphia, without distinction of party. "We offer you this mark of our respect and regard," says the letter in which this flattering invitation was conveyed, "not more from feelings of personal friendship, than as a testimony we are desirous of bearing to the acceptable manner in which you have for some years discharged the important duties of District Attor. ney of the United States. Though some of us have differed with you in