In preparing myself to comply with this call, I have felt bound to abandon all ideas of ambitious rhetoric, to forego all custom of declamation, to clip the wings of any little fancy which I might possess, and to betake myself to a diligent examination of such private papers and public records as might promise to throw light upon my subject. I come now, gentlemen, to lay before you, in the simplest manner, the fruits of my research.

I hold in my hand an original manuscript in the French language, which, being interpreted, is as follows:

"To his Excellency, the Governor-in-Chief of New England, humbly prays Pierre Baudouin, saying: that having been obliged, by the rigors which were exercised towards the Protestants in France, to depart thence with his family, and having sought refuge in the realm of Ireland, at the City of Dublin, to which place it pleased the Receivers of His Majesty's Customs to admit him, your petitioner was employed in one of the bureaux; but afterwards, there being a change of officers, he was left without any employment. This was what caused the petitioner and his family, to the number of six persons, to withdraw into this territory, in the town of Casco, and Province of Maine; and seeing that there are many lands which are not occupied, and particularly those which are situated at the point of Barbary Creek, may it please your Excellency to decree that there may be assigned to your petitioner about one hundred acres, to the end that he may have the means of supporting his family. And he will continue to pray God for the health and prosperity of your Excellency.

'PIERRE BAUDOUIN."

Such was the first introduction into New England of a name which was destined to be connected with not a few of the most important events of its subsequent history, and which is now indissolubly associated with more than one of its most cherished institutions of education, literature, and science.

Driven out from his home and native land by the fury of that religious persecution, for which Louis XIV. gave the signal by the revocation of the edict of Nantz,- disappointed in his attempt to secure the means of an humble support in Ireland, whither he had at first fled, Pierre Baudouin, in the summer of 1687, presents himself as a suppliant to Sir Edmund Andros, then Governor-in-Chief of New England, for a hundred acres of unoccupied land at the point of Barbary Creek in Casco Bay, in the Province of Maine, that he may earn bread for himself and his family by the sweat of his brow.

He was one of that noble sect of Huguenots, of which John

Calvin may be regarded as the great founder and exemplar, of which Gaspard de Coligny, the generous and gallant admiral, who "filled the kingdom of France with the glory and terror of his name for the space of twelve years," was one of the most devoted disciples and one of the most lamented martyrs, — and which has furnished to our own land blood every way worthy of being mingled with the best that has ever flowed in the veins either of southern Cavalier or northern Puritan.

He was of that same noble stock which gave three Presidents out of nine to the old Congress of the Confederation; which gave her Laurenses and Marions, her Hugers and Manigaults, her Prioleaus and Gaillards and Legarés to South Carolina; which gave her Jays to New York, her Boudinots to New Jersey, her Brimmers, her Dexters, and her Peter Faneuil, with the Cradle of Liberty, to Massachusetts.

He came from the famous town of Rochelle, which was for so many years the very stronghold and rallying point of Protestantism in France, and which, in 1629, held out so long and so heroically against the siege, which Richelieu himself thought it no shame to conduct in person.

He is said to have been a physician by profession. The mere internal evidence of the paper which I have produced, though the idiom may not be altogether of the latest Parisian, shows him to have been a man of education. While, without insisting on tracing back his pedigree, as others have done, either to Baldwin, Count of Flanders in 862, or to Baldwin the chivalrous King of Jerusalem in 1143, both of whom, it seems, spelled their names precisely as he did, there is ample testimony that he was a man both of family and fortune in his own land.

"I am the eldest descendant," wrote James Bowdoin, the patron of the College within whose precincts we are assembled, "from one of those unfortunate families which was obliged to fly their native country on account of religion;—a family, which, as I understand, lived in affluence, perhaps elegance, upon a handsome estate in the neighborhood of Rochelle, which at that time (1685) yielded the considerable income of 700 louis d'ors per annum.”

This estate was, of course, irrecoverably forfeited by his flight,

and at the end of two years of painful and perilous adventure, he landed upon the shores of New England, with no other wealth but a wife and four children, and the freedom to worship God after the dictates of his own conscience.

His petition, which has no date of its own, but which is endorsed 2d August, 1687, was favorably received by Sir Edmund Andros, and the public records in the State department of Massachusetts contain a warrant, signed by Sir Edmund, and directed to Mr. Richard Clements, deputy surveyor, authorizing and requiring him to lay out one hundred acres of vacant land in Casco Bay for Pierre Baudouin, in such place as he should be directed by Edward Tyng, Esq., one of his majesty's council. The warrant bears date October 8, 1687.

Before this warrant was executed, however, Pierre Baudouin had obtained possession of a few acres of land on what is now the high road from Portland to Vaughan's Bridge, a few rods northerly of the house of the Hon. Nicholas Emery. A solitary apple tree, and a few rocks which apparently formed the curbing of a well, were all that remained about twenty years ago, to mark the site of this original dwelling-place of the Bowdoins in America. I know not whether even these could now be found.

In this original dwelling-place, Pierre and his family remained only about two years and a half. He had probably heard of the successful establishment in Boston, a year or two previously, of a Protestant church by some of his fellow fugitives from France. He is likely to have been still more strongly prompted to an early abandonment of this residence, by its extreme exposure to the hostile incursions and depredations of the French and Indians, who were leagued together, at this time, in an attempt to break up the British settlements on this part of the North American continent. And most narrowly, and most providentially, did he escape this peril. On the 17th of May, 1690, the fort at Casco was attacked and destroyed, and a general massacre of the settlers was perpetrated by the Indians. On the 16th, just twentyfour hours previously, Pierre Baudouin and his family had plucked up their stakes and departed for Boston. A race which had survived the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's, and the siege of Rochelle, was not destined to perish thus ignobly in the wilderness!

Pierre himself, however, lived but a short time after his arrival at Boston, and his eldest son, James, was left at the age of seventeen years, with the charge of maintaining a mother, a younger brother, and two sisters, in a strange land.

The energy, perseverance, and success with which this trying responsibility was met and was discharged by James Bowdoin (the first of that name in America,) is sufficiently attested by the fact, that he soon rose to the very first rank among the merchants of Boston, that he was chosen a member of the Colonial Council for several years before his death, and that he left to his children, as the fruit of a long life of industry and integrity, the greatest estate which had ever been possessed, at that day, by any one person in Massachusetts; an estate which I have seen estimated at from fifty to one hundred thousand pounds sterling.

Of the two sons, who succeeded equally to the largest part of this estate, James Bowdoin, who will form the principal subject of this discourse, was the youngest.

He was born in Boston on the 7th of August, 1726, and after receiving the rudiments of his education at the South Grammar School of that town, under Master Lovell, he was sent to Harvard College, where he was graduated a Bachelor of Arts in 1745. The death of his father occurred about two years later, and he was thus left with an independent estate just as he had attained to his majority,

It is hardly to be presumed that a young man of twenty-one years of age, of a liberal education, and an ample fortune, would devote himself at once and exclusively to mere mercantile pursuits. Nor am I inclined to believe that he ever gave much practical attention to them. But the earliest letter directed to him, which I find among the family papers, proves that he must have been, at least nominally, engaged in commercial business. It is directed to " Mr. James Bowdoin, Merchant."

This letter, however, has a far higher interest than as merely designating an address. It is dated Philadelphia, Oct. 25, 1750, and is in the following words:

Sir,- Enclosed with this I send you all my Electrical papers fairly transcribed, and I have, as you desired, examined the copy, and find it correct. I shall be glad to

have your observations on them; and if in any part I have not made myself well understood, I will no notice endeavor to explain the obscure passages by letter. "My compliments to Mr. Cooper and the other gentleman who were with you here. I hope you all got safe home.

"I am, Sir, your most humble servant,

"B. FRANKLIN.”

The young Bowdoin, it seems, who at the date of this letter was but four-and-twenty years old,— had made a journey to Philadelphia, (a journey at that day almost equal to a voyage to London at this,) in company with his friend and pastor, the Reverend Samuel Cooper, afterwards the celebrated Dr. Cooper of Brattle Street Church, and having there sought the acquaintance of Dr. Franklin, had so impressed himself upon his regard and respect, that Franklin, in transmitting to him his electrical papers, takes occasion to invite his observations upon them.

Franklin was then at the age of forty-four years, and in the very maturity of his powers. Although he was at this time holding an office connected with the post-office department of the Colonies, as the frank on the cover of this letter indicates, he was already deeply engaged in those great philosophical inquiries and experiments which were soon to place him on the highest pinnacle of fame.

The acquaintance between Franklin and Bowdoin, which had thus been formed at Philadelphia, was rapidly ripened into a most intimate and enduring friendship; and with this letter commenced a correspondence which terminated only with their lives.

At the outset of this correspondence, Bowdoin appears to have availed himself of the invitation to make observations on Franklin's theories and speculations, with somewhat more of independence of opinion than might have been expected from the disparity of their ages. One of his earliest letters (21st Dec. 1751) suggested such forcible objections to the hypothesis, that the sea was the grand source of electricity, that Franklin. was led to say in his reply, (24th January, 1752,)-"I grow more doubtful of my former supposition, and more ready to allow weight to that objection, (drawn from the activity of the electric fluid and the readiness of water to conduct,) which you have indeed stated with great strength and clearness." In the