and in the fall of that year, after the British army had entered within its borders and secured possession of Philadelphia, he was one of the Council of Safety, to whom the most absolute powers were temporarily granted. In order to provide for the preservation of the commonwealth, they were authorized to imprison and punish, capitally or otherwise, all who should disobey their decrees, to regulate the prices of all commodities, and to seize private property, without any subsequent liability to suit because of any of their proceedings. Surely no other twelve men were ever vested with greater powers over their fellow-beings than these.
On the 14th of January, 1777, he was elected by the Assembly the first State Treasurer under the new Constitution, and he was unanimously re-elected to the same position in each of the succeeding twelve years, and until he finally refused longer to serve. In consequence of the fluctuating values of both the State and Continental currencies, and their almost constant depreciation, together with the unusual demands for funds and the difficulties in the way of their collection incident to a state of war, it was an office of great trial and responsibility, for which the small commissions afforded a very inadequate compensation. It occupied his time and annoyed him so much that he once wrote to his wife while hundreds of miles away in the forest, surrounded by savages, that nothing so reconciled him to his present deprivations “as the aversion I have to the plagues of that same office.” When the approach of the British army and the subsequent capture of Philadelphia in the fall of 1777 made necessary a withdrawal of the government departments, the Treasury was removed to the second-story front room of the house of Mr. Henry in Lancaster. The family of Rittenhouse were at Norriton, so near to the lines of the
