second Continental Congress; and although he opposed it at first on the grounds of policy, he was one of the committee of five to draft the Declaration of Independence. He would probably have been a " Signer" but for his absence at the sessions of the provincial convention of New York, at which it was re solved to assume the title of "State," and at which he was appointed on a committee to frame the first State Constitution. He was a member of the convention at which that in strument was adopted. He was Secretary of Foreign Affairs for two years from August, 1 78 1. In 1788 he was chairman of the New York convention to consider the pro posed Federal Constitution, and was largely influential in procuring its adoption. He was the first Chancellor of his State under the new Constitution, and held that office until 1801. As Chancellor, he administered the oath of office to Washington, the first president, on the steps of the Federal Hall in Wall Street, on the exact spot now oc cupied by the statue of Washington, in front of the Sub-Treasury building. He was in the Congress of 1780. In 1800 he de clined the Secretaryship offered by Jefferson. In 1801 he accepted the ministry to France," which he had declined in 1794. At Paris he became the intimate friend of the great Napoleon, who gave him a snuff-box orna mented with his own portrait by Isabey. He was then said to be " the favorite foreign envoy." There in 1803 he negotiated the purchase of Louisiana (for which his great brother, Edward, framed its code of laws), and- brought it to a successful issue just upon the arrival of Monroe, who had been sent out as special envoy for the purpose. At Paris too he met Robert Fulton, and ex perimented with him in steamboating upon 1 The Encyclopaedia Britannica says he was appointed by President Jackson! The event which made Jackson pres ident did not occur until more than a decade later, and it is one which the English do not love to recall. Mr. McMaster is in error in speaking of Edward Livingston as Minister to France (History of the People of the U. S., vol. 3. P- 39)-
the Seine, launching a boat that made three miles an hour. He then began negotiations for the settlement of the French spoliation claims. He resigned his mission in 1804, and traveled upon the continent for a year, returning home in 1805. There he devoted himself to work and experiment for the pro motion of the material and intellectual prosperity of his State. He built at his own expense a steamboat on the Hudson, which made four miles an hour. In 1809' he and Fulton launched the " Clermont," which made five miles an hour, and pro cured for them a grant of the monopoly of steam-navigation on the waters of the State, which, after having been sustained by Chan cellor Kent and the Court of Errors, was set aside by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in Gibbons v. Ogden. He served on a commission to adjust the eastern boundary of New York. He is said to have introduced gypsum as a manure, and the breed of merino sheep, and he wrote essays on agriculture and sheep. He was one of the founders of the American Academy of Fine Arts in the city of New York, for which he brought home casts from Paris, and he was president of the New York Society for the Promotion of Useful Arts. He died in 181 3. We may imagine that his last hours were occupied with conjectures of mixed patriotic and material composition, concerning the pos sibility of applying steam to the propulsion of warships, by means whereof the naval pride of England might still further be low ered. Although this distinguished man has been in his grave only the length of an old man's life, yet his fame is in great measure already traditionary. Considering his versatility and activity, he has left on record very little in his own hand. Although of liberal educa tion, and with elegant tastes which his great wealth enabled him to gratify, he seems to have been eminently a man of affairs, no ticeably a statesman, and pre-eminently a
