A Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and of Washington and Patrick Henry. L. Carroll Judson
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Mr. Moland for some time previous to his admission.
He commenced business in Newcastle, in 1754, and at once grappled successfully with the old and experienced counsellors around him, whose number and talents were neither few nor small. By his acuteness in pleading, and thorough knowledge of the primary principles of his profession, he soon gained the esteem of the courts, the admiration of his senior brethren, the confidence of the community, and obtained a lucrative practice. His forte consisted not in flowery show, but in that deep toned and grave forensic eloquence, that informs the understanding and carries conviction to the mind. He seldom appealed to the passions of the court or jury, preferring to stand upon the firm basis of the law and testimony, clearly expounded and truly exhibited.
On the 13th of April, 1763, he was appointed attorney-general for the three lower counties of Delaware, and continued in that office until he was called to the higher duties of legislation. The same year he led to the hymeneal altar, an amiable, pious, and accomplished daughter of the Rev. George Ross, of Newcastle: thus adding largely to the stake he held in the welfare of his country, enhancing his earthly joys, and giving him an influence and rank in society never acquired by lonely bachelors. She fully supplied the vacuum abhorred by nature, and proved a valuable partner of his toils and perils, his pains and pleasures, through subsequent life.
Mr. Read was a republican to the core, and from the commencement to the close of the revolution, was a bold and unyielding advocate of equal rights and liberal principles. When the question of rights and wrongs became a subject of investigation between the two countries, he resigned the commission of attorney-general held under the crown, that he might enter the arena of discussion free and unshackled. In 1765 he was elected a member of the Assembly of the state of Delaware, and was instrumental in laying deep the foundations of the superstructure of liberty. He was prudent, calm, and discreet in all his actions; but firm, bold and resolute. He was a member of the Committee of the Delaware Assembly that so ably addressed the king upon the subject of grievances and redress. He was in favour of exhausting the magazine of petition and remonstrance, and if to no purpose, then to replenish with powder and ball. He did not, nor did any of the signers of the declaration, at the commencement of British oppression, contemplate a dissolution of the ties that bound the colonies to the mother country. But he understood well the rights secured to them by magna charta and the constitution of Great Britain; and he knew that those rights were trampled upon by the hirelings of the crown. To vindicate them he was firmly resolved. He opposed the principle of taxation without representation, and of raising a revenue in America to pamper royalty in England. He knew and weighed well the superior physical powers of his opposers; but he believed the majesty of eternal justice and the kind aid of Heaven, would sustain the patriots in their glorious cause. Nor did he reckon in vain. His written appeal to his constituents of the 17th of August, 1769, calling upon them to resist the encroachments of tyranny, was couched in bold and forcible language, portraying, in colours deep and strong, their rights and their wrongs, making the path of duty plain before them.
He sanctioned the various non-importation resolutions, passed by his own and other colonies; the first prominent mode adopted to thwart the designs and impositions of the British ministry after finding that petitions and remonstrances were treated with contumely. He was chairman of the committee of the Delaware patriots, appointed for the purpose of carrying these resolutions into effect. He was also chairman of the committee of twelve, appointed by the people of Newcastle, on the 29th of June, 1774, to obtain subscriptions for the Boston sufferers, who were writhing under the lash of the infamous port bill, passed by parliament, for the purpose of properly chastising the refractory inhabitants of that patriotic city. In February following, he remitted to the Boston committee, nine hundred dollars, money received from his constituents, which was eloquently acknowledged by Samuel Adams, who was one of his faithful correspondents.
Mr. Read was a member of the congress of 1774, and retained that elevated station during the revolution. He was also president of the convention that formed the first constitution of Delaware in 1776, and a member of her assembly constantly for twelve successive years, after his first election. A part of this time he was also vice president of his state, and in the autumn of 1777, when president M’Kinley fell into the hands of the enemy, Mr. Read was called from congress to perform the more arduous, because undivided duties of a chief magistrate. On his way home with his family, he was compelled to pass through Jersey, and in crossing the Delaware from Salem, his boat was discovered by the British fleet then lying just below. An armed barge was sent in pursuit. Mr. Read’s boat stuck fast in the mud, and was soon come up to. By effacing the marks upon his baggage during a few brief moments before he was boarded, and having with him his wife and children, he convinced those from the fleet that he was a country gentleman on his way to his farm, and solicited their assistance to put him and his family on shore. They promptly afforded their aid, took his boat out of the mud, and landed him and his precious charge safety on the Delaware side of the river. The perfect calmness of himself and lady, and their open frankness, saved them from the horrors of a prison ship, and probably him from an exhibition upon the yard arm of a man-of-war.
His duties now assumed an onerous character. Internal dissentions among his own people were to be reconciled; an intercourse by many of the inhabitants with the British fleet was to be broken up; ways and means for his own and the general government claimed his attention; his mind was burdened by an extreme anxiety to procure the exchange of the president; and a conquering foe was triumphing in victory in almost every direction. In the midst of all these perils, he stood firmly at the helm and rode out every storm. He proved equal to every emergency, and added new lustre to his growing fame. When the Declaration of Independence was under discussion, he believed the measure premature; but when it was adopted, he most cheerfully enrolled his name with his colleagues. In 1779 ill health compelled him to withdraw from public life for a year, when he again resumed his legislative duties. In 1782 he was appointed by congress a judge of appeals in the court of admiralty. In 1785 he was one of the commissioners to settle the boundary line between New York and Massachusetts. The next year he was a delegate of the convention of the states, convened at Annapolis, for the purpose of regulating the commerce of the union. In 1787 he was one of that talented convention that framed the federal constitution. He was a United States senator of the first congress under that constitution, and served six years. He was also chief justice of Delaware from 1793 to the time of his death. In the performance of all these responsible and multiform duties, he acquitted himself nobly, and did honour to his character, his country, and the cause of rational liberty. As a civilian, a statesman, a magistrate, a patriot, a philanthropist, a gentleman, a husband, a father, a private citizen, and a public benefactor, George Read was a model worthy of imitation. He was scrupulously honest and rigidly just. When he arrived at his majority, he assigned his portion of the paternal estate to his brothers, deeming the expenses of his education equivalent to his equitable share. He was opposed to chaos in the smallest concerns of life, and abhorred vice of every kind. He enjoyed good health in his old age, until the autumn of 1798, when, after a sudden and short illness, he closed his eyes on terrestrial scenes, and resigned his spirit into the hands of the wise Disposer of all events.
The person of Mr. Read was above the middle size, well formed, with a commanding and agreeable deportment. He was a talented, virtuous, and amiable man.
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