BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

OF

COLONEL JOHN C. FREMONT.

COLONEL FREMONT'S NATIVITY, ANCESTRY, EARLY HABITS, AND CHARACTER— HIS ENTRANCE INTO A LAW OFFICE, INTO A GRAMMAR SCHOOL, AND INTO CHARLESTON COLLEGE-AFTERWARD TEACHES MATHEMATICS, AND BECOMES A CIVIL ENGINEER-TAKES PART IN SOUTH CAROLINA AGAINST CALHOUN AND NULLIFICATION-IS APPOINTED PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN THE NAVY-JOINS THE CORPS OF TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS--ACCOMPANIES M. NICOLLET IN HIS NORTH-WEST EXPLORATIONS COMMISSIONED LIEUTENANT-HIS MARRIAGE-HIS SUBSEQUENT EXPLORATIONS, CONQUEST AND GOVERNMENT OF CALIFORNIA—HIS ARREST, TRIAL, AND RESTORATION -EXERTS HIMSELF TO MAKE CALIFORNIA A FREE STATE-IS ELECTED SENATOR HIS POLITICAL OPINIONS-HIS NOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

COLONEL JOHN C. FREMONT, the Republican candidate for president of the United States, is an upright, brave, generous, enterprising, learned, and eminently practical man-one who has felt upon his own person the violent hand of the slave power in the nation, and who dares, notwithstanding all its assaults, to stand for freedom and the right. He was born at Savannah, in the state of Georgia, on the 21st day of January, 1813. His father, who bore the same christian name, was a native of Lyons, and a participant in some of the scenes of the French revolution of 1798, and in consequence of which, and to relieve himself from perils incident to a continued residence in France, he sailed, soon after that great event, with the view of taking up a residence with a relative of his family, on the island of San Domingo. It happened during the progress of the voyage, that the vessel in which he em

barked was captured by a British cruiser, and all the passengers on board, including Monsieur Fremont, taken into one of the British isles as prisoners. After a captivity of several years, he found a way of escape; and landing at Norfolk, and proceeding thence to Richmond, Virginia, he became a resident of that city, and entered upon the employment of teaching his native language. His mother was Anne Beverly, youngest daughter of Colonel Thomas Whiting, of Virginia, a lady of remarkable amiability, grace, and beauty, who had been previously married to one Major Pryor-an officer who had served in the American revolution-and divorced from him. It is said that her grandfather, Colonel Thomas Whiting, senior, was a sponsor for General Washington at his baptism in the Protestant Episcopal church. As she descended from one of the first and most honorable families of the Old Dominion, it naturally enough followed that her marriage with Monsieur Fremont, who had neither titles of nobility, plantations, nor slaves, was regarded by the Whitings as a descent from the line of her ancestry which was scarcely less than criminal. For this she was never fully forgiven.

Desiring for ethnological purposes to visit the Indian tribes then inhabiting the states of Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas, and having såved enough from his earnings as a teacher to procure horses, carriage, and suitable outfit for such a journey, Monsieur Fremont and his wife, a short time after their marriage, set out together upon a tour of observation through that region of country. They carried along with them in their conveyance a tent and bedding, and other requisites for camping out. During this expedition they passed the night at an inn, in Nashville, Tennessee, in which the famous renconter took place there between Colonel Benton and General Jackson, the balls of whose pistols passed through the room in which they happened to be sitting. On reaching Savannah, in the state of Georgia, in the further progress of this journey, and whilst they were temporarily quartered there, the subject of this notice was born. After their return, and during the four ensuing years, there were born to them two other children, one a daughter, in Tennessee, and the other a son, in Virginia. In 1818, and just before John Charles at

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tained his fifth year, and whilst Monsieur Fremont was making arrangements to remove with his brother Franciswho had also emigrated with his family-to France, he suddenly died. Francis, after vainly urging the widow to accompany him with her children, went thither, leaving her to get along as best she could. Finding herself unable, with her limited means, to support her children respectably in Virginia, and being unwilling to invoke assistance from the Whitings, she removed to the city of Charleston, South Carolina.

Here commences the story of the widow's eldest son, the orphan boy, without any facilities for rising in the world, except a mother's blessing and the patent of nobility impressed on his mind. Having with the aid of his mother acquired the rudiments of an education, he found his way at an early age into the law office of John W. Mitchell, Esq., a counselor of Charleston. Perceiving that he was a lad of uncommon genius, Mr. Mitchell found pleasure for awhile in imparting to him such instruction as he seemed to need. But finding, at length, that John required more time and attention than he had leisure to be stow, he placed him under the instruction of Dr. John Roberton, a highly educated Scotch gentleman, who was then engaged as a teacher of ancient languages in that city, and now, with the weight of seventy years upon him, residing in the city of Philadelphia. For an account of his progress under that preceptor, we have the following certificate of Dr. Roberton, which may be found incorporated in the preface to his interlinear translation of Xenophon's Anabasis, published about six years ago.

"For your further encouragement," said the doctor, "I will here relate a very remarkable instance of patient In the year diligence and indomitable perseverance.

1827, after I had returned to Charleston from Scotland, and my classes were going on, a very respectable lawyer came to my school, I think sometime in the month of October, with a youth apparently about sixteen, (or perhaps not so much,) of middle size, graceful in manners, rather slender, but well formed, and upon the whole what I should call handsome; of a keen, piercing eye, and a noble forehead, seemingly the very seat of genius. The

gentleman stated that he found him given to study, that he had been about three weeks learning the Latin rudiments, and, (hoping, I suppose, to turn the youth's attention from the law to the ministry,) had resolved to place him under my care for the purpose of learning Greek, Latin, and mathematics, sufficient to enter Charleston college. I very gladly received him, for I immediately perceived he was no common youth, as intelligence beamed in his dark eye, and shone brightly on his countenance, indicating great ability and an assurance of his future progress. I at once put him in the highest class, just beginning to read Cæsar's commentaries, and although at first inferior, his prodigious memory and enthusiastic application soon enabled him to surpass the best. He began Greek at the same time, and read with some who had been long at it, in which he also soon excelled. In short, in the space of one year he had, with the class, and at odd hours he had with myself, read four books of Cæsar, Cornelius Nepos, Sallust, six books of Virgil, nearly all Horace, and two books of Livy; and in Greek, all Græca Minora, about the half of the first volume of Græca Majora, and four books of Homer's Iliad. And whatever he read he retained. It seemed to me, in fact, as if he learned by mere intuition. I was myself utterly astonished, and at the same time delighted, with his progress.

"I have hinted that he was designed for the church, but when I contemplated his bold, fearless disposition, his powerful inventive genius, his admiration of warlike exploits, and his love of heroic and adventurous deeds, I did not think it likely he would be a minister of the gospel. He had not, however, the least appearance of any vice whatever. On the contrary, he was always the very pattern of virtue and modesty. I could not help loving him, so much did he captivate me by his gentlemanly conduct and extraordinary progress. It was easy to see that he would one day raise himself to eminence. Whilst under my instruction, I discovered his early genius for poetic composition in the following manner. When the Greek class read the account that Herodotus gives of the battle of Marathon, the bravery of Miltiades and his ten thous

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and Greeks raised his patriotic feelings to enthusiasm, and drew from him expressions which I thought were embodied, a few days afterward, in some well-written verses in a Charleston paper, on that far-famed, unequal, but successful conflict against tyranny and oppression; and suspecting my talented scholar to be the author, I went to his desk, and asked him if he did write them; and hesitating at first, rather blushingly he confessed he did. I then said, 'I knew you could do such things, and I suppose you have some such pieces by you which I should like to see. Do bring them to me.' He consented, and in a day or two brought me a number, which I read with pleasure and admiration at the strong marks of genius stamped on all, but here and there requiring, as I thought, a very slight amendment.

"I had hired a mathematician to teach both him and myself, (for I could not then teach that science,) and in this, also, he made such wonderful progress, that at the end of one year he entered the junior class in Charleston college triumphantly, while others who had been studying for years and more, were obliged to take the sophomore class. About the end of the year 1828 I left Charleston, but I heard that he highly distinguished himself, and graduated in 1830. After that he taught mathematics for some time. His career afterward has been one of heroic adventure, of hair-breadth escapes by flood and field, and of scientific explorations, which have made him world-wide renowned. In a letter received from him very lately, he expresses his gratitude to me in the following words: 'I am very far from either forgetting you or neglecting you, or in any way losing the old regard I had for you. There is no time to which I go back with more pleasure than that spent with you, for there was no time so thoroughly well spent, and of anything I may have learned, I remember nothing so well and so distinctly as what I acquired with you.' Here I cannot help saying, that the merit was almost all his own. It is true, that I encouraged and cheered him on, but if the soil into which I put the seeds of learning had not been of the richest quality, they would never have sprung up to a hundred fold in the full ear. Such, my young friends, is but an imperfect sketch of my