JAMES RENWICK, LL.D.

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CHAPTER IX.

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Literary and Scientific Pursuits of Clinton. – Historical Society; his efforts in hits behalf, and his Address on the History of the Five Nations. – Literary and Philosophical Society formed, and Clinton chosen President. – His Inaugural Discourse. – His Discovery of a Native Variety of Wheat, and other Contributions to Natural Science.

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We have had occasion to mention the bias which Clinton exhibited in the early part of his career to scientific pursuits. Of these and of literature, he became, as his influence was extended, the active patron, while he did not cease to devote his brief intervals of leisure to their cultivation by his own labours. The Historical Society was established in the City of New-York in 1804 by a voluntary association. The venerable Egbert Benson was its first president, and had attempted to direct its action to the traditional lore of which he himself possessed so ample a fund. It was not found practicable, however, by means of the limited contributions of individuals, to accumulate sufficient funds for the furtherance of its objects, nor would the friends of the distinguished dead intrust their memorials to an ephemeral association. In order to enable this society to accomplish its avowed and praiseworthy objects, Clinton, to whom a petition for that purpose was referred in 1809, drew an act of incorporation, which he presented, along with a strong and able report in its favour. This report was adopted and the charter granted. Not content with this, he in 1814 framed a memorial to the Legislature on behalf of the Historical Society. In this, after dividing the civil history of the State of New-York into four epochs, he shows in what a scattered state even the records were, whence alone an authentic history of these several periods could be derived. The Indian tribes were fast disappearing before the moral force of civilization; the mounds, ramparts, and tumuli of a yet earlier race were yielding to the plough and harrow; while the records of the official treaties between the Five Nations and the colonial authorities were in the hands of an expatriated family.

The history of the emigrants from Holland and of the Protestant families of Belgium, who had preferred to encounter the dangers of the seas and the terrors of the wilderness to submission to the bloody rule of Alba, were in the archives of the Dutch West India Company. Much of the manuscript history of the British colonial period was in the public offices of London, or transferred to the library of the British Museum. While, even for the period which had elapsed since the revolution, no provision had been made for the preservation of the pamphlets, the periodicals, and the daily publications, which, however they may be despised after their first ephemeral interest has subsided, become, after the lapse of years, the vivid expression of the feelings, the manners, and the principles of the era which gave them birth.

This memorial was favourably received by the Legislature, and led to a grant of twelve thousand dollars in aid of the funds of the society.

The grant was to be received from the avails of a lottery, and the society unluckily engaged its credit in the purchase of books and of manuscripts ere it was known how distant and precarious were the proceeds of this mode of raising money. It thus became involved in a debt which was not extinguished without many and severe sacrifices. It had, however, before its usefulness was impeded by the pressure of this debt, published several volumes of transactions, which are of much value. Its library still remains an evidence of the liberality of the state, and a monument of the earnestness with which Clinton furthered such institutions as were intended to add to the permanent reputation of the country.

We have stated that Egbert Benson was the first president of the Historical Society. He was succeeded, in 1816, by Gouverneur Morris, on whose death Clinton was elected to the vacant chair. On taking his seat, he delivered an inaugural discourse on the history of the Indians of the State of New-York, which is the most valuable paper contained in the transactions of this society.

In the year 1814, a number of gentlemen of scientific taste undertook the formation of a society for the cultivation of literature and the encouragement of science. The projector of this association appears to have been Dr. Hugh Williamson, who had in early life filled a prominent place in the American Philosophical Society, where he had been associated with Rittenhouse in the celebrated observations of the transit of Venus.

In the opinion of Williamson, the increase of population and the central position of New-York rendered it advisable to form an institution having the same objects in view as the society in Philadelphia. He found a ready and efficient coadjutor in Clinton, who conceived it due to the reputation of his native state, and of the city over which he presided, that they should take a rank in scientific pursuits consistent with their wealth and population. In the formation of this society, Drs. Mitchill and Hosack, Fulton, and several other distinguished persons, joined with zeal, together with a number of younger men, several of whom have since become celebrated.

Clinton was anxious that Williamson should be placed at the head of this society; but all the other associates concurred in opinion that he himself was best fitted to fill that station, and he was accordingly elected its first president. By his exertions and influence in the Legislature a charter was obtained, and the New-York Literary and Philosophical Society went into operation, apparently under the most happy auspices. Its public proceedings were opened by an address from Clinton, which has been much admired, and which exhibits evidence of the extent of his reading, and manifests the variety of his study.

Clinton continued at the head of the Literary and Philosophical Society until his death; but the brilliant beginnings of that association were not followed by continued success. The expenses attendant upon its publications were considered a heavy burden by many of the members, who withdrew; even among those who were willing to continue their subscriptions, the political disputes of the day, in which Clinton’s name became the watchword of adverse factions, produced an injurious effect; while, in fine, personal jealousies, and the unpopularity of one of the other officers with many members of his own profession, created an opposition to its proceedings which could not be overcome. A society, which took its rise in the bosom of the Literary and Philosophical, and which was intended as an aid and not as a rival, engrossed all the communications of those who were most active in science; and, after the publication of one quarto volume and a part of another, its proceedings ceased. It may be fairly believed, that, had Clinton continued to reside in the City of New-York, and had given to the Literary and Philosophical Society the advantage of his presence as presiding officer, the decay into which it has fallen might have been avoided or delayed; but other more important pursuits withdrew him from its meetings, and, with his personal attention, the prosperity of the society seems to have departed.

It may be questioned at the present day how far the success of such an institution is compatible with the habits and manners of the age. The French Institute no doubt flourishes, but it is supported by the direct aid of the government, and its scientific and literary classes receive annual salaries. The Royal Society of Great Britain, if it receive little direct patronage from the government, is able, by the value ascribed by fashion to the letters F.R.S., to call to the aid of its funds any number it may choose to elect of the rich or powerful, from princes of the blood to wealthy merchants.

In spite of these advantages, these institutions have ceased to exert the influence they once possessed. The daily papers, and the monthly and quarterly miscellanies, make novelties in science as much objects of their pursuit as the political news of the day, and thus frequently forestal the transactions of the learned associations, or give in an abridged form, and at a much lower price, condensed accounts of recent discoveries. Popular and cheap publications, therefore, interfere with the sale of the more costly volumes in which the societies give their transactions to the world.

In the establishment of the Historical and the Literary and Philosophical Societies, particularly in the munificent grant he obtained for the former, Clinton exhibited a character very different from almost any other American statesman. He is among the few who seem to have seen that the money expended in the support of such institutions is not lost, but will shortly be repaid with interest. In conformity with this enlightened and liberal view, he gave to these societies the benefit of his pen in drawing their charters; his aid as a member of the Legislature in procuring the passage of their acts of incorporation; and devoted to their prosperity no inconsiderable share of his time and talent. In these associations, the advantage to be derived from his high political standing, and lofty reputation as a statesman and magistrate, were fully appreciated, in securing unity of action and harmony among persons necessarily rivals. There were those, however, who could not brook the control of one whom they styled a layman, and united with his political opponents in an attempt to ridicule the holder of such apparently incongruous offices. He was, at the same time, president of the Academy of Fine Arts, of the Historical, and of the Literary and Philosophical Society; but as he had only accepted these stations with a view to the public benefit, he yielded to the first appearance of discontent. In the Academy he gave way to Colonel Trumbull, and in the Historical Society to Dr. Hosack. The result of his resignation was disastrous to the interests of both institutions. The distinguished men we have named did not possess, in the eye of the public, the decided superiority over their associates which Clinton was always able to maintain, and both institutions decayed from the moment he ceased to preside over their deliberations.

If Clinton applied his hands to the practice of none of the fine arts, he was, notwithstanding, their liberal patron, and a connoisseur of no little taste; his contributions to the history of the aborigines of our state may well place him on a level with any writer of that class which America has produced; and his hundred speeches, addresses, and reports, sufficiently exhibit his literary abilities. As a cultivator of philosophy, in the sense in which it is familiarly received, he ranks still higher, and was, as we have already stated, not only a diligent student in natural history in its several branches, but made several interesting discoveries.

In the first volume of the Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical Society, he published some remarks on the fishes of the western waters of the State of New-York, in a letter to his friend, Dr. Mitchill. In this he illustrates the fact, now so well known, that, in variety, in abundance, and in delicacy, they are not surpassed by any in the world.

In the first part of the second volume of the same Transactions, an article by Clinton is inserted on certain phenomena of the great lakes of America. These he is inclined to attribute to volcanic action. In the same volume we have a memoir by him on the antiquities discovered in the western part of the State of New-York.

To the New-York Medical and Physical Journal he communicated some remarks on the Columba Migratoria, the passenger or common wild pigeon; a bird which he deems peculiar to North America, and whose habits and history are very interesting. In the same work may be found an account of the Salmo Otsego, or Otsego bass, a fish of peculiar excellence, which is found in great abundance in the lake of that name, where the eastern branch of the Susquehanna has its principal source. This fish, strange as it may seem, had not been described, and, as its name imports, had been confounded by the uninformed with the genus perca, of which bass is the familiar name among the settlers of Dutch extraction.

To the Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History he communicated a description of a new species of fish in the Hudson River, and a paper of some length on the hirundo fulva. The first of these, although familiar to all who have seen nets drawn in the bay of New-York, had not been remarked by Mitchill, whose researches had been restricted to the specimens furnished by those who supply the markets; and, from its small size, it had by many been considered as the fry of a larger fish. In the second paper he gives several interesting remarks on the birds of the swallow kind. The migratory habits of the birds in question, and its other peculiarities, are set forth by him in an attractive manner, and illustrated by many facts, the result of close personal observation. His common-place books abound with extracts from authors who have written on the habits of the swallow, and with memoranda of his own inquiries.

In the discourse delivered before the New-York Historical Society, he evinces with what interest he had studied the aborigines of our country. These "Romans," as he styled them, "of the Western World" found in him an able historian, and a strenuous asserter of their prowess and talent. He, besides, investigated, with something of the closeness of medical inquiry, the peculiarities of the physical constitution of the Indian; and among his letters and memoranda are to be found many well-grounded conjectures on the laws of life, as modified in both sexes by the habits of a savage life.

From the freedom from all bias to preconceived opinions with which Clinton prosecuted his studies in natural history, and from the love he manifested to that science, there can be no question that public cares alone prevented him from attaining a triumphant eminence in investigations of this character. In the words of one who well knew him, and was the confidant of his philosophical pursuits, "He loved to dwell upon every incident associated with the labours and services of naturalists; from Hennepin to Kalm, everything was familiar to him; the great Swede was ever a topic of delight, and the heroic achievements of Cuvier the theme of his admiration. So much did he, at a later period, become enamoured of the genius and skill of the modern French school of naturalists that there is reason to conclude, that he would finally have adopted the natural system of Jussieu in preference to the artificial method of Linnæus, and would have chosen the improved nomenclature of the Parisian savans rather than that of the English writers, whose works he had studied with deference, and to whose authority he had originally bowed with submission."

In addition to his communications to American societies and scientific periodicals, he maintained a correspondence with several of the most eminent naturalists in Europe, and, among others, with the late distinguished president of the Linnæan Society of London, Sir James Edward Smith. Of that institution Clinton was elected an associate, as a just tribute to his zeal in behalf of Natural Science. Several of these letters have been published, and exhibit close and accurate observation, followed up by sound induction.

His pursuits as a naturalist were not limited to the narrow object of acquiring individual reputation as a cultivator of the science, but were pursued chiefly in reference to their bearings upon the wealth and prosperity of the state. He saw, by improvident legislation, and the improvement, as it was styled, of sites for water-power, the vast native wealth which existed in the fisheries rapidly decaying; and, in the knowledge of the history of the finned race, he sought the means of preventing their diminution, and, in some cases, their total extinction. He inquired deeply and laboriously into the modes of stocking ponds and lakes with fish, and sought the species best adapted to the purpose. On this subject he corresponded with the chief magistrate of the neighbouring State of New-Jersey, who had views of the same kind.

The circumstances of Clinton’s laborious public career left him no opportunity for applying the result of his researches to practical purposes; but Governor Mahlon Dickerson, in his philosophic retreat at Succasunney, has shown the practicability of the schemes in which they took so strong a mutual interest.

Impelled by the same patriotic views, he prosecuted an inquiry into the habits and characters of the zizania aquatica, or wild rice. This plant, a native of the lakes of America, was, in his opinion, calculated to support an extended population, and worthy of the title of the "bread-corn of the North."

In his tours as canal commissioner he found growing near Utica a species of wheat, which he collected, examined, and described. It is well known that the origin of the cereal gramina, and particularly of wheat, the most important of them all to civilized nations, is involved in obscurity. From the very earliest date of historical records they have been the objects of cultivation, and none of them had been traced with certainty to any native locality. Upon the belief that wheat is found growing wild near the eastern shore of the Caspian, has been founded an argument that central Asia is the cradle of the human race; and this circumstance was supposed to throw light upon the early history of mankind. Here was an adverse fact, by which the whole argument was overthrown, or rendered capable of leading to the incredible inference that the State of New-York had been the earliest seat of the progenitors of the nations of Europe and Asia. This discovery of Clinton, therefore, although hardly noticed by his countrymen, procured him much reputation among the learned in Europe; and the diplomas of many societies founded for the cultivation of natural history were showered upon him.

In this instance, his intimate friend and associate, Dr. Mitchill, was heard to complain, not with feelings of envy, but of admiration, that Clinton had the happiness, by seizing upon a happy accident and making a skilful use of it, to achieve honours and estimation beyond those granted to almost any American. Other observers might have passed this plant as the accidental offspring of the cultivated wheat, while Clinton had the knowledge and the tact of observation by which it was shown to differ sufficiently to disprove such an origin, and yet to fall with certainty into the same species.

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Transcribed from the original text and html prepared by Bill Carr, last updated 12/10/99.