BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the second day of July, in the forty-ninth year of the Independence of the United States of America, B. F. French, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author and proprietor, in the words following, to wit: "Biographia Americana; or, a historical and critical account of the lives, actions, and writings, of the most distinguished persons in North America; from the first settlement to the present time. "If within the memory of man, or the compass of history, any class of individuals have merited, beyond others, the honours and rewards of their cotemporaries, the gratitude of posterity, and the admiration of the world, it is those who, unmoved by difficulty, danger, and misfortune, directed the councils, and led to victory the arms of their country, in the long and sanguinary contest, which resulted in the INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES." "No study can be more useful to the ingenuous youth of the United States, than that of their own history, nor any examples more interesting, or more safe for their contemplation, than those of the great founders of the republic.--Tudor's Life of Otis. By a gentleman of Philadelphia." In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled "An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned;" and also to an Act, entitled "An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints. JAMES DILL, Clerk of the Southern District of New-York. ADVERTISEMENT. The design of this volume is to lay before the reader a series of lives of the most illustrious men of North America, from its first settlement to the present time—embracing a long list of distinguished individuals, whose fame will go down to posterity as the noblest monument to their country's glory. This work, the most complete of its kind that has ever appeared, will be found, on examination, to contain what has been long considered a desideratum in our literature-the lives of the signers of the declaration of independence, and the constitution of the United States. It may be added, that the materials which form this work have been drawn from the highest and best authorities: and likewise, the numerous engravings which adorn it, may be relied on as faithful and correct likenesses. |