Fortunately for North Carolina, the efficient and sagacious Greene and his brave officers and soldiers, checked the triumphant and murderous career of the British army. The operations of this brave general were greatly accelerated by the exertions of Mr. Penn. In 1780, when Lord Cornwallis penetrated the western part of the state to Charlottetown, the crisis became awfully alarming, and this bold patriot was placed at the helm of public affairs in the state, and invested with almost unlimited power. He was authorized to seize supplies by force, and to do all things that in his judgment were necessary to repel the approaching foe. He proved himself equal to the emergency. He understood his duty, and performed it efficiently and with so much prudence that no complaints of injustice were heard, and the state was saved from the grasp of a merciless foe. Tarleton was humbled, Ferguson killed, and Cornwallis retreated. Mr. Penn, after discharging the public duties imposed upon him by his own state, again retired to private life and the pursuit of his profession. In 1784, he was appointed receiver of taxes for North Carolina; a high encomium upon his reputation for honesty and integrity. Fatigued with public service, he resigned this office in a few months after. This closed his public career, and he bade farewell to the busy and perplexing scenes of political life, decked with a civic wreath, surmounted with an unfading and permanent fame. He again entered into the enjoyments of domestic felicity, which were soon exchanged for those of another and a brighter world. In September, 1788, he was gathered to his fathers and laid in the silent tomb, there to await the resurrection of the great day. In all the relations of private life and public action the examples of Mr. Penn are worthy of imitation. As a lawyer he stood pre-eminent. His forensic eloquence was admirable and strongly pathetic. The court and jury were often suffused with tears when listening to his appeals, and his own feelings of sympathy were not always suppressed on such occasions. As a patriot and statesman he stood approved and applauded by his country. His disposition was mild, benevolent and amiable, but firm in the performance of every duty. He was an honest man. Let every reader imitate JOHN PENN in the effort to become useful, and banish the doctrine _that merit is to be monopolized by a few_, which should never gain credence in a government like ours, where every individual is equally interested in the first and dearest principles of freedom—personal rights equally enjoyed and personal liberty equally secured. ELBRIDGE GERRY.