Governor M’Kean respected those of his political opponents who opposed him from an honest difference of opinion, and numbered among them many personal friends. He was free from that narrow-minded policy, based upon self, that actuates too many of those of the present day, who assume the high responsibility of becoming the arbiters of the minds of their fellow men. His views were expansive and liberal, broad and charitable. He aimed at distributing equal justice to all, the rich and poor, the public officer and private citizen. He was free from that contracted selfishness that prefers present aggrandizement to future good. To lay deep the foundations of lasting and increasing prosperity for his own state and for our nation, was the object of this pure patriot, enlightened statesman, and able jurist. Her vast resources, her wide spread territory, her majestic rivers, her silvery lakes, her mineral mountains, her rich valleys, her rolling uplands, her beautiful prairies, her extensive seaboard, her enterprising sons and virtuous daughters, were arrayed before his gigantic mind, and passed him in grand review. He was firmly convinced that she had only to be wise and good to be great and happy. To this end he embraced every opportunity, both in public and private life, to inculcate, by precept and example, those great principles of moral rectitude, inflexible virtue, purity of motive, and nobleness of action, that alone can permanently preserve a nation. He cast a withering frown upon vice in all its borrowed and alluring forms, and exerted his strongest powers to arrest the bold career of crime and corruption. He was a terror to evil doers, and inspired confidence in those who did well. His administration was prosperous and enlightened, and when he closed his public duties, the bitterness of his political opponents was lost in the admiration of his patriotism, virtue, impartiality, consistency, and candour. In 1808 he retired from the ponderous weight of public business, that he had so long and honourably borne. He had devoted a long life to the faithful service of his country, and was covered with laurels of imperishable fame. He stood approved at the bar of his own conscience, his country, and his God. He had acted well his part, and had contributed largely in raising the American character to a proud elevation among the nations of the earth. Thus highly stood Governor M’KEAN, when he bid a final adieu, a last farewell to the public arena, and retired to the peaceful city of Penn, to breathe his life out sweetly there. He outlived all the animosities that a faithful minister of the laws unavoidably creates for a time, and on the 24th of June, 1817, at his residence in Philadelphia, resigned his spirit to Him who gave it, and entered upon the untried scenes of a boundless eternity, to reap the rich reward of a life well spent.