His influence was felt in other departments of Government and in the politics of the country. Opposed to going to war against Great Britain in 1812, he exerted all his influence to avert it. In March, 1813, he was appointed one of the envoys to Russia to negotiate for the mediation of the Czar between the United States and Great Britain. He sailed for St. Petersburg, but the Senate in special sessions, refused to ratify his appointment because he was Secretary of the Treasury. The attempt at mediation was unsuccessful. When, in January, 1814, Great Britain proposed a direct negotiation for peace, Gallatin, who was still abroad, was appointed one of the United States Commissioners. He resigned his secretaryship. He was one of the signers of the Treaty of Ghent. In 1815 he was appointed Minister to France, where he remained until 1823. He refused a seat in the Cabinet of President Monroe on his return and also declined to be a candidate for Vice President to which the dominant Democratic Party nominated him. President Adams appointed him Minister to Great Britain, where he negotiated several important commercial conventions. Returning to America in 1827, he took up his residence in New York City. There he was engaged in public service in various ways until 1839, when he withdrew from public duties and directed the remainder of his life to literary pursuits. Although strictly in private life, Gallatin took special interest in the progress of the country, and wrote much on the subject. His published works include such subjects as finance, politics and ethnology. Mr. Gallatin was chief founder, in 1842, and the first president of the American Ethnological Society, and was president of the New York Historical Society from 1843 until his death, August 12, 1849, at Astoria, L. I. ---------- General Thomas Mifflin, Soldier, Statesman and Several Times Governor, Died January 21, 1800 When the venerable Franklin was about to step aside as the President of the Council and withdraw from public employment, the people of Pennsylvania became concerned in the successor to so brilliant a man. The choice fell upon Thomas Mifflin, and he occupied the enviable position of Chief Executive of the Commonwealth longer than any other Pennsylvanian, two years as President of the Council and three times Governor, an aggregate of eleven years. Thomas Mifflin was the son of Quaker parents, and was born in Philadelphia in 1744. He was educated in the Philadelphia College, and his parents intended that Thomas should follow a mercantile profession. Upon the completion of his college course he entered the counting house of William Coleman. At the age of twenty-one he made a tour of Europe and then entered into a business partnership with his brother in Philadelphia.