From him Henry Wheaton was descended. He was born in Providence, 1786, and entered Rhode Island College at the age of thirteen. He was already remarkable for his love of reading, particularly in the branches of history and literature, and appears to have studied more from the pleasure he had in the acquisition of knowledge, than from any love of distinction. He graduated at the age of seventeen, and immediately after entered upon the study of the law, in compliance with his father's wishes rather than from personal inclination; for at that period he is said not to have entertained any particular leaning towards the legal profession. In 1806 he went abroad to complete his education. He passed some time at Poitiers, where he learned to speak and write French fluently, and had an opportunity of studying French law, and especially the Code Napoleon, which had then but recently been promulgated. He also attended the courts of justice, and heard some of the most distinguished lawyers of the time, of whose eloquence he often spoke in his letters to his family. He always recurred with pleasure in later years to the time he passed at Poitiers. The kindness he experienced from the family in which he lived, the graceful politeness and cheerfulness of the French character, gave him ever after a predilection in favor of France. After spending a few weeks in Paris, he went to England, where he applied himself to the study of English law. He was often at the house of Mr. Monroe, then our Minister in London, who seems to have taken some pains to converse with him on the political and social state of Europe. Perhaps these conversations contributed to form his taste for diplomatic life, in which he was destined to play so distinguished a part, and also to lead him in its course to show that willingness to impart information of a similar kind, to the young men by whom he was himself surrounded, which was so pleasing a trait in his character.