“When Mr. Lowndes took his seat in the House, it was apparent to all that his frail and diseased frame betokened an early death, though he was then only in the forty-first year of his age. He was considerably above six feet in height, and was much stooped in person. There was nothing striking in his countenance to indicate great and varied intellectual powers. As a speaker he was persuasive and convincing. Though earnest and decided in the discussion of great questions, he never uttered a word which could give personal offence to his opponents or leave a sting behind. His eloquence partook of his own gentle and unpretending nature. His voice had become feeble and husky, and when he rose to speak, the members of the House, without distinction of party, clustered around him so that they might hear every word which fell from his lips. Towards his antagonists he was the fairest debater ever known in Congress. It was his custom to state their arguments so strongly and clearly that John Randolph, on one occasion, exclaimed: ‘He will never be able to answer himself.’ He possessed all the varied information necessary to the character of a great American statesman; and this, not merely in regard to general principles, but to minute practical details. “On one occasion it became his duty, as Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, in the House, to present a history of the origin, progress and character of our trade with the East Indies. This he did with such fulness and precision that Mr. Silsbee, a well-informed and much-respected member of the House, and afterwards a Senator from Massachusetts, declared in his place, that although he had been engaged in that trade for many years, the gentleman from South Carolina had communicated to the House important information and shed new light on the subject which had never been known to him. On another occasion, two young members made a wager that Mr. Lowndes could not promptly state the process of manufacturing a common pin. On propounding the question to him, he at once stated the whole process in minute detail. “Mr. Lowndes’ great influence,—for he was the undisputed leader in the House—arose in no small degree from the conviction of its members that he never had a sinister or selfish purpose in view, but always uttered the genuine sentiments of his heart. Mr. Lowndes had not the least jealousy in his nature. In his social intercourse with his fellow-members he was ever ready and willing to impart his stores of information on any subject, without feeling the least apprehension that these might be used to anticipate what he himself intended to say, or in debate against himself. His health continuing to decline, he resigned his seat in the House, and by the advice of his physicians, embarked in October, 1822, from Philadelphia in the ship Moss, with his wife and daughter, for London. He died on the passage, on the 27th of that month, and was buried at sea.