On the 2d day of November, 1776, Mr. Rittenhouse was engaged, in the city of Philadelphia, jointly with Dr. Smith and Mr. John Lukens, in observing the transit of Mercury over the Sun, which appeared that day. On the 9th of January, following, the Doctor and Mr. Rittenhouse employed themselves at the same place, in like Observations on an eclipse of the Sun, which then occurred. And, on the 24th of June, 1778, just one week after the evacuation of that city by the British army, the three gentlemen here named, together with Mr. Owen Biddle, were busied in making observations, there, on another eclipse of the Sun. The results of these several Observations, in the hand-writing of Dr. Smith, having been bound up by him with a copy of T. Mayer’s Lunar Tables, the writer of these Memoirs was obligingly permitted by Mr. Charles Smith, the Doctor’s son, to transcribe them, for publication in this work. A true copy of them is accordingly given in the Appendix. But, to return to some political events of the year 1776: In the month of September of that year, Mr. Rittenhouse was one of twenty-four persons who were appointed justices of the peace, for the whole State of Pennsylvania; in their capacity of members of the then existing council of safety. This appointment was made by virtue of an ordinance of the convention of Pennsylvania, which passed the first constitution of the state, on the 28th of September, 1776, of which he was also a member, for the city of Philadelphia. That convention could boast of possessing, among their members, two distinguished philosophers, Franklin[184] and Rittenhouse: but it cannot be ascertained, whether the opinions of these two eminent men, on the subject of government, had any decided influence on the deliberations of that assembly. Certain it is, however, that the Constitution framed and promulgated by the convention, was predicated on too many new and untried principles of civil polity; that it contained too many aberrations from maxims founded on a knowledge of human nature, to have warranted a reasonable expectation, that it could long prove practically beneficial. Hence, after an experiment of fourteen years continuance, it was succeeded by the present constitution of the state; one admirably well suited to secure the rights and liberties of its citizens, individually, and to promote the prosperity of the whole community, so long as it shall be faithfully and wisely administered.[185] ----- Footnote 184: Dr. Franklin was president of that convention. Footnote 185: