“I accepted the treasury, when it was attended with difficulty and danger, and consequently when there was no compensation for it. Soon afterwards, a depreciated currency, prodigiously accumulated, made it extremely burthensome, without any prospect of profit. “In a more favourable situation of our affairs, it might have been lucrative, had not the very small commissions allowed by law, been scarcely equal to the risk of receiving and paying. In 1785, my commissions were increased, and the office was for some time profitable; but the difficulties or remissness in collecting the public revenues, again reduced it to a very moderate compensation. “If, however, the embarrassments of the office have, in general, been little understood by those not immediately concerned in it; if the emoluments of it have been greatly exaggerated in the public opinion; I am still the more obliged to the several assemblies, who, under these impressions, have nevertheless continued me so long their treasurer. “The confidence of the public I have ever esteemed so invaluable a possession, that it has been my fixed determination not to forfeit it, by any voluntary act of impropriety. Where my conduct has been deficient in the discharge of my duty, I hope it will be imputed to want of ability, and not of integrity. “Fully sensible of the importance of the office I have the honour to hold, I cheerfully commit it into the hands of those who properly are, and ever must be, the guardians of the public good. I am, sir, with great respect, your most obliged and very humble servant— “DAVID RITTENHOUSE “The honourable the Speaker of the Assembly.” From the commencement of the year 1777, at which period Mr. Rittenhouse was invested with the treasurership of his native state, until the month of September following, when its capital was actually possessed by the British army, that city was in imminent danger of an hostile invasion. When it was reduced to a moral certainty, that the speedy occurrence of such an event was inevitable, he had retired with the treasury (as before noticed) to Lancaster, as a place of security; where he remained until the succeeding summer: when, after the evacuation of the capital by the British forces, he returned thither, and replaced the treasury in its ancient seat. The time, therefore, at which he accepted the office of treasurer, was truly one of “difficulty and danger.”