Signer of the Declaration of Independence, born at Dover, DE, on the 7th of October 1728. From his grandfather, William Rodney, an early settler of that State, he had inherited a large estate. In 1750 he was sheriff of Kent co.; for many years he was a member of the colonial assembly, and its speaker from 1769 to 1774. Here he zealously advocated a measure forbidding the importation of slaves, which was negatived by only two votes. In 1765 he was sent as a delegate to the Stamp-act congress at New York, and, on repeal of the obnoxious act, was one of three commissioners appointed to prepare an address of thanks to the king. When the tax on tea was proposed in the British Parliament of 1707, he was again one of three to frame an address to the king, in which resistance to oppression was foreshadowed. When the colonies entered into correspondence regarding common defence, Rodney became president of the Committee of Safety for Delaware. In 1774 popular meetings were held at Dover and Newcastle to demand the assembling of a convention, whereupon he, as speaker, summoned the representatives of the people to meet at Newcastle August 1st. Here he was made chairman, and he was further sent as a delegate to the Continental Congress of that year, where he was on the committee that drew up a statement of the colonies’ grievances and rights. In 1775 he was re-elected to the Congress, and made at first colonel, and then brigadier-general, of the State militia. In 1776 he was constantly employed in patriotic activities. Being warned by friends, when the vote on the Declaration was imminent, he rode with all speed to Philadelphia, and was the means of casting Delaware’s vote for independence. Failing in re-election to Congress, he went directly to Trenton, where Lord Stirling made him post-commander, but soon left to join Washington at Morristown. Returning home in 1777, he suppressed an insurrection in Sussex, and, when the British advanced into Delaware, he put himself at the head of some militia and annoyed the enemy’s flank, with the view of cutting them off from their fleet. For his services here he was promoted major-general. In December he was re-elected to Congress, but did not take his seat, owing to his having been, in the meantime, chosen President of Delaware, a post he held for four years. In 1782 and in 1783 he was re-elected to Congress, but on both occasions declined, as he had done re-election to the presidency of Delaware in 1782. He had long suffered from cancer of the face, and died from it at Dover, on the 20th of June 1784.
His nephew, Cæsar Augustus (1772–1824), statesman, was born at Dover, DE, on the 4th of January 1772. He graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1793, and practised in Wilmington. From 1803 to 1807 he was a prominent member of Congress, taking Jefferson’s side, and from 1807 to 1811 he was U.S. attorney-general, under both Jefferson and Madison. During the war of 1812 with England he commanded an artillery corps which served on the Canadian frontier. In 1817 he went to South America as a member of the commission to report upon the propriety of recognizing the newly formed Spanish-American republics, which course he strenuously advocated. In 1821 he returned to Congress, and in 1822 was made U.S. senator. In 1823 Rodney was appointed minister to the Argentine provinces, and while discharging the duties of this position died at Buenos Aires, on the 10th of June 1824. With J. Graham he published Reports on the United Provinces of South America (London, 1819). His memory is still highly cherished in the Argentine Republic for the excellent counsel and other aid which he rendered at a critical time.
