George Luther Stearns'father, Dr . Luther Stearns, was born in February 17, 1770, the eldest of five children born to Captain Josiah Stearns, a soldier in the war of American Independence who commanded a company of 50 men from Lunenburg, MA . Luther Stearns entered Dartmouth College at age seventeen but graduated from Harvard in 1791.
22.
Although the new Intendant disapproved of some of these changes, having foreseen and reported several inconveniences likely to come of them, he nevertheless set himself to implement them inonfidence he inspired in general, that Laporte was in great part responsible for the rapid expansion of the French Navy during the period of the War of American Independence, this in spite of the innumerable difficulties that the execution of the new order entailed.
23.
The square was named after King George III, a statue of whom was originally intended to occupy the centre of the square, but the turmoil and anxiety caused to the city's Tobacco Lords by the War of American Independence in 1775 and eventual British defeat in 1783, coupled with his ever more frequent bouts of madness had created mixed feelings toward the Hanoverian and so it was decided instead to commemorate Sir Walter Scott, which, incidentally, was the first ever memorial dedicated to him.
24.
On December 23 he appeared in Congress, then sitting at Annapolis, and returned his commission as commander-in-chief : " Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life . " Congress ended the War of American Independence on January 14, 1784, by ratifying the definitive peace treaty that had been signed in Paris on September 3.
