BIDDLE, NICHOLAS ( 786-1844) American financier, was born in Philadelphia on Jan. 8, 1786. During 1804-07 he was the secretary, first of John Armstrong, minister to France, and then of James Monroe, minister to Great Britain. He was an asso ciate editor of Dennie's Portfolio, and prepared a History of the Expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clark (1814). In 1819 he became a director of the Bank of the United States. The bank's national charter lapsed in 1836, but it was immediately chartered by Pennsylvania as the "Bank of the United States of Pennsylvania"; and Biddle remained president until 1839. He took a prominent part in the establishment of Girard college in accordance with the will of Stephen Girard (q.v.). He died in Philadelphia on Feb. 27, 1844.
His S011, CHARLES JOHN BIDDLE (1819-73) served in the Mex ican War as a captain of infantry. He practised law in Philadel phia; was a representative in Congress in 1861-63 ; was long editor-in-chief of the Philadelphia Age; and published "The Case of Major Andre, with a Review of the Statement of it in Lord Mahon's History of England" in the Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (1858).
The best account of Nicholas Biddle's administration of the bank may be found in an excellent work by Ralph C. H. Catterall The Second Bank of the United States (Chicago, 1903).