erially assisted the government in bolstering European confidence in
its securities. When the bank was not rechartered, Girard bought the
building and cashier's house for a third of their original cost, and in
May, 1812, established the Bank of Stephen Girard. In 1814, when the
government needed money to bring the second conflict with England to a
successful conclusion, he subscribed for about ninety-five per cent of
the war loan of five million dollars, of which only twenty thousand
dollars besides had been taken, and he generously offered to the public
at par shares which, following his purchase, had gone to a premium.

[Illustration: PLATE XIV.--Mount Pleasant, Northern Liberties, Fairmount
Park. Erected in 1761 by Captain James Macpherson; The Main House, Mount
Pleasant.]

[Illustration: PLATE XV.--Deschler-Perot-Morris House, 5442 Germantown
Avenue, Germantown. Erected in 1772 by Daniel Deschler; Vernon, Vernon
Park, Germantown. Erected in 1803 by James Matthews.]

Girard showed his public spirit personally as well as financially.
During the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793 and in
1797-1798 he took the lead in relieving the poor and caring for the
sick. He volunteered to act as manager of the hospital at Bush Hill
and with the assistance of Peter Helm he cleansed the place and
systemized the work.

On his death in 1831, Girard's estate, the greatest private fortune in
America, was valued at about seven and a half million dollars, and his
philanthropy was again shown in his disposition of it. Being without
heirs, as his child had died soon after its birth and his beautiful wife
had died after many years in an insane asylum, his heart went out to
poor and orphan children. In his will he bequeathed $116,000 to various
Philadelphia charities; $500,000 to the city for improvement of the
Delaware River front, streets and buildings; $300,000 to Pennsylvania
for internal improvements, especially canals, and the bulk of the estate
to Philadelphia, chiefly for founding and maintaining a non-sectarian
school or college, but also for providing a better police system, making
municipal improvements and lessening taxation. The college was given for
the support and education of poor white male orphans, of legitimate
birth and character, between the ages of six and ten; and it was
specified that no boy was to be permitted to stay after his eighteenth
year, and that as regards admission, preference was to be shown, f