g by no means willing to risk his head in France.
His secretary, as De Courval soon heard, was traveling until the new
minister arrived. Thus for the time left more at ease, De Courval
fenced, rode, and talked with Schmidt.

December of this calamitous year went by and the rage of parties
increased. Neither French nor English spared our commerce. The latter
took the French islands, and over a hundred and thirty of our ships were
seized as carriers of provisions and ruthlessly plundered, their crews
impressed and many vessels left to rot, uncared for, at the wharves of
San Domingo and Martinique. A nation without a navy, we were helpless.
There was indeed enough wrong done by our old ally and by the
mother-country to supply both parties in America with good reasons for
war.

The whole land was in an uproar and despite the news of the Terror in
France, the Jacobin clubs multiplied in many cities North and South,
and broke out in the wildest acts of folly. In Charleston they pulled
down the statue of the great statesman Pitt. The Democratic Club of that
city asked to be affiliated with the Jacobin Club in Paris, while the
city council voted to use no longer the absurd titles "Your Honour" and
"Esquire."

Philadelphia was not behindhand in folly, but it took no official form.
The astronomer Rittenhouse, head of the Republican Club, appeared one
day at the widow's and showed Schmidt a copy of a letter addressed to
the Vestry of Christ Church. He was full of it, and when, later, Mr.
Jefferson appeared, to get the chocolate and the talk he dearly liked,
Rittenhouse would have had him sign the appeal.

"This, Citizen," said the astronomer, "will interest and please you."

The Secretary read, with smiling comments: "'To the Vestry of Christ
Church: It is the wish of the respectable citizens that you cause to be
removed the image of George the Second from the gable of Christ Church.'
Why not?" said the Secretary, as he continued to read aloud: "'These
marks of infamy cause the church to be disliked.'"

"Why not remove the church, too?" said Schmidt.

"'T is of as little use," said Jefferson, and this Mrs. Swanwick did not
like. She knew of his disbelief in all that she held dear.

"Thou wilt soon get no chocolate here," she said; for she feared no one
and at times was outspoken.

"Madame, I shall go to meeting next First Day with the citizen Friends.
My chocolate, please." He read on, aloud: "'It has a tendency to keep