not good at speeches, General," said he, "but I make no
doubt he will drink a bumper to your health before we sit down.
Gentlemen," he cried, filling his glass from a bottle on the table, "a
toast to General Wilkinson, emancipator and saviour of Kentucky!"

The company responded with a shout, tossed off the toast, and sat down at
the long table. Chance placed me between a young dandy from
Lexington--one of several the General had brought in his train--and Mr.
Wharton, a prominent planter of the neighborhood with whom I had a
speaking acquaintance. This was a backwoods feast, though served in
something better than the old backwoods style, and we had venison and
bear's meat and prairie fowl as well as pork and beef, and breads that
came stinging hot from the Dutch ovens. Toasts to this and that were
flung back and forth, and jests and gibes, and the butt of many of these
was that poor Federal government which (as one gentleman avowed) was like
a bantam hen trying to cover a nestful of turkey's eggs, and clucking
with importance all the time. This picture brought on gusts of laughter.

"And what say you of the Jay?" cried one; "what will he hatch?"

Hisses greeted the name, for Mr. Jay wished to enter into a treaty with
Spain, agreeing to close the river for five and twenty years. Colonel
Clark stood up, and rapped on the table.

"Gentlemen," said he, "Louisville has as her guest of honor to-night a
man of whom Kentucky may well be proud [loud cheering]. Five years ago
he favored Lexington by making it his home, and he came to us with the
laurel of former achievements still clinging to his brow. He fought and
suffered for his country, and attained the honorable rank of Major in the
Continental line. He was chosen by the people of Pennsylvania to
represent them in the august body of their legislature, and now he has
got new honor in a new field [renewed cheering]. He has come to Kentucky
to show her the way to prosperity and glory. Kentucky had a grievance
[loud cries of "Yes, yes!"]. Her hogs and cattle had no market, her
tobacco and agricultural products of all kinds were rotting because the
Spaniards had closed the Mississippi to our traffic. Could the Federal
government open the river? [shouts of "No, no!" and hisses]. Who opened
it? [cries of "Wilkinson, Wilkinson!"]. He said to the Kentucky
planters, 'Give your tobacco to me, and I will sell it.' He put it in
barges, he floated down the river, and, as became a man o