e prospered, and incidentally I
prospered in a mild way. Mr. Crede, behind whose store I still lived,
was getting rich, and happened to have an affair of some importance in
Philadelphia. Mr. Wharton was kind enough to recommend a young lawyer
who had the following virtues: he was neither handsome nor brilliant, and
he wore snuff-colored clothes. Mr. Wharton also did me the honor to say
that I was cautious and painstaking, and had a habit of tiring out my
adversary. Therefore, in the early summer of 1793, I went to
Philadelphia. At that time, travellers embarking on such a journey were
prayed over as though they were going to Tartary. I was absent from
Louisville near a year, and there is a diary of what I saw and felt and
heard on this trip for the omission of which I will be thanked. The
great news of that day which concerns the world--and incidentally this
story--was that Citizen Genet had landed at Charleston.

Citizen Genet, Ambassador of the great Republic of France to the little
Republic of America, landed at Charleston, acclaimed by thousands, and
lost no time. Scarcely had he left that city ere American privateers had
slipped out of Charleston harbor to prey upon the commerce of the hated
Mistress of the Sea. Was there ever such a march of triumph as that of
the Citizen Ambassador northward to the capital? Everywhere toasted and
feasted, Monsieur Genet did not neglect the Rights of Man, for without
doubt the United States was to declare war on Britain within a fortnight.
Nay, the Citizen Ambassador would go into the halls of Congress and
declare war himself if that faltering Mr. Washington refused his duty.
Citizen Genet organized his legions as he went along, and threw
tricolored cockades from the windows of his carriage. And at his
glorious entry into Philadelphia (where I afterwards saw the great man
with my own eyes), Mr. Washington and his Federal-Aristocrats trembled in
their boots.

It was late in April, 1794, when I reached Pittsburg on my homeward
journey and took passage down the Ohio with a certain Captain Wendell of
the army, in a Kentucky boat. I had known the Captain in Louisville, for
he had been stationed at Fort Finney, the army post across the Ohio from
that town, and he had come to Pittsburg with a sergeant to fetch down the
river some dozen recruits. This was a most fortunate circumstance for
me, and in more ways than one. Although the Captain was a gruff and
blunt man, grizzled and weather-