Ruban de queue, 1-6, Veste blanche, 9, Tailleur, £2, 16s. Souliers de satin, gants, bague £1, 11.6, License minister, £4,4.

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The following letter throws some light on one episode in Gallatin's history:

NEW KENT, May 16, 1789.

MY DEAR MAMA-Shall I venture to write you a few lines in apology for my late conduct? And dare I flatter myself that you will attend to them? If so, and you can feel a motherly tenderness for your child who never before wilfully offended you, forgive, dear mother, and generously accept again your poor Sophia, who feels for the uneasiness she is sure she has occasioned you. She deceived you, but it was for her own happiness. Could you then form a wish to destroy the future peace of your child and prevent her being united to the man of her choice? He is perhaps not a very handsome man, but he is possessed of more essential qualities, which I shall not pretend to enumerate, as, coming from me, they might be supposed partial. If, mama, your heart is inclined to forgive, or, if it is not, let me beg you to write to me, as my only anxiety is to know whether I have lost your affection or not. Forgive me, dear mama, as it is all that is wanted to complete the happiness of her who wishes for your happiness and desires to be considered again your dutiful daughter.. SOPHIA, -Ibid., 72.

She died the following October.

The position of Gallatin during the first days after the constitution was submitted to the people may be gathered from the following resolutions, adopted at a second convention, held at Harrisburg, 1788.

1st. Resolved that in order to prevent a dissolution of the Union, and to secure our liberties and those of our posterity, it is necessary that a revision of the Federal Constitution be obtained in the most speedy

manner.

2d. That the safest manner to obtain such a revision will be. * to have a convention

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[a second national convention] called as soon as possible; * *.

3d. That in order that the friends to amendments of the Federal Constitution *

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* may act in concert, it is hereby recommended to the several counties in the state to appoint committees, who may correspond one with another and with such similar committees as may be formed in other states. 4th. [A call for a general convention.]

A less radical set of resolutions were adopted; and, as both are in Gallatin's handwriting, we cannot determine whether he changed his views, or was overruled at the conference. The final result was to recommend twelve amendments, similar to those already suggested by Massachusetts and New York, to the constitution.-Ibid., 78.

Gallatin has left us an account of his influence in the Pennsylvania legislature and the reasons therefor:

I acquired an extraordinary influence in that body, the more remarkable as I was always in a party minority. I was indebted for it to my great industry and to the facility with which I could understand and carry on the current business. The laboring oar was left almost exclusively to me. In the session of 1791-92, I was put on thirty-five committees, prepared all their reports, and drew all their bills.

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I failed, though the bill I had introduced passed the House, in my efforts to lay the foundation for a better system of education. Primary education was almost universal in Pennsylvania, but very bad, and the bulk of the schoolmasters incompetent, miserably paid, and held in no consideration. It appeared to me that

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* intermediate academic education was an indispensable preliminary step; and the object of the bill was to establish in each county an academy, allowing to each out of the treasury a sum equal to that raised by taxation in the county for its support. But there was at that time in Pennsylvania a Quaker and a German opposition to every plan of general education. The spirit of internal improvements had not yet been awakened. Still, the first turnpike road in the United

States was that from Philadelphia to Lancaster.

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This, as well as every temporary improvement in our communications (roads and rivers and preliminary surveys, met, of course, with my warm support. But it was in the fiscal department that I was particularly employed.

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The report of the Committee of Ways and Means was entirely prepared by me.

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I was quite astonished at the general encomiums bestowed upon it, and was not at all aware that I had done so well. It was perspicuous and comprehensive; but I am confident that its true merit, and that which gained me the general confidence, was its being founded in strict justice, without the slightest regard to party feelings or popular prejudices.

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It was my constant assiduity to business and the assistance derived from it by many members which enabled the Republican party in the legislature, then a minority on joint ballot, to elect me, and no other but me of that party, senator of the United States.-Ibid., p. 85-86.

In 1793 Gallatin prepared the following report:

That they [the committee] are of opinion that slavery is inconsistent with every principle of humanity, justice, and right, and repugnant to the spirit and express letter of the constitution of this commonwealth. [A bill to abolish introduced.]—Ibid., 86

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In 1792 Gallatin formulated the reasons for the opposition of the western counties of Penusylvania to the excise tax in these words:

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Our peculiar situation renders this duty still more unequal and oppressive to us. Distant from a permanent market and separated from the eastern coast by mountains * we have no means of bringing the produce of our lands to sale, either in grain or in meal. We are therefore distillers through necessity, not choice, that we may comprehend the greatest value in the smallest size and weight. The inhabitants

of the eastern side of the mountains can dispose of their grain without the additional labor of distillation at a higher price than we can after we have bestowed that labor upon it. Yet, with this additional labor, we must also pay a high duty, from which they are exempted, because we have no means of selling our surplus produce butin a distilled state.

Another circumstance which renders this duty ruinous to us is our scarcity of cash. Our commerce is not, as on the eastern coast, carried on so much by absolute sale as by barter, and we believe it to be a fact that there is not among us a quantity of circulating cash sufficient for the payment of this duty alone. We are not accustomed to complain without reason, * .-Ibid., p. 88.

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In a letter to a friend written in 1792, he

says:

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* We have a plan before us, which I brought forward, to establish a school and library in each county, each county to receive £1,000 for buildings and beginning a library, and from £75 to £150 a year, according to its size, to pay at least in part a teacher of the English language and one of the elements of of mathematics, geography, and history, *, it is meant as a preparatory step to township schools, * * .-Ibid., p. 90.

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In a petition drafted by Gallatin to the legislature of Pennsylvania, from the western counties of Pennsylvania, we find the following language:

That your petitioners have been greatly alarmed by a law of Congress which imposes a duty on spirituous liquors distilled from produce of the United States. To us that act appears unequal in its operation and immoral in its effects. Unequal in its operation, as a duty laid on the common drink of a nation, instead of taxing the citizens in proportion to their property, falls as heavy on the poorest class as on the rich; immoral in its effect, because the amount of the duty, chiefly resting on the oath of the payer, offers, at the expense of the honest part of the community, a pres

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sure to perjury and fraud. Your petitioners also consider this law as dangerous to liberty; - Writings Gallatin, Vol. I., pp. 3-4.

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Extracts from a letter to Miss Nicholson a few months before their marriage, August 25, 1793: * Well, my charming patriot, why do you write to me about politics? * * * I believe that, except a very few intemperate, unthinking, or wicked men, no American wishes to see his country involved in war. As to myself, I think every war except a defensive one to be unjustifiable. As to the present cause of France, although I think they have been guilty of many excesses, and that in their present temper they are not likely to have a very good government within any short time, yet I firmly believe their cause to be that of mankind against tyrants, and, at all events, that no foreign nation has a right to dictate a government to them. So far, I think, we are interested in their success, and as to our political situation they are certainly the only real allies we have yet had. * * * Upon the whole, I think that unless France or England attach us we shall have no war. Please to remember that my politics are only for you. Except in my public character I do not like to speak on the subject, although I believe you will agree with me that I have no reason to be ashamed of my sentiments; but moderation is not fashionable just now.

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Again, December 15, 1793, just after their marriage, he writes:

I am happy to see that you are a tolerable democrat, and, at the same time, a moderate one. I trust that our parties at this critical juncture will, as far as possible, forget old animosities, and show, at least to the foreign powers who hate us, that we will be unanimous whenever the protection and defense of our country require it.-Adams' Life of Gallatin, pp. 103–104, 112.

The following anecdote illustrates very well the way much history is written, as well as gives us a good insight into the character of Gallatin for straightforward honesty. Brackenridge, in his "Incidents of the Whiskey Rebellion," relates the incident as follows: