Читать книгу Albert Gallatin - John Austin Stevens - Страница 7

“Among the incidents connected with his (Mr. Gallatin's) earliest explorations was an interview with General Washington, which he repeatedly recounted to me. He had previously observed that of all the inaccessible men he had ever seen, General Washington was the most so. And this remark he made late in life, after having been conversant with most of the sovereigns of Europe and their prime ministers. He said, in connection with his office, he had a cot-bed in the office of the surveyor of the district when Washington, who had lands in the neighborhood, and was desirous of effecting communication between the rivers, came there. Mr. Gallatin's bed was given up to him—Gallatin lying on the floor, immediately below the table at which Washington was writing. Washington was endeavoring to reduce to paper the calculations of the day. Gallatin, hearing the statement, came at once to the conclusion, and, after waiting some time, he himself gave the answer, which drew from Washington such a look as he never experienced before or since. On arriving by a slow process at his conclusion, Washington turned to Gallatin and said, 'You are right, young man.'”

The points of difference between the two accounts of this interview are of little importance. The look which Washington is said to have given Mr. Gallatin has its counterpart in that with which he is also said to have turned upon Gouverneur Morris, when accosted by him familiarly with a touch on the shoulder. Bartlett, in his recollection of the anecdote, adds that Washington, about this period, inquired after the forward young man, and urged him to become his land agent—an offer which Gallatin declined.

The winter of 1784–85 was passed in Richmond, in the society of which town Mr. Gallatin began to find a relief and pleasure he had not yet experienced in America. At this period the Virginia capital was the gayest city in the Union, and famous for its abundant hospitality, rather facile manners, and the liberal tendency of its religious thought. Gallatin brought no prudishness and no orthodoxy in his Genevese baggage. One of the last acts of his life was to recognize in graceful and touching words the kindness he then met with:—

“I was received with that old proverbial Virginia hospitality to which I know no parallel anywhere within the circle of my travels. It was not hospitality only that was shown to me. I do not know how it came to pass, but every one with whom I became acquainted appeared to take an interest in the young stranger. I was only the interpreter of a gentleman, the agent of a foreign house, that had a large claim for advances to the State, and this made me known to all the officers of government, and some of the most prominent members of the Legislature. It gave me the first opportunity of showing some symptoms of talent, even as a speaker, of which I was not myself aware. Every one encouraged me, and was disposed to promote my success in life. To name all those from whom I received offers of service would be to name all the most distinguished residents at that time in Richmond.”

In the spring of 1785, fortified with a certificate from Governor Patrick Henry, commending him to the county surveyor, and intrusted by Henry with the duty of locating two thousand acres of lands in the western country for a third party, he set out from Richmond, on March 31, alone, on horseback. Following the course of the James River he crossed the Blue Ridge at the Peaks of Otter, and reached Greenbrier Court House on April 18. On the 29th he arrived at Clare's, on George's Creek, where he was joined by Savary. Their surveying operations were soon begun, each taking a separate course. An Indian rising broke up the operations of Savary, and both parties returned to Clare's. Gallatin appeared before the court of Monongalia County, at its October term, and took the “oath of allegiance and fidelity to the Commonwealth of Virginia.” Clare's, his actual residence, was north of the Virginia line, but his affections were with the old Dominion. In November the partners hired from Clare a house at George's Creek, in Springfield township, and established their residence, after which they returned to Richmond by way of Cumberland and the Potomac. In February, 1786, Gallatin made his permanent abode at his new home.

Mention has been made of the intimacy of the young emigrants with Jean Badollet, a college companion. When they left Geneva he was engaged in the study of theology, and was now a teacher. He was included in the original plan of emigration, and the first letters of both Gallatin and Serre, who had for him an equal attachment, were to him, and year by year, through all the vicissitudes of their fortune, they kept him carefully informed of their movements and projects. For two years after their departure no word was received from him. At last, spurred by the sharp reproaches of Serre, he broke silence. In a letter written in March, 1783, informing Gallatin of the troubles in Switzerland, he excused himself on the plea that their common friend, Dumont, retained him at Geneva. In answer, Gallatin opened his plans of western settlement, which included the employment of his fortune in the establishment of a number of families upon his lands. He suggested to Badollet to bring with him the little money he had, to which enough would be added to establish him independently. Dumont was invited to accompany him. But with a prudence which shows that his previous experience had not been thrown away upon him, Gallatin recommends his friend not to start at once, but to hold himself ready for the next, or, at the latest, the year succeeding, at the same time suggesting the idea of a general emigration of such Swiss malcontents as were small capitalists and farmers; that of manufacturers and workmen he discouraged. It was not, however, until the spring of 1785, on the eve of leaving Richmond with some families which he had engaged to establish on his lands, that he felt justified in asking his old friend to cross the seas and share his lot. This invitation was accepted, and Badollet joined him at George's Creek.

The settlement beginning to spread, Gallatin bought another farm higher up the river, to which he gave the name of Friendship Hill. Here he later made his home.

The western part of Pennsylvania, embracing the area which stretches from the Alleghany Mountains to Lake Erie, is celebrated for the wild, picturesque beauty of its scenery. Among its wooded hills the head waters of the Ohio have their source. At Fort Duquesne, or Pittsburgh, where the river takes a sudden northerly bend before finally settling in swelling volume on its southwesterly course to the Mississippi, the Monongahela adds its mountain current, which separates in its entire course from the Virginia line the two counties of Fayette and Washington. The Monongahela takes its rise in Monongalia County, Virginia, and flows to the northward. Friendship Hill is one of the bluffs on the right bank of the river, and faces the Laurel Ridge to the eastward. Braddock's Road, now the National Road, crosses the mountains, passing through Uniontown and Red Stone Old Fort (Brownsville), on its course to Pittsburgh. The county seat of Fayette is the borough of Union or Uniontown. Gallatin's log cabin, the beginning of New Geneva, was on the right bank of the Monongahela, about twelve miles to the westward of the county seat. Opposite, on the other side of the river, in Washington County, was Greensburg, where his friend Badollet was later established.

Again for a long period Gallatin left his family without any word whatever. His most indulgent friend, Mademoiselle Pictet, could hardly excuse his silence, and did not hesitate to charge that it was due to misfortunes which his pride prompted him to conceal. In the early days of 1786 a rumor of his death reached Geneva, and greatly alarmed his family. Mr. Jefferson, then minister at Paris, wrote to Mr. Jay for information. This was Jefferson's first knowledge of the existence of the young man who was to become his political associate, his philosophic companion, and his truest friend. Meanwhile Gallatin had attained his twenty-fifth year and his majority. His family were no longer left in doubt as to his existence, and in response to his letters drafts were at once remitted to him for the sum of five thousand dollars, through the banking-house of Robert Morris. This was, of course, immediately applied to his western experiment. The business of the partnership now called for his constant attention. It required the exercise of a great variety of mental powers, a cool and discriminating judgment, combined with an incessant attention to details. Nature, under such circumstances, is not so attractive as she appears in youthful dreams; admirable in her original garb, she is annoying and obstinate when disturbed. The view of country which Friendship Hill commands is said to rival Switzerland in its picturesque beauty, but years later, when the romance of the Monongahela hills had faded in the actualities of life, Gallatin wrote of it that “he did not know in the United States any spot which afforded less means to earn a bare subsistence for those who could not live by manual labor.”

Gallatin has been blamed for “taking life awry and throwing away the advantages of education, social position, and natural intelligence,” by his removal to the frontier, and his career compared with that of Hamilton and Dallas, who, like him, foreign born, rose to eminence in politics, and became secretaries of the treasury of the United States. But both of these were of English-speaking races. No foreigner of any other race ever obtained such distinction in American politics as Mr. Gallatin, and he only because he was the choice of a constituency, to every member of which he was personally known. It is questionable whether in any other condition of society he could have secured advancement by election—the true source of political power in all democracies. John Marshall, afterwards Chief Justice, recognized Gallatin's talent soon after his arrival in Richmond, offered him a place in his office without a fee, and assured him of future distinction in the profession of the law; but Patrick Henry was the more sagacious counselor; he advised Gallatin to go to the West, and predicted his success as a statesman. Modest as the beginning seemed in the country he had chosen, it was nevertheless a start in the right direction, as the future showed. It was in no sense a mistake.

Neither did the affairs of the wilderness wholly debar intercourse with the civilized world. Visiting Richmond every winter, he gradually extended the circle of his acquaintance, and increased his personal influence; he also occasionally passed a few weeks at Philadelphia. Two visits to Maine are recorded in his diary, but whether they were of pleasure merely does not appear. One was in 1788, in midwinter, by stage and sleigh. On this excursion he descended the Androscoggin and crossed Merrymeeting Bay on the ice, returning by the same route in a snowstorm, which concealed the banks on either side of the river, so that he governed his course by the direction of the wind. With the intellect of a prime minister he had the constitution of a pioneer. On one of these occasions he intended to visit his old friends and hosts, the Lesderniers, but the difficulty of finding a conveyance, and the rumor that the old gentleman was away from home, interfered with his purpose. He remembered their kindness, and later attempted to obtain pensions for them from the United States government.

But the time now arrived when the current of his domestic life was permanently diverted, and set in other channels. In May, 1789, he married Sophie Allègre, the daughter of William Allègre of a French Protestant family living at Richmond. The father was dead, and the mother took lodgers, of whom Gallatin was one. For more than a year he had addressed her and secured her affections. Her mother now refused her consent, and no choice was left to the young lovers but to marry without it. Little is known of this short but touching episode in Mr. Gallatin's life. The young lady was warmly attached to him, and the letter written to her mother asking forgiveness for her marriage is charmingly expressed and full of feeling. They passed a few happy months at Friendship Hill, when suddenly she died. From this time Mr. Gallatin lost all heart in the western venture, and his most earnest wish was to turn his back forever upon Fayette County. In his suffering he would have returned to Geneva to Mademoiselle Pictet, could he have sold his Virginia lands. But this had become impossible at any price, and he had no other pecuniary resource but the generosity of his family.

Meanwhile the revolution had broken out in France. The rights of man had been proclaimed on the Champ de Mars. All Europe was uneasy and alarmed, and nowhere offered a propitious field for peaceful labor. But Gallatin did not long need other distraction than he was to find at home.