"I'm going, and I'm glad I'm going. I have never set eyes on a great man. It
makes my heart beat to think of it. I feel as a young Gaul might who was
going to Rome to ask Caesar for gold with which to overthrow him. Seriously,
it would be a dreadful thing for the country if a treaty should be ratified
with England. There is not a democratic society from Boston to Charleston
that will not feel enraged with the President. You may be sure that every
patriot in Kentucky will be outraged, and that the Governor will denounce it
to the House."
"There is news from France, then--serious news?""Much, much! The National
Convention has agreed to carry into full effect the treaty of commerce
between the two Republics, and the French and American flags have been
united and suspended in the hall. The Dutch have declared the sovereignty of
the French, and French and Dutch patriots have taken St. Martin's. The
English have declared war against the Dutch and granted letters of marque
and reprisals. There has been a complete change in the Spanish Ministry.
There has been a treaty made between France and the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
The French fleet is in the West Indies and has taken possession of
Guadeloupe. All French emigrants in Switzerland have been ordered to remove
ten leagues from the borders of France. A hundred and fifty thousand
Austrians are hurrying down toward the Rhine, to be reinforced by fifty
thousand more."
He had run over these items with the rapidity of one who has his eye on the
map of the world, noting, the slightest change in the situation of affairs
that could affect Kentucky; and she listened eagerly like one no less
interested.
"But the treaty! The treaty! The open navigation of the Mississippi!" she
cried impatiently.
"The last news is that the treaty will certainly be concluded and the open
navigation of the Mississippi assured to us forever. The major will load his
flatboats, drift down to New Orleans, sell those Spanish fops his tobacco
for its weight in gems, buy a mustang to ride home on, and if not robbed and
murdered by the land-pirates on the way, come back to you like an enormous
bumblebee from a clover-field, his thighs literally packed with gold."
"I am so glad, so glad, so glad!"
He drew from his pockets a roll.
"Here are papers for two months back. And now I've something else to tell
you. That is one of the things I came for"