France, where Gallatin soon received letters from his family, who seem
to have neglected nothing that could contribute to their comfort or
advantage. Monsieur P. M. Gallatin, the guardian of Albert, a distant
relative in an elder branch of the family, addressed him a letter
which, in its moderation, dignity, and kindness, is a model of
well-tempered severity and reproach. It expressed the pain Mademoiselle
Pictet had felt at his unceremonious departure, and his own affliction
at the ingratitude of one to whom he had never refused a request.
Finally, as the trustee of his estate till his majority, the guardian
assures the errant youth that he will aid him with pecuniary resources
as far as possible, without infringing upon the capital, and within the
sworn obligation of his trust. Letters of recommendation to
distinguished Americans were also forwarded, and in these it is found,
to the high credit of the family, that no distinction was made between
the two young men, although Serre seems to have been considered as the
originator of the bold move. The intervention of the Duke de la
Rochefoucauld d'Enville was solicited, and a letter was obtained by him
from Benjamin Franklin--then American minister at the Court of
Versailles--to his son-in-law, Richard Bache. Lady Juliana Penn wrote in
their behalf to John Penn at Philadelphia, and Mademoiselle Pictet to
Colonel Kinloch, member of the Continental Congress from South Carolina.
Thus supported in their undertaking the youthful travelers sailed from
L'Orient on May 27, in an American vessel, the Kattie, Captain Loring.
Of the sum which Gallatin, who supplied the capital for the expedition,
brought from Geneva, one half had been expended in their land journey
and the payment of the passages to Boston; one half, eighty louis
d'or--the equivalent of four hundred silver dollars--remained, part of
which they invested in tea. Reaching the American coast in a fog, or bad
weather, they were landed at Cape Ann on July 14. From Gloucester they
rode the next day to Boston on horseback, a distance of thirty miles.
Here they put up at a French cafe, "The Sign of the Alliance," in Fore
Street, kept by one Tahon, and began to consider what step they should
next take in the new world.

The prospects were not encouraging; the military fortunes of the
struggling nation were never at a lower ebb than during the summer which
intervened between the disaster of Camden and the discovery of Arnold'