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.

CHAPTER II

PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE

Political revolutions are the opportunity of youth. In England, Pitt and
Fox; in America, Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris; in Europe, Napoleon and
Pozzo di Borgo, before they reached their thirtieth year, helped to
shape the political destiny of nations. The early maturity of Gallatin
was no less remarkable. In his voluminous correspondence there is no
trace of youth. At nineteen his habits of thought were already formed,
and his moral and intellectual tendencies were clearly marked in his
character, and understood by himself. His tastes also were already
developed. His life, thereafter, was in every sense a growth. The germs
of every excellence, which came to full fruition in his subsequent
career, may be traced in the preferences of his academic days. From
youth to age he was consistent with himself. His mind was of that rare
and original order which, reasoning out its own conclusions, seldom has
cause to change.

His political opinions were early formed. A letter written by him in
October, 1783, before he had completed his twenty-third year, shows the
maturity of his intellect, and his analytic habit of thought. An extract
gives the nature of the reasons which finally determined him to make his
home in America:--

"This is what by degrees greatly influenced my judgment. After my
arrival in this country I was early convinced, upon a compari