thousand dollars to the Danville and Pottsville Railroad, in 1831, was
an action in keeping with the whole tenor of his life; and his
subscription of ten thousand dollars toward the erection of an exchange
looked to the same result."

The war of 1812, which brought financial ruin to so many others, simply
increased Girard's wealth. He never lost a ship, and as war prices
prevailed, his profits were in accordance with them. One of his ships
was taken by a British cruiser at the mouth of the Delaware, in the
spring of 1813. Fearing that his prize would be recaptured by an
American ship of war if he attempted to send her into port, the English
admiral dispatched a flag of truce to Mr. Girard, and proposed to him to
ransom the vessel for one hundred and eighty thousand dollars in coin.
Girard consented, paid the money, and the ship was allowed to come up to
the city. Her cargo consisted of silks, nankeens, and teas, and afforded
her owner a profit of half a million of dollars.

Yet in the midst of all his wealth, which in 1828 was estimated at ten
millions of dollars, he was a solitary old man.

He lived in a dingy little house in Water Street. His wife had died in
an insane asylum, and he was childless. He was repulsive in person. He
was feared by his subordinates--by all who had dealings with him--and
liked by none. He was mean and close in his personal habits, living on
less, perhaps, than any of his clerks, and deriving little or no benefit
from his vast wealth, so far as his individual comfort was concerned. He
gave nothing in charity. Lazarus would have lain at his doors a
life-time without being noticed by him. He was solitary, soured, cold,
with a heart of stone, and fully conscious of his personal unpopularity.
Yet he valued wealth--valued it for the power it gave him over men.
Under that cold, hardened exterior reigned an ambition as profound as
that which moved Napoleon. He was ambitious of regulating the financial
operations of the land, and proud of his power in this respect, and it
should be remembered in his favor that he did not abuse that power after
it had passed into his hands.

He had no vices, no dissipations; his whole soul was in his business. He
was conscious that his only hope of distinction above his fellow-men was
in his wealth, and he was resolved that nothing should make him swerve
from his endeavor to accumulate a fortune which should make him all
powerful in life and remembered in death. He