Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/206

182 the purchase, in a new and hospitable land, of another estate of dimensions proportionate to the means of each new-comer. The price was reasonable enough,—only six francs an acre,—but the agent did not say that it had cost the Company he represented only fifteen cents an acre.

I knew a milliner who had made some money, and who purchased an estate at Asylum, the fictitious capital of this imaginary colony. The poor dupe went to inspect the estate which she had bought the right to build on, cultivate, and live upon—and then she came back to Philadelphia to gain her living with her ten fingers as she had previously done.

One of these agents, who had not much more sense than the devil of Papefigue, was ill-advised enough to apply to me, having heard, perhaps, some vague rumours about my being a French emigre and possessing some money. He did not trouble to enquire where that money came from, and how I had gained it, but started at once with a long discourse on the principles of humanity which animated this phi-