Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/103

 tête-à-tête, about the time of opening court next day. His lordship then left the bench, and stepping into his sulky, with a negro-boy behind him, drove off. No ceremony, no trumpets told the multitude that he was a judge, and that it was judgment day.

11th.—Thomas Ferreand, Esq., a Frenchman, and an eminent merchant of this city, shot himself on the eve of this day; pecuniary embarrassment was the cause. He had endorsed bills to a large {81} amount, for the accommodation of a friend in the city, who had just failed and deceived him. Ferreand sent a challenge in consequence, but was advised to wait three days for an answer. Before the end of April he shot himself in the following manner. Accompanied by his servant, a male negro, he went down to the battery hanging over the sea, at ten o'clock at night, taking a pair of loaded pistols with him. On his arrival, he took off his coat, and gave the negro two letters just written, one for his chief clerk, and the other for his lady. The negro, now suspecting evil, began to give an alarm; when Ferreand, to hush him, pointed one pistol at him, and discharging the other into his own mouth, fell instantly dead over the battery into the sea.

12th.—I spent this day in the Court of Common Pleas, witnessing the eloquence of the American bar. The cause a negro wench, to whom two citizens laid claim. Twelve witnesses on both sides swore to her identity. This trial, being the sixth on the same case, lasted four whole days. Colonel Haines, the young Attorney-General, displayed a pleasant species of eloquence, quite conversational.[13] Mr.*