MERCHANTS.




CHAPTER I.

STEPHEN GIRARD.


One May morning, in the year 1776, the mouth of the Delaware Bay was
shrouded in a dense fog, which cleared away toward noon, and revealed
several vessels just off the capes. From one of these, a sloop, floated
the flag of France and a signal of distress. An American ship ran
alongside the stranger, in answer to her signal, and found that the
French captain had lost his reckoning in a fog, and was in total
ignorance of his whereabouts. His vessel, he said, was bound from New
Orleans to a Canadian port, and he was anxious to proceed on his voyage.
The American skipper informed him of his locality, and also apprised him
of the fact that war had broken out between the colonies and Great
Britain, and that the American coast was so well lined with British
cruisers that he would never reach port but as a prize. "What shall I
do?" cried the Frenchman, in great alarm. "Enter the bay, and make a
push for Philadelphia," was the reply. "It is your only chance."

The Frenchman protested that he did not know the way, and had no pilot.
The American captain, pitying his distress, found him a pilot, and even
loaned him five dollars, which the pilot demanded in advance. The sloop
got under weigh again, and passed into the Delaware, beyond the defenses
which had been erected for its protection, just in time to avoid capture