by a British war vessel which now made its appearance at the mouth of
the bay. Philadelphia was reached in due time, and, as the war bade fair
to put an end to his voyages, the captain sold the sloop and her cargo,
of which he was part owner, and, entering a small store in Water Street,
began the business of a grocer and wine-bottler. His capital was small,
his business trifling in extent, and he himself labored under the
disadvantage of being almost unable to speak the English language. In
person he was short and stout, with a dull, repulsive countenance, which
his bushy eyebrows and solitary eye (being blind in the other) made
almost hideous. He was cold and reserved in manner, and was disliked by
his neighbors, the most of whom were afraid of him.

This man was Stephen Girard, who was afterward destined to play so
important a part in the history of the city to which the mere chances of
war sent him a stranger.

He was born at Bordeaux, in France, on the 21st of May, 1750, and was
the eldest of the five children of Captain Pierre Girard, a mariner of
that city. His life at home was a hard one. At the age of eight years,
he discovered that he was blind in one eye, and the mortification and
grief which this discovery caused him appear to have soured his entire
life. He afterward declared that his father treated him with
considerable neglect, and that, while his younger brothers were sent to
college, he was made to content himself with the barest rudiments of an
education, with merely a knowledge of reading and writing. When he was
quite young, his mother died, and, as his father soon married again,
the severity of a step-mother was added to his other troubles. When
about thirteen years of age, he left home, with his father's consent,
and began, as a cabin-boy, the life of a mariner. For nine years he
sailed between Bordeaux and the French West Indies, rising steadily from