inclined to adopt his father's project, and was impatient to return with
his inheritance to France. Before this could be done, the conduct of his
father had rendered a voyage to the Continent indispensable.

"Lodi had a daughter, whom, a few weeks previous to his death, he had
intrusted to an American captain for whom he had contracted a
friendship. The vessel was bound to Philadelphia; but the conduct she
was to pursue, and the abode she was to select, on her arrival, were
known only to the father, whose untimely death involved the son in
considerable uncertainty with regard to his sister's fate. His anxiety
on this account induced him to seize the first conveyance that offered.
In a short time he landed at Baltimore.

"As soon as he recovered from the fatigues of his voyage, he prepared to
go to Philadelphia. Thither his baggage was immediately sent under the
protection of a passenger and countryman. His money consisted in
Portuguese gold, which, in pursuance of advice, he had changed into
bank-notes. He besought me, in pathetic terms, to search out his sister,
whose youth and poverty, and ignorance of the language and manners of
the country, might expose her to innumerable hardships. At the same
time, he put a pocket-book and small volume into my hand, indicating, by
his countenance and gestures, his desire that I would deliver them to
his sister.

"His obsequies being decently performed, I had leisure to reflect upon
the change in my condition which this incident had produced. In the
pocket-book were found bills to the amount of twenty thousand dollars.
The volume proved to be a manuscript, written by the elder Lodi in
Italian, and contained memoirs of the ducal house of Visconti, from whom
the writer believed himself to have lineally descended.