The company responded with a shout, tossed off the toast, and sat down at the long table.  Chance placed me between a young dandy from Lexington—­one of several the General had brought in his train—­and Mr. Wharton, a prominent planter of the neighborhood with whom I had a speaking acquaintance.  This was a backwoods feast, though served in something better than the old backwoods style, and we had venison and bear’s meat and prairie fowl as well as pork and beef, and breads that came stinging hot from the Dutch ovens.  Toasts to this and that were flung back and forth, and jests and gibes, and the butt of many of these was that poor Federal government which (as one gentleman avowed) was like a bantam hen trying to cover a nestful of turkey’s eggs, and clucking with importance all the time.  This picture brought on gusts of laughter.

“And what say you of the Jay?” cried one; “what will he hatch?”

Hisses greeted the name, for Mr. Jay wished to enter into a treaty with Spain, agreeing to close the river for five and twenty years.  Colonel Clark stood up, and rapped on the table.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “Louisville has as her guest of honor to-night a man of whom Kentucky may well be proud [loud cheering].  Five years ago he favored Lexington by making it his home, and he came to us with the laurel of former achievements still clinging to his brow.  He fought and suffered for his country, and attained the honorable rank of Major in the Continental line.  He was chosen by the people of Pennsylvania to represent them in the august body of their legislature, and now he has got new honor in a new field [renewed cheering].  He has come to Kentucky to show her the way to prosperity and glory.  Kentucky had a grievance [loud cries of “Yes, yes!"].  Her hogs and cattle had no market, her tobacco and agricultural products of all kinds were rotting because the Spaniards had closed the Mississippi to our traffic.  Could the Federal government open the river? [shouts of “No, no!” and hisses].  Who opened it? [cries of “Wilkinson, Wilkinson!"].  He said to the Kentucky planters, ‘Give your tobacco to me, and I will sell it.’  He put it in barges, he floated down the river, and, as became a man of such distinction, he was met by Governor-general Miro on the levee at New Orleans.  Where is that tobacco now, gentlemen?” Colonel Clark was here interrupted by such roars and stamping that he paused a moment, and during this interval Mr. Wharton leaned over and whispered quietly in my ear:—­

“Ay, where is it?”

I stared at Mr. Wharton blankly.  He was a man nearing the middle age, with a lacing of red in his cheeks, a pleasant gray eye, and a singularly quiet manner.

“Thanks to the genius of General Wilkinson,” Colonel Clark continued, waving his hand towards the smilingly placid hero, “that tobacco has been deposited in the King’s store at ten dollars per hundred,—­a privilege heretofore confined to Spanish subjects.  Well might Wilkinson return from New Orleans in a chariot and four to a grateful Kentucky!  This year we have tripled, nay, quadrupled, our crop of tobacco, and we are here to-night to give thanks to the author of this prosperity.”  Alas, Colonel Clark’s hand was not as steady as of yore, and he spilled the liquor on the table as he raised his glass.  “Gentlemen, a health to our benefactor.”