“When I arrived at Raleigh the weather was cold and rainy, and we were all dull and tired.  Upon going into the tavern, where I was an entire stranger, the room was crowded, and the crowd did not give way that I might come to the fire.  I was rooting my way to the fire, not in a good humor, when some fellow staggered up towards me, and cried out, ‘Hurrah for Adams.’

“Said I, ’Stranger, you had better hurrah for hell, and praise your own country.’

“’And who are you? said he.  I replied: 

“’I am that same David Crockett, fresh from the backwoods, half horse, half alligator, a little touched with the snapping-turtle.  I can wade the Mississippi, leap the Ohio, ride upon a streak of lightning, and slip without a scratch down a honey-locust.  I can whip my weight in wildcats, and, if any gentleman pleases, for a ten-dollar bill he can throw in a panther.  I can hug a bear too close for comfort, and eat any man opposed to General Jackson.’”

All eyes were immediately turned toward this strange man, for all had heard of him.  A place was promptly made for him at the fire.  He was afterward asked if this wondrous outburst of slang was entirely unpremeditated.  He said that it was; that it had all popped into his head at once; and that he should never have thought of it again, had not the story gone the round of the newspapers.

“I came on to Washington,” he says, “and drawed two hundred and fifty dollars, and purchased with it a check on the bank in Nashville, and enclosed it to my friend.  And I may say, in truth, I sent this money with a mighty good will, for I reckon nobody in this world loves a friend better than me, or remembers a kindness longer.”

Soon after his arrival at Washington he was invited to dine with President Adams, a man of the highest culture, whose manners had been formed in the courts of Europe.  Crockett, totally unacquainted with the usages of society, did not know what the note of invitation meant, and inquired of a friend, the Hon. Mr. Verplanck.  He says: 

“I was wild from the backwoods, and didn’t know nothing about eating dinner with the big folks of our country.  And how should I, having been a hunter all my life?  I had eat most of my dinners on a log in the woods, and sometimes no dinner at all.  I knew, whether I ate dinner with the President or not was a matter of no importance, for my constituents were not to be benefited by it.  I did not go to court the President, for I was opposed to him in principle, and had no favors to ask at his hands.  I was afraid, however, I should be awkward, as I was so entirely a stranger to fashion; and in going along, I resolved to observe the conduct of my friend Mr. Verplanck, and to do as he did.  And I know that I did behave myself right well.”

Some cruel wag wrote the following ludicrous account of this dinner-party, which went the round of all the papers as veritable history.  The writer pretended to quote Crockett’s own account of the dinner.