

MURAT OK AMERICA. 



builder began to thrive ; he .bought a piece of land,, built mills and ma- 

 nufactories upon it, and so became a miller and manufacturer. With 

 his first cargo he went to New Orleans, and was there induced to enter 

 on other speculations. He purchased a steam-boat for the convenience 

 of his trade, and ultimately established himself in that city as a 

 merchant. A great speculation soon presented itself, on which he 

 readily entered, and in consequence of an error in his calculations, he 

 lost all that he possessed. There was nothing to prevent him, however, 

 from beginning the world again. Being known as a man of enterprise 

 he soon found an individual or a company who confided to him first the 

 direction of a wood-yard, then the management of a plantation, after- 

 wards the erection of a house, and finally the command of a steam- 

 vessel. In the course of these changes he \vas not idle. The savings of 

 his salary he applied to the purposes of speculation, and at the end of a 

 couple of years was able to start once more from a higher point than 

 that at which he had first set out on leaving his native town. He set up 

 an inn, and undertook, in addition/ to contract for the execution of 

 works of all sorts. He made himself, exceedingly popular, was elected 

 first an officer of militia, and in succession a justice of the peace, a 

 member of the state legislature, and finally a member of Congress. 

 Finding himself admired as a public speaker, he resolved to cultivate 

 his newly discovered talent. During the interval of two sessions he 

 applied himself to the study of the law, and before the next meeting of 

 Congress was regularly called to the bar. In the meantime, while 

 thus applying himself to the business of the state, his own affairs were 

 neglected. He was once more reduced to poverty, and had the morti- 

 fication to find that he was not re-elected to his seat in the legislature. 

 He applied himself, however, with zeal to the practice of his new 

 profession, and with corresponding success ; he became a director of the 

 Bank of the United States, the governor of his native state, and ended 

 his career as a judge in one of the supreme courts at Washington. 



In spite of his own failure, M. Murat speaks of the period he passed 

 at the American bar as one of the most agreeable of his life. He ex- 

 pected, he says, to find it extremely irksome, because it was so com- 

 pletely opposed to all his previous habits, tastes, and ideas ; but, on the 

 contrary, he says that he could pass his life there with pleasure " even 

 if forced to be silent." In America he tells us that the lawyers are the 

 only statesmen, the true aristocracy of the country, and that, in general, 

 the members of the same bar, however warmly they may dispute in 

 court, live together in the greatest harmony. Of the assizes he speaks 

 as of a sort of festival, at which the principal inhabitants of the assize 

 town are the entertainers, and the court, its officers, and its bar are the 

 guests. In his later letters from London and Brussels, he compares the 

 style of oratory in the United States with that of England, arid does not 

 hesitate to give his preference to the former. " I have had oppor- 

 tunities/' he says, <e of hearing the principal speakers in Great Britain, 

 but I am bound in conscience to say that there is no man in the English 

 Parliament who speaks like Clay, Webster, Wirt, Berrien, Hopkinson, 

 or Haine. Had they subjects half as interesting to discuss, with what 

 lustre would they not surround them ! But the time is coming when 

 the American Congress, like the British Parliament, and the forum of 

 ancient Rome, will become the arbiter gentium." 



The personal history and adventures of the author are not often 



