1863.] 261 [Sharswood. 



King, the minister. With him he travelled through Holland, Bel- 

 gium, Switzerland, Germany, and France. Many years afterwards, 

 in 1839, he wrote and published in a periodical an article headed 

 " Europe Long Ago," a vivid though brief sketch of some of his 

 recollections of England and France. In it are to be found 

 crayon-like portraits of Fox, Erskine, and Napoleon, drawn from life 

 by a keen observer, though with here and there a dash of caricature, 

 interspersed amidst lively descriptions, in his own terse language, of 

 " remarkable Holland, classic Flanders, romantic Switzerland, and 

 transcendental Germany, left to a long repose in my old portfolio." 



When he returned from Europe, he brought with him, as he after- 

 wards stated on the floor of Congress in 1844, intelligence of the 

 conclusion of the treaty by which the First Consul of France ceded 

 to the United States, the extensive territory of Louisiana, — an event 

 for good and for evil, reaching far and wide into future history. He 

 saw in it then none but unmixed good ; for he was one of those men 

 of ardent patriotism and expanded views, who placed no limits to 

 republican institutions under a Federal system, but the bounds of the 

 continent itself. 



He entered upon the practice of his profession, and soon established 

 a character at the bar which insured him large business, and what 

 he prized more, extended reputation. His first case in the Supreme 

 Court of the United States, was in 1810, King vs. Delaware In- 

 surance Company, 6 Cranch, 71, — an important insurance cause; 

 and thence down to the period of his retiring from the bar, scarcely 

 a volume of the reports of the decisions of the highest Federal tri- 

 bunal is without contributions from his learning and ability. Sub- 

 jects of mercantile and prize law largely engaged his attention, and the 

 case of Evans vs. Eaton, o Wheaton, 404, upon a very difficult and 

 nice question, arising under the patent laws of Congress, would, if it 

 stood alone, be a lasting monument to his learning, ingenuity and 

 legal acumen. The reports of the Federal Courts of this Circuit, 

 as well of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, are replete with 

 evidences of an extensive and important practice, sustained on his 

 part by unwearied industry and patient research. It may be stated 

 as a matter of curiosity, that the first case argued by him as counsel, 

 which appears in the Reports of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 

 is Fox vs. Wilcocks, 1 Binn. 194, decided in 1806. Occasionally, 

 too, his services were called for in the highest tribunals of our sister 

 and neighbor States. But it was in the Federal Courts of this Cir- 

 cuit, under the presidency of those distinguished jurists Bushrod 



