"Indian idolaters imploring Christian baptism."

By these and other arts John Law wrought upon the ignorance and cupidity of the French people. Other companies were started,all upon the principle of taking a large part of the price of the shares in the depreciated paper of the government. That paper, as the mania increased, rose in value until it went far above par, and gold was actually at a discount! From the princes of the blood royal to the washerwomen on the quays, the entire people seemed to abandon themselves to speculating in shares and bonds. Readers remember the stock-jobbing and gold speculations in New York during the last two years of the war. Such scenes, and some far more exciting, occurred in Paris while John Law was managing the finances of France. In the Wall Street of the city, a short, narrow lane, the crowd was so dense that it was difficult to move about. Dukes and footmen, capitalists and shop-boys, ladies of the court and servantmaids, jostled one another in their eagerness to buy the favorite share of the moment. The provinces poured into Paris tens of thousands of people eager to join in the maddening game, and the mania spread at last to all the countries of Europe. Kings and princes of distant lands bought shares in Law's delusive schemes, and in London the mania raged almost as violently as at Paris. Money was borrowed in Paris at the rate of a quarter per cent. per quarter of an hour, the lender keeping his eyes upon his watch. Desk-room was let in the vicinity of the sharemarket for fifty francs a day. Shares, bonds, and coin changed in value fifty times in a morning. So popular was the magician who had conjured up this state of things, that large sums were given for places where he could be seen in passing, and it was a distinction to be able to say, "I have seen John Law." A poor old cobbler, who had a little shop in the street thus suddenly invested with so much importance, cleared two hundred francs a day by letting chairs and desks, and selling pens and paper. Men made fortunes in a few days. People who were lackeys one week kept lackeys the next. Law's own coachman came to him one day and addressed him thus:

"I am going to leave you, sir. Here are two young men,

both of whom, I answer for it, are excellent coachmen. your choice, and I will keep the other myself."

Take

This madness raged in Europe eight months, during which people thought the age of gold had come; for, while hundreds of thousands appeared to gain, very few seemed to lose. The constant rise in price of shares and royal paper appeared to enrich everybody, and ruin nobody.

The reaction, I need not say, was terrific. When first the suspicion arose that all thesc fine fortunes were founded upon paper of fictitious value, it spread with alarming rapidity. By various adroit manœuvres Law checked the progress of distrust, but he could only check it. The rush to "realize" grew in volume and intensity from day to day, until it became a universal panic. Paper in all its varieties fell almost to nothing, and no man reckoned anything of value except gold, silver, and real estate. Probably one hundred thousand persons in Europe were totally ruined, and a million more suffered losses. The French laugh at everything. Some wag at this time posted up the following:

"Monday, I bought some shares,
Tuesday, I gained my millions,

Wednesday, I re-furnished my house,

Thursday, I set up a carriage,

Friday, I went to a ball,

And Saturday to the poor-house."

John Law himself was ruined. Of all the large fortune which he had brought into France, he saved but a few thousand francs. The public indignation drove him from the post of minister, and compelled him to leave the country. He again wandered from capital to capital, supporting himself by gambling, and died at Venice in 1729, aged fifty-eight years.

GENERAL HENRY KNOX.

manners.

A CONSPICUOUS and important character, in his day, was Henry Knox, the first secretary of war of the United States under the present constitution. Born in Boston, in 1750, of Scotch-Irish parents, we catch our first glimpse of him as a boy attending the Boston Common Schools and attracting the notice of the townsmen by his handsome countenance and agreeable John Adams speaks of him, in his Autobiography, as a youth whose pleasing demeanor and intelligent mind had won his regard several years before the revolutionary war. In those days the boys who resided at the North-End of Boston were in perpetual feud with those who lived at the SouthEnd, and many a contest occurred between them on Saturday afternoons. Young Knox was of a frame so robust and powerful, and of a spirit so undaunted and adventurous, that he became a kind of boy-generalissimo of the South-End.

As a young man, too, he was still distinguished for his physical beauty and strength. It is related of him, by an early writer, that, on one occasion, in Boston, when a heavy vehicle employed in a procession broke down, young Knox placed his shoulder under the axle and carried it for some distance through the crowd. At the usual age he was apprenticed to a bookseller, and in due time had a bookstore of his own in Boston, which grew to be one of the most extensive in the province. The winning manners of the young bookseller attracted to his shop both the professors of the neighboring university and the young ladies of the city, who have always been noted for their love of reading.

From the first hour of the differences between Massachusetts and the mother country, he took the side of his native land, and

was one of the earliest promoters and members of the Boston military companies, which, during the revolutionary war, furnished so many valuable officers to the patriot army. He belonged to an artillery company, as well as to a battalion of Grenadiers, which was greatly renowned at the time for the excellence of its discipline. To the Boston of that day it was what the Seventh Regiment now is to New York. Having access to books, the young man made a considerable collection of military works, which he not only read himself, but distributed among his fellow-soldiers. No young man of his day, perhaps, contributed more to the cultivation of a military spirit and to the accumulation of military knowledge, among the young men of Boston, than Henry Knox. Far, however, was he from supposing, when he first went out to drill upon Boston Common, that the first use he would make of his military science would be to contend in arms against the troops of his king.

Among the young ladies who came to his store to buy books was the beautiful daughter of a high official under the royal government. She was pleased with the handsome young bookseller, who, in his turn, was completely captivated by her. The parents of the young lady, being in full sympathy with the Tory administration, placed such obstacles in the way of the union of these young people, that their marriage was at last effected by an expedient that differed little from a downright elopement. Her friends, it is said, regarded her as a disgraced woman, since she had allied herself with a man who adhered to a cause which, they thought, implied social as well as moral degradation. Mrs. Knox may sometimes have smiled at the recollection of this when, as the wife of a cabinet minister and distinguished general, she was a centre of attraction in the most refined and elegant circle at the seat of government.

The war began. A continental army gathered around Boston, and the first conflict between it and the British troops had occurred. On a fine morning in June, 1775, a few days before the battle of Bunker Hill, Henry Knox, being then twenty-five years of age, shut his shop for the last time, and prepared to join the forces under General Washington. The

British commander had issued an order that no one should take arms out of the city. Being resolved, however, to take his sword with him, his wife concealed it in her garments, and the two walked together out of the city, and succeeded in escaping the observation of the British outposts. Before another week had elapsed, Mrs. Knox was safe in the country, and her husband was assisting to defend Bunker Hill, as a volunteer aidede-camp to the general in command. His services just then were of the greatest value, since he was one of the very few men in camp who had informed themselves respecting the mode of constructing field-works. He also understood the handling of artillery. Washington's attention was soon drawn to him, aud he was immediately employed in the construction of the system. of works by which Boston was gradually enclosed, and its garrison at length compelled to put to sea. We find him, next, elected to the command of a company of artillery, not only by the unanimous vote of the men, but with the cordial consent of its former captain, who felt himself too old for active service. Being thus in command of an artillery company, his first care was to get artillery for it, a task of considerable difficulty in a country destitute of the means of making cannon. The first exploit, which drew upon him the attention and the applause of the whole army, was his getting a supply of cannon from Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. In the dead of winter he travelled through the wilderness to this celebrated fort, and there prepared a long train of sleds and gathered a drove of He returned to camp in 1776, with fifty pieces of ordnance on sleds, all drawn by oxen, and thus furnished the means of arming the field-works which he had assisted to construct. Great was the joy of the army upon the arrival of this train, and Captain Knox was the lion of the hour. John Adams mentions, in his diary, being taken to see the pieces, and he evidently felt all the value of the acquisition, as well as the gallantry of his young friend to whom it was due.

oxen.

When the British troops had abandoned Boston, and New York became the scene of warfare, Captain Knox performed similar services in defending the new position. During the operations on Long Island and the subsequent retreat from New