[17] See the resolutions as proposed and as ultimately adopted, in Appendix to Gallatin’s speech on the insurrection. Writings, iii. 56.
[18] Brackenridge, Incidents, vol. i. p. 90; Findley, p. 144; Gallatin’s Deposition.
[19] Incidents, vol. i. p. 90.
[20] Incidents, vol. i. p. 91.
[21] Badollet, who was at the same time a terribly severe critic of himself and of others, had little patience with Judge Brackenridge, who was perhaps the first, and not far from being the best, of American humorists. Badollet’s own sense of humor seems not to have been acute, to judge from the following extract from one of his letters to Gallatin, dated 18th February, 1790:
“J’ai vu Brakenridge à Cat-fish où j’ai été à l’occasion d’Archey, et je puis déclarer en conscience que de mes jours je n’ai vu un si complet impertinent fat. Peut-être ne seras-tu pas fâché de lire une partie d’une conversation qu’il eut devant moi. Un inconnu (à moi du moins) voulant le faire parler, à ce que je suppose, lui adresse ainsi la parole:
“N. I think, Mr. Brakenridge, you are one of the happiest men in the world.
“B. Yes, sir; nothing disturbs me. I can declare that I never feel a single moment of discontent, but laugh at everything.
“N. I believe so, sir; but your humor....
“B. Oh, sir, truly inexhaustible; yes, truly inexhaustible,—et tout en disant ces mots avec complaisance il tirait ses manchettes et son jabot, caressait son visage de sa main, et souriait en Narcisse,—truly inexhaustible. Sir, I could set down and write a piece of humor for fifty-seven years without being the least exhausted. I have just now two compositions agoing....