Stuart returned to America from Scotland at a period of intense excitement. The Boston Port bill had just been received, assuring what the Stamp Act had initiated, and the tories and the patriots were being marshalled according to their particular bias. It was not a time for the peaceful arts. It was the time for action and for town meetings. Before the echoes of Lexington and Concord had died away, “Gilbert Stewart the snuff-grinder” hied himself away to Nova Scotia, leaving his wife and family behind. At this epoch Gilbert Stuart, the future painter, was in his twentieth year, and apparently had inherited from his father sentiments of loyalty to the Crown, so that instead of going forth to battle for his native land, as many no older than he did, he embarked for England, the day before the action at Bunker Hill, with the ostensible object of seeking the Mecca of all of our early artists, the studio of Benjamin West. Once in London, Stuart’s object to seek instruction in painting from West, seems to have weakened, and he remained in the great metropolis nearly two years before he knocked at the Newman-street door of the kindly Pennsylvanian. These months were occupied chiefly with a sister art in which Stuart was most proficient. He loved music more than he loved painting--a taste that never forsook him. He played upon several instruments, but his favorites were the organ and the flute; indeed the story has come down that his last night in Newport, before sailing, was spent in playing the flute under the window of one of its fair denizens. This knowledge of music stood Stuart in good stead when an unknown youth in an unknown land. A few days after his arrival in London, hungry and penniless, he passed the open door of a church, through which there came to his ear the strains of a feebly played organ. He ventured in and found the vestry sitting in judgment upon several applicants for the position of organist. Receiving permission to enter the competition, he was selected for the position at a salary of thirty pounds, after having satisfied the officials of his character, by reference to Mr. William Grant, whose whole-length portrait Stuart afterward painted.