A man who can do such things at such a time may commit errors and cherish erroneous opinions, but the essence of that which makes the difference between a good man and a bad man must dwell within him. Twice afterwards Philadelphia was visited by yellow-fever, in 1797 and 1798. On both occasions, Girard took the lead, by personal exertion or gifts of money, in relieving the poor and the sick. He had a singular taste for nursing the sick, though a sturdy unbeliever in medicine. According to him, nature, not doctors, is the restorer,--nature, aided by good nursing. Thus, after the yellow-fever of 1798, he wrote to a friend in France: "During all this frightful time, I have constantly remained in the city; and, without neglecting my public duties, I have played a part which will make you smile. Would you believe it, my friend, that I have visited as many as fifteen sick people in a day? and what will surprise you still more, I have lost only one patient, an Irishman, who would drink a little. I do not flatter myself that I have cured one single person; but you will think with me, that in my quality of Philadelphia physician I have been very moderate, and that not one of my _confrères_ has killed fewer than myself." It is not by nursing the sick, however, that men acquire colossal fortunes. We revert, therefore, to the business career of this extraordinary man. Girard, in the ancient and honorable acceptation of the term, was a merchant; i.e. a man who sent his own ships to foreign countries, and exchanged their products for those of his own. Beginning in the West India trade, with one small schooner built with difficulty and managed with caution, he expanded his business as his capital increased, until he was the owner of a fleet of merchantmen, and brought home to Philadelphia the products of every clime. Beginning with single voyages, his vessels merely sailing to a foreign port and back again, he was accustomed at length to project great mercantile cruises, extending over long periods of time, and embracing many ports. A ship loaded with cotton and grain would sail, for example, to Bordeaux, there discharge, and take in a cargo of wine and fruit; thence to St. Petersburg, where she would exchange her wine and fruit for hemp and iron; then to Amsterdam, where the hemp and iron would be sold for dollars; to Calcutta next for a cargo of tea and silks, with which the ship would return to Philadelphia. Such were the voyages so often successfully made by the Voltaire, the Rousseau, the Helvetius, and the Montesquieu; ships long the pride of Girard and the boast of Philadelphia, their names being the tribute paid by the merchant to the literature of his native land. He seldom failed to make very large profits. He rarely, if ever, lost a ship.