The event of autumn was the horse races, which lasted three days. They were held in the northeasterly extremity of the town between Liberty Street and the Allegheny River,[105] and were conducted under the auspices of the Jockey Club which had been in existence for many years. Sportsmen came from all the surrounding country. The races were under the saddle, sulkies not having been invented. Racing proprieties were observed, and jockeys were required to be dressed in jockey habits.[106] Purses were given. The horses compared favorably with race horses of a much later day. A prominent horse was “Young Messenger” who was sired by “Messenger,” the most famous trotting horse in America, which had been imported into Philadelphia from England in 1788, and was the progenitor of Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, Abdallah, Goldsmith Maid, and a score of other noted race horses. A third of a century after the race course had been removed beyond the limits of the municipality, Judge Henry M. Brackenridge published his recollections of the entrancing sport. “It was then an affair of all-engrossing interest, and every business or pursuit was neglected.... The whole town was daily poured forth to witness the Olympian games.... The plain within the course and near it was filled with booths as at a fair, where everything was said, and done, and sold, and eaten or drunk, where every fifteen or twenty minutes there was a rush to some part, to witness a fisticuff--where dogs barked and bit, and horses trod on men’s toes, and booths fell down on people’s heads!”[107] The social instincts of the people found expression in another direction. The Revolutionary War, the troubles with the Indians, the more or less strained relations existing between France and England, had combined to inbreed a military spirit. Pennsylvania, with a population, in 1800, of 602,365, had enrolled in the militia 88,707 of its citizens. The militia was divided into light infantry, riflemen, grenadiers, cavalry, and artillery.[108] Allegheny County had a brigade of militia, consisting of eight regiments.[109] The commander was General Alexander Fowler, an old Englishman who had served in America, in the 18th, or Royal Irish, Regiment of Foot. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, he had resigned his commission on account of his sympathy with the Americans. Being unfit for active service, Congress appointed him Auditor of the Western Department at Pittsburgh.