A number of acquaintances had preceded him to America. When the emigration began people recollected the lively stories brought back by Lafayette and his companions, and many who either had wealth or wanted to make it sailed to the States. At Philadelphia, Talleyrand found a Dutchman named Casenove, whom he had known at Paris, and who now proved useful to him. There were half-a-dozen emigrants in Philadelphia, and they met at nights over gay but frugal suppers, at the house of Moreau-Saint-Méry, who had opened a book-store there. Michaud says Talleyrand opened a store for the sale of night-caps; the legend probably grew out of a curious custom of Talleyrand’s of wearing several of these at night. But Talleyrand was evidently very restless and irritated. Washington declined to grant him a formal interview, and Talleyrand refused, as he says, to go to see him by the back door. The only man whose friendship relieved the depression of that time was Colonel Alexander Hamilton, whom Talleyrand describes as the ablest statesman then living, not excepting Pitt and Fox. They had long conversations on political and economic subjects, and were happily agreed on most matters; though Hamilton was a moderate Protectionist and Talleyrand a strong Free-trader. Talleyrand sought some relief by a voyage into the interior with Beaumetz and a Dutch friend, Heydecooper. He was not insensible to the natural beauty of the forests and prairies, which he describes with unusual literary care, but he was chiefly impressed with the vast possibilities of these leagues of uncultivated territory. Within a few miles of every sea-coast town you plunged into virgin forests, and from the hill-tops you looked over illimitable oceans of wild growth. A thoughtful traveller like Talleyrand could not but speculate on the future of the country. Convinced as he was of the primary importance of agriculture, the future of America had a peculiar interest for him. But as he wandered from town to town, and saw more of the people, he felt some disappointment in them. The idealist fervour which he expected to find still glowing, within a few years of the declaration of independence, seemed to be wholly extinct. In fact, if Talleyrand had been able to anticipate that elegant phrase, he would have said “making their pile” was the chief preoccupation of the Americans of 1794. Without bitterness, but with something like sadness, he tells a number of stories about his experience. He met a fairly rich man in one town who had never been to Philadelphia. He would like to see Washington, the man assented to Talleyrand’s inquiry, but he would very much rather see Bingham, who was reported to be very wealthy. At another place he noticed that his host put his hat—a hat that a Parisian stable-boy would not wear, he says—on a beautiful table of Sèvres porcelain brought from the Trianon. When Talleyrand speaks impatiently of America as “a country without a past,” he is thinking of these incongruities;