Until about 1779 no public amusements were suffered in the city; but, after a few years later, Philadelphia would seem to have got a little gayer,[3] at least in the winter time--when the Congress and the State Assembly were sitting, and President Washington made his annual stay of some weeks. The President’s birthday became a special anniversary, when all the citizens (except Quakers) would make a point of paying him a visit. Concerts and public assemblies were held, and two or three theatres, even, were started. The great political revolution, in point of fact, produced a social one of quite as definite a character, even in prim Philadelphia. As concerning the manners of the lower classes, Weld records a sad deficiency: they would return impertinent answers to questions couched in the most civil terms, and would insult a person bearing the appearance of a gentleman, on purpose to show how highly they estimated the principles of liberty and equality. Hostlers and servants always appeared to be “doubtful whether they ought to do anything for you or not;” civility was not to be purchased with money; it seemed incompatible with freedom, and with the ideas which would convince a stranger that he was really in a land of liberty. * * * * * Now, Mr. William Cobbett, late of his Majesty’s 54th Regiment, had heard of this new country. His reading, hitherto, had been purely literary; but, plunged into the world of London--a novice in politics--he imbibes the then popular notions of republicanism, and is an enthusiastic admirer of the new ideas. The eloquent pages of Tom Paine,--unanswerable in themselves, yet, at that day, rigorously proscribed,--help to intoxicate; and, boiling with indignation (as he says) at the abuses he had witnessed, he has, indeed, become a republican. That is, a theoretical republican: for, when he soon comes to see all sides of republicanism, he reverts to his intrinsic love for the constitution under which he was born. And to this new land of liberty he will go. He landed in Philadelphia in October, 1792, and, for a short time, took up his residence at Wilmington, a little port[4] on a creek of the Delaware, about twenty-eight miles below Philadelphia. Here Cobbett found the very thing to give him a start in life; for the place was swarming with French emigrants, who wanted, above all things, to learn the English language. After a little time it appears that he found Philadelphia itself a better field for his energies; and, accordingly, having removed thither, he soon had as many pupils as he could attend to. This occupation was the occasion, also, which produced the “English Grammar for Frenchmen:”--