Tone lost no time in approaching the French Minister, Adet, in Philadelphia. Bearing a letter of introduction from Rowan, he waited the very day after his arrival on Adet, and signified in as clear a way as was possible under the circumstances (“_he_ spoke English very imperfectly, and I French a great deal worse”) the desires of himself and his friends in Ireland for French aid to shake off the English yoke. Adet requested him to draw up a memorial, and promised to transmit this to his Government. He also promised to use his influence to procure the enlargement of Matthew Tone, who was a prisoner at Guise. But this was as far as he would go. Poor Tone, much disheartened by the Minister’s attitude, found little ground for hope that the French Government would pay any attention to his memorial. It seemed to him that the only result of his exertions was the satisfaction of having discharged his conscience to his country. But as for anything being likely to come of them, he could see no prospects at all. This being so, he bent his mind to making some provision for his family. Living in Philadelphia being enormously dear, he moved his family to Donningstown, near General Humpton’s place, and leaving them there under the General’s kind supervision, he roamed the country in search of a suitable farm. After some disappointments he found one about two miles from Princeton. He took a small house in that town, furnished it frugally and decently, moved his family into it, and having fitted up his study, determined to settle down, as contentedly as he could, to the life of an American farmer. Then suddenly all was changed. One day Matilda came into the little study, where her husband dreamed his time away, waiting for the legal formalities attending the purchase of his plantation to be completed, and in her hand was a bundle of letters from Ireland. John Keogh had written; Tom Russell had written; the two Simmses had written—and each of them in the same strain, telling Tone that the public mind in Ireland was advancing towards republicanism faster than even he could believe, and pressing him in the strongest manner to fulfil the engagement he had made with them at his departure, and to move heaven and earth to force his way to the French Government in order to supplicate their assistance. Wm. Simms, at the end of a most friendly and affectionate letter, desired Tone to draw upon him for £200 sterling.