The spring of 1813 was one of grave misgivings for such Americans as appreciated the possibilities of the second war with England, declared a little while before. A perusal of the speeches in the Congressional Globe would leave one with the impression that the masses of the people were fairly seething with enthusiasm and excitement. It was at that time that Elbridge Gerry, Jr., son of the distinguished statesman who had just assumed the Vice Presidency of the United States, deposited novels of Scott and Maria Edgeworth in his traveling bag, and set forth on horse-back with the gayety of youth on a journey in search of health that was to lead him over the Eastern mountains to Pittsburgh, thence through a corner of Ohio, into Virginia and on to Washington. Day by day . . .