which he was refusing to pay, and which made it my duty to levy upon several articles of his property, which brought him into such a bad humor that he went round and tore down the advertisements which I had posted up. This of course vexed me not a little; but he was my old magistrate, and I concluded not to resent the offence, but that I would go round and post up new notices; and while I was in the act of tacking one to a tree he saw me, and as soon as I left the spot he walked up and tore it down. I tacked on another in its place, and said, "Pinckston, there is a notice of the same purport as that which you have just mutilated." Rejoined he, “It shall not stick there," and forthwith pulled it down. I grasped a stick of wood, and aimed a violent blow at his head; but so much manual dexterity was required to wield so large a weapon, he was enabled to dodge. I then jerked the paper out of his hand, and he ran off, crying revenge, and swearing that I should suffer for my conduct; and it was but a little while before it came to pass that I was arraigned at the bar in Carthage, charged with having kicked the magistrate, bruised him severely with stones and clubs

of unlawful dimensions. I inquired of the court if I could be permitted to tell the truth, and, upon receiving a negative answer, I asked him if he did not pull down my advertisements? but to this question I received no answer; he, as I supposed, not being compelled to criminate himself in an indictable offence. The judge fined me five dollars, and Pinckston started out, but I followed him, and thinking that I could not be tried twice for the same offence, I would now do the kicking, which he had prematurely placed in his bill of charges; and when we reached the door, I said, "Pinckston, I had to pay five dollars for kicking you when I did not do it, and now I will give you another five to let me kick you once round this court-house." He consented, and though he was nearly twice my size and strength, I began to count out the money, with the full intention to set my foot in motion as soon as he had received it; but the citizens interfered, and prevented the kicking circumambulation about the place of law and equity.

This lawsuit, like many others, sowed the seeds of a new one. The same magistrate held in his possession a note, signed by me, for one

hundred and forty dollars, which I knew to be unjust, and which I am sure would never have made its appearance against me in the absence of the above difficulty. I agreed, however, to leave it to arbitration, and it was decided in my favor; but when the decision was made known to Pinckston, he snatched it from the hand of one of the arbitrators, and went immediately and sold it to a gentleman in Gallatin, and in consequence the note was presented to me again in a few days for payment. I informed the new holder that I had signed it, but did not intend to pay it. He of course required an explanation, which I unhesitatingly gave in detail, and which in this place I can condense into a few words, to wit: When John Douglass, who was sheriff, went out of office, he handed over to me arrearages to the amount of one hundred and forty dollars, and I having just then been elected constable, and consequently without experience, gave him my note for the amount of the old claims, instead of a simple receipt. I had tried to collect the claims, but found receipts against nearly every one of them. Upon hearing this my Gallatin friend took the bond back to Pinckston, and made

him refund the purchase-money; and I was again carried to the Carthage court. The case was tried, and the jury, to the twelfth man, decided that I should not pay the note.

CHAPTER XIII.

ALTHOUGH it was not my fortune to be an immediate participant in the national scenes and commotions of 1812 and '13, I yet remember well that I had a heart full of hope for the good of the republic, and was at all times ready, if an opportunity presented, to fall into line at the first roll of my country's drum. The glories of those times even now flame up in my mind as if they had transpired but yesterday. It was in those times that the eighteenth pillar of the republican Union, Louisiana, was admitted, and into her hands placed the "keys of entrance, through the mouth of a mighty river, to the richest, if not the most extensive, valley in the world."

Those were the times in which came forth, like the blast of a trumpet, the proclamation of a war, the tide of which swept over a great portion