opportune for the community, for with influence and fortune he contributed largely to the erection of the chapel which first occupied the site on which now stands St. Joseph's Church. Dying in Philadelphia, in 1754, when just returned from a voyage to the West Indies, his wife having previously died, his will bequeathed his property to his three children, Garrett, George, and Catharine, and named his brother-inlaw, George Stritch, of Barbados, executor.

The bequests of the will, which are our only guide toward determining what other, besides business, relations he had with the West Indies, prove not only that he had property in Barbados, but imply that his brother-in-law, Stritch, lived there, and, moreover, that his own children were there at the time of his decease. Only a few years afterwards the children were certainly settled in Philadelphia, the two sons as merchants, under the firm-name of "Garrett and George Meade." The records show that they occupied a prominent position in the mercantile world of Philadelphia, and, being among the signers of the Non-Importation Resolutions of 1765, that they were public-spirited citizens. Catharine, the daughter of Robert Meade, married, in 1761, a talented young man named Thomas Fitzsimons, who achieved distinction in state and national affairs. George, in 1768, married Henrietta Constantia Worsam, who was a daughter of the Hon. Richard Worsam, of his Britannic Majesty's Council, in the island of Barbados, who died, in 1766, while on a visit to Philadelphia. Thomas Fitzsimons entered into partnership with George Meade (Garrett Meade having probably died), under the firm-style of "George Meade and Co."

George Meade spent all his life in Philadelphia, taking an active part in municipal affairs. An ardent patriot, his sympathies were with the struggling Colonies, and we find his firm, in 1780, subscribing the enormous sum, for that time,

of two thousand pounds sterling towards supplies for the suffering army of Washington. He assisted towards the building of St. Mary's Catholic Church, of which he was trustee and member, his wife being equally attached to the church known in those days solely as the Church of England. Both he and his partner were among the chartermembers of the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, on whose rolls appear the names of Washington and those of numbers of other distinguished men of the time.

George Meade had five sons and five daughters. Two of the five daughters married brothers, Thomas and John Ketland. The third daughter married William Hustler, whose descendants still live at Acklam Hall, Middleboro' on Tees, Yorkshire, England. With the exception of Richard Worsam Meade, the remaining children, seven in number, died unmarried.

Richard Worsam Meade, after having passed through a thorough preliminary training, was taken into his father's counting-house, in the course of which engagement he was sent by his father on voyages to the West Indies; and in 1795, when he was a youth of only seventeen years of age, he was despatched as supercargo on one of his father's vessels sailing for Europe, extending his tour through England and France, and returning to America in 1796. At the age of twenty-two, after having spent three years on his own account in business in the West Indies, he had achieved a competence and returned to the United States. There he married, in 1780, Margaret Coates Butler, daughter of Anthony Butler, of Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

He resumed business in Philadelphia, and additionally endeavored to extricate his father from business embarrassments into which he had fallen through having entered with other capitalists of Philadelphia into extensive purchases of lands in various parts of the country, with the

expectation that they would be rapidly taken up by settlers. His father, broken in health, and suffering with increasing infirmity from age, finally yielded up to the struggle, and, with the fullest confidence of his creditors, the son took charge of the affairs as assignee. It was, however, in connection with his own business affairs, that soon thereafter he took his course towards Spain. Finding, incidentally to his visit to that country, what he regarded as an excellent opportunity, he established a business house in Cadiz, and, in 1804, his wife and the two children who had been born to them by that time joined him there.

His father, George Meade, died in 1808. The widow, with her only surviving daughter, visited England only a few years after his death. She had not been without her trials in life. Her father, being an Englishman of station, had long delayed her marriage with George Meade, well known for his patriotic devotion to the Colonies, and now, after the loss of many of her children, and finally of her husband, she found herself bereft of most of what life had held dear to her, on the shores of her native, now almost a foreign land to her. After being subjected to various delays in returning to America, she died near Edgebarton, Berkshire, England, at the age of nearly eighty years. Her son, Richard Worsam Meade, continued to live in Spain for seventeen years. In 1806 he was appointed Naval Agent for the United States for the port of Cadiz. He was enabled, through his large mercantile connections, to enter into numerous contracts for supplies to the Government of Spain during the stormy period of the Peninsular War, and thus to contribute to the success of the Spanish cause. Impoverished as Spain became on account of the drain upon her resources caused by the war, she fell greatly into debt to Mr. Meade for supplies furnished in her time of need. Spain formally recognized, however, through the action of

the Supreme Junta, organized for the defense of Cadiz, and afterwards through the Cortes, its great indebtedness to him, the Cortes wishing to confer upon him the citizenship of the country; but Mr. Meade publicly declined to accept it, expressing himself as appreciative of the honor, but as preferring to remain an American citizen.

During his residence in Spain the house of Mr. Meade had become a place of great resort, to which visitors were attracted by the courtliness of his manners, the charm of his wife, and the entourage generally of his private and official life. He lived luxuriously in the midst of the best social advantages, even gathering a choice collection of pictures which eventually formed one of the first private collections in the United States. His family had increased, since his arrival in the country, by eight children, one of whom, born in Cadiz, on the 31st of December, 1815, as has already been mentioned, was George Gordon Meade, the subject of this memoir.

CHAPTER II.

RETURN OF THE MEADE FAMILY FROM SPAIN.

At the end of the war between France and Spain, which eventuated in the return of Ferdinand VII. to the throne from which he had been driven by Napoleon, everything was in confusion in the country. Mr. Meade was anxious to receive payment for the supplies with which he had furnished the Government, so as to be able to return with his family to America, but as if the delay in this matter were not enough to try his patience, he had additionally to bear the consequences of a complication grown out of his having been appointed assignee of an English mercantile firm established in Cadiz. At that time England, through her close alliance with Spain, representing their joint resistance to the Napoleonic invasion of the country, was all-powerful with the Spanish Government. Through this paramount influence the arrest of Mr. Meade was brought about in connection with his action as assignee of the English mercantile firm in Cadiz, notwithstanding that he had in the administration of its affairs strictly conformed to legal instructions. In consequence, although he had the freedom of the grounds and the privilege of seeing his family, he was, until liberated at the instance of the Court of Spain through the intervention of the United States Minister, held prisoner for nearly two years in Santa Catalina, the fort situated on the left in entering the Bay of Cadiz, near Puerto de Santa Maria (St. Mary's Port).

Spain, finding it impossible, in the straitened condition of her finances, to settle her indebtedness to Mr. Meade, he