The vessels were not bound for Philadelphia, as the Russian ship had been.  Either from choice or of necessity the destination had been changed before sailing, and they were on their way to New Orleans.

That city was just then—­the war of 1812-15 being so lately over—­coming boldly into notice as commercially a strategic point of boundless promise.  Steam navigation had hardly two years before won its first victory against the powerful current of the Mississippi, but it was complete.  The population was thirty-three thousand; exports, thirteen million dollars.  Capital and labor were crowding in, and legal, medical, and commercial talent were hurrying to the new field.

Scarcely at any time since has the New Orleans bar, in proportion to its numbers, had so many brilliant lights.  Edward Livingston, of world-wide fame, was there in his prime.  John R. Grymes, who died a few years before the opening of the late civil war, was the most successful man with juries who ever plead in Louisiana courts.  We must meet him in the court-room by and by, and may as well make his acquaintance now.  He was emphatically a man of the world.  Many anecdotes of him remain, illustrative rather of intrepid shrewdness than of chivalry.  He had been counsel for the pirate brothers Lafitte in their entanglements with the custom-house and courts, and was believed to have received a hundred thousand dollars from them as fees.  Only old men remember him now.  They say he never lifted his voice, but in tones that grew softer and lower the more the thought behind them grew intense would hang a glamour of truth over the veriest sophistries that intellectual ingenuity could frame.  It is well to remember that this is only tradition, which can sometimes be as unjust as daily gossip.  It is sure that he could entertain most showily.  The young Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, was once his guest.  In his book of travels in America (1825-26) he says: 

My first excursion [in New Orleans] was to visit Mr. Grymes, who here inhabits a large, massive, and splendidly furnished house....  In the evening we paid our visit to the governor of the State....  After this we went to several coffee-houses where the lower classes amuse themselves....  Mr. Grymes took me to the masked ball, which is held every evening during the carnival at the French theater....  The dress of the ladies I observed to be very elegant, but understood that most of those dancing did not belong to the better class of society....  At a dinner, which Mr. Grymes gave me with the greatest display of magnificence,... we withdrew from the first table, and seated ourselves at the second, in the same order in which we had partaken of the first.  As the variety of wines began to set the tongues of the guests at liberty, the ladies rose, retired to another apartment, and resorted to music.  Some of the gentlemen remained with the bottle, while others, among whom I was one, followed the ladies....  We had waltzing until 10 o’clock, when we went to the masquerade in the theater in St. Philip street....  The female company at the theater consisted of quadroons, who, however, were masked.