As I Remember Part 15

My old friend, Mrs. Diana Bullitt Kearny, the widow of General "Phil"

Kearny, in our many chats in her latter days, gave me many reminiscences of Was.h.i.+ngton at a time when I was not residing there. She described a fancy-dress ball given by her while residing in the old Porter house on H Street, which must have been about 1848, as General Kearny had just returned from the Mexican War. She dwelt particularly upon the costume of Emma Meredith, one of her guests and the daughter of Jonathan Meredith of Baltimore, who came to Was.h.i.+ngton to attend the party. She represented a rainbow and her appearance was so gorgeous that Mrs.

Kearny said the Heavenly vision seemed almost within the grasp of common mortals. Miss Meredith's supremacy as a belle has never been eclipsed. I recall a painful incident connected with her life. A young naval officer was deeply in love with her and, it is said, was under the impression that she intended to marry him. At a theater party one evening he discovered his mistake and, taking the affair to heart, returned to his quarters and the same evening swallowed a dose of corrosive sublimate. Physicians were immediately summoned and, although he regretted the act and expressed a desire to live, they were unable to save him. It is said that about the same time Miss Meredith left her home in Baltimore to visit her sister, Mrs. Gardiner G. Howland, whose husband was one of the merchant princes of New York, and that, as she crossed the Jersey City Ferry, one of the first objects which met her eyes was the funeral cortege of her disappointed lover _en route_ to his final resting place. Subsequent to this tragedy, I met Miss Meredith in Saratoga, surrounded by the usual admiring throng. She never married. I heard of her in recent years, at a summer resort near Baltimore, and, although advanced in years, I understood she still possessed exceptional powers of attraction. Only a short time ago I heard a young man remark that he knew her very well and that he would rather converse with her than with women many years her junior.

Mrs. Kearny was said to be the last of the "Lafayette girls." In 1825, when Lafayette made his memorable visit to the United States as the guest of the nation, she was living with her parents in Louisville, and at the tender age of five strewed flowers in the pathway of the distinguished Frenchman. She remembered the incident perfectly and in our numerous conversations I have repeatedly heard her allude to it. She told me that, seated at General Lafayette's side in the carriage which conveyed him through the city, was the great-uncle, Colonel Richard C.

Anderson, who led the advance of the American troops at the Battle of Trenton. General Robert Anderson, U.S.A., whose memory the country honors as the defender of Fort Sumpter, was his son. The General's widow, a daughter of General Duncan L. Clinch, U.S.A., resided in Was.h.i.+ngton until her death a few years ago. She was a woman of rare intelligence and, although a great invalid for many years, gathered around her an appreciative circle of friends, who were always charmed by her attractive personality.

In my earliest recollection of Was.h.i.+ngton the old Van Ness house was still sheltered by many trees. The foliage was so dense that it may have been the desire of the occupants to s.h.i.+eld themselves in this manner from public view. When I first knew the landmark it was occupied by Thomas Green, an old-time resident of the District. He married, as his second wife, Ann Corbin Lomax, a daughter of Major Mann Page Lomax of the Ordnance Department of the Army. During the Civil War, Mr. Green's sympathies were with the South, but he took no active part in the conflict. One of his idiosyncrasies was to pick up, on and around his s.p.a.cious grounds, sc.r.a.ps of old iron, such as horse shoes, hay rakes and the like, which were placed in a corner of his capacious cellar.

Suspicion was centered upon his house by information given to the government by an old family servant who thought he was doing the country a service, and directions were accordingly given that it should be searched. While this order was in process of execution, the discovery of the sc.r.a.p-iron is said to have played an important part and in some unaccountable manner to have aroused further suspicion. Whatever the logic of the situation may have been is not intelligible, but the fact remains I that Mr. and Mrs. Green and the latter's sister, Miss Virginia Lomax, were arrested in a summary manner and taken to the Old Capital Prison, where for a time they were kept in close confinement, during which Miss Lomax suffered severe indisposition and, as is said, never entirely recovered from the effects of her incarceration. About twenty-five years after the War, while staying at the same house with her in Warrenton, Virginia, I quite longed to hear her reminiscences of prison life; but when I expressed my desire to a member of her family, I was requested not to broach the subject as, even at this late day, it was painful to her as a topic of conversation.

During the War of 1812, Major Lomax was sent upon a mission to Canada by the U.S. Government and, one day during his brief sojourn, dined in company with some British officers. During the dinner a toast was offered by one of the sons of John Bull: "To President Madison, dead or alive." The responding toast by Major Lomax was: "To the Prince Regent, drunk or sober." The British officer who had proposed the toast to Madison immediately sprang to his feet and with much indignation inquired: "Do you mean to insult me, sir?" The quick rejoinder was: "I am responding to an insult!"

I met Charles Sumner soon after his first appearance in the United States Senate as the successor of Daniel Webster, who had become Secretary of State. He was a man of striking appearance and bore himself with the dignity so characteristic of the statesmen of that period.

"Sumner is one of them literary fellows," was the facetious criticism of the Hon. Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, who a few years later became one of his colleagues in the Senate, and who in earlier life was acc.u.mulating a large fortune while Mr. Sumner, in his Ma.s.sachusetts home, was engaged in those intellectual and scholarly pursuits which eventually made him one of the ripest and most accomplished students in the land. Chandler, however, in his own way, furnished a conspicuous example to aspiring youths of the day, both by his earlier and subsequent life, of what may be accomplished by determined application.

For a decade or more preceding the Civil War the political sentiment of Was.h.i.+ngton, especially in reference to the violent anti-slavery agitation then engrossing the thought of the country, was decidedly in sympathy with the att.i.tude of the South. It is not, therefore, surprising that Sumner, whose radical views were known from Maine to Texas, should have been received at first in Was.h.i.+ngton society with but little cordiality. As the years pa.s.sed along, he was rapidly forging himself ahead to the leaders.h.i.+p of his party in the Senate and, of course, became strongly inimical to Buchanan's administration. He was regarded with confidence and esteem by his own party, and, although naturally both disliked and feared by his political opponents, it could be truthfully said of him that he was

A man that fortune's buffets and rewards Hast ta'en with equal thanks,

and that no attempts to socially ostracize or to deride him for his political views and his intense application to his sense of duty deterred the great Ma.s.sachusetts statesman from pursuing the "even tenor of his way."

An anecdote went the rounds of the Capital to the effect that, one morning when a gentleman called to see Sumner at his rooms on Pennsylvania Avenue, a colored attendant answered the door and after glancing at his card informed him that it would be impossible to disturb his master, as he was rehearsing before a looking-gla.s.s a speech which he expected to deliver the following morning. Whether this was originally told by a friend or foe of Mr. Sumner is not known. Mr.

Sumner once requested me to take him to see a young Was.h.i.+ngton belle who combined Parisian grace with Kentucky dash. I refer to Miss Sally Strother, an acknowledged beauty of decidedly Southern views, who lived on Seventh Street near F Street, now a commercial center. Mr. Sumner and I walked to her house from my home on G Street and found several guests in her drawing-room, where the topic of conversation, in the course of the evening, drifted to the subject of spiritualism. It was announced that at a recent _seance_ the spirit of Was.h.i.+ngton had appeared and uttered the usual plat.i.tudes, whereupon Miss Strother, without a moment's hesitation, remarked: "I wonder what General Was.h.i.+ngton would say about Mr. Sumner?" Someone undertook to define Was.h.i.+ngton's views, but Miss Strother interrupted and said: "I know just what he would say--that he was a very intelligent, a very handsome, but a very bad man." This remark was naturally productive of much mirth, but failed to arouse any manifestation of feeling or disapprobation on the part of Mr.

Sumner. Later, as we were walking homeward he remarked: "I have _l'esprit d'escalier_ and my retorts do not come until I am well-nigh down the flight of stairs." Sally Strother went abroad, where she married Baron Fahnenberg of Belgium, and shared a fate similar to that of many of her country-women, as she was finally separated from her husband. She cherished, however, a pride of t.i.tle and bequeathed $60,000 to erect in Spa, Belgium, a handsome chapel as well as a vault to contain the remains of her mother, brother and herself. Her Kentucky relatives, however, including the family of Mrs. Basil Duke, succeeded in breaking the will on the ground that her mother's will, through which she had inherited her property, did not permit it to leave the family.

The chapel and vault, accordingly, were not built, and all her property reverted to her relatives.

In addition to his commanding presence, nature bestowed upon Mr. Sumner a clear and melodious voice, which rendered it quite unnecessary for him to resort to Demosthenic methods of cultivation. For many years his inspiring words could be heard upon the floor of the Senate in all of the leading debates of the day, and his masterly orations will go down to posterity as an important contribution to the history of many national administrations.

I well remember Preston S. Brooks's cowardly a.s.sault upon Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber in the spring of 1856. Public indignation ran very high, and his political opponents referred to him thereafter as "Bully Brooks." Socially, as well as politically, he was popular. He possessed a gentle and pleasing bearing and it would have been difficult for anyone to a.s.sociate him with such a cruel outrage. His uncle, Andrew P.

Butler, who was in the U.S. Senate from South Carolina at the same time, was a fine-looking and venerable gentleman, but he was one of the cla.s.s then designated as "fire-eaters."

There existed between Mr. Sumner and Henry W. Longfellow a strong friends.h.i.+p which was contracted in early life. I have often heard the Ma.s.sachusetts statesman recite some of his friend's poetical lines, which seemed to me additionally beautiful when rendered in his deep and sonorous voice. In the latter years of his life he resided in the house which is now the Arlington Hotel Annex, where he surrounded himself with his remarkable collection of books and articles of _virtu_ which he exhibited with pride to his guests. I especially recall an old clock presented to him by Henry Sanford, Minister to Belgium, as an artistic work of exceptional beauty. Mr. Sumner, by the way, was an accomplished connoisseur in art. I have heard him strongly denounce Clark Mills's equestrian statue of General Andrew Jackson, now standing in the center of Lafayette Square. He told me that on one occasion he was conducting a party of Englishmen through the streets of the National Capital and, as they were driving along Pennsylvania Avenue, he seated himself in such a position as to entirely obstruct the view of what he called this "grotesque statue," calling the attention of his guests, meanwhile, to the White House on the other side of the street.

I felt honored in calling Charles Sumner my friend, and I take especial pleasure in repeating the encomium that "to the wisdom of the statesman and the learning of the scholar he joined the consecration of a patriot, the honor of a knight and the sincerity of a Christian." George Sumner, his brother, did not appear in the land of his birth as a celebrity, but he had a remarkable career abroad. He hobn.o.bbed with royalty throughout the European continent and was highly regarded for his profound learning. He studied at the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin and traveled extensively through Europe, Asia and Africa. He never tarried long in his "native heath," and furnished conspicuous evidence that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country." Alexander von Humboldt praised the accuracy of his researches and Alexis de Tocqueville referred to him as being better acquainted with European politics than any European with whom he was acquainted.

While Sumner was in the Senate, George T. Davis of Greenfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, was a member of the House of Representatives. I knew him very well and he was a constant visitor at our home. He was celebrated for his flashes of wit, which sometimes stimulated undeveloped powers in others, and I have often seen dull perceptions considerably sharpened at his approach. Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of his witty sayings in the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," and his conversational powers were so brilliant that they won the admiration of Thackeray. Robert Rantoul, also from Ma.s.sachusetts, and a colleague of Davis, was a "Webster Whig"

and a powerful exponent of the "Free-Soil" faith. Davis, who was so bright and clever in the drawing-room, could not, however, compete with Rantoul on the floor of the House in parliamentary debate. The epitaph on Rantoul's monument says that "He died at his post in Congress, and his last words were a protest in the name of Democracy against the Fugitive-Slave Law." One of the verses of Whittier's poem, ent.i.tled "Rantoul," reads as follows:--

Through him we hoped to speak the word Which wins the freedom of a land; And lift, for human right, the sword Which dropped from Hampden's dying hand.

I first met the eccentric Count Adam Gurowski at the convivial tea table of Miss Emily Harper in Newport, upon one of those balmy summer evenings so indelibly impressed upon my memory. He was, perhaps, in many respects, one of the most remarkable characters that Was.h.i.+ngton has ever known. He was a son of Count Ladislas Gurowski, an ardent admirer of Kosciusko, and was active in revolutionary projects in Poland in consequence of which he was condemned to death by the Russian authorities. He managed, however, to escape and in 1835 published a work ent.i.tled "La Verite sur la Russie," in which he advocated a union of the various branches of the Slavic race. This book was so favorably regarded in Russia that its author was recalled and employed in the civil service. He came to this country in 1849, and, after being employed on the staff of _The New York Tribune_, came to Was.h.i.+ngton, where his linguistic attainments and the aid of Charles Sumner secured for him a position as translator in the State Department, which he held from 1861 to 1863.

The Count was a medley of strange whims and idiosyncrasies that almost baffle description. Together with his strong individuality, he possessed a trait which made many enemies and ultimately proved his undoing. I refer to his uncontrollable desire to contradict and to antagonize. It was simply impossible to find a subject upon which he and anyone else could agree. There were, however, extenuating circ.u.mstances. "Chill penury," forced upon him by the state of his financial affairs, had much to do with his cynical and acrimonious spirit. Prosperity is certainly conducive to an amiable bearing, and I believe that Gurowski would have been more conciliatory if adversity had not so persistently attended his pathway. It is highly probable, too, that Gurowski would have retained his position under the government indefinitely but for his unfortunate disposition. He wrote a diary from 1861 to 1863 which he was so indiscreet as to keep in his desk in the State Department; and, unknown at first to him, some of its pages were brought to the attention of certain officials of the government. They contained anything but complimentary references to his chief, William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and he was discharged. Meanwhile he had antagonized his benefactor, Mr. Sumner, by opposing, in a caustic manner, his views in reference to the conduct of the Civil War, and by other similar indiscretions was making new enemies almost every day.

The intense bitterness and intemperance of Gurowski in the expression of his views is well ill.u.s.trated in a conversation quoted by one of his friends in _The Atlantic Monthly_ more than forty years ago. It had reference to a period preceding the Civil War when the "Fugitive-Slave Law" was engrossing the attention of the country. "What do I care for Mr. Webster," he said. "I can read the Const.i.tution as well as Mr.

Webster." "But surely, Count, you would not presume to dispute Mr.

Webster's opinion on a question of const.i.tutional law?" "And why not? I tell you I can read the Const.i.tution as well as Mr. Webster, and I say that the 'Fugitive-Slave Law' is unconst.i.tutional--is an outrage, and an imposition of which you will all soon be ashamed. It is a disgrace to your humanity and to your republicanism, and Mr. Webster should be hung for advocating it. He is a humbug or an a.s.s--an a.s.s, if he believes such an infamous law to be const.i.tutional, and if he does not believe it, he is a humbug and a scoundrel for advocating it."

The Count's sarcastic reference to Secretary Seward is equally amusing.

It seems that one of his duties, while in the State Department, was to keep a close watch upon the European newspapers for matters of interest to our government, and also to furnish the Secretary of State, when requested, with opinions on diplomatic questions, or, as Gurowski expressed it, "to read the German newspapers and keep Seward from making a fool of himself." The first duty, he said, was easy enough, but the latter was rather difficult!

In 1854 Gurowski published his book, "Russia as it is," which was soon followed by another work ent.i.tled, "America and Europe." Both of them met with a favorable reception, but, after losing his government position, it became a difficult matter for him to eke out a maintenance, and his disposition, if possible, became still more embittered. At an evening party I took part by chance in an animated discussion upon the subject of dueling. Suddenly my eye lighted upon Count Gurowski, who had just entered the room. Calling him to my side I asked him in facetious tones how many men he had killed. He quickly responded, "Wonly (only) two!"

Count Gurowski's fund of knowledge was in many ways highly remarkable, especially upon his favorite theme of royalty and n.o.bility, past and present. He was intensely disliked by the Diplomatic Corps in Was.h.i.+ngton, many of whose members regarded him as a Russian spy, a suspicion which, of course, was without the slightest foundation. Baron Waldemar Rudolph Raasloff, the Danish Minister, once refused to enter a box at the opera where I was seated because Gurowski was one of the party. The Count seemed to be in touch with sources of information relating to diplomats and their affairs which were unknown to others--a fact which naturally aroused dislike and jealousy. He once announced to me, for example, that the _attaches_ of the French Legation were in a state of great good humor, as their salaries had been raised that day.

I once heard a member of a foreign legation say to another: "Gurowski is an emanation of the Devil." "The Devil, you say," was the response, "why, he is the Devil himself." In discussing with a foreigner the Count's exile by the Russian government, I said that I knew of relatives of his in high position in Russia. Evidently controlled by his prejudices, he replied: "It must be a family of contrasts, as his position in this country is certainly a low one." If he intended to convey the impression that the Count was "low" in his pocket, his statement was certainly correct, but not otherwise. It is true that his unhappy disposition made him more enemies than friends, but he was by no means devoid of admirable traits, even if he so frequently preferred to conceal them. The finer side of his nature and his pleasing qualities only were presented to my sister, Mrs. Eames, who always welcomed him to her house. One day when he called the condition of his health seemed so precarious that she insisted upon his becoming her guest. He accepted the invitation, but did not long survive, and in the spring of 1866 his turbulent spirit pa.s.sed away while under my sister's roof. Much respect was paid to his memory and the most distinguished men and women in Was.h.i.+ngton attended his funeral. He is buried in the Congressional Cemetery, where a crested tablet surmounts his grave. Little was generally known of his immediate family relations, but Robert Carter, one of his most intimate friends and the author of the article in _The Atlantic Monthly_, already referred to, states that he was a widower and had a son in the Russian Navy and a married daughter in Switzerland.

Early in life his brother, Count Ignatius Gurowski, met the Infanta Isabella de Bourbon, sister of the Prince Consort of Spain, while she was receiving her education at the _Sacre Coeur_ in Paris, and eloped with her. They were pensioned by the Spanish government for a while under Queen Isabella's reign and made their home in Brussels. I have heard, however, that when Isabella was forced from the throne the pension ceased and their circ.u.mstances became quite reduced. It is said that the Prince Consort, Ignatius Gurowski's brother-in-law, suggested to him soon after his marriage that it might be well for him to be created a Duke of the realm. This friendly offer was declined with indignation. "I would prefer," said Gurowski, "being an old Count to a new Duke!"

Sometime ago I saw the statement in a newspaper to the effect that descendants of Ignatius Gurowski were living in the United States. This suggests, although remotely, the inquiry heard many years ago: "Have we a Bourbon among us?"--referring, of course, to the last Dauphin, whom many believed to exist in the person of the Rev. Eleazer Williams, who resided in St. Lawrence County, New York. The Rev. Dr. Francis L. Hawks had such an abiding faith that Williams was actually the Dauphin that he wrote an article in 1853 for _Putnam's Magazine_ expressive of his views. If the newspaper story and Dr. Hawks's claims be true, this country has accordingly been the retreat of more than one member of the ill-fated Bourbon family. Several years ago I was surprised to hear it stated that the father of Kuroki, the famous j.a.panese General, was a brother of Adam and Ignatius Gurowski. This information, I am informed, came from a nephew of General Kuroki who was receiving his education in Europe. "My uncle Kuroki," he is said to have written, "is of Polish origin. His father was a Polish n.o.bleman by the name of Kourowski, who fled from Russia after the Revolution of 1831. He finally went to j.a.pan and married a j.a.panese. As the name of Kourowski is difficult to p.r.o.nounce in j.a.panese, my uncle p.r.o.nounced it Kuroki. The General's father, upon his death bed said to him that perhaps some day he would be able to take vengeance upon the Russians for their cruel treatment of unhappy Poland."

One of the most notable men of my acquaintance in Was.h.i.+ngton was Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng. I first met him when he was Attorney-General in President Pierce's Cabinet, and the friends.h.i.+p formed at that time lasted for many years. He was among the guests at my wedding, and Miss Emily Harper, whom he accompanied, told me that he especially commented upon that portion of the service which reads, "those whom G.o.d hath joined together, let no man put asunder." His remarks evidently appealed to her as an ardent Roman Catholic. Ralph Waldo Emerson declared Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng to be the most eminent scholar of the country, and Wendell Phillips went still further and said: "I regard Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng as the most learned man living." His habit was one of constant acquirement. He was what I should call "a Northern man with Southern principles," an expression which originated in 1835, and was first applied to Martin Van Buren. I have heard Cus.h.i.+ng defend slavery with great eloquence and although, like him, I was born and bred in the North, I regarded that inst.i.tution, in some respects, as far less iniquitous than the infamous opium trade which so enriched British and American merchants, and of which I saw so much during my life in China.

It must have been from his Pilgrim forefather that Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng inherited a decided antipathy for Great Britain, and it was once said that he carried this prejudice so far that he refused to visit England. This statement, however, is untrue, as I have before me an amusing article, written many years ago by his private secretary, during his mission to Spain, which contradicts it. He gives some amusing incidents connected with his visit of a few days in London when he and Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng were _en route_ to Spain. "Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng's headwear," he writes, "was a silk hat which must have been the fas.h.i.+on of about the time he discarded umbrellas. It was slightly pointed at the top and there was, so to say, no back or front to it and there was no band for it. As I knew he intended paying several visits, I asked him if he would not exchange his hat, which at the time was thoroughly soaked, for a new and lighter one.

The old man took off his ancient hat, examined it critically and then said slowly and deliberately, as if delivering an opinion on the bench, 'No, sir, I think that I shall wait and see what the fas.h.i.+ons are in Madrid.' It was said with much earnestness, as if it had been a state question. A third person would have found it irresistibly funny, but there was nothing laughable in it to General Cus.h.i.+ng. In fact, his sense of humor was of a very grim order." He also writes: "The old man was an inveterate smoker, and yet, during the whole period of my intercourse with him, I did not see him light a score of fresh cigars. He bought them, that is certain, but he must have been averse to lighting them in public for he almost invariably had a stump between his lips. Ask him if he would have a cigar and the answer would be, 'Thank you, sir, I think I have one,' and out would come a dilapidated case, from which he would shake from one to half a dozen b.u.t.ts as the supply ran."

While Cus.h.i.+ng was Attorney-General under President Pierce, he formed a friends.h.i.+p with Madame Calderon de la Barca, of whom I have already spoken, who, upon his arrival in Madrid, was one of the first persons to greet him. She was then a widow and occupied a high social position at the Spanish court. Cus.h.i.+ng and she thoroughly enjoyed the renewal of their earlier friends.h.i.+p in Was.h.i.+ngton, and the last visit he made in Madrid was when he bade her a final farewell. In 1843, and prior to his mission to Spain, Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng was appointed by President Tyler Minister to China, where his able diplomacy has been the subject of recognition and admiration to this day. He carried with him the following remarkable letter which he was charged by the President to deliver in person to the Emperor. It may have been--who knows?--the first lesson in occidental geography submitted to the "Brother of the Sun and the Sister of the Moon and Stars." Had the President of the United States been called upon to address a country Sunday School, he could hardly have exhibited a more conscious effort to adapt himself to the level of his hearers. This is the letter:--

I, John Tyler, President of the United States of America--which states are Maine, New Hamps.h.i.+re, Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas and Michigan--send this letter of peace and friends.h.i.+p, signed by my own hand.

I hope your health is good. China is a great empire, extending over a great part of the world. The Chinese are numerous. You have millions and millions of subjects. The twenty-six United States are as large as China, though our people are not so numerous. The rising sun looks upon the great mountains and great rivers of China. When he sets he looks upon mountains and rivers equally large in the United States. Our territories extend from one great ocean to the other; and on the west we are divided only from your domain by the sea. Leaving the mouth of one of our great rivers and going constantly towards the setting sun we sail to j.a.pan and the Yellow Sea.

Now, my words are that the governments of two such great countries should be at peace. It is proper and according to the will of heaven that they should respect each other and act wisely. I therefore send to your Court Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng one of the wise and learned men of this country. On his first arrival in China he will inquire for your health. He has strict orders to go to your great city of Pekin and there to deliver this letter. He will have with him secretaries and interpreters.

The Chinese love to trade with our people and sell them tea and silk for which our people pay silver and sometimes other articles. But if the Chinese and Americans will trade there should be rules so that they shall not break your laws or our laws. Our minister, Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng, is authorized to make a treaty to regulate trade. Let it be just. Let there be no unfair advantage on either side. Let the people trade not only at Canton, but also at Amoy, Ningpo, Shanghai, Fushan and all such other places as may offer profitable exchanges both to China and the United States, provided they do not break your laws or our laws. We shall not take the part of the evil doers. We shall not uphold them that break your laws. Therefore we doubt that you will be pleased that our messenger of peace, with this letter in hand, shall come to Pekin and there deliver it, and that your great officers will, by your order, make a treaty with him to regulate the affairs of trade, so that nothing may happen to disturb the peace between China and America. Let the treaty be signed by your own imperial hand. It shall be signed by mine, by the authority of the great council, the Senate.

And so may your health be good and may peace reign.

Written at Was.h.i.+ngton this twelfth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-three.

Your good friend,

JOHN TYLER, President.

Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng accordingly negotiated our first treaty with China on the 3d of July of the following year, and his ability at that time, as well as thereafter, won for him, irrespective of party affiliations, an enviable place in the history of American diplomacy. He was sent upon his mission to Spain in 1874 by the party which he had opposed from its first organization, and his diplomatic erudition was indispensable to the State Department during the Grant administration.

Certain events in the career of Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng serve to recall the days of Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Pierce, whose lives were clouded by a grief that saddened the whole of their subsequent career. A short time before Pierce's inauguration, the President-elect with Mrs. Pierce and their only son, a lad of immature years, were on their way to Andover in Ma.s.sachusetts, when the child was accidentally killed. Mrs. Pierce never could be diverted from her all-absorbing sorrow, and I shall always remember the grief-stricken expression of this first Lady of the Land.

Her maiden name was Jane Means Appleton, and she was the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Jesse Appleton, President of Bowdoin College. During the Pierce administration, Judge John Cadwalader, the father of the present John Cadwalader of Philadelphia, was a member of Congress. The son was then a mere lad, but he bore such a strong resemblance to the President's son that one day when Mrs. Pierce met him she was completely overcome. After this boy had become a man and had attained exceptional eminence at the bar, he feelingly alluded to this touching incident of his earlier days.

I was very intimately acquainted with Elizabeth and f.a.n.n.y MacNeil, President Pierce's nieces, who were occasional visitors at the White House. They were daughters of General John MacNeil, U.S.A., who had acquitted himself with distinction in the War of 1812. Elizabeth married, as before stated, General Henry W. Benham of the Engineer Corps of the Army, and f.a.n.n.y became the wife of Colonel Chandler E. Potter, U.S.A. Dr. Thomas Miller was our family physician for many years. He came to Was.h.i.+ngton from Loudoun County, Virginia, and married Miss Virginia Collins Jones, daughter of Walter Jones, an eminent lawyer.

During the Pierce administration he was physician to the President's family.

CHAPTER XI

MARRIAGE AND CONTINUED LIFE IN WAs.h.i.+NGTON

I met my future father-in-law, Samuel L. Gouverneur, Sr., for the first time in Cold Spring, New York. Mr. Gouverneur, accompanied by his second wife, then a bride, who was Miss Mary Digges Lee, of Needwood, Frederick County, Maryland, and a granddaughter of Thomas Sim Lee, second Governor of the same state, was the guest of Gouverneur Kemble. When I first knew Mr. Gouverneur he possessed every gift that fortune as well as nature can bestow. To quote the words of Eliab Kingman, a lifelong friend of his and who for many years was the Nestor of the Was.h.i.+ngton press, "he even possessed a seductive voice." General Scott, prior to my marriage into the family, remarked to me that there "was something in Mr.