The Journal of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.: Volume II The Journal of Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Volume II [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674599116, 9780674598522

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THE JOURNAL OF Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

THE JOURNAL OF Richard Henry Dana, Jr. V O L U M E II

Edited by Robert F. Lucid

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 1968

© Copyright 1968 by the Massachusetts Historical Society © Copyright 1968 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 68-14264 Printed in the United States of America

Contents

PART II.

THE MIDDLE YEARS - 1851-1853 3. Defense of a Fugitive Slave (continued) — 1851 4. The Death of Daniel Webster - 1852 5. The Massachusetts Constitutional Convention and a Trip to Canada — 1853

407 478 528

PART III. A LAWYER AT HOME AND ABROAD - 1854-1859 1. The Case of Anthony Burns — 1854 2. The Emergence of the Republican Party — January 1855-May 1856 3. A Trip to England — July-September 1856 4. Pressures of the Law — November 1856-July 1859

613 669 692 821

Illustrations

(Following Page 636) A page of Dana's manuscript showing effects of Mrs. Dana's excisions. of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., about 1849. Courtesy of Longfellow Sarah Watson Dana. Courtesy of Longfellow

Courtesy

House.

House.

Hartford, Connecticut, about 1840. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. A view of downtown Boston. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. George Ticknor, Rufus Choate, William M. Evarts, and James Dwight Dana. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Artist's impression of the Parkman murder, November 23, 1849. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Free Library. The "Five Points" in New York City about 1859. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. The Water Celebration on Boston Common, October 25, 1848. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Dana's first house in Cambridge. Courtesy of Longfellow

House.

William Wetmore Story. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Appleton. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Queen Victoria, July 1856. From the Illustrated London Five of Dana's six children. Courtesy of Longfellow

News.

House.

Thomas Gold

PART

II

(Continued)

The Middle Tears i85i~i853

1851 1 8 5 1 J A N . 3RD.FRIDAY. This morning, at 1 0 M. after 7 o'clock, our first son24 was born. A moment of intense suffering, intense anxiety, & intense joy! Few children have been more desired, & more welcome than this blessed child. May the Lord in his infinite mercy preserve his life, as He has so far, the life of the mother. Her life & the birth of a son was a combination of blessings I did not dare to ask for or distinctly to wish. As usual, I was in the room all the time, consoling & assisting the heroic woman. How can they bear so patiently hours of constantly recurring pains, with the certain prospect of the mortal struggle to come, so often fatal to life, when two lives are struggling for existence! The birth took place in the S. W. chamber of Aunt Martha's house in Auburn st., Cambridge. How incredible are the powers of the magnetic telegraph! Our nurse was, as we supposed, at Mr. Daggett's at Canandaigua, N. Y. At 10% A. M., I telegraphed to Mr. D. to send her here immediately. Mr. D. received my despatch, but the nurse had gone to N. Haven. He telegraphed her there, she received his message, & telegraphed to me, & in the middle of the afternoon I received her message, that she would be in Boston at 11 P. M. She took the 5 P. M. train from N. Haven, & soon after midnight was at my house in Cambridge. This is incredible. My faith is staggered. I see that the result is produced, but I have no faith of the understanding in it. 3

JAN. 20. M O N D A Y . Left at 2 % P. M. for N. York, to testify in William Watson's case vs. Fiedler, to his services in Hart v. Hart [6 Mass. 328]. Reached N. Y. at 11V4 P. M., & at was in William's back parlor, by a cheerful fire, before a cold chicken & a tumbler of hot whiskey. 23 As the interim between the entries indicates, Dana was extremely busy during the ensuing autumn. Though he was opposed to the coalition and did not support it with as much activity as others, he was inevitably pulled into the swirl of the campaign. The Boston Atlas of October 15 carried his "Preamble and Resolutions," presented before a Fugitive Slave Law meeting at Faneuil Hall. Then on November 6, also at Faneuil Hall, he presented the resolutions at a Free Soil rally. The New York Tribune of November 22 and the Boston Chronotype of November 26 carried a long satire, "The Great Gravitation Meeting," written by Dana in parody of the Whig attitude toward the Fugitive Slave Law. This last is reprinted in Dana Ill's Speeches. The fusion of the Democrats and Free-Soilers was a political success, and in November 1850 the Whigs were deprived of effective control of the state government. See Martin B. Duberman, Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, i960), pp. 170®. 24Richard

Henry Dana, III, was Dana's only son.

408

The Middle Years

[ J A N . ] 21ST. After breakfast, walked down with William [Watson] to his office, & thence to the office of the Referees, Messers. Lucius Robinson & Schell. Mr. Tildon was counsel for Fiedler, who was present, & William pro se.25 My testimony occupied about two hours, & discussions &c., until about 4 o'clock. Called on Evarts who invited me to dine at Delmonico's next day at 3 o'ck. Discussed the Fugitive Slave Bill, rather warmly. He defends the act & the compromise on wh. it is founded, & Webster's course, & thinks Webster is to be the next President, in each particular of wh. I disagreed with him. Called on Daniel Lord, who was out, Wm. C. Russell, ditto, West & Glover, whom I saw, Mr. John Marsh, out, & returned to William's to dinner. He was much pleased with my testimony. After dinner called at Mrs. Robt. Sedgwick's. Saw Mrs. S., Miss Catherine, & the young ladies except Helen who is lying on a sick bed, with a broken leg, & the effect of measles, & consequent neuralgic pains. She has been a dreadful sufferer. Called on Cousin Sophia, in Amity Place, but she was out.

JAN. 22. WED. After breakfast walked down in town. Called on C. W. Spaulding, a witness in Ford v. King, twice, but he was out; on Judge Kent, who received me with attention, we holding a long converse on Sumner & Boston politics & social life. He is an out & out Whig Hunker, but had to endure a good deal of Free Soil from me. He admitted the attempt of Mr. Ticknor, the Eliots & others to ostracise Sumner, & thought it unwise, & unfair.26 Called on Henry Nicoll, who talked politics, Democratic, & railed at the corruptions in the U. S. offices, in the way of fees & extortions & the circumventing of Statutes. At Tribune Office, where found Mr. [George] Ripley, Greeley, C. A. Dana, & Bayard Taylor,27 all at work at their separate tables. This is the great enginery of the 19th century, steam engines in every part of the huge building, & four editors at humble tables, with pen & scissors in hand, preparing for 100,000 readers & more, with telegraphic despatches every hour, from all parts of the Union. Was introduced to Greeley. Think him coarse & cunning. 25

Dana's brother-in-law, William Watson, apparently had become involved with another law firm in a dispute over the handling of a case, and the disagreement had been placed in arbitration by the bar. 26 Charles Sumner's social ostracism was an old affair. Here, Dana probably refers to attempts to block consideration of Sumner for the Senate seat which had been cast into the legislature by the inconclusive November elections. The judge in the conversation is William Kent ( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 6 1 ) , officer of a local court. 27 Horace Greeley ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 7 2 ) launched the New York Tribune in 1841. Charles Anderson Dana ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 9 7 ) , a distant cousin of Richard, was city editor of the Tribune, 1847-1862, and edited the New York Sun, 1868-1897. Bayard Taylor ( 1 8 2 5 1878), a travel writer for the Tribune and its Washington correspondent, was an extremely popular writer of verse and prose.

1851

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

409

At Vi 3 P. M. telegraphed to F. [E.] Parker, to know if I could stay another day, & if so, to send word to Sarah. Dined with Evarts at Delmonico's — terrapin soup, smelts, a canvass back duck, & charlotte russe, with a bottle of Burgundy, a capital dinner. The duck was the very best dish I ever ate in my life, cooked in its own juice, with gravy, not much done, with the true wild flavor. After dinner called at Telegraph Office & found answer from Mr. Parker, that I could remain, with names of new witnesses to see. Called on John Jay, & spent nearly an hour with him, very agreeably. He invited me to go out with him & spend the night, wh. I was obliged to decline. Went to Mrs. Sedgwick's & spent an hour or more. Saw Helen on her bed, the most angelic object I ever beheld. Her soft eye, delicate complexion, fragile frame, & heavenly smile, touching an accordion at her side, with a pet grey hound nestling by her, yet the victim of torturing pains, & terrifying applications of mechanical powers to her delicate limbs. At f k P. M., went to the opera with William & Adele [Watson], sitting in Mrs. John Griswold's box. The opera was ha Favorita, highly dramatic & interesting & very well performed by Parodi, though I did not think her singing remarkable. A sumptuous opera house, & highly dressed company. Part of the time in Mrs. Sidney Brooks' box.28 J A N . 23RD. Called on Spaulding & the other witnesses. Also on Ellery Sedgwick, & at the office of the Post, where saw Bryant & Bigelow. Sumner's election the great topic.29 Called on Cousin Sophia, & spent an hour with her very agreeably. She seems full of interest & affection for her family, & talked much of Sarah & our son, as did also the Sedgwicks. Called on Mrs. Griswold, to thank her for her box, & on Mrs. Ellery Sedgwick, at the Clarendon, whom I very much liked, natural, affectionate & thoroughly good tempered. Dined with William & the evening at the Sedgwicks. J A N . 2 4 . FRIDAY. Left N. Y. at 8 A. M., & reached Boston at 5 P. M. Went to office & thence to Cambridge. Sarah dressed & down in the parlor, looking sweetly, & so much restored, & the little boy sensibly grown & improved. Have I not every reason to bless God for his goodness to me, & to abhor & forsake all those things that make me unworthy of it? My traveling companions were Rev. H. W. Bellows30 of N. Y., Rev. Mr. 28

This opera, by Gaetano Donizetti ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 4 8 ) , was first produced in Paris in 1840. Madame Parodi was an Italian opera star. Mrs. Sidney Brooks was formerly Frances Dehon, daughter of William Dehon, Jr. Her husband was a lawyer, philanthropist, and Navy enthusiast. 29 Charles Sumner's election to the U. S. Senate is discussed elsewhere in the Journal. 30 Henry Whitney Bellows ( 1 8 1 4 - 1 8 8 2 ) , well-known Unitarian lecturer and editor, was for more than forty years minister of the First Congregational Church of New York.

4io

The Middle Years

Stebbins of Meadville Pa., & Prof. Rogers, the geologist.31 Had much agreeable conversation. FEB. 6. THURSDAY. This morning little Richard is baptised. His mother, Sally, Mrs. Curtis (the nurse) & I went into town with him in a carriage. At the Church, his gr. father was waiting, & there were his aunts, & sisters, & the Sponsors. His three great-aunts, his aunt Charlotte, his three oldest sisters, his father, mother & gr. father, & several friends were present. The morning service was read by Dr. Croswell, & Mr. Stickney, & the baptismal service was performed by Dr. Croswell. My father & Mr. Wm. Foster Otis were Godfathers, & Mrs. Geo. Shattuck was godmother. He behaved beautifully & did not utter a sound from the moment he entered the Church until he left it. After the service, all his friends gathered about him in the vestry, & he lay placid & pure as a lily in the nurse's arms.32

After Church, they went to Chesnut st. & spent the day. At dinner we all drank the health of the boy. All returned safely home at night. FEB. 15. SAT. While in my office at about 10% A. M., Chas. Davis, 33 [F. E.] Parker & others came in & told me that the Marshal had a fugitive slave in custody, in the U. S. Court room, before Mr. Curtis, as Commissioner. I went immediately over to the Court House. Mr. Curtis was on the bench, actually occupying the judge's seat, Pat. Riley, 34 the Dept. Marshal, with his two regular deputies & two constables, sworn in as special Deputies, were in charge of the room, a good looking black fellow, sitting between the two subs, was the arrested fugitive. The arrest had been so sudden & unexpected that few knew it, & it was half an hour before the crowd assembled, but it was increasing every minute & there was great excitement. I went to the Marshal's Office & prepared a writ of Homine Replegiando, 35 & a petition for a Habeas 31 R u f u s P. Stebbins ( 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 8 5 ) was president of the Theological School at Meadville until 1 8 7 0 . William Barts Rogers ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 8 2 ) was at this time on the faculty of the University of Virginia. One of the foremost scientists of his day, he was organizer and first president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 32

D a n a adds this note: " W h e n Dr. Croswell entered his name in the register, my father & I standing by, he said ' M a y there ever be a Richard Henry to stand before the Lord!' " 33 Charles G. Davis ( 1 8 2 0 - 1 9 0 3 ) , a Plymouth lawyer, was later arrested for aiding in the escape of the fugitive slave in question. Dana defended him and won an acquittal. 34 George Ticknor Curtis ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 9 4 ) , a Boston lawyer and prominent "Cotton W h i g , " served in the Massachusetts house, 1 8 4 0 - 1 8 4 2 . He was U. S. Commissioner of Massachusetts in 1 8 5 1 . Patrick Riley ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 7 0 ) , a Boston lawyer, served in the state legislature as a Democrat, 1 8 5 8 - 1 8 5 9 . 3B

A writ for replevying a man (out of custody).

1851

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

411

Corpus addressed to Ch. Justice [Lemuel] Shaw. Robt. Morris obtained verbal authority from the prisoner to make the petition, in presence of Ellis G. Loring, Esq., & signed & swore to the petition before me. The petition stated that one Fred. Jenkins of Boston, laborer, was imprisoned in the Court House by Patrick Riley, that the pretence was that he was a fugitive from service & labor & that the petitioner did not know whether there was a warrant or not. With this petition I called on the Ch. Justice, & stated to him that it was a case of an alleged fugitive slave, & that our object was to test the constitutional power of the Commissioner to issue a warrant. The Ch. Justice read the petition, & said, in a most ungracious manner — "This won't do. I can't do anything on this.", & laid it upon the table & turned away, to engage in something else. (This interview was in the Lobby of the Sup. Ct. Room). I asked him to be so good as to tell me what the defects were, saying that I had taken pains to conform to the Statute. He seemed unwilling to notice it, & desirous of getting rid of it, in short, he attempted to bluff me off. On my persisting, he stated, as an objection, that it was not signed by the man himself. I reminded him that the Statute permitted the petition to be made by the party imprisoned "or by some one in his behalf". (He must also have known that in the worst cases, where the writ is most needed, a prisoner cannot sign the petition himself. Sometimes even the place of his imprisonment is unknown). He replied, "There is no evidence that it is in his behalf — There is no evidence of his authority". I asked "Do you require proof of authority? What proof do you require, Sir". He replied "It is enough for me to say that the petition is not sufficient". He then added "The petition shows, on its face, that the writ cannot issue. It shows that the man is in legal custody, of a U. S. Marshal". I replied that the petition did not refer to any office, but only gave Mr. Riley's name, & that the fact of legal custody must appear on the return. To this he replied —"But Mr. Riley is known to be an officer; and besides, the petitioner cannot properly swear that he does not know on what pretence the man is held". I called his Honor's attention to the petition & showed him that the petition stated the pretence fully & truly. He read the petition over again, & finding this to be so, he fell back on his first objection, of want of evidence of authority from the prisoner, & added, (wh. was his last objection & not made until after he had positively refused to issue the writ) that the petition should contain a copy of the warrant, or state that a copy had been applied for & could not be had; — this, too, although the petition stated that the petitioner did not know whether the imprisonment was under a warrant or not — which was true, as arrests may be made under the Act of 1850 without a warrant. I felt that all these objections were frivolous & invalid, but seeing the temper wh. the Ch. Justice was in, &

412

The Middle Years

his evident determination to get rid of the petition, I left him for the purpose of either procuring the evidence he required, or of going before another judge. On reaching the Court room, I found that the Commissioner was just adjourning the Court to Tuesday, at 10 A. M. As this gave us an abundance of time, we determined to consult upon the matter in the afternoon, & no further proceedings were had on the subject of the Hab. Corpus. The prisoner remained in his seat, between two constables, & Pat. Riley was making the most absurd exhibition of pomposity, in ordering people about, & clearing the Court room, & Mr. Curtis, dressed in a little brief authority, was swelling into the dignity of an arbiter of life & death, with a pomposity as ludicrous as that of Riley. At the order of the Marshal, all left the Court room, quietly, except the officers & counsel, & when I left there were none else in the room, & the crowd in the entries & stairways & outside, though large & chiefly negroes, was perfectly peaceable. I returned to my office, & was planning out with a friend, the probable next proceedings, when we heard a shout from the Court House, continued into a yell of triumph, & in an instant after, down the steps came two huge negroes, bearing the prisoner between them, with his clothes half torn off, & so stupified by the sudden rescue & the violence of his dragging off that he sat almost down, & I thought had fainted; but the men seised him, & being powerful fellows, hurried him through the Square into Court st., where he found the use of feet, & they went off toward Cambridge, like a black squall, the crowd driving along with them & cheering as they went. It was all done in an instant, too quick to be believed, & so successful was it that not only was no negro arrested, but no attempt was made at pursuit. The sympathy of the masses was with the successful rescue, though here & there was an old hunker, or a young dandy, or would-be-chivalryman, who expressed anger at the failure of the "Peace Measures". It seems that none of the officers were injured, except by being crowded into corners & held fast, & the Sword of Justice, wh. Mr. Riley had displayed on his desk, was carried off by an old negro. How can any right minded man do else than rejoice at the rescue of a man from the hopeless, enless slavery to wh. a recovered fugitive is always doomed. If the law were Constitutional, which I firmly believe it is not, it would be the duty of a citisen not to resist it by force, unless he was prepared for revolution & civil war; but we rejoice in the escape of [a] victim of an unjust law, as we would in the escape of an ill-treated captive deer or bird-

1851

Defense

of a Fugitive

Slave

413

(The occurrences connected with the case of Wm. & Ellen Crafts, I did not enter in my journal at the time. They are correctly stated in my letter published in the New York Tribune, & put into my common place book).'16 The conduct of the Ch. Justice, his evident disinclination to act, the frivolous nature of his objections, & his insulting manner to me, have troubled me more than any other manifestation. It shows how deeply seated, so as to effect, unconsciously I doubt not, good men like him, is this selfish hunkerism of the property interest on the Slave Question. (Sumner thought he had better not appear as counsel in the case, & did not go in. His reason, wh. he gave me frankly, was, the effect it might have on the pending Senatorial election. He thought the Conventions of parties, & the delicate state of affairs at the State House required him to with hold any public action. This is the reason (though I did not see it at the time) why he declined going to N. Y. to argue the case of Henry Long.) FEB. 23. ( S U N D A Y ) EVENING. The last week we have all been absorbed in the Slave cases. The alleged fugitive Shadrack, alias Fred. [Jenkins] escaped to Canada, & the Government officers busied themselves in arresting those engaged in the rescue. In the hurry & excitement of fear & mortified pride, under the influence of despatches from the Executive, in terror of losing their offices every moment, they arrested, & swore to complaints without consideration or compunction. Ch. G. Davis, one of Shadrack's counsel, & Elisur Wright,37 an editor, were arrested. The evidence ag. Wright was nothing, except that one or two officers

•i6In 1848, William and Ellen Crafts had made a spectacular escape from Georgia, where they were slaves. The first big test of the Fugitive Slave L a w came in October 1850, when the United States Marshal's office, in Boston, attempted to enforce a warrant sworn out for the Crafts' return. Vigilance committees, armed guards, and an aroused antislavery electorate immediately appeared. Samuel Shapiro, in his biography of Dana (p. 5 8 ) tells of how the southern agents for the claimant fared during the proceedings: "They were arrested for slander, bailed out by the Boston Whigs, arrested again on a charge of conspiracy to kidnap, again released on bail, chased by a jeering mob of Negroes over the bridge to Cambridge, arrested once more for smoking in the streets, 'profane swearing & cursing,' carrying concealed weapons, reckless driving, and failure to pay bridge tolls (this last when fleeing for their lives across the Charles River.)" The Crafts were smuggled out of the city, eventually arriving in England. Dana viewed the violence of the opposition to due process as alarming and refused to join the Vigilance group. :17

Elizur Wright ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 8 5 ) was editor of the Massachusetts Abolitionist, organ of the conservative opponents of Garrison and the Liberator. He was widely known as a mover in the cause of insurance underwriting reform.

The Middle

Years

swore that, as the negroes were rushing in, he uttered an exclamation of encouragement, but these officers were both men of broken down characters, hired for the occasion. It was clear that he knew nothing of the attempt at rescue until it took place. It is possible he may have uttered the exclamation. I had nothing to do with the defense of Wright, but was the counsel & the sole counsel for Davis. So far, & all the Govt. ev. is now in, they have nothing at all ag. Davis. It is clear that he knew nothing of an attempt at rescue, & did not leave the Court Room from the time the C't. opened until the moment of the rescue, & the only [evidence against] him is that of Byrnes, a broken down man, of an impeached reputation, who thot that he distinguished D.'s voice in the entry, but admits that he is deaf. The whole thing wd. be a farce, were it not that the purblind obstinacy of Lunt (D. Atty.) & of B. F. Hallett, 38 the Commissioner, magnifies it into a great affair. Any other man than Lunt, wd. withdraw the complaint ag. Davis. But Lunt is the oddest mixture of obstinacy, ignorance of legal principles, vanity & irritability I ever met with in such a place. But the crowning glory of the scene is Hallett, the Dorr-ite, the slangwhanging radical, turned into the fiercest, & most despotic engine of power. But the higher you put him, the more he shows his tail. His almost incredible ignorance of law, & his mock dignity, the ludicrous manner in wh. he is swayed about from one absurd decision to another, makes great sport for the bar. Here is some of his rulings. 1. That under §7 of the Slave law of 1851, in a criminal proceeding for rescuing a slave, it need not be proved that the person rescued was a fugitive slave, nor cd. the deft, contradict it, but if the person under arrest was claimed as a slave, it was enough. 2. That on the point of identity, the return of the Marshal on the warrant in another proceeding, vis: the arrest of Shadrack, was not only [evidence] but conclusive evidence that the man arrested was the man named in the warrant, & that it was not competent for the Marshal to testify in this case that he was not sure of the identity, as it contradicted his formal return in another case. 3. That the Govt. cd. prove that the party rescued was the party claimed, by evidence of his admissions to the officer that his name was Shadrack, & by hearsay evid. of what his claimant's attorney said in Court. 3 8 George Lunt (1803-1885) served several terms in the state legislature, and had been appointed U. S. District Attorney for Massachusetts by President Tyler. He wrote a considerable amount of verse and, for a time, was editor of the Boston Courier. Benjamin Franklin Hallett (1797-1862), editor, reformer, and lawyer, was appointed to the position of Federal Prosecutor by President Pierce.

1851

Defense of a Fugitive Slave

415

4. That in impeaching a witness, evidence of his gen. reputation two years ago is not admissable — no witness being competent who does not know a present reputation, or rather cannot speak in the present tense. (But this he retracted the next day). Lunt's conduct has been arbitrary in the extreme, inquistorial, ill tempered, incredulous, conceited. Many members of the bar have spoken to me of it, as intolerable. Judge Metcalf 3 " was present at my interview with Judge [Lemuel] Shaw, & expressed himself very much disturbed by the conduct of the Chief. He seldom speaks, but in this case he spoke freely. 25. TUESDAY. Finished my argument in Davis' case.40 Large audience, very attentive, & my friends unbounded in their congratulations & commendations. From all I can learn, it is the best thing I ever did. I have managed to keep Hallett good-natured & Lunt ill-natured throughout the transaction, wh. was the best state of things. It turns out that the President's Proclamation & order for troops &c. was owing to a few foolish telegraphic despatches from Peter Harvey., with a conceited & ill advised one from Geo. T. Curtis.41 FEB.

M C H . 2. SUNDAY. My argument for Davis is in the Commonwealth of Th. & Frid., & in the weekly. Prof. [E. T.] Channing has resigned, to the surprise of us all. His reason is a determination of some years' standing to resign at the end of the 30th of his occupancy.42 [ M A R C H ] 9. SUNDAY. In the course of the week I have reed, a handsome congratulatory letter from the Attorney General upon my defense of Davis, & a gratifying testimonial in the shape of a box of beautiful fresh flowers from Mrs. Marston Watson43 of Plymouth, with a note from Mr. W. for "the noble defense of us all"; also a line from Mr. John Marsh dated at Wethersfield, in wh. he speaks in the most complimentary manner of their united opinion of my effort. This is gratifyng & encouraging. I believe I have never done anything professionally that has gained me so much credit. 38 Themon Metcalf ( 1 7 8 4 - 1 8 7 5 ) served in the state legislature, 1 8 3 3 - 1 8 3 4 , and in the state senate in 1 8 3 5 . He was a judge of a local court. 40 The argument is reprinted in Dana Ill's Speeches, pp. 1 7 8 - 2 0 9 . 41 President Fillmore had declared a state of emergency and had readied troops against a possible riot. Peter Harvey ( 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 7 7 ) , who served in the state senate in 1863, was an influential Boston merchant. 42

A marginal note adds: "Or on arriving at age of 60 says his wife. Born Dec. 12, 1790 — aged 60 yr. 2 mo. 18 days." He had been Boylston Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard. 43 Benjamin Marston Watson ( 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 9 6 ) , wealthy man of leisure, was a friend of Emerson and a member of the Concord literary circle.

416

The Middle Years

Last ev. I spent an hour or so with Prof. Channing, in the delicate task of endeavoring to heal the difficulty that has separated him & my father for the last year. I cannot doubt that the blame lies with him, for a sudden ungracious manner of speaking to his guests, for wh. he is not quite willing to apologise, & wh. my father thinks he cannot quite overlook. MCH. 23. SUNDAY. The last week, Sumner & I have been drawing up laws to meet the dangers & outrages of the Fugitive Slave Bill, at the request of the Commee. of the Legislature.44 We propose an act the first section of wh. extends the Latimer Law (1843) to the Fug. SI. Bill of 1850. The two next sections are my invention. They prohibit, under a penalty, any officer or member of the Volunteer Militia of Mass. from acting, in that capacity, under the direction of the U. S. Marshal, under the Act 1850, under color or pretense of being part of the posse comitatus; & disband all companies of the V. M., who shall so act, in their organised capacity. I cannot doubt the constitutionality of these provisions. We are not obliged to furnish our organisations, arms & equipments, our discipline, our paid soldiers to the Marshal, to enforce the Slave law. As individuals, they are members of the posse comitatus, but not as officers & privates of vol. associations. And if constitutional, our duty to prohibit it is clear.

The next section, prohibiting the claimant of a slave from having counsel, is Sumner's. I advised against it, as ungracious, as small legislation. It has an odious look, & will answer little purpose. The two last sections require the Dist. Att'ys. to defend all inhabitants claimed as fug. slaves. These will have little practical effect. If left to me, I shd. report only the first. Another bill we also recommend, the credit of wh. belongs to Geo. Minot.46 It treats every person as a criminal who removes or endeavors to remove, or aids or abets in an attempt to remove from the state, as a fug. slave, any person who is not a fug. slave, & makes a legal prescription that the party claimed is free. This looked to us both as a well devised statute. Miss Nancy Marsh, & Elisabeth (Mrs. [O. E.] Daggett) have been visiting us, reviving old recollections very agreeably. I have been engaged chiefly in the business of the Mystic Wharf Co., & the Essex R. R. Co., & J. A. Thompson, before the several committees on R. Roads, Merc. Affairs, & P. Lands. 44

This new Personal Liberty Law was published in the Boston Daily Commonwealth, March 29, 1851. The state legislature defeated the law's passage and also refused to pass resolutions condemning the Fugitive Slave Law. 45 ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 5 8 ) . A lawyer, Minot was a member of the Class of 1836 at Harvard.

1851

Defense of a Fugitive Slave

417

Prof. Charming wrote an excellent letter to my father, to wh. my father replied, in the same spirit, & yesterday my father went out & dined there. I have been the means of reconciling old friends & relations, whom a very small matter was separating. MCH. 30. SUNDAY. The past week I have been absorbed in cases before the Legislative Committees. The claim of a company in Char[lestow]n for a grant of flats in Mystic River to fill up & convert into wharf & building property, & the remonstrance ag. taking off restrictions upon the Salem & Lowell, & the Boston & Maine roads at their crossing in Wilmington. The latter hearing is closed. I argued the case as senior counsel, before a large audience, in the Senate Chamber, with a success I have every reason to be gratified with, if the assurances of my friends & some of my opponents are to be believed. The former case is not closed. The only question is as to the effect of the proposed improvement, on Boston Harbor.46 It fills up about 75 acres of flats between Chelsea & Maiden Bridges, excavates about 40 acres from the banks & shoals of the channel. Lt. C. H. Davis, 46a of the Navy, was my witness, & gave his views as to the harbor. He says there is water enough, & that the difficulty is in its disposition, & in the counter-currents. If reservoirs are kept open in the form of deep & wide channels, or of bays, & the flats immediately about the upper harbor are filled, the harbor will be improved. Each case is a special case. Some flats should be filled up & others not. So the dangers to the harbor are mainly from special & local causes. This is an important, but a difficult question. Mr. Hastings returned yesterday from his visit to England. He spent a fortnight among our relatives in Shropshire, & gives a painfully interesting account of them. He also brings two daguerrotypes & letters from them. Mr. Wm. Pulteney Dana is living in Shrewsbury, old, rather infirm, irritable, tyrannical, & poor.47 Indeed, he is a melancholy spectacle. The grandson of a peer, with the best of prospects in life, his indolence, pride & want of principle have reduced him to a low condition. He has been through insolvency, & lives on a small pension from his office in the army, 46 Dana adds this note: "See report on Constr., on Charles River Dam, showing currents have little to do with the formation or preservation of Boston Harbor." 46a Charles Henry Davis, noted earlier, was in charge of the Naval Coastal Survey from Rhode Island northward, 1 8 4 1 - 1 8 5 6 . 47 The "English Danas" are included in the Genealogy which is appended to the Journal. They stemmed from Edmund Dana, brother of Richard's grandfather Francis Dana. Edmund Dana was a clergyman who moved from America to Shrewsbury, England, where he married the Hon. Helen Kinnaird, daughter of Charles, Lord Kinnaird. Among the children of this marriage was William Pulteney Dana, discussed here. When Dana visits England in 1856 he goes to Shrewsbury, and the Journal contains a detailed account of the family home.

4i8

The Middle

Years

which is, I believe, that of a half-pay captain. His two eldest sons, Henry Edmund Pulteney [Dana], & William Augustus Pulteney [Dana], are officers in the army, in Australia, the oldest commanding all the native forces. They are promising men. The third son, Douglass Charles Kinnaird Dana, is a low fellow, & gives his family constant trouble & anxiety. The fourth son, Francis Richard is at home, a lad of 17, & not in a very promising way. There are three daughters. The eldest, Anne, married to Mr. Win. Henry Wood, lives in Holywell Terrace, Shrewsbury. Mr. Hastings says she is of the salt of the earth. He seemed to have loved her as his own child. Her father & brother live with her, & she does everything in the world for them. Her two younger sisters made good matches, the youngest a splendid one. Mr. Wood is an excellent man, in some office in the Court of Chancery, with a small salary, but has no property or expectations, as his father has become insolvent. The second sister, Charlotte, who is said to have been very beautiful, married Mr. James, a solicitor, a man of respectability & handsome fortune, living in Gloucestershire. But she has brought ruin upon herself & disgrace upon her name by eloping with a young man named De Cressiguy, son of a gentleman of large fortune, & leaving her husband & one daughter, a girl of 8 or 9 years. By some means or other, I know not what, the guilty pair are married in France, & live in great poverty & obscurity near Paris, Mr. De C.'s father having reduced him to the smallest possible allowance. The poor woman is completely heart-broken, & is said to be too good to live under the sense of guilt. They expect, at any time, to hear of her death. This has been a dreadful blow to her family. The youngest, Helen, married Stephen Alloway Esq., a gentleman of large fortune in Gloucestershire, where they live in a good deal of style. I fear, however, from Hastings' account, that she is a dashing & frivolous woman. Rev. Edmund Dana's eldest son, George Kinnaird, rose [to] the rank of Lt. General in the Army. He married Anabella Forrester (Bel Forrester) sister of Lord Forrester, a lady of fortune. They are both dead. Their only child, Helen Kinnaird, married her cousin, Rev. George Kinnaird Oatley, who is dead, leaving one daughter, Anabella. Mr. Hastings gives no account of the children of Mrs. Gibbon or Mrs. Armstrong — perhaps they had none.473 Mr. & Mrs. Gibbon are living, at Harley. Mrs. Sherborne had two children, a son Pulteney, Capt. in the 70th Regt., & a daughter, both deceased. Mrs. Oatley, had several children. The eldest son, John Oatley of Birhton, Esq., married Helen Aston, resides on his father's estate & has a 4 7 a A marginal note adds: "Mrs. Gibbon had a son, W m Henry, & a daughter, who married Thomas Plowder Presland, Esq."

i8$i

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Slave

419

family of two daughters & a son. The second son was the husband of Gen. Dana's daughter, above referred to. The third son, Wm. Henry, lives in Wroxeter. There is also a son Joseph. A daughter Helen Kinnaird married a Parsons, & Anne married Capt. Stubbs of the E. I[ndia] Co. Mrs. Aiken, of Newry, is dead, leaving one daughter, Henrietta. The youngest son, Charles Patrick, was a Capt. in the E[ast] I[ndia] Co.'s service & is dead, leaving one daughter, the widow of Capt. John Asprey Wood, of the E. I. Co.'s service. She has two sons, Chas. Edmund Patrick, James George. I believe she is living in Shrewsbury. This ends the catalogue. Hastings seems much aifected by the state of the family. He says they are treated with respect & looked up to as connected with the aristocracy, & have a good deal of pride of character, but they have met with many reverses. The influence of their uncle, Sir Wm. Pulteney, would have put them all forward into the first stations, & did do much for them, but Mr. Wm. P. Dana quarreled with his uncle, & cut himself from his chances of fortune & preferment. It is generally supposed that Sir Wm. P. intended to leave him his American property. APR. 9. On Tuesday, I was engaged in the Charlestown flats case, before the Leg. Committee. In the ev. I rode out to Watertown, with W. A. White,48 & addressed a respectable Meeting in favor of Dr. [J. G.] Palfrey. Again, on Friday ev., I went to Stirling & spoke on the same subject. Spent the night, & returned at 10 A. M. My companion was Gen. Hosmer49 of W. Boylston, gr. son of one of the heroes of Concord Bridge, & full of the old blood. He could hardly bear the sight wh. our city is now presenting, a man held in the Court House as a slave, by a posse of the police force of the city, — the temple of justice turned into a slave-pen, & surrounded by chains, under wh. the judges of our Courts are obliged to pass. The spirit of Concord Bridge is alive in him, & he said to me, in a calm, sober manner —"Mr. Dana, I don't want to boast of my courage, but if I had 40 men who felt as I do, I should have marched right into 'em". Sat. ev. I went to Worcester & spoke at a large meeting, in favor of the election of Charles Allen.50 I spent half an hour with Judge Allen, who 48 William Abijah White ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 5 6 ) , editor of various temperance journals, was a popular temperance and antislavery lecturer. He moved to Wisconsin in 1853. 49 Ebenezer Mason Hosmer ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 7 8 ) represented West Boylston in the state legislature, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 5 2 . The source of the military title Dana gives him is unclear. 50 The speech was reprinted in the Worcester Spy of April 7, the Boston Daily Commonwealth of May 2, and the Boston Evening Transcript of May 16. The strong attacks upon Webster were to bring Dana into a series of newspaper debates with various of Webster's supporters, and his frequent later references to his "Worcester speech" are to this meeting. Charles Allen, noted earlier, was running for a second term in the U. S. Congress as a Free Soil candidate. He was elected.

420

The Middle Years

gave me the particulars of his speech on Webster's donation, wh. I afterwards explained to the Meeting, to their great satisfaction, as I was told by numbers. The last week our city has been the scene of a degrading fugitive slave case. 51 A man was arrested by the Marshal & his posse, suddenly, at a hotel in wh. he was a waiter, & locked up in the Court Hs., wh. was guarded by a huge force of policemen, & a chain stretched entirely round it, so that every one who entered it, except at the farther door, must go under the chain. This was Thursday night. Friday morning, Mr. Geo. T. Curtis held his Court, & Chas. G. Loring, & R. Rantoul Esquire, appeared as counsel. Col. S. J. Thomas appeared for the Southern claimants. More despicable wretches in appearance than the Southern agents I never beheld — cruel, low-bred, dissolute, degraded beings! No man's life or property would be safe a moment in their hands. Mr. Sewall 52 applied to the Supreme Court for a Habeas Corpus, & it was refused, without argument. Mr. S., after it was refused, asked leave to address the Court in favor of the petition, & was refused. In the course of Sat. & Sunday a number of gentlemen spoke privately to the judges, among others, Mr. Loring, & Fr. Dexter, & an intimation was obtained that they would hear an argument. Accordingly this morning (Monday Ap. 7), Mr. Rantoul & I, went into Court & moved again for the writ & were heard. I was called in suddenly, & was not prepared for more than an opening. Mr. Rantoul had been prepared & made a very striking & forcible argument, considered as a speech to the people, or as a piece of abstract reasoning, but not one calculated to meet the difficulties in the minds of the Court. The Ch. Justice was evidently timid, & tried to evade a decision of many points. I compelled him to decide that the petitioner was not entitled to the writ as of right, but that it was addressed to the discretion of the Court. The petition set forth the "pretence" under wh. the petitioner was held, to be a certain warrant, I annexed a copy, as required by the Statute. The Court assuming the warrant to be valid & legal, & the parties to be entitled to act, refuses to issue the writ, & requires us to satisfy them of the unconstitutionality of the warrant before they will issue the writ. At 3 P. M. judge Shaw delivers the opinion of the Court, refusing the writ [7 Cush. 285]. The grounds of the opinion is there. A conflict between the State & Nat. Courts is to be avoided. The Nat. Courts have power to issue writs of Hab. Corp. The more expedient course is to resort to them, where the act of their own officers are concerned, although the 51 52

T h i s was the celebrated case of the fugitive slave Thomas Sims.

Samuel Edmund Sewall ( 1 7 9 9 - 1 8 8 8 ) , Harvard, 1 8 1 7 , was a lawyer who served in the state senate in 1 8 5 2 .

i8$i

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

421

State Courts will act in extreme cases. This is not a clear case. The only qu. is whether the Commissioner can constitutionally act. The Act of 1793 gave the same powers to Magistrates wh. this act gives to Commissioners, & was acquiesced in more than 50 years, & recognised, or at least not decided to be unconstitutional by any Court. The point must be considered as settled by lapse of time, acquiescence & recognition. The writ was refused. A writ de homine replegiando was sued out & put in the hands of the Sheriff. He demanded the man, & was refused by the Marshal. As yet the precept has not been served. A criminal complaint was also made against the prisoner for stabbing one of the officers who arrested him. The Marshal has refused to deliver up the man on this precept, & this precept is not served. I do not believe there is moral power eno' on the side of the State, in opposition to the Nat. Govt, in Boston, to enable the Sheriff to serve a criminal process. APR. 13. SUNDAY. I will endeavor to give a correct account of the occurrences of the last eventful week. The Sheriff had placed in his hands a writ de homine replegiando, & a criminal warrant ag. Sims, the fugitive for stabbing Butman, the man who arrested him, with orders to serve the first writ, & if that was resisted, to serve the warrant. He was advised that the Commissioner's warrant under wh. the Marshal held Sims, being only a civil process, must yield to the criminal process of the state. The sheriff demanded Sims of the Marshal on the writ & was positively refused, & told that if an attempt should be made to take him, force would be used to resist. As to the criminal process, the Marshal said he had doubts, & asked for 24 hours to take advice, wh. the sheriff allowed him. At the end of the 24 hours, the sheriff applied again to the Marshal & was told that so far as the holding under the Fugitive Slave act was concerned he probably would have given him up, but that he also held him under a warrant for a crime against the U. States. At our request, Mr. Loring (Chas. G.) called on the Marshal & asked him who issued the warrant & when. The Marshal replied that it was issued on Monday morning by B. F. Hallett. Mr. Loring then asked Hallett what the warrant was for, but Hallett declined answering. Loring said that he feared the warrant was a mere trick. Hallett replied that if so, it was to counteract a trick. By my advice, Mr. Sewall demanded of the Marshal a copy of the warrant & return. This was on Wednesday. In the afternoon, a copy of the warrant was furnished. It bore date Monday, & had no return upon it. Early Thursday morning, (being Fast Day) Sewall obtained a petition from Sims for a Habeas Corpus, addressed to Judge [Peleg] Sprague,

422

The Middle Years

setting forth that he had been held for three days under a criminal warrant, without being brought before a magistrate to be examined, & also that [that] warrant was void. The defect in the warrant was that it did not allege that Butman was an officer of the U. States, or that he was serving a process of the U. States, at the time he was stabbed by Sims. Judge Sprague refused to grant the writ. The grounds of the refusal, as stated to me by Sumner & Sewall, who were present, & confirmed by the Clerk, were that inasmuch as Sims was held on one process wh. was legal, he suffered no illegal detention because there was also another process over the legality of wh. was contested. His counsel cited to him a case from Cowen's Reports, to the effect that where a party held under one process is also served & held by a different process, he may test the legality of the latter by a Habeas Corpus. (Sewall ought to have asked him how he could know judicially, that Sims was held under a prior process until it should be disclosed by the return to the writ, for the petition made no reference to it). Coming into town in the afternoon, I found the gentlemen in consultation. It was finally resolved that Sumner & I should go before Judge [Levi] Woodbury with the same petition, accompanied with an affidavit from Sewall that the Marshal told him that he considered Sims as held under the warrant from the time it was put in his hands, & another affidavit from Sims himself, of his never having been informed of the arrest or taken before a magistrate to be examined or bailed. We found Judge Woodbury at his room at the Tremont House, & after a long consultation, during which I made three journeys to my office & the Law Library for books to satisfy the judge that he could issue the writ at Chambers in term time, & wh. lasted until 7 o'clock, he agreed to open his Court at 8 P. M. Accordingly at 8 P. M. the U. S. Circ't. C't. room was opened, & we presented our petition. The Marshal sent off for Messrs. [Rufus] Choate & B. R. Curtis, who soon arrived, in carriages. I opened the case by citing authorities to show that the Habeas Corpus is a writ of right, except in certian cases, of wh. this was not one, & demanded the writ as of right. If not of right, the fact that the prisoner had been held nearly four days without being brot before a magistrate was evidence of illegal holding, & also contended that the warrant set forth no crime. Sumner followed with additional points & authorities. We both denounced the warrant & arrest as mere tricks. Woodbury gave a short opinion, acknowledging that he could not know judicially that Sims was held under another precept, & that the holding under the warrant was prima facie illegal, & required explanation, & issued the writ returnable before him forthwith. At 10 P. M. the return, drawn up by Curtis, (with aid, I presume, from Choate) was

i8$i

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

423

submitted. After about half an hour's argument on motion for delay, the judge adjourned to Friday at 3 P. M. It happened, most unfortunately & provokingly for me, that the Charlestown flats case, in which I am engaged, & in wh. there is a great interest involved & many witnesses & parties, had been especially assigned for Friday, before a committee of the Legislature. It was to take all day, & there was no escape from it. I had to give up my connexion with the Habeas Corpus, in which my heart & pride & best feelings were engaged, & take to the flats case, wh. was a matter of mere pecuniary speculation. It was mortifying to see how absorbed the petitioners were in their mud scheme, coming to my oifice & talking over the square feet & the lines, without so much as looking out of the window or asking a question about the case of the poor slave, so touching to humanity, so great as a question of constitutionl & polit. law. All day I was employed in this case, & at night learned that Judge Woodbury had, as we feared, remanded the prisoner. He did not think the delay, under the circumstances, so unreasonable as to justify him in releasing the prisoner; but said that the Marshal ought to return the warrant, in good faith, as soon as he conveniently could. Our friends say that the Judge made a mere political clap-trap speech, intended for the Southern market. Mr. Sewall then presented a writ de homine replegiando, in behalf of Sims as a citisen of Geo. ag. the Marshal, & asked the judge to appoint an officer to serve it. Thereupon, Col. Thomas, Atty. for Sims' master, objected to Sewall's authority to act for Sims, on the ground that as Sims had been, (in the mean time) remanded into the custody of his master by Mr. Commr. Curtis, & the relation of master & slave established, the slave could not appoint an attorney, & claimed the exclusive right to appear for Sims. Judge Woodbury sustained this claim, wh. of course, put an end to all further proceedings. The other proceedings of the week have been these. On Monday & Tuesday, Mr. Loring & Mr. Rantoul argued the case of Sims before Curtis, & Col. Thomas replied in behalf of the master. Tuesday P. M., Curtis adjourned the Court to Friday, to give himself time to write out his opinion on the Constitutional question. Friday morning he delivered his opinion, sustaining his jurisdiction, & granting the certificate to the owner's agent. On the affidavit, he also directed the Marshal to escort the prisoner to Georgia. Another attempt was made to induce the Sheriff to serve the criminal process, with offers of any force he might need for a posse comitatus, & bonds of indemnity, with assurances that the holding under the warrant could not be justified. But the Sheriff's inclinations are all the other way, & his prejudices, & he lets slip the opportunities. Had he been in earnest

424

The Middle Years

to serve the process, it might have been done. But the truth is, there is not moral force eno' in Boston on the side of the slave to sustain the loss of the State in his favor. The National power, sustained by the interest of politicians, traders, & manufacturers, overpowers the authority of the State Courts. Judge Shaw actually went under the chain, to get to his Court. Judge Wells of the C. C. PI. refused to do this, & a place was made for him. I have never been under it. I either jump over it, or go round to the end, & have the rope removed, wh. they have at last graciously substituted for the last few links of the chain. The Senate has taken up this matter, & appointed a Committee of investigation, wh. has been in session the last week. Their examinations show, conclusively, that the arrest & dentention have been made chiefly by the city police force, & that no persons have been permitted to enter the Court House, in wh. the Supr. & C. PI. Courts were both in session, except counsels, parties, jurors &c., unless by a written permit of the U. S. Marshal, while the law requires the State Courts to be open. If our people bear these indignities & assumptions of power over their rights & privileges, instead of being slave catchers, they ought to be slaves themselves. Poor Sims was confined in a small room, with one half window, in the third story of the Court Room, on the West side. The window was barred, &, from my office, I could see him looking through the grates of his prison. Our Temple of justice is a slave pen! Our officers are slave hunters, & the voice of the old law of the State is hushed & awed into silence before this fearful Slave power wh. has got such entire control of the Union. Saturday morning, at between 4 & 5 o'ck. the poor fellow, with tears in his eyes, was marched on board a vessel, escorted by a hundred or more of the City Police, under orders of the U. S. Marshal, armed with swords & pistols, & in a few minutes she sailed down the harbor. A Convention of all persons opposed to the Fug. SI. Bill, called a fortnight ago, met at the Tremont Temple on Tuesday. It was a most enthousiastic excited, earnest meeting. The only difficulty was in keeping the people within bounds. A large portion of the company were bent on a rescue, but all the leading men were "law & order" men, & moderate counsels prevailed. Horace Mann presided. Excellent letters were read from Seward 53 & Ch. Fr. Adams, & speeches made by Mann, [J. G.] Palfrey, & others. The election of Allen, the gain for Palfrey, & the in63 William Henry Seward ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 7 2 ) later Lincoln's serving in the Senate from N e w York as an antislavery Whig.

Secretary

of

State,

was

i8$i

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

4*5

creased loss of [C. W.] Upham54 were cheering intelligence. At one time it was rumored that the Sheriff was about to serve the warrant, & it is said a thousand men, prepared to go to the death, for the State law, were eager to offer themselves for his posse. It seems that Sims was brot in a vessel to Boston, without the master's knowledge, & being discovered on board, when inside the light, was maltreated & confined in the cabin by the master & mate, with the knowledge of the owner (J. H. Pearson) for the purpose of carrying him back into slavery, against the clear law of our Commonwealth. Yet all attempts to arrest either the master or mate have proved futile, on acct. of the connivance of the owners at their escape. APRIL 20TH. EASTER SUNDAY. The last week nothing of consequence has occurred. The D[aily] Adv[ertiser] of Monday, 14th, contains the first attack upon my character which has yet appeared. My Free Soil friends have always congratulated me upon having escaped personal attacks, & it was only a few days ago that Sumner was alluding to this fact. The article is headed "Conscience", & states that at the hearing before Judge [Levi] Woodbury, on Th. night, Messrs. Sumner & Dana asked for an adjournment on acct. of the absence of certain material witnesses, & having obtained it, the only witnesses summoned, Messrs. [B. F.] Hallett, [P.] Riley & Coburn, were present the night before when the motion was made. Any lawyer wd. see that the whole force of the imputation here rested on the word "summoned", & would know that there would doubtless be other witnesses present not summoned; but it might deceive unprofessional or unthinking persons. Taking counsel of my pride & just self-respect, I determined at once not to notice the attack. Still, fearing that I might over-do this self-reliance, & knowing that the imputation was upon my professional character & conduct, I further took counsel of my friend Mr. [F. E.] Parker. He agreed with me fully that it ought not to be noticed, inasmuch as the Advertiser was known to be bitterly personal on the Free Soil question, & the attack was in fact political, although in form professional. We agreed that if Mr. [Nathan] Hale, the editor, were a fair minded, reasonable man, a private letter might be written to him, setting forth the facts, & calling upon him to make the proper correction; but he has been known, in a somewhat similar case, to withhold the letter of explanation & make it a matter of unfavorable reference in his paper the next day. His object is to injure the character of his political opponent, & an editor, who is not strictly a man of honor, has a correspondent in his power. B4 Charles W. Upham, noted earlier, had been elected as a Whig to the U. S. Congress, but with a much smaller plurality than had been expected.

426

The Middle Years

The facts were these. We asked for a delay chiefly because we had had no time to examine the return. We said we were not prepared either on the law or the facts, & did not know what we were to meet. I had not even heard the return read. I stated that we shd. want to introduce some ev[idence] & that certain witnesses whom we thot material, were not present — one, a professional brother, being at home & I did not doubt a-bed, & another lived out of town. The gentlemen to whom I referred were C. G. Loring Esq., & John A. Andrew. 55 They were both friendly witnesses, & would come without summons. The summons was only used for the hostile or neutral witnesses, like Riley, Hallett &c. As the ice is broken, I suppose I must share the fortune of war of all political actors.58 The last week there has been the highest flood ever known. The tide was two feet deep on the causeway to Boston & the omnibusses had to stop running. A man on horseback was carried off the causeway, but saved. The light-house on Minot's Ledge was carried away, & two men lost in it. Mr. Hastings brot from England letters from Josiah Quincy Senr., Samuel Cooper & Joseph Warren, to Dr. Franklin, never before pulished.57 They are all dated in the Spring of 1775, were carried to London, where Dr. F. was, by my grand-father. They contained favorable allusions to him. It is proposed to publish them in the D. Advertiser. Also a letter fr. Gen. Warren to Edmd. Dana. APRIL 24. This day, on the 24th ballot, Ch. Sumner was elected U. S. Senator.58 It was matter of great rejoicing to us, to be sure. At night, a procession formed in State st., & went to S.'s house, but he had purposely left town. Thence they went [to] Ch. Fr. Adams', who made them a speech, thence to my father's, thinking that I lived there, & called me out. My father went to the door & told them that I was at Cambridge. B0 John A. Andrew ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 6 7 ) , the only principal in this affair not previously noted, was a lawyer who served as governor of Massachusetts, 1 8 6 1 - 1 8 6 5 . B6 N o fewer than twenty-one attacks upon Dana appeared through the month of July. A correspondent signing himself "Son of a Merchant," appeared in the Commonwealth June 5, 1 8 5 1 , urging that Dana's law firm be boycotted. The letters containing these attacks are listed in the bibliography of Speeches edited by Richard Henry Dana III. 67 T h e letters to Benjamin Franklin were published in the Advertiser of April 29. Samuel Cooper ( 1 7 2 5 - 1 7 8 3 ) , a clergyman and Revolutionary patriot, was pastor of the Brattle Street Church, 1 7 4 3 - 1 7 8 3 . Joseph Warren ( 1 7 4 1 - 1 7 7 5 ) , physician and revolutionary, was killed rallying troops during the Battle of Bunker Hill. 58 Sumner was elected by the legislature, the popular election having failed to produce a conclusive majority (thanks partially to the Democrat-Free Soil coalition). T h e great rejoicing over the event was a sign of relief, for Sumner's candidacy, as Dana mentioned earlier, had been strongly opposed.

1851

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427

They then gave "three cheers for the old Gentleman!" — "three cheers for R. H. Dana, Senior!" My father replied that he never spoke in public but that his sympathies were with them. "If I spoke at all", said he, "I could not now, for I am just from a sick bed, but I can honestly say that this news has made me better". One hundred guns were fired on the Common, at noon (26th), & the news was received in various parts of N. England with ringing of bells & firing of cannon. A letter from Ned, dated at Rome, Mch. 31st reached us in 24 days from its date. He went fr. Heidelberg, via Basle, Berne, Geneva, Chauberg, & Turin, to Genoa. Thence, by steamer, to Leghorn, (with a day at Pisa), & Naples, where he spent a week. Thence to Palermo, for a fortnight or so, & back to Naples, where he makes a stay, & had just reached Rome, abt. three weeks before Easter. He thus beautifully describes the Bay of Naples "that magic semi-circle, with the dream land of Capri, lying like a cloud spell-bound, in its verg" — He is better & returns from Rome to Heidelberg. M A Y 4. SUNDAY. Wrote a long letter to Wm. Story, referring to recollections of his father, at his request, as he is preparing a biography 59 Nothing important occurred this week, except another letter fr. Ned, & the publication in the D. Advertiser of Tuesday (Ap. 29th) of the correspondence Mr. Hastings brot from England, Genl. Warren, letter to Edmund Dana, in 1767, & the letters to Dr. Franklin by gr. father. M A Y 1 1 . SUNDAY. Last Tuesday, we left Aunt Martha's house, & have taken lodgings temporarily at the Brattle House,60 with parlor & three chambers, pleasantly situated & accommodated. Thursday's Advertiser contains a criticism on my Worcester speech, signed X, written in good temper & style, & Saturday's another signed "E", in bad temper. The latter I think is Eliot. 61 I don't think of replying, except it be to interrogatories directly put by X, wh. it is, perhaps, not easy to avoid answering. I have also been attacked in the Transcript, by L. M. Sargent, under the signature of "Peace & Dignity of the Cmwth." for resolutions wh. I neither wrote nor approved of, but, on the contrary, disapproved of, & so expressed myself. I have written him a private letter, stating to him the facts. I hope he is man enough to put the matter right. 59 William Wetmore Story ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 9 5 ) , who was to become a close friend of Dana, was Joseph Story's son. Sculptor, essayist, and poet, he became the prototype of the American artist abroad when, in 1856, he settled in Rome, crossing the Atlantic in Dana's company. The book Dana refers to here is Life and Letters of Joseph Story, 2 vols. ( 1 8 5 1 ) . 60 The Brattle House was a hotel in Cambridge, near Harvard College. 61 Probably Samuel A. Eliot, noted earlier.

428

The Middle Years

Wm. [W.] Story & lady have the next parlor to us, & are quite agreeable neighbors. MAY 15. My letter to Sumner of May 13th gives the proper account of my Worcester Speech. At Mr. Quincy's suggestion, I wrote a letter to the Advertiser, which appeared on the 13th. Monday P. M., I went to Plymouth to argue the Bridgwater Ch. case, Taylor v. Edws. Staid at the Somorset House. We had at table, Judge [Thernon] Metcalf, & Messrs. Cliiford, Colby, Eliot & Coffin 62 of N. Bedford, Ames, Wood & others of the Plymouth bar, & enjoyed ourselves very much, at our meals & in the evenings. Monday night, I sat up, engaged in the preparation of my case. Tuesday was occupied by a case in wh. Coffin & Ames were engaged. Our case began Wednesday at 10 o'clock, & lasted until Thursday afternoon. The verdict was returned Friday morning, in my favor, settling the whole controversy, much to the delight of my clients, & the mortification of our opponents. Colby & Latham were for the ptf., & I was alone for the dft. During my visit, I took tea with Mrs. Sever, & called upon Col. Thomas, Mr. Nfathaniel] Russell, Capt. J. Russell, Mr. Thos. Russell, Dr. [P. T.j Kendall, Mrs. Briggs (Lucia Russell) Mrs. Stoddard (Martha Thomas) & Mrs. Joanna Davis.68 Arrived at Boston in the middle of Friday forenoon. Found all well at the Brattle Hs. Sarah had spent an evening at the Longfellow's, & was charmed with Mrs. L., is more interested in her than in any lady she has seen since she has been here. Sumner noticed "E"'s article, in the Commth. of the 15th, but not in the way I desired. It attacked the merchants & praised me, wh. he need not have done. Mrs. Nicholson promised to send me a little painting of a flower done by my mother & by her presented to Mrs. Nicholson. JUNE 1ST. Nothing of importance has occurred, except Franklin Haven's letter to the Transcript respecting my speech at Worcester. His letter is founded entirely on the wording of my speech, although the report is not verbatim, & not seen or authorised by me, as appears by my note to the D. Advertiser & by an article in the [Worcester] "Spy" 62 John Henry Clifford ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 7 6 ) served in the state legislature in 1 8 3 5 , the state senate in 1 8 4 5 and 1 8 6 2 . He became governor in 1 8 5 3 . Thomas Dawes Eliot ( 1 8 0 8 - 1 8 7 0 ) served in the U. S. Congress, 1 8 5 4 - 1 8 5 5 and 1 8 5 9 - 1 8 6 0 . Timothy Gardner Coffin ( 1 7 8 8 - 1 8 5 4 ) , Brown, 1 8 1 3 , served in the Massachusetts house in 1 8 2 5 . 63 T h e only person listed here whose identity is known but has not been noted earlier is Thomas Russell ( 1 7 8 8 - 1 8 5 4 ) , who served in the state legislature, 1 8 3 5 1 8 3 7 , and was state treasurer in 1 8 4 2 and 1 8 4 4 . He was a manufacturer in Plymouth.

i8$i

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

42Q

itself. I called upon him & told these facts, wh., by the way he knew before, & the additional fact, wh. he did not know, that my speech had never been republished entire, at all, until it appeared in the Transcript, & the part relating to Mr. Webster never, in any other paper to my knowledge. I objected to verbal criticisms under such circumstances, & he said that if he had known these facts, he should not have written the letter. I mentioned this to several friends, among others to J. C. Adams,84 who told it to Ticknor, in explanation, in a debate at T.'s house. Next day Ticknor goes to Haven, & Haven writes me a note in wh. he says I misunderstood him, that he meant that he should not have written if he had known these facts, ir I had publicly said that I did not charge him with corruption. I called on him with the note, & he admitted that he did not tell me so, & that I properly understood him as I did, but that he intended so. Quaera? If he told Ticknor so, or left him to think that I stated but part. I have some thought of replying to him, but am not certain. Have consulted, Ch. G. Loring, F. B. Crowninshield,65 Frank [E.] Parker & others. They advise it. The "rescue cases", for the trial of Scott & als.,66 concerned in rescuing Shadrack, came on last week, beginning with Tuesday May, 27th. Jas. Scott is the first man tried. John P. Hale is senior with me for the defense. What I have seen of Hale has pleased me. He has strong sense, quickness, fairness, & a habit of thinking over cases & points, with a good memory, although not a book man, nor fond on mere learning. He is an excellent companion, unobtrusive & sociable. There is a queer mixture of the natural gentleman & the rough country trader or farmer, about him. He is a man of good birth & education, but wasted his youth, & saved by an excellent wife. [On] Wed. (May 28th) dined at Prof. Channing's with S., & met [William] Ellery Sedgwick & his wife. How handsome he is! So beautifully dressed, so still & gentlemanlike in his manners, too handsome & choice for common life, or a profession, I fear. She is genteel, & affectionate & well principled, but not handsome, not intellectual. They are an attached couple, but the match is hardly equal. [On] Saturday P. M. (May 31st.) Sarah & I rode over to Woodbourn, with Mrs. Channing, & took tea with the Sedgwicks, at Wm. Minot Jr.'s. 64 John Clark Adams ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 7 4 ) , Harvard, 1 8 3 9 , after 1 8 4 4 was an assistant at the Dane law school. He was buried in Potter's Field after having been found frozen to death on a N e w York dock. "Rum did it," said a contemporary. e5 Francis Boardman Crowninshield ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 7 7 ) , Harvard, 1 8 2 7 , was a lawyer who served in the Massachusetts house, 1 8 4 6 - 1 8 4 9 . 66 James Scott was one of those prosecuted for aiding in the rescue of the fugitive slave "Shadrack."

430

The Middle Years

Beautiful afternoon, & had a charming time. Present, Mr. & Mrs. M., Mr. & Mrs. [W.] E. Sedgwick, Lieut. [C. H.] Davis, & Miss Dwight. Took Lieut. D. home with us, in the 4th seat in the carriage, making a pleasant drive of it. D. is devoted to science, & seems to be governed by the most honorable principles. Ellery & wife are going to Niagara, Canada, White Hills &c. J U N E 8TH. The last week has been spent in the trial of Scott for aiding in the rescue of the Fug. Slave Shadrack. The case was given to the jury at 12.30 M. of Thursday. At 5.30 P. M. they were called into Court & reported that they could not agree & that there was no prospect of their agreeing. Judge Sprague ordered them out again, & kept them out until 9.30 A. M. of Friday, being 21 hours. Being still unable to agree, they were discharged. They stood six to six. This was a triumph for us, as the Govt, exerted its utmost efforts to secure a verdict. Judge [W. B.] Sprague gave an elaborate charge on the law, sustaining the constitutionality of the Act of 1850. On the facts, I am constrained to say that his charge was ex-parte & excited. His eye flashed, his gestures were vehement, & his whole soul was in the maintainance of the law, urging it upon the jury with the zeal of an advocate or a party. In commenting on the evidence, he repeated, with emphasis, all the reasons given by the U. S. Attorney for believing the Govt, testimony & disbelieving ours, adding many suggestions of his own to the same effect, while he did not notice one of our suggestions or make one of his own in favor of our testimony or against that of the Govt. In fact, I am satisfied that Judge Sprague considers himself placed on the bench to preserve the balance of the machine, & if he thinks that the jury, or public opinion, or the weight of counsel inclines the scale towards the prisoner, he must retain the equilibrium by inclining as far the other way himself. This is an error, he must preserve the neutrality of the bench at all events, & keep other parties in their places if he can. There is a little too much of the old politician about him, to make him a clear judge in political causes, where the interests of his party & political friends are at stake. He is a man of a remarkably clear mind, penetrating & sagacious, equitable & firm. In fact, I have, for ten years, found him the model of a judge. But in these causes, he has shown too much feeling & excitement, & has argued the case for the Govemnt. After this jury was dismissed, an attempt was made to empannel another jury. Three of these jurors answered that they could not conscientiously find a man guilty under this law, & were excused. The Govt, asked the C't. to question the jury whether they had expressed or formed opinions, or had any bias in the case. The C't. ordered the questions to be put. One juror was asked if he had formed an opinion &c. He answered that

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he had, & was excused. We suggested that he did not rightly understand the question & asked to have it explained. We suggested that he might think the qu. referred to an opinion as to the entire transaction, while it only referred to the guilt or innocence of Lewis Hayden.67 The judge recalled him, & explained to him that the question related to the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. The juror then replied that he had not formed an opinion. Mr. Lunt interposed & said that the juror might have formed an opinion as to the acts of other parties. The judge put the question whether he had formed opinions as to the acts of other parties — I interposed. D[ana]. "I hope the C't. understands that we do not wish the question put". Court. "I do understand that you wish it put. You asked to have the orig. qu. explained". D. "We did so; but this is not an explanation, please your Honor. The qu. has been explained & the juror has answered. This qu. came fr. the Govt.". Court. "It is a different question, I see. Mr. Clerk put the next question". The venire being exhausted, the C't. adjourned to Monday. The Courier of Monday, 2d inst., contains a column & a half of attack upon me for my Worcester speech, calling upon me to answer Mr. Haven & others. And the Advertiser of the same day has two articles on me, one signed "the Son of a Merchant" calls on all the merchants to withdraw their business from me, & to proclaim non-intercourse. I shall not reply now, happen what will, & am glad that I did not reply. This is a mere political move, & arises from a desire to injure the reputation of their opponents. They do not desire either to elicit the truth or to do justice. At the Brattle Hs., we have W. W. Story & his wife at the next door, Staigg the artist, & Ames the artist, with his lady, making a very pleasant circle.68 Story is clever in all things, & independent, & his wife has a good deal of talent & much good humor, & is quite pretty. 67 L e w i s Hayden ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 8 9 ) was the second defendant in the "Rescue Trials." He maintained a clothing store in Boston which was the center for local abolitionist meetings. He was given a job as messenger for the state in 1 8 5 8 when his clothing store failed and served in the state legislature in 1 8 7 3 . He was acquitted in the prosecution. 68 William Wetmore Story, noted earlier, married Emelyn Eldrege in 1 8 4 3 . Richard Morrell Staigg ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 8 1 ) , English by birth, emigrated to the United States in 1 8 3 1 , came under the patronage of Allston, and gained fame as a miniature portrait painter of eminent men of politics and literature. In the last twenty years of his life he returned to full-size portraiture. Joseph Alexander Ames ( 1 8 1 6 - 1 8 7 2 ) was a popular portrait painter.

4 3 2

The Middle Years

JUNE 15. All this week engaged in trying the case of Lewis Hayden, for rescue of Shadrack. [J. P.] Hale has argued it nobly, with great skill in feeling the jury, & with passages of true eloquence. We see much of the Storys & like them more & more. A letter from Ned, dated Florence May 21st. At Mr. Ch. G. Loring's suggestion I have written him a letter on the subject of my Worcester speech, not for publication, but to preserve the true account of the matter, for future use, perhaps, & for friends. The N. Y. Tribune & Ev. Post have each articles condemning the mode of attack in the Advertiser. J U N E 17. Miss Julia Wilson fr. Canandaigua, with Mr. & Mrs. Drury, spent the ev. with us, & S. & I rode into town with them & back. [ J U N E ] 1 9 T H . THURSDAY. A beautiful little re-union at Longfellow's, to take leave of Mr. & Mrs. James R. Lowell, about going to Europe for a few years.69 We had Longfellow & wife, Lowell & wife, Wm. Story & wife, Ames & wife, Sarah & myself, Tom Appleton, Staigg, & a Mr. Akers, a sculptor.70 We sat round a beautiful circular table, covered with flowers, & furnished with fruits, ices & wines, from 10 o'clock until 1, midnight having passed without our knowledge. I never saw so many beautiful married ladies together before, in a group. Mrs. Longfellow, so queenlike, Mrs. Ames so Italianly beautiful, Mrs. Story so lovely & gentle, & Mrs. Dana so graceful & airy, & Mrs. Lowell, in wretched health, but with the remains of beauty, young enough to be revived, if health will permit. The men, too, were agreeable, clever & accomplished. It was a golden evening. The trial of Morris was broken off, after the Govt, had put in half its evidence, on account of a juryman, D. B. Walker, who was objected to as biassed, on newly discovered testimony. He had been put on his voir dire, & sworn it, but the Court, against our objections, allowed ev[idence] of things said by him some time ago respecting the Fug. SI. Law, & other kindred matters, to show bias & prejudice, & set him aside. Before swearing in the new juror, the Court, without our consent, continued the case to the next term. Qu. If the setting aside of Walker was illegal, is not Morris discharged? 69

James Russell Lowell ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 9 1 ) had published the Biglow Papers and Fable for Critics in 1 8 4 8 and was to join the Harvard faculty in 1 8 5 5 , the Atlantic Monthly in 1 8 5 7 . In 1 8 4 4 he married Maria White, a strong abolitionist, as well as a poet in her own right. She died in 1 8 5 3 . 70 Benjamin Paul Akers ( 1 8 2 5 - 1 8 6 1 ) , whose name Dana misspelled " A k e r , " was a neoclassical sculptor of some reputation.

1851

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

433

SUNDAY J U N E 22. In the ev. father came out & took tea. He has just come home from a tour to Barnstable, Provincetown, & other parts of Cape Cod. [W. W.] Story took tea with us, & Sumner came in in the evening. They all left us at 8 o'clock, taking the omnibus for Boston. This is the last of the Storys. They go to Nahant tomorrow. They are delightful & sterling people, & we shall miss them much. We have enjoyed many hours of most agreeable & instructive conversation with them. Wrote a letter to Mrs. [Robert] Sedgwick, on the death of her daughter Helen. (See Journal of Jan. 22, 1851). WED. J U N E 2 5 T H . At request of Mr. Arkenburgh, who has a suit in Boston, I went to N Y. to make preparations for his defence. Left B. at 5 P. M. by Fall River. Bot David Copperfield 71 & read it in the cars. On board the boat was introduced to Hon. Amos Tuck 72 of N. H., who is a hearty, pleasant sensible fellow, & was re-introduced to Rev. Dr. Beecher,73 the old man, with whom I had an hour or more of interesting conversation. The old gentleman remembered me at once, seemed to know my whole history, spoke of my book & voyage, & California, & then of my father & of the old controversy with the Unitarians in Massachusetts. At the mention of this, the eye of the old war-horse flashed, his countenance lighted up, yet with a mixture of tenderness in his expression wh. I did not expect to find. It was a well fought field, I told him, & we revived recollections, those of a boy & a man, of the contest of a small 6 despised band of devotees ag. the almost entire & unbroken force of wealth, gentility, & education, yet a contest in wh. the Orthodox gained much & the Unitarians lost what was vital to them, the prestige of immunity & supremacy. THURSDAY J U N E 2 6 . Reached the Astor House before breakfast. Found Geo. Metcalf there, on his way to Peoria, Hon. E. A. Newton of Pittsfield, & Rev. Mr. Adams74 late of Springfield. 71

Dickens' novel had been published in 1850.

72

A m o s Tuck ( 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 7 9 ) was elected to the U. S. House from Maine in 1 8 4 7 as an antislavery coalition candidate. In 1 8 5 6 he was vice-president of the Republican party platform committee. 73 L y m a n Beecher, noted earlier, had just retired from the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. He had been a leading figure in the Presbyterian division between the orthodox conservatives and the liberals. Unorthodox though Beecher was from a Presbyterian conservative point of view, he never supported the liberalism of the Unitarians, whose rise to power Dana has reference to here. 74 William Adams ( 1 8 0 7 - 1 8 8 0 ) , a Presbyterian clergyman, was a founder of Union Theological Seminary and its president, 1 8 7 4 - 1 8 8 0 .

434

The Middle Years

Went to the office of Messrs. West & Glover, & spent all day, until abt. 5 P. M., in their office & in seeing witnesses. Finished the business, & dined at Astor. Two gentlemen opposite spent their time in abusing & cursing Massachusetts, for her Free Soilism. They had drunk a good deal & swore much. They were not Southerners, but renegade Yankees. They predicted that grass wd. grow in the streets of Boston, & seemed to believe what they said, or to try to. After dinner went up to William's [Watson] & took tea. Adele & the children well. Made an appointment with W. to visit Greenwood [Cemetery]. About 8V2 P. M. called at Mrs. [Robert] Sedgwick's, & spent about an hour. Saw Mrs. S., & her four daughters, & [William] Ellery [Sedgwick] & his wife. We talked much & freely of Helen, & I was glad to find that they could do so. Called at Cousin Sophia's soon after 10 o'ck., but the house was shut up. FRIDAY JUNE 27. Bath & breakfast. Went up to Amity st., Cousin 5. was out, but Mr. R[ipley] at home, & spent an hour with him. At 11, Wm. & I went to Greenwood. The ride from the ferry to the Cemetery gate, is disagreeable in the extreme, the streets being laid out & graded, but not built, presenting dreary stretches of straight lines of curb stones, with a dusty road between them. But Greenwood itself is incomparable. Its views of the Ocean & Harbor & the great city almost at its feet, give it superiority to Mt. Auburn, & it is more spacious, with greater distances,

6, it seems to me, larger trees. But there was no places so secluded & dense with foliage as parts of Mt. Auburn. In the Monuments, there was much to offend & almost nothing to commend. The pilot monument was interesting, & the Firemen's showy; but there was a general mercantile air to the streets of tombs, numbered, with the owners' names on the posts, & over the doors, in the most conspicuous characters, which reminded one constantly of Broadway & its shops. [There] were very few Christian emblems or mottoes. One conspicuous monument, had the Cross & Crescent combined, with the motto, "We trust in God". The monument to Charlotte Canda is the chief ornament of the place. She was an exceedingly interesting & captivating girl, an only child, a universal favorite, & thé idol of her parents. She died on the evening of her 17th birth day, going to her first ball, by being thrown from the carriage. Her parents are even now, inconsolable, & make her memory their chief occupation. They had set apart $20,000 as her property, her dowry; & on her death they devoted the whole of it to her commémora-

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Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

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tion. In the niche of the marble monument, is a full length marble statue of the girl. After dinner, I went over to Hoboken, & spent about two hours in a beautiful walk up & down the banks of Hudson, from the Elysian fields to [the] Otto Cottage. I never saw a view in my life to surpass this for beauty & interest. You wander in the woods, on the banks of the Hudson, under the shade of the noble trees, with the great city stretched along for miles before you, its hum of trade & work just audible across the still broad river at your feet, the shutting in of the Highlands visible up the river, & down the river the opening to the Ocean at the narrows, the whole scene enlivened by countless sails, pleasure boats, & vessels of burden, with every few minutes a huge steamer darting out with a scream & deep-drawn breathing from the slips of the city. In the evening, called on Cousin Sophia, & went with her to call on Archbishop Hughes, 75 to thank him for his kindness to Ned. I found him quite tired & he did not talk much. He has told cousin Sophia that he saw no young man fr. this country in Europe, who pleased him so much as Ned, who seemed to be seeing Europe with so much profit, & with so clear a mind & so just views. From the Achb.'s we went together to Mrs. Sedgwick's, & spent a half hour. They leave tomorrow for Stockbridge. SATURDAY J U N E 28. Spent [the] morning in a ride up town, in a gig, driven by a boy who knew the localities. Went to the two reservoirs, & in through the 5th Avenue. The sumptuousness of the houses in this Avenue exceeded all my expectations. At 5 P. M. left, in the Empire State, for Fall River. Ch. B. Sedgwick, of Syracuse was my traveling companion. Before leaving town, called on Geo. W. Peck.76 At the Carlton Hs., where he dines, I found an actor, Hunt, who told me, in a clear emphatic & rather pompous tone, where I could find Peck. He was in the cock-loft of a house in Anthony st., opposite the Hospital, laid up with a sprained foot. His room was sufficiently poverty stricken, to suit the taste of any poor-author fancier. Reached home Sunday morning, before breakfast. Found S. & the children well. 76 John Joseph Hughes ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 6 4 ) was the most influential Roman Catholic cleric of his day. Bishop of N e w York since 1 8 4 2 , he became archbishop when N e w York was created an archdiocese in 1 8 5 0 . He had been in Germany and met with Dana's brother Ned. 76

G e o r g e W . Peck, noted earlier, evidently left Dana's law office, where he was a clerk and was reading for the bar, and had become an author and literary critic. His fortunes continue to decline as the Journal progresses.

The Middle Years

43^

In the ev., called at Mrs. [E. T.] Channing's, to tell her all about her sister & her family. JULY

i.

TUESDAY.

Rev. Mr. Prescott's trial for heresy begins. 77

[JULY] 2. WED. The Court in Mr. Prescott's case shows such ignorance, &, what is worse, such entire disregard of law, such prejudice ag. the Dft., such a determination to convict him & to leap over all obstacles to get at him, that w e shall probably sooner or later, have to give up the trial. [JULY] 3. THURSDAY. The rulings of the Court this morning are so bad, such an outrage, that, with the concurrence of all his friends, I advised Mr. Prescott to leave the Court, & he did so: not on the ground that injustice was done him, but on the ground that the Court had obtained no jurisdiction or authority over him, from want of proper services, notices &c. A full & certified report of this case is to be published. JULY 4. FRIDAY. Spent the day at home, reading, & preparing a report of Mr. Prescott's case. In ev. S. & I went into Boston & walked on the Common with father & Charlotte, Sally & little Charlotte. No fireworks on act. of rain in the afternoon.

6. SUNDAY. Felt very well yesterday & slept well all night, but while dressing, this morning, had a sudden sickness at the stomach, with faintness, ran for a bowl, expecting to vomit at an instant, when I fainted entirely away, & fell to the floor, striking my eye ag. the bed post. Sarah, much alarmed, came to me, I recovered immediately, & I went to bed & lay until 5 P. M., when I got up & had tea in the parlor. I had no headache at all, my head & brain were clear, there was no trouble with the bowels & no pain, only a nausea at the stomach, without vomiting, which gradually passed off. It was a singular turn, & might alarm me, were it not that there was no bad symptom whatever, except the nausea & fainting, & I am rather apt to feel faint in sickness. [JULY]

JULY 7. MONDAY. At office all the morning. reading Copperfield. Feel quite restored.

At

home

in

P.

M.,

[JULY] 8. TUESDAY. Sarah & I went in with the children (S. & C . ) to see the fireworks, from Mr. Minot's. 77 01iver S. Prescott, of Trinity Church, Boston, was tried by an ecclesiastical court of the Episcopal Church for having performed "Divine service in a manner not sanctioned by the law and usages of the Church." Dana's disgust with the structure of the ecclesiastical court system moved him to issue a call for reformation, and for a considerable period of time he remained involved with the affairs which the trial brought forth. The basis of the dispute, once again, was the disagreement between "High" and "Low" elements in the governing body of the church.

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Defense of a Fugitive Slave

437

[ J U L Y ] 13. SUNDAY. A full report of Prescott's case is in the Traveler of the 11th inst. (Friday) prepared by me, to be certified to. Mr. Prescott was sentenced at 1 o'clock Sat., within an hour after he had written the Bishop, stating the legal objections to the jurisdiction of the Court, the Bishop giving the subject no consideration. [On] Wed. (9th.) S. & I went to Phillips' Beach, Mrs. Putnam's & elsewhere, to find lodgings for the hot weeks, but with no success. Had a beautiful time, however. The next day (Thursday), we went to Rye, for the same purpose. Enjoyed our rides highly. Both Rye & Greenland are beautiful rural & sea-shore towns, combining the beauties of both. Our success in finding rooms was poor. Friday, Sarah went with little Charlotte to Lynn, & Mrs. Ames drove her to Marblehead, where she engaged lodgings, at the old Devereux farm. I have engaged to buy land of Wyeth, on the continuance of Phillips' Place,78 to build a house, & have a home, a rest for my feet, — a place I can call my own. The situation is not beautiful, but it is central, yet retired, off the highway & free from dust. The beautiful situations are all too far off from coaches & stations, for a man who cannot keep a coach. Father is at N. Bedford, visiting the Arnold's. Hillard is out in defence of himself, in two letters.79 How fortunate it was that I did not answer the attacks upon me! The tables are turned, completely. These gentlemen hoped to draw me out, by their attacks, & questions & insinuations. Not succeeding, they try a little harder, become angry, & resort to threats of proscription in business. This draws down upon them severe animadversions in the N. Y. & Philad. papers, & they are obliged to defend themselves as they can. So that, instead of an offensive war ag. me, they are barely defending their own characters on points as to wh. they are most sensitive to attacks. Hillard's notice of me was in an amiable & proper tone, & he is not properly responsible for the proscription articles, but he, being out of politics, as he says, undertook to write an article ag. Mr. [Josiah] Quincy [Sr.] & myself, both his personal friends, doubtless at the instigation of Mr. Ticknor & other 78 D a n a purchased a lot on Berkeley Street, in Cambridge. T h e house he built there still stands. During the seventeen years he lived there, Dana was a backyard neighbor to Longfellow, whose Craigie House fronts on Brattle Street. 79

G e o r g e S. Hillard, noted earlier, attacked Dana's April 6, 1 8 5 1 , Worcester speech in the Boston Advertiser of May 8, 10, and 1 2 , 1 8 5 1 , and the Boston Daily Commonwealth of M a y 16, 1 8 5 1 . T h e ensuing letters to the editor forced Hillard into a public defense of his motives for the attack. T h e issue was the character of Daniel Webster, the validity of the Free Soil party's uncompromising stand on slavery, and the unity of the W h i g party. This schism within the Boston community of gentlemen is discussed in some detail in the editor's Introduction to the Journal.

The Middle Years

43$

Webster men. Those who followed him did badly, & he is mixed up with them in an unfortunate way. It is the luck of such men to be left in the lurch by bad people. It is disagreeable to him to be known to have written ag. us, at all. He has not discretion enough to keep still, but shows his sensitiveness & weakness by writing letters. This day was the anniversary of the Story Association.80 [Rufus] Choate delivered the Oration. It was generally understood, the afternoon before, that he was preparing something on the Fug. Slave law & ag. the Free Soil party. Sumner told me so, & would not go. I begged him to go to the dinner, & told him that if anything was said against us, we would make fight. But he declined. As I went up the platform, Choate shook hands & said — "I am sorry you are coming. I shall have to offend you. You had better reconsider". And sure eno', the Oration was a defence of the Admn. policy as to Slavery, & an attack on the Free Soil party & principle. The plan was to prove that the preservation of the Union, in the scale of an enlightened morality, was a greater & higher virtue, than that wh. refused to surrender a fugitive slave, assuming, of course, that the two could not co-exist. It was an improper & inappropriate thing, &, I think, generally felt to be so. This was an occasion when all party questions were to be excluded, & the graduates of the school to meet as brothers, on common ground, to be addressed on some subject of common interest. Pres. [Josiah] Quincy [Sr.] & Mr. [Samuel] Hoar were the two oldest men present, both Free Soilers, & a striking commentary on the contemptuous manner in wh. Choate spoke of the youthful enthousiasm & inexperience of the Free Soil party. Neither of these gentlemen attended the dinner. JULY

15TH.

At the dinner, there was nothing offensive, except the speech of Gen. Carpenter of R. I., who spoke of "that miserable, conceited, fanatical faction" &c. In my remarks, I alluded to this, in a pleasant way, 81 but so that they should feel it. Wm. Story, in returning thanks for his father's memory, spoke of introducing "a regard for liberty in law, & Conscience into legislation". Judge [Samuel] Hoar's toast was also to the point, about love of liberty, reverence for law & fear of God. On the whole, they had the disgrace of making an ill mannered attack, & we rather had the last word. J U L Y 1 7 . THURSDAY. Phi Beta. Very flat & stale Oration fr. Dr. [W. B.] Sprague. Clever poem from [John] Pierepont. At the dinner Pres. Quincy 80 A f t e r the death of Judge Joseph Story in 1 8 4 5 , a memorial association of members of the Boston Bar was formed in his honor. 81

General Thomas Carpenter ( 1 7 9 6 - 1 8 5 4 ) , a Providence lawyer, once served as a major general in the Rhode Island militia. Dana first wrote "in the best w a y , " and later changed it to "in a pleasant w a y . "

1851

Defense of a Fugitive

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was first called up, & received, all standing. He pronounced a feeling eulogy on Judge Story, as the real founder of the Law School, & concluded by saying that he had been forced into this by an occurrence of a recent date — that he had attended the exercises of the Story Association, & with deep regret heard an oration, of wh. he would say nothing except that it had not one word about Joseph Story, or the Law School, or Mr. Dane. 82 Wm. Story, in replying, gave "Josiah Quincy, always true to liberty, virtue & friendship". J U L Y 19. ( S A T . ) My whole family moved down to Marblehead, to the house of a man named Mason, on the Neck, a beautiful situation, with a good sea view, & elm trees about it, at the end of a green lane. I went with them & spent Sunday. S. & I walked over to Church, at Old St. Michael's. J U L Y 22. Completed the purchase of my iot of land in Cambridge, Phillips Place, & agreed with Billings on a place for the house. J U L Y 23. WED. Took the Canada, at 12 M. for Halifax, on an excursion, for some three weeks or so. Among the passengers were Wm. Aspinwall, going to London, a Capt. Ward of Salem, an old sea captain, Mde. Sartin, who was put in my charge, a very clever & pretty woman, & Pitt the actor & his wife. Made. S. is an Englishwoman, of a Devonshire family, niece to Admiral Hillyar.83 In speaking of her uncle, she gave my patriotic temper as hard a trial as I could well bear, by telling me that her uncle took the Essex at Valparaiso, in a 20 gun brig, with another little brig!84 I said nothing. I don't doubt that her whole family believe this story. We consider the attack of those two vessels, a small frigate & a sloop, on a dismasted frigate at anchor as a dastardly action, tho' no doubt neccessary from the obstinacy of Porter in not surrendering.

Capt. Ward & I enjoyed ourselves in watching the working & handling of the sails, & commenting on the difference between the American & English fashions. The national characteristics were obvious through all these — the English slow, heavy, old fashioned, strong & sure, the American light, active quick, ingenious & inventive. I particularly liked the voices of the English officers, in giving commands. Their voices are rich, manly & clear. Reached Halifax at 10% P. M. of Thursday ev. July 24, after a passage of 33 hours. The weather was fine all the time, & nothing could have been more agreeable. 82 Nathan Dane ( 1 7 5 2 - 1 8 3 5 ) , Harvard, 1 7 7 8 , eminent statesman, endowed the Dane Professorship of L a w at Harvard and erected Dane Hall, in Cambridge, for law studies. The law school which Story founded was named after Dane. 83

S i r James Hillyar ( 1 7 6 9 - 1 8 4 3 ) was a well-known British naval officer. T h e Essex, under Captain David Porter, was captured March 28, 1 8 1 4 , outside Valparaiso, by the British frigate Phoebe, under Captain Hillyar, and the sloop Cherub. 84

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J U L Y 25. FRIDAY. Lodging at Mrs. Starr's boarding house. Called on the Youngs.85 Go into Court with them. It is a session of the Supr. Ct., at Nisi Prius. The counsel are dressed in black silk gowns, with white bands, the Court the same, but no wigs. In addressing the jury, the counsel keep their places, in the semi-circular benches. The room is very small, & the jury have inconvenient seats — so indeed have all but the Court. The front seat is for the Att. & Sol. Gen. & the Queen's Counsel. I noticed one peculiar habit, that of paying the jury after each verdict. It seems they receive 50 cents a man for each case they try. As soon as the verdict is in, the attorney or Clerk, makes the change or hands six dollars to the foreman, & several minutes is spent in making change & distributing the pay. I heard short arguments from Johnston, ex-Att. Gen., Murdoch & Ritchie.88 Went to the Citadel, with a permit from the Col. of Engineers, & spent some time there. It is garrisoned by the celebrated 42nd Reg. of Highlanders, the most distinguished regt. in the army. They wear the bonnet, kilt & bare leg. Their fatigue dress is plaid trowsers, in the common form, white jersey jackets, & caps. I saw the sargeant-major drilling a squad of about 60 men, in the exercise for resisting a charge of cavalry. The order is "shoulder up!" "Hup!" instead of arms. The 72nd Highlanders is also here, just arrived, & still on board the troop-ship. They exchange with the 38th, which is in barracks, &c. There is also a detachment of the 97th there.

26. SAT. Last night Mr. Young sent for my trunk, & I am passing my time at his house. This morning, I went on board H. B. M. ship Cumberland, 70 guns, Vice Adm. Sir Geo. Seymour, commanded by his son, Capt. Seymour.87 There is also a Commander on board, who does the duties of executive officer, Heathcote, a very handsome man. I had a card from Sir Geo. Seymour, who lives on shore, to admit me. With this, I went to the troop JULY

85

George R. and William Young, noted earlier. James Willam Johnston, or Johnstone ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 7 3 ) , was Prime Minister of Nova Scotia, 1 8 3 8 - 1 8 4 7 and 1 8 5 7 - 1 8 6 0 . He had been appointed attorney general in 1843. Dana misspelled his name "Johnson." Beamish Murdoch ( i 8 o o ? - i 8 7 6 ) , Recorder of Halifax, 1 8 5 0 - 1 8 6 0 , published a History of Nova Scotia ( 1 8 6 5 - 1 8 6 7 ) . Dana misspelled his name "Murdock." John William Ritchie ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 9 0 ) was law clerk of the legislative council of Nova Scotia, 1 8 3 9 - 1 8 6 0 . He was a law partner of the Young brothers. 86

87 Sir George Francis Seymour ( 1 7 8 7 - 1 8 7 0 ) had been Lord of the Admiralty, 1 8 4 1 - 1 8 4 4 , was made vice admiral in 1850, and in 1866 was to become Admiral of the Fleet. His son, Henry George Seymour ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 6 9 ) rose to the rank of vice admiral.

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ship Hercules, formerly a ship of the line, wh. had on board the 72nd Highlanders, & then waited at the Dock for a chance to go on board the Cumberland. A large boat, the pinnace, came ashore to take off the gang of workmen. In the stern sheets were three middies, dressed in large, loose blue over-coats, with gilt buttons, caps & bands & loose blue trowsers. One, a handsome youth named Hay, was in command. The other two were coming ashore on leave. One of these, a strikingly handsome lad of 17, with dark hair, olive complexion & regular feature, I spoke to & presented my card. He said that I had better wait for another boat, as that had all the men in it, & told me the Commander would soon be down. (I afterwards learned that one of these was Prince Victor, the grand-son of the Duchess of Kent, by her first marriage, & consequently, half nephew of the Queen.) 88 The Commander soon came down, & stopped a small quarter-boat, in wh. I went on board. On presenting my card, the First Lieut., Bickford, ordered a Cadet, "Mr. Brown", a boy of about 14, to show me through the ship. This was a remarkably genteel little fellow, with an unmistakable look of good breeding. Indeed, I noticed the same in all the lads on board, the two middies on the quarterdeck, were handsome, hearty, cheerful looking fellows, & it seemed to me that the intercourse between them & the lieutenants was more free than with us. The ship is of Symonds'89 build, with great beam, & well proportioned & roomy. She has, so far, disappointed them as a sailer, both on & off the wind. The most noticeable thing on board, is something wh. Melville remarks, the fact that the British sailors are much more heavy & burley than our sailors. I am confident that her crew would weigh one/quarter as much again as an American crew of the same number. All the officers, too, that I saw were large & handsome men, several of them looked like grenadiers. From the Cumberland we went to the Persian, brig-of-war; but as she was getting under way we did not go on board, but lay alongside in our boat, & saw the operations. It was a lively sight, the men in the tops & on the yards, the piping of the calls, the commands & responses, & the running & tramping to & fro. They walked off the halyards by a violin. They let fall all at once, & hoisted topsails, & sheeted home t[op] gfallant] sails & hoisted jibs, at once. The wind was so light however, that they did not get their anchor, until some hours after. In sailing down the harbor, they were entirely beaten by the packet brig Belle, bound to 88

Ferdinand of Hodenloke-Langenburg, Prince Victor ( 1 8 3 3 - 1 8 9 1 ) , for many years known as Count Gleichen, joined the Royal N a v y in 1 8 4 8 and retired in 1866. He became a sculptor of some note. Dana is to meet him, in 1 8 5 6 , in England. 89 T h e reference is to Rear Admiral Sir William Symonds ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 5 6 ) , who introduced some important changes in shipbuilding.

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Boston. The Belle was astern & to leeward, but went out with one tack; while the Persian made three tacks, & was two miles astern of her when they passed the Light. After this, walked round the Citadel, wh. is a fine work, & about as near to being impregnable as anything is now a days. At dinner we had Major Sparks of the 38th Regt., a man of reading & intelligence, & plain manners, who has seen much of the world, & a Mr. De Vries, of the R. Navy, who has now the charge of the Dock Yard. De Vries had been in the Chinese war, in the Wanderer, under Capt. Seymour, & in Ceylon, with the Rajah Brooke,90 for whom he had a great admiration. He gave us an anecdote of Brooke's gallantry, in charging a bush guarded by two natives, & receiving two lance wounds, one just beside his eye. He described him as the soul of gallantry & of a fiery & impetuous valor. J U L Y 27. SUNDAY. Went to St. Paul's Church. Heard the new Bishop's (Binney) 9 1 first sermon in the Diocese. It gave me a highly favorable opinion of the man. It was clear of flourish & ornament, solemn, direct, sensible, & with reasonable rhetorical power. It augurs well for the Diocese. After lunch walked with the two Youngs to the Citadel & the public garden, & called on an excellent Scotch gentleman, old, plain, intelligent, frank, named Williamson, who lives next the new Convent of the Sacred Heart. He gave me a piece of oat-cake to eat, the first I ever ate. Mr. Geo. R. Young is a widower, with two sons, John & George, & a daughter Fanny. His mother, a sensible old Scotch lady, keeps his house, & takes excellent care of his children. She speaks broad Scotch, & so do the boys. It is not agreeable. Mr. Y. is very polite to me, but he is a decidedly conceited, narrow minded, dogmatical, matter-of-fact, tedious man. In short, he is a bore. I had rather live on cheese & garlic, in a windmill, than to endure him one day more. Yet he means wells, & thinks himself a clever man, a scholar & a gentleman. He has the most industry & ambition in proportion to his brains, of any man I ever knew. I never knew a man who read more, or labored more strenuously to 90

T h e British defeated the Chinese in 1 8 4 2 , after two years of hostilities over trade agreements with the Emperor. This, and later wars between England and China, are noted further in the 1 8 5 9 - 1 8 6 0 portion of the Journal, when Dana visits the F a r East. Sir James Brooke ( 1 8 0 3 - 1 8 6 8 ) served in the Burma W a r and in 1 8 4 1 accepted the office of Raja of Sarawak, instituted a system of needed reforms in trade and piracy control, survived charges of cruelty and misconduct made against him, and left Sarawak for England in 1 8 6 3 . 91

Hibbert Binney ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 8 7 ) was appointed Anglican Bishop of Nova Scotia by Queen Victoria in 1 8 5 1 .

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make himself something in law, politics & letters, but nature had stunted him for a mere matter-of-fact man, with no great success at that. Every body in H. seems to understand his case. He treats his companion as a mere peg on wh. to hang the evidences of his own importance. But, I am his guest, & I must not look a gift horse in the mouth. I like his mother much. She is shrewd, well principled & kind. The daughter is nice. The boys, now, are clowns. At 9 walked to the Citadel & heard the bag-pipes of the 42nd at tattoo. The pipers spoke Gaelic, & were surrounded by Scotch people from the town. 28. MONDAY. Left in King's coach, at 9 A. M. for Annapolis. 92 The ride along the Basin is beautiful. This basin is the noblest feature that any sea-port town of my acquaintance possesses. Fleets can maneuver there, yet it is land locked, with trees to its banks like a lake. A few miles out, are the remains of a little temple built by the Duke of Kent,93 Q. Victoria's father, where he & his officers used to go for recreation. If H. ever becomes a large city, this Basin will be a grand place for regattas, & boating & amusements of all kinds. [JULY]

About 25 miles out is Mt. Uniacke the residence of the Uniacke family, a place wh. has cost a great deal & is now worth nothing. Its present holder, Crofton Uniacke is said to be poor.94 Reached Windsor at 4 P. M. Saw the College, 95 a long, narrow building, of stone, of a brown color, on a hill — rather dreary. Tide dead low, & no sea in sight, but a wretched appearance of forsaken wharves & vessels on their beam-ends, abiding the return of the wonderful tide, to swell in a few hours this great basin to the height of 30 or 40 feet. Reached Kentville, a pretty village at 9 P. M. Rode all the way fr. H. on outside, by driver, although it rained part of the time. Passed a pleasant night in an excellent inn at K., kept by a man named Angus. Very neat, good beds, good table, domestic & civil. JULY 29. TU. Left K. at 8 A.M. in an open wagon with two horses, driven by King, with relays every 10 miles. Reached Annapolis at 4% P. M. Dinner & tea at Mrs. Bayley's, a neat, domestic little house, with 92 Annapolis

Royal, a town in West Nova Scotia, on Annapolis Basin. Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathern (1767-1820) was Commander-inChief of British forces in North America, 1799-1800. 94 Richard John Uniacke (1753-1830) had been attorney general of Nova Scotia, 1797-1830. He died at Mount Uniacke, having fathered six sons and seven daughters. 95 Kings College, the oldest university in the British Dominions, was located at Windsor from 1788 to 1923. It is now at Halifax, affiliated with Dalhousie University. 9 3 Edward

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excellent cooking. Has been cold the last two days, with fog & rain. Sat at Mrs. B.'s kitchen fire — a wood fire, in a large chimney in old style. A stout masculine black98 woman named Rose, is the porter for all the town, & carries in her wheel barrow all the trunks & bundles. She is an odd creature, & known by every body. Mrs. B. says that Rose sometimes earns $3 before breakfast, but, although old, has laid up nothing, giving it all to her idle children & gr. children. Left in the steamer , for St. John, N. B. at 10 P. M. Before sailing, walked to the little barracks, where is a guard of a Lieut. & 30 men of the 42nd. Talked with the men, as usual. They find it very dull there. How civil & intelligent, & how erect & handsome are all the Br. soldiers I have seen! I like them much. Every man of the 42nd is Scotch, & nearly all of them Highlanders. When the roll was called, it was a succession of Frasers, McLeans, McDonalds, Campbells. A drunken steward of the steamer insisted, at 5 o'ck. in the morning, in going to all the berths, waking up each passenger & having a drunken talk with him about getting in, making the beds, &c. He waked me up, &, as I was pretty angry, he unluckily ran his arm into my face, & I struck him a blow wh. laid him flat on the cabin floor, & reported him to the master. Reached St. John at 8 A. M. of J U L Y 30. WED. At the St. John Hotel. This is an active business place, but entirely without interest to a stranger, there being no troops or Govt, offices here, & a snobbish air to everything. I shall get out of it as soon as possible. Left at 4% P. M., in the mail wagon, with no other passenger, for St. Andrew. Rode all night, a tedious ride, & reached St. A. at 6 A. M. Got supper at the house of a nice farmer, a half tavern, a very pretty genteel daughter, in this remote place, named, Ellen McGowan, with rather a high air. J U L Y 31. Was ferried across the Passamaquoddy Bay, in an open boat, to Robbinston, the first town on the American side, known as a town with more vessels than houses. There were actually more vessels on the stocks, in various stages of building, than there were houses. Got breakfast at a wretched tavern, kept by an Irishman named O'Brien, the worst tavern I was ever in, — filthy in the extreme. Left R. at 9V2 A. M., in a mail wagon, on my way to Bangor. At Pembroke, took the mail coach from Eastport, outside seat, & rode through Machias to Cherryfield. The two drivers, — the contrast in their 96 The Negro population of Nova Scotia was established after the W a r of when Negroes who had fought in the British army were stranded in Canada.

1812,

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opinions & principles — The driver from M. to C., a sober, sedate man, had lost a wife a few months before, to whom he was devoted, & firmly believed in female virtue & excellence. The driver from P. to M., a regular libertine, whose account of the state of things along the road, if half true, shows that female virtue in the country towns of Maine is no better than in any old country of the South of Europe. Such I have heard to be the case in the farming districts of Maine, from various sources, & it is notorious that Maine furnishes the chief supply of the Boston market in girls of the town. AUG. l. FRIDAY. Reached Cherryfield at X2V2, midnight, poor lodgings, early breakfast & ride to Bangor, via Ellsworth. The chief characteristic of the country, all the way from the Br. Provinces to Bangor, is that the farm houses, small, thin frail looking shells, are all placed on the tops of hills, where every wind can rake them, with all the trees cut down in every direction, & not the relief of a tree, a shrub or a vine. Most disconsolate & cheerless objects they are. Not one attractive farm house have I seen yet. When it is so easy to put the house in a snug corner, or on a slope, & to leave a grove of trees on the windy & exposed side of the house, to plant a vine that may climb over the door, — but no, there seems to be an inherent tastelessness in the common N. England man, a deadness to grace or beauty in every form, [which] nothing but the cultivation & example of ages can correct.

We made ourselves some amusement from an old woman who rode with us from Pembroke to Ellsworth, on her way to Bucksport. She bored the passengers to death with questions as to her meeting [the] Bucksport coach at Ellsworth, & the change of drivers & coaches. It was interminable. Every new driver, the landlord of each tavern where we stopped, every new passenger, until it became insufferable, the only way was to make a joke of it. Also, she seemed to have no money, whined & mourned, & got off from paying her bills at the taverns, or was let off at half-price. At Cherryfield she insisted on having her door locked & bolted, & for want of a lock, piled boxes ag. it, to the infinite mirth of the people. The inside passengers gave her some money, yet, after all, she begged & got a passage to Bucksport in a wagon, on the ground that she had not a cent to pay her fare with. She came out of a decent looking house in Pembroke, & we all made up our minds, at last, that she was a mere sponge, making a spec, out of us, to see how cheap she could get home. There are such people, especially among the vulgar, mean, half witted old women of country towns. An absurdly pedantic, ceremoniously worded old Scotchman, I met on my way from Windsor to Annapolis, must not be forgotten. Ridicu-

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lously slow & choice in his use of words, as though he was selecting the phraseology of a European treaty, with the longest & most pedantic words he could find, & long pauses for reflection, with high moral sentiments, yet producing the effect of doubt as to his sincerity, excessively tedious, with no great matter after all. He must be a fair specimen of a large class of his countrymen, — pedantic, slow, conceited, matterof-fact, literal, — yet it is the land of Scott & Burns, of loyalty, chivalry, superstitious legends, tune, & song. How perfectly literal, too, was Mrs. Young, & the Messers. Young, & all the family. Poor Lamb's Scotchman is not an exaggeration. She [Mrs. Young] had tried to read the life of Hartley Coleridge, 97 but gave it up, saying that —"the man was clear crazy — Why should any body try to write a life of him". An excellent hotel at Bangor, the Bangor House, kept in a needlessly expensive manner, but unsurpassed by any hotel I was ever in, except the Revere & Cossen's. Met there Rev. John Marsh & lady from Brooklyn, on a short tour. Had been to Boston, Portland, Hallowell &c. AUG. 2. SATURDAY. Left Bangor at 6 % A. M., on outside of coach again for Moosehead Lake. Rode all day. Capt. Goodwin, brother of Orion Goodwin of Boston, was a passenger. He lives in Foxcroft, a pretty village. From Bangor to the Lake is a very pretty country, & the farm houses are placed with more regard to appearance, & here & there trees are planted about them, & vines trained. At Monson took an open wagon for the Lake, at 8V2 P. M., & rode by moon light to the Lake wh. we reached at nVz P. M. At M., met a lawyer of the place named Bell.

AUG. 3. Left Greenville (Foot of the Lake) at 1 P. M. in a large sloop sail boat for Kineo, which we reached a little before midnight, having had light winds & head winds all the way. We went ashore at a farm house on the Lake, about 5 miles up, & got an excellent supper of Moose meat, roasted, good bread & milk, & butter. The house was remarkably neat. The latter part of the sail was delightful, with a fine breese, beautiful moonlight, & a clear moon-lit view of the mountains wh. stand about the Lake. The Spencer mountains are striking objects, two in number, & running to single points, in the sugar loaf fashion; but the bold outline of Kineo Mountain is the most striking object on the lake. It stands on a peninsular, the water washing three sides of its base, & rising from the water, on one side, a perpendicular height of bare rock of 750 feet. It is so steep that it is accessible only on one side. At the foot of this mountain, which is at the middle of the length of the lake, is the Kineo House, the resting place of the hunters, & lumber-men, winter & 97 T h e only "life" is a biographical memoir, by Derwent Coleridge, prefixed to Hartley Coleridge's Poems (London, 1 8 5 1 ) .

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summer, & of travelers in the summer. The lake is 40 miles long, with numerous large bays, broken by headlands & a few islands, & with a picturesque circumference of mountains & forests. It is in the wild state still, moose are shot within a few miles of the house, & bears & wolves are often met with, the caraboo, deer, sable, otter, beaver, & abundance of trout. There are a number of hunters by profession, who live by selling their furs & game, who rendesvous at this house, & extend their hunts over the whole Northern limits of Maine, among the head waters of the St. John, Penobscot & Kennebec. Here, too, in the winter, are the lumberers, going [to] & from their work in the woods, coming up the lake on the ice. The lumberers go into the woods in companies, build camps, & spend the whole winter there, cutting trees & cutting roads to the nearest streams; & at the breaking up of the streams in the spring, they "drive the rivers", as they term it, that is, they float down the timber with poles & handspikes, a veiy hasardous employment to health & limbs, requiring the men to be almost constantly wet, day & night. They sleep in tents wh. they pitch wherever their raft may be, at night, with their wet clothes on. They go into the woods in large companies, & make themselves merry in their rude life. I have not met one man who has not professed to enjoy the winter camping. These lumberers form a class by themselves, like sailors, & have some of their characteristics. They generally spend in the summer, in Bangor & other large towns, all the earnings of the nine months toil. Our company in the boat consisted of the boatman, a pleasant, handsome young man, of French origin, born in Canada, named Louis, John Evelath, a young man of the neighborhood just returned from California, a quiet well disposed man, & [a] high blood of a chap, a traveling agent for selling cigars, perfumes, bitters &c., full of life & spirit, singing songs & telling stories all the way. AUG. 4. MONDAY. Reached Kineo at 11% P. M. Found here Mr. Ellis of Boston, my White Hills companion, a Mr. Chambers from near Natches, Mississippi, with his wife, a flat by the name of Stevens from N. Y., young Phillips from Cambridge, Judge Phillips' son, & a number of natives. Ellis confines himself to fishing, at wh. he is very expert. Mr. Chambers is a dead shot with a rifle, & had just shot a bull-moose, with a huge pair of horns. In another boat's party, young Phillips shot a bull moose, larger than Chambers'. They have each got the horns ready to carry home with them as trophies. Just after breakfast we went off in the sail boat, & they landed me at the foot of the mountain, & I went up to the top. It is a fair ascent of about an hour's work, & the view from it well repays the labor. Being

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at the centre of the length of the lake, we have a fine view, both up & down. On descending, I found young Phillips' party at the beach, just returned from their expedition to Moose-River, & went up again with them. There is an excellent spring near the summit, wh. never fails, & gives pure & cool water. On descending again, I saw the boat beating to windward, so I employed my leisure in bathing, a grateful exercise after so much long journeying where baths are out of the question. Returned in the boat to dinner. There is here a curious character, known all over this region as "Uncle Ellis", an old hunter, a little over 60 years of age, who has spent two-thirds of the last 40 years in the woods, & has slept more than half the nights in the open air. He roams through the country in search of beaver, otter, moose & caraboo, acts sometimes as guide, & only comes into the settlements to refit. He is here now, & forms the centre of attraction in the bar-room, where we sit every night round a generous wood fire. He has just entertained us with several bear & moose stories, told with great spirit. He springs up & acts out the whole scene on the floor, imitating the voices & action of the several animals. He has a great deal of strong sense & quickness at repartee, in which he constantly exercises himself good naturedly with our host, who has some humor & great good nature. Three men have just arrived, with their rifles & baggage, in a birch canoe, having been into Canada, on a hunting tour, & to look at the gold diggins. They went all the way by water, up the Penobscot, except a few miles of "carry", as they call the "portages", in good old English. I am glad this term is in use. They have the "N. W. Carry", & the "N. E. Carry", between this lake & the river. These men & Uncle Ellis & others are practicing rifle shooting on the bank in front of the house. The tall hunter from the canoe made the best shot, cutting a stake, not larger than his forefinger at a little less than point blank distance. AUG. 5. TUESDAY. There is a strong S. E. blow, & as it rained last night we do not go into the woods, nor on the lake. In the morning there is rifle shooting on the bank. The tall hunter, & young Phillips made the best shots. Uncle Ellis is not great at a mark, but very good at a quick shot at moving objects. This is often the case, being matter of practice. In the afternoon, the gold hunters, Mr. & Mrs. Chambers, & Phillips leave us. I found Chambers a very intelligent man, with a decided South Western look & accent. At night, Uncle Ellis entertains us with a capital story about his dancing at the "Parkman muster", & a fellow being seised from behind & carried right out of the dance, three times in succession, without being

1851

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able to find out who did it; & of his knocking down a man who had been tripping up the dancers, & never losing his step or place in the dance, all wh. he acted out, on the floor. This subject was introduced by the fact of John, the landlord's son having brot in his violin & played us some dancing tunes. Old Ellis was all afire, called out for his old favorites of 40 years standing, Devil's Dream, All the way to Boston, Soldier's Joy, Green Sleeves, &c. &c. & danced a hornpipe on the bar room floor in the style of the last generation of woodsmen & sailors, with the activity of a boy of nineteen. He said that dancing was the greatest enjoyment of his life, & that a violin set him crasy. "The other day I was driving into Monson in a wagon with Joe Anstiss, & I heard a fiddle playing a dancing tune & the room a-shaking with the folks dancing, — I threw the reins to Joe, & says I, 'Here, take the reins, let the old horse go to h—11, I'm in there', & I jumped 15 feet, & was in the middle of 'em, before they knew the door was open". Then he lamented the breaking up of the "musters", & the old style of celebrating public days, when they had dancing in the tents & all kinds of fun going on. "Yes", says the old man, "Yes! Faith! Now there's Independí«/ You can't have an Independus as you used to, but there must be a d—d Sunday School, or Bible Class! If you inquire for some place where [they're] going to celebrate, they say, 'Oh yes, there's going to be one down to such a place'. 'Well, what is it going to be? What's the bill?' And it turns out to be some d—d child's play of Sunday School!" Conversation then turned upon violin playing, & the old man was very lively & graphic in his descriptions & imitations of various players. One Greenleaf received his commendation for hornpipes. "By the way, Uncle Ellis, where is Greenleaf, now?" asked Barrows. "Greenleaf! Why damn him, he's as dead as a Mack-skin". "No!" says Barrows, inquiringly. "Yes! Faith! He's as dead as one of them Mack-skins". (What kind of an animal this skin came from, I could not tell, but presumed it was known to this hunting & trapping community). "Didn't you know he 'listed for the Mack-skin war? Yes, Faith! & now he is as dead as the deadest of 'em". This explained the mystery. I wonder if the old hunter supposed the Mexicans got their name from some skins they wore? AUG. 6. WEDNESDAY. Engaged Rowell, the hunter to take me moose hunting, as I was determined to kill a moose if possible, before I left. Before dinner, I went down with him a few miles in his birch canoe, to look after his bear trap. We landed & went through the woods a half a mile or so, & came to a small enclosure made of boughs, with an

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opening on one side, & in the midst a large piece of a moose's carcass. At the opening, was a bear-trap, covered with leaves, wh. Rowell took up. It was a cruel looking implement, & sprang with a fearful clash. He was going to remove it to a place above Kineo. Mem., in walking the woods, look out for these little pens, & keep clear of their mouths, also whenever two stakes are driven together, or a piece of meat placed between trees. After dinner, at about 4 o'clock, set off on our moose-hunt. We went in R.'s little birch, with a gun apiece, loaded, a bucket containing some bread & meat for two meals, our thick coats, an axe & some pieces of rope. We paddled across the Lake, about five miles to the upper outlet of the Kennebec. (This is the small outlet, the main outlet being several miles below). The outlet is narrow, with what these people call "quick water", that is, "rapids", wh. we shot through, Rowell carefully & skillfully steering between the rocks & shallows & stumps, into a wide outspread wh. they call a "pond", then through quick water again into another long pond, at the end of wh. is a dam, built by the lumbermen, over wh. the waters of the lake pour into a small branch of the Kennebec. Around these ponds are patches of grass-grown ground, partly covered by water, muddy & swampy, wh. they call "pokelogans", into wh. the moose come to lie down, & wallow. We floated slowly along the banks of the streams & ponds, under the shade of the over hanging forest, amid the solitude of nature, with no human habitation within miles of us, in perfect silence, hardly daring to move in our canoe, watching with eyes & ears for the sound or sight a moose. Twice Rowell landed, & was gone some 10 or 20 minutes to examine the tracks & marks, & returned with news that there must be at least one moose near the lower pond. Just before sun-down, we landed & ate our plain supper, & when the sun was down, put off again paddling slowly up & down the stream, stopping to listen, & rounding the points & corners in profound silence, not even the splash of paddle being heard, in harmony with the falling of the night shadows on this romantic scene. The sun-set was clear & beautiful, & the moon in the mid-heavens, grew into light as the sun faded out. Then came the Northern lights shooting up their spears into the dark sky, & the longdrawn, plaintive, musical cry of the loon, unsurpassed for poetic effect by that of any sea-bird, echoed back & to & fro among the hills. I sat in the bow, with my gun by my side, ready for instant action, & Rowell laid his across the boat, to fire in case I missed, & guided the boat with his paddle. In this way, in entire silence, we floated about from sun-down until the moon set, which was a little after mid-night. The only sign of a moose, was the heavy step & breaking & crashing of branches as one of

1851

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

451

those huge creatures passed along near the shore, on our left. We followed him slowly on the other side, but we heard no more of him. The moon being down, it was too dark for a further hunt, & we drew our canoe in under the lee of a bank, & wrapping our coats about us, lay down in the bottom, drawn up in narrow compass, to sleep until the dawn of day. The black-flies had been very thick & troublesome in the afternoon, & the mosquitoes in the evening, but it was a cold night, & we were no longer troubled with them, although our sleep was a little interrupted by the chilliness of the air. I soon, however, fell asleep, & was dreaming of reading a controversy in the Daily Advertiser between Mr. Ticknor & the Trustees of the Atheneum, in wh. the Trustees said that Mr. T. complained when he had in fact the control of the committee through his family connexions, to wh. Mr. Ticknor replied tartly with some intimation of political influence, — when Rowell touched me, & said it was time to be stirring. Raising myself in the boat, I found that the streaks of day-break were out in the East, & the birds beginning their notes. Without a word spoken, we dropped down the stream, to the second pond, & round its shores, & up again, without seeing or hearing the least sign of a moose, & were floating down again, when Rowell whispered "There's a moose, right ahead!" Just then, we heard a breaking through the branches & leaves, & he disappeared, before I got a sight of him. We were too far off for a shot. We paddled silently & slowly down, ears & eyes attent, when we both heard the sound again, a little above us. As quick as thought, the canoe's head was turned round in that direction, & I held my gun in hand. Again, the breaking of branches is heard at the water's edge, & the head & fore part of a moose appears, stepping slowly into the water. He paused & looked about, but did not see us, as we were close under the bank. As he did not go in any further, Rowell pushed the canoe slowly forward & I took aim, resting the gun on one knee, as I sat in the bottom of the canoe. I took aim, as I had been told, at the fore-shoulder, a little behind. I kept the aim until we were within about six or seven rods, when R. whispered "Now, fire", & I fired. It was my first shot at any large wild animal, but I was as calm as if I had been firing at a mark. It was not quite light, but I could see his outline distinctly. He disappeared. "What's that in the water!" said Rowell. He had fallen, & after an instant's stillness, was struggling in the water. "Shall I fire the other barrel?" "No! He's dead", & a few strokes brought us to his side. As we passed him, I turned round to look at him, & incautiously sat on the gunwale, & over went the little birch, throwing us & our guns & axe in the water. It was not deep, & we recovered them easily, & landed. A stab in the throat, finished the struggles of the animal, & in a few minutes we had

The Middle Years him hauled to the shore. It was a dead lift getting upon the bank, for, although young, he was as large as [a] common small-sised cow. My ball had taken him just behind the shoulder, a little higher than I aimed, & gone through the wethers. The work of taking off the hide, & quartering the animal, I left to the hunter, although I did revive my old California experience, by dissecting one joint & skinning the fore-leg. Amid the triumph of my first shot, I could not but take some satisfaction in the knowledge that this destruction of innocent, perhaps enjoyed life, was not in mere wantonness. This is the food of the people on the lake, by whom other meats are not attainable, & there was an order for a moose from Greenville, where this was to be taken. Man has dominion over the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, & the fish of the sea. In its extent, this dominion is unlimited except by laws of humanity. There must be no cruelty, no needless suffering inflicted, & no more taking of life than the wants of man, in the way of food, clothing, labor, or science or art, perhaps also exercise & recreation, justly warrant. Whatever we may say or feel about the taking of life, is not this the truth? Is it not the truth of Scripture & of reason? Putting the fore quarters, either of wh. was a heavy lift for one man, into the boat, with the skin, we pushed our canoe up the rapids, through the ponds, & over the lake to Old Kineo, which we reached before the people of the house had gone to breakfast. It had been a novel & exciting chapter in my life, for which I would give many of the hum-drum days of pleasure in the established routes of men. On arriving at the house, I found that Louis had come up with his sloop, & immediately after dinner, Ellis & I embarked with him on an excursion to all parts of the lake. We took on board, a birch canoe, our travelling bags, provisions for three days, cooking utensils, fishing rods &c., & furnished the forecastle with blankets for nights' rests. We set sail at about 2 o'clock, with a beautiful fair wind, & doubling Old Kineo Mountain, we went up the lake in fine style, reaching its Northern extremity, the North East Carry, about 20 miles fr. Kineo, before 5 o'clock. Here we moored our boat, & went ashore in the birch, with our bucket of provisions & cooking utensils. Louis soon made a fire, & with the tea kettle hung over it, upon a stake stuck obliquely in the ground, we made quite a gipsey appearance. At this place we found also the camp of Indians, who were moose-hunting, as the moose-hides stretched between trees, & the pieces of meat smoking over a smouldering fire plainly indicated. The tent consisted of a slanting roof of birch bark, not perfectly covered, & open in front & on each [side], a very poor protection against the weather. Close by the camp floated the smallest & frailest birch canoe I ever saw. A blow with the foot would have crushed it.

1851

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

453

None of the Indians were there, but just before dark, after we had finished our supper & were preparing to go on board, an Indian, with gun over his shoulder, & dog at his heels, came down the Carry. He was dressed like a white, spoke English perfectly well, & entered into conversation with us. He told us that his dog, who was in the camp when we landed, had gone for him over two miles, & by barking & whining & drawing him away in this direction, had brought him to the camp. The faithful animal was alarmed by our appearance about the camp, & being of the small non-combatant breed, had gone off with immediate notice to his master. The Indian told us that his party consisted of two besides himself, & that they were moose-hunting. The skins they sell & use, & the meat they smoke, for the winter. His companions had gone off in another canoe, after moose. We asked him how long it took to make such a canoe as the one we saw, & he replied that he cd. make one in one day, if the materials were at hand. Louis, who was a Canadian, & understood the language of this tribe, the St. Francis Indians, talked with him in his own tongue. Soon, however, he went to his camp, & we saw the bright light of his fire among the trees & over the water. The sky had clouded over, & a few drops of rain fell, wh. warned [us] to go on board. In the forecastle, wh. was tolerably tight, we lighted a candle, my companions smoked their cigars (a pleasure my constitution strangely forbids my enjoying), we spread our blankets & coats, & notwithstanding the rain, with some thunder & lightning, passed a comfortable night. AUG 8. FRIDAY. Soon after day-break, we got up, & the rain being over, Ellis & I undressed & had a good swim in the lake, & made a respectable toilet in the boat, washing & shaving in a Christian fashion. This done we landed, & cooked & ate our breakfast. This Carry has been used for years as the chief connexion of water carriage between the Lake & the Penobscot river, & indeed, between the Kennebec & the Penobscot, for the Kennebec receives its waters from this lake. The Carry is about two miles in length (two miles & 40 rods), & of late years a company have built over it a kind of plank rail-road, on wh. they run a wooden car, drawn by a horse. This is much used by the lumbering [men] in carrying across their provisions, & for other transportation. This was a strange mark of civilisation in this wildness, amid moose & Indians.

After breakfast, we made sail, & stood across the lake, generally with light winds, chiefly ahead, to the N. W. Carry, where we went ashore & dined. (Our meals were all alike, consisting of tea, broiled pork & hard bread). At this Carry, there is nothing but rude road, made simply by

454

The Middle Years

felling trees & partially scrubbing up the bushes. At or near the place where this road strikes the branch of the Kennebec, it meets a road of the same character, leading to Canada, wh. is often traveled by hunters & woodsmen, & adventurous parties. It cannot, of course, be traveled on foot, until you get into the settled parts of Canada. At neither of these Carries was there a house, or any sign of occupation, except the rail-road at the Upper Carry. After dinner, we took out boat again, &, with a fine breese from the Northward, stood down the lake. We passed Kineo a little before sun-down, saluted the house with four guns, & stood for Spencer Bay, wh. opens about 6 or 8 miles below Kineo, on the same side, a wide beautiful bay, about 6 miles long, with a narrow entrance, washing the foot of the two beautiful heights, known as the Spencer Mountains, remarkably picturesque in the outline. Off the entrance, the wind died away, & came off in puffs, with a flickering, damp, changeable humor, baffling us for several hours, in our slow progress up the bay. Ellis turned in at 9 o'clock, & Louis & I undertook to beat the boat up to her anchorage at the head of the bay. I took the helm, & Louis stretched himself on the rail & went fast asleep, & left me in the solitary control of the little vessel in this unknown sea. I had obtained a general idea of the bay, before it became dark, & with this I steered lines, making my tacks to & fro for the wind was now a-head, steady & full, & not even the shifting of the sails, & my steps to & fro as I tended the pit, awaked the sleepers. About an hour's beating, brot me among the islands, about the middle of the bay, & I was obliged to wake Louis, who only could pilot us through them. It was 2 o'clock before we came to anchor, which we did in the bight, at the head of the bay, opposite the mouth of the river. We cleared up our decks & furled the sails in nautical fashion, & turned in, for the remainder of a night's rest. AUG. 9. SATURDAY. Ellis waked early, having had a full night's sleep, & went off in the birch after trout, on the banks of the river; but I declined to join him, & slept soundly until his return, about 8 o'clock. We went ashore with cooking utensils & provisions, took a bath, made a decent toilet, & cooked our breakfast, by the side of an excellent spring of cool water. The breakfast received a welcome addition from the trout wh. Ellis had taken in the stream. They were the best of their kind, & well cooked, & I can well say that I never relished fish so much in my life, as seated in the open air, in the early morning, on the banks of a lake, by the side of this cool spring, under the shadow of these noble mountains, the clouds & fog rolling off before the risen sun.

i8$i

Defense of a Fugitive Slave

455

After breakfast, we went on board again, & stood over for the main outlet, on the West side, where the waters of the lake run into the Kennebec. This is the greatest width of the lake, from the head of Spencer Bay to the outlet. This distance is about 15 miles. The wind was out from the S. W., & we could just lay our course, with as much as we could stagger under, her gunwales down in the water nearly all the way. I had the helm all the way, & it was as much as I could do, with a doubled rope fastened to windward, to keep her off to her course, letting her come up when the heavy flaws struck her. It was glorious sailing, in a clear sun, deep blue waters, cool strong breese, & a foaming & tearing vessel! We came to anchor at the outlet, & went ashore in our birch, to fish for trout, at least, this was the object with Ellis, who is a trouter, & had seen the place often. My object was chiefly to see the dam, although I fished ineffectually for a while. The dam is a remarkable object. It stretches across this arm of the lake, some 500 feet long, penning in the water, & letting it through sluices, or race-ways, made between heavy piers, all of the large timber of the country. We crossed the dam several times, & could feel its tremor, from the constant passage of the pent up waters. Here, too, is no house, or sign of a human hand, except in this structure in the midst of the solitude of the forest. The only use of the dam, is in the Spring of the year, for the lumber cut on the shores of the lake, when the lumbermen begin to "drive the streams". There is something peculiarly striking in the sight of the huge works of human art & reason, found in perfect order, in the wilderness, with no signs of human beings or of the abodes of man about them, & performing apparently no ofBce or service whatever. Ellis took a basket full of fair trout, we took our last dinner, & set sail for Kineo, with as much wind as our sails cd. bear without reefing, & arrived at the landing in fine style, at the close of the afternoon. Thus ended, on the whole the pleasantest, in every way most satisfactory sailing excursion I ever made. It is true that I have a fondness for a boat, for life on the water, beyond the affection I bear to any other mode of pastime. The vicissitudes of a day, in a boat\ This is always a quiet, unutterable pleasure to my spirit. It takes me completely from all cares of life. I forget that I am anything but a sailor, or have any purpose in life, but to guide the boat, to watch the winds & meet the little exigencies of the hour. Then, too, my thoughts wander back to my old sea life, & I dream over the events of that parentheses in my life, & recall the faces of my shipmates, the scenes on ship & shore, & find myself humming over capstan songs, & the cries at the windlass & the

456

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Years

haliards. A good breese enlivens me, & a calm only soothes & puts me in a dreamy state, tranquilises me, unless, indeed, I admit, it lasts too long. To-night, Old Ellis is in good humor again; but the company, made up of three or four young men from Boston, of an inferior order, shop boys, though they laughed long & loud, did not command much of his respect, & he did not do his best. He gave, however, a graphic account of his killing a strange animal, wh. he called a cougar, the only one seen in the State for many years, wh. he did not know the name of until some time afterwards. From his description, I should think it was something between a panther & a wildcat. It seems that this strange man, besides his 40 years of hunting, at one time, in early life, thought he would like to go to sea, & actually made two voyages before the mast, to the West Indies, from some port in the State. But he & the sea did not agree. He preferred the forests & the trail of bears & moose. He told me that at one time, last year, he was 90 days, in the Aroostook country, hunting & trapping, & during all that time, in his own expressive language, "I did not see a human being, or the smoke of a cabin, or hear the report of a gun; and I never enjoyed myself better in my life. Nearly every night, I lay down by the side of a log, with my blanket over me. A few colder nights I made a camp". There is something about him that reminds me of Uncle Edmund, the expression of his eye, & his mode of observing, laying up & narrating. Rowell, the man with whom I made my moose hunt, is an excellent woodsman & hunter, the successor of Old Ellis, & perhaps, with youth on his side, now his superior. He has been in other occupations & could do well in them, but follows this life from choice. He is quite different from Ellis, quiet, taciturn, with no humor, with more principle than Ellis, temperate & given to reflection. I do not mean that Ellis is not perfectly trust worthy. I have no doubt he is thoroughly so, but he is wild, a little given to dissipation, profane, & with the off-sets of a roving life full upon him. Yet he is a capital companion, & full of shrewdness & mother wit. AUG. 10. SUNDAY. Having finished the business of the lake, & not wishing needlessly to travel on Sunday, I am passing the day here in quietness. It is a beautiful day, & my window, at wh. I am this afternoon writing up my journal, commands a fine view of the lake & mountains. The only object on the water is the sail-boat, wh. is waiting to take me down tomorrow morning, & in wh. some of our company are taking a sail. I make it a rule never to read or study when I am away on these excursions. I adhere to this rule, under every circumstance short of

1851

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

457

necessity. If I cannot ride, or sail or walk, or talk, I will rather lie down & bask in the sun, or throw stones in the air & catch them, than put my mind to any labor, or allow one thought of business, or law or literature to enter it. Except this journal, wh. I always write in daily, if possible, I loaf away my unemployed time. The mind must lie fallow, that the natural dews & the rain from Heaven may visit it, & the natural flowers grow up in it. Once a year, for three weeks or a month, is not too much for such relaxation, for an abandonment to nature & nature's unsophisticated men, in a city living lawyer. This ev. the landlord, Mr. Barrow, & his daughters gave us some music. They sang the old tunes from the old fashioned collections of sacred music, Old Hundred, Dundee, St. Martin's, Greenville, &c. Miss Harriet plays the accordion, & sang to it "Home Sweet Home", Rose of Allandale, Sweet Afton very well, with some feeling, wh. made [up] for the want of culture. She is a girl of excellent sense, & a good deal of dignity & latent sentiment, whom other circumstances might have developed into a superior woman. The whole family then sang the ballad of "Ben Bolt" in a striking & interesting manner. They are four voices, two tenors, a bass & a second, & chord well together. AUG. 1 1 . MONDAY. This morning took a reluctant leave of Kineo. I gave a present to the little boy, gave "Ten Thousand a year" to the young ladies, had a tender adieu with old "Uncle Ellis", Rowell &c., & set sail, in Louis' boat, at 9V2 A. M., in co. with two young men from Boston, clerks in stores, named Sam. P. Adams, & Thomas Davis — indifferent youths — who sang tolerably well, & relieved the long voyage, (wh. lasted 18 hours) by Negro Melodies, Stilly Night, Rose of Allandale, Convent Bells, Jenette & J — something, I forget what, Sweet Afton &c. We had head winds very light & calms all the way, & did not reach Greenville until 3% A. M. of the next day. The Boston youths turned in some after 9 o'ck., & slept through, while Louis & I managed the boat. The youths gave some help with an oar, as we neared the lower islands. At Greenville, we waked the bar keeper, & tried to get a wagon to take us to Monson, 13 miles, in season for the Bangor coach, wh. leaves M. at 6 A. M. After about V2 hour, we got two single horse wagons, with a driver to one of them, & rode to Monson, wh. we reached at 7 A. M. Having been up all night, I dosed a good deal, & came pretty near falling off the seat. At Monson, we found the coach gone, but an extra was just starting for Dover, wh. is on the road, to carry a party of young men of the neighborhood to the Exhibition of Herr Drierback's wild animals, & we took outside seats on that coach. The young men inside were bound on a lark,

45$

The Middle Years

after a fortnight of hard hay-making, & were full of spirits, singing, & cracking jokes at everything they saw or met on the road. AUG. 12. TUESDAY. Reached Dover at n A. M. & found the little town full to over flowing with vehicles & people of all descriptions, come to see the famous Caravan, of wh. most extravagant pictures & representations had, for weeks, been pasted up in all the taverns for miles round the country. Not only were all the sheds & stables filled, but horses were billeted in the fields & tied to fences in all directions. I was told that there were 5000 people collected. I should think there were certainly 3000 in the tent. At 1 P. M. the show began, & we staid, to see the people rather than the animals, wh. we had seen before. It was curious to see the varieties of dress & character, in the people, young & old, men, women, girls & boys, who had come to the great sight. Old, white headed men, in homespun, young girls in white, well dusted by a ride of some 10 or 20 miles in the dry season, the gallants with the great brawny hands, & half shame-faced half bold-faced countenances, & the gaping staring old women. Besides the great exhibition of the wild beast, & Herr Drierback's contest with his lions & leopards, there was in another tent, a band of Etheopian minstrels, a fat woman, weighing ever so many hundreds, & a boa constrictor, wh. the keeper exhibited in a coil round his neck, holding the head in one hand & the tail in the other, gesticulating with them as he described the wonderful powers of the animal in strangling men & beasts, salivering them over & eating them at a meal. The great joke of the Etheopians, wh. took well with the country people, was that of the man who was obliged by the town authorities to shingle his cow, because the milk he sold had too much water in it.

Outside the tent, were two women, an old & a young one, playing 98 the hand organ & singing with a tamborine. The younger I spoke to in German, & held a little conversation with her, much pleased to find that my long neglected German was not entirely unintelligible to her, yet my little vocabulary was soon exhausted. At 4 P. M. took my departure, in a light wagon with one horse & a driver for Bangor, wh. I reached, via Corinth, (wh. the country people 98 Dana adds the following note: "In the crowd was an auction stand, from wh. a man was selling books, clothing & trinkets, by bidding clown. He would offer a card of jewelry for $2, & keep falling until he got a purchaser, at each step deploring the sacrifice he was making, & saying 'I'll say no more & take no less'. There was also a man, in black, neatly dressed, on a table, haranguing all day at the top of his voice, with intervals of low confidential tones to the person he was operating on. This was a professor of the art of extracting corns. He performed his operation in the sight of all the people, the patient putting his bare foot, not always the cleanest, on the table before them all."

1851

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

459

call Corinth) at 10V2 P. M., pretty well tired with two nights & days travel. AUG. 13. WEDNESDAY. At Bangor House found Mrs. E. T. Hastings, her son Edmond & a Miss Kuhn, on a tour for Mrs. H.'s health. By my advice they left, in the afternoon, by easy stages, for the lake. Also found here the Misses [Theodore] Lyman from Cambridge, on a vacation, visiting the Farrar family. Spent an hour with them, Mrs. F. & a Mrs. Hooper from the Sandwich Islands. Recommended the lake to them also. Finding it impossible to get to Hallowell in season for the boat of Thursday, without another whole night of travelling, by the regular conveyance, I hired an open wagon & driver, with one horse, to be changed every 10 miles, of the Coach line, & started at 3 P. M. for Waterville. I don't know when I have enjoyed a ride more. The country is well cultivated for a frontier state, the roads good, the afternoon was delightful, neither too hot nor too cool, the horses swift, & the changes regular & rapidly made. W e reached Waterville, 52 miles, at about 9 P. M., making little more than 5 hours of actual riding. This had been Commencement day, & the town & tavern were filled to overflowing. I got lodgings in a parlor. Waterville is a very pretty town, situated on slightly elevated & nearly level ground, just above the banks of the Kennebec. The [Colby] College buildings, too, for a wonder, are not placed on a bare naked hill, but on level ground, & surrounded prettily with trees. The impression made by the town was, on the whole, decidedly agreeable. AUG. 14. THURSDAY. At 7 A. M., took the little river steamer Balloon, for Augusta & Hallowell, there to meet the steamer Ocean for Boston. Besides the Commencement day company, there was an engine company of some 50 men, with a band of music, from Boston, so that both the little boats were over loaded, & both got aground a little below the town. The firemen were on board the other boat, & going on shore & manning a rope, succeeded in forcing the boat over the shoal, though with some damage to the keel & bottom. But our boat stuck fast, & although w e landed & manned a rope, w e could not start her. The crew jumped over-board, the water not being more than 3 feet deep, & tried to pry the boat off by handspikes. In the meantime, I learned that the water was all out of the boiler, the fire put out & the pump choked by saw-dust. Not liking the appearance of things, I got my baggage off, into a wagon, & rode back to town, where I was obliged to hire a horse, wagon & driver, to take me to Augusta, 20 miles, there being no coach. The ride was delightful, through a fine farming country, on the banks of the river all the way. It seemed to me that the farm houses were sprinkled over the country, on both sides of the river, about as closely as the present style of

460

The Middle Years

farming here would permit. In many cases groves of the old trees had been preserved, & in most cases ornamental trees were planted along the road & about the farm houses, & vines were trained over them, & the houses pleasantly situated, & all those characteristics appeared, the want of wh. I so much noticed on the way from the Provinces to Bangor. The country seemed as far forward in civilisation & culture as the banks of the Connecticut. Just as we were entering Augusta, while driving down hill, looking out upon the approaching town, I suddenly saw the horse start half out of his harness, & with one spring, start into a furious run, entirely uncontrollable by the driver, hurrying us along after him, first one side of the road & then the other, at a fearful speed, & before I had time to see the cause or to think, the wagon brought suddenly up, with a violent plunge, turned a complete summerset, & threw us both out, instantly, violently & helplessly, on the ground, to a distance of several feet. I had only time to feel myself going, & no time to think or try to do anything. I rose from the ground, found no limb broken, & after a few hard catchings of breath, & a little walking about, I thankfully found myself entirely unhurt. My companion, too, was unhurt, though a little lamed, & more jarred than I was. This was a wonderful preservation. Had I fallen against the fence, wh. was but 2 or 3 feet off, or on a stone, or even on the hard road, or on my head, or on any limb or hand, my life, or lameness perhaps for life would have been the consequence. Had we fallen under the horse's feet, or had he not, as it was singularly he did, disengaged himself at the moment of our fall, & thus drawn us after him, what might not have been the frightful consequences! When I looked at the wagon, & saw it a wreck, lying not only bottom up, but end-for-end, the hind part before, having turned a summerset, going down hill, at that furious rate, behind a mad horse, I saw the small chance we had for our preservation. I have met with not a few "moving accidents by flood & field"99 but I can sincerely say that I have never had so great cause to thank Providence for an escape from instant death, or great bodily harm. We found the cause of the accident was the breaking of the pin that fastens the whiffletree to the carriage, letting the whiffletree fall upon the horse's legs. He cleared himself so far from his harness as to let the shafts fall. The ends of the shafts striking in the ground, broke them both off within about a foot of the body of the carriage, & these stumps falling down, were driven directly into the ground, both at once, to the depth of several inches, wh. brought the wagon instantly to a stand, & threw over, end for end.

99Othello, I, iii, 135.

i8$i

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

461

A cart coming by, took us to town, with my baggage & the wreck of the wagon. The horse was stopped & taken to the stable. The people who saw our accident on the road, hastened to our relief, & were astonished at our escape. Not only were no limbs broken, but I fell so as not to break my watch. I fell [in a] summerset as well as the wagon, & came down on the grass, very nearly as I had been seated in the wagon, but with a pretty violent jar, such as I would not risk taking again for any consideration. At 2 P. M. took coach for Hallowell, & at 2V2 P. M. at H., took steamer Ocean for Boston. Augusta is a handsome town. Hallowell, I should say rather less so, but quite prosperous & agreeable. The State House, at A., is rather a failure. It is too narrow for its height. The sail down the Kennebec was charming. Gardiner strikes one as a handsome & flourishing town, as seen from the water, & the mansion of Robt. Hallowell Gardiner, Esq., the great proprietor of this region,1 on the banks of the river, about a mile below the town, is the most beautiful & stately private residence I have ever seen in America. The house is built of stone, very large, like the country residence of a English peer, with a beautiful lawn between it & the river, from wh. the whole front is visible, & a dense grove on each side. At Bath we stopped for an hour, & I walked into the town. It has many characteristics of a sea-port, wh. is always interesting to me, & seems to have a good deal of shipping & ship building. Towards sun-down we were out at sea, with the numerous lighthouses, coming into sight & departing, as we passed the headlands, Sequin, Cape Elisabeth, Isle of Shoals &c., & a beautiful moon light night over our heads & a smooth sea. The firemen with their band were on board, we had dancing for about an hour. Soon after nine, most of the company retired to rest. I kept my promanade until about 10V2, it being the last night of my journey. Had but little sleep, as we reached Boston soon after 3 A. M. It being too early for my people to be up, I went to the Revere House, & took a bed at 5 o'clk., where I slept soundly until 9. Dressed, breakfasted, rode to 43 Chestnut st., with my baggage, vis: trunk, travelling bag, great coat & moose skin & thence to office. No news from either Marblehead or Manchester, therefore presume that all are well. I have to record my thankfulness for the most successful, agreeable, invigorating, enlivened expedition of the kind I have ever taken. SEPT. 2. Went to Springfield to try Sheckll v. Jackson [10 Cush. 25], a libel suit v. editors of Commonwealth. 1

Robert Hallowell Gardiner ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 8 6 ) was for a time a civil engineer and manufacturer in Augusta, Georgia. T h e family was very wealthy and stemmed from the original colonist Dr. Sylvester Gardiner.

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Spent three days in the trial. Ashmun2 was the opposing counsel — not an agreeable man, rough & coarse grained. I had no difficulty with him, & met his roughness by courtesy, until he saw that it was not the right tack. Although I knew all the bar personally, & was there a stranger, not a man invited me to dinner or tea, or to walk or ride. [ S E P T . ] 19. This day, yesterday & the day before were great days in Boston, Lord Elgin, 3 the Gov. Genl. of Canada, meeting the Prest. [Fillmore] of the U. States here, on the occasion of the completion of a line of R. Road from Boston to Montreal. On Wed., a great display of military, Thursday, an excursion down the harbor, & Friday a grand procession of the trades & societies. It was a fine affair. Webster, in entire forgetfulness, or disregard of the English, (it must have been the former), in his speech at the State House, spoke of our superiority over the English at the World's Fair, our probable naval superiority &c. The English & Canadians, (who were invited guests), took it in ill part, as they well might. Wm. Young, Speaker of Canadian Parliament, told me that Ld. Elgin would not have gone on with the celebration, had he not been particularly requested to over look it. Indeed, they were told that Webster had taken too much, & was not fully himself. I hardly know wh. is the greater disgrace.4 Sarah came up on Thursday, & we went together to Salter's Cosmoramas, wh. we highly enjoyed, Healy's large picture of Webster's speech in reply to Hayne, which [is] rather a meretricious affair, to the Museum to see Warren 5 in a new farce, & spent the night at Chesnut st., & the next day saw the procession from the Albion balcony, & returned in the afternoon train. 2

George Ashmun ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 7 0 ) served in the state legislature and senate frequently between 1 8 3 3 and 1 8 5 1 . In i860 he was to be president of the Republican Convention in Chicago. 3 James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 6 3 ) was Governor-General of British North America, 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 5 3 . Dana met him on a later visit to Canada, and their paths crossed again in China in 1859. •The speech is reprinted in the later, less reliable, Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, XIII (Boston: Little, Brown, 1 9 0 3 ) , 442-444. It is quite coherent, though it does contain some nationalistic sentiments expressed at the expense of England and "Europe." 5 George P. A. Healy ( 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 9 4 ) was a popular Boston portrait painter, known as well for his historical and genre subjects. "Webster's Reply to Hayne" was his most celebrated historical composition. William Warren ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 8 8 ) was one of Boston's best-known actors, associated with the stock company of the Boston Museum, 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 8 3 . He was a member of the Saturday Club circle. William Salter ( 1 8 0 4 1 8 7 5 ) , widely admired English portrait painter, may have been exhibiting "Cosmoramas," which sounds like an experimental panorama.

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Lord Elgin made a capital speech at the dinner. Prest. Fillmore is fine looking, & was well received, though with no enthousiasm. SEP. 24. FRIDAY. Took tea at Dr. S. G. Howe's, with Sumner, Hillard, [W. W.] Story & wife, & Hon. Edw. Twisleton, an Engl, gentleman, brother of Lord Say & Sele,6 also Tom Appleton. We had a bright time. Tom A. was very facetious with Dr. Howe about philanthropy. Conversation turned on Wordsworth & De Quincey's7 attacks upon him. Mr. Twisleton defended Wordsworth admirably. He did it in the best spirit, with the high manner of a moral, well toned gentleman. There is something delightful in the voice & manner of a thorough bred Englishman of the Upper Class, if he is free from assumption. Nothing could be more simple than Mr. T. He is a rare scholar, Hebrew, Greek, & all modern languages, well versed in Engl, literature, & is examining our institutions for education. Mrs. Howe sang, & Sumner & I came in together. SEP. 30. TUESDAY. Sarah came to spend a day. Took tea together at the Storys', after tea, Sarah, Mrs. Story, Mrs. [J. A.] Ames & I went to the theatre to see Mrs. Mowatt. Unluckily the play was the Stranger.8 We had seen Mr. & Mrs. Kean9 play it exquisitely, & been melted to tears by it. Indeed, I never can forget the impression. Mrs. Mowatt played it prettily eno', but without appropriateness of dress, manner of expression, & was wretchedly supported. On the whole, the eifect was poor. After the play, we went to the Revere House, & spent the night, having a little entertainment in our parlor, Mrs. Ames joining us. My house in Cambridge is begun, well dug, & cellar wall nearly laid.

9. THURSDAY. This day we learned the death of my friend Robert Wheaton. 10 I may well call him my friend! At the age of thirty OCT.

6 E d w a r d T . B. Twisleton ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 7 4 ) , whose name Dana misspelled "Twissleton," was Chief Commissioner of Poor L a w s in Ireland, 1 8 4 3 - 1 8 4 9 . 'Thomas D e Quincey ( 1 7 8 5 - 1 8 5 9 ) attacked the pedestrian character of Wordsworth's verse in Tait's magazine in 1 8 3 4 . H The Stranger, by Auguste von Kotzebue ( 1 7 6 1 - 1 8 1 9 ) , was first published in German in 1 7 8 9 under the title Menschenhass und Reue. Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 7 0 ) , whose name Dana misspelled " M o w a t h , " was as well known for her dramatic and fictional writing as for her acting.

»Charles John Kean ( i 8 n ? - i 8 6 8 ) , second son of Edmund Kean, one of England's foremost actors, married the daughter of a Mr. Tree in 1 8 4 2 . She also was a famous actress. 10

Robert Wheaton ( 1 8 2 6 - 1 8 5 1 ) , son of diplomat and legal scholar Henry Wheaton, had just this year been admitted to the bar. He had lived abroad until 1 8 4 7 , so the close associations which he seems to have formed with Dana and others in so short a time was a tribute to his remarkable personality. He had published essays in a number of periodicals, and a posthumous volume of selections from his work was edited by his sister, Miss A b b y Wheaton.

464

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nine, I have met no other man, except my own brother, for whom I have had feelings that should truly be called by that sacred name. He was pure-minded, elevated, intellectual, religious, literary, accomplished in manners, art & letters, fond of high topic & great questions, just, humane, kind, polite, with a high degree of pride & reserve, yet truly modest. In a note from my father, he says "there was a moral beauty about Mr. Wheaton — he combined, in a remarkable manner, delicacy & manliness". It seems to me as if the wine of life were drawn, — the crown of the young men of my time — the polished corner of the temple is taken away! OCT. 13. MONDAY. This is the day of the funeral. We left Boston at 1 1 A. M., & reached Providence just in season to meet at the house, take a last look at his face so full of sweet, intellectual, manly beauty, & join in the rites of burial. The pall-bearers were Gov. Anthony, Dr. Shepard & Thomas J. Hopkins of Providence, Professors Longfellow, [C. C.] Felton & Agassis of Cambridge, Geo. W. Curtis 11 of N. York, & myself. There was a delegation of thirty students, ten from each of the upper classes & a number of Wheaton's personal friends from Boston & Cambridge, Horace Gray, Edw. Bangs, John Felton, Ch. E. Norton, Edm. Dwight 12 & others. The attendance of so many persons from a distance was a tribute to the worth & reputation of Robert Wheaton, wh. was much felt by his friends. He lies buried in the same tomb with his father. Two melancholy deaths of two men of great merit, deeply mourned by friends, but whose place in the world was not that of what is commonly called success. Each was embarrassed in his pecuniary affairs, with great claims upon him, & the consciousness of possessing abilities not particularly fitted to meet them. n H e n r y Bowen Anthony ( 1 8 1 5 - 1 8 8 4 ) , editor of the Providence Journal, was governor of Rhode Island, 1 8 4 9 - 1 8 5 0 , and U. S. senator, 1 8 5 8 - 1 8 8 4 . Charles Upham Shepard ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 8 6 ) , whose name Dana misspelled "Shepherd," had been a lecturer in natural science at Yale, 1 8 3 3 - 1 8 4 7 , and was on the faculty of South Carolina Medical College. Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( 1 8 0 7 - 1 8 7 3 ) was professor of natural science at Harvard. George William Curtis ( 1 8 2 4 - 1 8 9 2 ) was to become a celebrated orator, reformer, and editor of Harper's Weekly ( 1 8 6 3 - 1 8 9 2 ) . 12 H o r a c e Gray ( 1 8 2 8 - 1 9 0 2 ) was Reporter for the U. S. Supreme Court, 1 8 5 4 - 1 8 6 0 , a justice of the state Supreme Court, 1 8 6 4 - 1 8 7 3 , and became an associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court in 1 8 8 1 . E d w a r d Bangs ( 1 8 2 5 - 1 8 9 4 ) was a lawyer of Watertown, Massachusetts. He served in the state legislature in 1 8 6 5 . John Brooks Felton ( 1 8 2 7 - 1 8 7 7 ) , brother of C. C . Felton, moved to California after 1 8 5 3 , where Dana eventually met him again. Charles Eliot Norton ( 1 8 2 7 - 1 9 0 8 ) was at this time engaged in a modest East India trade business. He later became one of the foremost humanistic scholars and educators in the country. Edmund Dwight was probably a son of the Boston merchant of that name, noted earlier.

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In Robert's case there was not time for him to have suffered, for the world was just opening upon him; but he had before him the apprehensions of a distracting, care worn life. 13 Perhaps it would have been so. The Judge of all the earth has done right! In the evening, I called at the house, & saw the bereaved mother & sisters. Their case is one of desolation. A father & an only brother, a husband & an only son, gone within three years, & all their earthly hope, pride, solace & support taken from them! They are utterly bereaved. OCT. 17. I reed, a kind note from Miss Wheaton, with a Daguerrotype of Robert, from Healy's picture.14 It is a beautiful likeness, & most highly prised by me. It brings his face daily before me. They also presented me with the set of his father's reports, wh. Robert used. 25. Sarah & my family came from Marblehead, & we take rooms at the Brattle House, until our house is done. The children are all better for their summer's residence at Marblehead. They are all in fine health. The chief events of the last few weeks, are Judge Curtis' induction to office, & charge to the Grand Jury. 15 The latter was a remarkably clear lawyer-like performance. His definition of Treason was in the technical Curtis-like style, to the effect that "levying war" is a technical phrase, wh. had an established signification at the time the Constitution was adopted, in the law of the realm. This signification extended it beyond an attempt to overthrow the Government itself, & includes combined attempts to resist by force the execution of one or more laws (it matters not which) in all cases. He repudiates the extreme notion that combined & intentional forcible resistance in one case is treason. Yet, I believe that under our Constitution Treason is — treason! It is an attempt to overthrow the State, & nothing less. [OCT.]

I argued the cases ag. Capt. jail, & in these client as to the case.

first case that was argued before Judge Curtis — the two Jordan for illegally imprisoning two seamen in a foreign cases he gave his first judicial decision. He sustained my imprisonment, under the Act of 1840. It will be a leading

1:5 Robert Wheaton's father had been plagued by the responsibilities of a large family and no fortune, and his son had inherited these responsibilities. 14 George P. A. Healy, noted earlier, had done a portrait of Robert Wheaton. 15 Benjamin R. Curtis, noted earlier, a staunch "Cotton Whig," was appointed through Daniel Webster's influence to the post of associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. He was to resign in 1 8 5 7 after dissenting in the Dred Scott decision. He was conducting the U. S. Circuit Court in Boston, as part of his Supreme Court duties.

466

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NOV. 2. SUNDAY EV. Nothing of importance has occurred this week. The "Rescue Cases" are on again, & I made a point of law as to the removal of the cases fr. the Dist. C't. under Act 1846 § 3, which has given them some trouble. Also, that Judge [P.] Sprague erred in removing the juror (Walker) after the case was opened, for a cause on wh. he had been examined. My house is in progress, wh. gives me much pleasure in the hope of having a home for myself & family, after living so long in tents. Am so much absorbed in my profession that I have no time, now, for general reading. I must be a lawyer, it would seem. Sometimes I think I am, sometimes I feel astonishingly ignorant of law. But my interest in my profession has very much increased within the last year. NOV. 9. SUNDAY. The chief event of the past week is the trial of Robert Morris for a rescue. Judge Curtis has ruled some important points of law. He has decided that the Court can at any stage of a criminal trial hear evidence to show that a juror has a bias or an interest, & remove him, & that too although there has been an examination of the juror of the same point on the voir dire before he was sworn in dies f[asti].16 The next point ruled was this. On an indictment under the Fug. SI. law of 1850 for aiding in a rescue, it being necessary to prove that the party rescued was "held to service & labor under the law" of a state, & the law of Va. providing that no persons shall be slaves there except the descendants by the female line of persons who were slaves in 1785, it was not necessary for the Govt, to prove the fact that Shadrack was descended by the female line from such a person, but it was enough for the Govt, to show that Shadrack was held & treated as a slave. He admitted that the Govt, must prove him a slave de jure as well as de facto, but [pronounced] this evidence] competent for that purpose. We labored this point, & were much disappointed at his decision. I cannot believe it to be right, & his reasons rather confirmed my opinion. They were small & second rate. He also decided that under the Act of 1846, Aug. 8. sec. 3. the Distr. judge might remit a criminal case to the Circt. C't. at any stage of the proceedings, & that only the indictment could go up, & the Dft. must be arraigned anew, & was not entitled to have the proceedings of the Dist. C't. appear of record in the Circuit Court. My father, sister & Aunts came up from the sea-shore for the winter. ie

Dies Fasti, in the Roman law, was the phrase designating the days on which court might be held and other business legally transacted.

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S. & I went into a concert of the Germania Society last night. Miss Adelaide Phillips 17 sang, being her debut, or nearly so, & gave promise of a voice of the very first class. It is full, round, easy contralto. Rode out with the Nortons. Charles gave us an account of his visit to the Himalayas. 10 o'ck. P. M. Henry T. Parker has just come out to tell me of the death of our dearly beloved, our venerated clergyman, Dr. Croswell! 18 Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord! He has gone — "having the testimony of a good conscience; in the communion of the Catholic Church; in the confidence of a certain faith; in the comfort of a reasonable, religious & holy hope; in favor with Thee our God, & in perfect Charity with all the world". How deeply this loss will be felt by our parish. He was its Alpha & Omega. He opened its first service, in its little humble hall, & has gone on with it, through adversity & prosperity, with singleness of purpose, a devotion never exceeded. Neither salary, nor society, nor literature, nor ease drew him or threatened to draw him away a moment. Daily, morning & evening, with hardly rest enough for the necessities of health, has his voice offered up the service of our Church, the only Daily Service in the city, until a full & devoted congregation has been gathered about him. No man ever worked more faithfully, or with more solemn & substantial effect. It may be said, without impiety, that the eyes of all waited upon him. Generous, kind, patient, devoted, magnanimous man! May thy prayers never cease to go up for us, poor frail simple worms of the dust, thou hast left behind thee! I have lost my spiritual father, the guide of my children. The three youngest he baptised. When he baptised the boy he said, in the vestry, after it was over — "May there never be wanting a Richard Henry to stand before the Lord". His death became his life, & his life his death. He performed the service all day, & in the afternoon baptised a child (Dr. Salter's daughter, Emily Otis) & preached a sermon to the young. At the close of the sermon, he sat a moment, gave out his hymn & seemed ill or fatigued. The sexton gave him a tumbler of water. He then made the short prayer &, unable to pronounce the benediction, he remained kneeling, & said the short prayer of benediction. Most of the Congregation left, thinking him only a little fatigued; but those immediately about him remained. Mr. 17 Adelaide Phillips ( 1 8 3 3 - 1 8 8 2 ) , a seasoned performer in light musicals, was just beginning her apprenticeship in opera. Her formal American debut was in 1 8 5 5 . JSHenry Tuke Parker ( 1 8 2 4 - 1 8 9 0 ) , Harvard, 1 8 4 2 , wealthy son of Daniel Parker, moved permanently to London in 1 8 5 5 , where he acted as London agent for the Boston Public Library. William Croswell, noted earlier, died at the age of 52.

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Wainwright, Dr. Salter, Mr. [H. T.] Parker, Mr. Barnett & others, helped him to a carriage, & he rode home, & entered his house without taking off his surplice. He lay on a sofa a few minutes, when his pulse failed, he groaned, a beautiful tranquil smile passed over his features, & he was gone! The last time we saw him was in Church last Sunday. After service, we stopped & spoke to him in the aisle, S., Sally, Charlotte & I. NOV. 16. SUNDAY EV. The funeral of Dr. Croswell took place Wed. morning, 12th inst., at 11 o'clock A. M. The Bishop & clergy, & members of the vestry met at the house. The body lay in a beautiful coffin, dressed in the surplice & robes in wh. he last officiated, with flowers strewn upon it. His noble countenance was placid & calm as in life. The procession walked to the Church, a short distance, the bishop & clergy of the Diocese & other clergymen from other dioceses, all in their surplices, forty in number, led, followed by the body borne by eight of the vestry, of which I was one, with eight clergymen for pall bearers, followed by the family. As we entered the Church, which was densely crowded, the Choir chanted the sentences & we bore the body up the aisle & placed it at the rail of the Chancel. Thus was he borne up the aisle, which he daily ascended in simple majesty for years, by the faithful men who created this parish, who received him seven years ago as its first rector, & who stood manfully by him, through evil report & through good report, in his long & faithful service.

Bishop Williams, of Conn. & Dr. Wainwright 19 of N. York, performed the service. The music was low & sweet & the church draped in mourning. There was hardly a dry eye in the house. Men wept like children, & grasped each other's hands in silence, & women sobbed audibly. After service, the body was carried to N. Haven, by a committee of the Parish, where it was, on the next day, consigned to the family tomb. Everything was done in harmony, with propriety & taste. The scene was impressive upon all. The Christian Register, & other religious papers bear generous testimony to the solemn & touching character of the occasion & to the virtues of the deceased. There are many striking things in the manner of this death. On the 10th day of Nov. 1844, Dr. Croswell arrived in Boston to take charge of this parish, & on that evening first met us, in a parish meeting. On the 9th day of Nov. 1851, at evening, making an exact period of seven years, to 19 John Williams (1817-1899) had been elected Coadjutor Bishop of the Diocese of Connecticut in 1851. Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright (1793-1854), of Grace Church, New York, was to be consecrated Bishop of New York in 1852. Both were High-Church Episcopalians.

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the day, on the Lord's Day, at the last words of the evening service, while kneeling, with his face to the altar, with the whole gospel armor on, in the white robes of his sacred office, the Angel touched him, "The Lord hath need of thee", & as the sun went down his spirit obeyed the summons. Mr. [H. G.] Otis [Jr.] says "He was an emanation of the Prayer Book". So he was in deed. He was the most Liturgical man, in form, voice, manner, spirit, I ever saw. He is forever associated, in the minds of his people with the grandest & most tender parts of that noble service, the Glorias, the Benedictions, the Confessions. He lived solely for the Church of God. It was his Alpha & Omega. A scholar, his reading was solely theological, a poet, he knew no poetry but the religious, a gentleman, he cared for no society but that of the serious or the unfortunate poor, he coveted no man's silver or gold. He lived on & for & in the Church & its services, the poor, the sick, the afflicted & the penitent. He was one of the few, very few clergymen, who remained in Boston during the trying Cholera season, & when the ship fever prevailed, he went to Deer Island to bury utter strangers, poor emigrants, whose friends wanted the Church service, when no one else would go. Dr. Strong20 preached a funeral sermon to-day. The Church was crowded, & the deepest silence & tenderest feeling prevailed. The chief secular events of the week, are the elections. The Coalition (Free Soil & Democrat) has probably carried both branches of the Legislature, & Winthrop lacks 8000 votes of a majority. I think the Coalition an error of moral science on the part of the Free Soil party, but I rejoice that the Whigs are defeated, in the present selfish & cowardly policy, & that Sumner's election is thus ratified by the people. 21 The other event, is the acquittal of Morris. I hope this will end the Rescue Cases. Judge Curtis' charge was lucid & absolutely impartial. NOV. 19. WED. Rev. S. K. Lothrop has just returned fr. Europe. He saw Ned at Heidelberg, where he spent three days. He says the castle is the noblest ruin in Europe, & the view from it unsurpassed. While walking there with Ned, one soft August evening, just in the flush of sunset, he made a remark about the times in wh. these gigantic castles were built, & the men who held them, to wh. Ned assented, & said it 20

Titus Strong ( 1 7 8 7 - 1 8 5 5 ) was from 1814 until his death the rector of the Episcopal church in Greenfield, Massachusetts. His Sermon on the Death of Rev. Dr. William Croswell was published in 1851. 21 Robert Charles Winthrop, noted earlier, polled a large majority over the Democratic candidate, George S. Boutwell, and the Free Soil candidate, lohn Gorham Palfrey, but he failed to win a sufficient majority over the two combined, and the coalition-controlled legislature, which then determined the election, put Boutwell in the governor's chair. See Duberman, Adams, p. 77.

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was rather a different remark from wh. he heard on the same spot a few months before — "What was that?" says Mr. L. "It was from our countryman, Mr. Elihu Burritt,"22 said Ned. "I was walking here with him, about the same hour, & in the much the same mood, when he stopped & seemed for a few moments wrapped in thought. At length he essayed to speak & said 'Mr. Dana, a thought has been in my mind for some time. It is this. What an excellent place this would be for a female instituteV " Lothrop says Old Heidelberg rang with the peals of laughter from Ned's auditors. Mr. Lothrop gave a very good account of [the Duke of] Wellington. Mr. Lawrence 23 being a parishioner of Mr. Lothrop's, treated him with great attention, & gave him an introduction to the Houses of Parliament. In the Lords he heard the debate on the Eccles. title bill.24 Wellington spoke some 5 or 8 minutes, sensibly & to the point. The Bishop of Oxford (Wilberforce) 2 5 rose to speak, but was met with calls of "The Lord Chancellor! The Lord Chancellor!" from all parts of the house. He began again "My Lords!", but was received again in the same manner. He then bowed to the Ld. Chancellor, & sat down, & Ld. Turno 26 made a speech. Mr. L[othrop] says he inquired what this interruption meant, but could not get an explanation. The Bishop, he said, was considered the ablest speaker on the bench, & personally much respected. Mr. Lawrence took him to a party at Ld. Palmerston's. "The Duke" [of Wellington] came & was received with great attention by all, & went the round of the rooms, & was near the door when Lawrence intercepted him, & asked leave to introduce his clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Lothrop from America. "Certainly", said the duke, "I shall be happy to see Mr. Lothrop". He was introduced & told the duke that he had the pleasure of hearing his speech on the Eccl. titles bill a few nights before. Something was said about the night's session, & the duke said that it was a long one, lasting from 4 in the afternoon to 4 the next morning, but that he sat it out. He had ridden down to the house on his horse, wh. his groom took back, & had given no orders about his carriage, & there was no hack to be found, & it was a cold rainy morning, so he was obliged to walk 22 Elihu Burritt (1810-1879), "the Learned Blacksmith," was a famous reformer. He formed the "League of Universal Brotherhood" in 1846, and, beginning in 1848 at Brussels, organized a number of World Peace Conferences. 2 3 Abbot Lawrence, noted earlier, was Minister to Great Britain, 1849-1852. 2 4 A bill to provide Anglican bishops with permanent peerage. 25 Samuel Wilberforce (1805-1873), son of William Wilberforce, noted earlier, was made Bishop of Oxford in 1845, Bishop of Winchester in 1869. 26 Thomas Wilde, Baron Turno (1782-1855), distinguished member of the bar, was Lord Chancellor, 1850-1852, instituting various chancery reforms.

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home, to Apsley House. Here was a man of 83, sitting through a debate to 4 o'clock in the morning, & walking 2V2 miles in the rain, alone! As the duke left, Mr. Lothrop spoke of his vigor. Mr. Lawrence said he was failing, but very desirous to conceal it, that if no one was looking he would take hold of the balustars in going down stairs, but if any one was looking, he went down without aid. Mr. Lothrop stepped into the vestibule, & sure enough the duke was helping himself down stairs by one hand on the rail. When about half way down a party coming up was heard, & instantly the duke's hand was off the rail, & he went down the middle of the stair-way, erect, as if he had a regiment behind him. NOV. 25. TUESDAY. A young merchant, Sidney Homer gave a supper to Chas. Sumner, on the occasion of his leaving Boston to take his seat in the Senate. Present, besides the host & Chief guest, C. F. Adams, Dr. [J. G.] Palfrey, Geo. R. Russell, Dr. S. G. Howe, Peter B. Homer, & three merchants, Brewer, Blake & Whitney,27 & myself. It was a beautiful entertainment & passed off well. [NOV.] 26. WED. EV. Took tea at C. F. Adams', with Dr. Palfrey. Conversation on the state & prospects of our party. A[dams] fears an amalgamation with the democrats, irrespective of principles on the Slave Question. Thinks the dem. will try to break the Washington policy of non-intervention, & embroil the country in wars in Europe for the cause of republicanism, & that the Slave power will be glad of it for two reasons, 1st because it will divert public attention fr. the Slave question, & 2d because it will furnish a pretext for the Conquest of Cuba. He thinks a Whig, free-soilish, national nomination, like that of Judge [John] McLean would be the best remedy for this evil. [NOV.] 27. THURSDAY. Thanksgiving. Dined at Aunts, with Sarah & all the children. The boy made his first Thanksgiving & was much admired for his good conduct. He smiled & laughed & made no unpleasant sounds all day long. Hasen & Isabella28 were with them. All the family present except Aunt M., [who] was ill. NOV. 30. SUNDAY, (ADVENT SUNDAY). Our Anniversary, made so solemn by the death of Dr. Croswell, was rendered deeply interesting 27 T h e only men named here whose identities are known and who have not been noted earlier are: George Robert Russell ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 6 6 ) , who made a fortune as a merchant in Manila, where he founded the great trading house of Russell and Sturgis. His father was Jonathan Russell of Milton. Gardner Brewer ( 1 8 0 6 - 1 8 7 4 ) , a dry goods merchant and representative of some of the big textile mills, was one of the wealthiest and most liberal of Boston merchants. 28

Isabella was the wife of Dana's cousin Francis Dana. Hazen may have been her child.

The Middle Years by the services being conducted & the sermon preached by his venerable father.29 The old gentleman was much affected, especially in pronouncing the benediction. DEC. JTH. SUNDAY. No occurrence of importance this week. Began Campbell's Lives of the Ch. Justices.30 Finished Milton's Prose. H. T. Parker says he was in company a few evenings ago & heard it said that I had taken advantage of my position as counsel for Morris to make a political speech. Hillard was present & could not allow it to pass, but said he knew it was not so, that Judge [P.] Sprague told him that I had done nothing wh. was not strictly within the line of an advocate's duty. I told H. T. P. to tell H[illard] that I was much obliged to him, but that I was surprised he did not know that it was impossible to set people right where polit. prejudices intervened. Called at Uncle Edmund's last ev. (Dec. 6, 1851). He was very entertaining. Talked about his friend Arthur Maynard Walter, & their good times together in London. He sd. he hardly knew which Walter preferred, the Theatre or the Hs. of Commons. He enjoyed a front seat in the gallery as much as in the pit, & rubbed his hands when the house filled as much as when the curtain rose. He described a debate he heard on the bill for a levy en masse, when Bonaparte was at Boulogne. Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Canning & Windham31 spoke. Fox, he said had a long back, was corpulent, with a narrow upper part & wide lower part to his head, heavy looking, but with fine eyes. His manner was entirely without graces, & his utterance very rapid, but he was full of illustration & very interesting. Pitt, he says, had a less original mind than Fox, & less variety, but his manner was very impressive, his voice full & melodious, his utterance slow & emphatic, with a certainty & copiousness of speech, wh. made you perfectly certain that he could not fail or become embarrassed or confused. His arrangement was methodical, & he made every subject clear. His moral character gave him great weight, & he was considered independent & disinterested. Sheridan looked & acted like a theatrical manager, full of flourish & graces. He was particularly severe on the late Adminn., (Pitt's, for Addington32 was then Premire) & Pitt replied. Sheridan had not spoken for a long time, & Pitt congratulated him on his recovery of his speech, 29 Harry Croswell ( 1 7 7 8 - 1 8 5 8 ) , controversial Federalist editor of the Hudson, N e w York, Balance and The Wasp, was also an Episcopalian clergyman. 30 John Campbell ( 1 7 7 9 - 1 8 6 1 ) , Lives of the Chief Justices (London, 1 8 4 9 ) . 31 William Windman ( 1 7 5 0 - 1 8 1 0 ) was the younger William Pitt's Secretary of War, 1 7 9 4 - 1 8 0 1 . The other men mentioned here have been noted earlier. 32 Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth ( 1 7 5 7 - 1 8 4 4 ) , entered the cabinet as President of the Council in 1805.

i8$i

Defense of a Fugitive Slave

473

& said he had been bottled up so long that he came out with a bounce. The next day there was a caricature, entitled "Uncorking Sherry", representing Pitt in a wine vault, each bottle being a likeness of a member, & Pitt with a towel & a bottle under his arm, drawing the cork, the bottle being Sheridan. Sir Wm. Pulteney, who was then a very old man, the largest landholder in England except the duke of Bedford, 33 attacked Pitt's admn., & sd. he had wasted the public money, that the war was wrong, & our allies had taken our money & deserted us. Pitt replied "I may have spent the public money unfortunately, possibly unwisely, but not corruptly or selfishly. The men who sustained that war did it for the public good, not for personal profit". And pointing his long finger at Sir Wm., said — "I— never— elbowed— a— tenth— Scotchcousin, into office" &c. &c. Sir Wm. arose in a rage, & made a furious incoherent reply. Canning had lately been married, & spoke in a white waistcoat & new buckskin gloves. Uncle E. sd. he saw the dust fly from them as Canning struck his hands together as he arose & before he began. Uncle E. was in the gallery when the famous interlude occurred that over-set the gravity of all but the solemn speaker. There was a long interval of silence, with nothing whatever to do, while the Hs. was awaiting some report. It became tedious & rather embarrassing. At last, a man called out from the gallery — "Mr. Speaker! Give us a song!" No one could fully appreciate this, who did not know the preternatural gravity of Abbott, 34 & the intense dignity of the Speaker, in those days. The whole house & galleries broke out with laughter, but the Speaker rapped & sent up the officers to arrest the delinquent. Uncle saw the man who did it, & when the officers came into the gallery, this man pointed towards a respectable, middle aged quaker, & the officers took the poor innocent out, neck & heels & carried [him] before the grand assembly. He protested his innocence, & the mistake was so ludicrously apparent, that the House got into another fit of laughter, & the whole thing was dropped. DEC. IOTH. WED. This ev. we had a great ball at the Brattle House, the first subscription ball there has been in Cambridge in wh. the upper classes have joined, for 30 years. A committee of young gentlemen of the town & college called on me to know if Sarah would receive the 33 WiIliam Pulteney, a distant relative of Dana, has been noted earlier. John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford (1766-1839) was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 1806-1807. 34 Charles Abbott, 1st Baron of Tenterden (1762-1832), was Speaker of the House during the Napoleonic wars, and was raised to the peerage in 1827.

474

The Middle Years

company & act as lady-patroness. I told them that she would if they would select the subscribers, so as to exclude all the objectionable young men, & would get Mrs. Farrar & certain other ladies connected with the College to attend. This was done, & everything passed off admirably. Sarah was much complimented for her youthful appearance & beauty, & the grace with wh. she did her duties. There was constant dancing, at one time 14 cotillion sets on the floor. Dr. [Charles] Beck, & Lt. [C. H.] Davis danced, & many of the elder married ladies. 14. SUNDAY. Bishop [G. W.] Doane preached a funeral sermon at the Advent, to-day, on Dr. Croswell. Each had been the other's most intimate friend. It was a characteristic sermon, with a good many poetical quotations, but taking a strong hold on the subject & on his audience. Our friend Prof. [F. J.] Child entertains us very much by coming in occasionally, evenings, & telling stories to the children, in wh. he is very successful. He has quite a gift that way. DEC.

[DEC.] 18. THURSDAY. Being obliged to go to N. Y. on business relating to Wiggin v. Arkenburgh, I left at 3 P. M., by the land route. Found E. P. Whipple occupying a seat by himself & joined him. We kept together to N. Y. He was going through to Pittsburg Pa. to lecture. Last week he was at Burlington Vt., where he said every one seemed to bear Ned in kind & admiring remembrance. Whipple told me a capital thing which came from Prof. [Francis] Lieber. A Yankee countryman was looking at a copy of Canova's "dancing girl", 35 & exclaimed — "I had rather sleep with that gal, without a rag on her, than to sleep with Gen. Washington in all his regimentals". I laughed myself sore. (This he had from Judge [E. R.] Hoar). He also gave an account of a Western man, who was determined not to be surprised at the magnetic telegraph, when it first became known. The first line in America was set up, under the patronage of the Government, between Washington & Baltimore, & the whole country was in a half incredulous extacy. This man walked up to the board, the room being half full of dignitaries, & said "Can you send me a message to Baltimore?" "Yes, Sir". "How long will it take?" "Five minutes" said the clerk, expecting the man to be amased — "Can't wait", said he, walking off, contemptuously. Reached N. Y. at abt. midnight, & went to Irving House. Here was Louis Kossuth36 & his associates, & a number of Hungarians, in the hats 35 Antonio Canova ( 1 7 5 7 - 1 8 2 2 ) , internationally famous Italian sculptor, did three statues of "dancing girls," all between 1 8 0 6 and 1 8 1 0 . 36 L o u i s ( L e j o s ) Kossuth ( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 9 4 ) was internationally celebrated as the leaderin-exile of the Hungarian republican movement. After near success in 1 8 4 8 , he suffered reversals and had been exiled since 1849. He met with extremely enthusiastic

i8$i

Defense of a Fugitive Slave

475

& feathers, bright colors, whiskered & mustachioed, were about the entries. There was also a ball going on in the front parlors, the music of wh. kept me up until 3 o'clk. [ D E C . ] 19. F R I D A Y . Late breakfast. While reading the paper in the front hall, [a] long procession of black coats & white neck cloths passed through & went up stairs to present an address to Louis Kossuth. Among them I noticed Mr. [John] Marsh, Sarah's uncle. They were the self styled "Evangelical Clergy" of N. York, of the various denominations. The papers seemed to having nothing else in them than Kossuth, & he is the theme of all tongues. All admit his genius & eloquence, & admire his frankness & courage, but there is a difference of opinion as to his recommendation that our Govt, should take part in the affairs of Europe so far as to insist that the despotic powers should not interfere to put down republican movements in other states, on the ground that it is a violation of the law of Nations, wh. secures to each nation the right to regulate its own internal constitution & laws. His arguments that as a member of the family of Nations we have a duty to perform, a duty to see that the great principles of the law of Nations are not violated, this law having no executors but the several Nations themselves. I am surprised to see how general is the feeling in favor of his proposal, reversing as it does the policy of our Govt, for 60 years. Spent the whole day, until dark, in the affairs of Arkenburgh. On leaving he gave me a ticket to the Kossuth Reception, by the bar of N. Y. to take place that ev., at Tripler Hall. He was a strong Kossuth man, & had just sent him $100. After a late dinner, I went to Tripler Hall. It is a vast & splendid Hall, the largest I ever saw. It dwarfs objects at a distance, & it is impossible to see faces without an opera glass. The Hall was well filled, & the bar marched in, in procession, some 900 or 1000, & Ex. Ch. Jus. Jones took the Chair, with Geo. Wood, B. F. Butler, Ch. O'Connor, John V. Buren, Judge Betts 37 & others for V. Prests. Spoke to [W. M.] Evarts as he went receptions in England and the United States (Dana has run across one of the first of hundreds of huge receptions), where he caught the imaginations of both peoples by boldly demanding English and American support for the wave of republicanism which had swept Europe, and which was rapidly being suppressed. But Dana was correct in his guess that the enthusiasm was basically sentimental and implied no genuine inclination on the part of Americans to involve their country in "the affairs of Europe." 37

S a m u e l Jones ( 1 7 7 0 - 1 8 5 3 ) was a justice of the N e w York State Supreme Court, 1847—1849, and was an eminent maritime, real estate, and chancery lawyer. George W o o d ( 1 7 8 9 - 1 8 6 0 ) , a strong Webster supporter, appeared before the U. S. Supreme Court more often than any other N e w York lawyer in his day. Charles O'Connor ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 8 9 ) was a leader of the N e w York Bar. Samuel Rossiter Betts ( 1 7 8 6 - 1 8 6 8 ) was a justice of the N e w York Southern District Court, 1 8 2 6 - 1 8 6 7 . Benjamin F . Butler and John Van Buren have been noted earlier.

476

The Middle Years

up the aisle. Saw also, [William] Ellery Sedgwick & Wm. C. Russell. Judge Jones' short address was rather absurd. He is rather in his dotage, his stature small, his voice feeble & his manner extremely but weakly excitable. It was rather an unfortunate contrast to the calmness, reserve & grace of the great Magyar. Next, Edw. Sandford read a long address.38 He is a stiff, woodeny man, & read entirely without emotion. Then came Kossuth, in reply. He is a little above middle height, slender, straight, with Roman nose, large forehead, whiskers & moustache, a noble eye, full of fire, & an engaging smile. His manner is marked by a dignified reserve, with a latent fire of passion & pathos. He speaks the language with some difficulty, but makes himself easily understood. Never makes a mistake of grammar & rarely of idiom. There is something exceedingly interesting about him, independent of his history. His speech was manly, frank, well reasoned, with several admirable expressions, wh. one would be glad to remember. He makes the very utmost of his case. It could not be better presented. Reason & instinct are about equally appealed to, & in due proportion. But notwithstanding the applause & concurrence, I feel that he is doomed to disappointment on his main point, that of national intervention. Walked home with Sue Sedgwick, & spent the remainder of the ev. with Mrs. S. & her daughters. 20. SATURDAY. Spent all the morning on Mr. A[rkenburgh]'s affair. Left cards with Wm. Watson, & Evarts, (at their offices) had no time to make a single call, even on Cousin Sophia or Wm.'s wife, & left in the steamer at 4 P. M. I reached home DEC.

DEC. 2 1 . SUNDAY,

at 7 A. M .

[DEC.] 23. TUESDAY. Spent this evening at the Norton's. Mr. & Mrs. Longfellow, & a few others. We played a game, the fun of wh. consists in making a line wh. shall answer a question put, & rhyme with it, introducing into your line a word wh. you draw from a box. [DEC.] 25. CHHISTMAS. To Ch. in the morning. H. N. Hudson preached. Dined at father's, & came out early. Our rooms are prettily dressed in greens, as well as my office, as usual, & last night the presents were shown to the children. ^ E d w a r d Sandford ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 5 4 ) had been a judge of the Criminal Court of New York and had served in the New York senate in 1843. He was lost on the steamship Arctic, September 27, 1854.

1851 [DEC]

26.

FRIDAY.

Defense of a Fugitive

Slave

477

Spent the ev. at the [J. G.] Palfrey's, with a few

friends. DEC. 30. TUESD. This ev. had our second assembly at the Brattle House. It went off very well. I danced every dance, except the waltses, & Sarah nearly all. She looked beautifully, dressed in white crepe & the Hungarian colors. Mrs. Beck inquired who that beautiful young lady was, & Dr. [Charles] Beck told her it was the mother of five children.

4. The Death of Daniel

Webster

1 8 5 2

1852 JAN. 1. Sarah & I, with Sally, Charlotte & Lilly, Aunt Charlotte & Miss El. Sedgwick, spent the day & night at Milton, where Ida [Russell] had a child's party. Present, little Danas, little Riverses, little Forbes, &c. &c. Returned next day. JAN. 2. F R I D A Y . Attended a lecture by Scherb on poetry, by Longfellow's instigation. Sat with the Longfellows, Norton, & Child. The lecture was poetic & interesting, but not profound nor clear. I received, to-day, as gratifying a testimonial as I ever received & perhaps ever shall receive. It was a new year's present of [Henry] Hallam's works, in 8 volumes, a superb London edition, beautifully bound, from "several colored citizens of Boston", on account of my services in the "rescue cases". The gift was accompanied by a complimentary & well written note from [Robert] Morris. I answered it with true feeling of satisfaction. [ J A N . ] 3. SAT. Dined with H. T. Parker, who told me many pleasant things about his visit to England. Being the first anniversary of my boy's birth-day, I sent out to Sarah a box of beautiful flowers, & a present of a gold pencil case & pen combined, with a seal with her initial cut. Ended the day with a "Germania Concert" in Boston. Sat with Longfellow, Nortons, Tom Appleton & Hy Ware. 1 JAN. 4. S U N D A Y . Heavy snow storm, but S. & I walked to Church. Communion. After noon walked to Aunt M.'s, in snow storm, & brot back my copy of Memoir of Hartley Coleridge. Read Milton's "Hymn to the Nativity" to S. In ev., a Mr. Dixon of Conn., who is writing a law book here, spent some time with us.

9. FRIDAY. Our cousin El[izabeth] Sedgwick 2 has come to make us a visit at the Brattle House, to our great pleasure. She is a peculiar & very interesting character. [JAN.]

1

Henry Ware

(1824-1885),

Harvard, 1843, Boston lawyer, was to b e secretary to

t w o Massachusetts governors and principal clerk in the U . S. Senate, 2Elizabeth

Sedgwick

1867-1869.

( " L i z z y " ) S e d g w i c k , mentioned often before, was the daughter of Robert

of N e w

York and a m e m b e r of the household

D a n a visited there so fre-

quently. In i 8 6 0 she married Francis J. C h i l d , and it is possible that the Danas, w h o w e r e friends of C h i l d , were helping to encourage the match, for they had C h i l d dinner during her stay.

to

1852

The Death of Daniel Webster

47g

[ J A N . ] 13. TUESD. Attended exm. of the Senior Class in Rhetoric, & dined with the Committees at the Brattle House.

14. WED. Attended a wedding party at Gardiner G. Hubbard's3 new house. His sister married his wife's brother, Mr. McCurdy. [JAN.]

[ J A N . ] 15. THURSD. Dined with Geo. R. Young, at Mr. Almon's in Cambridge. Pleasant evening. A.'s wife is a niece of Mrs. Henney Derby, who was a Pickman, & is rather handsome & quite pleasing. A. himself, is a gentleman in heart & manners. Young is the greatest bore I ever saw in my life, thoroughly conceited, & inexpressibly annoying in all his ways. [ J A N . ] 16. FRIDAY. Had company to dine with us. Dr. & Mrs. S. G. Howe, Mrs. E. T. Channing, Prof. [F. J.] Child, my father, Frank [E.] Parker, El. Sedgwick & ourselves. It was a pleasant time, I thought, & all seemed to enjoy themselves. Dr. [J. G.] Palfrey called on me & asked me to go to the State Hs. & make sure that he was chosen to no office. He feared that the mistaken kindness of real friends, or the desire to shelve him on the part of false friends, might elect him to some office under Gov. Boutwell, a course wh. he said would disgrace both himself & the party.4 I did as he desired, & found that our friends had taken the right course, appreciating fully his motives. In my wanderings about the two Houses, I was stopped by men of all parties, & asked to use my influence about this & that office & candidate. I was rejoiced that I was clear of all connexion or interest in the wretched jobbing I saw about me, & that I could freely say so. J A N . 25. SUNDAY EV. Nothing important has happened this week. Lissie Sedgwick left us Thursday, after a visit wh. we have very much enjoyed. While here she had news of the birth of her brother [William] Ellery's first child, a son named Robert, wh. gives great joy to all that family. I have been having Daguerrotypes taken of my [self] by Southworth & Hawes, wh. are said to be good ones. Yesterday I argued the case of Sheckll v. Jackson (10 Cush. 25), before the full bench. It involves a great question, whether the editor of a newspaper can justify in a libel suit, by showing that he published the :! Gardiner Greene Hubbard ( 1 8 2 2 - 1 8 9 7 ) , whose first name Dana misspelled "Gardner," was interested in education for the deaf. This led to an association with Alexander Graham Bell after 1 8 7 1 , and to Hubbard's career as business head of various early telephone companies. He was founder and first president of the National Geographic Society. 4 George S. Boutwell ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 9 0 5 ) was governor of Massachusetts, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 5 2 , on the Democratic coalition ticket. He gained office through defeating the Whig candidate, Robert C. Winthrop. John G. Palfrey had run for governor on the Free Soil ticket to split the Whig vote and defeat Winthrop, and if he were to be given office by Boutwell it would look as if he had accepted a reward.

480

The Middle Years

statement in good faith, upon reasonable grounds of belief, for the purpose of preventing the consummation of a great crime, this being the means most (or solely) effectual to the end, he having no special authority from parties interested, & having no personal interest. I argued that he could so justify & so I believe. I am afraid the Court will dodge it. We are all anxious about not hearing from Ned. It is now four months since he has written. JAN. 28. Dined & took tea [at] Aunts, with Lissie Sedgwick, Prest. [Leonard] Woods [Jr.], Ida [Russell], the [William] Minots, Mr. Storrow, & others present.6 [ J A N . ] 29. S. & I went into Boston & heard Mrs. Barrett, in the Actress of Padua, & Warren in Bradshaw &c.8 [ J A N . ] 30. THURSDAY. I have been engaged these two days in the conduct of a very interesting case before the Probate Court. A man named Luther French, living in [Randolph], worth about $12,000 married a Miss Sally White, sister of my former student, &, under the influence of his mother & brother, made a will cutting off his widow & infant child with a trifle, & leaving the property to a son of a former marriage & to this brother. We tried to break the will, by proving fraudulent practices & undue influence. The result is not yet known. When I argued the case, I had a large & highly sympathetic audience, & spoke more to my own satisfaction than I have for a long time.

FEB. 15. SUNDAY EV. This week I have been engaged in the trial of Prescott's case, again. The Court is composed of Rev. Messers. Wayland (Prest.), [J. H.] Clinch, Slafter, Hallam & Packard. Geo. M. B r o w n 7 - , a 5

Charles S. Storrow (1809-1004), Harvard, 1829, was a civil engineer who was to be a delegate from Lawrence at the 1853 state Constitutional Convention. The others present at the tea have been noted earlier. 6 The Actress of Padua ( 1 8 3 6 ) , by Richard Penn Smith (1799-1854), was based on Victor Hugo's Tyran de Padoue. The star was Mrs. George H. H. Barrett (d. 1 8 5 3 ) , divorced wife of actor George Hooker Barrett. Barrett divorced her in 1840 in a flamboyant action, charging her with chronic drunkenness. William Warren was noted earlier. Bradshaw has not been traced. 7 Edmund Farwell Slafter (b. 1 8 1 6 ) was at this time rector of St. John's Church in Roxbury. He was later assigned to St. Paul's in Boston. Robert Alexander Hallam ( 1 8 0 7 - 1 8 7 7 ) , from 1835 until his death was rector of St. James' Church in New London, Connecticut. The Prescott trial was being continued from the preliminary hearings recorded in the Journal in 1851. Its primary issue concerned the right of such High Episcopalian clerics as Oliver S. Prescott to observe a liturgy which was more formal than that followed by the Low Episcopalians. The primary result of the trial was to make it clear that the ecclesiastical court system was inept, unsystematic, and uncertain of the character of its authority.

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481

solemn jackass, a butt at the bar, but with a gravity of manner wh. imposes on strangers, conducts the prosecution. The first two days he was perfectly intolerable. He made the most outrageous points of law, in support of the Presentment & of his evidence that were ever heard. I was not credited when I told my friends of the bar. The Court is entirely ignorant of law, & as Brown has a confident way with him, they were very timid in deciding. They have, however, avoided any very gross mistakes. One of Brown's points was this. Mr. P. was presented for these offenses a year ago. He excepted to the presentment & his exceptions were unanimously sustained by the first Court, & the Presentment was quashed. The Standing Committee then made a new presentment, under wh. he is now tried. Brown offered the record of the first Court as ev[idence] of Mr. P.'s guilt, on the ground that a demurrer admits the truth of the allegations. The Court took time to considerl So, he tried to prove, by persons who had conversed with Dr. Croswell, what he would have testified to at this trial, had he been present — ! Such outrages on law & common sense almost take away one's power of reply. The two first days he was very insulting indeed to me & to Mr. Prescott. It was intolerable. Had he not carried it so far as to make himself ridiculous, I should have been very angry. But the third day the Court remarked upon his manner, & he behaved much better. So far, they have proved nothing. Called this ev. on Horatio Greenough. He is occupying Agassis' house, in Oxford st. S. & I spent an hour there very pleasantly. He is expecting his statue in a month or so.8 He is a very handsome man, a little over six feet in height, well formed, with a fine head, large eye, & a very gentlemanlike air. He is thought cold; but I found him very easy & natural. FEB. 17. This afternoon I argued the petition of the Mystic River Co., for a grant of flats in Mystic river, before the Merc. Committee. 19. THURSDAY. To-day argued Mr. Prescott's case. I spoke nearly six hours, & I have [every] reason to believe, with unusual success. Horace Gray, who is a reluctant praiser, says it was the best speech I ever made, by far. Speaking of my episode on Dr. Croswell, he said to F. [E.] Parker "I am not easily moved to tears ever, & especially not in a thing I care nothing about, but I could not keep the tears from my eyes". Nearly every man shed tears, in the room. Mr. [J. B.] Felton said it was the most touching & eloquent thing he ever heard. I did it with a will. All the rest of the week I have been engaged in the settlement of the [FEB.]

s

Probably his group work, "The Rescue."

482

The Middle Years

Trust for the property of Mrs. G. B. Emerson, between herself, Mr. Emerson & Mr. & Mrs. Hare.9 It has been a very laborious & troublesome affair. Sarah has been very busy in selecting carpets, curtains & paper for the new house. She has taken the whole matter into her hands, & left me free to my labors & studies. For this, all thanks. FEB. 24. This ev. at the Norton's. Pleasant, as usual. Made a delightful appointment for the Opera, tomorrow, to hear Don Giovanni. 10 Party to consist of Mrs. [Andrews] Norton, Jane & Charles, Mr. & Mrs. Longfellow & Scherb, & ourselves. Just after left the house, remembered that tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. WED. [ F E B . ] 25. ASH WEDNESDAY. Wrote to Nortons & Longfellows declining the Opera, on account of Ash Wednesday. S. went to Church in Camb. I tried to go to Church in Boston but the hour was wrong. Came home early & read religious reading with S. [ F E B . ] 26. The Eccl. C't. has given in its decision, & stultified itself completely. It has pronounced that four of the five charges are not sustained, & the other is not sustained as to the nature of the offense charged. (This, of course, is an acquittal). The Court then proceeds to say that the Respondent has made a claim of a right to pronounce private Absolution. This claim is capable of a construction wh. wd. render it unexceptionable; but it is liable to an exceptionable construction. The Engl. Ch. permits private absolutions to Communicants who desire it. The Am. Ch. has restricted private absolution to two cases, criminals & persons sick of contagious disorders. If the Respt. means to go beyond these cases, his course would be, not heresy but an irregularity. The Court therefore sentence him that he shall sign a written renunciation of the latter construction within ten days, or else be suspended.

This sentence they have no right to pronounce. They must either degrade, suspend or censure. No Court has a right to compel a man to give an assent to its construction of the doctrines of the Church. The Bishop [M. Eastbum] has confirmed the sentence by written order to Mr. P. requiring him to sign a paper within ten days. This is therefore the sentence, & one Mr. P. will never assent to, if he obeys my direction, while the world stands. 9 Robert H. Hare's wedding to Miss Caroline Fleming on August 28, 1 8 4 5 , was reported in detail in the Journal. Miss Fleming's stepfather, George B. Emerson, and Miss Fleming's mother, seem now to stand accused of mismanaging trust funds to which the daughter had some claim. Since Dana was an intimate personal acquaintance of all the parties involved, the fact that he found it troublesome is understandable. 10

Mozart's opera was first performed in the United States on M a y 26,

1826.

i8$2

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M'CH [21.] I have written a letter for Mr. Prescott to the Bishop, arguing the illegality of the sentence & of the finding of the Court. I should like to see it answered. It is in the Churchman of M'ch. 20th. The Bishop, late in the ev. of Sat. the 13th sent a notice to Dr. Salter's for Mr. P. to appear at Tr[inity] Chfurch] Monday at 1 P. M. to receive a sentence of suspension. Mr. P. was out of town, spending Sunday with a friend, not to return until Monday afternoon & did not receive the notice at all, & it did not reach me until after 9 o'ck. Monday morning. I immediately wrote to the Bishop, stating this fact & asking for a delay. He took no notice of the request, but went to Church & passed the sentence. Mr. Oliver moved for a delay, in Church, but to no effect. The B. did not even notice the motion. The B. is a shallow man. A man of little brain, little heart, but conceited, dogmatical, self willed & self indulgent. No reliance can be placed on his honor or generosity. Mr. Brown had said, in his argument, that Prof. [Simon] Greenleaf drew up the Presentment, & this statement was repeated in the Witness. Feeling confident that this could not be so, I asked Mr. Greenleaf, & he told me distinctly that he was in no manner or form responsible for the Presentment — that he refused to draw one up, but, at the earnest solicitation of the Committee gave them an outline or "skeleton" (as he called it) of articles, but at the same time told them that some of the Charges were not sufficiently definite to stand ag. exceptions, because the evid. they gave him was not distinct enough to enable him to draw up definite charges on those points. I therefore wrote a private note to Mr. Randall (ed. of Witness) 11 stating this, but saying that I did not desire a public correction. R. replies giving an entirely different version of Mr. Greenleaf's action in the matter. I cannot reconcile the two things. On Tuesday, M'ch. 16th, we took possession of our new house. Sally & Mary Rose were sent to Aunt Martha's, & Charlotte & Lilly to Boston during the moving, so that the little boy was the first to take possession of the house, among the children. 12 All went on successfully. We had excellent girls to help us, carpets were put down, & furniture in its place, & the house had a home-like & cheerful appearance & feeling, as if we had been in it for years. u

T h e Christian Witness was Bishop Eastburn's diocesan publication. The editor was Rev. George M. Randall, who was president of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Massachusetts. 12 B y this time five of the six Dana children had been born: Sarah Watson Dana ( " S a l l y " ) , Ruth Charlotte Dana ("little Charlotte"), Elizabeth Ellery Dana ( " L i l l y " ) , Mary Rosamund Dana ( " R o s y " ) , and Richard Henry Dana III. Angela Henrietta Channing Dana was bom February 2 2 , 1 8 5 7 .

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It is a beautiful house. Sarah has selected the wall-papers & carpets & curtains & furniture with so much — such exquisite taste, that it looks like fairy land. Then the pleasure & comfort & satisfaction of being in one's own house. Every day since we have been in, we have admired & congratulated like children at a play. I have devoted two night to the arrangement of my books & papers in my study, & have now the comfort, for the first time in my life, of a private room, with my own furniture & papers & books about me, where I can read & write & think, without interruption. May we be duly grateful to God for his blessings, & may I make use of my opportunities, may my private room be consecrated to study & thought for my own good & the good of my fellow men! The first caller we had at our new house was Prof. [H. W.] Longfellow! May it be a good omen! (The above is written Sunday ev. M'ch. 21st.) MCH. 28. Nothing important has occurred this week. I have argued cases in the U. S. C't., & on Saturday, I dined at home, father & Aunt E. & my sister Charlotte dining with me — the first company in my new house. 1 have enjoyed my new house much, & my Study has been profitable. My rule is to write a little Latin every Tu. Th. & Sat. ev., & to read a little French ev. other ev., & then to read in my course of History or Law. M'CH. 29. Judge [B. R.] Curtis delivered an opinion in Webb v. Peirce,13 over-ruling Judge [Peleg] Sprague's opinion, & holding that where the general owner of a vessel lets it to the Master to sail "on shares", he is not liable for provisions furnished to the vessel by a party ignorant of that relation. I do not like the decision, nor the reasons for it. They are small & second place. After the decision I talked with Judge Sprague & found that he remained of his former opinion. Judge S. says that Judge C. treated it as a case of agency merely, while, in fact the relation of all Masters to all owners is such that an agency is presumed. It is for the owner to prove that he has divested himself of all connexion or control. It is like the case of a liveried servant, whom the world presumed to be in the service of the lord, & it is a question whether the lord shall be permitted to deny the relation while he keeps the man in his house & in his livery. At least, the burden is on the owner to clear himself of all connexion. Judge Curtis admitted that under this relation the Master cd. not appoint a Master in his place, that that must be done 13

Federal Case No. 17320, 1 Curt. 104; and Fed. Case No. 1 7 3 2 1 , 1 Spr. 192 (reversing former).

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by the owner; but said that this, tho' an usual was not a necessary badge of ownership. Now, the question was not whether the Master's connexion with the vessel was such that he might be held as an owner, but whether the gen. owner parted with all his connexion. I said to Judge Sprague "I am afraid that Judge Curtis decides cases on small rules". Judge Sprague answered "I don't know that he does not". AP. 3. SAT. Dined at home. John [B.] Felton & Mr. [James?] Dixon, Mrs. [E. T.] Channing & Miss Parkes dined with us. They were delighted with the house. Mr. Dixon said it was the most tasteful house he ever saw in his life. AP. 7. Last night there was a violent snow storm, & it has stormed all day. The Roxbury coaches are on runners, & the Cambr. coaches only make half their trips, the snow is so deep & drifted. [APRIL] 1 3 .

Another snow storm: quite violent.

[APRIL]

17. SATURDAY. Dined at home. Dr. [J. G.] Palfrey, E. P. Whipple & Prof. [F. J.] Child dined with us. Very pleasant time. Dr. Palfrey is, without exception, the best conversationist within my acquaintance, unless it be, perhaps, a man quite different from him, Pres. [Leonard] Woods [Jr.]. Dr. P. is more a man of the world & never proses or rides a hobby. Prest. Woods never proses, because he makes a subject so interesting, but he sometimes talks too much on favorite topics. Besides, Dr. P. is a moral hero, while my friend Pres. Woods, I must admit, is a good deal of a diplomatist. Dr. P. told us some anecdotes of [H. G.] Otis [Sr.] & [Samuel] Dexter, & insisted that Otis was the abler man of the two. He said that where two men were rivals & one had graces & the other none, the former always suffered in description by the antithesis unnecessarily made, as if grace was inconsistent with strength. He says that Otis was eminently logical, & had a wonderful power of reasoning & illustrating within the circle of his capacity. He may have lacked comprehensiveness, when tried by the highest standards. His great fault, that which prevented his commanding the highest place in the National Councils was a want of self-reliance, which arose from moral defects. He also described the scene of J. Q. Adams' death. He was in the Hall 14 when he fell. After his death Mrs. Adams sent Dr. Palfrey the ring Mr. Adams always wore on the fore finger of his right hand; with which he aided himself in writing after his hand grew so tremulous that he would 14 J o h n Quincy Adams collapsed at his desk in the House of Representatives on February 2 ] , 1848, and died a f e w days later.

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drop a pen from it. He used to slip the ring down to the end of his finger & then pass the pen through it & hold his thumb to it. The Dr. also gave an anecdote of the Springfield [Whig] Convention of 1847, which throws some light on Webster's course. A great effort was made by Webster's friends to procure him the nomination of the Convention. Dr. P. was on the Committee on resolutions, before which the first effort had to be made. The "Conscience Whigs" on the Committee resisted the attempt to report a resolution in favor of Webster, & supported a resolution to vote for no candidate not known by his acts & declarations to be opposed to the extension of Slavery. Dr. P. & others detained the Committee a long time. In the mean while Mr. Webster was speaking in the Convention, & indirectly supporting his own nomination. What was doing in the Committee was known or suspected by him, & the longer the Committee was out, the stronger Mr. Webster became in his expressions of devotion to the Free Soil Doctrines, & it was under this pressure that he declared the Wilmot Proviso to be his thunder. 15 When [R. C.] Winthrop opposed, so vehemently, Palfrey's resolution, Webster's friends thought he was fighting for them, but he was then a pledged Taylor man. AP. 23. Called on Gov. Boutwell, at the State House, to make an inquiry as to the office of Public Administrator, to see if he thought of removing Frank Parker, &, if so, to give him some reasons of a public nature to the contrary. I was determined to confine myself to public reasons, as I do not wish to be under obligations to the Administration. He came immediately into the reception room. I had never met him before in private, & was quite pleased with him. He has a look of intelligence & self-reliance that commanded my respect, & his figure & learning were better than I expected to find them. He said he had no thought of making the removal. I then told him I spoke solely on public grounds, as I had no claims on the administration, & should not wish to urge them if I had. I stated the reasons, wh. were that as the Administration must hold each estate four years, if this office got into the line of removals, each estate could have 3 or 4 administrators, all but the first de bonis non,10 wh. wd. eat up the estates, they being generally small. He sd. these seemed satisfactory objections, & that no removal, if thought of, should be made without notice to me. 1 5 The speech is not in Webster's Works. Zachary Taylor was nominated and won the election in 1848. 1 6 The phrase means "of the goods not already administered." Thus, when an administrator is appointed to succeed another, who has left the estate partly unsettled, the new administrator is said to be granted administration "of the goods not already administered."

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I then spoke of the Judgeship in the Supr. Ct. He sd. he had not made an appointment, & shd. be in no hurry. I named to him Judge [E. R.] Hoar, & vouched for his peculiar fitness, & referred him to any practicing lawyer, or any of the judges, for opinions in his favor. He sd. Judge Hoar had not been named to him. I told him that was because Judge H. had no political connexions, — that like myself, he was in still water, between the currents. The effect of my interview was, I think, to satisfy His Excellency that I had no favor to ask, but came freely, on public grounds, avowing an interest in the gentlemen for whom I spoke, but claiming nothing in that account. APR. 26. MONDAY. Went to N. Haven to argue the case of Panchard v. Mallory before Judge Judson. 17 In the cars read "Uncle Tom's cabin". 18 It was a singular fact that four persons were reading this book, each unconnected with the other, in one car. Reached N. Haven at 1V2 P. M. Dined, dressed & went to Court. Judge Judson did not come, having been delayed by missing the cars. Was introduced by Mr. Perkins (T. C., of Harford) to our opponent Mr. Chas. Ingersoll, & to Gov. Baldwin. 19 After tea, spent the ev. in preparing my case, & reading "Uncle Tom".

27. Judge Judson having arrived, went into Court at 8V2. Opened our case. Some time spent in impanneling Gr. Jury &c. Our ev[idence] closed at dinner time. After dinner I argued the case, about 1V2 hours. The name of the ship was the Bingham, & the supplies in question were furnished to her at the Sandwich Islands. I made an allusion to the first missionaries to the Sandwich Islands going fr. N. Haven. Closed by 3V2, & as the cars did not leave until 6%, spent the interval in walking about the city. Spent a while in the Trumbull Gallery. Although the paintings are poor, yet no one can [be] long alone in a gallery of portraits, portraits of actual persons, without a feeling of interest & awe. [APRIL]

' " A n d r e w Thompson Judson ( 1 7 8 4 - 1 8 5 3 ) was in the U. S. House, 1 8 3 5 - 1 8 3 6 . In the latter year he was appointed to the U. S. Supreme Court, where he served until his death. 18 Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, published in two volumes, had been released by Jewett and Company of Boston slightly more than a month earlier. 19 Thomas Clapp Perkins (b. 1 7 9 8 ) was a Hartford lawyer. Charles Jared Ingersoll ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 6 2 ) was active in Democratic politics. He was also a dramatist and writer of history. Roger Sherman Baldwin ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 6 3 ) was governor of Connecticut, 1 8 4 4 - 1 8 4 5 , and served in the U. S. Senate, 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 5 1 .

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It was vacation, & the College Library was closed, but a civil youth showed me into one of the Society Libraries. There are three Societies, one composed entirely of Southerners. The other two divide the scholars between them, taking them in early in the Freshman year. The contest for Freshmen is quite animated. The Faculty allow one afternoon for the purpose, when all College meets & each Society has an advocate from the Senior Class, to plead its cause. After the speeches are closed, the Freshmen make their individual choices. Left cards at Pres. [T. D.] Woolsey's & Prof. [E. E.] Salisbury's, & walked in the Burying Ground. This is a beautiful town. Took the cars at 6% for Boston. Found Franklin Dexter in the cars, just arrived at N. York from Paris. Had a long conversation with him on the French people. He says that vanity & sensuality are the chief ingredients of the average French character, & that they are incapable of self government. Lodged at Revere Hs., as reached B. too late to go home. Kossuth was there, having been reed, in Boston that day with a great military parade. AP. 29. THURSDAY. This ev. Kossuth was to speak in Faneuil Hall. Sarah & I went, & had the good fortune to get a good standing place, in co. with Mrs. S. G. Howe & Mrs. Hillard. He spoke extremely well. His speeches are full of thought, his manner is dignified & quiet, yet earnest, his eye the centre of attraction, & his voice clear, audible & flexible, without being very loud.

MAY 2. Dr. S. G. Howe invited Sarah & me to pass the ev. at their house, & meet Kossuth, Pulszky20 & their wives. Mr. & Mrs. Longfellow were also invited, so we took a coach together. The company consisted, beside our host & Hostess, of Kossuth, Mde. Kossuth, Pulszky & Mde. Pulszky, Longfellows, Mrs. Chas. Sedgwick, Theodore Parker, Mr. & Mrs. Hillard, Geo. Sumner & sister & Wm. Fr. Channing. I was introduced to Kossuth, suddenly, & simply said "I had the pleasure of hearing you at Faneuil Hall". He bowed. "I hope you found it an easy hall to speak in". "Quite the contrary. It is so difficult to keep one's voice, that one loses his ideas". "Indeed, I am surprised. You spoke with such apparent ease, & filled the hall so perfectly, that I hoped you found it agreeable to you". No reply — an awkward interval. He is a reflecting, abstracted, absorbed man, & never wastes himself on small matters. Moreover English is not easy to him. He looked out of the window & said that it was a fine ^Ferenez Pulszky ( 1 8 1 4 - 1 8 9 7 ) , Hungarian politician and writer, accompanied Kossuth to England and the United States in 1852, later wrote an account of the trip in White, Red and Black.

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prospect. It being dead low tide, I remarked that the low tide & flats were picturesque. He made no reply, & just then Dr. Howe came up. This is the beginning & end of my acquaintance with Kossuth. But I like the man. He is thoughtful, earnest, solemn & full of great purposes. His eye is wonderful, indicating both tenderness & intensity. Mde. Kossuth speaks only German & indifferent French. So, I did not talk with her. Mde. Pulszky speaks English well, & is a woman of extraordinary talents, full of spirit & yet perfectly feminine. She talked a great deal. Her husband I did not fancy. He has been long eno' in England to acquire the worst English manner. It is rather offensive. Kossuth & lady left early. The Pulszkys walked in. We had a pleasant ride back. They pronounce Kossuth's name Ko/s-shoot, with the accent on the first syllable. Magyar, is Mad-yar, with accent on the last syllable, & a broad sound to the last a, & a short sound to the first a. Laura Bridgman, 21 deaf, dumb & blind, was brought in, & talked with her fingers & wrote on a slate, & Kossuth was intensely interested, & looked down upon her with his great deep tender eyes. She said "I am glad he is out of Turkey. Kings are cruel". MAY 3. To-day Kossuth was reed, at Bunker Hill. I walked over. It was a glorious sight. The day was fine, the crowd great, & as the open barouch drove up & the Monument opened upon him, he rose & took-off his hat, & gased up at it, with a countenance full of animation & reverence. He made an address, but the crowd was too great & I did not go in. [ M A Y ] 8. SATUBDAY. Charles & Jane Norton & Prof. Felton dined with us. We had a very pleasant afternoon. Father present also. He has been spending the week with us, & seems well & to have enjoyed himself. He sits in my study in the day-time, & passes a very quiet life. Longfellow & lady spent the ev. [ M A Y ] 15. SATURDAY. This week tried Brown v. Gordon [1 Gray 182 (Mass.)] & Ford v. King & got verdicts in each. Also got a writ of Mandamus in Turner v. Gregory. H. T. Parker & Mr. Almon dined with us this afternoon. All went off agreeably.

[MAY] 19. The [Episcopal Church] Convention met this week. No business of much importance was transacted, but there was more talent & life in the Convention than is usual. The chief subject in interest was 21

Laura Dewey Bridgman ( 1 8 2 9 - 1 8 8 9 ) , a pupil of Samuel G. Howe at Perkins Institution in 1 8 3 7 , was the first blind deaf-mute to be systematically educated.

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Mr. Robinson's affair. 22 The Bishop left off his name from the list of the clergy, but it was restored by a majority of twelve. Geo. M. Brown made a report from the Board of Missions for Seamen, condemnatory of Mr. Robinson. This was laid on the table, & consequently does not go into the journal. A committee of five was appointed (Rev. Drs. Wells & Vinton, Rev. Mr. Greenleaf, 23 Judge Morton & myself) to introduce a new canon for the trial of clergymen. Dr. Vinton had drawn one up, & even got it printed before the Committee was nominated. It was drawn without consultation with any lawyer & had some defect & some inadmissible novelties; one of wh. was to allow hearsay testimony in case the witness should be dead, or out of reach or should refuse to testify. No one on the committee voted for this novelty but himself. The other Chief characteristics were a judge advocate, instead of counsel for & ag. the defendant, & an examination of the deft, by the Court. The Canon was referred back to the same committee to report to the next Convention. [ M A Y ] 21. FRIDAY. This day was Mr. Prescott's fourth trial. When the Bishop tried to convict him of heresy, he selected the lowest Churchmen he could find. When the charge was contumacy, & the point was the extent of the Bishop's authority, he selected a court of high-churchmen. But we profited by it in one respect: it was a court of gentlemen. Brown appeared his worst. He was not at home among courtesies & good manners. The Court decided, I think wrongfully, that the Bishop's sentence was conclusive, precluding all inquiry into the proceedings of the Court wh. tried Mr. Prescott, but in consideration of the obvious irregularities & errors of that Court, & their ill-treatment of Mr. Prescott, wh. induced him to leave the court & deny its jurisdiction, the sentence was "a paternal admonition". This is as favorable as possible to Mr. P., supposing the law to be correct, & is a signal rebuke to the Court, & not a very agreeable thing to the Bishop himself.

MAY 26.

Miss Lydia Marsh came to make us a visit of a few weeks.

[MAY] 29. SAT. Prest. [Jared] Sparks, Prest. [Leonard] Woods (Bowdoin) & Bishop [Horatio] South gate dined with us. We had a very agreeable time. Father & Charlotte were of the company. J U N E 3. Bishop Eastburn pronounced a "paternal admonition" on Mr. Prescott in Christ's Church N. End. It was, as I supposed it would be, 22

T h e reference is probably to Rev. J. P. Robinson, who conducted a seaman's bethel on Ann Street, Boston, which was supported by Episcopalians. 23 Patrick Henry Greenleaf ( 1 8 0 7 - 1 8 6 9 ) was the son of Dana's law professor, Simon Greenleaf. He participated in the founding of St. Mark's Church in Boston in 1 8 5 2 and was pastor there, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 5 3 .

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from a man destitute of generosity or common fairness. The decision of the Court was distinctly on the ground of a technical violation of the law, without any moral delinquency whatever. Yet the B. took advantage of the occasion to lecture Mr. P. as though he had committed an offense of a high nature, for which he might be pardoned only on penetence & contrition, by the merits of Jesus Christ &c. It was a solemn farce, enlivened by the bitterness of the Bishop, who gave his censure greater force by professions of friendliness. [ J U N E ] 5 . SAT. News has just come that the Dem. Convention at Baltimore has nominated Gen. Franklin Pearce of N. H., for Prest. of the U. States, on the 50th ballot. 24 The % rule, adopted for the purpose of giving the South a veto, & to kill M. V. Buren in 1844, kills off the leading men, & results in the taking up of an unknown neutral man, as a derrier resort. Went to Ole Bull's concert, with father & Charlotte & Sarah & Miss Lydia Marsh, who is visiting us. He played only his own compositions, which seemed to me "humbugs", & we wearied of it, although there were some exquisite notes. J U N E 9 . WED. Sarah & Miss Lydia dined with Miss Joy, I dined with H. T. Parker, to meet Geo. Sumner, [E. P.] Whipple & Burlingame, 26 & the children went to little Charley Longfellow's birth-day fete. So it was a general holiday. As I was walking out over the bridge, with Burlingame, about 9 o'clock, I saw an empty carriage pass us, on a full run, with what I thought was a buffalo-skin dragging under it, apparently fastened to the front. Just as it passed, a woman behind us shrieked out "It's a man! dragging! Oh! It's a man!" I turned & ran after it, & more than half way across the bridge it was stopped by two laboring men, & I ran to [it] & saw to my horror, the body of a woman! fastened by her clothing to the front axletree, dragged over the whole road, I knew not how far, & she moaning low, just indicating that life was left! A thrill of horror ran through me, but I sprang to the carriage, got under the wheels, & worked away to disengage the poor creature. The foolish men let go the horse's head, & we should all have been run over had not others who ^Franklin Pierce ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 6 9 ) , 14th President of the United States. George Sumner ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 5 5 ) , no evident relation of Charles Sumner, had been professor of botany at Trinity College, Hartford, since 1 8 2 4 , a post he held until his death. Anson Burlingame ( 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 7 0 ) , lawyer and Free Soil orator, was at this time serving a term in the state senate. He served as a Republican representative in Congress, 1 8 5 5 - 1 8 6 0 . In i 8 6 0 President Lincoln selected him for the diplomatic service, where he established a brilliant career in the Far East. 26

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came up seised the horse, & at my direction, taken him out from the carriage. Her clothes were so wound round the axletree, that it was impossible to pull them off, & a knife was passed, & another man & myself (he was a stranger to me) cut her clothing from the axletree. I lifted her into the carriage. In a few minutes her brother, with whom she had been riding, came up. She was taken home in another carriage. It was a most frightful accident. It seems she had tried to jump out, & her clothes catching in the hub of the wheel, she fell between the wheels & the body of the carriage, & was dragged from the School Hs. in Columbia st., C[ambridge] Port, over two-thirds the length of the bridge. Her clothing caught in such a way that her head & shoulders were kept up to the axletree, as close as if they had been strapped there, but all her body, from her hips down, was drawn on the ground. J U N E 10. THURSDAY. Called at the house of the woman who was so badly hurt. I did not expect to find her alive, but found her not only living but with a fair hope of recovery. The jury disagreed in Elisur Wright's26 case. Eleven for conviction & one for acquittal. It seems as if Providence always raised up at last one faithful man on each jury to prevent a conviction in these cases. The general impression is that Wright might have been acquitted if he had had counsel. [JUNE]

12.

SAT.

Jas. F. Baldwin 27 & lady & Miss Campbell dined

with us. J U N E 18. Walked over in ev. to see fire-works on Bunker-Hill, wh. were put off from last night. Last ev. had company, our Brattle House friends — the Whittemores, Trotts & Homanses, also Jos. Willard & son, the Willards (Ellery W.) & Mrs. [J. T.] Hodge, John Felton & Mrs. Goodwin.28

19. Ida 29 has come to make us a visit. This afternoon there was a children's party given at the Nortons', by Ch. Norton & Prof. Child, at wh. our children were, & most of the parents, Mr. & Mrs. [JUNE]

26

Elishur Wright, noted earlier, had been tried for aiding in the escape of the fugitive slave "Shadrack." 27 James F. Baldwin ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 6 2 ) , son of Loammi Baldwin, was a Woburn merchant and civil engineer. He served in the state senate in 1846. 28 Thomas Whittemore ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 6 1 ) , wealthy owner of the Trumpet and Universalist Magazine, could be the person Dana invited. The Trotts and Homanses remain unidentified, as does Ellery Willard. Joseph Willard and his son Sidney have been noted earlier, as have James T. Hodge and John Felton. 29 Ida Russell, noted earlier, was Dana's cousin, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Russell of Milton. At this time she had only three more years to live.

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Longfellow, her sister, Mrs. Mackintosh, & children, Tom Appleton, & als. Very pretty affair. All the world absorbed in the ballotings of the Baltimore Convention. 30 Scott, [Millard] Fillmore & Webster. It is strange how much more interesting are personal politics than political principles. The "platform" is hardly noticed except by the few thinking minds, while all [are] running mad on the names. The platform seems to me as satisfactory as could be expected of a national party, unless the North could be brought to reject the whole Slavery question by force of numbers. The clause "until time & experience &c." opens the door widely enough for persons who think the Constitl. provisions ought to be enforced by Congr. legislation. [JUNE] 27. The nomination of Scott is matter of extreme mortification & chagrin to the Webster men. They seem to have no principles at stake, but to follow merely a blind personal devotion to Webster. They are full of voting for Peirce. Conservatism, tariff, banks, Cuba, war, — all is forgotten! They see & feel only the failure of their candidate & of his system. The truth is, they feel that the rejection of Webster & Fillmore, backed as they were by the entire Southern strength, by the power of the Administration & of the great cities, in favor of Scott, whose strength lay in the North & in the country, is significant of their entire policy. This Convention has shown four things —

( 1 ) That serving the South is not sure pay. (2) That the North is able to prevail if it will. (3) That the liberal Northern element in the Whig party is strong enough to beat the South, the Administration & the great cities combined. (4) That the Fugitive Slave law is a statute & not a compact. Still, the North was far from doing its duty. The 8th resolution should have been killed, & might have been. The party should have rejected the whole slave question from its platform. It looks too much as if the North yielded the platform to the South, in expectation of carrying its candidate, & came very near losing that. But two great results are gained, — Webster & Fillmore are rejected, & the policy to which they are committed, — that of compelling men to treat the Fug. Slave law as a compact, is defeated. JUNE 30. WED. William [Watson] came to make us a visit of a few days. I have been engaged, almost exclusively, in examining the question whether a Mandamus will lie to the Bishop requiring him to restore Rev. Mr. Prescott. It has been an interesting & difficult subject, & the 30The

W h i g national convention w a s choosing a presidential candidate.

Scott w o n the party's nomination.

Winfield

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lines of distinction between cases where it will & where it will not lie are not very well drawn, — at least the principles are not clearly deducable from the cases. J U L Y 3. SAT. Father dined with us. William & Miss Lydia were with us. This ev. at 9 o'clk. we went to the Observatory to look through the great telescope. We saw Jupiter & his four satellites, Jupiter looking about as large as a man's head, of a oval form & the satellites as large as fixed stars. After this we saw the beautiful constellation of Lyra, & a cluster of stars, which are not visible to the naked eye, & then we looked at the moon wh. had nearly risen. There is an awful & mysterious influence comes over one, standing in the dark dome alone with this huge, gigantic tube, swinging to & fro with the slightest touch on its perfect poise, & the secret machinery moving the dome round & round & opening the sky here & there over your head. The silent & "devout astronomer" looks at his globe & sweeps the horison with his little glass, & then you mount the steps, & place your eye at the end of the tube, & at the other end are the hidden wonders of the firmament, moving & spinning in awful silence at a still more awful distance. The star you are looking at is a million times farther from you than the sun, & it takes sixteen years for its light to reach the earth. It may have been extinguished sixteen years & yet its last rays have not ceased to shine. We do not see the present of the heavens, but the past. The light that comes to us wh. we call a star has been years, sometimes centuries in travelling from its source to meet our eye. Then the astronomer tells you that each star in the cluster, the whole of which is invisible to the naked eye, & only presents a point to a small glass, — that each star in this cluster would show itself, if our glasses were strong enough to see it, to be a solar system. He tells you that the mere perturbations of a planet, carefully watched & noted, indicated the presence of a disturbing force. This disturbing force is calculated, its position ascertained in the void, & when a glass sufficiently powerful is obtained the new planet is seen in the very spot the calculations had indicated. Can human science do more?

After our observations, Mr. Bond 31 showed us the contrivance for noting observations by means of magnetism, wh. he says will revolutionise astronomy. It is an American invention. There is a revolving cylinder which revolves in exactly one minute, on which a stationary pen or pencil draws lines. By carrying the galvanic wire from this pen to the point where the pendulum of the clock swings, at each second a jog is 31

W i l l i a m Couch Bond ( 1 7 8 9 - 1 8 5 9 ) was the first director of the Harvard Observatory, a post that he held from 1 8 3 9 until his death. His son, George Philips Bond, noted later, was his successor.

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made in this line. Thus each line drawn on the revolving cylinder is divided into 60 parts. Now the observer sits at his glass, watching the transit of a star, holding in his hand a piece of iron, connected by a wire with the magnetic apparatus, & when the transit takes place, without moving his eye from the glass, by merely pressing his thumb he makes a jog or point with the pen. Of course, the exact time of the transit is thus obtained. And so nicely can the place of this jog be measured that they ascertain the time within a 300th part of a second! This is almost as wonderful as the disclosures of the great glass, but, of course, less appalling. J U L Y 12. Set out on my expedition to Geneva N. Y., to deliver my address before the Lit. Soc. of the College, 3 * the Hermaean Society. Left, via Stonington, at 5V2 P. M. Had a heavy fog in the Sound & reached the pier at 6V2, wh. is just the time for the Erie R. R. cars to leave. I drove to the Station to make inquiries about the next train, but found that the Express train had been delayed & I just secured my passage. J U L Y 13. The Erie R. R. passes through a beautiful, & in many parts a truly grand section of country, with beautiful rivers at its side all the way; the Delaware, the Chenango & the Susquehanna, high mountains & magnificent expanses of prospect. In many places the road is cut into the side of very high hills, with precipices on the other hand, & full of sudden curves, round which the trains fly, at terrific speed, hanging in mid air. In the middle of one of the worst of these our engine ran off the track. Fortunately, it ran off on the upper side, & only the fore wheels got off, & none of the cars were thrown off. We righted the engine & went on, losing only about half an hour. We reached the head of the lake at sun-down, & took a nice little boat, the Ben Loder, & went down to Geneva where I arrived at 10 o'ck. P. M.

14. Rev. Dr. Wilson 33 called, with a committee of the Society, Messers. Pringle, Swift & Harrison, gentlemanlike young men, & we walked about town. It is a beautiful town, situated on the borders of the lake, the houses having hanging gardens running to the water's edge. In the afternoon, we drove about the neighborhood of the lake, & saw some of the beautiful residences. There is an appearance of ease & culture here, which is quite pleasing. JULY

32

Hobart College. William Dexter Wilson ( 1 8 1 6 - 1 9 0 0 ) , an Episcopalian clergyman, had been on the Hobart Divinity School faculty since 1850 and was at this time serving as acting president. He later taught at Cornell. 33

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Took tea at Dr. Wilson's. Among the ladies, was a Mrs. Trowbridge from St. Louis, a woman of great beauty, — Southern beauty, a relative of Mrs. Wilson's. Before tea, the students had read two essays wh. reed, the White prise medals. After tea, at 8 o'ek., I delivered my address before the Hermaean Society. I spoke without notes, having only a brief, with the heads jotted down. I had, however, once written it out, & spoke it chiefly from memory, making a few alterations. I am told it was well received. There was some applause, for the first time, I am told — it being considered improper, as it certainly is, in Church. All who spoke to me of it, spoke of it in terms of warm feeling. JULY 1 5 . THURSDAY. Attended the Commencement exercises, in the Church — which, by the way, is large & handsome, filling a Cathedral for an American rural diocese. The performances were well written & pretty well delivered. After these, at 3.15 P. M. took cars for Canandaigua, & went to Mary's house. Found her well, with two fine boys. Richard Dana & Jared, the elder, my name-sake, a nice boy, & the younger a sturdy, hardy, noisy little fellow.34 Walked up to Elisabeth's, saw Mrs. Watson, Elfisabeth], Mrs. Daggett & the two children. Susy is a tall thin girl of 10 years, her expression & manners not settled —so that she may be pretty or not, but has intelligence. Elly [Ellsworth] is a fine looking boy, very active & with an agreeable countenance. Took a drive about the country, with Mr. & Mrs. Drury & the Daggetts. Mrs. D. is a pretty woman, full of life & with some affectations, but not of a disagreeable kind. Mrs. Watson looks very well.

Sat up until midnight with George Wilson. He is an intelligent high principled man, & rising in his profession, & is now Surogate. J U L Y 1 6 . FRIDAY. At breakfast, saw Mary's step children — a daughter Clara, abt. 12 & five sons, from 25 to 13 years of age, all strong, intelligent, able bodied children, affectionate & well mannered. Called on Mrs. John Greig, who was not in, but I found Mr. Greig in his office. He is a staid, polite, gentlemanlike man of 60 years. Called on Mrs. Gen. Granger, Mrs. Geo. Wilson, Mrs. Drury & Mr. Wood. Dined at Elisabeth's, & tea-ed. Took cars at 9.25 P. M. for Albany. 34 Sarah's sister Mary had married the Canandaigua widower, Jared Wilson, as recorded earlier in the Journal, and had bome him two children. Sarah's other sister, Elizabeth, wife of Rev. Oliver E. Daggett, continued to live in Canandaigua until 1867, when her husband joined the Yale Divinity faculty. Elly is Ellsworth Daggett, Elizabeth's son, noted earlier as destined to be a celebrated metallurgist. At this time he was seven years old. Sarah's mother, Mrs. Mary Watson, was visiting her daughters.

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[ J U L Y ] 17. Rode all night, rather disagreeable, being sick from some bad fruit or some other reason. Reached Albany at 6 A. M. Too tired to go on, & took to my bed & slept until 2V2 P. M. Took beef steak & brandy & water & set off for Boston at 3.30 P. M. much refreshed. At Albany had a moment's interview with H. J. Raymond, 35 but not time to talk politics. Beautiful ride through the Berkshire hills. What a relief, after the rich flat low level of Western N. Y., is it to see the rocks & evergreen forest, & dashing brooks of N. England.

18. SUNDAY. Reached home early this morning, & found all well. Little boy seemed glad to see me, & went out of his window with me as usual. JULY

J U L Y 21. WED. My partner, F. E. Parker, left to-day for England, at sudden notice. He had no thought of going 48 hours, & was not sure he should go until 24 hours before he sailed. He goes in pursuance of an old engagement or understanding with Mrs. Farrar that he would accompany her whenever she wished to go & see her mother, in London. He is to return in six weeks, & promises to write me every steamer — & I am to do the same with him. Reed, invitation to print my address at Geneva, & two favorable notices from Geneva papers. [ J U L Y ] 22. [R. C.] Winthrop's address before the Alumni. Very brilliant & energetic — doing himself great credit. His manner far better than I supposed it could be. At the dinner, Everett [made] a great effort & did extremely well. It was a beautiful performance. After its close, I spoke of it to [J. G.] Palfrey — said he "oh, yes, he'd beat Cicero & give him a hundred to start".36 Took Whipple (E. P.) with me to see Uncle Edmund. He talked a good deal, & told an anecdote of Washington, wh. pleased Whipple very much. He had it fr. my grandfather. My gr. father 37 was on the committee appointed by Congress to visit the army at Valley Forge, in that dreadful winter. When they arrived Washington was out, but he soon returned, horses were ordered & they rode round the camp, & went to the hospitals &c. At dinner, everything] was plain & rather scanty, I believe they had only salt beef. Washington 35 H e n r y Jarvis Raymond ( 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 6 9 ) , a cofounder and editor of the New York Daily Times a year earlier, was Speaker of the N e w York Assembly. He became a prominent Republican, served in the House of Representatives, and published a life of Lincoln ( 1 8 6 5 ) . 36 37

E d w a r d Everett's speech is in his Works, III, 1 1 2 ff. J u d g e Francis Dana.

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told them that he had no wine to offer them, but that while coming thro' the Jerseys a man to whom the army had rendered some service sent him a barrel of cider, wh. had been put in his private baggage, & he would send for it, as some of the Committee, being from the North, might like it. It was produced, & Washington, who I think said he had never drank cider before (but of this I am not sure) pronounced it very relishing. At night, lights were brought, & each gentleman (the Committee consisted of three, of whom I believe only one beside my gr. father had then arrived) was shown his room. My gr. father was restless & anxious, & came down stairs & stood in the corner of the large piassa, looking out on the night & reflecting on the gloomy state & prospects of the country, when he saw Washington step out of the door, upon the piassa, & in the light thrown upon him, my gr. father saw that his hands were clasped over his head, & his face wore an expression of vehement emotion. My gr. father felt awkwardly, for he knew that Washington thought & had reason to believe that his guests had retired, & he feared that he might over hear something, so he made a motion & noise, Washington turned, saw a dark figure, came toward him, & said — "Congress suspects me, Sir. I went into this business from no motive of personal ambition. I have sacrificed something, & will sacrifice everything, to see it to its end. But Congress suspects me". "No Sir", said Mr. Dana, "Congress does not suspect you. You have enemies there. But this committee are your friends, & Congress will stand by you". Washington thought the committee was sent to inquire into the truth of his statements, & to investigate his conduct, with a shade of suspicion. Afterwards, when Washington visited Cambridge, as President of the U. States, & sat in the old chair in the College Library receiving visitors, my gr. father went. He had not met Washington since the visit to Valley Forge. Before he was presented, as soon as Washington saw him, he stepped forward & said — "Mr. Dana, we have seen worse times", & alluded to Valley Forge. My uncle was also present, at the Craigie House, when a committee of gentlemen came out fr. Boston to invite him [Washington] to call on Gov. Hancock,38 or to apologise for Gov. H.'s not calling on him — I could not quite make out which. He says Washington stood with one foot on the window seat, his elbow on his knee, & his chin resting on his hand, looking them full in the eye, evidently not believing what they said about Hancock's sickness. His attitude was less formal than I supposed he always adopted. Uncle E. called it an "easy, Virginian way". 38 John Hancock ( 1 7 3 7 - 1 7 9 3 ) , setts, 1 7 8 0 - 1 7 8 5 and 1 7 8 7 - 1 7 9 3 .

Revolutionary patriot, was governor of Massachu-

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[ J U L Y ] 30. FRIDAY. Reed, letter & journal fr. F. E . P[arker]. In the afternoon went to dine to my father's — & spent night. Mrs. Russell & Rose are there, & little Sally. I took a bath at night & another before breakfast, & the early cars for Boston. It was very refreshing & beautiful, especially as there was a bright moon. J U L Y 3 1 . SAT. Took S. to ride between 6 & 8. Rode to Medford & called on the Hastingses, Sen. & Jr. & Mrs. Hatch. Very pleasant ride. Took Lilly with us. The Sat. before, we rode round Wellington Hill, & Spy pond, to W. Cambridge.

AUG. 10. Judge [Samuel S.] Wilde tells me that he advised Rev. Dr. Wells & the other clergymen that, in his opinion, the provision of Canon 1846 wh. grants to the accused a new trial if he applies for it within six months, cut him off from his right to plead the invalidity of the sentence for contumacy, when tried for violating; in analogy with the decisions in civil courts that this cannot be done where the party had a right of appeal or a writ of error. But he was decidedly of opinion that but for this Mr. P. 39 might impeach the jurisdiction of the Court in his second trial. He also held the act of the Bishop to be executive, under sec. 4 of the Canon. I think the judge had not examined the canon, for it does not vacate the sentence on application for a new trial. The sentence remains, & he is suspended for the six months. The application only cuts off the sentence of degradation. W. O. Eaton walked by my side as I was going to the omnibus, at Vt of 7 P. M. I walked slow & then fast, but he stuck by me. Then, with an expression as fiendlike as I ever saw in my life, & with an intense emphasis, said — "Mr. Dana, when my bonds are out, I shall have something to say to you. Then I'll give you a chance to use the club cane you advised your client to use". Shall I have him bound over? 40 [AUG. 1 1 ] WED. Find that Eaton's bonds run to Sept., & conclude to let him alone, only speaking to his counsel about it. [ A U G . ] 13. FRIDAY. Sarah & little Lilly go down to Manchester today to spend a week at father's. [ A U G . ] 14. SATURDAY. I join them to-day, at evening. At noon took leave of little boy & "Teddy", (Mary Rose) leaving them with our :i!) 01iver S. Prescott, whose cases have been noted earlier, was evidently appealing his sentence. Dana was still his counsel. 40 W . O. Eaton remains unidentified, but evidently he was a party in litigation in which Dana had served as counsel against him.

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excellent domestics. Reach the Shore at 7 o'ck. Delightful bath in the surf, tea, walk, & enjoyment of the pure air, the piny smell of the woods, the rolling sound of the surf, & the still cheerful ray of the lighthouses lying over the water. Being unused to the sound, the surf kept me awake a while, yet it was lulling. 15. SUNDAY. Bath before breakfast. After breakfast, the full morning service said by Rev. Mr. Corbyn, who is visiting us. Charlotte carried on the R. Cath. service for the servants in the little room. After service, the whole family take a long walk throught the woods. Mr. Corbyn has developed the beauties of the roads far beyond what I supposed they had in them, discovering pretty recesses, ledges, & arbors, with beautiful openings. [AUG.]

AUG. 16. MONDAY. Spent the day here. Bath in surf before breakfast, & another at the end of a hard day's work in the woods, where I wielded the axe & bush scythe with energy. Just before sun-down caught a few fish from the island. How beautiful this is! There is no place like it, that I ever saw — such a combination of green woods, brown & grey rocks, yellow beach, blue ocean & white sails & white lighthouses, with a beautifully indented coast studded with islands. [ A U G . ] 17. Returned to town to-day. Find the two children well. Boy is awake & plays with me in his bed. "Teddy" is asleep. Sally is at Aunt Martha's. [ A U G . ] 19. THURSDAY. Went to the shore last night & spent this day. Hard work again in the woods from 10 til 2V2 or 3, & then a swim. Cut a path to the "Theatre", & cleared it away. AUG. 20. FRIDAY. Returned to Boston. At ev. called at Aunt Martha to see little Sally. There had been a fire Wednesday night, which had burned up the house in wh. Mr. Allston & Aunt M. lived so many years — the house with wh. are connected all my domestic associations with Mr. Allston. They took possession of that house on their marriage, & lived in it until I was married myself & had less to do with them — indeed until the last two years of his life. There were held his beautiful & glorious conversations. There he met us with his countenance beaming with love. Who can forget one evening passed with him! How can I forget the scores? During the three years & a half I was a student at Cambridge, after my return from sea, my senior year & my 2V2 years in the Law School, it was my habit to spend there one evening every week. I walked

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down about dusk, for his dinner hour was after dark, he had closed his painting room after a day of exquisite or tormenting, lacerating or soothing labor, the candles in their silver sticks were shining over his table covered with a fine white cloth, decked with a few dishes & his never failing decanter of Madeira, & after a warm salutation we sat down at table. His dress is a blue coat with gilt buttons, drab pantaloons, a rich brown or buff waistcoat & a white cravat; while his hair, beautiful even in age with the various tints of grey, & waving curls, crowns the exquisite beauty of his regular but animated features. His day's work, be it fortunate or unfortunate is over. There is nothing more for him to do but to enjoy ease & pleasant society. The meal is protracted & no claim of helping or being helped is permitted to interfere with the anecdote or criticism. When the dinner is removed, the glasses remain, & a small plate containing his evening cigar. When this was lighted, & he had leaned back in his chair, & the wreathed smoke arose like a halo about his curling hair, so close to it in color & form & lightness that you hardly knew which was ascending into the air, — then the beauty & the dream of life seemed truly to have begun. Take him for all in all — I n'er shall look upon his like again! 41 The exquisite moral sense, the true spirituality, the kindliness & courtesy of heart as well as of manner, the corresponding external elegance, the elevation above the world & the men & things of it — where have these ever been so combined before? The wine of life is drawn. I see, where'er I go, that there has passed away a Glory from the earth.42 Broken & blackened walls & a small fire place in a standing chimney, are all that denote the room made holy by the vision & presence of such a man. AUG. 21. Returned to the shore. Sarah, Charlotte, Mr. Hall & I drove over to Harry Lee's & called on Mr. & Mrs. Fr. Lee. Beautiful ride back. [ A U G . ] 22. SUNDAY. clergyman, & three of at home, & walk to Delightful walk to &

Bath before breakfast as usual. There being no our guests being Congregationalists, had no service the Congr. Meeting. Rev. Mr. Taylor preached. fro, by Eagle Head. Walked over to see Peck at

4 1 " H e was a man, take him for all in all. / I shall not look upon his like again" (Hamlet, I, ii, 185-186). 4 2 But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality, 11. 17-18.

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Knowlton's. He is writing a notice of my father & his house for Putnam's "Homes of Authors".43 Spent latter part of afternoon at Shark's Mouth. [ A U G . ] 23. MONDAY. Sarah & I returned to town, leaving little Charlotte & Lilly at the shore. Some ten years ago, Sarah gave me a gold pencil case. I have lost it several times, but have always found it again. Eight weeks ago I lost it one day while on a visit to the Shore, but when & where I could not tell. I thought it most probable that I lost it from my vest when dressing or undressing for swimming, but I was not quite certain where I had been, though I remembered that it was by the side of one of three ledges [of] rock. There had been rains & winds since, but we thought we would look for it, as a forlorn hope. It being so hopeless, however, we put it off, until just before we started, Sarah insisted on our running down & giving one look. We looked over one ledge, & then a second, & were just giving it up when S. saw it in the sand, where it had lain 8 weeks. I received it as more than a new gift.

AUG. 26. Invited to preside at the Ratification Meeting at Faneuil Hall, to ratify the Pittsburgh nomination.44 Objections ( 1 ) Cannot engage in politics. My profession requires all my time & mind. (2) Do not want to commit myself to "Free Democracy", without explanations & qualifications. Reasons pro ( 1 ) The threats made against me in the papers some time ago, that merchants &c. must withdraw their business from me. (2) The want of sound & conservative men in action in our party. Never more distressed in my life to make a decision. Talked with [C. F.] Adams, Wilson45 & others. All wanted me to speak. Very reluctantly & quite unsatisfied, determined to decline. Did so. I do not know that I ever so much regretted [the] want of property, to enable [me] to do a great public duty. SEP. 1. WED. Being little Rosamund's birth-day, we went to Milton to make a little visit to our [Russell] cousins. S., little Sally, & R. went over in the morning & spent the day, & I went out in the ev. & spent the night. Mrs. [Jonathan] Russell, Ida & Rose were there, Miss Martha Wheaton & the little Rivers girls. 43

See Homes of American Authors (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1 8 5 3 ) , pp. 1 0 2 - 1 2 1 . The Free Soil party had just nominated John P. Hale for President of the United States at a convention in Pittsburgh. 45 Henry Wilson ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 7 5 ) , an early Free Soil leader, was a party leader in the state legislature at this time. He became a leader in the Republican party and died in office as Grant's Vice-President. Dana here and elsewhere misspelled the name "Willson." 44

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[ S E P T . ] 2. THURSDAY. Brot little Rosamund home with me, while her mother & Sally staid. Drank tea with Aunt M., & met cousin Sophia & Mr. Ripley. [ S E P T . ] 4. SAT. Dined at Milton. Same company as before, with addition of Miss Amelia. S. & I returned, leaving Sally until Wed. [E. P.] Whipple took me in by asking me if I had heard of the gross fraud that [Hiram] Powers had perpetrated. I expressed my regret & disbelief &c., & asked what it was — "Why", said he, "haven't you heard that he chiseled a poor Greek girl out of a block of marble?" This is too bad, about as provoking a joke —

1 1 . SATURDAY. Sumner, Palfrey & Longfellow dined with us, at 4 P. M. Sumner just from his first session in Congress, & his great speech on the Fug. Slave law.48 He was full of anecdotes. Among them the following. When he made his first attempt to speak, by introducing a resolution, about a month before the adjournment, all the leading Senators told him he was entitled to speak & should have the floor; especially Cass, Ham. Fish, Douglas, Soule &c.,47 but when the Southern men said that the discussion of that question would be a signal for dissolving the Union, & they were called upon privately, to stand by the party platforms, & the yeas & nays were demanded, they all caved in. Cass was one of the first to vote against him. Only ten, I believe voted in his favor, ([J. P.] Hale & Chase being absent). Afterwards, Cass, Fish & others spoke to S[umner] about it, expressed their regret &c. & S. told them he knew their party ties, & could only regret it &c. Determined to get a hearing, or rather, determined, now that the issue was fairly made, that freedom of speech should be asserted, he made up his mind to speak on the Appropriation bill. Mason48 (Va.) said to him "You may speak next term". S. replied, "I must speak this term". Mason said "By God, you shan't". S. replied "I will, & you can't prevent me". [SEPT.]

48 Charles Sumner, Works, III, 95-196. See Donald, Sumner, pp. 2 2 7 - 2 3 7 , for an analysis of Sumner's "Freedom National" speech. 47 Lewis Cass ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 6 6 ) , former Secretary of War and Minister to France, was U. S. Senator from Michigan, 1 8 4 5 - 1 8 5 7 , when he became Buchanan's Secretary of State. Hamilton Fish ( 1 8 0 8 - 1 8 9 3 ) served in the Senate, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 5 7 . As Grant's Secretary of State he initiated Dana's appointment as Minister to England, which was defeated by the Senate. Stephen A. Douglas ( 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 6 1 ) had been elected to the Senate in 1 8 4 7 and served until his death. Pierre Soule ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 7 0 ) resigned his office in the Senate in 1 8 5 3 to become Minister to Spain. All of these men were "moderates," though Soule was from Louisiana, attempting to preserve the Union against southern secession. The "Southern men" to whom Dana refers were secessionists. 48

James Murray Mason ( 1 7 9 8 - 1 8 7 1 ) served in the Senate from Virginia, 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 6 1 .

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He regretted this open defiance afterwards, for fear Mason should delay the Approp. Bill to the last day of the session & thus leave S. the alternative of yielding, or of speaking & thus defeating the Appropriations for the year, & compelling the Prest. to call an extra session. It would be a frightful alternative; but he made up his mind to speak, at all hasards, resting his justification on the ground that freedom of speech was assailed & must be maintained at any sacrifice. To prevent this catastrophy, he kept his determination secret, & removed his papers & books, & made no quarrel with those who voted against him, & busied himself with the regular duties of the Senate. He also feared that he might be ruled out of order, & prepared himself thoroughly on that point, with authorities & arguments wh. made, of themselves, a speech of an hour, & procurred from the Auditor, Whittlesey,49 proof that the "extraordinary expenses" referred to in the Amendment of the Committee were the expenses of the Fug. SI. law. So many were the dangers & difficulties about his path, where nearly all the Senate wished to prevent his speaking, & only wanted a pretext. After the bill was brought up, his chance was open, & he awaited the approach of the particular amendment. It became known that he was to speak & every effort was made to ward off the effect of a vote, & of the speech. Bradbury of Maine,50 one of the small fry, came to him & asked him to print his speech without speaking it, giving only the heads, as had been frequently done, & Schoolcraft, 51 the leading Scott manager in the House, came to him & begged him to make the speech without requiring any vote, on account of the awkward position in wh. it would place [W. H.] Seward & others, who were opposed to the Fug. SI. law, but whose vote to repeal it would ruin Scott's prospects at the South. During the speech, Webster came in, staid about an hour, & others from the House staid through, & the gallery was full. Several were in tears. Old Gen. Underwood 52 from Kentucky shed tears, & Mrs. John Bell 53 in the gallery was in tears. The attention was unbroken, & the 49 Elisha Whittlesey ( 1 7 8 3 - 1 8 6 3 ) of Ohio, one of the founders of the W h i g party, served in the House of Representatives, 1 8 2 3 - 1 8 3 8 . He was Comptroller of the Treasury, 1 8 4 9 - 1 8 5 7 and 1 8 6 1 - 1 8 6 3 . 50

James Ware Bradbury ( 1 8 0 2 - 1 9 0 1 ) served in the U. S. Senate, 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 5 3 . John L . Schoolcraft ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 6 0 ) , an Albany banker, represented N e w York in Congress, 1 8 4 9 - 1 8 5 3 . 52 Joseph Rogers Underwood ( 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 7 6 ) , a general in the Kentucky militia and a Whig, represented Kentucky in the House of Representatives, 1 8 3 5 - 1 8 4 3 , and served in the U. S. Senate, 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 5 3 . 53 J o h n Bell ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 6 9 ) served in the U. S. Senate, 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 5 9 , as a Democrat from Tennessee. 51

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expressions of admiration, after the close were unbounded. When the vote came to be taken, only three voted with Sumner, Chase, Hale & Wade.54 John Davis 55 went off at the close of the speech & was gone two hours, & came back to his seat. Just as he reached his seat the roll began, & he got deliberately up & walked behind the V. P.'s chair & did not vote. Seward staid away intentionally, & the chief Free Soil men of both parties, Dodge of Wise., Foot of Vt., Hamlin, &c. dodged.56 From all that came to S.'s knowledge, the effect of his speech, especially on the moderate S[outhern] men, was far beyond his expectations. Palfrey & Sumner each told some amusing anecdotes of their furnishing classical knowledge to members. Hilliard 57 of Alab. gave the common Engl, version of Cicero's "I am a Roman citisen" from the Readers,58 & came to Pfalfrey] for the latin reference, wh. P. furnished him, & the next day his speech appeared in print with the extract in latin. So Bayly of Va.,59 came to Sumner to tell him where the "Nolumus leges Angliae Mutari" came from, & introduced it into a violent pro-slavery speech. So, he [gave] Butler of S. C. the extract from Juvenal about the Orontes flowing into the Tiber, &c. &c.60 The Southern men are very much wanting in accurate classical knowledge. SEP. 15. I have just returned from the Convention at Lowell. 61 Dr. Palfrey being the candidate of last year, by all rules of courtesy should be treated as being still the candidate, unless he declined or there was some strong reason for superseding him. The friends of the "Maine 54 Benjamin Franklin W a d e ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 7 8 ) served in the Senate, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 6 9 , as a Republican from Ohio. 55 John Davis, noted earlier, was U. S. Senator from Massachusetts, 1 8 4 5 - 1 8 5 3 . A Whig, he was nicknamed "Honest John." B8 Henry Dodge ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 6 7 ) , former governor of the territory of Wisconsin, served in the U. S. Senate, 1 8 4 8 - 1 8 5 7 . Solomon Foot ( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 6 6 ) , whose name Dana misspelled "Foote," served as a Whig, Free Soiler, and Republican in the U. S. Senate from Vermont, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 6 6 . Hannibal Hamlin ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 9 1 ) served in the U. S. Senate from Ohio, 1 8 4 8 - 1 8 5 7 , as a Democrat, and from 1 8 5 7 to 1 8 6 1 as a Republican. After serving as Lincoln's Vice-President, he returned to the Senate in 1869, where he remained until 1 8 8 1 . 57 H e n r y Washington 1845-1851. 58 Cicero, 59

Hilliard

(1808-1892)

Civis Romanus Sum:

represented

Alabama

in

Congress,

"Oration against Verres," II, V, 5 7 , 1 4 7 .

Thomas Henry Bayly ( 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 5 6 ) represented Virginia in the U. S. 1844-1856. 60 Third Satire of Juvenal, line 62. Andrew P. Butler of South Carolina 1 8 5 7 ) , served in the Senate as a States Rights Democrat, 1 8 4 6 - 1 8 5 7 . 61 T h e Massachusetts Free Soil convention.

House, (1796-

506

The Middle Years

Law" 6 - made it known that they would support no one who is not with them thoroughly, & they were very numerous, indeed %oth of the Convention. Then the democratic element in the party was against him, & strongly for [Henry] Wilson. Wilson was their candidate. He strove for the office, & availed himself of his support of the "Maine Law", & of his services for the coalition, to over-ride all others. On consultation with all persons, Mr. [C. F.] Adams & I became satisfied that Dr. P. could not run against all these interests combined. We did not wish him defeated, & determined to withdraw him, he having authorised Mr. Adams to do as he should think judicious. Mr. Adams being out on the Committee on resolutions, deputised me to act for him. I withdrew Dr. Palfrey, making a few remarks & then reading his letter. It is possible that my remarks may have offended Wilson & his friends. I did feel something on that point, & perhaps showed it, &, personally, am not sorry for it. When the ballot took place, so general was the impression that Wilson had the entire Convention with him, that the votes for [Horace] Mann, whom we united upon to defeat Wilson, were reluctantly taken by the distributers. But the people were with us, & Mann was nominated on the first ballot. It was a contest between the radical & conservative elements, modified by the Maine Law, the effect of wh., however, was only to set aside Dr. Palfrey in favor of Mann. Dr. Palfrey has not been well treated. The Commonwealth newspaper has never recognised him as the regular candidate, but intentionally put him on a level with all others, & as far as was practicable, behind them. Every man who wanted the office (Wilson & Walker 63 were the only ones who did) acted against him. But he behaves well under it, & increases my respect for him. SEP. 16. Frank Parker arrived early this morning. He is in fine health & much enjoyed his visit. 17. F. P. spent the night with us, & gave a full, minute account of his visit to Paris. With all I have read & heard of Paris, I never had a clear idea of it before. It is now like an actual experience. He says that Choate's description is perfect — given in conversation with me — "a medieval town, in the middle of a continent, — You don't know how it [SEPT.]

9 2 T h e Act of 1851 enforced total prohibition of alcohol in Maine. John G. Palfrey's reluctance to support this kind of legislation in his own state was the primary cause for withdrawing his candidacy. 6 3 Amasa Walker ( 1 7 9 9 - 1 8 7 5 ) , a leader in the Free Soil and Peace movements and noted as a political scientist, was at this time Massachusetts secretary of state. He later served in the U. S. House as a Republican.

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got there, with absolutely no trade or commerce, nothing to support it, & no business whatever except some ten thousand grisettes selling fans & perfumes".

[sept.] 18. Defended a man for carrying & showing fire-arms, during the trial of a case under the "Maine law", he having been threatened & denounced as an informer. He was acquitted. [sept.] 19.

Went into Church. J. T. Fields 64 rode out with us. He was going to Longfellow's to dine, & had with him, as a present to L., a book of prayers in 25 languages, given to him by a friar in the American Convent near Venice. He tells me that De Quincey is a victim still of opium, & has strange fancies, & wanders off. His property is all gone, & the care & support of him is a great trial to his daughters; that Lockhart 65 is a confirmed sot, brought on the last two or three years, it is supposed, from distress on account of the great misconduct of his son; & that Talfourd 68 is drunk half his time. In fact, intemperance is a serious evil among writers, at this time.

[sept.] 22. wed. Sarah went to Wethersfield to-day to visit her mother & Elisabeth. I left her in the cars at the Boston station with her tickets & check, at 8 o'clock. [sept.] 25. sat. Went to Watertown to lead in the prosecution of the complaint against Porter [1 Gray 476] for liquor selling. There was apprehension of a riot, & a police force of 125 men were on the spot. It was adjourned, on an affidavit of Porter that he had just learned that the complainent was an atheist.67 I made an effort to reach the 3% train for Hartford, in order to get to Wethersfield. Drove rapidly to my house, & there found little Charlotte, who had been promised the journey, trying to get dressed & packed in season, but there was not time. They hurried, but she behaved very well & said she would not try to go as it would detain me & I might lose the cars. I drove off & reached the cars in season. On the way, I was so much affected by the thought of the dear ^ J a m e s Thomas Fields ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 8 1 ) , a fellow member, with Dana, in the Saturday Club, headed the publishing house of Ticknor and Fields, was the author of poems, essays, and Yesterdays with Authors ( 1 8 7 2 ) . He was editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 1861-1870. 65 John Gibson Lockhart ( 1 7 9 4 - 1 8 5 4 ) , friend of Sir Walter Scott, was the powerful editor of the Quarterly Review for almost thirty years. His monumental, seven-volume biography of Scott appeared in 1 8 3 8 . 66 Thomas Noon Talfourd ( 1 7 9 5 - 1 8 5 4 ) , dramatist, critic, and jurist, was a member of the Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb circle. 67 Atheists were technically unqualified to swear out indictments.

508

The Middle Years

little girl's disappointment, that I could take no pleasure nor indeed keep my mind composed. It was not necessary for me to go that afternoon, & a loss of a day to me or her mother was not of so much consequence as the disappointment to her. Unable to satisfy myself, I inquired of the conductor & found that I could get out at Framingham & return in the down train. I did so, & felt my mind so much relieved that I felt sure I had done right. I reached home at tea time & the little girls were so happy to see me, & we had so pleasant an evening together, & Charlotte was so happy at the thought of securing her journey, that I felt well repaid. The prospect, also, of a long quiet Sunday at home, was inviting, it being my only day of rest & reading. SEP. 27. MONDAY. Little Charlotte & I took the 7 o'ck. coach fr. Cambr. & the 8 o'ck. cars from Boston, for Hartford. I read Campbell's Life of Lord Holt68—a truly great lawyer. It has always been a pet fancy of mine that Holt was the greatest Common Law judge — shutting out reputation gained in Chancery & in politics, from the computation — that ever sat in England. He had a fair, liberal, humane mind, absolutely independent, & both acute & comprehensive. The constitutional liberties of Englishmen have gained much from him. Reached Wethd. at 1 o'ck., & found them all well & delighted to see us. It seemed to be a peculiar pleasure to them to have this visit from Charlotte. [SEPT.] 29. WED. Sarah, Charlotte & I left Wd. at 11%, took cars at 12V2, & reached Boston & Cambridge for tea. Took a hurried tea, when a coach came for me to carry me to make a speech at the Free Soil meeting at the Town Hall. Dr. Palfrey & Mr. [J. T.] Buckingham were with us. I presided, & spoke on the INDEPENDENCE & UNITY of the party. Dr. P. also spoke, pretty well. I knew the Democrats would not like my speech, but it was due to myself & to the conservative members of the party that this thing should be set right. [SEPT.] 30. Wrote out my remarks, for the Commth. Ware had written them out, omitting the two chief topics. I told him they must print my speech correctly or not at all. He said they were in a hurry for it, but could wait a half hour. I wrote the remarks out, & sent them, but they declined publishing them on the ground of press of matter. This is Carter's69 democratising policy. ®®In John Campbell, Lives of the Chief Justices, noted earlier. Robert Carter ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 7 9 ) , onetime private secretary to William H. Prescott, was co-editor, with John G. Palfrey, of the Boston Commonwealth, chief organ for the Free Soil party. He represented a faction in the party to which Dana was opposed — that which encouraged a coalition of Free Soilers and other parties. 69

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OCT. 1. FRIDAY. Went to Watertown to conduct the proceedings against Z. D. Porter under the liquor law. Engaged nearly all day. Succeeded in procuring a conviction. [OCT.] 2. Gallacar acquitted on a charge of violating the Revenue Laws, to my great delight, as Lunt had behaved very badly. [George] Lunt had left this case to lie over seven terms (to gain his fees), & then brought it up [in] a hurry, when I was going off. I met him in the street Saturday, told him I was going away to be gone until Wed. or Th., & wd. meet in C't. about it. He expressed himself perfectly satisfied. In my absence, he got me defaulted, & refused to take the default off, & pretended to have forgotten entirely the conversation. We had an unpleasant issue of veracity, not in terms, for he said he had no doubt if I said so, it was so, but he left the burden on me to get the default off on my own recollection of a conversation wh. he ignored. But I was aided by his getting himself into an issue of veracity with the Judge, in wh. he was so clearly misstating, that it was painful. He said he had tried every term to bring the case up. The judge told him he had never heard of the case before, & that no jury had been dismissed until he had said that he had no business for them. I added that I had never been called into Court on this case. Poor Lunt was nowhere. After this was over, & the default taken off — the following dialogue took place between me & [Rufus] Choate. D. Is Lunt a man to make up a story, out of whole cloth, to conceal his mistakes? Choate. When I last knew him,, he was. (Choate having seen him every day for years). D. I suppose he has lived in ignorance of law so long that he is gradually subsiding into ignorance of facts. Choate. He finds that ignorance of law excuses no man, & he means to try it on ignorance of facts. OCT. 10. SUNDAY. Cousin Sophia & Charlotte have been visiting us this week. I have had but little of their company, being in town so much, & having been laid up with a cold & head ache a day & a half. Wrote out, last week, my speech on the Independence & Unity of purpose of our party, for the Commth., but Carter will not publish it. Reason assigned, press of election news & advertisements, real reason a determination to keep out all but democratic talk. Sat. Dr. Wa[lter] Channing dined with us. Just returned from a voyage to Europe, where he went to Denmark, St. Petersbourg, Moscow, Vienna & Madrid. Quite entertaining — & very much pleased with the state of Europe. Thinks people are rational & cheerful. In this country we are

The Middle Years absorbed in securing the means of living & in attending to self government. In Europe they enjoy the end. He is quite changed, & says there is no chance for peace, temperance or freedom in Europe, in our sense of these terms, but the people are as peaceful, & more temperate than we are. ocr. 16. Took supper at H. T. Parker's. Present Sumner, Hillard (who left early) F. E. Parker, & two Engl, gentlemen for whom the supper was made, Wm. D. Clay, eldest son of Sir Wm. Clay, Bart., & Ch. D'U. Morris, son of Admiral Morris, a Fellow of Oriel. 70 The latter is a good scholar & in every way a pleasant easy intelligent man, of the Gladstone school in politics. Clay is no scholar & no talker, given to guns & horses, a prejudiced tory, though his father is a radical. They (the Clays) are parvenus. W e had a very pleasant time, & sat until 1 o'clock, when I walked home, 4 miles, Morris insisted on walking with me, & then back to the Revere Hs. I became quite pleased with him. [ocr.] 17. SUNDAY. Walked in to Church. Found Morris & Clay at the Advent. M. walked out with me & dined. After dinner adjourned to my study, & in pleasant conversation time wore on until tea was called. After tea it rained, & he was prevailed on to stay all night. W e talked almost solely about America & I gave him an account of the practical working of our Convention system in politics, with its attendants of National, State & City Committees, wh. he said entertained & instructed him very much. Also about our Church Conventions, & the lay element in their organisations. He told me a little about Oxford, & I found that though sincerely attached to it & having as a Fellow of Oriel the advantages of its system, he was favorable to the Reforms proposed by the Commission. 71 His ground as to the Engl, social system, is that the well born, well educated, & well bred people of England are divided into two classes, the titled & wealthy, forming one, & the untitled & those of moderate property or who support themselves, the other. The latter is called the middle class, but is equal to the upper in education, talent & manners, & to a great degree in blood, all the descendants of younger branches of nobility, the untitled gentry being in it. On this point Americans are misled. They think the middle an interior class. 70 William Dickason Clay (1828-1876) succeeded his father, Sir William Clay ( 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 6 9 ) , as baronet in 1869. Charles D. Morris was the son of Sir James Nicoll Morris ( 1763?-i83o), veteran of Trafalgar. 71In 1850 a Royal Commission was appointed to investigate the charges that Oxford's extremely conservative policy of admissions and instruction needed amendment. The Oxford University Act of 1854 introduced many amendments into the University's constitution.

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19. TUESD. The funeral of Lewis Gray 72 took place to-day. He died Sunday morning at the age of 85 years. Uncle Edmund, Aunts Martha & Betsy, Cousins Mary, Sophia & Frank & Isabella, Sarah & I & our two oldest children, & little Isabella attended, making three generations of our family. Frank & I walked as bearers. It was an affecting scene — the gr. children of those he had carried in his arms, followed him to the grave. I wrote a notice of him for the Cambridge Chronicle of Saturday the 23rd, at the editor's request. OCT.

ocr. 20. I could not attend the Old 4th Distr. Convention to-day, on account of engagements in Court. The consequence was that that snake in the grass, John A. Bolles, contrived to get himself nominated for Congress instead of Dr. Palfrey, by means of some paltry trade between new & old districts & the State Senatorship. He had only 28 votes out of 74, & the decision to declare the highest elected was made under surprise & mistake, & no one seems to want him, while the disgust is general. The truth is the district has been under the influence of second rate men, [Henry] Wilson, Harewell, Banks 73 &c., men of low aims, until [it] has lost its tone. SAT. [OCT.] 23. Engaged yesterday & to-day in the trial of Elisur Wright's case for rescue of Shadrack. He is entirely clear of all connexion with the rescue in fact, although he was delighted with the result. Judge [B. R.] Curtis tries the case well & fairly —very fairly. His bias is against us, but he schools himself to keep it under, not only in form but in reality. In some points he has taken pains to aid the prisoner. Only twice has he acted, [as] we think, under a wrong influence. He [was] wrong in permitting the 3rd interrogatory to be put to the jurors, after acknowledging that it was likely to mislead, on the ground that no substitute that had been offered or that he could devise, was satisfactory. Better not put the question than to mislead. But it is impossible that Court & counsel cannot put a proper interrogation into writing.

The second instance was when he interrupted me in my opening, saying that I was going too much into generals, — that my duty was to state the facts we intended to prove & the law applicable thereto. If 72

L e w i s Gray ( 1 7 6 7 - 1 8 5 2 ) had been the "confidential servant" of Dana's grandfather, Francis Dana, 1 7 9 4 - 1 8 1 2 . Since that time he had lived in a small house on the family estate at Dana Hill. He sat as a model for Washington Allston's Painting "Jeremiah." 73 Nathaniel P. Banks, Jr. ( 1 8 1 6 - 1 8 9 4 ) served in the state legislature, 1 8 4 9 - 1 8 5 2 , became active in the Know-Nothing party, and finally became a Republican. He was elected as a Republican to the Speaker's position in the U. S. House in 1 8 5 6 , an action which was heralded as the first major Republican victory in the legislative table of organization. He served as a general during the Civil War.

The Middle Years

512

counsel arranged that the usual address to the state of mind of the jury, to remove prejudice & mistake, shall be made in the opening, I do not believe the Court can control it. If it can, it is a bad thing to try & fail in. Interference with the argument, in a political cause, is of questionable utility. Went in, with S., to hear Albani's concert. She is apathetic, but with great command of a beautiful & powerful voice. Wm. Story sent me some lines on Webster, entitled the "Apostate", with a request to publish them. I sent them to Bryant, who put them in the Post,74 but without comment. I thought they were entirely wanting in [rhythm] & melody, often rugged & prosaic, & without any peculiar merit. But they are above the common run, because they show culture & care. OCT. 25. MONDAY. Yesterday morning, at 3 o'clock, Daniel Webster died. He died at Marshfield, at his own home, in his bed, surrounded by his friends. It is felt by all to be a most solemn season. Those who agree with his course on the 7th March & since, feel that the country has sustained an irreparable loss, & almost idolise his memory. Those who condemn his course then, feel all the more solemnly his death, for they feel that this great sun has gone down in a cloud. Those who sustain him in his opposition to the regular nominations, & in running separately for the Presidency, feel that their head is taken away from them, while those who disapprove of his course, cannot rid themselves of the feeling that his defeat at Baltimore & the entire failure of the attempt to arouse the country to his separate & independent support, have caused or hastened 74

The poem appeared on the first page of the New York Evening Post October 15, 1852, with an introductory sentence: "The following lines, sent us from a neighboring state, appear to have a special meaning and application, which our readers, we think, will easily make out for themselves." Neither in the title nor in the 80 lines that follow is Webster mentioned by name. The poem opens with the lines: 'Twas the last hope of his craving ambition, 'Twas the last stake in thai: desperate game; All now is lost — save a last contrition, Or, what is worse, a self-glorying shame. and closes with the lines: Call on thy pride, if thy virtue's departed, Though we no longer can feed thee on faith, Live not a slave by thy passions perverted And creep not at last so abjectly to death. Story did not include the poem when he made a collection of his verse in 1856.

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[his death]. From all these causes, & in their various & conflicting qualities & degrees, all men agree to mourn his death. No death since that of Washington has excited so general a grief. [OCT.] 26. TUESD. The Bar held a meeting yesterday morning, before I got into town, & appointed a committee of five to take charge of the proceedings, prepare resolutions &c. This consisted of Choate, Bartlett, G. T. Curtis, Hillard & myself —& C. G. Loring, ex o f f . his being Pres. of the Meeting.75 This committee has done nothing but blunder. Blunder 1st, was to put Judge Curtis in a false position & get him rather angry, by asking him to postpone the adjournment of his Court, which would properly have been ordered on its coming in yesterday, until to-day, to give the bar time to prepare resolutions &c., & after he had reluctantly assented to this course, & kept his Court open all day Monday, the only Court in the U. S. wh. was open, — then told him they could not be ready until Thursday. He felt that if he did not adjourn at once, he should not adjourn until "full service", & so went on with his cases.

Blunder 2nd was that they overlooked two leading members of the bar, in making up their committee, & added them, awkwardly, the second day, vis: Prof. [Simon] Greenleaf & Judge Warren. Then they did not put one democrat on the committee, & when they enlarged it, they added Tolman Willey, a horse & dog lawyer of the blackguard school, & John P. Putnam, who [is] a pleasant worthy fellow, but of no literary or intellectual standing whatever, to reward them for political services to the Webster Club, — but put on no democrat. Blunder 3rd was that they assigned the writing of the resolutions to Hillard, who though a pleasant superficial ornate writer, could not master this subject, & Hillard, to crown all, went home sick, with two resolutions & a half written, & passed them over to Putnam, one of the least competent men in the entire bar for such a purpose. Accordingly they are flimsy enough. OCT. 27. WED. Elisur Wright was acquitted, much to our joy. The bar ought to vote Farley & me a service of plate, for demonstrating the importance of professional services.76 At the previous trial he defended 75

T h e committee members, who were to prepare a memorial service for Webster, have all been identified earlier with the exception of Sidney Bartlett ( 1 7 9 9 - 1 8 8 9 ) . He was one of the most prominent Boston lawyers of his time, repeatedly refusing high judicial positions in order to carry on his private practice. His only two appearances in public life were in 1 8 5 1 , when he served a term in the state legislature, and in 1 8 5 3 , when he was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. 76 Wright's trials as an alleged conspirator in the escape of the fugitive slave " S h a d rack" have been noted earlier. Dana's assistant council, Mr. Farley, has not been identified.

514

The Middle Years

himself, & had but one juryman on his side, — came within one of being convicted. Now he employs counsel, & is acquitted. But he deserved the acquittal. He had no part or lot whatever in the rescue, although he was ready for it, no doubt, if an opportunity had offered. Judge [B. R.] Curtis' charge was a model of impartiality. [OCT.] 28. THURSDAY. The bar meeting was held to-day, at 9¥2 A. M. As ladies were admitted to a few reserved seats, I took in Sarah, & she had the great pleasure of hearing all the performances. The Committee met at 9, to read the resolutions. One said that Webster's great voice never failed to support the cause of the oppressed &c. I requested them to alter this, as it seemed to point to the disputed point of the 7th M'ch. speech. Judge Warren at first proposed to vote me down, as I was the only Free Soiler; but after a few words from me, either from deference to my argument, or from fear that Prof. Greenleaf & C. G. Loring might sympathise with me, they consented to alter it, & to speak of his voice having so often penetrated where oppression &c. I told him I could well sustain that, for I believed he had done more than any living statesman to establish the true Free Soil doctrines.

The proceedings in Court were an honor to the Bar & Bench, & would have done honor to any Bar or Bench in the world. Choate was admirable, full of originality, beauty & feeling, Loring was instructive & able; the apprehensions from Geo. T. Curtis were not realised, for he had the good sense to be quite short; & Geo. Lunt met the embarrassments of his position with good taste & feeling. His position was awkward, for he claimed the right, officially, to announce [the] death & make the motion, while the bar had refused to place the resolutions in his hands. The reply of Judge [Peleg] Sprague was spirited & interesting, & delivered in an excellent style, clear & manly, & Judge Curtis, more suo,77 was clear, judicious, temperate & sensible. The whole affair was worthy of the occasion, wh. is saying a great deal. OCT. 29. FRIDAY. Left Boston at 7% A. M. via Cohassett, for Marshfield, to attend the funeral. At Cohassett, we took coaches, & rode to Marshfield, a distance of some 15 miles. The day was a warm autumn hasy day, with a falling & fallen leaf, & a sere look of the grass, in good keeping with the occasion & the rather barren & dreary look of the country. Some four or five hundred passengers came by this train, & filled some 50 or 80 carriages. At every cross road carriages joined us, & as we neared Marshfield it became a perfect funeral procession. As far as the eye could reach, before & behind, was a long " " A c c o r d i n g to his habit."

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file of carriages, & we had to stop & whip up, at intervals, as in the most crowded thoroughfare. It was interesting to see the people on the road, most of whom had never seen an omnibus, nor a larger assembly than of a Sunday at Church, gasing with wonder at the six horse coaches, the beautifully painted omnibuses & the great concourse of men. A mile & a half before we reached Mr. Webster's, we found wagons, chaises & coaches, put up at sheds & barns, & standing in the open fields, the horses tied to fences & trees. [This] continued all the last mile & a half of the way. On looking over the country from the hill top, they covered the land like grasshoppers. When 1 reached the house, it was full, & the doors were locked, while an immense crowd filled the piassas & the yard, & was scattered over the grounds. Under a tree in front of the house stood the coffin, uncovered, & in it lay stretched, at length, in the full dress that he wore at his last speech, "all that is mortal of Daniel Webster". He had on a blue coat with gilt buttons, & a white neck-cloth, which kept up a natural appearance to the form, while the huge, massy forehead, the dome of thought, lay open, under the N. England sky, gased upon by the thousands of his own race & nation, in silent awe. Even in the open yard, the crowd was so great as to require constant watchfulness to prevent disorder. Daniel Webster was a true product of N. England, & true child of her earth, & to her earth, on her most sacred spot, the home of the Pilgrims,78 was he to return. There was something solemn in the solitariness & remoteness of his home, in the dreary stretches of sea shore in view, & in the thought that he died here, & not in the bustle & hurry of the city. And to this remote, & not easily accessible spot, thousands, from all parts of the country, from all cities & states within reach, have made their toilsome journey, moved by a common impulse, & overshadowed by an awe wh. they feel but cannot all express. No man represented so completely, in our day, at least, the mighty, innate, inaccessible superiority of dialectic intellect. The Almighty gave him, at birth a larger & heavier brain than any of his race, & a physical frame suited to its utmost needs. The body was borne to the tomb, situated in a corner of the Parish Burying Ground which he had appropriated to himself & his family, with a path leading to it from his house, & the great crowd began to disperse, & the great caravans started on their way to the neighboring towns & the nearest rail road stations. The scene, for a while, except that all was as still & solemn as the driving, turning & crossing, & calling for passengers 78

Webster's Marshfield home, a model farm, was within ten miles of Plymouth Rock.

5i6

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would permit, was not unlike the descriptions of the motley crowds of vehicles at the English races. I rode to Kingston, & thence to Boston, by rail. One of the most touching things in all that met the eye or ear at Marshfield, was the lowing of the cattle, shut up in their barns. They seemed like real mourners for him whose large heart went out in affection to them. OCT. 30. SAT. Went to the shore [Manchester] to spend Sunday, with Sarah. Rained all day. [OCT.] 31. SUNDAY. Rain or mist all day. Walked to Shark's Mouth, & Mr. Adams' house; & again in the afternoon with S. on the beach. In ev. Peck came & played some of Mosart's Masses, wh. Charlotte sung. How beautiful they were; yet I could not enjoy much Sarkh was so ill. A general debility seems to have seised her, & her nervous system is entirely out of order. She needs rest. NOV. 2. TUESDAY. This day the 23,000,000 of America chose their king, yet there is almost no interest felt. The death of Webster has calmed it all down, amasingly, & there is no one recognised issue between the candidates, only impressions, & those somewhat contradictory, that they differ on points not professed, that Scott is more against Slavery & war & annexation of Cuba, fillebustering &c. Wrote to Ned. To the shore again at night. [NOV.] 3. WED. The country gone "with a rush" for Peirce. A New Hampsh., Democratic, doughfaced Militia Colonel, a kind of third rate county — or, at most, State politician, President of the U. States! I fear this is the best of it. But the Whigs in making their platform prohibited us from supporting Scott. It is now ten days since Webster's death, & five days since the scene at Marshfield, & a National election has intervened, yet the scene & event haunts me. I cannot escape from it. Every vacant phase of mind is filled with the image of the great solemn countenance, lying stretched in death, in the open air, under the canopy of heaven, beneath the tree his own hand had planted, in the yard of the house where his affections were garnered up. With all his greatness & smallness, with all the praise & blame, gratitude, admiration, censure & distrust, with which we look upon his life, there is something so majestical, so large of mind & heart about him, that an emotion of pride & tears swells at the very thought of him. Strange! that the best commendation that has appeared yet, the most touching, elevated, meaning eulogy, with all its censure, should have

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come from Theodore Parker!7" Were I Daniel Webster, I would not have that sermon destroyed for all that had been said in my favor as yet. Nov. 12. FHIDAY. Interviews with Choate on the Fed. St. Ch. case. Before the parties came in, we had a little gen. conversation. Choate said that he had just rec'd. a letter from Mrs. Goldsborough, a daughter of Wm. Wirt,80 complaining that the eulogies on Webster had been disparaging of her father in comparison. Choate had replied to her, & intended to do full justice to Mr. Wirt in his address at Dartmouth College. This led us into professional anecdotes. He said that in the great steam boat case, Gibbons v. Ogden [9 Wheaton 1], Wirt & Webster had a conversation as to the ground on wh. they should place the coasting license. Wirt was decidedly of opinion that it should be placed on the power to encourage useful arts, grant patents &c., while Webster placed it on the power to regulate Commerce. Their difference was so earnest & decided, that it was arranged between them that each should present his point to the Court, & they did so. Webster spoke first, & when he closed Wirt said to him — You have demonstrated your point. Still, he made the best of his own point, but the Court put the case on the power to regulate Commerce, & unanimously over-ruled the other. Still, Choate said, & that corresponds with my recollections, as a boy, & with all I have heard since, that in the Bronks & Tuthill Hubbard case, in Boston, Wirt carried the public with him. Speaking of Story, & the Dartmouth College case,81 Choate said that Judge Cummins82 had often told him, & it was well understood in Salem, 7i)

The sermon was preached at the Melodeon on Sunday, October 3 1 , 1 8 5 2 , and a "phonographic report" of it was widely circulated the next day. In 1 8 5 3 a 108-page text was published in Boston, on p. 60 of which is the following representative statement about Webster: " T h e malignity of his conduct, as it was once said of a great apostate, 'was hugely aggravated by those rare abilities whereof God had given him the use.' " 80 William Wirt ( 1 7 7 2 - 1 8 3 4 ) was U. S. Attorney General, 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 2 9 , and one of the leading advocates of his time. fil Dartmouth College vs Woodward (4 Wheaton 5 1 8 ) , tried between 1 8 1 6 and 1 8 1 9 , was a celebrated case in which the independence of a land-grant college, or of all nonprofit, property-owning institutions, was at issue. Acts of the N e w Hampshire legislature gave to the state absolute discretionary control over all the corporate rights of the College, and the legislature was supported by the N e w Hampshire courts, in spite of an argument by Webster which many believed to have "killed that l a w , " as D a v i d Cummins is quoted as saying here. Webster again led the appeal in the U. S. Supreme Court, where Story supported a reversal of the lower court's decision. This action constituted "flinching" in the eyes of men who had drafted the original legislative acts after consulting Story on their constitutionality. 82

D a v i d Cummins ( 1 7 8 5 - 1 8 5 5 ) , a Dartmouth graduate, was a Massachusetts lawyer and judge and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1820.

The Middle Years that Judge Story advised the N. H. gentlemen to go on with their legislation ag. Dartm. College, entertaining no doubt whatever of its validity. Cummins went to the trial in N. Hampshire, at which, in the law argument, Smith,83 [Jeremiah] Mason & Webster spoke for the College, & on his return, met Story. Story said, "Well, Cummins, you have been up to N. H., — what have they done there?" "Done!", said Cummins, "they've done one thing. They've killed that law. They have demonstrated that it is mere waste paper". Story looked thunder-struck. It was an entire surprise to him. And the N. H. gentlemen, [Sidney] Bartlett & others, who carried forward the law, never forgave Story for "flinching", as they called it, in the Supreme Court. The truth is, however, that Story was entirely carried round & convinced by Marshall84 & Webster. Now that Mrs. Stowe has become a celebrated person,85 it is pleasant to recall what one knew of her in earlier times. About the [year] 1829, when my father & Aunts were very orthodox, zealous supporters of the new Church in Cambridge, & leagued with Dr. [Lyman] Beecher & his friends in their great & stirring effort to re-establish Orthodoxy in Boston,86 Miss Catherine Beecher,87 who was then the head of a large school in Hartford, came to pass a day at our house, & brought with her her younger sister, Harriet, who was assisting her in her school, a young lady of about eighteen. Ned & I had not been favorable to the Beecher dynasty, adopting, perhaps, some of the prejudices of our Unitarian friends, but naturally repelled by their to us new & unusual style of manner & dress. They were careless of both, inattentive to what we had been sedulously taught as "the Minor Morals", &, indeed, there was a want of reverence in their religious exercises, & a familiarity in their manner of speaking of the Most High & of the Savior which shocked us in Church, as much as their want of refinement did in society. Miss Catherine Beecher had the family 83

Jeremiah Smith ( 1 7 5 9 - 1 8 4 2 ) was U. S. congressman from New Hampshire (Federalist), 1 7 9 1 - 1 7 9 7 , chief justice of New Hampshire, 1802-1809 a n d 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 1 6 , and governor of the state, 1809-1810. He served as co-counsel with Webster and Mason in the Dartmouth College case, noted above. 84 John Marshall ( 1 7 7 5 - 1 8 3 5 ) served as Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court after 1801. In the Dartmouth College case he supported Webster's successful bid for reversal. 85 Harriet Beecher Stowe ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 9 6 ) , daughter of the Lyman Beecher referred to here, married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a biblical scholar, in 1836. Her celebration derived from the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1851. 86 Though Lyman Beecher, noted earlier, was a radical in his own congregation, he fought the Unitarian movement in the church and supported the orthodox minority. 87 Catherine Esther Beecher ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 7 8 ) , Lyman's daughter, was a pioneer in the cause of education for women, having helped form the Boston "Ladies' Society for Promoting Education at the West."

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failings strongly marked, & the more objectionable being in a woman; but we were quite won by Miss Harriet. I was then about 12 or 13, & Ned three years younger, but we were close observers & nice critics of persons. We made an exception at once in favor of Miss Harriet. Though not handsome, there was something very pleasing about her. She too was rather careless of dress & manner & absent minded, but feminine, kind, & with a quick apprehension of humor, which pleased us very much. She was not without a touch of sentiment, & seemed like a person that might fall in love, as well as take a pun, which probably interested insensibly boys just dawning into young gentlemen. She quite won us by taking the part of Brutus, our favorite dog, & patting him on the head & saying — "Brutus is an honorable man". We were too young to appreciate the genius & force of the Beecher men,88 but just in the age, & influenced by education to feel their defects to the utmost. Miss Harriet was adopted by us as an exception, & I remember that the impression on all the family was quite agreeable. As I grew older, & after Dr. Beecher & his family had left [this] quarter of the country, [I] could better appreciate their striking qualities. The Dr. & his sons, too, were better as historical personages than as visiting friends. I saw the Dr. but once after he left Boston, & that was in a steam-boat, in the Sound, on my passage to N. York, in June 1851. I have described the interview in my journal of that date.89 Mrs. Stowe I have never seen, since the visit I refer to. Miss Cath. Beecher, I have seen several times. She spent a few days at my house in W. Cedar st., several years ago, for Sarah had been a pupil of hers & Miss Harriet's, in Hartford. She desired me to read her Wordsworth's Ode to Immortality — "There was a time &c.", which she said she could never appreciate or see anything in, & wished to hear once read by a person who professed to feel & understand it. I did my best; but, although she thanked me for my pains, she acknowledged that it was all Hebrew to her. NOV. 28. Been employed all this week in taking depositions in the "Ether Controversy".90 Thursday (25th) was Thanksgiving day. Read at home until lVk, then walked into town. Sarah & I & all the children dined at Chesnut St., with father, Charlotte, three aunts, Mrs. Watson & Little Isabella & Hasen. In the ev. went to Jfoseph] Willard's. Dr. Wa[lter] Channing dined with us. 88 Among Lyman Beecher's notable sons were Charles ( 1 8 1 5 - 1 9 0 0 ) , Edward 1 8 9 5 ) , Henry Ward ( 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 8 7 ) , and Thomas Kinnicut ( 1 8 2 4 - 1 9 0 0 ) . 89 S e e entry for June 2 5 , 1 8 5 1 . ^ D a n a refers to the case of W . T. G. Morton, noted earlier.

(1803-

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On Sat. (27th) dined with us, a Syrian gentleman, Mr. Lasarus L. Murad, introduced to Sarah by a letter from Mrs. Gardell. He wore his red woolen cap & black tassel. He speaks English remarkably well. He was educated at the American College in Constantinople, & knows six languages well, vis: Arabic, Turkish, Italian, Persian, Armenian & English, & has considerable acquaintance with French, German, Latin, Greek & Hebrew. He was born at Bethlehem & lived at Jerusalem, where his brother is American Consul. He was very entertaining & instructive, & knew nearly every American that had travelled in the Holy Land the last ten years. Sultan is pronounced Sool-tari Pacha Pa-shaw Emir Em-meer Beg Bake Bechir Be-sheer Visier Vis-sheer Mahomet Ma-hom-med Koran Koo-ran Rev. Dr. Parkman 91 is dead. A strange, minute, whymsical man, with a good deal of quiet wit. So fond was he of a good story or bon-mot, that he did not scruple much what he went through to get at it, nor did he always regard the breadth of his subject matter. Many anecdotes of his are current, but the fun of them is very lost without his manner, his thin piping voice, his drawl, & the funny twinkle of his eye. When Kossuth was here, preaching a crusade in favor of intervention in the affairs of Europe — Dr. P. said to a circle of gentlemen — "No man respects the talents of Louis Kossuth, & sympathises with his misfortunes, more than I do. But if the Archangel Gabriel & his brother Michael were to quit their celestial homes & come to Boston, clothed in white robes & bearing palms in their hands (See Revelations 16.9) 92 & should undertake to teach us the doctrines of Washington's Farewell Address93 — so help me Heaven, not meaning to be profane, I should pluck them by 91 Francis Parkman ( 1 7 8 8 - 1 8 5 2 ) was father of Francis Parkman, the historian, and brother of the murder victim, Dr. George Parkman. From 1 8 1 3 to 1849 the Reverend Parkman was pastor of the N e w North Church (Unitarian) in Boston, and from 1 8 4 9 to his death was vice president of the Society for the Relief of Aged and Indigent Unitarian Clergymen. 92 Dana appears to have been mistaken in his citation. He could have meant Revelations 1 5 : 6 : " A n d the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden circles." 93

Washington's address warned against permanent foreign alliances, but advised temporary associations in matters of emergency. Presumably it was against this last that Dr. Parkman was objecting.

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their robes & say to them, go back where you came from, praise God & mind your own business!" Once, on a visit to a friend on the North River, after breakfast, the Dr., seeking his daily relief of nature, went through a long passage-way that led to but one place. There was no mistaking the object of a person in the passage-way. He must be either going to or coming from this place. When too far in to retreat, the lady of the house appeared, from the other end. There was no [chance] for escape or concealment. The lady made the best of it, tried to look as though there was nothing at all embarrassing in the occurrence, & said, as she passed, "Good morning, Dr. Parkman". The doctor replied "Good morning, Madam! We are fearfully & wonderfully made". Another anecdote of the Dr., is too broad to be read except among men, & intimates, but it is very funny. The imitators of the Dr. give it on this line— I had been summoned to E. Lexington to perform the Marriage Service for a young man who had once been a parishioner of mine. It was in the evening, in Nov. I staid a reasonable time, took a glass of wine, gave them my benediction, & the bride-groom brought my horse to the door. He was a plain young farmer, & was a little embarrassed with the civilities of the occasion. It was a cold evening, with indications of freesing. There was an awkward interval, while I was putting on my gloves, & getting my reins, & gathering the buffalo skin about me. The bride-groom thought it incumbant on him to make some remark; and what do you think that young man was permitted to say? Said he, "it begins to stiffen!" The Dr.'s look at this crisis of his story, deprecatory & humorous, was indescribable. I shall never forget his introducing the Rev. Mr. Coggin,94 an awkward simple clergyman from the out-of-the-way country town of Tewksbury, to Judge Metcalf — "Judge Metcalf! This is brother Coggin, the angel of the Church at Tewksbury!" [ N O V . ] 30. Tuesd. was the celebration of Webster's death — oration by Hillard, 95 procession &c. Rather a dull day, & the procession small. It was too long after the occasion.

DEC. 1. WED. Dined with [E. P.] Whipple, [Horatio] Woodman, [J. T.] Fields, & [H. J.] Raymond (of the N. Y. Times). Choate's address in the ev. Not much in it. The poorest thing for body, though one of the richest for drapery that he ever gave. It was on Kossuth & intervention. 94 Jacob Coggin ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 5 4 ) , a clergyman who attended Harvard, served in the state legislature, 1 8 4 8 - 1 8 4 9 , and was a delegate to the 1 8 5 3 Constitutional Convention. 95 Published in A Memorial of Daniel Webster, from the City of Boston (Boston: Little, Brown, 1 8 5 3 ) , pp. 2 3 1 - 2 7 0 .

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C. M. Ellis, 96 a young lawyer of remarkable obstinacy, & not so remarkable clearness of head, had annoyed the whole Court & bar by refusing to consent to an arrangement wh. cd. not injure him at all, without being able to assign any reason, merely because the suggestion came first from the other side — Choate said — "Mr. Ellis seems to me to be a bull-dog, with perplexed ideas". DEC. 11. Rev. Dr. [J. A.] Albro, just returned from a tour of Europe, dined with me. He was very agreeable, sees well, feels sensitively & describes well. He is full of England. At the end of a long talk about England, he exclaimed "Old England forever!" "You say so, do you, Sir". "I do! Old England forever! If I were not an American, & had to chuse of all countries in the world, I should take England without a hesitation". He said he saw no signs of decay. All was power — power of every sort, & instead of age, she seemed just beginning to live. He was particularly delighted with Oxford, where he spent four days, receiving great attentions from the professors & fellows. His descriptions of Eton & Winchester schools, Lincoln & Chester Cathedrals, Cologne & Milan & St. Peters were particularly clear & picturesque. At Naples he saw the miracle of the liquifaction of the blood of St. Januarius. As he described it, the ceremony could have little dignity, & the imposition is not extraordinary. A Cath. priest, a German & a strong Catholic, expressed to him great contempt for the miracle.97 DEC. 19. The last week I have been employed in preparing my lecture on Burke. I find it impossible to compose pen in hand what I am to deliver oratorically. The mental states are diverse. To compose for oratorical delivery, the imagination must place one in the state & condition of a speaker. My imagination will not do this, or does it imperfectly pen in hand. I must compose oratorically. I must walk my room, & deliver myself as to an audience. Then the thoughts & language suit the imagined occasion. I can easily remember what I compose in this way, & can afterwards, if I choose, write it down. This is the only way I have ever been able to write a lecture or a political speech. At the time of delivery I usually have only notes & do better so. 96 Charles Mayo Ellis (1818-1878), Harvard, 1839, a friend of Theodore Parker, was an active abolitionist who defended Anthony Bums with Dana in the fugitive slave trial. 9 7 The miracle of the liquefaction of the blood had long been regarded as a hoax. The most generous explanation of it is that changes in seasonal climate cause the dried-up blood of the saint to return to liquid form. Mark Twain discusses it in Innocents Abroad.

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The great event of the week is the death of Horatio Greenough.98 Noble fellow! Handsome, manly, frank, generous, full of life, feeling & talent, struck down in a moment by a mysterious visitation of Providence! I last saw him a few weeks ago, at Uncle Edmund's, & walked up with him as far as his brother's, where he was visiting. He seemed to me the picture of health & of mature manly beauty. Last week he advertised that he would deliver two lectures. Though the notice was not general, his reputation drew a select audience. There was great disappointment in the lectures, chiefly from a want of connexion wh. was almost entire, & for a confusion & excitement of manner. These lectures were the first offspring, of a mind unbalanced. The next day he went to Newport, & before night was a raving maniac. His brother Henry" instantly went to him & brought him in a close[d] carriage to the Hospital at Somerville. He continued in a violent state a few days, then fell away at once & on Saturday morning, the 18th inst., died. No one but his brother suspected his state, & he had been anxious for a few weeks, but hoped it would pass off, thinking it to arise fr. physical causes. I have not yet learned the cause. He seemed to be in good bodily health, & being in independent circumstances, had little to trouble him. He is the last of that circle of men who gathered about my Uncle Edmund & Mr. Allston at Cambridge. While at College, having developed a taste for fine art, he made their acquaintance. Uncle Edmd. lived, in bachelor's hall, at the Trowbridge House, where Mr. Allston had a spare room wh. he occupied when he came out to spend, as he always did, his Saturday & Sunday, & where he sometimes drew & painted. Their rooms opened upon a pretty shaded green, where now stands Mr. Albro's Meeting House, at the corner of Mt. Auburn & Holyoke sts. It was an attractive spot, being a quaint, dark old house, with its well shaded green yard, independently of the attraction of minds within. As a particular favor, Mr. Greenough was assigned a third room, which he occupied while in college, & thus a strong attachment grew up between them.1 They always encouraged him in his art, predicted his success & defended his reputation. While in Italy, he corresponded with them, & when in America, Mr. Allston & my Uncle Edmund [were] his "friends in council". 98 Horatio Greenough, noted earlier, died December 18, 1852. " H e n r y Greenough ( 1 8 0 7 - 1 8 8 3 ) was a merchant, amateur architect, and occasional novelist. J That is, between Greenough, Edmund Dana and Washington Allston.

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On his last return to America — he has been here about a year — Mr. Allston's death threw him upon Uncle Edmund, & there he visited constantly. Full half the times that I have been there, the last year, I have found Mr. Greenough, & generally the two brothers. "The Master" was the name they called my Uncle by, & it became his settled appellation with the young men of their connexion. John Greenough was as constant a friend as Horatio, though a far different man. Handsome, generous, manly, but with little talent, & given over to bad habits. Poor John died at Paris last month, a death caused by evil living; but Horatio was a man of a correct life, stainless, & temperate even to abstinence. The last is now gone! Allston, Baldwin, [Sidney?] Willard, Knapp, Kirkland, Frisbie, Peck,2 & now the youngest, the boy to their mature years, Horatio Greenough! Poor, Old Man! He said "I shall carry this to my grave!" Allston & my Uncle both differed from Greenough as to the plan of his statue of Washington, & his new work, representing America — both on the first, I am not certain that Allston saw the sketch of the latter. They had long conversations & arguments with him, over the sketch he brought them, but they could not prevail. They thought the figure should have been draped, & that a modern dress, modified & idealised by taste & ingenuity, should have been adopted. But, whatever may be the differences of judgt. as to the conception of these works, their execution is in the highest style of merit. [His] Medora (Byron's Corsair) is beautiful, his Chaunting Cherubs, & his Angel & Child is exquisite. He had a mind full of beautiful fancies, noble thoughts & generous affections. DEC. 20. MONDAY. Delivered my lecture on Burke, at Hingham, for the first time. I knew it well, & delivered it as I intended, & I think the audience was interested.

DEC. 22. During a trial to-day, a sailor testified that he was moonblind, at a certain part of the voyage. On being examined further, he said that he was sleeping on deck, in the tropics, when the moon came out unexpectedly, & he lay with his face up & uncovered, & ever after was almost blind at night, although he could see as well as ever by day. This seemed to be the only phenomenon attending the disease, at least it was the only one he named, an approach to blindness at night, with 2 T h e identifiable members of this group not noted earlier are: Loammi Baldwin ( 1 7 8 0 - 1 8 3 8 ) , eminent civil engineer and architect, who helped design the Bunker Hill Monument; Levi Frisbie ( 1 7 8 3 - 1 8 2 2 ) , blind professor of Latin and natural religion at Harvard; and William Dandridge Peck ( 1 7 6 3 - 1 8 2 2 ) , professor of natural history at Harvard, 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 2 2 .

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sight as good as usual by day. His shipmates sustained his account by their testimony; & the master, an intelligent & worthy man, Capt. Joshua Sears of the ship Orissa, to whom it was important to disprove this statement, if possible, corroborated it, & said that this disease continued until they reached Calcutta, where the man went to the Hospital & was cured, & that the physicians of the Hospital recognised the condition of moonblind, as a known disease, produced by sleeping with eyes exposed to the moon light. I remember there was this notion among the crew of the Pilgrim & Alert, & they were careful to put a jacket over their faces if the moon was up, when sleeping on deck. The first part of our voyage, Ben Stimson was lying asleep, on his back, with his face in the moon-light, & one of the watch threw a jacket over him, saying that he would be moon-blind. I thought it was a superstititon of the sea, but the next morning, at breakfast, all hands noticed the strange appearance of Ben's eyes. They looked twisted, as if he were a little cross-eyed. This passed oiï in a day or two. The crew told him he had a lucky escape. DEC. 24. FRIDAY. Dined with Ch. Fr. Adams. Present, Mr. & Mrs. A., Miss Louisa, Master C. F. Jr., Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Brooks, George Sumner, Dr. Frothingham & Miss Lunt ( d. of Rev. Mr. L. of Quincy ) .3 Geo. Sumner showed a wonderful knowledge of persons & things, of Sèvres China, Carpets, &c. He knows more things, & has his knowledge better at hand than any man I ever saw. His deductions are not remarkable nor always sound. I remember hearing Charles read a letter from George, dated fr. Paris during LaMartine's ascendancy, in wh. Geo. stated with entire confidence that [there] would be in a few months Republics firmly established each with a Prest. as its head, in Italy, Austria, & Prussia.4 Conversation on false quantities in Latin. Dr. F. told us of a speaker who got 2 words wrong out of 3, quoting aliquando dormitat Homerus, 3 Louisa Adams, Mrs. Brooks, and George Sumner were noted earlier. Charles Francis Adams, Jr. ( 1 8 3 5 - 1 9 1 5 ) , son of Dana's political associate, later served as Dana's law clerk, eventually became a prominent railroad executive, and in 1 8 9 0 wrote the Houghton Mifflin two-volume biography of Dana cited throughout. Octavius Brooks Frothingham ( 1 8 2 2 - 1 8 9 5 ) was a Unitarian clergyman, later was a founder and president of the Free Religious Association, and was regarded as the intellectual heir of Theodore Parker. Miss Lunt's father was William Parsons Lunt ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 5 7 ) , from 1 8 3 5 to his death associate pastor of the Unitarian Church at Quincy, Massachusetts. Sidney Brooks (d. 1 8 7 8 ) , Harvard, 1 8 1 9 , was an extremely wealthy lawyer, merchant, and philanthropist.

•Alphonse d'Lamartine ( 1 7 9 0 - 1 8 6 9 ) occupied a highly influential position in France between February and June of 1 8 4 7 . B y the time of Dana's writing, republican movements in all three of the countries mentioned had been cmshed.

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with penult short on each of the two last words. I referred to Burke's "vestigal", & made a little anecdote of Prof. [Simon] Greenleaf's farewell address to the Law School, of which the last word was, unluckily, a dreadfully false quantity. He quoted, as his peroration, the lines on Sir C. Man's Monument, & was left to pronounce the last word with the penult long, "Si Monumentum queris, circumspice". Mr. Adams was at an Engl, public school when his father was abroad, & he says they taught a grammar wh. was all latin, not an English word in it, rules & all. [DEC.] 25. CHRISTMAS. Went to Ch. at the Advent, with Sarah & the 3 oldest children. Had the new stone altar, of Cayenne stone, very beautiful. In the afternoon, had the Longfellow & Mackintosh children & a few others, at a tree & childrens entertainment. My presents are Burns' complete works from Aunt E., Bryant's Poems fr. Aunt S., a silver napkin ring from Aunt M., & a pocket book from Sally (in part). I gave Sarah a needle case made on the inside of Cedar from Lebanon, & on the outside of Olive wood from the Mt. of Olives. This I bot, with a few other things of M. Murad, therefore know them to be genuine. Of the same purchase, I gave two napkin rings of olive-wood to Mrs. Watson & Miss N. Marsh, a necklace of olive stones to Charlotte, & a folder to Lilly. [DEC.] 27- MONDAY. Went to Marblehead to deliver my lecture on Burke. Audience large, say 600 & attentive. Spent the night at a public house. After lecture, a rough stout-built man came up & spoke to me. I cd. not remember him, when he told [me] he was Sam. Hooper, the little boy of the Pilgrim. 5 He was evidently only a common sea dog, & the people told me that he had neglected all his opportunities.

DEC. 29. WED. Our cousin, Sue Ridley Sedgwick, came Monday to spend the week with us. This ev. we had company. Mr. & Mrs. Longfellow, Mrs. Farrar, the Nortons (Ch., Jane & Grace), Mr. & Mrs. Apthorp, [F. E.] Parker, [Horace?] Gray & [John P.] Hale & Wales from Boston, Miss Palfrey, Miss Wheaton & a few others, about 25 in all, — a Mr. Clough, an Englishman, author of a poem with a Welsh name, (the Bothie of Tobor-na-Vuolich) late fellow of Oriel. 6 B The Pilgrim, whose specifications were noted earlier, was one of Dana's ships in Two Years Before the Mast. 6A11 of the people mentioned have been noted earlier with the exception of Wales, whose identity is unknown, Apthorp, and Clough. Robert E. Apthorp ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 8 2 ) , noted philanthropist and abolition supporter, was the nephew of Harrison Gray Otis. He married Eliza Hunt in 1837. Arthur Hugh Clough ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 6 1 ) , Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, 1841-1848, published his first poem in 1848. His collected poems and letters appeared in 1869.

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Letter from Sumner, enclosing one from Everett, touching Horatio Greenough & his groupe. 31. FRIDAY. Went with Sue & Sarah to Thackeray's lecture.7 Subject — Prior, Gay & Pope. He is a tall strong built man, with that well-bred awkwardness which characterises most Englishmen in good society, hair prematurely grey, voice strong, clear & melodious, manner natural & conversational, without any attempt at rhetorical effect. Prior & Gay, & indeed Pope, too, as he ought to have treated him, were entirely within his range, but when he undertook to say that the close of the Dunciad was unsurpassed for grandeur of imagery, thought & language by anything in English poetry, he displayed his incapacity to judge of a great poetic theme. Yet, within his range, the lecture was very entertaining, & delivered with that manliness, independence & clearness wh. distinguish the best specimens of Engl, gentlemen. He had an admirable audience, of all the desireables of Boston. This week we heard news of the deaths of several friends. Mrs. John Marsh of Brooklyn N. Y., George Wilson Esq. of Canandaigua, & old lady Chester of Wethersfield. The latter was in old age & expecting death. Mrs. Marsh was a confirmed invalid, with occasional hopes of better health. But Geo. Wilson was cut down in his prime, & seemed to be selected by Providence because he was one of those persons whom the world thinks cannot possibly be spared. This will be a great loss to Mary, for he was guardian & trustee of the children & property, & the staff & guide of the family. 8 [DEC.]

7

Thackeray lectured in the United States between November 1 8 5 2 and the spring of 1853. See his The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century. A Series of Lectures Delivered in England, Scotland and the United States of America (London, 1853). 8 A11 of the people in this paragraph were noted earlier. Mary is Mary Watson Wilson, Dana's sister-in-law.

5. The Massachusetts Constitutional Convention and a Trip to Canada 1853 1853 JAN. 1. In town, a busy anxious day. The worst day of the whole year. All bills sent in & to be paid, a day of accounts & reckonings & payments & demands of payments, enough of themselves to vex the spirit, & then a pervading sense over all that a new year is begun, an old year ended, time wasted & to be wasted & no opportunity to reflect properly on it all. I wish it were kept either as a holy day or a holiday. Father, Charlotte, Aunt E. & Miss [Lucy] Bagley dined with us, & Susan & Mrs. Watson, & we had a pleasant time in the evening. But these numerous deaths, added to that of Greenough, gave a seriousness to us all, not easy or desirable to throw off. JAN. 4. Our Cousin Sue, passed Monday with us, & left to-day for New York. I never meet Choate without some pleasant or interesting thing being said. I met him in the Library & asked him if he had read Seward's speech on Webster, in the Senate. 1 He had. I hoped he thought it as striking as I did, & I added "Don't you think there is more thought in Seward's speeches, than in those of any man now in public life?" He said he did — that Seward was a thinker & writer, as well as a speaker. I alluded to Seward's saying that in one respect Webster surpassed Erskine & "approached Hamilton", & asked him how the devotees of Webster would relish that. He did not reply directly, but said that he was engaged in an examination] of Hamilton, & was at a loss to discover that poetry, for which all his contemporaries gave him credit. I said I did not think Hamilton's mind was poetic; that he was heroic & chivalrous, but not poetic. Choate thought it must be so, & that his works were clear processes of intellect. But, said he, I remember an anecdote told me by Devereux, of Salem. He had occasion to pay some attentions to Aaron Burr, during a visit Burr made to Boston after the death of Hamilton. He took [him] to the Athenaeum, & while walking through the sculpture gallery, seeing the bust of Hamilton near him, turned off, naturally thinking it would be disagreeable to Burr to be brought before it. But Burr went directly d e l i v e r e d December 14, 1852. See George E. Baker (ed.), The Works of William H. Seward, III ( N e w York: Redfield, 1853), 1 1 1 - 1 1 6 .

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up to it, & said, in a very loud tone, "Ah! Here is Hamilton". And, passing his finger along certain lines of his face, said "There was the poetry!" JAN. 5. WED. Supped at [J. R.] Lowell's with Thackeray. Present, Longfellow, [J. B.?] Felton, [A. H.] Clough (an Englishman) J. T. Fields, Edm. Quincy. We sat down a little after 10, had an excellent supper, & left a little before 2 o'ck. Walked home with Longfellow. Thackeray is not a great talker. He was interested in all that was said, & put in a clever pleasant word occasionally. Felton, Lowell & I did nearly all the talking. [ J A N . ] 7. FRIDAY. Lecture at Jamaica Plain. Tea with a Unit. Clergyman named Reynolds. Audience very attentive, & on the whole the lecture went off better than it has yet.

[JAN.] 1 1 . TUESDAY. Lecture at E. Bridgwater. Very bad cold, but people seemed pleased. In ev. James Mitchell, a merchant, Mr. Harris a young lawyer, & a Dr. , spent the ev. with me at the Hotel.2 Heard of the death of Mrs. Eustis, wife of my friend Prof. Eustis.3 She died of a fever after child-birth, her fourth child, an excellent woman, affectionate, lady-like, energetic & sensible, very much beloved. It is a sad loss, four little children. Sarah & the other younger married women sent bunches of costly flowers to be placed on her coffin, & the attendance at Church was large. She was buried on her birth-day. JAN. 12. WED. This ev. I delivered my lecture before the Merc. Lib. Assoc. in Boston, in the new Music Hall. I had a very full house. The Committee told me that I must not exceed an hour, as the people always began to leave when the hour was up; & that when lecturers were even 5 minutes over the time, hundreds went out. There being no clock in sight, & not looking at my watch, I was an hour & a quarter, yet none left. They were as attentive to the last sentence as to the first. On this, the Committee congratulated me particularly. I spoke to my own satisfaction. The scene was inspiring. The lofty ceiling, the mellow moon-light effect of the burners in the cornice, the crowded audience, & the beautiful adaptation of the room to the voice, made everything as favorable as possible to success. The Traveller has a very bad report of the lecture, making more mistakes than I supposed could be made by a man of fair intelligence. 2 James Henry Mitchell (d. 1 8 7 2 ) was a commission merchant in East Bridgwater. A leader in the Republican party, he served in the state senate, 1862-1863. Benjamin Winslow Harris ( 1 8 2 3 - 1 9 0 7 ) had been admitted to the bar in 1850. Active in the formation of the Republican party, he served in the U. S. Congress, 1 8 7 3 - 1 8 8 3 . 3 Henry Lawrence Eustis ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 8 5 ) , Harvard, 1838, West Point, 1842, was a military engineer until 1849, when he resigned from the Army and joined the Harvard faculty as professor of engineering. He remained at Harvard until 1 8 7 1 .

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[ J A N . ] 14. Heard of the death of Horace B. Wallace. He died in Paris, of a difficulty in the head, wh. has troubled him all his life. It seems to me as if all the great & good among my friends were dying. [Robert] Wheaton, Wallace, & Horatio Greenough! Wallace was a man of uncommon powers of philosophical analysis, of great accomplishments, & of a high tone of character. An intellectual, accomplished, high minded Christian gentleman. This week argued Stevens v. Rodsdon, v. for dft. my client. Talked with Choate about Burke, while waiting for his case to be called. Conv. of about 15 minutes, but how full of rich suggestion, pleasant & interesting memories of words & events! I never talk with Choate without something worth remembering & very agreeable to hear being said. Attended an examination] of Soph[omores] in Rhet. & Grammar, Campbell's Rh. & Latham's Grammar. For the first time, printed questions were given to the young men to answer in writing. It worked well. [ J A N . ] 16. SUNDAY. This ev. called to see Uncle Edmund, & asked him about Burke's Oratory, with reference to what Everett said in his eulogy on Webster — that Burke's best orations were delivered to empty benches. He spoke up with great indignation & said it was not so. That this came fr. the Edinburgh] Rev. & Goldsmith's Retaliation.4 He had asked Grandfather, who often heard him, how this was, & Grandfather said, No; that Burke was a very impressive & interesting speaker, & was listened to with great respect.

17. MONDAY. Lectured at Plymouth. Sarah went down with me & made her first visit to Plymouth. Staid at Mrs. Chas. Severs where we were handsomely & kindly entertained. In the ev. Mrs. S. had a gentlemen's party, to meet me. There were 7 gentlemen present, & all named Russell. JAN.

[ J A N . ] 18. After breakfast Sarah, Miss Kate Sever & I took a drive toward the Beach, then called on Marston Watson, who gave S. a beautiful bouquet, then drove to the rock & home. I called on my old friends, Lucia Russell (Mrs. Briggs), Mrs. Stoddard, Mrs. Col. Thomas, Nath. Russell, Andrew Russell & Mrs. Davis, Capt. John Russell, Dr. Kendall, Mr. Thos. Russell's family &c.5 Left in 3V4 train for Boston. Had a very

^"Retaliation," a satiric poem by Oliver Goldsmith, originally published in 1 7 7 4 , contained a number of satiric references to Burke, including: Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, A n d thought of convincing while they thought of dining. 5 Andrew L e a c h Russell ( 1 8 0 6 - 1 8 6 4 ) had been a partner with William S. Russell in the dry goods business before retiring to Plymouth. T h e rest of the people mentioned, when identifiable, have been noted earlier.

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agreeable visit. Indeed, Plymouth is a charmed spot for me. I shall never get over the fascination of childhood & youth for all things in & about Plymouth. It is almost a home for me. Wm. Sever,6 the acting master of his sister-in-law's house, is a gentleman in feeling & manners. JAN. 19. Lectured at Newton Corner. Took tea with Mr. Geo. E. Lord, who married a sister of Rob. Waterston7 Driven home by clear moon light, in a sleigh. [ J A N . ] 2 0 . THURSDAY. Lectured at Kingston. Met two daughters of Col. John Sever, Miss Jane Sever, daughter of the Old Commodore, two daughters of Dr. Nichols, & my classmate Joe Beal.8 Spent the night with the latter, who treated me with great kindness & hospitality. [ J A N . ] 3 0 T H . Lectured this week at Newton-Corner, W. Newton, Fitchburg & Waltham. This lecturing about at villages, gives one curious development in the differences of manners & notions among men. The Newton-corner & Jamaica Plains Committee came for me in a carriage & drove me to & from. The Committee (of one) from W. Newton walked me all the way, in the worst walking we have had this year, to the station & back, & gave me no tea, kept me waiting while others went to tea, hurried me off by the cars to avoid the trouble & expenses of driving me to my house, & entertained me all the way with a homily on philanthropy & humanity. He thought we were too narrow. Patriotism was a narrowness. There should be no limits. Every human being should be our brother!

FEB. 13. No event of importance has occurred the last two weeks. I called on [George] Lunt, (U. S. D. Atty) to induce him to Nol Pros, the remaining Rescue Cases, cases of men who for nearly two years have not been brot to trial, & of [James] Scott who has been tried once, the jury disagreeing & has not been brot to trial again, tho' 20 months have elapsed. I told him that such a course was unprecedented in criminal, & especially in political trials. His reply was that these were not political trials, that perhaps "the fellows had been punished enough" (what right had he to punish?); & lastly, that he supposed I knew that the late Sec. of State, (Mr. Webster), had taken these cases into his own hands, & that he (Lunt) had been obliged to do as Mr. Webster said & 6 William Russell Sever ( 1 7 9 0 - 1 8 8 7 ) , Harvard, 1 8 1 1 , a bachelor, was treasurer of Plymouth, 1838-1876. 'Robert Cassie Waterston ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 9 3 ) w a s a wealthy Unitarian minister, noted as an opponent of Theodore Parker. His sister and her husband remain unidentified. ^Joseph Sampson Beal ( 1 8 1 4 - 1 8 8 5 ) , Harvard, 1835, practiced law in Plymouth. He served in the state legislature in 1846 and the state senate, 1878-1879.

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not as he wished &c. This admission of Mr. Webster's deep interest & efforts in these Rescue Cases, corresponds with what Sanger,9 Mr. Lunt's Assistant, told me last summer. He expressed himself with a good deal of warmth, & suddenly checked himself, to the effect that if the Sec. of State had common sense, with all his greatness, he would not press a trial at that time. But Lunt refused to Nol. Pros., & said "perhaps he would try one of them next May". I shall bring it before the Judge. [Peleg] Sprague. FEB. 20. This week I lectured twice at Salem, on Tu. & Wed. evenings. Salem vindicated for itself its old reputation for inhospitality. I don't know how this reputation arose, but for some reason or other, it has been a tradition of several generations. When Jim Crow 10 came to Boston & improvised, he had two verses on Salem that used to bring down the house. One was I went down to Salem To see the Museum. They asked me out to dinner When they knowed I couldn't come. The other was still better, but I forget it. The Boston people used maliciously to abbreviate East India merchants, into "Stingy Merchants". I spent both ev. at my hotel, the gentlemen walking with me as far as the door of my hotel, & bidding me good night. The second night, it rained violently & stormed, but they offered no coach to or from, nor did they even call for me, on foot, but left me to find my way as I could, guessing at the time & place. This was a greater inattention than I ever knew in my lecturing career, even from the most awkward country committee man. The first night, the Prest. walked the streets with me, for the pleasure of conversation, a bitter cold night, to & fro, for a half an hour, but suggested no shelter or creature comfort. Probably this want of attention & hospitality arose from a small class of the earlier merchants, who gave Salem its commercial importance, who were notoriously mean & eager men, disregardful of courtesies, & who set an example & fixed a habit wh. it is not easy to break through. 9 George Partridge Sanger ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 9 0 ) , after a career as a Boston lawyer and public official, became first president of the John Hancock Mutual L i f e Insurance Company in 1 8 6 3 . 10 J i m Crow was Thomas D. Rice ( 1 8 0 8 - 1 8 6 0 ) . His depiction of an aged, deformed, and decrepit slave called Jim Crow, in various farces of his own composition, established the basis for the Negro minstrel show on the American stage.

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At the hotel was Nat. Lord, with whom I had a good deal of law gossip. Nat. thinks himself so ill treated by the Ch. Justice, 11 that he refuses to appear before him. Speaking of the Rescue Cases, he let out his contempt for Lunt, without concealment. He said that after the two first disagreements, being at Washington, Webster said to him — "I never heard much of the professional reputation of this Mr. Lunt. Can he get a conviction in these cases?" Lord replied "I think there is ev[idence] enough agfainst] two of them to warrant conviction". Webster. "You don't answer my question, Sir". Lord. "I did not mean to, Sir". He says Lunt, in a civil action, told the Court he was well aware that non est factum was a special plea, but &c. 12 Mr. Peck sailed for Australia on Thursday, P. M. of the 17th, in the Plymouth Rock. All has been done for him that can be done. 13 A subscription among his friends, nearly all of whom he had sponged & worried out of all patience, gave him an entire outfit, costing about $100, paid his passage money $150, & left $75 in the Capt.'s hands for his use on his arrival. All this, too, from persons on whom he had no claim whatever, except that of compassion & an interest in merit so wofully impaired & disgraced. On Tuesday (15th) went to Dedham to attend Supreme Court. It was Judge Thomas' first Court, & I had the pleasure of arguing the first motion that was argued before him.14 At dinner, speaking of memory, he said that Horace Mann said of [Thernon] Metcalf, — "It is not so much memory, as an incapacity to forget". Dined yesterday, 19th, at Woodbourne, Wm. Minot's Jr., with Chas. Sedgwick & Judge Byington & Prof. [F. J.] Child. 15 u T h e Chief Justice of Massachusetts, Lemuel Shaw, is noted earlier. He supported the Fugitive Slave L a w . 12 D a n a adds the following note: " W h e n Webster left the Tremont Hs. for the Revere, some one asked him why he left the Tremont. Said he 'I am tired of seeing the District Attorney [Lunt] walking up & down the passage-ways.'" 13 George Washington Peck, noted earlier, once Dana's law clerk and crony of Dana's brother, drank heavily. 14 Benjamin Franklin Thomas ( 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 7 8 ) served as a judge of the state Supreme Court from 1 8 5 3 to 1 8 5 9 , when he resigned. He was elected as a Conservative Unionist to the U. S. House in 1 8 6 1 to fill a two-year term vacated by Charles Francis Adams, Lincoln's Minister to England. 15 A 1 1 of the people mentioned here were noted earlier except Horatio Byington ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 5 6 ) , a lawyer and judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He served in the state legislature in 1846.

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FEB. 23. WED. An attempt being made to return some of the leading men of the Free Soil party to the Convention from towns they do not live in, (a measure necessary from the fact that our leading men live in Whig towns) Mr. [J. B.] Alley asked me16 from what town I could go. I told him I thought Manchester would elect me, & he said he would make a business of it. To-day Robt. Carter called, from the State Committee, & said that the Free Soilers in Manchester were willing to nominate me, & the only difficulty was with the democrats, without a support from some of whom it would be difficult to elect me, & proposed that Mr. Mayo, formerly of the bar, & last year the Democrat Fish Inspector, recently removed by [J. H.] Clifford should call & talk with me & get my opinions & then go down & talk with democrats there, with whom he had a good deal of influence. This proposal I declined, at once. It would put me entirely in the power of a man of whom I knew nothing, who might misrepresent or misunderstand me, & who, at all events, would have it in his power to charge me with deception or inconsistency if I should differ from him in the Convention. I told Carter, I would much rather go down in the bold English way & face my constituents, if they needed any information. Afterwards [Henry] Wilson & Alley came & approved of my refusal, & said I should probably be called on to go down & address the friends of the Convention. Tuesday night (22nd) I lectured at Beverly. Spent the night at the house of a very respectable tradesman by the name of Endicott, a man above his apparent occupation, which is that of a small shopkeeper. He is a lineal descendant of Gov. End[e]cott, is a member of the Legislature, well read & intelligent, has considerable property & married a sister of Robert Rantoul. I was very well entertained by them, & in the ev., after lecture, Mr. Rantoul Senior, & his daughter, & his grandson Robt. S. Rantoul, now in college, & Rev. C. Thayer, came in & spent some time.17 16

Shapiro notes that Dana allows it to appear here as if he had been approached, when actually he had "intimated to Charles Francis Adams that Manchester . . . 'might be inclined to elect him, if suggested from the right quarter.'" Dana, p. 70. 17 William Endicott (1799-1899), a Beverly druggist, was indeed a direct descendant of John Endecott, 1589-1665 (Dana ignored the change in spelling), colonial governor of Massachusetts. At this time William Endicott was serving a term in the state legislature. Robert Rantoul, Dana's colleague at the bar, is noted earlier. He died in 1 8 5 1 . Robert Rantoul, Sr. ( 1 7 7 8 - 1 8 5 8 ) was also a druggist, served frequently in the Massachusetts house until 1833, was a delegate to the constitutional conventions of 1820 and 1853, and was well known as a reformer. His grandson, Robert Samuel Rantoul ( 1 8 3 2 - 1 9 2 2 ) was to graduate from Harvard this same year and go on to a career in law and journalism, and to establish a reputation as an antiquarian with the Essex Institute. Christian Toppan Thayer (1805-1880) was minister of a church in Beverly, 1 8 3 1 - 1 8 5 9 .

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Mr. R. is a striking looking old man of 80 or upwards, & talks with strong sense. I left out the chief part of my allusion to the death of Burke's son, from regard to his own feelings on account of the recent loss of his own son just at the moment of his increasing distinction. Tried McLaughlin v. Callahan & obtained a verdict. Byington, J[udge], ruled pro forma, that a memorandum of articles sold & their prices, containing the names of the buyer & seller in the body but not subscribed by either of them, written by the seller, was a sufficient mem. within the Stat, of Frauds, in an action by the buyer against the seller, if the seller after it was written distinctly adopted his name as a signature: although the buyer cannot be the agent of the seller to put his signature to the paper. Quaera?18 M C H . 4. FRIDAY. Read a remarkably good article in the Register, a Church Journal published at Philadelphia, 19 entitled "The Fillmore Administration". The writer is a high conservative, & supports the Fug. SI. laws, but his criticisms on the last two years of Webster's life, especially his course as Sec. of State, are excellent, & the more valuable as coming from that side. The article seems to foreshadow the position to which the conservative mind of the country on that side of the question will come. The Disunion panic [was] made the most of by Webster for ambitious purposes, & kept alive to the last, a sudden revolution on the Slave question, a counteracting of the President & rivalling him before the people, a disgraceful race for the Presidency, endangering our foreign relations to answer political ends at home, the introduction of declamatory [attitudes], a selfish endangering of the success & very existence of his party on his failure to get the nomination for President, & a death from mortified ambition. I lent the article to Choate. He read it, but said little, except to praise its ability.

M'CH. 4. Interview with Gov. [J. H.] Clifford abt. the appointment to the anticipated vacancy in the Supr. C't., recommending Judge Hoar. Clifford has a high opinion of Judge H. & if he does not appoint him, it will be from party considerations over-ruling him.-0 [ M A R C H ] 8 . TUESDAY. Yesterday was the day for the election of delegates to the Convention for the Revision of the Constitution. I had the 18

Dana used this term as a comment on an assertion: it is intended to signify doubt or suggest the need for further investigation. 10 The Register: a gazette of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, was published for only one year — 1853 — and a few bound volumes of the year's issue are scattered through libraries in the eastern United States. 20 Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, noted earlier, was not appointed to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts until 1859.

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compliment of being elected from Manchester, b y a clear majority over all others, on the first ballot. I have also the satisfaction to know that I was elected without a coalition, & am therefore under obligations to no party to wh. I do not belong. T h e Free Soil party nominated me, & I accepted the nomination in a letter. T h e Democrats refused to unite in this nomination, & ran a separate candidate. The Whigs also had a separate candidate. But there were enough of the old parties to vote for me, voluntarily, to secure my election. Sumner is elected from Marshfield. Webster's son was the candidate against him, but Sumner had a large majority. His election too was on the 7th of M'ch., the anniversary of Webster's speech! Several others have been elected from towns in wh. they do not reside, in the English fashion. T h e friends of the Convention have a very large majority, more than a hundred, over the Whigs. This has been mainly owing to the folly of the Whigs in opposing the Convention & trying to repeal the act for calling it, after it had been accepted b y the people. 2 1 Monday night (7th) I lectured at N. Bridgwater. After an early breakfast, left for Boston, where I arrived soon after 9, argued Rand v. Mather [11 Cush. 1 (Mass.), 59 Am. Dec. 131] before the full bench Sup. C't., closing at 2 o'ck., without dining took 2V2 train for Dedham, & began the trial of Bigelow v. Wood immediately on my arrival — Immediately on adjournment of the Court took cars for Boston & thence coach to Charlestown, & lectured 1% on Burke, returned to Boston, had an interview with Dr. Townsend, w h o is a witness in White v. Braintree [13 Met. 506], & thence to Cambridge — all this time eating nothing but a f e w figs & a sandwich in the coach — a pretty good day's work! 2 1 T h e previous autumn the voters of Massachusetts approved a call for a convention to draft a replacement for the existing state constitution. Though the Whigs had grievances against the old document — they resented the fact that constitutional requirements concerning rural representation in the legislature made the predominantly urban Whig state majority relatively ineffective — they opposed the call. Both Whigs and the Democrat-Free Soil coalitionists disliked the constitutional requirements concerning clear majorities for candidates seeking office, for with three parties dividing the state voters, too frequently majorities were insufficient, and the time-consuming process of election via the legislature had to be invoked. Rural Democrats believed that still further protection was needed concerning legislative representation for their areas, and they believed that the lifetime tenure rule on judiciary appointments was allowing the Whigs to pack the bench. Free Soilers and Democrats alike felt that the nation-wide tendency toward more liberal legislation for the working and unpropertied man had been delayed in Massachusetts by Whig manipulation of an antiquated constitution. Since the call for a convention had been backed by the Democrat-Free Soil coalition and since there had been subsequent attempts on the part of Whigs to invalidate the call, the election of delegates to the convention went heavily in favor of the coalition.

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[ M A R C H ] 9. Engaged all day in trying Bigelow v. Wood, at Dedham. After tea, had an interview with the witnesses in White v. Braintree, until gV2 P. M., & then drove to Cambridge, reaching home about midnight. M ' C H . 10. THURSDAY. Verdict in my favor in Bigelow v. Wood to full amt. claimed. Began White v. Braintree. We have very pleasant times here, at the trials. The judge, the sheriff & the members of the bar from out of town board together at the hotel; the judge sitting at the head of the table & thé sheriff at the foot, & the lawyers seating themselves, by a tacit understanding according to age & importance, & there is a good deal of pleasant conversation. At dinner there will often be a stray guest from Boston, who has come up to make a motion or look after his docket, [R.] Choate, [Sidney] Bartlett, [B. F.] Hallett dropped in on us this week. Here, too, is the remnant of the old style in which the Courts used to be received. The sheriff with a long white rod comes to the tavern & stands by the door & precedes the judge on his way to Court & into his seat, & in the same way conducts him back at the adjournment, each day. This is all that is left of the old pomp & parade of Court week, — two plain citisens walking through the mud together, one with a long white rod, & the other without!

Friday & Saturday ( n t h & 12th) occupied at Dedham in trying White v. Braintree. [ M A R C H ] 20. SUNDAY. Nearly all this week was occupied with trial of White v. Braintree. The ev. closed Tuesday morning, & [C. T.?] Russell spoke 4V2 hours, until abt. 5 P. M. I then began & spoke until 6 o'ck., & the next day (Wed.), until about 12, making about 4 hours. The jury retired at 3 o'ck., & at 5V2 P. M. brot in their verdict for $3200.00. This is considered a large verdict for a Norfolk jury of farmers. The result has been very gratifying to me. I never conducted a case so thoroughly to my own mind, in my life. I had no altercations with counsel, no bandying of words with witnesses, made few objections, conceded all I could, did not interrupt, & endeavored in every way to gain the respect & interest the feelings of the jury & audience, & I have reason to believe that I succeeded. Friday 18th argued Zipcey v. Thompson [1 Gray 243] before full bench. Question was whether an assignment by a N. Y. citisen for the benefit of his creditors, giving preferences, but not requiring a release, was valid in this state to pass a debt owed by a Mass. citisen, against a Mass. creditor of the insolvent who trusteed after notice of the assignment. ( The chief objection is under § 11 of the Assignment Act of 1836).

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The Court decided Rand v. Mather in my favor, over-ruling the old case of Loomis v. Netvhall [ 15 Pick. 159 (Mass.) ]. M'CH. 21. MONDAY. Lectured at Ipswich. It is a pleasant, quiet old town, situated on both banks of a river, with wide streets & large trees, & a peaceful mid-country look. M'CH. 22. TUESD. Argued Comth. v. McKie [ 1 Gray 61] before full bench, against Choate. The point was a nice & interesting one. It was the question whether, on the trial of an indictment for assault & battery, the burden of proof shifts on the dft. to establish a justification when the government has proved the act of beating; or whether the burden is on the Govt, throughout to satisfy the jury that there was an unlawful beating. [MARCH] 24. THURSDAY. Lectured at Worcester, & spent the night with Dwight Foster, a young lawyer of promise who married a daughter of Gov. [R. S.] Baldwin of Conn. 22 She is an interesting woman, & they made my visit quite pleasant to me. [MARCH] 25. FRIDAY. Good Friday! At Church in the morning & again in the evening, at the Advent. The service is very solemn, the cross & altar dressed in black, the miserere & de profundis chaunted very affectingly. At home all the afternoon, engaged in religious reading. Read to my children the story of the Crucifixion, with the hours of each event of the day & night. [MARCH] 26. SATURDAY. In Court all A. M. Argued the question whether in the U. S. Courts a man may plead to an indictment for a misdemeanor, by attorney, & be tried in his absence. Dined at home late, & went into town to Church at the Advent, in the ev., with Sarah & Miss Abby Wheaton. Very impressive service, & an excellent sermon from Childs on the Descent into Hell, & the state of the dead who die in faith. M'CH. 27. SUNDAY. Easterl Beautiful day. Went into town to Church with Sarah & the three elder children. The Church was beautifully dressed with flowers, the font, the altar & the cross above, the odor of which filled the house. The Church was crowded, fuller than it has ever been before, & the number who staid to the Communion would have made a full congregation. The singing was beautiful & animating, the sermon, by Bishop [Horatio] Southgate, cheering & elevating, & the whole effect of the day all that one could wish. 2 2 Dwight Foster (1828-1884) went on to become Attorney General of the state, 1861-1864. His father-in-law is noted earlier.

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[MARCH] 28. Our cousin Ida spent two days with us. She has been for several weeks in Washington. She says that this is without doubt an era of corruption. It is acknowledged to be so by all, — something that has been growing upon the country the last twenty years. The only question is whether we shall recover from it. John P. Hale has been to see me & says that bribery is open, even among Senators. Persons who have measures to carry say "we must pay A." — naming a Senator. They go to Washington bankrupt, & become rich on $8.00 a day, spending $20.

MCH. 31. THURSDAY. Had a party of about 50 persons. Among them Prest. Walker, Ex. Pres. Sparks & lady, Longfellow, Lowell, Felton, Peirce &c.23 Heard the best pun to-day that has been made in Boston these ten years. Rev. Mr. Mountford, a poor young Unitarian clergyman, known to the literary world as the author of Euthanasia,24 has married a rich old lady, of good family & large fortune. Danl. Curtis25 calls him The "Youth in'a-sian circumstances"! [APRIL] 6. WED. Miss Cath. E. Beecher spent the night with us, on the subject of the answer to be made to the letter from the women of England to the women of America.26 She submitted a form of a letter, wh. I am to examine & return to her brother Edward, with liberty to suggest changes or a new letter. I find her moderate & reasonable in her views on slavery, & not disposed to leave this matter in the hands of the Abolitionists, & willing to have them refuse to sign it if they will. Jas. R. Lowell spent the ev. & had a pleasant talk with me in my study, with his cigar. [APRIL] 7. THURSDAY. Being Fast Day, took a long walk, & in the afternoon & ev. wrote the Chapter in the Memoir of Rantoul on the Sims trial, at the request of the person preparing it. 23 Benjamin Peirce ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 8 0 ) , celebrated mathematician and astronomer, and professor at Harvard from 1833 until his death. The Felton mentioned is either Cornelius C. or John B., brothers, both of whom are noted earlier. 24 Dana misspelled the name of both author and book; the author's name has been corrected in the text. He was William Mountford ( 1 8 1 6 - 1 8 8 5 ) , and he wrote Euthanasy; or, Happy Talk toward the End of Life (Boston & New York, 1848). 25 DanieI Sargent Curtis ( 1 8 2 5 - 1 9 0 8 ) , Harvard, 1846, was the son of a wealthy Boston banker. He lived much abroad, settling in Venice after 1875. 26 Although the specific letter remains unidentified, the context is clear. The cresting Feminist movement was anticipating both the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in the forthcoming June and the first Feminist convention the year after. The press was filled, during this time, with manifestoes in the form of letters from international Feminist groups urging the American group to further achievement.

540

The Middle Years

Longfellow called to propose a carriage from Murray's dinner tomorrow. I read him Miss B.'s letter. He thought it assumed an inferior position towards England, & had too much gratitude for the expression made to us. Dined at B. B. Murray's, — a complimentary dinner to John P. Hale. There were 32 guests present. Among them — besides Hale & the host, were S. C. Phillips, Palfrey, S. G. Howe, Longfellow, [J. T.] Buckingham, Keyes, [Anson] Burlingame, [Henry?] Webb, Starr King, Judge Russell &c.27 It was, without any exception the most sumptuous dinner I ever saw — excluding wines, of wh. we had none. The table was brilliantly lighted, with wax candles of every color & in candlesticks of every form, & covered with vases filled with the richest flowers. The table furniture was very rich, & the courses of meats, the abundance of servants, the stillness & order of service, made the whole scene one of real luxury & splendor. Yet, I cannot reconcile it with my notions of fitness that men should sit at a table 3 or 4 hours, eating every variety of meats & gravies, salads, puddings, ices & fruits, with only cold, washy water, without any exhilirating or warming drink. If we are to be total abstinence in drink, we must be rigidly temperate in food. It was but a dull dinner. Many of the company were persons of dinner table art, & those who have [it], like Palfrey & Longfellow, found it hard to make things go. Hale told some pleasant anecdotes of public life, but gave a discouraging picture of the intemperance & pecuniary corruption of Congress. He says you cannot get a decent evening session, so many members are drunk. As to the pecuniary corruption, that he says is notorious, scandalous & increasing. Senators are interested in claims, & receive large sums for services & for opinions. Some honorable exceptions he named, among whom were Badger, Underwood, Pearce,28 &c. from the South, & most of the Northern Senators were clean, he said. [APRIL] 8. FRIDAY.

This morning Hale received a compliment which evidently pleased him much, & naturally. Com. Nicholas, of the U. S. Ship Germantown, 27 O f the people whose identity is known, two have not been noted earlier. Edward L . Keyes ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 5 9 ) , journalist and editor, served a term in the Massachusetts house in 1 8 4 7 . He was an active Free Soil supporter. Thomas Starr King ( 1 8 2 4 - 1 8 6 4 ) was a Boston Unitarian minister until i860, when he moved to San Francisco and became one of its leading citizens. When he died of diphtheria the city went into mourning and Bret Harte wrote an obituary poem. 28

George Edmund Badger ( 1 7 9 5 - 1 8 6 6 ) served in the U. S. Senate, 1 8 4 6 - 1 8 5 5 , as a W h i g from North Carolina. He was Secretary of the N a v y under Harrison and Tyler. James R. Underwood is noted earlier. James Alfred Pearce ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 6 2 ) served as a W h i g from Maryland in the U. S. House, 1 8 3 5 - 1 8 3 9 and 1 8 4 1 - 1 8 4 3 , and in the Senate from 1 8 4 3 until his death.

1853

Constitutional Convention

541

just arrived from the Coast of Africa, met him & thanked him for his efforts in behalf of abolishing flogging in the Navy.-fl He said — "No man could have [been] more opposed to the bill than I was. I believe I cursed you a great many times for it. But I have come back delighted with its operation. It raises the character of the men astonishingly. I could not have believed it". He then invited Mr. Hale on board his ship, introduced him to his officers & men, & when he left, the crew manned the rigging & gave him three cheers. 9. SATURDAY. I have been engaged every day this week in the trial of Admiralty causes. First the case of the Sarah Jane, a libel for fisherman's wages, then Winsor v. Sampson & Tappan, a libel for the wages of the master of a large ship against the owners, for his wages, (in wh. the Respondents appeared to great disadvantage) & thirdly, in the defence of Capt. Richardson in two libels by a seaman. Judge [B. R.] Curtis, on Monday, decided a question in my favor, arising in Quiner v. Gregory. He held that in Mandamus,30 where judgt. is given for the Respondent, he is not entitled to costs as of right. Whether the Court has discretion, he did not decide, as he said he should not give costs in this case, if he could. Dined at H. T. Parker's, with Hillard, Whipple, Fields, & F. E. Parker. Had a capital time. Good easy talk, good meats, & the best of wines, as always with him. Fields gave some capital imitations of [Samuel] Rogers, rather painful because they indicated old age, & a failing of memory. Hillard told the story of [Thomas] Moore & Rogers going to the Catacombs of Paris, & as they came out, the keeper saying to Moore, who had Rogers by the arm, "You must not take that away". Fields calls Dr. I. V. C. Smith, City Physician, Dr. I. Vacinate Children Smith. [APRIL]

[ A P R I L ] 10. SUNDAY. A day or two ago, I picked up a piece of twig, in a walk, & ate it. I have broken out in poison, on my mouth, inside & out, & in other parts, wh. keeps me in the house all day. I am under Homoeopathic treatment, which cured me so well of ivy poison a few years ago.

APR. 1 1 . MONDAY. At home all day, laid up with my poison. Notwithstanding the pain, I enjoy reading, & have made a careful examination of 2!l

Dana may be referring to Commodore John Nicholas (d. 1865), whose naval career began in 1 8 1 5 . Under the leadership of John P. Hale, noted earlier, Congress passed, on September 23, 1850, an amendment to the naval appropriations bill providing for the abolition of flogging in both merchant and naval vessels. 30 A writ issued to enforce the performance of some public duty.

542

The Middle Years

the doings of the Convention of 1780, & prepared an analysis & references. Also, read a part of the journal of the Convention of 1820. 3 1 [APRIL] 12. Poison better, & went to Boston this morning, but returned to dinner. In afternoon read more of the Conv. of 1820. All its doing are marked with eminent ability, especially the speeches of Mr. Webster. After him, the ablest men are Parker, [Joseph] Story, [Warren] Dutton, [W. H.] Prescott & Jackson.32

Finished Winsor v. Sampson & had a decree in our favor. Began Nelson v. Richardson. [APRIL] 13. WED.

Finished Nelson v. Richardson. Burnett33 called to get me to go out to Southboro' & argue a road case before the County Commissioners. Finished my argument in N. v. R. a few minutes before 2, took 2 o'ck. coach for Cambridge, dressed, packed bag, took plate of soup, reached my office at 3V2, took 4 o'ck. train, with Burnett, for Southboro'. Took tea at his house. After tea, three neighbors came in, & we spent the ev. in examining & preparing the ev[idence] for the hearing the next day. These neighbors were a Mr. Savage, who built Bunker Hill Monument,34 a man of large property, a Mr. Sawin a farmer, & a surveyor. [APRIL] 14. THURSDAY.

The County Commissioners met at jV.2 A. M. We made a survey in wagons, & the hearing began at 10 o'ck. at the Town Hall. The evfidence] was all in at 7 P. M. We adjourned for tea, & the arguments began at 8i4 o'ck. It was 10Y4 P. M. when I rose to speak, & I spoke exactly one hour. I have every reason to be pleased with my success. This was a town quarrel, & a swaggering beau-nasty of a fellow named Sandford, led the opposition. By a course of studious, calm politeness & concession, I took the wind entirely out of him, & he was not worth a rag all the rest of the day. Finding there was no market for his swagger, he tried to follow suit & be polite & conciliatory, but he was not at home [APRIL] 15. FRIDAY.

31 D a n a refers to the two constitutional conventions held in Massachusetts prior to the forthcoming convention of 1 8 5 3 . 32 T h e only persons named here not noted previously are Jackson and Parker. T w o Jacksons distinguished themselves at the convention of 1820, Joseph Jackson ( 1 7 5 8 1 8 2 6 ) of Newton and Charles Jackson ( 1 7 7 5 - 1 8 5 5 ) , no relation to Joseph, whose career was much more illustrious. He served in the Massachusetts house for three terms and was a justice of the state Supreme Court, 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 2 3 . Isaac Parker ( 1 7 8 8 1 8 5 8 ) , a Boston merchant and manufacturer, served as president of the convention of 1820. 33 Joseph Burnett ( 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 9 4 ) , manufacturer and chemist, founded St. Mark's School, Southborough, Massachusetts. 34 James S. Savage ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 5 8 ) was a wealthy designer and architect who was one of the builders of the Bunker Hill Monument. Mr. Sawin remains unidentified.

I §53

Constitutional Convention

543

& over-did it & lost all his courage & self possession. This was the universal feeling. Sat up with Burnett until iVi A. M. [ A F R I L ] 16. SAT. Rose at 6, walked round his estate, breakfasted, took coach & cars & reached Boston at 9 o'ck. Father dined with me. After dinner spoke of the Convention of 1820. He said [he] heard Webster's reply to Lincoln, the "Chains & Fetters" speech.35 When Webster rose, as he stood a short time before uttering himself, there was an illuminated hase about his countenance, a kind of phosporescent light. It was a magnetic or electric effect, arising from intense excitement. It was a turning point in Webster's life. This was an Assembly of all the great men of the State. He was a new man, a stranger among us, & here was the place where his position was to be settled, & this speech was the first great occasion. My father says the reading of the speech gives no idea of its effect.

My name appears to an invitation to Hon. John P. Hale to a public dinner, with that of some half-dosen others. It was put there without my knowledge. I have every desire to show attention to Hale, & would have put my name to it gladly, but the freedom with wh. men's names are put to reports, addresses, letters &c., without their knowledge, is alarming. AP. 20. WED. Went with Mr. Hastings to the shore. Put out a few trees & examined the woods where the fire had been. It rained hard all day. At night, had the Nortons to tea, a pleasant time. We have had Daguerrotypes of all the children, & very successful ones of all but Mary Rose. Hers is not a good expression. Those of Sally, Charlotte & Lilly give their best expressions, & that of the boy is quite pretty & cunning. These will be a great comfort to us during the approaching separation.30 [ A P R I L ] 21. Wethersfield.

THURSD.

Little Lilly & her grandmother left to-day for

APR. 23. FRIDAY. Succeeded in inducing father to go & see Warren, 37 on his benefit. Sarah & I joined. Father was very much pleased & laughed 35 During a debate on the composition of the state's legislative assembly Webster replied to Levi Lincoln ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 6 8 ) with a speech in which he repeated the phrase "chains and fetters" as a refrain. The speech is available only in the Journal of the Debates and Proceedings . . ., pp. 3 0 4 - 3 2 1 , a revised edition of which was published in Boston in 1853. 36 Dana's wife is arranging to take the "Water Cure" at Brattleboro, Vermont. 37 William Warren ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 8 8 ) made his acting debut in 1832, since 1847 had been a stock company favorite in Boston, and as a leading comic performer listed among his friends Oliver W. Holmes, Henry W. Longfellow, and James T. Fields. The recitation piece "The Thumping Legacy" has not been traced.

The Middle Years

544

as heartily as a boy. The best piece was the "Thumping Legacy". He says Warren is the most natural actor he ever saw. If any criticism is to be made, it might be said that the characters were too real, too much like actual life. [APRIL]

24.

SAT.

F. Parker dined with us.

[ A P R I L ] 25. SUNDAY. Went into town to Church. Sumner rode out with us, & came in, in the afternoon, & spent an hour or so. He looks in fine health. He agrees with Hale that this is [an] era of corruption at Washington, & he mentioned Gen. James 38 of R. I. as notoriously purchaseable. His speech on the Collins Steamers was written for him, & he is commonly supposed to have received $16,000 from the Company. On the McCormick reaper question he read a speech prepared by Reverdy Johnson, who is McCormick's counsel. Intemperance, too, he says, is ruining many every year. The debate on the Cuba Question he says was not a real one, & he did not feel that the time had come for a speech from himself.

He says that on the ev. of M'ch. 5th, being the end of John Davis' polit. life, he called upon him, & found him alone. Their relations were agreeable, & intimate, & on parting Davis said to him — "Sumner, do you wish to know the result of 30 years observation of Congress?" Sumner replied that he should value it very much. "Well", said he, "the result of my observation of a long Congressional life is that Slavery controls everything here". APRIL 30. SATURDAY. This morning my house at Cambridge was closed for the season — or rather, surrendered to other occupants. Sally & Charlotte went to Aunt Martha's & Sarah & I, with Mary Rose & the boy & the nurse went to Brattleboro'. We had a pleasant ride, & reached B. at dinner time. The children & their nurse board at Mrs. Nichols', while Sarah is at the Water Cure hard by. I staid with S. at the Water Cure. Our fare was milk, water, 3 kinds of plain bread not toasted, butter, & cracked wheat, for breakfast & tea, & plain meat & pudding for dinner. I liked this plain fare very much, & would have been willing to stay. In the afternoon, we all walked in the woods & the boy was in the highest spirits. M A Y 1. SUNDAY. In the A. M. Sarah & I went to the Orthodox Ch., (there being no Episc. Ch.) & in the P. M. I went with Rosamund to the 38

Charles Tillinghast James ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 6 2 ) , a major general in the state militia, served in the Senate from Rhode Island, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 5 7 . Himself an expert machinist and manager of cotton mills, he was a campaigner for protective tariff and development of machine technology.

1853

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Unitarian], In each, heard characteristic sermons. The Orthodox preacher was a hard sharp man, with a bilious complexion, stiff hair & black eyes, & he preached an argumentitive sermon on the Atonement. The Unitarian was a tall, thin mild looking man, & he preached rather a soft summery sermon on the text "the fruit of the spirit is love".39 In both Churches, the Congregation sat through the prayers, & the little form of leaning the head forward is now dropped, & there is nothing to distinguish, externally, the prayer from the listening to the sermon. M A Y 2. MONDAY. Took a long walk with S. before breakfast, took leave of the children, & returned to Boston in season for dinner. While at Br., called on the Higginsons & Channings. Found Sally & Ch[arlotte] at Aunts in Chesnut st., where I am quartered for the season.

[MAY] 4. WED. This day, the Convention for revising the Const, of the State met.40 Last night, a joint caucus of "the friends of the Convention", both Dem. & Free Soil, was held, to agree on candidates & concert measures. After agreeing on candidates, it was thought best not to concert measures, lest it shd. seem like too much dictation. 5. THURSDAY. The great event of to-day is the great dinner in honor of John P. Hale. It was held at the Fitchburg R. R. Hall, & 1450 persons were seated at the tables. It was eminently enthousiastic & successful throughout. Hale did nobly, Sumner handsomely, Cassius M. Clay 41 seemed a noble kind hearted fellow of the best Kentucky type, [C. F.] Adams was sensible & instructive, [E. L.] Keyes & [Anson] Burlingame created their usual enthousiasm, [J. G.] Palfrey presided with tact & talent, & all went off creditably to us & honorably to our guest. I [MAY]

•wGalatians 5: 22. The best over-all account of the convention is in Shapiro, Dana, pp. 68-83. Dana's position in the convention was unusual and helps explain the very powerful reactions to some of his speeches. As a Free Soiler, most of his political allegiance in the convention was to the rural, and comparatively radical, Democrat elements, and not to the Boston Whigs, a minority within the convention with which he was socially identified by most observers. When Dana "turned against" Boston and supported the measures for increased legislative representation for the towns (which already had disproportionately high representation) he was welcomed as a Boston man who had seen the rural light. When, on the other hand, he defended conservative treatment of the judiciary, he was cheered by the Whigs as a returned prodigal. He played his dual role in the convention skillfully, and it is probably true that he emerged as its "leading figure." 41 Cassius M. Clay ( 1 8 1 0 - 1 9 0 3 ) , veteran of the Kentucky legislature, led a long antislavery career as an editor of The True American in Lexington after 1845. He supported Lincoln and was to become his ambassador to Russia. 40

546

The Middle

Years

spoke on the Buffalo Convention. My speech was as well received as I could wish. M A Y 6. FRIDAY. I had determined to take my children to Farmington this afternoon, & had made all my arrangements, when I heard of the dreadful accident on the N. Haven R. R., by which some 50 or more lives were lost in one instant.42 But as the children had not heard of it, & it was possible to keep it from them I determined to keep on. They took leave of their gr. ffather] & aunts without tears, for they were so interested in their journey & its novelty that they thought little of the farewell. Strangely, they suspected nothing of the accident, all the way, although it [was] almost the sole subject of conversation in the cars, & we had groups of mourners with us, hurrying to meet their wounded friends or the bodies of the dead, & at every station there were anxious inquiries for news & lookings out for the delayed train. We reached Hartford at 8 P. M., rode over to Wethersfield, where we took them all by surprise, Sally & Ch. running into the parlor, & rushing into the arms of their gr. m[other] & aunts before they knew who had come. Lilly 43 had gone to bed & was not awakened. [ M A Y ] 7. SATURDAY. After breakfast, took leave, Lilly with tears in her eyes, & rode to Hartford, where we had a nice carriage with 2 horses & a driver to take us to Farmington. The day was delightful, the country beautiful, & the children, without a feeling of home-sickness, or an unpleasant anticipation, were full of life & spirits. We reached Miss Porter's44 a little before dinner time, & I staid to dinner & in the afternoon took Miss P. & the children out to ride, so as to pass off the time, & on my return, took an immediate farewell, giving them no time to foresee it. Little Sally's childlike mind was eager about the things around her to the last, & even on kissing me, shed no tear. Charlotte looks forward more, & her lips trembled & tears stood in her eyes as soon as I approached her. Poor dear things! I was the only one to shed tears, unless they shed them after I left! 4 2 O n the morning of May 6, 1853, at Norwalk, Connecticut, the 8:00 A. M. train from N e w York ran through a warning signal and off an open railroad bridge, plunging fifteen feet into the water. A t least 45 people were killed, many of them physicians returning from a convention. 4 3 Lilly is Elizabeth Ellery Dana, Sarah's third child, born April 3, 1846. She was staying with her grandmother, Mrs. Watson, while Sarah was at Brattleboro. Her two sisters, Sarah and Charlotte, were being taken to boarding school. 4 4 Miss Porter's School, founded by Sarah Porter ( 1 8 1 3 - 1 9 0 0 ) , was, and still is, one of the most fashionable schools for young girls in the United States. At the time of entering, Sally (Sarah Watson) Dana was almost eleven years old and her sister Ruth Charlotte was two years younger.

1853

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At Hartford, the catastrophy & the names [and] fate of the dead & wounded was the sole topic, & the Expr. train fr. N. York, in wh. I was to go to Boston, wh. was due at 7.45 P. M., did not arrive until 11. This was a new cause of anxiety. [The] delay was caused by a large rock [having] been blasted & fallen on the track, wh. it took 3 hours to remove. Tearing along, by night, at the rate of 35 miles an hour, in a train bearing the coffins of eight victims of an accident on the same road of the day before, with mourners about you, is not a state the most conducive to sleep, & yet, after a few serious thoughts on life & death, & repeating the Collect against perils in the Ev. Prayer, 4S I did sleep the greater part of the way, & reached Boston at 4 A. M. of M A Y 8. SUNDAY. Chesnut st. being asleep, I went to the Tremont House & shutting my shutters, for it was broad day, slept until after 9 o'ck. At breakfast, heard of a accident the ev. before on the N. Bedford R. R. by wh. a car was thrown off a bank of 35f. & sev. persons injured, some mortally. 46

What can be done to prevent the accidents — what to punish these negligencies? is the universal inquiry. MAY 11. WED. Dined at Dr. Palfrey's, in company with Cassius M. Clay & C. F. Adams. Clay I like very much. He has a noble eye, as soft as a woman's, with a watchfulness & a resolution lying in wait at the bottom of it which bespeaks him full of courage & conduct. Genl. Leslie Coombs 47 of Ky., a celebrated fire-eater, told Dr. Palfrey [that] Cassius M. Clay had more moral & physical courage than any man he ever met. This is a high tribute as Coombs was bitterly hostile to Clay. In carrying forward his [Clay's] doctrine of Emancipation, this intrepidity has been put to the fullest test. Once, when addressing an assembly, he was set upon by three men, brothers, [whose] object was to kill him. He defended himself gallantly with his bowie knife, but wounded before & behind, he was sinking under the cowardly assault, when his boy, only 12 years old, ran into the midst of the combat & handed his father a pistol. Mr. Clay raised it & shot dead the leader of the assailants. This saved his life, although he was taken up for dead. This noble boy has since died, to the unspeakable grief of his father. 4 5 "Defend us from all dangers and mischiefs, and from the fear of them: that we may enjoy such refreshing sleep, as may fit us for the duties of the following day." Book of Common Prayer, "Prayers to be Used in Families." 4 6 No record of this accident has been found. 4 7 Leslie Coombs ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 8 1 ) , frequently an officer in the Kentucky legislature, was a pro-Union leader in Kentucky during the Civil War. His military title derived from his service for Texas independence in 1836.

548

The Middle Years

On another occasion, as he was stepping out of his door, hastily, a ruffian thinking he had caught him unarmed, made at him with a knife. Mr. Clay drew from his back a bowie knife two feet long, & the fellow turned & ran. Clay chased him down the street & into a house, where the man escaped. His newspaper establishment has been mobbed & his press destroyed. Everything he has suffered, but with a dauntless & heroic spirit; laboring, too, with but a small hope of distant success. John P. Hale told me that Julian,48 our candidate for V. President, went over into Ky. to speak. Hale asked him how he was received. Julian replied "Very well. I was not insulted, but every where I went Clay was with me, & when I spoke, he always stood a few feet in advance of me, with his eye on the crowd, armed to the teeth". There was a good deal of conversation at the table about emancipation in Ky. Clay says that no slave-holder is openly favorable to it, & that the mechanics & traders, the professional men & editors are entirely under the control of the slave-holders. If a mechanic or trader, or professional man was known to vote for Emancipation, he would be obliged to leave the state. He could not support himself, the slave-holders having all the property & education, & there being no middle-class independent of them. His only hope seems to be in a class of yeomanry, owning & cultivating small farms with their own or hired labor, in the mountainous parts of the state. There the cause has some strength. I went out & in with Mr. Clay, & have exchanged calls with him. He is calm & pleasant in his manners, & particularly polite to women, & what with his appearance & story, there is quite a charm about him. I have reed, letters from Sally & Charlotte at their new school, which are very interesting to me, being their first letters home. The Convention has been in session all this week. I am on the Committee on the Bill of Rights, Sumner being Chairman. We have had a brilliant speech from Choate, & able ones from [B. F.] Hallett, Judges [Peleg] Sprague & [Joel] Parker, [B. F.] Butler & others, on interesting questions, going quite into the metaphysics of a Constitutional popular Government. A night or two since, Clay went up to Belknap st., & addressed the negroes. I am told it was a very interesting occasion. There, in the midst of a banished race, banished or fled from the land in which their race are slaves & his race are masters, stood the representative of the tyrant class, but their friend, who for their cause had risked life & sacrificed fortune & political success. Emory the negro, who blacks my boots, told 48 George Washington Julian ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 9 9 ) , a pioneer in the Free Soil movement, had been nominated in 1 8 5 2 as vice-presidential candidate. A founder of the Republican party, he served five terms in Congress after i860.

1853

Constitutional Convention

549

me about it the next morning & said, "I wasn't satisfied with seeing him, I must needs feel of him, & I touched his arm as he went out". Emory noticed, in his quaint way this character in Clay's eye which I had noticed myself. Said he — "Then his eye, Sir, yer' see, Sir, there's something at the bottom of it". MAY 14. SAT. Walked out to Cambridge after dinner & visited my house. All looks well there. Took tea at Prof. [E. T.] Channing's & walked in. [ M A Y ] 16. MONDAY. Went to Plymouth & spent two days arguing the case of Perkins v. Easton. I tried to get off, but could find no counsel to take my place. This afternoon, felt ill, & went to bed at 8 o'clock with a bad head ache. [ M A Y ] 17. TUESD. Sick all day, but kept at my case. Went to bed during the recess. Evidence all in at 6 o'ck., & the Judge offered to adjourn, telling me that I was too ill to go on, but I determined to go on & have it over. I spoke a little over an hour, with a desperate head-ache, a good deal of nausea & pain in every limb. After tea, I was sick at stomach & went to bed at 8 o'ck.

[MAY] 18. WED. Rose early & returned to Boston. Felt better, but not well, & worked hard all day in Convention & at office. Heard from Plymouth, that I gained my case. [MAY] 19. TH. Rose feeling ill, but my duties seemed too pressing to be avoided. Argued a motion in Comm. Pleas, & another before Judge Curtis (U. S. Ct.) & went into the Church Convention & made a short speech; but by that time I hardly knew whether I was on my head or heels, & after dinner I gave up & went to bed. The rest of Th., with all Friday & part of Saturday, I was abed, in a dark room, with violent head-ache & great heat & pressure on the head. By aid of homoeopathy or nature, I know not which, I got up rapidly, & Sunday afternoon was well enough to ride out to Brookline with father. Next went to the New Episc. Ch. (Dr. Stone, rector) wh. we both thought the most beautiful thing we have seen in America.49 Rode by Reservoir, Col. [T. H.] Perkins, Jamaica Pond &c., into town. Very beautiful & refreshing. The few first days of this week I got up slowly, & was a good while in getting my full strength; but by long walks before breakfast & after tea, & riding lessons at Kalafsa's before breakfast, I am now quite restored. 49

J o h n Seely Stone, noted earlier, was rector of St. Paul's Church in Brookline,

1852-1862.

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In our Committee (Bill of Rights), we resolved not to attempt to re-write the instrument & only to make necessary changes. We discussed the principle of the "Social Compact" 50 wh. is set forth in it, & we found not one man who believed in it. Judge [Charles] Allen & one or two more partially defended it, but evidently had not reflected upon & were not successful or earnest in their defense, while the rest of us agreed that it is a mere fiction, which served its turn against tyranny, but cannot stand examination. Still, we could not alter that without altering the entire phraseology, which might peril the Constitution before the people. In Convention, I voted for Butler's order respecting the town of Berlin, not because I thought it expedient or desireable, but because it was opposed by the Whigs on principle, & on principle I thought it right, & the principle an important one. My ground is that under the Bill of Rights Art. VII, & Chap. 1 sec. 1 art. IV, [the legislature] has the constitutional right to enact law needful for the calling of Conventions & all other things "necessary & wholesome" for enabling the people to alter their organic law. That the Act of 1852 was Constitutional. When the people adopted the Convention under that act, they adopted the Convention, & not a Convention, the Convention with all its incidents & circumstances provided in the Act, & not any convention, however & whenever constituted or called, at the will of future legislatures. Therefore that act, was binding on the Legisl. of 1853. It could pass acts to carry forward, but not to repeal or materially vary the Convention. The change in the mode of voting, from secret to open ballot, was a material change. (We must call it material, because all parties have so treated the question of secret or open ballot, here & in England, for 50 years). Therefore so much of the Act of 1853 as affected to alter the mode of voting for delegates was void. But, inasmuch as the people had this act, prima facie valid, with the opinion of the Att. Gen. in its favor, & many voted bona fide by open ballot, we would not inquire into past cases, only legal voters having voted. But our duty to the people required us to notify the towns that in future cases they must vote accfording] to the act of 1853. I should have preferred a resolution to meet all cases, setting forth its grounds. J U N E 5. SUNDAY. Nothing of vention. Tuesday P. M. I made the Plurality Law. I could not entire attention of the House for

consequence this week, except in Conmy maiden speech. 51 It was in favor of have wished better success. I had the an hour, & the compliments I reed, were

50

Jean Jacques Rosseau's theory of the social contract. See Official Report of the Debates and Proceedings (Boston: White and Potter, 1 8 5 3 ) , I, 385-393. 51

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of the most gratifying character. Sumner told me that as a piece of Legislative debating, it was unsurpassed. Choate was full of commendation, & said it was a palpable hit. Hillard said —in point of matter & manner it could not be improved. The Comm[onweal]th said it was altogether the ablest speech on that side. Perhaps the best compliment was what an old country member said to [Marcus] Morton —"He seems to be what you call a clean threaded fellow". Sat. morning I had the floor again on the Council question, intending to speak in favor of abolishing it, but I preferred to yield it to Gov. Morton. Still, he did not do well, & rather hurt than helped us. JUNE 12. SUNDAY. Yesterday left Boston at 7 A. M. for Brattleboro', to pass Sunday with S. Dr. Palfrey in the cars & introduced me to a young lady by the name of Duncan, from Alabama, whom I attended to as far as Greenfield — Found Sarah looking finely. Took walks in the afternoon & evening. Little Dickey knew me at once. He is in fine health, fat & stout. Rosy is also well & as sweet as ever. Made acquaintance of a son of Judge Curtis of La., who is in treatment for eyes. Called at the Higginson's & Channings'. Walked again with Sarah, through the delightful walks of Brattleboro', to the various springs & baths. Took tea at Mrs. Nichols', with the children, who were much pleased with their company.

13. MONDAY. Spent the morning at B., & walked part way up the mountain with her [Sarah], Left in P. M. train for Boston. [JUNE]

[JUNE] 17. FRIDAY. This afternoon, in Convention, made a speech in favor of town representation.52 It was purely extemporaneous — I mean — as a speech. The thoughts, the line of argument, the illustrations, had been over & over in my mind, but I had made no preparation to speak. I spoke a little over an hour, & with an effect wh. astonished me. The congratulations were over-powering. Old Mr. Chandler,63 probably the oldest & said to be the wisest man in the House, came up to me with tears in his eyes took my hand & said — "Sir, you do not need a compliment, but you deserve one". There was a perfect crowd about me, & all the rest of the afternoon & evening, I had nothing but the warmest commendation. Choate's speech had discouraged the friends of the towns, & they were almost ready to surrender. Boutwell's excellent speech rallied them a little, but they said that mine put them into enthousiasm. 52

See Official Reports, I, 941-949. Amariah Chandler (1782-1864), a Greenfield clergyman, served a term in the state legislature. 53

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Burlingame & I walked over to Bunker Hill, & wandered about the base of the monument, talking over the events of this day nearly 80 years ago ( 1 7 June) on this spot, while the bells & guns were pealing out the day from the cities around & beneath us. This ev. attended a caucus of the majority at the Adams House. My speech was the turning point of the discussion, & the deference with wh. I was treated was truly gratifying. J U N E 19. SUNDAY. Spent this day at "the Shore". Everything looks beautifully there, & father seems more happy in his place than I have ever known him. He took a long walk with me, & seemed disposed to look on the bright side of everything. The "Commonwealth" pronounces my speech, "the speech" of the session; & congratulations have not yet ceased. [ J U N E ] 26. SUNDAY. The chief event in the review of this week is the affair between myself & Hillard. My speech in reply is correctly reported in the Commth. of Sat. ev. He pronounced a fulsome eulogy on Boston & her rich & learned men, selected all I had said against cities & applied it to Boston, all I had said of Boston (in wh. I included professional men) & applied to merchants only, & omitted all I said favorable to Boston, & then endeavored to hold me up as a calumniator of Boston, & used these fatal words — "The bread that he & I eat is drawn from the business community of Boston; & I would not, like froward children, strike at the hand that feeds us". There was also a very insulting reference by a quotation of the lines of Pope — "Willing to wound &.. ," 54

My reply 55 was instant, short, & I think I may fairly say decisive. If he was not stretched out dead, no man ever was. If I erred at all, I erred on the side of reserve for myself & tenderness to him. But in the judgment of the best men in the House, I went just far enough, to keep the sympathy of the House with me. The feeling of disgust is so strong that I doubt if Hillard can be listened to with patience in the House again. I have received another Honor in the Convention. The grand Committee of 1 3 is appointed to reduce the Constitution to the form of articles. 54

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike. (Alexander Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, "Prologue to the Satires," 11. 2 0 i f ) .

55 Though Dana spoke for some five minutes, his crowning remark was: "The hand that feeds us! The hand that feeds us! Sir no hand feeds me that has any right to control my opinions!" (See Official Report, II, 1 3 4 ) .

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I am upon it, & it consists, of course, of the leading men of all parties. This committee has referred the Resolves to a sub-committee of three, Gov. Boutwell, Judge Parker & myself, so that we shall be the actual writers of the new parts of the Constitution. Sat. Morning, Ch. [E.] Norton brot up & introduced to me two English gentlemen, who were desirous of seeing the Convention, Sir John Acton,58 a young man of about one & twenty, & a Prof. Mc Something57 (I forget it) from Calcutta. Sir John looked like a gentleman, with a fair mind, & the Prof, looked like something less than a gentleman with something more than a fair mind. But I confess my sympathies are more with those qualities of mind & temper, that manner & training wh. indicate the complete gentleman, than with mere intellect & attainments. The youth is a Catholic. I have every reason to be gratified with my position in the Convention. If I can go forward as I have begun, & go through it with the same respect for my character, my integrity & independence, to say nothing of my abilities, I shall have abundant reason to be grateful. May I be kept "from pride, vanity & human respect", & in the simplicity of an honest purpose. I am spending this day at the Shore. Yesterday was beautiful. Friday ev. I had a delightful drive with Sumner through Brookline & Cambridge, & after the drive we took tea together at Mrs. Meyer's. We talked over "Poor Hillard", his early tendencies, his want of constancy & courage, & his subserviency of late years to the dictation of Mr. Ticknor & that clique.58 We agreed that he had been put up to this service by that class of men; & we felt obliged to come to the conclusion that what Hillard said about "the hand that fed him" was a true exponent of his nature. After the debate, as we were going down, I met Hillard, & he came forward & said he hoped there would be no interruption of social relations. In the tenderness of pity & I hope of magnanimity too, I said no, certainly not. He seemed a good deal affected, & said that he did not mean by what he said exactly what I attributed to him. I asked him what he did mean. Said he "I mean this. I mean that if a man lives in Boston & 56

Sir John Acton ( 1 8 3 4 - 1 9 0 2 ) , was later to become Lord Acton, the celebrated historian. He kept a record of his 1 8 5 3 visit to the United States, during which he was one of a party of British dignitaries here to open the N e w York World's Fair. His account was eventually published: " L o r d Acton's American Diaries," Fortnightly Review, 1 1 6 : 7 2 7 - 7 4 2 ; 9 1 7 - 9 3 4 ( 1 9 2 1 ) ; " 7 : 6 3 - 8 3 ( 1 9 2 8 ) . 57 Acton identifies him in his "Diaries" only as "Mr. Maclagan," a member of the Bengal engineers who had come to America to examine the school systems. 58 George Ticknor's circle, from which both Dana and Sumner had been ostracized, was conservative politically, supporting Webster in his "union-saving" activities.

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feels about her position & action as you do, if a man disapproves of her characteristics & interest & conduct, he ought either to keep silent or leave the city". Said I "Is that your opinion, Hillard?" He said, it was. I told him that that principle would do in a Club or in a Society, but not in a community, of equal rights. I told him that that sentiment came from persons who thought Boston was a club — their club. Said I, "this must be fought out here & now". I told him my opinion of his applying the quotation to me, & he said no man could be held square to a quotation, — that it was merely a quotation & he did not mean to carry it throughout &c. I left him. But on reflection, how can I say that there need be no change of relations between us? How can I feel to a man who avows so base a sentiment as he has avowed? How can I treat a man who has reflected upon me as he did, whether he believes it or not? The pass between me & Hillard has attracted great attention. His phrase "the hand that feeds us" & my reply, "no hand feeds me that has any right to control my opinions" are put at the head of the columns of the newspapers, & draw out all sorts of indignant comments from our side. The N. Y. Ev. Post reprints my reply entire, with a preface by Bryant. Hillard has some hard hits upon him, especially from Butler & men like him. In the debate on the Judges of Probate, Hillard took the ground that the Judges should not be elected, lest they should be too dependant upon pol. parties & on politicians. Butler replied that on the gentleman's premises, the conclusion was inevitable — that if men were to look to the hand that feeds them, the judges would be partial & dependant, but he believed the gent, to be mistaken in his premises &c. &c. It was a very hard hit. Strangely, too, Lord 59 followed in the same strain, tho' on an opposite side, & kept harping on "the hand that feeds us". Poor Hillard looked as pale as a ghost, & the sweat stood on his brow. He left his seat & went & sat under the gallery. Still, this does him little good, for that ev. he was riding out like a lap-dog, in the coach, with Mr. & Mrs. Ticknor & Miss Anna. That corner house60 has been the bane of the last few years of Hillard's life. Little Charlotte's birth day was on the 30th June, & she was promised a visit with Sally, to Wethersfield, to pass Thursday & the 4th July (Monday). The little dears had set their hearts upon this visit for weeks, & Charlotte had kept her presents unopened, so as to be able to open them first in Wethersfield, with Lilly & her aunts. 59 Otis P. Lord ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 8 4 ) , a Webster Whig, led the minority against popular reform in the convention and was given credit later when the constitution was defeated at the polls. Always active politically, he was a leading Salem lawyer. 60 Ticknor's house was at the corner of Park and Beacon streets in Boston.

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Sarah also determined to go to Wethersfield & pass 2 or 3 days, to meet her children & her two sisters El. & Mary, who are there. This was to be a surprise. I was to go to N. Y. to bring home Charlotte.61 Sat. morning, July 2nd, Charlotte unexpectedly came home without me, so, on a sudden thought, I went off to Wethersfield to add to the surprises. On my arrival, at 9 P.M., I found a sad disappointment. Lilly was taken with the Scarlet fever, & they were afraid to have S. and C. come over; so Sarah drove over to Farmington to spend the day & night with the children, & reconcile them to their disappointment as well as she could. On reaching F. she found that Miss Porter had sent the children over to W[ethersfield] the day before she had intended, to give them a longer vacation, & that they had passed her on the road. The little dears came to W. full of spirits rushing into the house, with their hands & hearts full, & had to be welcomed with the news of Lilly's sickness & their own disappointment. That their mother was at F. was some relief to their disappointment, & they took their seats in their carriage with heavy hearts & returned to F. that night, without even seeing Lilly. Seeing their mother was some relief to them, & the next day they were quite bright.

july

3. So, on my arrival, I found no little girls to welcome me. Yet Sarah was there, & it was a pleasure to see El. & Mary, & the dear still old parsonage is always delightful. I spent Sunday there, & on Monday the 4th, S. & I went together to Springfield, where we separated, she to go to Brattleboro' & I to Boston. My journey was also damped by losing my valise with my best clothes. But this was the fault of the R. R. Co., & they have paid me for it.

july

6. The Convention goes on agreeably. Excepting the affair of Hillard's, wh. he aggravated, yesterday, by a furious speech, nothing unpleasant has occurred. I have pleasant relations with every one, & have every reason to [be] gratified & more than gratified with my position. Yesterday Hillard, unable to bear the taunts any longer, in an evil hour, & under ill advice, attempted to make a general attack upon his enemies. His speech was full of bitterness. It was, as the Commth. called it, the fighting of a cat, & not of a dog. He was very abusive & his personalities were much worse than any other person has indulged in here. This loses him his last card. There was a feeling remaining that H. was a man of refinement, but the coarseness & ill-nature of this attack has lost him all the confidence or sympathy of the House. He made no attack upon me, having only one unpleasant reflexion, wh. I did not reply to. Butler was absent, or there wd. have seen a scene. [Henry] Wilson & [E. L.] Keyes 61

The reference is to Dana's sister, noted earlier.

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replied, & after a few days [J. B.] Alley replied. Hillard feels badly. His has been the only unpleasant experience in the whole Convention, & if he had any ambition to shine in it, he has been sadly disappointed. I made a speech against submitting to the people the question of loaning the State Credit, wh. was very well received. 62 It was short, but presented the chief points, some of wh. had not been presented before. . JULY 17. I am writing up my journal, sitting at the N. window of the lower room at the Shore, looking out upon the woods, with beautiful floating clouds, the low tumbling roar of the surf, & the occasional note of birds. The last week has been noted chiefly by the debate on the Judiciary. The Committee, Gov. Morton chairman, reported inexpedient to make any change in the appointment or tenure of judges.68 Wilson moved an amendment to limit the term to 10 years, they being still nominated by the Governor. Dr. Hooper 64 moved to amend that by making them elective by the people for terms of 7 years. On these together came the debate.

I spoke early, & under most favorable circumstances, about the middle of the forenoon, in a full house.63 My success was greater than I could hope. The compliments & congratulations were overpowering. Choate came down & said — "Your speech has been magnificent. It is philosophical, affecting, brilliant, logical, everything — " I stopped him, & said "Mr. Choate, this is too much — I can't bear it" — "It is all true — It is such a speech as one hears once in an age". Gov. [G. N.] Briggs said "I never heard a better speech in my life". Gov. Morton said — "You have raised yourself more than any man in this Convention. I can sincerely say that I never heard a speech in my life that I could put before it". A shoal of more common men were profuse in their compliments. Hillard told Metcalf it was the best speech of the session. Dr. [S. K.] Lothrop went right down to the office & told [F. E.] Parker it was the best speech of the session, & that I was the first young man of my age in the State. Keyes, in reply, said "Logic alone may fail, statistics alone may fail, & so may rhetoric, but there is something in the voice of the gentleman from Manchester that goes right into the core of the heart". 62Official

Report,

II, 6 7 4 - 6 7 7 .

63One

of the major aims of the reformers regarding the constitution w a s to alter t h e lifetime-tenure principle for judges and m a k e such positions elective. In this particular D a n a w a s not in agreement w i t h his party. 6 4 F o s t e r H o o p e r ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 7 0 ) , a physician f r o m Fall River, had served four terms in the state legislature. 65Reprinted

in D a n a III, Speeches,

pp. 7 8 - 1 1 6 .

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The next day Choate spoke, & in his most brilliant, & winning manner. He commanded undivided attention, & held the strings of the affections & understandings of the audience entirely in his hands. It was one of the great efforts of his life, such a speech as a man may be happy to have lived to hear. The question was taken on [Foster] Hooper's amendment & it was rejected 101 to 127. Wilson, Boutwell, Hallett, &c. voting against it, Butler, Burlingame, Hooper, Bates, Bishop, Hood, Wood &c. in its favor, & all the Whigs ag. it."'1 The question was then taken on Wilson's Amendment, & to our no greater surprise than relief, after a neck & neck race on the ayes & noes for half an hour, it was rejected 158 to 160. The rejoicings & congratulations of the Boston members, & the Conservative men generally knew no bounds, & they seemed inclined to give the whole credit of the victory to me. It is probably true that my position gave more weight to my remarks than any one else could give. Judge Parker's speech fell powerless. It was dry, uninteresting & ungenial. [Simon] Greenleafs was pleasant & well received, but he dropped stiches wh. Butler picked up to great effect. It was, on the whole, rather worse than nothing. Notwithstanding the unremitting clamor of the Boston men, ever since the Convention was called, that we were going to destroy the Judiciary, when the question was taken, nearly 20 of them were absent. I told [F. B.] Crowninshield that they were down in their counting rooms writing articles abusive of those men who were saving their lives & fortunes. After the vote, Wilson & Bates came to me & said it was all right, all for the best &c. & professed themselves perfectly satisfied. But two nights before they were confident of success, & tried their utmost to get me to support it. Bode out again Th. ev. with Sumner to Brookline, & called at Geo. R. Russell's. The horse fell with us, but broke nothing. Friday ev. (July 1 5 ) went out to Milton & passed the night. Small party at [Robert] Bennet Forbes'. The Russells all at home, as well as Geraldine. Returned the next morning. If I had done nothing else in the Convention, I should have performed a valuable service in getting through the Resolve respecting [the establishment of] a Registry of Voters. It was my original idea, & no one else thought of it, or seemed to see the necessity or propriety of it. But I fi6

Moses Bates ( 1 8 1 5 - 1 8 7 3 ) was a Plymouth editor. Henry W . Bishop ( 1 7 9 6 - 1 8 7 1 ) , a leading Democrat in Lenox, was a common pleas judge. George Hood ( 1 8 0 6 - 1 8 5 9 ) , a Democrat from Lynn, served six terms in the state legislature. No fewer than five delegates were named Wood, and the one Dana refers to cannot be identified. The other men mentioned have been noted earlier.

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hope it may be the means of keeping the ballot pure. The Resolve respecting the right to sue [the] State is also mine. D. B. Chapman told me that he heard the following conversation between Sidney Bartlett & Mr. Ticknor. T. "Well B., what is there new in the Convention?" B. "Nothing in particular". T. "What do you say to our friend Hillard's speech?" B. "I did not hear it, but fr. all I can learn, from friends & enemies, it was a mistake". T. "I do not think so. He consulted with us & we advised him to fire a shot right into the midst of them, & let Dana & Wilson & the rest of them know that they cannot attack Hillard with impunity". B. "Well, he consulted me, & I told him to say nothing whatever on the subject, in Convention or out". This is the key to Hillard's conduct the last four years. His Letter in the Advertiser, in 1851, on Mr. Quincy & myself, his flare-up in the Senate about Wilson's article in the newspaper,67 & his recent faux pas in this matter, all are traceable to the malign influence of Ticknor. Ticknor is a bitter man, with no knowledge of human nature, & being out of politics, no knowledge of the man on the stage, & yet he directs Hillard, who has to bear the consequences. AUG. 2 The Convention has now closed, & our long work ended. Before the events fade in my memory, I must set down those that occurred since my last entry. The Judiciary question was considered as settled, & many of the reformers told me they were satisfied with the result, believing it better as it was. But the newspapers made an outcry, I mean the Post & a few of the democratic journals, & some began to fear that they had not done enough to meet the reform tendendies of the Democracy. Still, I think no movement would have been made, had it not been for the animosity of J. G. Abbott, of Lowell, against the Supreme Court. He seemed possessed with a bitter hostility to the Bench, & vowed that he wd. revive the subject, if no one else did. I talked with him, but it was plain that he was not open to reason. Knowlton68 of Worcester was selected to make the 67 Under the signature " X , " Hillard had attacked Dana's Worcester speech of April 6, 1 8 5 1 , and the support of it by Josiah Quincy, in the Boston Advertiser of May 8, 10 and 12, 1 8 5 1 , and in the Boston Daily Commonwealth of May 16, 1 8 5 1 . In 1850 Hillard was in the state senate as a Whig, and in defending Webster's compromise position regarding the South must have had ample opportunity to "flare up" at Dana and other Free Soil figures. 68 John S. C. Knowlton ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 7 1 ) , delegate from Worcester, was editor and publisher of the newspaper The Palladium. He was a state senator, mayor of Worcester, 1 8 5 5 - 1 8 5 6 , and high sheriff of the county, 1 8 5 6 - 1 8 7 1 .

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motion, as not a lawyer, & as a popular man with those it was most desirable to influence. The plan was this. The elective-judiciary men numbered about 125. Some 25 of the Reform Members were opposed to any change in the Judiciary. Of the remainder of the Reform party, some 75 in number, about half were indifferent about the result, though ready to vote for a moderate change, while the other half were decidedly of opinion that some change, not involving an election of judges, should be made. The radicals wd. not be satisfied with a 10 year term, under Executive appointment, & the moderates were not willing to sustain the elective principle. They accordingly compromised upon this plan, a 7 years' term, under Exec, appointment, but to be confirmed by the Senate, instead of the Council. This wd. make the appointment more political & popular, as the Senate consists of 40 members, annually elected. This plan was brot forward by Knowlton, & supported by the leading men, especially by Boutwell, in a very moderate but influential speech. I made a short speech against the Senate provison, &, I think, exhibited the inconveniences & expense of that mode of confirmation in a way that could not be answered, & gave notice of a motion to strike out the Senate & substitute the Council. When it became in order, little [Charles G.] Davis of Plymouth, stole my motion, but still, as the case was a clear one, the Senate was struck out by a large majority. (It is said that Davis was not in & did not hear my speech. It is of no consequence, except that I had pledged my word to the House that I wd. make the motion, on a suggestion by Butler that we were trying to delay, & Davis' action prevented my making it, but the House understood it.) The next attack was on the 7 year term. I agreed with M. Morton Jr. 69 that he shd. make the motion to strike out 7 & insert 10 years. Before he cd. get the floor, Huntington70 of N. Hampton moved to strike out 7, & gave notice that if that succeeded he shd. move to insert 10. This motion failed by a small majority. Morton, immediately, with a good deal of courage & tact, moved to strike out 7 & insert 10, & as one motion. This was objected to, as out of order, but it was, in fact, a different motion from Mr. Huntington's, as his notice was no part of his motion, & if 7 was struck out any other number might be put in its place. Morton's motion was unexpectedly carried, by a bare majority. Butler sprang to the floor indignantly & moved a reconsideration, & called for the yeas & nays in a bravado manner, looking fiercely round the House, as much as saying, 69 Marcus Morton, Jr. ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 9 1 ) , son of Governor Marcus Morton, noted earlier, had been a classmate of Dana's in law school. His work at the convention was his first public appearance. He went on to a distinguished career on the Massachusetts bench, retiring as chief justice of the state Supreme Court in 1890. 70 Charles P. Huntington ( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 6 8 ) , a lawyer, served six terms in the state legislature.

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now we'll see who dares vote against the plan of the party; & during the call of the Yeas & Nays, he was very busy in drumming up voters. Yet, all his efforts failed, & the reconsideration was lost. Thus we got back to the former motion, of 10 years term with the usual executive appointment, & the compromise was broken up. [J. G.] Abbott, Adams (Lowell), Bulter, Burlingame, Breed, 71 the other elective-judiciary men immediately came out ag. the motion, as before, & for the first half of the call, we thought the project was defeated, but there was a sufficient rally among the lower letters to carry it. So the whole Judiciary effort has ended in changing the life tenure to 10 years; a change that gives but little gain to popular power, while it works one certain evil, it subjects each judge to the temptation or the suspicion of commending himself to the Executive during the last year or two of his term. The best possible thing wd. have been to limit the jud. office to 70 years of age, & left the tenure as before. Another effort was made in favor of the Plurality system.72 I moved to introduce the plurality into all elections except town elections, & to leave that to the Legislature. I think a majority of the House was in my favor, but the caucus had determined not to allow the plurality in the election of Governor, & the great State officers, & it could not be carried. Still, the friends of the Plurality were active, & after the vote, they persuaded the Free Soilers, who were the strongest majority men, to yield so far as to pass a resolution giving the Legislature power to establish the Plurality rule in all elections by an act to take effect one year after its passage. Another struggle was on the right of juries to judge of the law, in criminal cases. This was introduced by Hallett. I spoke against it, & with so much effect that I converted Wilson, who came over to me & said that he should vote with me against all his prior opinions.73 Hallett cd. not answer some of my questions very satisfactorily, & his friends were obliged to offer amendments. Huntington's amendments were adopted by Hallett, at once, showing an entire want of forethought on his part, which weakened his cause very much. At this moment, there was a general disposition to drop the subject, & I had persuaded one or two democrats to move to lay it on the table. If this had been made, it wd. have succeeded. Just at this moment, the unfortunate Hillard got the floor. 71

The only men hitherto unidentified are Adams and Breed. Shubael Pratt Adams ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 9 4 ) , a Lowell lawyer, served in the Massachusetts house in 1845 and 1857. Hiram N. Breed ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 9 3 ) , delegate from Lynn, served as state representative in 1848 and 1850, was mayor of Lynn in 1861, and state surveyor of highways, 1869-1874. 72 Plurality system: election to the state legislature by popular majority. 73 Official Reports, III, 451-454; 507-509.

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Schouler & Aspinwall74 had each advised him not to speak. Although I have not spoken to him, I could not resist saying to him that if [he] wd. forego his speech, a democrat stood ready to move to lay it all on the table, but H. sd. "I wish to make a short speech". I turned about & left him in his folly. His friends looked the picture of dismay & disgust. His speech was in the worst judgment, sure to offend & alienate the men on whose co-operation all depended. It was evidently made for publication in the Boston papers, to please a class of Boston supporters, with an entire disregard of the effect upon the votes of the Convention. The effect was bad, as bad as it well could be, as it raised a party issue, & stirred up all the democratic feeling. My democratic friends refused to move to lay the resolve on the table, & I was obliged to do it myself. Notwithstanding these untoward circumstances, & the support the Resolve received from Judge Allen, Huntington & Abbott, I came within 25 votes of tabling it, in a body of over 300. I am persuaded that it might have been defeated by good management. The next contest was on Mr. Hallett's resolves respecting the right of the people to amend their constitution. It was a mere attempt to enact Dorrism.75 He blundered so that we got the whole matter referred to a committee. Wilson stupidly put Hallett on the Committee. But for this, there wd. have been no trouble, as all the rest of the Committee were against him. I drew up a resolve providing for action by towns to require the Legislature to pass a Convention Act (subsequently adopted as Art. 2 of Ch. 14) with a proviso recognising the legality of this Convention. I sent this in to the Committee with a few words of explanation, & the Comm. adopted it in the very words, as a substitute for all others. But Hallett got into a rage, & sd. he wd. submit a counter report, & they were weak enough to compromise by reporting his [three] resolves & mine. His first resolve was adopted as Art. 1 of Ch. 14. It was of little value, as it only operates every 20th year, & probably will be imperfect without legisl. aid. But as we meant to attack his 3d. resolve, we let that go as harmless. The contest was on the 3d. resolve, wh. allowed of amendments to be made in any way that "fairly & substantially" reflected the will of the majority; this is to say, with or without law. I did not speak, as I thot my conservative influence had been stretched as far already as it wd. bear. A few speeches were made, not to much purpose, chiefly by Whigs, 74 William Schouler ( 1 8 1 4 - 1 8 7 2 ) , editor of the Boston Atlas, deserted the Webster Whigs after March 7, 1850, and became a founder of the Republican party. He served as a general officer during the Civil War, and from 1868 to 1 8 7 1 published the excellent two-volume History of Massachusetts in the Civil War. 75 Dana is referring to the political principles of Thomas William Dorr, noted and discussed earlier.

5&2

The Middle Years

& the democratic feeling ran with Hallett, until Judge Allen made a sensible, telling speech, wh. shifted the majority right about, & the resolve was defeated by a decided vote. This was one of the most remarkable instances of changing the action of a deliberative assembly by one speech that I have ever known. Hallett was indignant, & says there is no chance for liberty left. The chief work of preparing the new constitution fell eventually on Gov. Boutwell & myself. It was referred to a comm. of 13, & by them to a sub-comm. of Boutwell, Judge Parker & myself. Judge P. soon gave up active exertion, as he was in a minority & had numerous engagements, so no one was left but B. & myself. We found that we cd. work better than a large number, so we did not fill up the comm., but got help when we needed it, & every day or two called together the large comm. for conference. We derived our chief aid in work, from [D. W.] Alvord, M. Morton Jr., & Abbott, with occasional advice fr. Judge Allen & others. Nearly ev. night we were up until midnight or after, beside the hard work of the Convention all day. Sat. night at 1 1 o'ck., we found there was 8 or 10 hours work to be done before we cd. meet the Convention Monday morning, & Monday was fixed for the last day of the session. There was no escape fr. a Sunday of hard work, for our report must be in the printers' hands for final revision before 1 1 o'ck at night. Accordingly, I made up my mind to the work, & Sunday, a little after 9 A. M. went to the Adams House, & met in Gov. B[outwell]'s room. Gov. B. undertook the Address, I took the constitution, to compare it with the old & mark out the corresponding passages & omissions in the old, & Alvord reversed the process, marking the passages in the new. All that was the same in each, we crossed out, what was similar, but not in the same form & manner, we underscored, & what was omitted in the old we left untouched, & what was new in the new, we left untouched. In this way, by a painstaking analysis, we made sure of every word & phrase, that there cd. be no omission, or repetition. We took separate rooms. I had Griswold for a reader, & Alvord had Gen. Whitney.76 This work employed us without interruption until about 5 P. M. when we brot our reports together, compared them, & made the final correction & arrangement for the last proof for the printers. Griswold gave out by the middle of the afternoon. Gen. Whitney held on until tea-time, & Alvord gave up at 7 or 8 o'ck. B & I 76

Whiting Griswold ( 1 8 1 4 - 1 8 7 4 ) , delegate from Greenfield, served seven terms in the state legislature, switching from the Democratic to the new Republican party when it was formed. He was a presidential elector in 1864. James Scolly Whitney ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 7 8 ) , wealthy manufacturer, derived his military title from the command he held in the state militia, which he helped organize in 1835. A life-long Democrat, he served frequently in the state legislature.

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kept at it, without intermission, until 10V2 P. M. During the whole of the intensely hot day, we did not leave our little close hotel bed-chambers from 9 to 10V2, except for meals. At 10V2 we went to the printing office & corrected proofs, & I got to bed at midnight. Monday morning we were at our committee room before 9 o'ck., & at ioVi, our report was in order, the corrected copies struck off & circulated, & the debate opened. Boutwell, as Chairman, led, & took the gen. charge of the Report, & nothing could have been better done. The entire result of the Convention was in his hands, & he showed himself abundantly capable of carrying it through. His self-possession, thorough knowledge of the subject, calmness, & clearness of statement & explanation commanded the admiration of all. If there was one man in the Convention who had doubted up to that point his leadership & his right to it, the question was put beyond a doubt that day. The chief debate was on Choate's motion to submit the judicial tenure separately to the people. It was conducted by Choate & Lord pro, & Boutwell & myself contra. We were sustained by the entire strength of the vote of the majority, & after that, there was not much contest. Still, the passing of each article & chapter in review, with questions & criticisms, required constant attention. Boutwell was thoroughly prepared at all points, & was not, in a single instance, taken at disadvantage. Only one error was discovered, & that was mainly matter of opinion, to wit: whether the new requirement of citizenship in the Governor was a substitute for 7 years' residence, or additional. The whole business closed at a little after 1 P. M., making 14 or 15 hours of debate, uninterrupted except for dinner & tea, an hour each. After the final adoption of the report, Boutwell read his Address, & we took up the pay-roll & passed it, & then the Resolve respecting books & documents. Here Bird & Earle, 77 & other old grannies got into an entanglement about the number of vols, of reports each member shd. have, wh. none of them cd. explain, & took votes with opposite results, few understanding the question at all. At length they got out of temper, & the Convention threatened to end in a small & disagreeable way, until a motion by J. W. Paige 78 disposed of the question satisfactorily, & we awaited a speech from the President. But here was another embarrassment. The minority, according to etiquette, were to move a vote of thanks to the Pres. This was confided to Gov. [G. N.] Briggs, as the highest in official rank. He 77 Francis W . Bird ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 9 4 ) , an influential Republican, was a paper manufacturer from Walpole. He served frequently in the state legislature and on the Governor's Council. John M. Earle, editor of the Worcester Spy, has been noted earlier. 78 James W . Paige ( 1 7 9 2 - 1 8 6 8 ) was a Boston merchant.

&4

The Middle Years

took an unfortunate time for his motion, Sat., in the midst of business, when no one was prepared for it, to suit his own convenience as he was going home in the P. M. not to return. He performed the duty, too, in the most indifferent & perfunctory manner, half asleep, & got the Pres't's name wrong, & bungled it so that the Whigs were ashamed of it. The feeling was quite strong in favor of Banks. The [president]79 was remarkable for the tact, fairness, readiness, & decision he displayed. Indeed, the feeling was that he had a genius for presiding, & that the Convention was under great obligations to him, & they wished to have an unusual demonstration in his favor. All this Deacon Briggs marred shockingly. When, therefore, it came time to [dissolve] the Convention, the feeling was strong that something more shd. be done for the Prest., tho' no one knew what to do, as the resolution had been passed. The feeling also was general that we were closing up with rather small business, in quarreling about books. At this juncture, Rev. Dr. Lothrop rose, on the impulse of the moment, & made some very pleasant complimentary remarks upon the Convention & its spirit, & the character & conduct of the Prest. This broke the ice. Others followed, & some one moved that we close with prayer. This was done, with an excellent impression, & then followed the Prest.'s speech, & we separated in the best feeling & with dignity & propriety. Only one unpleasant event occurred during the last night, (except the volume debate) & that was a final faux pas of poor Hillard. After all the business was closed, the final vote taken, & nothing remained but the ceremonies of close, Hillard got the floor & delivered a most extraordinary moral lecture to the majority, full of assumption & conceit, & loaded with the most offensive suggestions. It was more than the Assembly cd. bear. Nothing but decorum prevented their hissing him. Boutwell replied in a most dignified & effectual manner, as well as could be, & a dead silence followed, & poor Hillard was left again, in a dismal hole. There seems to be a fatality about the poor fellow. He is always in the wrong box, yet no one pities him much, for he is assuming, conceited & ambitious. If there was a drop of life left in him, this reply of Boutwell's took it out of him. While the work of the Convention is fresh in my mind, I will jot down my own particular labors. In the Comm. on the Bill of Rights, I brot forward, drafted & carried through, a provision giving to every person having a claim ag. the State, a judicial remedy therefor. I endeavored to strike out all the theorising 79 Nathaniel P. Banks, Jr., noted earlier, was president, or chairman, of the convention. As a "Know-Nothing" and incipient Republican, he had been deliberately slighted by former Governor George N. Briggs.

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about the Social Compact, & the origin of Government in the Preamble, & [to] substitute the simple declarative beginning "We, therefore, the People of Massachusetts". For this I obtained a majority of the members of the Comm. present, but a sufficient number of absent members voted ag. me to turn the scale, 7 to 6, & I made no attempt in the Convention, with a minority report, on a theoretic question, & let it go. All but three of [the] Comm. said they disbelieved entirely in the Social Compact & wd. not put it into a new constitution, but a majority were unwilling to disturb the old language & stir up people's minds on abstractions. I introduced a provision making the Hab. Corp. a writ of right in all cases where the Legisl. does not especially vest a discretion in the Court. This failed in Comm., but was carried in Convention, by a large majority. The provision in Chap. 9 art. 3, requiring a list of voters in all elections was solely mine. No one else thought of, or moved in it. The provision for future Conventions Ch. 14 art. 2 was mine. What measures I advocated & opposed, the journal of the debates will exhibit; & I think I prepared my full half of the Chapters of the Constitution. The Preamble & Bill of Rights, General Court, (I) Senate, (II) Hs. of Reps., (III) Qualifications of Votes & Elections, (IX) Oaths & Subscrip. (X) & Rev. & Amends (XIV) I prepared, & assisted in others. This Convention has settled the reputations of a good many men. Choate has held his own. What more could he do? He has shown himself the brilliant, rich, philosophical orator, the scholar, & the kindly, adroit & interesting man. He has not commanded respect as a man of deep convictions, earnest purpose, & reliable judgment. But he is felt to be the greatest rhetorical genius of the day. Sumner has held his own, as an orator. He has made two beautiful, classical, high-toned orations, commanding the admiration of all. As a debater, a worker, an influential member, he has not succeeded. He takes but little active part, & seems to have a fear of taking the floor, except on leading subjects, & after great preparation.80 But he is a noble, fine hearted fellow. Boutwell has raised himself prodigiously. He is the only man (unless my friends flatter me extremely by making me a second) who has eminently gained by the Convention. He is the best debater in the House. Wilson, has held his place as a manager & a contriver of expedients, & a feeler of the public pulse. He has shown himself a good natured, well disposed man, with no personal enmities. I think he is considered by his pol. opponents a more honest man than they were disposed to regard 80 Sumner, on the other hand, said that Dana's only weakness in the convention was a tendency to overdebate. Adams, I, 233.

566

The Middle Years

him; yet, that is still a mooted point. If any expected him to take a high place as a discusser of leading subjects, they are disappointed. He also failed in the chair, as temp. Prest. He was clumsy & forgetful & undecided. Gov. Morton lost all his influence, if he had any, wh. I doubt, to begin with. His voice was feeble, & he made little impression by his speeches. He ended in being the official head of some 5 or 6 malcontents, Williams, Hathaway, Thompson, Stetson &c.81 B. F. Hallett, however, has been the deadest failure. The last three weeks he became a laughing stock. All his motions failed, & he committed such blunders, in law, in policy, in common preparation of resolves, & showed such an incorrigible fog & tangle in his mind, that the obscurest & dullest sneered at him. He had a consid. reput. because he had been a leader in politics, dictating to Conventions & caucuses, wh. were in session but a few hours, where his loud voice, & domineering way could have effect, but the test of a long session fairly stripped him, & left him almost a pitiable spectacle. People thought him an amiable man, tho' blessed with blunt sensibilities. In one day, he was defeated in four projects, all owing either to ignorance of the subject, fogginess & clumsiness, or gross want of tact & taste. Early in the session he made three glaring, incredible mistakes of law, wh. Butler exposed & gibbeted in a merciless manner. This shook confidence in him, & from that time he fell like the mercury in cold weather, only never to rise again. His Union-Saving speeches were met with laughter of derision. One day, he reproached the House for laughing at him, & they laughed the more. Then he told them that men who wd. laugh then wd. laugh at the day of Judgment, wh. made them worse than ever. Hallett's brethren at the bar, who had seen him tried, were not at all surprised at his failure. Judge Allen held his own. He speaks well, but his voice is feeble, it is disagreeable to him to speak, & he is not always present & up with the business of the session, so that he cannot be a leader. Griswold did pretty well on the town question, but even that passed out of his hands, the subsequent speeches being better than his, & he was soon known to be lasy, & not a man to cope with subjects that required labor & thought. He went pretty much to the wall. 81 H e n r y Williams ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 8 7 ) , delegate from Taunton, served frequently in the state legislature, and served as a Democrat in the U. S. House, 1 8 3 9 - 1 8 4 1 and 1 8 4 3 1 8 4 5 . Elnathan P. Hathaway ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 5 8 ) , delegate and lawyer from Freetown, served six terms in the state legislature. Charles Thompson ( 1 7 9 8 - 1 8 7 1 ) , delegate from Charlestown, was ail iron merchant who served in the state legislature in 1 8 3 7 and on the Governor's Council in 1 8 4 3 . Caleb Stetson ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 8 5 ) , a delegate from Braintree, was a leather merchant. He served in the Massachusetts house, 1 8 5 0 - 1 8 5 1 .

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Judge Parker disappointed everybody. He showed himself an honest man & a good dry technical lawyer, but he discussed questions of statesmanship & public policy, on the narrowest precedents, & in the driest manner. He was not listened to after his first speech, except from courtesy. He did one good thing, toward the close, in exposing the terrible defects of Hallett's first plan for amending the Constitution. This was a matter of nice detail, & he did it well, yet it was only heard by those who listened attentively. The Judge persevered in attention to business, & spoke often, yet his voice was so low, & his manner so dry that he often had but some Vz dos. listeners. Prof. Greenleaf seldom attended, & spoke but twice. These speeches were short, agreeable in their manner, & made rather a favorable impression. Their defect was that he did not at all throw himself into his subject, or into the hearts or minds of his hearers. He was sketchy, & did not go near the bottom of the matters. Then his known indifference to the Convention deprived him of influence. In short, the two learned professors from Cambridge had less influence than the two mercantile members from the same town, Livermore & Sargent.82 Hillard has been a melancholy failure. He is the only man who goes out of the Convention with a stigma to his name. However much he may have meant by it, certain it is that he can never get over the "hand that feeds us", & his two subsequent speeches have shown an ill nature, & bad judgment wh. must always put him low in the estimations of men. His manner, too, is that incorrigible school boy manner of recitation. It is not debate, nor address, it is a speech spoken at a mark. Burlingame, made two declamatory speeches, full of warmth, glow, animation, high sounding, sympathetic words, telling personal appeals & attacks, but without substance, or form, or any value whatever to a thinking man. He has taken no part beyond these speeches, wh. were let off at random, & must be considered as having failed in everything but a stirring, wide awake stump orator style. He is a warm hearted, full blooded fellow, & every body likes him & regrets that he will not think nor study. Butler has behaved quite as well, perhaps, on the whole, a little better than was expected of him. He has not been ill-mannered except to men who have fought him in his own way, or men ag. whom he has an old hostility. He has shown great power of will, strength of mind & industry. Yet he is, as Boutwell says, rather a cavalry officer, than a military leader, rather a case fighter than a jurist. 82

Isaac Livermore has been noted earlier. John Sargent (1799-1880), a Cambridge merchant, served seven terms in the state legislature.

568

The Middle Years

[J. G.] Abbott, has shown talents of a considerable order, but he is the victim too much of his personal feelings, & has always been in the habit of treating questions superficially, for temporary effect, in a narrow circle, & has not enlarged his mind. He is, too, a case-fighter & caucus carrier, rather than a jurist or statesman. He did not, on the whole, come above the second grade in the Convention. [C. W. ]Upham of Salem, [Henry] Williams of Taunton, Rockwell of Pittsfield, [C. P.] Huntington of Salem, Wilkinson of Dedham, & Stevenson of Boston,83 did little or nothing, & were hardly noticed, either in counsel or debate. Hopkinson spoke sev. times, but not with judgment, & in a heavy, ineffectual manner, & actually injured his side. [F. B.] Crowninshield spoke, & not without effect, but he rather disappointed people in two respects. He was superficial, not having prepared himself carefully, or thought deeply, & he showed a good deal of party spirit. Yet all think him an honorable man, & a man of good judgment & kind feelings. He talks better than he speaks, & his feelings are kinder than his expressions in debate. [O. P.] Lord has shown marked ability, & is a formidable debater; but he is little if at all above Butler in manners & taste, & has a great lack of judgment. Perhaps his position in a hopeless minority encouraged his naturally reckless & desperate temper. Keyes has spoken with great grace & acceptableness, entertaining the House, & saying, occasionally, pointed & memorable things. But all feel that he is a mere speaker. Natural advantages & an oratorical temperament have done all for him, & he has done & is doing nothing for himself. Schouler is a good-natured, pleasant, easy speaker, never rising above the personals of politics, the trash-bin & gossip, but is clever at that, as clever in wit as Keyes, perhaps, but not a tithe of the rhetorician. [D. W.] Alvord has refused to speak, except in a few small matters; & is probably only a working man. Huntington of N. Hampton, has spoken well, & always commanded attention. There is a respect felt for him, but he dislikes speaking, & takes no lead. Gov. Briggs has been as much the leader of the Whigs as any one, & 83 Julius Rockwell ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 8 8 ) served frequently in the state legislature as a Whig, in the U. S. Congress, 1 8 4 3 - 1 8 5 1 , and in the Senate, 1 8 5 4 - 1 8 5 5 , having been appointed to fill the vacancy left by Edward Everett's resignation. Ezra Wilkinson ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 8 2 ) , a life-long Democrat, served several terms in the state legislature and was a judge of the Superior Court from 1 8 5 9 until his death. Joshua Thomas Stevenson ( 1 8 0 7 - 1 8 7 6 ) , a Boston merchant, served ten terms in the state legislature. The other men named have been noted earlier.

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always commands attention. His manner is of a kind to gain hearers, having an appearance of simple, good-humor & good sense, without oratory, wh. tells well on a mixed audience. Then he is considered an honest man, & is a Baptist deacon, a temperance lecturer &c. Yet there is a little of palaver about him, & the Convention doubted whether he was quite so ignorant of party as he affected to be. He is indolent, & does not bring to bear the power of mind he actually possesses, nor make any research. He is sometimes, too, clumsy. Judge [H. W.] Bishop is looked upon as a man of little bottom. He has a plausible, loud, sonorous way, with an open countenance & cheerful manner, but they say he is not reliable, is disposed to court popularity, & takes no risks. He is also quite superficial. [Sidney] Bartlett of Boston has always spoken well. He is short, pithy, clear, & his manner is courteous, & he is known to be free from personal animosities. On the whole Bartlett, who is an unpopular man in the city, has made a favorable impression on the members of the Convention, particularly upon his opponents. He has not taken a prominent part, but comes in, occasionally, toward the close, & fills up gaps. [J. S. C.] Knowlton is sensible, & good in counsel, but cannot speak ex tempore. Chapin8i of Worcester is diffident, & his manner does not interest, & his voice is feeble. But he is thought a good lawyer & a man of sense & integrity. Train85 is about the level between Abbott & Schouler. Rather of the blackguard-school. A country-tavern politician, but with some cleverness. Walker (Amasa) is a pleasant, good hearted man, but a mere schemer, & had little influence. [John] Sargent of Cambridge made clever, second-class speeches, & was not to be despised as a debater, especially where statistics or personalities came in play. [Foster] Hooper of Fall River, Morton of Fairhaven, [E. P.] Hathaway of Freetown, Nayson of Amesbury, Gardner of Seekonk & others who had been in the Legislature, started in full cry, & expected to take an active part, but they soon found their level & subsided. Hooper held his place better than the others. Hathaway kept talking, but to no purpose. 84

Henry Chapin ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 7 8 ) was a lawyer and business executive from Worcester, where he was mayor, 1 8 4 9 - 1 8 5 0 . 8S Charles Russell Train ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 8 5 ) served five terms in the state legislature, was in the U. S. House as a Reptiblican, 1 8 5 9 - 1 8 6 3 , and was Massachusetts attorney general, 1 8 7 2 - 1 8 7 8 .

57°

The Middle Years

Nayson succumbed entirely. Bates of Plymouth with a vigilant fulgleman, & occasionally made opportune motions; but is a man of low views & manners.86 /. C. Gray of Boston was always listened to by a considerable part of the House, & is much respected. [J. S.] Whitney of Conway talked a good deal, but was considered as rather noisy than valuable, & was latterly but little listened to. Lt. Gov. Cushman is a well mannered, kind hearted man, & much esteemed, but took no very active part. Beach of Springfield is a man of gentleman-like dress & manners, but was almost entirely silent. Sumner of Otis, took an active part for a few days, but soon declined into obscurity.87 Rev. Mr. [Amariah] Chandler of Greenfield is an excellent sensible old gentleman, & was listened to by all who could hear him. So was Mr. Kellogg of Hadley. He is also a man of very considerable legal & polit. information. /. Giles88 of Boston had considerable weight & attracted some notice from his voting & acting on sev. questions ag. his party & the Boston delegation. He is sensible, but crotchety, & has a violent style of speaking unsuited to his apathetic character. He speaks with such violent effort that he can hardly be heard, & gives pain to his hearers. 5. FRIDAY. Left at 12 M. for Brattleboro'. F. W. Palfrey89 was my companion part of the way up. Reached "the establishment" at 5 P. M. Found Sarah well, & William [Watson] there, on a visit. AUG.

[AUG.] 6 . SAT. Wm. & Sarah & I went to Bellows Falls, by rail, & spent three hours. Dined at the Island House, & walked about the falls wh. are quite romantic & pretty. Wm. returned to N. Y. in the ev. train. Hop at 86

Elbridge G. Morton ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 8 2 ) was a shipwright from Fairhaven who served four terms in the state legislature. Jonathan Nayson ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 8 0 ) was an Amesbury druggist who served in the legislature as a Democrat in 1 8 3 7 and 1 8 5 3 . Johnson Gardner ( 1 7 9 9 - 1 8 6 9 ) was a Seekonk physician who served in the state senate, 1 8 4 2 1 8 4 4 , and on the Governor's Council, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 5 2 . Moses Bates, noted earlier, is being described as a leader in the exercise of party solidarity. 87 H e n r y W y l e s Cushman ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 6 3 ) served in the state legislature, 1 8 3 9 - 1 8 4 4 , as a Democrat. He was legislatively elected lieutenant governor in 1 8 5 1 and served one year. Erasmus D. Beach ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 6 7 ) , lawyer, delegate from Springfield, had served in the state senate in 1 8 5 1 . Increase Sumner ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 7 1 ) , delegate from Great Barrington, served frequently in the state legislature after 1 8 3 3 . He was active in the Know-Nothing party. 88 89

Joel Giles ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 8 2 ) , a Boston lawyer, served seven terms in the state legislature.

Francis Winthrop Palfrey ( 1 8 3 1 - 1 8 8 9 ) had just this year received his degree from the Dane law school. He practiced in Boston until the Civil War, during which he became a brigadier general in the 20th Massachusetts Infantry.

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571

"the Estt." this ev. Danced once, with Mrs. Rutherford of N. Y. & made the acquaintance of her husband, a lawyer. [AUG.] 7. SUNDAY. Wrote in Journal.

Ch. in A. M. Walked a good deal with Sarah.

[AUG.] 8. MONDAY. Walks with Sarah. Bowled with a large company, consisting of Mr. & Mrs. Rutherford, two very pretty bonny girls named Watson, fr. N. York, Comm. Jarvis U.S.N., & daughter, Major Prince U.S.A., Dr. Barclay (a Channing cousin of ours) & one or two more.90 In ev. went to a ball at the village, with Barclay, Major Prince & M. Beauplaud. Danced with Misses Higginson, Meade & Nouise, of the village, & left early. [AUG.] 9. TUESD. Sarah & I walked to the top of Chesterfield Mountain, taking all day for it, & taking our luncheon on the top. It was a beautiful day, & as we walked slowly & took frequent rests, one of an hour, we did not return until after five o'clock. On reaching home, I found a telegraphic despatch, requesting me to go to Springfield & take the post of senior counsel on the civic side of the controversy respecting the Armory. I returned an answer, but with the apprehension that I was too late, as they were to engage counsel that day, at all events. [AUG.] 10. WED. Sarah & I left for Springfield, where we found the little girls, Sally & Charlotte, waiting for us at the station, to be taken to Boston. There I ascertained that, not receiving a despatch from me, the people had engaged another lawyer. They were loud in professions of regret. I should have no objections to the compensation, but prepossessions are all in favor of the military superintendence, & by losing this engagement, I saved my vacation. S & I & the two girls reached Boston at 6 o'clk., &, being too late for the cars for Manchester, went to the Tremont Hs. & spent the night. The girls enjoyed highly being at a hotel, & the novelties of it. Heard the Germania Band play on the Common, in the ev. [AUG.] I I . THURSD. After a day's work in Boston, partly in revising the report of my speeches in Convention, went to Manchester with S. & the girls, to spend their vacation. Father & Charlotte were so very im90j O seph R. Jarvis, who began his Navy career in 1820, was at this time a commander and stationed at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Navy Yard. By 1862 he had risen to the rank of commodore. Henry Prince (b. 1 8 1 1 ) was at the time of this entry, brevet major, a rank he had achieved for distinguished conduct in the Mexican War. He served as a brigadier general during the Civil War and retired from the service in 1879.

57^

The Middle

Years

portunate for us to stay, that we changed our plan & put off our return to Brattleb. until Monday. 15. MONDAY. Frid., Sat. [Aug.] 13. & Sunday 14th, we spent at Manchester, in the usual occupations of walking in the woods & on the rocks, & bathing. The place improves every year in its growth of trees & other developments of beauty. [On Monday] S. & I took leave of all at M. & went to Boston, & thence took 12 M. tram for Brattleboro'. On our way up fr. station, stopped at Ch. of Advent, & attended service. Bot a wagon for little boy, wh. delighted him. Boy & "Teddy" both well. Called on the Rutherfords & Major Prince, & on the Higginsons. [AUG.]

[AUG.] 16. TU. Left at 9% for Montreal. Pleasant journey, especially an hour or so in the P. M. when we went thro' the Green Mountains, I sitting on the last seat in rear car, facing backwds. Reached Donegana's, Montreal, at 10 P. M. Supper, bath & bed. [AUG.] 17. WED. Walk before br. to Garrison, & burnt district.91 The 26th Reg., Lt. Col. Hemphill, 92 is here. Saw them parade at 11 o'ck. Excellent discipline. Col. Hemphill has the most elegant military air I ever saw in a commanding officer, with a noble voice. The Regt. is odious here fr. having fired on the people in a mob, although it is universally considered that the firing was not their fault, the order having been given either by the Mayor or by one of the opposite faction of the mob, a discharged soldier, who passed behind the soldiers & imitated the order.93 B[reve]t Lt. Col. Hogarth, (whose name the men pronounce, I observe, Hog-art) was in command, at the time of the firing.94

Visited the Cathedral. It is huge, & to my unaccustomed eye, gigantic. There is a very impressive air of devotion about these open churches, n l I n 1849 the Parliament buildings in Montreal were burned during a riot. Later in the year the seat of government was moved to Quebec. 9 2 Andrew T. Hemphill (d. 1863) became commanding officer of his regiment in 1848. He eventually became a major general in the Army and died on active duty in Dublin. 9 3 A man calling himself Father Gavazzi had aroused popular antipathy in Canada by lecturing on the errors of Popery, and when, on June 9, 1853, he spoke in Montreal's Congregational Church, a mob entered, overwhelming a police guard. The mayor assembled a reserve of one hundred members of the 26th, a regiment which had arrived from Gibraltar only hours before. T h e order to fire was given, though no one ever admitted doing so, and forty people were killed or wounded. See S. H. F. Johnston, The History of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), 26th and goth, I (Aldershot, 1 9 5 7 ) , 257-258. 9 4 George Hogarth (d. 1854) commanded the regiment until 1847-1848, when Hemphill took command. Since Hemphill commanded the regiment during the rioting, it may be that Hogarth was in charge of the actual troops who fired on the people.

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when no regular service is going on,95 with people always about engaged in prayers or other acts of discipline or worship. This is the best hotel in Canada, but how much inferior to an ordinary Am. hotel (Yankee, I mean) in neatness, order, & attention. The glass to my window is broken. The servants are in confusion, & there seems to be no head. Durkin, to whom I brot letters, called, & took me a beautiful drive round the Mountain, thro' the Cemetery, & to the house of a Mr. Hall, a merchant, who has a noble situation on the base of the Mountain. I think the view fr. the Mountain, is the noblest I ever saw in my life. The immense reach of level country, looking like a sea, interminable, with portions of the horison, at the [Eastward], bounded by lofty & picturesque mountains, the affluent river, & the glittering city, combine to make a landscape, not only grand for its exposure, but picturesque in outline, & full of the interest of life & motion. Dined at Durkin's, at 6 o'ck., family dinner. Present Durkin & Lady, Dr. Barber, his father-in-law, Miss Matilda, his sister, Mrs. Barber, two Misses Barber, a Mr. Herrin, & a Miss Bancroft.

[aug.] 18. thursd. Before br. walked to the R. C. Cathedral & attended Mass. There was also a funeral service going on. The coffin rested in the middle of the Broad aisle, with 8 tapers on each side & 6 at each end. There were 5 or 6 priests & 2 altar boys in the Church. As I had no book or direction, & no one to consult, I cd. not tell whether I was hearing the Mass or funeral service or both, perhaps Mass for the dead was united with the common Mass. All was Chaunted, & there was the constant dingling of bells, & putting off & on of caps, ducking up & down, taking snuff —, robing & unrobing wh. encumbers & belittles the Roman service so much. The Ch[urch] of Bonsecours has these lines over the door. Si l'amour de Marie En ton coeur est grené En passant ne t'o[u]blie De lui dire un aire.90 At 7 P. M. in a heavy rain left Montreal for Quebec, in a steamer. Although it was cold, I walked the deck until nearly 1 1 o'clock, & enjoyed highly the cold air & the tread of the plank of a moving vessel, wh. will never lose its delight for me. 95

Dana added at a later time; "when the regular service is going on." "If the love of Mary is deep in your heart, don't forget, in passing by, to sing her a little song." 96

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[ A U G . ] 19. FRID. Up at 5 o'clok., & walked deck until we reached Quebec. The morning was clear, the sun bright, the air cold, & the scene full of grandeur. I was surprised to find so many villages along the banks of the river, & such an appearance of populousness & cultivation as far as we cd. see into the interior. At length, a line of shipping along the left bank, large wood-yards, & vessels at anchor in the stream, denoted the approach to Quebec. In a few minutes, the gallant lofty citadel, with its batteries, & royal flag, burst upon us, & snuggling at its feet the town, glittering with its tin roofs, in the morning sun. As we drew nearer, red coats on guard, officers & men in undress, denoted the mental & physical power which possesses & controls this inert material might. On the bank, about half-way up, a monument marks the spot where Montgomery fell, 97 in his desperate attempt. A little lower than the citadel, stands the Terrace, & lower & still lower, at the water's edge, under the hill & looking like the mop-board to the wall of a room stands the trading town, the soldiers on guard & the visitors walking along the ramparts looking down at the chimney tops of the tallest houses as fr. a dissy height. How strange! How different from everything American is Quebec! The winding narrow gate-way, thro' wh. our omni'bus toiled up to the upper town; attainable by horses only by means of long deflections & circuits of the path, & hard struggles of the beast. For the first time in my life I entered a walled-town — literally a walled town, into or out of wh. no one can go save thro' a guarded gate-way. How old & odd, all the houses are! How narrow, steep & crooked the streets! What large spaces covered by public buildings in all directions, Churches, Convents, Seminaries, Barracks, Guard houses, at every turn, mostly with large enclosures shut in by high walls! Well! I shall take time to see this interesting & solitary representative to a busy trading generation of the religions & monarchies & military powers of Europe.

After breakfast, called on Lewis Drummond, Esq. Att. Gen.,98 with letter & card. Not in. Called with ditto on Hon. — Black, Judge of Admiralty. He is in & receives me with attention & kindness. Takes me into his library, shows me my argument in the Niphon case, among his pamphlets.99 He has an excellent library. Mr. Black is a highly respectable old gentleman, a well read lawyer, & full of kind feeling. He speaks most 97 Richard Montgomery ( 1 7 3 8 - 1 7 7 5 ) , Continental brigadier general, was killed leading an American assault on Quebec on the last day of the year 1775. 98 Lewis T. Drummond ( 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 8 2 ) had been solicitor general of Lower Canada, 1 8 4 4 - 1 8 5 1 , its attorney general from 1851 to 1856 and in 1858, and was a justice of the court of appeal, 1864-1873. He had come to Canada from Ireland in 1825. " J u d g e Henry Black remains unidentified. In 1849 Dana defended the crew of the ship Niphon on charges of unlawful seizure.

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kindly of Sumner. Takes me to walk, over the Durham Terrace, thro' the citadel, round the entire Esplanade, & back to his house. I will say, in one word, that no man knows what a view is until he has seen Quebec. At least, a man may say that who has never been in Europe. The Mountain at Montreal fades into common-place. Then, the place is so full of associations & things that act on your imagination. There, on the Island, Wolfe landed & watched the city. There at Montmorenci,1 he was repulsed. Here he floated by at night, there his army scrambled up the hill, there on the plains they formed, Montcalm2 marched out thro' that old gate to meet him, there the two armies fought, on that spot Wolfe fell, the stone ag[ainst] wh. he leaned to die rests under the Monument now. There, half-way down that frightful precipice, where the little Monument stands, fell Montgomery, by a random shot. That tall Monument is erected, with the best of taste & feeling to the two heroes, Wolfe & Montcalm, with the inscription — Mortem Virtus Communem Famam Historia Monumentum Posteritas Dedit. 3 Here is the great structure the Jesuits built, with their expanded views of conquest by Institutional Christianity, long before the English subjugation, now used for barracks, where bayonets & the Saxon tongue, succeeded to the cowl & cassock, the muttered latin prayer, & the deep study & vigil. The Hotel Dieu, the huge Seminary & palace, the Convent of St. Ursula, founded more than 200 years ago, in wh. Montcalm lies buried; then, of later date, the work of the Conquerors, the new Cathedral & Churches of the Reformed Church, still later the tolerated Dissenting Chapel, & day by day, with increasing might the solid, eternal granite of the citadel & ramparts, by wh. that conquest is to be preserved; & all the while, in the subjugated city the two races, side by side, the two tongues filling the air, two men in one house, two women grinding at a mill, the one of the conquering the other of the conquered race, & the whole surrounding country, as far as the eye can reach, peopled all but 1 James Wolfe ( 1 7 2 7 - 1 7 5 9 ) , major general in command of British forces in America in 1 7 5 9 , was killed during battle with the French on the Plains of Abraham, having scaled the heights above Quebec. The Montmorency River in southern Quebec flows south into the St. Lawrence. 2 Marquis Louis Joseph de Montcalm de Saint-Veran ( 1 7 1 2 - 1 7 5 9 ) was commander of the French troops in America after 1 7 5 6 . Like Wolfe, he was fatally wounded in the battle on the Plains of Abraham, during which the French lost the city of Quebec. 3 "Posterity gives a monument, history fame, and virtue a common death." The monument is an obelisk, erected in 1 8 2 8 by Canadians of French and English descent to the memory of the two soldiers.

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The Middle

Years

solely with the less fortunate nation, their neat cottages, their strictly divided & subdivided patrimonial farms, the tall tinned towers of their village church, — how strange, how full of deep interest is this scene, this region, to the eye of the unpracticed, unhacknied traveler from N. England! Mr. Black left me that I might make my call on Lord Elgin, 4 & for the first time in my life, I "made antis-chamber", as the French would say. The red-coated sergeant took me to an anti-room, where were two aidsde-camp, sitting at a table, lounging, cutting pens, talking, with nothing to do but to entertain & introduce visitors. One was Capt. Hamilton 5 of the 66th, the other a Lt. Col. Irvine 6 of the Prov. Militia. This was a busy day, as Ld. Elgin sails for Europe on Monday. I was kept waiting nearly two hours, while he had interviews with his counsel &c. At length, the word passed, & I went in. Ld. E. sat at a table in a large room, rose, gave me his hand, inquired after Sumner, Boston &c., & immediately fell into full & rapid talk about the U. States & Canada, their relations, & chiefly their respective forms of government, & the relative conservative & radical influences of the two, on which he seems to have speculated & theorised a good deal. Indeed, this is his hobby. He evidently thinks little of the person he is talking with, merely using you as a target to fire his ideas & words at, & the long etiquette of non-interruption has probably increased this habit in him. This does not arise so much from conceit, as from impulsiveness & interest in his topic. He did the polite thing by inviting me to dine at Spencerwood at 8 o'ck tomorrow. Poor Black, who hates Lord Elgin, being of the old high tory school, wh. has been displaced by this Whig School for long years, fretted a good deal at my being kept so long, & mentioned it to his tory friends as a remarkable case of ill breeding on his Lordship's part, & on the part of all his Whig staff. Black then took me a beautiful drive, over the St. Louis road, the Grand Allée, by Spencerwood, thro' the cemetery, over the grounds of a rich merchant named Gibb, kept as neat as a pin, & thence to the county seat of his relative, Mr. Okill Stuart, M.P.P. &c., a man of fortune & influence, who defeated the Government in the Quebec elections. Mrs. 4 James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, has been noted earlier. At the time of this meeting Lord Elgin was forty-two years old. He had succeeded to his title in the Scottish peerage in 1841 and had been governor-general of British North America since 1847. 5 Augustus Terrick Hamilton was in the 71st, not the 66th regiment. He received his commission in 1846. 6 John George Irvine (1802-1871) had been quartermaster-general of militia since 1838. In 1851 he was appointed aide-de-camp to the governor-general, a position which he held until 1868.

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Stuart has visited much in Boston, knows all our leading families, is in wretched health, but seems a lady & a woman of a good mind. We dined with them. Tho' we had only a family dinner, yet it was handsome, & two servants, in white Berlin gloves, waited at the table. Mr. Stuart is a sensible looking Scotchman, tho' he has Yankee blood in him, & good blood too, being a grandson of Gov. Brooks of Mass.7 After dinner, drove back to my hotel. The whole drive disclosed the most glorious views in all directions. Such expanse of level but not low country, bounded at such distances by mountains so picturesque in their outline, such pretty villages & village churches, so noble & affluent a river, bearing rich commerce & grand [move]ments on its bosom, & the perpetual beacon & watch dog of a Citadel, & the glittering city! Quebec! How could I have lived so long & not seen Quebec. [AUG.] 20TH. SAT. Rose early & walked the entire round of the Esplanade before breakfast. At breakfast, arranged with Alex. Bliss & Bancroft, his step-brother, whom I met accidentally, to go to Montmorenci; & a beautiful time we had of it.8 The day was fine, clear & not too warm, a nice pair of fast ponies tramped us over the best road out of Europe, the French cottages lined almost the entire road, forming the village of Beauport, a village of three or four miles in length & two houses wide, (every house, literally, being on the road), the huge village Church, big enough for Boston, lifted its double towers, the children by the road side made the most graceful bows & waves of the hand, for wh. we tossed them coppers, the St. Lawrence swept its broad & deep tide to the Ocean at our right, & behind us, high above all, with the masts [of] vessels looking no bigger than walking sticks at its foot, frowned the Citadel! It was glorious. Again, how strange, how interesting was everything! A new language, new customs, a different religion, strange houses, cottages of stone, all angling to the street, with crosses & pictures of saints to be seen thro' the open windows. The falls, too, were picturesque & animating 7 George Okill Stuart, Jr. (1807-1884), son of an eminent Canadian churchman, was a lawyer, M.P.P., a Judge in Admiralty, and served one term as mayor of Quebec. His mother was Lucy, daughter of John Brooks ( 1 7 5 2 - 1 8 2 5 ) , governor of Massachusetts, 1816-1822. He married Margaret Black Stacy May 1, 1833, niece of Henry Black. "Alexander Bliss (1827-1896), son of a one-time law partner of Daniel Webster, graduated from Harvard in 1847. After his father's death his mother married George Bancroft (noted earlier) and for a time the young man studied law. During the Civil War he served as a staff officer and subsequently served his stepfather as secretary of the American Legation. George Bancroft had two sons by his original marriage, George, Jr. and John Chandler Bancroft, one of whom was with Alexander Bliss on the Canadian trip. Dana added the following note to the text at this point: "His mother named him Sandy, & thus the nick-name of Sandy Bliss became unfortunately fastened upon him, made still worse by Tom Appleton's calling him Arabia Felix."

578

The Middle Years

in the extreme. I knew the height was great & the banks wild & the chasm deep, but the quantity of water was greater, the foam & din much greater than I had anticipated. We walked round & got to the level of the river, & walked on the rocks, the tide being low, quite into the foam of the falls. The view of Quebec, as seen from the point of land above the mill, is the noblest view, & will remain longer fixed in my mind than any view I ever saw in my life, unless I class among views the single curiosity of the Profile at Franconia. Our whole trip lasted but little over three hours, & was truly delightful. Met Mr. Black. He took me into the Cath. Cathedral. I was astounded at its beauty & effect. Not so large as that of Montreal, it far exceeds it in beauty & interest. There is much more design & effect. Here, too, were worshippers, scattered about, at random, saying their prayers in the silent Church. Thence we went to the Chapel of the Seminary. This produced a decided effect on my feelings. From the din of a city, you are taken at once, into a still Chapel, with its walls nearly covered with sacred pictures, & good ones too, its deep Chancel, its six confessionals by the walls, its pulpits & side altars, & its one grand altar, with candles six feet or more in height, & here, too, a sprinkling of worshippers & devotees, some kneeling, some sitting & reading, some [gazing], & priests & students in the deep gallery; & yet all is dead silence, & no public service going on. So much struck was I with this, that I went twice, into it, within an hour. Parliament House, with its rich chambers, throne, mace, & royal arms, & its veiy pretty, comfortable sociable library, much more agreeable to the eye internally than either our Atheneum or the College Library, — there I visited next, & strayed thro' the Jesuit Barracks, & returned to write this journal, & then to dress for Ld. Elgin's. Drove out to Spencerwood at 8 P. M. At the gate stood a sentry. Half way up the avenue, wh. is very long & winding, stood a sergeant, with a drawn sword, waving it in the direction we were to take, & still another sentry stood at the door of the house. A sergeant stood in the entry who motioned me to a side-room, where soon a footman appeared in red breeches, & led the way to the reception room, & announced my name. In the reception room were the aids de camp, Irvine & Hamilton I had seen the day before, in full tog, Hon. Col. Bruce,9 brother of Ld. E., Sir Jas. Alexander, an aid of Gen. Rowan, 10 & Gen. Rowan himself. I had a 9 Robert Bruce ( 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 6 2 ) lived largely in the shadow of his older brother, Lord Elgin. Bruce had been the governor of the Prince of Wales and, later did diplomatic duty for the Empire in the Far East, where Dana was to meet him again. 10 S i r James Alexander ( 1 8 0 3 - 1 8 8 5 ) , author of several volumes of travel and sport-

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few words with Sir Jas., & the other aids, when the door opened & in came Ld. Elgin, Lady Elgin, & the Hon. Mrs. Bruce. 11 Ld. E. shook hands cordially, introduced me to Lady E. as Sumner's friend, she gave her hand, & we had a few words in Sumner's praise, whom she had seen at her father's, Ld. Durham's, in Eng. before seeing him here. Dinner was announced. Gen. Rowan led in Lady E., some red coat, Alex., I believe, Mrs. Bruce, & I walked in among the rest, & was invited to sit next to Ld. E., which was pleasant. There were six waiters, none in his lordship's full livery, 3 in red small clothes, & 3 in common dress, one a negro. The room was large, & all the plates were silver. In the center of the table was a large silver stand, on wh. was a bouquet & several statuettes. Ld. E. wore black coat & pants, purple & white stockings, white cravat, a bouquet & the star of the Order of the Thistle at his breast. Lady E. wore white satin, Mrs. Bruce ditto with a necklace. Lady E. looks young, intelligent, natural & interesting, but in poor health. She has no color, & looked rather jaded, but seemed amiable & disposed to be agreeable. Her manners are perfectly simple & natural, no gesticulation or parade, or loud talk, nor, on the other hand, that provoking apathetic air of so many Englishwomen. I liked her much. She calls out the respect & gallantry of the other sex, by her femininess. Ld. E. appeared better than yesterday. He talked with me nearly all the dinner time, on the same topics as yesterday, except a short digression on House of Commons. He told me that he was at Eton & Oxford with [W. E.] Gladstone, & that they were intimate friends. He has the highest opinion of him, thinks his mind superior to Peel's, although, of course, he has not [Robert] Peel's practice & command of the House. At Oxford there was a club of Churchmen & Conservatives, to wh. he & Gladstone & others belonged, called, by their friends, the Weg, for the initials of W. E. Gladstone, wh. used to be signed to the notes. Maurice, (Kingdom of Christ) 12 an older man, but at Oxford at the time, was received into it, & became intimate with them. ing literature, was assigned to the Canadian commander's staff in 1 8 4 1 and served there until 1 8 5 5 when his regiment went to the Crimea. William Rowan ( 1 7 8 9 - 1 8 7 9 ) had been military commander of the English forces in Canada since 1849, a position in which he was to continue until 1 8 5 5 . When Dana met him he was a major general. n L o r d Elgin's second wife had been L a d y Mary Louisa Lambton, daughter of the first Earl of Durham. 12 Fredrick Denison Maurice ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 7 2 ) , a Cambridge University divine, was the author of many works, including The Kingdom of Christ, or, Hints to a Quaker Respecting the Principles, Constitution, and Ordinances of the Catholic Church ( L o n don, 1 8 3 8 ) . A t the time of Dana's entry, Maurice was in the midst of a theological controversy with the council of King's College, London (where he held a chair), which resulted a f e w months later in his highly publicized resignation-by-request.

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The Middle Years

As I was entirely ignorant of the etiquette, I did what I thought polite & proper, never hesitating or looking doubtful, &, as an American is not supposed to know the etiquette, I got along famously, & had all the cream of thing[s], while the young Englishmen, a tall white cravatted frightened looking youth, & a scientific young lieut., lost all by their fears & respects. It is a great advantage to be an American among people of rank. If you are only polite & not obtrusive & act naturally, you may do as you please. I was the chief guest, as I sat next Ld. E. & he drank with me first. He spoke of his visit to Boston, with great pleasure, admitted that they over-did the Union-Saving, argue ad nauseam, admitted the great rudeness of Webster's speech the day before, (owing, it is said to his having partaken too freely of the grape in its secondary state) but liked the Americans as an audience to speak to, thinks them quick & sympathetic. Tells me that his allusion to Sumner gave so much offence to the Union-Savers, that [J. F. T.] Crampton wrote to him about it.13 How absurd! At table was a young lieut. Noble,14 who is making experiments & observations on magnatism & lunar observations. None of the gent, wore gloves. Sir Jas. Alexander had decorations for two battles in India, & Gen. Rowan had one. All the military were in full dress. We had numerous courses, few vegitables, healths were drank in champainge, red wine being handed round by servants. The ladies retired, & we sat at table perhaps half an hour, when we followed. Ld. E. went out first, then there was a great deal of holding back & bowing at the door, & I went right through them & followed next his Lordship. In the drawing room were the two ladies, & a cheerful fire was burning (Aug. 20). I sat down by the side of Lady Elgin, & kept up a conversation with her solely until I left. We had tea & coffee. I noticed that the young officers & the white neck-clothed civilian, constantly said, "Yes, my lord", & "No, my lord", & "Yes my lady". I did not do it once. Once or twice, in each case, I introduced, easily, the phrase, your lordship, & your ladyship, merely to show that I knew & acknowledged their rank, but after that, let my communication be yea & nay. I left at 11, being the first to go, & reached my hotel in less than an hour. Thus ended my first visit to nobility. One thing is obvious, the lord & lady were the most easy & natural of the whole company. This must always be the case where they have good 13 J o h n F. Twiselton Crampton ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 8 6 ) was British Ambassador to States when Elgin came here to deliver an address. The incident is noted 14 This may have been William Henry Noble ( 1 8 3 4 - 1 8 9 2 ) who took degree from Trinity College in 1859. One of his research projects led to facture of cordite.

the United earlier. a master's the manu-

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sense, for they are under no constraint. I think I was the most easy of the guests. Lord E. was quite agreeable, & is evidently a man of very considerable literary acquirements, with an easy tact for dealing with men. AUG. 21. SUNDAY. Walked before breakfast. After breakfast, talked with S. H. Phillips, 15 & we went together to the High Mass, at the Cathedral. Heard a French sermon, almost entirely on the love, the intercession, the glory & the final triumph of Mary. The service reminded one of the Jewish ceremonies, & were quite showy & imposing. The long array of [priests] swept to & fro, like platoons of soldiers, across the wide Chancel, but with a more rapid march, & as they left the Church, it was almost a run, with very rapid & brilliant music from the organ. At 1 1 , attended the service at the English cathedral. The Ch. was pretty well filled, & we had an excellent sermon, on the duty of educating the poor, (not in the way of patronising them, but on the ground of their right & equality in the gospel) fr. Rev. Dr. . Dr. McKill also officiated. Sat with Black & Okill Stuart. Introduced to Mr. John Lapham, a notary &c., a nephew of Black's. [AUG.] 22. MONDAY. This day Ld. Elgin took his departure for Europe. As it was officially announced as only on a visit, it cd. not be treated otherwise, yet there is a gen. impression that he will not return.16 He has been here nearly 7 years, wh. is a full term & longer than usual. There was a fine military parade, but the civil turn-out was small. The Artillery occupied the Terrace with 4 pieces & saluted, & a guard of honor, composed of the 71st & 66th stretched fr. the Govt. Hs. to the wharf. Lady E. & children went down privately in a carriage. Ld. E. passed thro' the lines bare-headed, but there was no applause. I do not imagine that this arose fr. any unpopularity of Ld. E., for he is respected, but fr. the indifference of the people to the whole est[ablishmen]t of Govt., & the still-water produced by so many counter-currents of nationalities.

Called upon the Archb. of Quebec, 17 upon a letter of introd. fr. Mr. Black to the Grand Vicar. The Archb. is a benevolent, mild, courteous old gentleman, & sat dressed in purple stockings, robe & cap, looking very dignified & affable. The Vicar is more of a man of the world, fluent, 15 Stephen Henry Phillips ( 1 8 2 3 - 1 8 9 7 ) , attorney general of Massachusetts, 1 8 5 8 1860, was a Salem lawyer who graduated from Harvard in 1 8 4 2 . 16 L o r d Elgin did not return, and his term as governor general is officially recorded as having ended in 1 8 5 4 . ,7 Pierre Flavien Turgeon ( 1 7 8 7 - 1 8 6 7 ) , Roman Catholic Archbishop of Quebec 1 8 5 0 - 1 8 6 7 , cut short his active career in office after 1 8 5 5 due to bad health.

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active, clever, & manages the diplomacies of the diocese. We held a long conv. on the state of relig. opinions among the N. Englanders, rationalism, Unitarianism, Calvinism &c. They were all "en retraite", so that I cd. see nothing that day, but they offered to show me all that cd. be seen of their institutions, on my return fr. Saguenay. Dined with Mr. Okill Stuart again, & took tea with Mr. Att. Gen. Drummond. The latter is active, clever, but evidently a parvenu, with all the watchfulness of one, & left me in doubt as to his sincerity. Stuart & Black are open & bold, honest, their faults being those of persons accustomed to power & place. Introduced, in the street, to the Hon. Mr. Primrose, a lawyer of Quebec, son of Ld. Roseberry, who left Engl, on acct. of the part he took in the famous Roseberry divorce case, 18 as his friends say, & for other unacknowledged reasons, as others say. He is now an old man, & rather unfortunate in his affairs & in his family. [ A U G . ] 23. TU. Left at 9 A. M., in the steamer Rowland Hill for Saguenay. Had a beautiful sail down the St. Lawrence for 120 miles or so, to the River Du Loup, & Cacouna, stopping at Murray Bay. The shores of the lie d'Orleans are beautiful, dotted with neat white cottages, with here & there the village Ch., & with some more appearance of cultivation in the soil than I had expected. Murray Bay, Cacouna & Riviere Du Loup are Bathing Places, where the people of Quebec & Montreal go to get salt water. Crossed the river, to Tadousac, a station of the Hudson's Bay Co., & formerly a Jesuit Miss. Station. Here is a stone ruin, said, by the Guide Books, to be that of the oldest stone & mortar building in N. America. Here [we] entered the Saguenay, & steamed up its black, rapid unfathomed waters, between its steep rugged banks, of a fearful height & overtopping eminence, to the Ha Ha Bay, or Grand Bay, as the French call it, a distance of about 60 miles. The journey well repays the traveler fr. civilised countries. For the whole 60 miles, there is no sign of inhabitancy, nor, apparently, a spot where an acre of ground cd. be found capable of cultivation, but huge, precipitous barren wastes of mountains, high hills, & steep banks, with this deep mysterious river hurrying between them. The waters of this river are nearly black, not a dirty, muddy 18 I n 1 8 x 5 Archibald John Primrose (b. 1 7 8 3 ) 4th Earl of Roseberry, sued his wife for divorce, charging adultry. The divorce was granted and the plaintiff awarded a £ 15,000 judgment against the co-respondent, Sir Henry St. John Mildmacy. The man Dana saw in Quebec was Francis W a r d Primrose, brother of Lord Roseberry, not his son.

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Constitutional Convention

583

black, but a deep exceedingly dark bottle-green. Their depth, where sounded is about 1000 feet, but in most parts its bottom has not been reached. No where is there anchorage, not even close under the bluffs, or within a biscuits' throw of the shore. The two great bluffs, Eternity & Trinity, are of a grand towering character, & inspire one with awe, as we hurry thro' their shadow, the noon-day sun hidden behind their tops. At Ha Ha Bay we landed & spen[t] a couple of hours in strolling among the houses, the saw mill, & over the hill. We visited the church, a simple primitive wooden building, wooden benches for seats, the door always open, a neat chancel altar & pulpit, & everything indicating a quiet primitive orderly state of the priest & people. The priest is sd. to be an excellent & devoted man. All these chapels in the wilds of Canada, in spots where the Jesuits first planted their missions, with the names & traditions hanging about them, have a peculiar effect on the imagination, recalling the grand soberness, the toils sufferings & sacrifices of that mysterious order of conquering priests, the submissions & simplicity of the attached Indians, the war-hoop & the scalping knife, the rude cross & the rude rosary, the baptism & Christian burial, the retreat to the forest before the advancing soldier & trader, the devastations of rum & venereal, small pox & war, the ruined church & college where self-banished learning & piety had toiled, to all human appearance, in vain, unless it be for the light they threw on one or two gener. of Indians, destined never to become a civilised people. Left Ha Ha Bay in a rain squall, & went down the river in a heavy rain & blow all night. I slept in my clothes & was up twice, as I did not like the boat nor the weather. The morning was better, & by 1 1 o'ck it cleared off entirely. We stopped at the same places as on going down, & reached Quebec, at 9 P. M. of Thursday the 25th. [AUG.] 25TH. At my old quarters at Russell's [hotel]. On this trip, I found Mr. Sears, a young lawyer of Boston, & his companion, Mr. Arthur Theod. Lyman,19 just graduated at Cambr., both pleasant, intelligent men. Saw a good deal of them. Sears had met the Hon. Misses Kinnaird,20 in Greece. Also made the acq. of three officers of 1!) Philip H. Sears ( 1 8 2 2 - 1 8 9 8 ) , Harvard, 1844, served in the state legislature, 1 8 6 0 1 8 6 1 , and practiced law in Boston until his death. Arthur Theodore Lyman ( 1 8 3 2 1 9 1 5 ) , Harvard, 1 8 5 3 , was about to enter the East India trade in which he made a fortune. He went on to a career as business and civic leader in Boston. He and Dana were to be shipmates on an Atlantic crossing in 1856. 20 Dana's granduncle, Edmund Dana, had married the daughter of the 6th Baron Kinnaird, of the Scots peerage. The women referred to here were therefore relatives, but the Kinnairds were a vast family, and the precise identity of the "Hon. Misses Kinnaird" remains obscure.

The Middle Years

5*4

t h e B r . a r m y , t r a v e l l i n g f o r p l e a s u r e , o n e C a p t . T h e l l u s s o n , of the 7 2 n d , son of the last life u n d e r the T h e l l u s s o n w i l l , 2 1 a n o t h e r a M a j . D r u r y - L o w e , of t h e 1 1 t h H u s s a r s , ( P r i n c e A l b e r t ' s ) , & a i d - d e - c a m p to L d . (He

tells

a

very

diff.

story

of

the

Capt.

Tuckett

Cardigan.22

a f f a i r fr.

that

wh.

T u c k e t t told in A m e r i c a 2 3 ) . T h e third I h a v e not y e t l e a r n e d b y n a m e or b y regt. T h e l l u s s o n is a b i g , simple, g o o d h e a r t e d , natural f e l l o w . others h a v e m o r e

cultivation,

& had

sketch

books

with

them,

&

The took

d r a w i n g s of f a v o r i t e spots. T h e r e w a s also on b o a r d a M r . B o w e n & his sister, c h i l d r e n of C h . J . B o w e n of Q u e b e c , f a i r a v e r a g e y o u n g

people.

T h i s w a s m y w e d d i n g - d a y , & I o b s e r v e d it, as w e l l as I could. AUG. 26TH.

A f t e r breakfast, w e n t b y

a p p o i n t m e n t to call on t h e

Gr.

V i c a r . 2 4 F o u n d t h e r e a " g l o r i o u s c o m p a n y of A b o t t e s " , in f u l l a r r a y , in the H a l l of the E p i s . P a l a c e , a P a p a l N u n c i o , A r c h b . H u g h e s of N . Y o r k , t h e A r c h b . of Q u e b e c , 2 5 & a l a r g e collection of the eccl. dignitaries. I

was

21

Alexander Dalton Thellusson (whose name Dana spelled "Thelluson") received his commission in 1849. B y 1 8 5 8 he was to become a lieutenant colonel and commander of the regiment, with which he saw action in India. He retired from the service by selling his commission in i860. T h e celebrated Thellusson will involved a legacy of from six to eight hundred thousand pounds which was left in trust by Peter Thellusson in 1 7 9 7 to be divided among the eldest male lineal descendants of his three sons. T h e will was settled in 1 8 5 9 and amountd to a modest fortune only, having been seriously depleted through bad investment and heavy legal fees. If handled properly, however, it could have amounted to as much as one hundred forty million pounds by 1 8 5 9 , a possibility which so distressed the treasury that thereafter such legacy arrangements were prevented by law. The estate was divided between Frederich W . B. Thellusson ( L o r d Randlesham) and Charles S. A. Thellusson. Dana's Captain Thellusson must have been a younger brother of one of these. 22 William D r u r y - L o w e ( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 7 7 ) was aide to James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 6 8 ) , who was to command the Light Cavalry Brigade in the Crimea and lead it in the famous charge. 23 O n September 1 2 , 1840, L o r d Cardigan fought a duel with one Harvey G. P. Tuckett (whose name Dana spelled without the final " t " ) over a newspaper article which Tuckett had written in criticism of Cardigan's conduct as a military officer. Tuckett was wounded in the exchange of shots, and Cardigan came under severe public censure. F a c e d with prosecution, he elected to be tried by the House of Lords, and in the one-day trial that ensued Cardigan was released because of a technical error of procedure on the part of the prosecution. D r u r y - L o w e may have been defending the action of the court, for the reaction in America was that Cardigan had been shielded from deserved punishment. 24 A b b e L . J . Casault was the first rector of the University of L a v a l when it was established in 1 8 5 3 . 25 T h e Nuncio was Cajetan Bedini ( 1 8 0 6 - 1 8 6 4 ) , distinguished Papal diplomat. In June 1 8 5 3 he paid a courtesy call upon newly elected Franklin Pierce, and in so doing ignited widespread anti-Catholic American rioting among the powerful nativist factions. The cities of N e w York, Pittsburgh, Louisville and, especially Cincinnati, were hard hit by the riots. H e left the United States in January 1 8 5 4 under elaborate security precautions. H e was later elevated to the office of Cardinal.

I §53

Constitutional Convention

585

presented in due form, & reed, with marked attention & respect, chiefly, I presume, because Archb. Hughes knew my sister & Mrs. Ripley, 26 & they all supposed me to be a young man worth impressing favorably. The Nuncio was a man of easy, elegant manners, a man of the world, wore a scarlet robe, purple stockings, cap, buckled shoes, &c., & a belt with two superb gold tassels. The dress of the two Archb. was the same, except the tassels, as far as I observed. I took early leave, making a new appointment with the Gr. Vic. for tomorrow. At 1 P. M. left on a walk for Montmorenci Falls. Enjoyed it highly, tho' all the little dogs barked at me. I like particularly the neat Fr. cottages & farms. The people seem simple, clean, & happy, & their agriculture is neat, if not in the latest fashion. Reached the Falls at 4 o'ek., & wandered up the stream to the "Natural Steps", so called, a title wh. deceives travellers. For a V2 mile, at least, the river runs, sometimes in foaming rapids, & again in a scarcely perceptible motion, betw. high banks of rocks, wh. are so curiously formed, as to represent thin layers of dark stone, piled upon one another, each about 6 inches in thickness, & projecting at different lengths, so as to form, in most cases, steps; but the name "steps" gives a grossly inadeq. idea of the whole scene, wh. is one of the most beaut. I ever witnessed. I found there my two Engl, officers, sitting on a projecting ledge sketching, also one trout fisher. I lingered there until 5 o'ek., enjoying the romantic scene to the full — perhaps I never enjoyed a scene in nature more. Returning, I met a co. of gleaners in the fields, men, women & girls. The young girls waved their kerchiefs at me, for wh. I made then a bow. At the road met Capt. [A. T.] Hamilton ( 7 1 s t ) who invited me to dine with the mess tomorrow. Enjoyed equally my solitary walk home, with the noble unequalled views before me, the citadel & the shipping at its foot, the broad river, the all but unlimited expanse, & the mountains in the horison. Reached my hotel at 8 P. M. having walked about 20 miles since 1 o'clk. AUG. 27. SAT. At 9 o'clock, called upon M. Le Grand Vicar, M. Casault, & was by him most politely conducted to all the ecclesiastical objects of interest in the city. First, to the Seminary, 27 where I saw the Library, Museum, Phil. Apparatus, dormitories of the scholars, school rooms &c. It has an ancient, time-worn air. No doubt they do their best to enforce study & discipline, & to preserve the morals of the students. I can bear testimony to that. Each priest labors for no reward. He has 26 Dana refers to his sister Charlotte and his cousin Sophia Willard Dana Ripley, both of whom, as noted earlier, were converts to Roman Catholicism. 27 Seminaire de Quebec was founded in 1663 and still functions as a university.

586

The Middle Years

his plain food & plain clothing, & not allowed to have any private property, with no family or society to echo his fame, he must labor for love or duty. My only fear is that the discipline is too strict & formal, & that the boys are not eno' fitted for life. Yet, there is something to command one's respect & interest one's feelings, in this extraordinary system. They have about 30 students of theology, with a director & 2 professors — this is the "Grand Seminaire". The "Petit Seminaire", is for education of youth in classics & mathematics &c. This has a director & assistant, 15 professors, besides special teachers of music, drawing &c., over 200 boarders, & over 300 day scholars. It has just been created into a University, by charter fr. the Crown. We then visited the Seminary Chapel, where we saw the pictures, under more favorable circumstances. They are good & quite interesting. Next we visited the Convent of St. Ursula, devoted to the education of girls. They give a superior education, & girls of the best families go there. If I recollect right, they have about 100 boarders, & as many more day-scholars. By especial favor of the Gr. Vicar, I was introduced into the Chapel of the Lady Superior, & had a conversation, thro' a wide, large grating, with a company of about six nuns, who were detailed for the purpose, being such as spoke English. They were all old, or looked so in their unbecoming dresses. They seemed in good health & happy, & were not unacquainted with the outer world, as one who came fr. Boston inquired particularly about Father Shaw's (Coolidge Shaw's) family, & they all knew of the Parkman murder, & of spirit rappings, &c.28 The interview lasted 10 minutes or so. Thence we went into the various school rooms, & the Chapel. The Chapel is beautiful, ancient, & extremely interesting. The building is over 200 years old (either this or the Hotel Dieu, I forget wh.). Next we went to the Hotel Dieu.29 Here again I was presented in due form to the Lady Superior & a small corps of nuns, & with them, visited the Chapel, & the various wards of the Hospital. It is a hospital for cure. The nuns are nurses, but it is visited at certain hours by physicians & surgeons. The number of nuns is 45, all employed in care of the sick. They have a fine garden attached. 28 Spirit rappings, psychic phenomena, were the rage in Boston at the time. Joseph Coolidge Shaw ( 1 8 2 1 - 1 8 5 1 ) , Harvard, 1840, was converted to Roman Catholicism in the years immediately after college and was ordained a priest in Rome in 1 8 4 7 . He entered a Jesuit novitiate in Maryland in 1 8 5 0 and died there the following year. He was a friend of the Dana family. ^ T h e Hotel Dieu, one of the largest hospitals in the city, was founded in 1 6 3 9 by the Duchess of Aiguillon.

I8$3

Constitutional Convention

587

From the Hotel Dieu, we drove to the Gen. Hospital, devoted to the incurables, also under charge of the nuns of the order of the Hotel Dieu. Attached to this is a school, where they give education to from 100 or more poor girls, gratis, & have a number of boarders. Their education is of the plainer sort, intended to fit them for humbler conditions in life. Here, too, I was presented to the Superior, & to a small co. of nuns, who accompanied us thro' the wards & school rooms. The school is no part of the regular duty of the Hospitalières, & is undertaken fr. necessity. The great school for girls, numbering some 4 or 500, is under charge of the sisters of the Congregation. Here they give a plain education, intended for a common condition in life. The school is full, & the corps of nuns very busy with their duties. It was vacation here as every where else, & I went thro' all the rooms, wh. were neatness itself. The nuns accompanied us, & gave us all the necessary information. This was an interesting visit. Some of the nuns were young, & all seemed in good health. They are not cloistered, as are those of St. Ursula & Hotel Dieu, but go to the different parishes & keep their schools, returning to the Convent for their quarterly "retreat". Lastly we visited the new est[ablishmen]t of the sisters of Charity, who have just begun an institution, in a house not quite completed. Here I saw a collection of about 40 orphans, girls, between 4 & 12 years of age. Poor things! It brot tears into my eyes. I thank God my heart is not yet so much hardened in the world as to have no spot soft eno' for emotion. One little child about 4 years old, just about as old as Teddy, 30 had fallen & hurt her head, & was crying. The nuns had given her some sugar-plums to console her, & her little sister came out of the class & stood by her, with her hand in her's. Poor things! Stand by each other, while you may, for there is no one on earth to stand by you. You have no father, no mother, no brother or sister, no "grove of your own kindred" to shelter, & even you must be separated soon, to go your own ways in this hard world! There was something in the two orphan girls that moved me more than all the sickness, incurable disease, or idiocy I had seen to-day. God bless you all! Teachers & taught, fatherless & they that adopt you, sick & those that minister unto you! I cannot see my way to adopt all your faith, much in it revolts from me, but you are living lives of selfsacrifice, of devoted piety, with your hope in another world. Some of the things you believe in may have no existence, some of the aids you rely on may not support you, you may find them to have been delusions, 30

T e d d y is Dana's daughter Mary Rosamund (b. September 1, 1 8 4 8 ) , also called

"Rosy."

The Middle Years when you come into the light of Eternity, but your conscientious devotion to duty, your prayers & your alms will have gone up as a memorial before God. Wrote to Charlotte a full letter, describing the relig. institutions of Quebec, knowing they would interest her. In speaking of those two orphan sisters, I got into a fit of tears. I have met with nothing for a long time that has affected me so much. Wrote to F. E. P[arker]. At 7 P. M. made my appearance at the Citadel, to dine with the officers of the 71st, by invitation of Capt. [A. T.] Hamilton. The company consisted of Lt. Col. Stack, the commander of the battalion, Captains Hope & Hamilton, Lieuts. Campbell, Segrave, Rich, 3 others whose names I did not get, the Adjt., a plain man who had arisen fr. the ranks, & Ensigns Lambton & Harbord, & one other.31 The mess was not full, as there were several absent on leave, & one or two are married & live out. Moreover, this is only one battalion,32 the other being in the Mediterranian. The officers were all dressed in scarlet jackets, plaid pants, white vests, & black cravats. Most of them were uncommonly tall men, & their jackets made them look taller. One was 6 f. 5. Their brilliant dress & great height made me feel strangely when I came to be introduced to them. They did not seem like men, but like great animals, got up for the service. Col. Stack is tall, straight & with a fine military bearing & voice. But the man who pleased me most of all was Capt. Hope. He is very tall, & with a decidedly military bearing, but his countenance denotes more feeling & thought than the others, & he was agreeable in his conversation. He wore crape on his left arm for his father, Sir John Hope, of whom he is the 6th son. He is gr. nephew of Lord Hopeton, Wellington's general.33 Little Lambton is a mere schoolboy, pleasant & laughing, getting his ensignsy by interest, being cousin of Lady Elgin & nephew of the late Ld. Durham. Harbord, a tall handsome youth of about 18 or 20, is 31 Nathaniel Massy Stack, who received the commission of lieutenant colonel in 1 8 5 2 , that year became commanding officer of the regiment. William Hope (d. 1 8 6 7 ) distinguished himself in the India campaign and was designated a Companion of the Bath. Morris Robinson Campbell joined the 7 1 s t in 1 8 5 0 and was the regiment's paymaster. William Francis Segrave was commissioned a lieutenant in 1 8 4 7 . G. Whitworth Talbot Rich, commissioned in 1 8 4 7 , was a captain at this time. He distinguished himself in the Crimea, in India, and in later campaigns. Frederick William Lambton rose to the rank of colonel and took command of the regiment in 1880. Ralph Harbord became an ensign in 1 8 5 0 . 32 D a n a was visiting a reserve battalion of the 71st. On September 20, 1 8 5 3 , the battalion left for England and the following year was ordered to the Crimea. 33 S i r John Hope ( 1 7 8 1 - 1 8 5 3 ) had died on June 5th. Lord Hopeton was John Hope, 4th Earle of Hopeton ( 1 7 6 5 - 1 8 2 3 ) , who fought with distinction as second in seniority under Wellington in the Peninsular Army, 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 1 4 .

I §53

Constitutional Convention

589

brother of Ld. Suffield.34 The conversation was not interesting. The Col., & Capt. Hope & Hamilton, talked well eno', & the boys were polite, but there were two men, Segrave, & another that broke in upon everything in rather an unpleasant manner. The dinner was elegant, there were 5 waiters in large white cravats & black dress coats, the large dishes were silver, [then] all the plates, of beautiful China, had a crown & "71" upon them. The Reg. has its own plate. We had madeira, port & sherry —no champagne or light wines, wh. I was glad of. After dinner, coffee. Then they dropped off as they pleased, & most of them met in the anti-room, where they smoke. We rose at 9, & at 10 wine & brandy were brot into the anti-room, wh. I thot needless & declined. It seemed to me that they drank too much, especially for the example of the youngsters. With few exceptions, this garrison life must be dull & perilous both. But if they choose, as many do, to devote their great leisure to study & any art or science, they may do much for themselves, & usually make very agreeable men, their independence of position giving them dignity. On my way home, spent a Yi hour with Hamilton, whose room is hung with his own sketches & paintings, & who keeps a piano. He has been very polite to me. I cannot but record the pleasure I receive from the voices of educated Englishmen of good society. There is a strength & richness of tone, a modulation & intonation, to which we in N. England are strangers. A few, but none of the officers I have met, nor Ld. Elgin, have a stammer & hang-fire, wh. is partly trick & partly fashion, but where this is not, it is a pleasure to hear their voices. Our Southern voices are more musical, but less masculine, & our Northern voices are no more masculine, not so strong & not at all musical. I regretted very much what I afterwards heard from a civilian who dined at the mess, & whom I forgot to mention, a Fr. Canadian gentleman, in office under Govt., named, I think, Chambert, or something like it. He was very intimate with the officers, I noticed. He said that after I left he went into Harbord's room, & there found four girls. H. had sent only for one, but by some mistake four had come. They had some difficulty in pacifying the other three & getting them off. Several officers came into H's room, he said, & were introduced & talked with them, but no one required the services of the others. He said that the Col. came in, among others, wh. made some embarrassment. I asked M. Chambert if this was allowed in barracks, if the Col. did not prohibit it. He said — "Oh no! If the officers do it in their own rooms". Still, it must be in the power 34 E d w a r d Harbord, 3rd Baron Suffield ( 1 7 8 1 - 1 8 3 5 ) , was a philanthropist and prison reformer, very active in the House of Lords. He died in a riding accident.

The Middle Years

590

of the Col. to prevent it, & it w d . not b e allowed in some regiments, I hope. H e spoke highly of C a p t . H o p e , & said that he was the mentor, the moral guardian of the mess. AUG.

28.

SUNDAY.

This was Sunday, & it was, ordinarily, no doubt, m y

duty to stay at home & go to Church. B u t I had no books, no friends, the day w a s beautiful, a w h o l e day in t o w n insupportable, & I started off alone, on foot, immediately after breakfast, to w a l k to Lorette. T h e day was exquisite. T h e temperature

could not have b e e n altered for

the

better b y one degree. T h e r e is, too, a delight in a solitary country w a l k to a city-living, sedentary man, that f e w pleasures can equal. I

reached

Lorette at about 12% o'ck., & there got a peasant, a y o u n g Fr. C a n a d i a n , to drive m e to the Lake, 4 miles further. ( L o r e t t e is 9 miles fr. Q u e b e c , w h . must mean the suburbs, for the last mile post w a s at least 2 miles fr. m y hotel.) T h e L a k e (St. C h a r l e s ) is pretty enough, but its banks are not high nor picturesque, nor w e l l w o o d e d , neither are they richly cultivated. T h e scene w d . not repay a visit fr. Q u e b e c , tho' it is w e l l eno' to extend a trip to Lorette so far as to see it. I was p a d d l e d u p the L a k e in a canoe. Returning to Lorette, I spent a half hour or so at the rapids. T h e s e are very pretty & picturesque. T h e y well repay a visit fr. Q u e b e c . T h e y are in the midst of the village, the base is easily reached, b y a convenient path, the banks are high, rocky, d e e p l y green w i t h trees & grass, constantly d a m p w i t h spray, & the rapids

(there is no fall)

have

great

variety of form & motion. T h e village, too, is interesting, as a quiet settlement of the Fr. C a n adian's, & f o r the remnant of the H u r o n Indians w h o live there.

The

Indian m e n are chiefly hunters, & the w o m e n are e n g a g e d in making baskets & bead-work. T h e y are all Christians, & are a p e a c a b l e people, &, on the whole, temperate & moral. A little Huron boy, about 12 or 14 years old, w e n t w i t h us to the L a k e . I am delighted w i t h the manners of the F r e n c h Canadians of the middle & lower class, — the rural population. T h e r e is a native & indestructible politeness & grace about them w h . charms me. T h e voices & manner of the y o u n g m e n & boys are as soft as those of w o m e n , yet there is no syncophancy, no toadyism about them, w h . disgust one so in the l o w e r English w h o are not peculiarly independent, or specially rude.

Their

manner to one another, I rely upon chiefly, their deference to a g e & the parental relation, to religion & its ministers, & their courteous regard to little forms. M y driver saluted the people of the house at the lake, on arriving & leaving, & they m a d e mutual inquiries, sent mutual compliments to families, as the best breeding in the best society w d . dictate, &

1853

Constitutional Convention

591

with a grace of manner few could equal. I believe them to be a moral, religious, honest & kind people. As for their being behind the age in their agriculture, I can only say that their houses & grounds show more taste & neatness & are far more attractive than those of the same class of farmers in the small towns in N. England, & their barnyards are neater, all unsightly objects & all things distasteful being removed fr. view, grass, trees & vines cultivated, houses well painted or mortared, & nice clean curtains to the windows, & a general appearance of happiness & worth. I have scarcely seen a farm house in Canada that was not attractive, while on my whole journey fr. Robbinstown to Moose Head Lake, I scarcely saw one that was not forbidding & distasteful — Nor should I wish to risk much on the relative morals or piety of the two classes. Now, wh. is behind the age? Lunched on porter, bread & cheese & ham at a wretched, drinking hole, kept by an Englishman named Dunn, wh. must be a nusance in this place. I entered the Church, wh. is very large, massive, built of stone, & produces quite a grand impression in the interior. Walked back, reaching my hotel by 8V4 P. M. I must have walked a good deal over 20 miles. Being awake early, I heard the Convent bells ringing up the nuns at half past four o'clock. It had a dismal air, for a life-time. AUG. 2 9 . MONDAY. Met here Mr. H. B. Inches & Mr. Wm. Phillips (Jona. P.'s son) of Boston.35 Went with them in a carriage to Chaudière, having no time to walk, as I must leave in the boat this P. M. The Chaudière falls, we all agreed, taking in the falls only, are quite equal to the Montmorenci. Their height is less, but their width & volume is much greater. But their peculiar beauty is in the broken, wild, picturesque character of the rocks & ledges that line the edge of [the] fall, throwing the water into extraordinary varieties of courses, creating a confusion of directions, forms & quantities, before they leap, & in their final leaps, each varying fr. the other, like a distracted [confluence] of headlong currents, all coming fr. a different [direction], & each bound on a separate errand, & only confounded together in the stillness that follows their fatal plunge. The banks are high, well wooded & sufficiently picturesque. If you take in the entire scene above & below; the "Natural steps", & the view of the great river & Quebec, the Montmorency is the greater attraction, by far, but for the mere fall, I prefer the Chaudière. a5

Henderson

(1819-1873),

B.

Inches

Harvard,

(1812-1889)

traveling. His father, Jonathan Phillips Boston merchant.

w a s

a

Boston

physician.

William

Phillips

1 8 3 9 , suffered from poor health and spent most of his life ( 1 7 7 8 - 1 8 6 0 ) , was a wealthy and influential

592

The Middle Years

Oil the ride back, about a mile above the landing place at Point Levy is the noblest view of Quebec, I have seen yet. I think it exceeds that from the point of the Montmorenci. At least, it is so different as to give a new pleasure, wh. for the moment seemed greater. Dined & hurried to the boat, without time to call on Mr. Black, the Gr. Vicar, [A. T.] Hamilton, Stuart, or any one else. Left at 5 P. M. Noble sail up the river. Found on board, Mr. [L. T.] Drummond, who introduced me to a Baron of the Army, on the Staff as Asst. Qu. M [aster] Genl., an enthousiastic astronomer, & a Dr. Fremont of Quebec. AUG. 30. TUESDAY. Reached Montreal at 8 o'ck., too late for the Portland cars. Was able to pay very useful attentions to Miss Hedge of Cambridge, getting her baggage & tickets, seeing her to the hotel & r. r. station in Montreal, for she had no gentleman, being disappointed of her escort, & was quite helpless. Breakfasted at Donegana's, took a room, & employed the leisure until P. M. cars, in writing to Black, Casault, & Hamilton at Quebec, & Durkin here, & in writing up my journal to this moment. Wrote to S. & to Lilly. Left at 3.20 P. M. for Gorham. The most noticeable point in our journey was the Richelieu river, on the banks of wh. is the seignory & fine large brick mansion hs. of Major Campbell, late of the 71st. The country is rich & beautiful, lying between the river & a mountain sufficiently high & picturesque in outline. We were a good deal delayed & reached Sherbrooke at 10 P. M. instead of 7, & found wretched accomodations. What preposterous fancy or mistake led the man to name his tavern the "Magog House"? Still worse, near it stood a poor shanty whose ambitious sign bore "Magog Saloon". There was no Gog House to suggest the antithesis. Poor affair it was, too, for even half the number of passengers who sought night's lodgings frantically in the rain. There was talk of sleeping at the station & on chairs. [AUG.] 31. WED. Left early & reached Gorham at noon. Sent my baggage on in a wagon, & walked alone fr. Gorham station to Glen Hs., at the foot of Mt. Washington. Oh the luxury, after Quebec & Montreal, & cities, & r. roads & hotels, of a solitary, slow, silent walk in the primeval forest, with no sound but the moving branches, the song of birds, & the rushing of the mountain brook! It softens & delights the heart. I love not man the less, but nature more, for these our interviews. 38 Spent night at Glen Hs. In the ev. found in the parlor Mr. & Mrs. 36 Byron,

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto IV, stanza 178.

i §53

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Wm. R. Lawrence 37 of Boston & her sister, Chas. Scudder & wife, & we had some pleasant conversation, the chief part of wh. to be sure was my own narrative of my trip to the Saguenay, & my experiences in Quebec. SEP. 1. THURSDAY. Left, on foot, at about 8V2 A. M. for the Summit. Fortunately, was able to pursue my walk alone, except for abt. Vz h., while I was with a party of two young surveyors, who were walking up with their mother & two sisters. Their mother was a feeble lady of 56 years of age, subject to palpitation of the heart, yet by careful management & frequent rests, she reached the top in 7 hours, & after resting two hours there, walked down as far as their (surveyors) camp where she slept. This was a very good performance, certainly. Again I enjoyed my solitary walk, & was left to the uninterrupted effect of the mountain scenery. What "bald, awful peaks", this range presents! And how contemptibly the names of Mt. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Clay &c. &c. cut down the legitimate effects of nature, to the low standard of political celebrity! Is it too late to alter these names? How can the change be brot about? There is something mysterious in the solitary, unvisited, untrodden, sharp, cloud-piercing height of Mt. Jefferson. Not even the name can always belittle it. But the romance attached to Mt. Washington is gone! Two stone cabins called hotels, now stand on the summit, where are rooms & beds & good tables, comfortable fires, bars, & all the conveniences & vulgarities of county taverns & as you near the awful summit, & your eye takes in the sea of mountains, like broken billows of a gigantic Ocean, & the impressions of majestic nature are beginning to work within you, their legitimate God-appointed work, the rival scouts of the two "hotels", "Summit House, Sir"! "Tip-Top House, Sir"! break in upon your ear, & between them, with their Yankee flags flying, you must choose your lodging for the night, or your place for dinner. Nor can you be well alone on the summit, at all, for the men of the two houses, & the visitors whom their accomodations detain longer than any love of nature would, are about you ev. moment.

There was nothing particularly interesting in the scene, as it was clear & cloudless above, with a smoky dull look below, & no grand sweeping clouds or sharp distant views. The sun set in a thick fog. We spent the ev. round the fire of the store, a company of 8 or 10, being the men of the houses & an architect & contractor for the new hotel that is going up here next year, & the surveyors of the carriage road that is to cross the summit. 37 William Richard Lawrence ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 8 5 ) , eldest son of Amos A. Lawrence, was a prominent Boston physician and philanthropist. In 1 8 3 8 he married Susan C . Dana, of Marblehead, no evident relative of Richard. Her sister and the Scudders remain unidentified.

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As the race of daring mountaineers is to pass away, & the original race of the Titanic, earth-born Crawfords has already passed away, I will set down two anecdotes of the prowess of Rosebrook,38 the strong man of the present day. He bore on his back, strapped to it, over this rough foot path, from the camp to the Summit, a distance of miles, all ascent & of the steepest character, the great front door of the cabin, full sised, weighing 60 pounds, carrying a jug of oil in one hand & 12 lbs. of pork in the other. On another occasion he brot up on his back, for abt. the same distance (this was last year) an old woman of nearly 60 years of age who had undertaken to walk up by easy stages. The party was overtaken by a storm of hail & rain, the old lady became helpless & must have been left behind, or they all staid with her to perish together in the night, had not Rosebrook overtaken them in his journey up. He took her directly upon his back, she holding round his neck, he bringing her legs under his arms. She was large & heavy & a mass of wet clothing, & it hailed & rained & blew piteously. To add to the extraordinary character of the feat, he had been down the mountain & back once before that day, had descended again & ridden to Gorham & back to the Glen Hs., & was now on his return to the cabin. SEP. 2. FRIDAY. Rose early to see the sun-rise, but there was no show, as it was misty & dull. Started on my return at 10 o'ck., & reached the Glen Hs. at 1 o'clock. On my return, was not so fortunate, as I cd. not avoid a party that was walking down at the same time, & I cannot enjoy much of nature in company. This ev. met Mr. Fr. Cunningham, who said that he breakfasted at Milton!

SEP. 3. SAT. Sent my baggage on to Gibbs' by coach, & walked to N. Conway, 20 miles, stopping at the Crystal Falls, wh. are very pretty, what might have well been called "a perfect gem". The effect of the pure white water running over the deep green covered rocks is unique. Made a long stop at Trickey's, to rest, it being excessively hot, & reached Thompson's, N. Conway, at dark. Found there Walter Brackett, the artist, & a company of 9 artists, who had almost entire possession of the house, some being married. Among them were H. Wilde, Ordway, Champney & Gay. 39 3 8 The man Dana describes must have been a descendant of the almost legendary Eleazer Rosebrook (d. 1817), an early settler of the region. 3 9 Walter M. Brackett ( 1 8 2 3 - 1 9 1 9 ) , portrait and wildlife painter, was brother of Edward A. Brackett, noted earlier. Hamilton Gibbs Wilde (1827-1884), portrait, genre, and landscape painter of Boston, studied in Europe in 1846 and again about

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The first part of the walk fr. the Glen Hs. is beautiful & wild, the last 6 or 8 miles more tame & open, yet with good distant views of Kearsarge & the White Hills. On the whole, I am disappointed in N. Conway. It is a good centre, & as a spot fr. wh. you can get good distant views, it is perhaps the best I have seen, but you do not feel so immediately in the presence of the grand objects as in the Crawford Notch & at the Glen Hs. The Glen Hs. has the best view of the White Hills. Conway the best distant view of all the country. Crawford Notch has no very good view; but you are pent in by the parts & feel yourself so. Rode to Conway for letters. Saw for a few minutes, Wm. F. Otis & daughters & S. Eliot. On return, visited Echo Lake, Devil's Cave, & the Cathedral, the latter very striking, & the first very pretty indeed.

[sept.] 6. tuesd. It rained yesterday (Monday), so I took no expedition, but spent most of the day at Wm. F. Channing's. He has a farm hs. here & 2 acres of land, & lives pleasantly in a plain way. From his front door is an admirable view of the Interval, the Ledges, Moat M't., Mt. Washington & Kearsarge, forming a noble panorama. Mrs. John Dwight is visiting there, & is very entertaining & clever; also a Miss Lucia Peabody, who is a linguist & transcendental, but did not strike me as clever. I walked with them all to Artists' Hill, fr. wh. there is a good view of Chocorua, altogether the most picturesque outline of any mountain of this region. To-day I walked up Kearsarge with William. We took it leisurely, ate innumerable quantities of blue-berries on our way up & down, wh. here grow to a large sise & full flavored. The view fr. Kearsarge I pronounced to be, after seeing many if not quite all the high views, the best of all, as a scene. The sensations produced by being on the summit of Mt. W[ashingto]n are superior & quite different, but the view takes in fewer objects of interest & everything is dwarfed. Kearsarge gives the best view of Mt. Wn. & its two ranges, Adams, Jefferson & Madison on the E., & Monroe & Pleasant on the S. & W. They all lie fairly in sight at once, wh. is not the case fr. any other height. Then, on the left is Chocorua, the 1859. He exhibited in some of the country's leading galleries. Alfred T. Ordway ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 9 7 ) , Boston portrait painter, exhibited regularly at the Boston Athenaeum between 1 8 5 5 and 1864. Benjamin Champney ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 9 0 7 ) , well-known genre painter of the day, made a reputation in Europe with landscapes, panoramas, and portraits, returning to N e w England in the 1850's to work and exhibit. Winckworth Allan Gay ( 1 8 2 1 - 1 9 1 0 ) , pupil of Robert W . Weir in America and Constant Troyon in France, returned to Boston in 1 8 5 0 after extensive European travel, and became extremely popular. He was among the first Americans to work in the then new "naturalist" style of landscape painting.

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wildest outline of them all, the Ossipee lake & Mts., Pleasant Mt. & several Mts. & Lakes in Maine, (Lowell's Pond among others), & directly before you the Interval of the Saco & the high hills beyond it. The air was glorious, not a point too high or too low, there was an abundance of moving clouds, & a constant change from strong light to deep shadow over the mts. & vallies. It was a glorious scene, & towards sun-down, I left it with reluctance. (Here, at Conway, two ladies unattended; drew some attention to themselves, & were subjects of discussion. They called themselves Mrs. DeGraux & Mrs. Langdon, & seemed to know Mr. & Mrs. [George] Ripley well. On this acct., I treated them with politeness, yet of rather a hesitating character, I confess. They spoke imperfect grammar & had vulgarisms). I must qualify what I have said abt. being disappointed in N. Conway. I was disappointed because it is an open, cultivated country, while I had come fr. & expected to find one of ravines & passes & overhanging mts. But taking into view the variety & combination of objects, it is a place of great beauty. The Saco here makes an "Interval", of abt. 8 miles in length & 1 or 1% in width, level, rich, & well dotted with large trees, like the favored spots on the Connecticut. Just behind this Interval, forming a constant back ground to the picture, are the "Ledges", two large rough precipitous rocks, & the long high range of Moat Mt. On the right this valley opens & discloses Mt. Washn. & its ranges, all plainly visible, & on the left it opens & discloses Chocorua (not visible, unfortunately, except from a few points), & the Mts. of Maine, while behind, & the constant presiding Deity, arises the sharp peak of Kearsarge. SEP. 7. WED. Left N. Conway at 6 o'ck., & walked (pack on back, as usual) to Davis', (Old Man Crawford's), wh. I reached at 3 P. M., stopping at Bartlett to breakfast, & taking a long rest of several hours by the road-side, under a grove of trees, on acct. of the extreme heat. A refreshing breese sprang up, & I took up my march. The country increased in interest as I drew in to the Mts. again. When abt. 5 miles below Davis', it began to rain & rained steadily but not violently until I got in. As I ascended a hill, the familiar old view of the house, the Mt. in the rear, the high bluif in front, Nancy's Brook & the Saw Mill came upon me like the sight of a friend in need. This is no place to look from, but what a charm it has to look at! Mrs. Davis is as kind, active & as full of mother wit & repartee as ever, & her two daughters are grown up quite comely. One is pretty & seems inclined to read & be dressed & sit in the parlor. The other is comely & rather pretty & a help mete in the work. It was for my interest to go on to Gibb's, that night, but I cd. not help staying over night at this nice, quiet homelike place.

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SEP. 8. TH. After a comfortable breakfast, shouldered my pack & walked up the Notch, stopping at the Willey Hs. After all, there is no place so wild, so picturesque, so like a deep fearful mountain gorge, where the elements have done & may yet do terrific work, as this Old Notch. It struck me with more force than ever, & I made it two visits in the few hours I was at Gibb's. I also walked up Willard Mt., & the cascades. Willard Mt. gives a new view of the Notch, or rather, I mean, of the whole gorge or valley of the Willey Hs. It shows it to be like the inside of the hold of a ship, the road being the keelson, & the mountains the sides, & all nearly as uniform. At the Notch proper, this breaks into a tortuous and rugged defile. SEP. 9. FRIDAY. Left this morning for home, via Littleton, in an open wagon. At L. met the Otis party & rode with them, in cars, as far as White River Junction, where they branched off to Burlington, & I went on to Brattleboro. (At Gibb's I met & became acquainted with Sidney Webster, the President's Private Sec.,40 a pleasant young man of some five & twenty). Finding riding all day in the cars rather disagreeable after my mountain experiences, I got out at Dummerston, sent my baggage on & walked to Br[attleboro] with my pack & staff. Reached there in the quiet of the ev., & God be praised, found Sarah & the children well. After an hour or so with S., I walked up with her to see the children. They were in bed, but awake, & were delighted to see me, especially the boy (2% yrs. old), who clung to me. So ends my tour. I am in fine physical condition, strong, active & conscious of perfect health, in all respects except my head (39 years old!). I have suffered occasionally from fullness of the head, like those turns I had soon after my case at Plymouth, always at night, either on going to bed, or, more usually, waking up with them.41 Except that I feel the want of full sleep, they do not effect me much the next day. I have had 3 of these, & all while at the Hills, — none in Canada. But for this drawback, my pleasure wd. have been perfect. It was great as it was, & seldom interrupted. My own impression is that I had a partial congestion in May, & have not fully recovered, the Convention giving me no time for recruiting or rest. SEP. 14. WED. Remained at Brattleboro' until to-day, when I shall leave for Boston. Sarah & I walked up the Mountain again, with a party, & took many delightful walks in the woods & round the paths made by the « S i d n e y Webster ( 1 8 2 8 - 1 9 1 0 ) , Yale, 1848, Harvard Ll.B., 1850, was President Pierce's secretary, 1 8 5 3 - 1 8 5 7 , and from this position launched a successful political and legal career. His palatial home at Newport became a famous attraction. 41 D a n a suffered from recurrent sinusitis.

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Institution. S. walked 2 miles before breakfast, & usually about 5 more in the course of the day, & has gained very much in strength. The acquaintances I have made here [are] Dr. Nichols of Savannah, young Mr. Parkman of d[itt]o, Curtis, son of C[hief] Jus. C. of La., Walter Rutherford & lady of N. Y., young Barclay, son of Mrs. Sumner, Miss Kate Wilde, & the Stimson-Cook family of Boston, Lodge of d[itt]o, Danne & son of Germany, Miss Ellen Parsons of Boston, Com. Jarvis U. S. N., lady & da., Miss Abby Clark of H[artfor]d, Miss Seabrook & br. of Edisto, S. C., Mr. Oliver of Middletown,42 &c. Yesterday had a long interview with Hon. Wm. Czar Bradley, 43 an intelligent, entertaining old gentleman, who has been much in public life, & has many anecdotes of the public men of the last 40 years. He says that the correspondence betw. Webster & Chamberlain of Charlestown N. H., (I think is the place) will show W. to have been an ultra man at the time of the Hartford Convention; but he doubts if it will be published.44 This corresponds with what my father says Gov. [Christopher] Gore told him. SEP. 15. T H [ U R S . ] Returned to Boston yesterday. Unlocked the deserted house (43 Chesnut st.) at night, in a heavy cold rain, with no very cheerful feelings, especially as my head was weak & I cd. not employ myself in reading or writing. This afternoon went to the sea shore. Found my father & all well. Little Sally & Charlotte in fine health & spirits, much improved by their visit. Mr. [F. E.] Parker has gone on a horse-back tour, with [S. K.] Lothrop, to Conn. & Berkshire. Sat. 17th went to shore again & staid until Monday. Monday brot up Sally & Charlotte, to take them to Conn, to their school. Left at 4 P. M. 42 M o s t of the people in this catalogue remain unidentified. George Sumner's brother Albert ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 5 6 ) married the widow of a Thomas Barclay, and the "young Barclay" here was her son. Both she and her husband were to perish in an accident at sea on November 3 , 1 8 5 6 . Commander Jarvis was probably Joseph R. Jarvis, b o m in Massachusetts, who entered the N a v y in 1 8 2 0 and was at this time commander of the Portsmouth N a v y Yard. A b b y Clark (b. 1 8 3 2 ) , a friend of Dana's wife, married James M. Beach M c N a r y of Hartford the following October. 43 William Czar Bradley ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 6 7 ) , a Free Soil man, had been a leader of the Jacksonian Democrats in Vermont and served in the U. S. House, 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 1 5 and 1823-1827. 44

N o correspondence between Webster and John Curtis Chamberlain ( 1 7 7 2 - 1 8 3 4 ) has been published. Chamberlain served in Congress as a Federalist from N e w Hampshire, 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 1 1 . Webster's post-1850 critics argued that his politically moderate position in 1 8 5 0 was inconsistent with his earlier position regarding slavery and the South. An "ultra" was one whose attitude toward slavery was uncompromisingly hostile.

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reached Hartford at 9, where they spent the night at the hotel, & the next morning I took them over, in a carriage, to Farmington. They were in good spirits to the last, & did not shed a tear until I came to leave them, when they broke down, but not so badly as at the first parting. At H-d., found Lilly, with her gr. mother & Aunt, waiting at the Station. After an interview of an hour or so, took cars & reached Boston at 5 P. M. & thence to Aunt M.'s, at Cambridge, for the night. The next day took Lilly to Manchester. In this journey I have enjoyed the company of my little girls extremely, & they are becoming more & more companions for me. SEP. 26. MONDAY. Sumner went down to Manchester & passed Sunday. W e rode & walked & talked & had a pleasant time. He was much enjoyed by the family. [SEPT.] 27. TUESD. Spent the ev. at Aunt M.'s with Mrs. Robt. Sedgwick & Cousin Harriet, walked up with them, & then into town. Mrs. S. is bright, full of life & as charming as ever. SEP. 29. TH[URS.] Went to Quincy & spent the night with Mr. [C. F.] Adams, at the old Mansion Hs. The parlor has been restored. It was all solid mahogany, from the floor to the ceiling, & the beams of the ceiling mahogany, but had been strangely painted over white, & so continued for generations. Mr. Adams has just had it cleaned, restored & varnished. The mahogany is as thick as a door. Sat up until midnight, talking politics with Mr. A. He is extremely hostile to [Henry] Wilson. He says he believes him a mere demagogue, untrue, flexible, needy & ambitious, & that he cannot, in any way, make himself responsible for his election or adminstrn., & should not vote for him. He is also in doubt how he shall vote on the Constitution. He dislikes much of it & its parentage, thinks it a job &c., but fears as bad or worse results if this is rejected. I seldom dream wit, but during my Canada journey I, one night, dreamed that Wendell Phillips, C. G. Loring & others gave an Abolition party, at which blacks & whites were mixed together; that there was one fellow there who was disposed to make fun of the whole affair, & took up a saucer of black currant jelly & asked "Whose ice-cream is this?"

ocr. 3. Sat. afternoon I took my cousin Kate Sedgwick down to Manchester, where she spent Sunday with us, & returned with me to-day. She is large & striking in her appearance, singular, very clever & full of dramatic power, with a remarkably deep clear voice, with rather a [Fanny] Kemble intonation.

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The Middle Years

This ev. I spent at Mrs. [E. T.] Channing's, with Mrs. Robt. Sedgwick, who was very agreeable, reading copies of verses her daughters had written for the Post Office at the Fair, very well done, too. [OCT.] 4. TUESD. Spent this ev. at the Wheatons. Gave them the full narrative of my visit to Canada, wh. interested them much, from its semi-European character.

[ocr.] 5. WED. Went to a levee at Gorden s, given to the Nuncio, whom I met at Quebec, Archb. [C.] Bedini. B[ishop] Fitzpatrick was present, & a fair array of Boston notables. B. T. Reed (Pres. E[astern] R. Road) was presented, while I was standing by, & not knowing what else to say, said "Is your family here, Sir?" The Nuncio looked surprised, & said "What, Sir?" "Your family", said Reed, "Your wife". His Exy. shook his head & raised his hands, & I said to Reed "His Exc. is an Ecclesiastic". Reed saw his blunder but was too confused to retrieve it, & backed out of the circle in confusion. Talked with His Exc., Bishop F., Prof. [E. B.] Horsford, Com. Downes &c.45 Had a pleasant talk with [Rufus] Choate about the Evangelical system of conscious new birth & its sequiturs, as compared with the discipline of Confession. ocr. 10.46 Took [Horatio] Woodman down to spend Sunday at Manchester. The deaths of Prof. [Andrews] Norton, Prof. [Simon] Greenleaf & Mrs. Dr. Webster,47 happening so close together in Cambridge, has made a sensation there. I wrote to Chas. [E.] Norton, on the occasion. The Bar meeting for Prof. Greenleaf, I got up alone. Induced Judge [Samuel S.] Wilde to preside, & Fletcher, [Sidney] Bartlett & [C. G.] Loring to speak, & I wrote the Resolutions.48 All entered willingly into it, & felt the 45

J o h n Downes ( 1 7 8 4 - 1 8 5 4 ) entered the N a v y in 1 8 0 2 and after a distinguished career retired in 1 8 5 2 . 46 W i t h the note "See Sept. 2 4 , " Dana excised the following lines for the October 1 0 entry: "Sumner went down & spent Sunday at my father's. He was very pleasant & delighted them all. W e rode over to Beverly & called on John G. King & C. G. Loring, & the Bensons." 47 J o h n W . Webster, noted earlier, was hanged for the murder of George Parkman on August 30, 1 8 5 0 . His wife was Harriet Fredrica Hickling, daughter of the American vice-consul at St. Michael, whom he married in 1 8 1 8 . A t her death the surviving daughters removed to the Island of Fayal. 48 Richard Fletcher ( 1 7 8 8 - 1 8 6 9 ) , a judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, 1 8 4 8 - 1 8 5 3 , had served in the U. S. Congress as a Whig, 1 8 3 7 - 1 8 3 9 . The other people mentioned here have been noted earlier.

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propriety of a demonstration. Mrs. Webster's daughters sailed for Fayal the day after her funeral. So ends this family, in their native land. [OCT.] 12. WED. Addressed my constitutents at Manchester, in favor of the new Constitution, & returning them my thanks for the election &c. [OCT.] 13. THURSD. Presented the Medal to John P. Hale, at the Tremont Temple, in behalf of the crew of the U. S. Ship Germantown, as a memorial of his services in procuring the abolition of flogging in the Navy. It was a very successful occasion.

OCT. 18. TU. Lectured at Medway. Spent night with Hon. Warren Lovering.49 Subject Ed. Burke. Mr. Lovering gave me an interesting account of the famous controversy between J. Q. Adams & Jona. Russell,80 with anecdotes of Elijah H. Mills, Judge Howe 51 & others. NOV. 6 . SUNDAY, EV. I am again established in my own home. After an absence of six months, to the very day, we all gathered about our fire, at tea, in the delightful dining-room. Sarah is much better for her stay at Brattleboro', & treatment at the Water Cure. Rosy & Dickey are grandly, in vigorous & robust health. Praise be to God, who hath preserved us in all our ways, & kept us from sickness & death, & brought us together in safety! May we not forget his benefits, but be governed by gratitude as well as sense of duty, in serving & obeying Him! I have spoken, in favor of the New Constitution, at Manchester, Boston, Chelsea, Charlestown & Cambridge, & am to speak at Salem, W. Cambridge & Concord. My speeches have met the kind of approbation I most desire. They are sought after in the doubtful & evenly balanced towns, as being the most candid & persuasive.

I have vamped up my lecture on Burke, & delivered it at Reading & Medway, & am to deliver it often this winter. My head is much better — very much. If I can have a winter of successful work in my office & in my study, with my delightful course of 49 Warren Lovering ( 1 7 9 8 - 1 8 7 6 ) , a Medway lawyer, served five terms between 1 8 2 6 and 1 8 4 7 in the state legislature. 50 Jonathan Russell ( 1 7 7 1 - 1 8 3 2 ) , distinguished diplomat since the time of President Madison, had been one of the dissenting commissioners at the Treaty of Ghent in 1 8 1 4 , a treaty John Q. Adams helped to write. In 1 8 2 2 Adams accused Russell of publishing a falsified copy of Adams' dissent from the treaty and countered with a publication of his own, designed to show that Russell was guilty of libel and forgery. T h e controversy may have hastened Russell's retirement from public life. 51

E l i j a h Hunt Mills ( 1 7 7 6 - 1 8 2 9 ) served in the U. S. House as a Federalist, 1 8 1 5 1 8 1 9 , and in the Senate, 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 2 7 , at which time he retired from public life. J u d g e Samuel H o w e ( 1 7 8 5 - 1 8 2 8 ) entered the practice of law in 1 8 0 7 , in 1 8 2 0 became the partner of Elijah Hunt Mills, and in 1 8 2 1 became judge of the Court of Common Pleas, a position he retained until his premature death.

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The Middle Years

study still open before me, with all my troubles, shall I not be perfectly happy? Nov. 20. SUNDAY. I have now been in my house for nearly three weeks. On Tu. Nov. ist, my wife & three younger children returned fr. Br[attleboro] safe & well, & in the ev. I joined them in our delightful house, at our own tea table. Since our reunion, I have been much engaged in political lectures, as well as in Lyceum lectures, evenings, & in law all day, so that I have not been very much at home. Yet, as I do not dare to engage in full night's work, when I am at home, I see a good deal of S. & the children. I have spoken, since the last entry in my journal, at Salem, W. Cambridge, Concord & N. Bedford. I left Boston at 4 P. M., reached N. B. at 6%, spoke 2V2 hours, left N. B. at 10 P. M. in an open chaise, in a heavy rain, & rode until 1 A. M., to meet the N. Y. train, lay on a sofa in the R. R. station until 5 A. M., took the cars, reached B. at 7V2, breakfasted at the Revere at 8, walked out to Cambridge, took a warm bath & went to bed just as people were going into Church, rose at 1 o'ck., dined, went to Church in the afternoon, & in the ev. Sumner took tea with us. So ends my campaign. The people, at the Election on Monday, Nov. 14th, rejected the new Constitution by a majority of 5000 votes. Three causes conspired to produce this result. The Irish vote was all thrown against it, under the lead of their priests & papers, on account of the clause respecting Sectarian Schools,52 & because it gave political power to the rural districts. The innovation on the Judiciary brought out Dr. Palfrey, C. F. Adams & Mr. [Samuel] Hoar against it, who lead off a large number of moderate Free Soilers & of men not partisans; & the interference of the Executive, through Gen. Cushing's letter,53 against the coalition, frightened away or cooled down many of the democrats. On the whole, I do not find it easy to determine whether I am most pleased or disappointed with the result. I cannot be too thankful for the preservation of the Judiciary. If the Whigs act in good faith, & with common discretion, & give us the reforms for wh. the Convention was called, through the Legislature, the question of Constitutional reform can be put at rest for 20 years, & the Judiciary be 5 2 The

proposed constitution failed to supply sectarian schools with state aid. Cushing (1800-1879) served as a Whig in the U. S. House, 1835-1843, accepted the post of U. S. Commissioner in 1844, in which capacity he concluded an important treaty (noted later). As Attorney General under Franklin Pierce he became the spokesman for "young America" and "manifest destiny," and vainly labored for a compromise in the days just prior to the Civil War. Dana has specific reference to Cushing's public statement, a few weeks earlier, denouncing a coalition between the Democrats and the Free Soilers. 5 3 Caleb

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saved. If they do not, & a storm is raised, there will not be a stick left standing. Yesterday, Sarah & I went over to Milton to see Ida. We found her better, much relieved, but they have little or no hope of her recovery.64 Sumner is much hurt, & with reason, it seems to me, at the manner in wh. Adams spoke of him in his speech. It was unaccountable. I hope to be able to set that matter right. 27. SUNDAY. This week has been one of little incident. I had an interview with Mr. Adams, in wh. I told how I had been impressed by what he said, [and] of [what] Sumner himself felt. This resulted in Mr. A. writing S. a letter, wh. S. answered, in a call from A., & our being invited to dine there tomorrow with Dr. Palfrey, a sort of peace-oifering.58 Tu. night I delivered my Burke lecture at N. Bedford. As Mrs. [James] Arnold was ill, I spent the night with my old classmate, Joe Ricketson, who has a nice house & a nice wife, & spent an hour or so, after the lecture, at Mrs. A.'s. Thursday was Thanksgiving. Father, Aunts three, Misses Smith & Bagley, & Charlotte dined with us. Friday ev. took Sumner to see Uncle Efdmund]. He did not talk as much as I wished him to about his visit to England 50 years ago, upon wh. Sumner wished to hear him, & he could not be made to dwell much upon Pitt, Fox, Sheridan &c. though he gave some account of them. This being Advent Sunday, S. & I went into town, to Church. Bishop Southgate preached an anniversary sermon, full of interest & encouragement. I have been engaged for several days in the trial of the Crowninshield will case [2 Gray 524] at Salem. The circumstances rather than the amount at stake give the case its interest. The deceased, Edward, was the elder brother of Richd. Crowninshield the murderer of White, & the will gave all his property to the brother George, who was indicted as an accomplice in the murder, but acquitted [10 Pick. 497 (1830)]. Public opinion, however, always condemned him, & his violent & evil life ever since made him feared & disliked throughout the region. This brother Edward had been under guardianship, as a non-compus, since his father's death. The will was drawn by Geo. Crowninshield's lawyer, kept a secret from the NOV.

54

Ida Russell, noted earlier, died February 20, 1855. Charles Francis Adams had attacked the new constitution in a speech at Quincy and had included remarks critical of Charles Sumner (who was supporting the constitution), saying that expediency and "the iron rod of party" explained Sumner's position. Despite Dana's optimism, the coolness between Adams and Sumner continued well into the next year. See Duberman, Adams, p. 188; and Donald, Sumner, p. 248. r,5

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guardian & every one else, & in this lawyer's possession, & produced some time after the death. The deceased left three sisters, who needed the little property the law wd. have given them, while Geo. did not need it. The developments, at the trial, of the ill treatment of the poor man by this fierce brother, the kindness of his sisters to him, his evident ignorance that he had ever made a will, & his inability to comprehend the nature of legal papers or the disposition of property, George's acquiescence in E.'s being under guardianship all his life, & the piteous evidence of incapacity drawn from all sources, with the kind of tragic air thrown around the whole cause from the reviving of the associations with the murder when the present ptf. was on trial, in the same room, for his life, — these all made the case both a strong one for us, & an interesting one to the public. I made an argument of four hours. The verdict was in our favor. (I believe I have not mentioned that I appeared for the sisters). DEC. 13. TU. Left Salem at 8 A. M. for Augusta, on a short lecture tour. Passed through, N. Buryport, Portsmouth, Portland, Brunswick, Gardiner & Hallowell, & reached Augusta at 5% P. M. I lectured this ev. to a full & appreciating audience. After the lecture (Burke), was introduced to Ex. Ch. Just. Weston & his son, to Rev. Dr. Tappan & others. Mr. Morrill,58 a lawyer, is Prest. of the Lyceum & was quite civil to me. [DEC.] 14. WED. Looked in at the Sup. C't. A case was on trial between a R. R. & a St. boat Co. Reuel Williams57 & his son on one side, ex-senator [J. W.] Bradbury & Morrill on the other. A point made was that a R. R. Co. cd. not legally own stock in a st. boat, (x) because its Charter did not contemplate it, & (2) because foreigners cd. not own in vessels, while R. R. stock cd. be owned by foreigners. Pro forma ruling ag. the point. Judge's name was Rice, 58 rather an ordinary person. Called on Ch. J. Weston. He has a distinct recollection of my grand56 Nathan Weston ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 7 2 ) became a member of the Maine Supreme Court in 1 8 2 0 . He served as Chief Justice, 1 8 3 4 - 1 8 4 1 . His son Nathan ( 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 8 9 ) was a lawyer, served as paymaster of the U. S. Army 1 8 4 6 - 1 8 4 7 , was in the Maine legislature, 1 8 4 8 - 1 8 4 9 , and after 1 8 5 8 practiced law in Boston. Benjamin Tappan ( 1 7 8 8 1 8 6 3 ) , a Congregational minister, held a pastorate in Augusta, Maine, from 1 8 1 1 until his death. Lot Myrick Morrill ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 8 3 ) was a lawyer who was to serve as governor of Maine, 1 8 5 8 - 1 8 6 0 , as U. S. senator, 1 8 6 1 - 1 8 6 9 , and as Secretary of the Treasury in 1 8 7 6 . 67

Reuel Williams ( 1 7 8 3 - 1 8 6 2 ) had served in the U. S. Senate as a Democrat, 1 8 3 7 - 1 8 4 3 , and was a prominent railroad promoter. His son, Joseph Hartwell Williams ( 1 8 1 4 - 1 8 9 6 ) , Harvard, 1 8 3 4 , practiced law in Augusta, 1 8 3 7 - 1 8 6 2 . As president of the state senate he became acting governor in 1 8 5 7 . 68 Richard Drury Rice ( 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 8 2 ) served on the Maine Supreme Court, 1 8 5 2 1863.

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father.59 He said that I reminded him of him constantly, being of the same height, erect, with the same tendency to baldness, & something of his voice & manner. He said that although rather small of stature, he was a person of great dignity. He was known to be high spirited, & high tempered, but his ordinary manner was serene & self composed, with no irritability, only that there were times, especially if anything moved his contempt or indignation, when he showed his spirit, yet the general impression was that of self command. His whole style was that of a great magistrate, & he sustained the dignity of the office with no little of the aristocratic bearing. Judge W.'s son drove me about town, & around the beautiful grounds of the Arsenal. He was at the battle of Monterey. He tells me that he was conscious of no fear, but that the dreadful wounds, the mangling, groans, tortures of the wounded, created a sickening, loathing feeling, wh. he did not get over for weeks. He felt little excitement, but a solemnity, as in the presence of something dreadful, death & suffering in all its forms. The officers of the army were calm, resolute, & rather silent, feeling the solemnity as well as the momentousness of the scene, but the volunteer soldiers, especially the S. Western, the Tennessee & Mississippi volunteers, swore fearfully, yelled & cheered, & cried out to each other, to keep up their excitement, & fell upon the enemy like a herd of wild-cats. The Baltimore battalion disgraced itself, refusing to go into battle. The officers went in, but the soldiers backed out. An officer of the army fr. Baltimore, rode up to them & made an appeal to them, in behalf of their city as well as their country, & was so excited & mortified that he shed tears, but to no effect. Drove down to Hallowell & lectured. Introduced to Glazier & Stinchfield, two young lawyers.'10

[dec.] 15. th[urs.] Took open wagon at 8.30 A. M. & was driven express to Bangor, 70 miles, changed horses every 10 miles. Went through in 9 hours. At Bangor Hs. was called upon by Prest. of Lyceum, Mr. Dale, & Edw. Paulk, & Mr. G. W. Ladd, & driven in coach to lecture room, & thence to a party at the house of a Mr. Jewett, 61 of the firm of J. & March. 59

Francis Dana, noted in the Dana genealogy. William Belcher Glazier ( 1 8 2 7 - 1 8 7 0 ) , Harvard, 1 8 4 7 , began practicing law in 1850. He moved to Cincinnati in 1 8 5 5 , having first published a volume of verse which received considerable critical attention, and practiced law until his death. Anson G. Stinchfield practiced law in Hallowell, where he was also justice of the peace, 1 8 5 0 - 1 8 7 2 . 61 S . H. Dale, once a sailmaker, was a partner in a Bangor ship-chandlery firm, 1 8 4 8 - 1 8 5 9 , and mayor of the city in 1864. G. W . L a d d ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 9 2 ) , wealthy Bangor druggist, wholesaler, and lumberman, served in the U. S. House, 1 8 7 8 - 1 8 8 2 , as a Green-back Democrat. George Kimball Jewett ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 8 5 ) , lumber merchant and president of the North American Railroad, lived in Bangor until 1 8 7 6 . 60

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M y lecture went off admirably, never better, & I have never, in any place, as a lecturer, been treated with anything like the attentions I have reed, here. All the principal people came upon the stage & were introduced, & warmly complimented my performance. A t the levee, where Mr. & Mrs. Jewett, (Mrs. J. a ladylike woman, rather pretty) a great Mr. Walter Brown, Prest. of the Traders B'k., & his wife, Rev. Mr. Allen (Unit.) & Rev. Mr. Willian ( E p i s c . ) , Mr. Paulk, Judge Appleton, 62 &c. Except Mrs. J., there was not one woman who had grace either of figure, manner or voice; all hard, sensible, clever, uninteresting. [DEC.] 16. FR[IDAY]. Mr. Brown drove me about town. Bangor is thriving, has 16,000 inhab., & is rapidly increasing. But it is too far North. Things have a cheerless look. Boston is as far North as one ought to live. Called upon b y Prof. Pond, Prof. Smith ( D . Talcott), Rev. Mr. Allen, & Messers. Paulk, Jewett, Ladd, & Dale, & Judge Appleton. Theod. Metcalf is here, on business. 63 A t 3 P. M. took an express again, a buggy wagon, & drove to Waterville. [DEC.] 17. SAT.

L e f t Waterville at 4% A.

M. & reached Boston at

P. M. Some talk with W m . Dwight, 6 4 on the way. Found all well at home. Letter fr. Ned, to father. On my journey, read J. Q. Adams' Address on the Social Compact, & W m . M. Evarts' Oration on the same subject. 85 I must say that the young man has entirely the best of it. 62

Mrs. George K. Jewett was Maria Louise March ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 8 8 ) , daughter of Nathaniel B. and Sarah Drisko March. Walter Brown (1802-1884) became, without benefit of formal education, the leading citizen of Bangor. He was president of the Trader's Bank, member of the board of aldermen and the community council, merchant in groceries, lumber, coal, and grain, and a leader in the Congregational Church. In 1823 he married Sarah Quimley, of Sandwich, New Hampshire. Joseph H. Allen (1820-1898), a Unitarian clergyman, was author of several Latin manuals and a variety of works on Unitarianism. William Mortimer Willian was rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, 1853-1856. John Appleton (1804-1891) was associate justice (1852-1862), and then chief justice (1862-1883), of the Maine Supreme Court and author of The Rules of Evidence (1862). 63 The only persons not mentioned earlier are Pond and Smith. Enoch Pond ( 1 7 9 1 1882) was professor of systematic theology and history at Bangor Theological Seminary, where he was president for many years after 1856. D. Talcott Smith was a colleague of Pond's at the seminary. 6 *William Dwight (1805-1880), Harvard, 1825, was a Boston businessman. He served in the Massachusetts house in 1838, 1841, and 1848. 65 The Adams reference is probably "An Oration Delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1802." The Evarts oration, which had just been delivered at Yale, is discussed briefly in Chester L. Barrows, William M. Evarts: Lawyer, Diplomat, Statesman (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1 9 4 1 ) , pp. 39-40.

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DEC. 25. CHRISTMAS DAY. We all went into Church to-day. The Church was beautifully dressed, after a design by Snell, the architect. The bust of Dr. Croswell was placed in the Ch., for the first time. Yesterday father dined with us. I reed., for a present, Coleridge's Poems. Sarah had Bryant. Monday ev. I lectured at Melrose & was driven home. Wed. ev. I lectured at Concord, & spent the night with Judge [E. R.] Hoar. I had, among my auditors, Saml. Hoar, Judge Hoar, R. W. Emerson, Harewell &c. &c. I seldom spoke to a more satisfactory audience. After the address we had a little company at the Judge. Speaking of Frenchmen, Mr. [Brazillai] Frost told a story of old Federal times wh. amused us not a little. He said there was a company of clergymen together, all of whom, as was usually the case then, were Federalists. A Democrat came in, & rather maliciously told them of another great victory of Bonaparte's. They took it sorely to heart, but comforted themselves by saying, — "Well, the Lord reigns". "Yes", said Dr. —, the Nestor of the company, "the Lord reigns, that is one comfort. And there is another comfort greater still, & that is that He is not a Frenchman". Judge H. gave a good account of an argument of Choate's in a case where it was necessary to destroy the effect of the testimony of a respectable woman, without attacking her veracity, in wh. he described the power of the passions over the memory, & illustrated it by the story of Saul & the Witch of Endor,68 — "the passions say to the memory, 'What shall I call up?' Memory replies 'Call me up Samuel', and there appears a dim vision like the form of an old man, gradually it takes form, moves, speaks, & memory recognises it." Speaking of Webster's power of putting the point of an entire case in a sentence, he said that in the Oliver Smith will case, Webster characterised the heirs, who disputed the will, as men "who had confounded their rights with their expectations". And in the defense of Wyman,67 where it was necessary to satisfy the jury that Wyman was deceived as to the progress of his affairs, & had hopes of being able to meet his liabilities, Webster began by saying — "When we consider, Gentlemen, the changeable nature of property, & the unchangeable nature of debt". [C. V.?] Bemis told a story of a Governor of Illinois, who had never seen tide-water, & came to Baltimore, & walked about town for a day or two, & said, at his hotel at night, "Well, this is a strange country, two floods a day & nary a shower!" Thfurs.] ev. I lectured at Lawrence. I find the character of Burke interests the audiences extremely. I heard some common people at the 661 Samuel 2 8 : 8 - 1 4 . 67

See p. 202, n. 24.

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hotel saying that it was the best lecture they ever heard. DEC. 28. WED. This morning, at 6 o'clock, died my uncle, Francis Dana. 08 He had long been confined to his house & room, & his life was only the ending of a contest between decay & a constitution of uncommon vigor. His death was finally caused by a violent cold wh. affected his throat & prevented his breathing. His children were all about him. Mrs. [George] Ripley arrived the evening before his death. My sister was devoted to him, & he seemed deeply attached to her. The last 48 h. he could speak but little, & the last 24 could make nothing known. Everything has been done decently & in order. This afternoon I took the body out to Aunt Martha's, to rest until the burial. His son Frank is too ill to-day to leave his room, having been up with him all night, & my father is also ill. I am the only [man] of the blood, to act. His remains shall have all the honor due to the head of the family, the eldest son (except a son who died at 2 yrs. of age) of my gr. father. How sad is the termination of such a promise in early life! Bom to a high place in society, with great personal beauty, a commanding & graceful figure, beautiful voice, dignified manners, & above all the constitution of an orator, he ended, at the age of 76, boarded by his family in a small room in an ordinary house in Boston, his life or death of no consequence to any one in the mortal, but to the affections of his own flesh & blood, from many of whom he was estranged until the last moment. This was chiefly owing to a mistake in the selection of a profession. Fitted by nature, as all men united in declaring, for public life & the bar, being engaged when he left college, & the law then requiring five years' study, he was induced to give up the law for merchandise, in the hope of making a fortune in a few years, as many were then doing in the newly opened India & China trades. All his qualities fitted him for a public speaker, & all were unsuited to a successful merchant. A little before middle life, he failed, & in his failure involved my gr. father to a considerable extent. All his conduct was not considered right, in those stricter days, & the failure broke him down. The rest of his life was spent chiefly in mercantile adventures away from home, in Russia, Germany, India, & the Western part of the U. States. He was in Cambr. during the struggle between the Unitarians & Orthodox, & in the excited parish meetings, he was the admired & almost deified orator of the Unitarians. I can never forget the thrilling delight, mixed with regret, for my father was voting & acting against him, 68 Francis Dana, brother of Dana's father, had been primarily responsible for the depletion of the family fortune. He is noted earlier, and in the Dana genealogy.

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with wh. I listened, in that densely crowded hall, for hours, to his eloquence. To my boyish recollection, nothing I have heard since has equalled it. Nor am I alone. Many students, now in distinguished positions in life, have told me the same thing, & the townspeople hold to the tradition of its being unsurpassed. He was immediately sent to the Legislature, & would have gone directly up the ladder, to Congress, & I know not where he wd. have stopped, though at the age of 53, had it not been for a violent & irritable temper, spoiled by misfortune fr. one naturally amiable, wh. led him into quarrels, & an imperiousness wh. people wd. not endure. Peace to his ashes! "Christian said unto the man, 'What art thou?' The man answered 'I am what I was not once.'" (See a notice of him in the Cambridge Chronicle Jan. i4, 1854.) 69 DEC. 31. This day, the last of the year, & at the end of the deepest snow fall we have had since 1830, the funeral of my uncle took place. The snow was so deep that a hearse cd. not be used, & the coffin, covered with a long pall, was carried upon a double carriage on runners, drawn by two horses. As he was a Unitarian, & his children were divided in opinion, the service was left to Mr. Newell, the Unitarian clergyman, & was had at Mrs. Allston's. Frank Parker came out & kindly directed the ceremonies. The body was followed by nine carriages. His only son was too ill to come, wh. also kept his wife. My father was also confined to his bed. The procession was this (1) Uncle Edmund, with Cousin Sophia, Cousin Mary & Charlotte (2) Geo. Hasen Dana, & my three Aunts (3) Sarah & myself & children, & Mrs. E. T. Channing, ( 4 ) Sidney Willard & sisters (5) Jos. Willard & wife & Mrs. John Bartlett (6) Mr. Hastings & son (7) Mr. F. D. Stedman, Mrs. J. A. Willard & Miss Bagley ( 8 ) Mrs. Thomas Lee (Elisa Buckminster) & Mrs. Parker (9) Misses Gray & Curtis.70 At the tomb, I had his body placed over his father's, & his wife's next to him. 69 The quotation is from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress: "Then said Christian to the Man, What art thou? The Man answered, I am what I was not once" (2nd ed., London: Oxford University Press, 2960, p. 34). Dana's notice of his uncle's death was also published in the Boston Daily Advertiser of December 29, 1853. 70 Virtually all of the family named here, as well as most of the others, have been noted earlier or are in the Dana genealogy. Two identifiable names occur here for the first time: John Russell Bartlett ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 8 6 ) , probably a cousin of Dana's mother, was a New York City bookseller, 1836-1850. He was Secretary of State of Rhode Island, 1 8 5 5 - 1 8 7 2 , and author of a pioneer descriptive bibliography and a dictionary of Americanisms. Eliza Buckminster Lee ( 1 7 9 4 - 1 8 6 4 ) , who lived with her husband in Boston, published over nine volumes of prose sketches, fiction, popular history, biography, and translations, and was widely known.

PART

III

A Lawyer at Home and Abroad I854-I859

7. The Case of Anthony Burns 1854 1854 JAN. 8. I have been all this week from Tu. A. M. to Sat. noon, engaged in the defence of a man named David Dempster, charged with the murder of his wife. Choate conducted the case for the Govt. It was a very close case of circumstantial evidence. I had a great deal of trouble with the Chief Justice, 1 in course of the trial, but I do not think that he had the advantage of me in any instance. On the contrary, I was sev. times congratulated for the felicity of my replies to him. My argument was about 4V* hours, & Choate's nearly as long, & the charge was over two hours. I was very much congratulated & complimented on my argument. Choate said it was the best thing I ever did. A little collision with Choate led to an explanation, which showed us that we were strong friends, the best of friends. On this account, I do not regret it. The jury disagreed & were discharged at 7V2 P. M. of Sat. night. In this case a respectable girl, whom we could not impeach, swore that she saw the prisoner with a gown, skirt & chemise of his wife's, all covered with blood, soon after the disappearance, & that he told her it was his wife's blood. We could neither impeach nor contradict her, but by force of a close cross-examination, I made her story so grossly improbable, & obtained from her details wh. were so difficult to reconcile with the rest of the Government's case, that they were obliged to give up her testimony entirely. JAN. 15. SUNDAY. Nothing of importance has occurred to me, or in our circle this week. I delivered my Burke lecture at N. Cambridge, Lynn & Newburyport. At Lynn, staid at [J. B.] Alley's. At Newburyport, I was treated with more neglect & inhospitality than in any place I have visited. Not a soul spoke to me, except the Treasurer, & he was an unlucky awkward fellow. Father presented Choate with a beautifully bound volume of prints fr. Wilkie's paintings,2 — in token of his obligations to him for his professional services. 1

L e m u e l Shaw, noted earlier. Sir David Wilkie ( 1 7 8 5 - 1 8 4 1 ) , who began his career as a genre painter, became known as a painter of portraits and historical subjects in the Italian and Spanish traditions. 2

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A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

[ J A N . ] 28. SAT. EV. The latter part of last week & the early part of this, I spent at Worcester in trying the case of Ruggles & al. v. Sheldon. This has been one of my most pleasant country experiences. My clients, Ruggles 3 & Lucas, are lively, generous fellows, came down from Fitchburg with a junior counsel & a clerk, hired a parlor in the hotel, for consultation & seeing witnesses & all other purposes we pleased, & kept up the best of humor to the last, although there was much to irritate them, & the case was one in wh. character & feeling were involved. Nat Wood4 was on the other side. Nat. has great influence with Worcester juries, boards at the same tavern with them, smokes & talks with them, knows them all personally, & has a blunt, honest way wh. takes with them a good deal. My clients were young men, strangers in the county, connected with a rail road corp., while their opponent was an old resident, & such a man, with Nat. Wood for his counsel, it was commonly said, could not be beaten. The chief point, too, was one of general interest, being the rule for measuring lumber in the log, upon wh. we examined a great number of experts from all parts of the County.

We spent two days in preparation, & the trial lasted four days. Wood argued four hours, & I spoke nearly three hours. The jury were out nearly eight hours, & returned with the verdict for the ptfs. I have seldom, if ever, been so gratified with a result. I had gone, a young man from the city, into the country, to try a case ag. a most influential county lawyer, with every local disadvantage. I had also made an issue of conduct with Wood. I had taken him to task, seriously, for setting up false & trivial defences, for maltreating witnesses, trying to arouse prejudices ag. me & my clients, appealing to motives jurors should be ashamed to be supposed capable of being governed by, & for low insinuations ag[ainst] counsel, about missing papers &c. This was all needed, for he conducted the case abominably, but it was a hasardous issue, & success was essential to its complete justification. Judge [Charles] Allen called upon me & spent an hour very agreeably to me. He is in favor of making juries judges of the law, & of short terms for judges, & regrets the defeat of the Constitution. But he agreed with me that the defeat of Wilson was no injury to our party & cause.5 3 Otis T a f t Ruggles ( 1 8 2 9 - 1 8 7 7 ) was a Fitchburg railroad man who served a term in the state legislature. The identity of his partner and the nature of the lawsuit could not be determined. 4

Nathaniel W o o d ( i 7 9 7 ? - i 8 7 6 ) , Harvard, 1 8 2 1 , represented Fitchburg in the state legislature in 1840, 1 8 4 8 , 1 8 5 1 , and 1 8 5 4 , and was a fellow delegate with Dana at the 1 8 5 3 Constitutional Convention. 5 Henry Wilson, noted earlier, defected from the Free Soil party to join the American ( " K n o w - N o t h i n g " ) party in 1 8 5 4 . He returned to the fold in 1 8 5 5 and helped form

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The Case of Anthony Burns

61$

Called on Dwight Foster & lady. There is something very agreeable to me about Mrs. F. On Friday ev., [Jan.] 20th, there was a ball at Worcester, to wh. they invited the Court & bar. My [clients] went to Fitchburg & brought down their wives & cousins. I went in at 10 & staid a long time. Was introduced to a daughter of Judge Allen, a daughter of Gov. Washburn,6 a daughter of Elisha Fuller,7 & to the client ladies, one of whom, Mrs. [O. T.] Ruggles, is quite handsome. Wed. 18th, was the wedding of Miss Abby Wheaton.8 I could not attend, being at Worcester. The Russells came over, & Ida & Rose [Russell] & their mother spent several days with us, nearly all of wh. visit I lost. Sunday ev., called at Longfellow's, where were Tom Appleton, & Geo. W. Curtis (the Hawaji), 9 & had very pleasant hour. Curtis is quite clever in conversation, but Tom is the prince of rattlers. He is quick to astonishment, & has humor & thought & shrewd sense, behind a brilliant fence of light works. To-day (Sat. 28th) father dined with me. I walked nearly into town with Jas. [Russell] Lowell, whom I met accidentally, & turned to join. He was full of Moore's journal, & Haydon, 10 & had some of the best of the things in them, by heart. Jimmy is very clever, entertaining & good humored, & thoroughly independent, but he is rather a trifler, after all. His feelings cannot be deep. In a call on Uncle Edmund, he told me another anecdote of Washington, wh. he had fr. Grandfather. During the visit at Valley Forge, at the time when the cider was produced, a N. Eng. gentleman at the table told a story wh. took the fancy of Washington mightily. He lay back in his chair, completely overcome with laughter, & spread his handkerchief over his face. In a few moments, he withdrew his kerchief, & appeared the grave man again; but in half an hour afterwards, this the Republican party. The reference to the term of service for judges is to the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention recorded earlier. 6 Emory Washburn ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 7 7 ) , veteran of many years in the Massachusetts legislature, became governor in 1854. 7 Elisha Fuller ( 1 7 9 4 - 1 8 5 5 ) , Harvard, 1815, was a Worcester lawyer. 8 Abby Wheaton, noted earlier as the daughter of Henry Wheaton, married Charles Coffin Little. 9 Thomas Appleton and George William Curtis were noted earlier. Curtis wrote, among other things, The Hawadji in Syria (New York: Harpers, 1852). 10 Between 1853 a n d 1856 Longmans published the Memoirs, Journals and Correspondence of Thomas Moore ( 1 7 7 9 - 1 8 5 2 ) in six volumes. Haydon may be Benjamin Robert Haydon ( 1 7 8 6 - 1 8 4 6 ) , whose Lectures on Painting and Design, 2 vols. (London, 1844-1846) were well known.

6i6

A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

story suddenly came over him & he fell back in his chair again, fairly convulsed with laughter, & it was some time before he recovered his composure. This is to be remembered, because it is usually said [that] Washington never laughed. He also said that when he was in Virginia, in the Randolph family, he heard an anecdote of [John] Marshall's visit to Mt. Vernon. M. was an absent & rather negligent man. He was riding out to Mt. Vernon with a party of gentlemen, on horseback, in the fashion of that day, with saddle bags. When within a mile of the house, they alighted & opened their bags & made some change in their dress. Marshall, it seems, at the last tavern, had, in absence of mind, put over his horse's back, the pair of saddle-bags that happened to be nearest to him, & had thus exchanged his for those of a plain farmer going to market; & when the other gentlemen took fr. their bags, coats, vests & cravats, Marshall drew out two long squashes, a pumpkin & some ears of corn. This threw the whole company into a fit of laughter. Just at this moment, Washington drove up, & saluted them & inquired into the cause of the sport, & when they told him, in broken language, interruped with bursts of laughter, pointing to Marshall & his bags, Washington got off his horse & leaned up ag. him, hardly able to stand for laughter. FEB. i. Been engaged for two days in trying the case of Bailey v. Damon [3 Gray 92], in S. J. Ct. with Choate for my opponent. I spoke 1% hours, & Choate, who had the close, spoke 3% hours, wh. was a decided compliment to me or to my cause. I lost my case, wh. was a decided disappointment to me — the first I have had in the results of trials for a long time. Judge Merrick told Hubbard 11 that when I had closed my argument, there was not a chance for the other side, & said some very complimentary things about my management of the cause. The verdict in White v. Braintree, has been confirmed, under extraordinary circumstances. Of the six judges, two could not sit, owning land in Braintree, two were for sustaining the verdict, & two for setting it aside. It therefore stood. Of the two who sustained the ruling, one was the judge who tried the case, & the other did not hear the argument. But the verdict ought to stand, nevertheless. Argued the cases of Capt. Hotchkiss before Judge [Peleg] Sprague, & Marion v. Moody in C. C. PI. In the midst of the latter, Gov. Washburn npliny Merrick (1794-1867) was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1843 and 1851, and on the bench of the state Supreme Court, 1853-1864. William Joseph Hubbard is noted earlier.

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called on me to get me to go to Worcester & argue a case in wh. he had been counsel. I hurried up to Worcester, arriving there in the evening, & gave the whole evening to preparation & examination of witnesses, until midnight, & all the next day to the trial. The second night, I prepared my brief, & was ready to argue the case at a minute's notice. The next half day, we were on the trial, & our case came in so strong that the ptf. caved in, & we obtained a judgt. with costs. It was a case of considerable importance to the parties, as there were oaths ag. oaths, & my clients were among the very best people of Worcester County. FEB. 9. Returned Th. ev. & brot Gov. [G. S.] Boutwell out to spend the night with me. He was agreeable, & produced a favorable impression. He has never read any of Burke, & had a very false impression of his character & mind. He promises to read him. He has in view a possible movement in favor of Free Trade, in this county, & is evidently preparing himself for it. [ F E B . ] 11. Dined with Bayard Taylor, in company with my father, [Horatio] Woodman, [E. P.] Whipple & a Mr. Osborn of N. Y. Taylor is just from Japan, whither he accompanied the Naval expidition.12 Mr. Osborn has spent ten years in Manilla, where he has made a handsome fortune, & has just returned from a tour in Europe. He says that when he arrived in Salem, his native town, the man who drove him & his 10 or 12 trunks up to the house, had been the first scholar in the school when they were boys. The Nebraska question is now the great question before the Country. I wrote a short letter to the N. York Meeting, wh. was published. A Free Soil Convention is now called in Boston, But the tone of the North is so lowered on the Slave Question, that it cannot be brought back. The Whig party has lost its tone, the democrat party never had any, & the Free Soil Party has been lowered by the coalitions & managements of [Henry] Wilson & others, until it has lost or essentially impaired its power of doing good. The Committee of the F. S. Party, under the belittling influence of [F. W.] Bird & Wilson, issued a call for a Nebraska Convention, containing such allusions to the defeat of the late Constitution as to 12 Taylor, Woodman, and Whipple are noted earlier. William Henry Osborn ( 1 8 2 0 1 8 9 4 ) returned from the Pacific in December 1 8 5 3 , married the daughter of a wealthy New York merchant, Jonathan Sturgis, and went on to an active career as president of the Illinois Central Railroad, from which he retired in 1882. Taylor had been a passenger when, in July of 1 8 5 3 , a fleet of four U. S. war vessels "visited" Japan. The fleet was commanded by Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry and was designed to impress upon the Japanese, by a show of force, America's determination to establish a treaty relationship with the Emperor.

6i8

A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

exclude from it Dr. Palfrey & Mr. A d a m s . I f they accept it as an exclusion, I shall not attend, myself. Our Convention can do no good, & may do harm, but by attending it under such circumstances I shall be giving my sanction to the exclusion. [ F E B . ] 19. SUNDAY. The chief event, to me, of the past week is my correspondence with the Comm. of the Free Soil party, relative to the Convention at Faneuil Hall. I have a copy of my letter in my letter book. Friday, I went to Milton in the ev., with Lilly, took tea at the Russell's, lectured & spent the night there. Rode in with Ida, in the morning. Geo. Rivers had just died, & Geraldine will come home to live with her mother. They have added very much to the house, & improved it. Riding in, we had a plain talk about Abby Wheaton, & agreed that she was a forecasting self seeking woman, with worldly principles. 14 The chief event of the week has been the Anti-Nebraska 15 meeting, at Faneuil Hall, called under the auspices of the Whigs, & chiefly the Webster Whigs — the 1850 men. The true report is not to be found in the papers. All men agree that the audience were far ahead of the speakers. All attempts to get up applause for the measures & men of 1850 failed, & even Webster's great [name] fell dead, while every sentiment hostile to the Compromise Measures of 1850, & everything of the Free Soil character went off with rapturous applause. The first thing that brot down the house was [R. C.] Winthrop's saying that he opposed the measures of 1850. The venerable Mr. [Josiah] Quincy, the oldest member of Congress living, the oldest mayor of Boston, a Whig too, — was not invited. But he came, & was enthusiastically called out by the audience, & reed, with frantic applause. He spoke in his best manner, the thorough, independent, manly character shining out thro' ev. word. He told an anecdote of [John] Randolph. He sd. to R. "If you push these measures much farther, you will produce Union at the North". "Union at the North! 1 3 John

G. Palfrey and Charles Francis Adams had failed to support the constitution

which emerged from the 1853 convention, and were regarded as deserters from the party b y many Free Soil coalitionists. Dana, w h o shared doubts about the constitution, in

spite

of

having

been

one

of

its

framers, is here

identifying himself

with

the

conservative element of the Free Soil party. 14A

marginal note, not in Dana's hand, adds: " A n opinion much changed later in life."

15A

bill introducing the principle of popular sovereignty as a solution to the slavery

question

in the

Nebraska

territory

passed

the

House

of

Representatives,

but

was

prevented from being brought to a vote in the Senate. A Kansas-Nebraska bill, specifically repealing the restrictions of the extention of slavery set down b y the Missouri Compromise, was to pass through Congress successfully in M a y 1854. These violations of the earlier compromises, especially that of 1850, were regarded b y most hitherto conservative W h i g s as an unpardonable breach of trust on the part of the slave powers.

I8$4

The Case of Anthony Burns

6iq

Union at the North! We can count on your democrats as surely as on our own niggers". The Compromise men feel themselves sold. It comes hard to them to use the free soil arguments & vocabulary so soon, & to be a standing evidence of the truth of those who oppose them. M'CH. I. We had begun the Fed. st. Ch[urch] case; but there are to be no arguments, as Judge Bigelow only intends to make up a report for the full bench. Choate, J[ohn] C[lark] Adams & myself for the Relators, & [Sidney] Bartlett & Hillard for the respts. We have had here, as a witness, Dr. Forsyth of the Theol. Sem. at Newburgh, 16 a gentleman of intelligence, clearness of mind & excellent manners & disposition. He has made a very good impression here. Choate has been doing more work at the bar since last Oct., than any man at our bar ever did before in the same time. Indeed, I doubt if there are many men living who could have done so much, & all of the highest character. Did any ever know Choate to lose his temper? I never did, & have never found a person who did. MCH. 17. Dr. Fitzhugh & his daughter Bel came to Boston the day before yesterday on their way to N. Y. & Washington. They came out to Cambridge Thursday afternoon & dined & spent the night with us. I was engaged in Boston & cd. not dine with them. Sarah had Mr. & Mrs. John Hastings & Mrs. Hatch, from Medford, Aunt Betsy & Mrs. [E. T.] Channing, & the dinner went off very well. In the ev. we had Longfellow, Lane, [F. J.] Child, Mr. & Mrs. Little, Mr. & Mrs. Almon, the Browns, Miss Fay, [R. C.] Winthrop & others.17 It was a very pleasant evening. After the company left we sat up a half hour or so, & the next morning we were up early, breakfasted at 6%, & rode to Boston, where they took the 8 o'ck. train for N. York. Their visit was very pleasant to us, & we hope it was so to them. Dr. Fitzhugh is a noble man — true blood, generous, affectionate, simple, high-spirited, with all the keen sensibilities of a gentleman. Bel is charming, tall, well 16

George Tyler Bigelow ( 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 7 8 ) , Harvard, 1 8 2 9 , was chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. He had served several terms in the state legislature and was one of the most influential members of the Boston Bar. All of the other men named, excepting the unidentified Dr. Forsyth, have been noted earlier. The Federal Street Church case, with which Dana is to be much occupied, is discussed in detail later. 17 George Martin Lane ( 1 8 2 3 - 1 8 9 7 ) , Harvard, 1 8 4 6 , studied for a Ph.D. in Germany, 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 5 1 , receiving the degree from Gottingen in 1 8 5 1 . He was a professor of Latin at Harvard, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 9 1 . Charles Coffin Little ( 1 7 9 9 - 1 8 6 9 ) , publisher and financier, participated in the founding of Little, Brown and Company in 1 8 4 7 . His first wife died in 1 8 4 8 and he married A b b y Wheaton on January 18, 1 8 5 4 .

620

A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

formed, with a countenance full of candor, truth, feeling & brightness, & she says clever & pleasant things in the prettiest way possible. We were particularly pleased with her manners to her father, so kind & so respectful. I have been engaged all this week afternoons & evenings, before a Committee of the Legislature, as counsel for the remonstrants in Middlesex Co., ag. the formation of a new county. The new county is to consist of 23 towns, 18 fr. Worcester & 5 from Middlesex. The Co. Commissioners of Middlesex & agents appointed by 4 of the 5 towns, employ me. Gov. Boutwell is Chairman of the agents, & manages the case for them, excepting the duties of counsel. The employment is rather agreeable, but the rules of ev[idence] are so lax that a man would soon be ruined as a lawyer who should practice much before these Committees. His instincts would be perverted from the strait & narrow way of legal inquiry. M'CH. 26. The chief event, to me, of this week is my argument before the Committee on the division of Middlesex County. Among other points, I pressed the consideration of the attachments the people of the County had to its history, as the classic ground of America, the place of the battle-fields, of Lexington, Concord & Bunker-Hill. I quoted Everett's Oration at Concord, at the laying of the corner-stone of the Monument, 18 where he spoke of Middlesex as consecrated soil, soil consecrated to liberty, the classic ground of America, & I deprecated the tearing away these few small towns from all their interests & associations, to gratify the ambition of Fitchburg, & turning to Choate, who was to follow me, I reminded him of the hero of the epic poem, who, to deck the pride of his new-built city, sought to tear up by the roots, the sacred olive from the consecrated soil, when "Ater et alterius sequitur de cortice sanguis",19 and, like these petitioners, who, failing twice, had come down the third time, invoking the aid of the Gods (pointing to Choate), when he tried a third time, calling upon all his gods,. . . ."gemitus lachrymabilisimo, Auditur, tumulo . . ."20 and the voice cried "Parce pias scelerare manus. Non me tibi Troja Externum tulit." 21 My father, who does not favor classical quotations, said this was very happy & went off well. 1 8 "The First Battles of the Revolutionary War," delivered April 19, 1825. Works, I, 73-100. 1 9 "And from the other's bark there also flows black blood" (Aeneid, III, 33). 2 0 "There is heard a tearful groan from the bottom of the mound." Ibid., Ill, 39. 2 1 "Keep your pious hands from desecration. A son of Troy, no stranger I to thee." Ibid., Ill, 42.

i8$4

The Case of Anthony Bums

621

Boutwell was particularly gratified by my speech, & I believe the delegates from the towns were well satisfied. M'CH. 27. MONDAY. Choate having been confined to his house for several days, I called to see him. I found him lying on his sofa & in low spirits. He rallied, & we got into general conversation. It turned to the sea, & we spoke a good deal about seamen. Bom on the sea-coast of Essex, [Mass.,] a boy in the war of 1812-14, brought up amongst sailors & fishermen, & the stories & legends of our naval actions, privateers & the Dartmoor prison, he has almost been an enthousiast in our naval history & glories. I found him better informed than I was on the details of our naval actions, although I have, naturally enough, made them a study. He had seen, as a boy, from the Essex hills, the Shannon frigate in Ipswich Bay. He described beautifully the great frigate, lounging about the bay of a warm summer afternoon, & standing off to sea at night, proudly scorning the fleet of fishing boats about her. He had seen, too, the funeral of Ludlow & Lawrence, at Salem, when Geo. Crowninshield brought up their bodies from Halifax in a cartel, & Judge Story delivered the eulogy. 22 He said he never got over the effect upon his imagination of the procession of sailors & officers who had seen fight, who had been in action, & some of the great naval names, heading them.

He said he had talked with Morris & Hull about the action of the Constitution & the Guerriere. 23 He asked Hull if he felt certain of taking her, when he bore down. "By no means", said Hull: "Two-thirds of my men were foreigners, & more than half of them Britons. When the Guerriere ran up the British ensign & lay-to to receive us, I suffered a few moments of agony which no tongue can express. I expected to see the Englishmen all come aft & demand to be released from duty. I thought over what I 22 Augustus C. Ludlow, who entered the Navy as a midshipman in 1803, died of wounds received in action while serving on board the U.S.S. Chesapeake on June 1, 1803. He was buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and his body was taken in state to Salem, Massachusetts, in August 1813. Final burial was in New York. James Lawrence ( 1 7 8 1 - 1 8 1 3 ) had distinguished himself during the 1801-1805 Tripoli campaign. He was in command of the Chesapeake on June 1, 1813, and defied orders so as to engage H.M.S. Shannon, which was blockading Boston Harbor. The action lasted only fifteen minutes and cost Lawrence his ship and his life. He is supposed to have coined the order, "Don't give up the ship!" Along with Ludlow he was buried June 8 at Halifax, and his remains were transferred in state to Salem the following August. George Crowninshield ( 1 7 6 6 - 1 8 1 7 ) , pioneer designer of yachts, took charge of the L u d l o w Lawrence funeral ceremonies at Salem. 23 Charles Morris (1784-1856) was first lieutenant under Hull in the U.S.S. Constitution during the War of 1812. He went on to a conservatively successful career as a peacetime naval officer. Isaac Hull (1773-1843) commanded the Constitution, 1810-1812, successfully engaging H.M.S. Guerrière on August 19, 1812. After long sea service and command of several shore stations, he retired as commodore in 1841.

622

A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

should [do] — whether to shoot down the first man, — when the three cheers came up from below, & then all was right, & I had not a fear or doubt, from that moment". Morris told him that the written instructions from the Sec. of the Navy, Paul Hamilton,24 were not to fight without a moral certainty of victory. When they made out the strange sail to be a royal frigate, as they thought of equal sise, he & Hull conferred together aside, whether it was within the letter of their instructions to engage. They thot they never should know whether they could whip her until they tried, & put the instructions below. From the Constitution & Guerriere, we passed to other actions, & I was astonished by the accuracy of his knowledge & recollection. I thought it was the fleet that chased the Constitution into Marblehead. No, it was the Shannon & Tenedos, & he was mortified that he could not remember who commanded the Tenedos. It was the fleet that chased her when Hull & Morris got her off by kedging. I told him that the engagement between the Hornet & Peabock was in a heavy sea, & reef-topsail breese, guns half under, but he said it was in shoal water & calm weather. (I am not sure he is right about that). 25 As we parted, he expressed his gratification at my visit. He spoke of his health, & said "I have worked too hard this winter, harder than I ever did before". "You have worked harder than any man ever did before" said I. "I have [to] do it to drown sorrow", said he, "as some men take to drink or gaming". This is, no doubt, true. The insanity of his favorite daughter26 put [him] into such a state that he seemed to have no other alternative than incessant absorbing labor, or despair. M'CH. 31. The democratic party of Mass. has always been a low party. I can hardly account for its long continued debasement. Hardly one of its public men has been a clean, pure, honorable man. This is well tested in its judicial administration. [Levi] Woodbury had no moral 24

Paul Hamilton ( 1 7 6 2 - 1 8 1 6 ) , who had been governor of South Carolina, 1 8 0 4 1806, was Secretary of the Navy, 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 1 2 . His term of office was marked by a dispute with Congress, the result of which was congressional refusal to allocate funds to the Navy Department. 25 On February 24, 1 8 1 3 , in quiet weather, the U.S.S. Hornet captured and sank the British brig Peacock near Surinam. The other events in the conversation are confused: the Constitution did escape the British fleet by kedging, on July 1 7 , 1 8 1 2 , near Barnegat, but the main pursutr in the fleet was the Shannon. Standard authorities make no mention of the escape to Marblehead. 26 Probably Sarah Blake Choate ( 1 8 3 1 - 1 8 7 5 ) .

i8$4

The Case of Anthony Burns

623

sense, probably could not distinguish fraud except by an intellectual process. And here is [B. F.] Hallett, a good natured, pleasant, corpulent, loud voiced, oily man, but how little sense of honor! To-day I told him that Murphy, the 2d mate of the Young Brenda, by my advice, would retract his plea of "Not Guilty" & plead "Guilty" & go to the Court upon his sentence. "Oh", said he, "You had better go to the jury & take a verdict". "No", said I, "he is guilty & he knows it, & you can easily prove it, & why should he make a false plea, & be put to the expense of a trail, & put the Government to the expense of a trial, & prejudice his own case with the Court?" Young Hallett, his son, then said "Well, we shall know how to accommodate you, when you ask for a favor from us". I turned to his father, & asked him what this meant. I could not understand it. After some pressing, & after trying to persuade me to let him open to the jury, he said — "Well, frankly, our fees depend upon our going to the jury. If the case does not go to the jury, we get no more fees after the arraignment". I replied that I could not, to increase his fees, prejudice my client's case with the court, & go to a needless trial on a false plea. He seemed to see, then, that he had committed himself, & was very civil afterwards, & made no objections to my course. This was a small matter in amount, but very bad in kind. To draw more fees from the Government for an unnecessary service, he was putting my client to a false plea, the needless expense of a trial, to the injury of his cause on the sentence, & putting [the] Govt, to the expense of a day's attendance of jurors, witnesses & officers, & to secure this outrageous result, he was trying to coerce me by threatening not to extend accommodations to me, not in his private, but in his official capacity, as prosecuting officer. The entire Season of Lent was observed with great strictness at the Advent, this year, & the services of Passion Week were interesting in the extreme. The daily services were fully attended, & every evening there was a sermon. Thursday ev., in commemoration of its institution by Our Lord, the Communion services was celebrated. The anniversary was well received, & is likely to become a permanent one. On Easter Sunday the church was filled, & all the services were of a rich & glorious character. The altar was nearly covered with roses, & the cross was hung with a wreath, forming a beautiful contrast with the black drapery of the preceeding week. The perfume of the flowers filled all the upper part of the Church.

624

A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

APR. 2 2 . SATURDAY. Bishop Southgate, & Rev. Mr. Hoppin dined with us. The conv. was chiefly on the Eastern Question.27 The bishop is decidedly & earnestly on the side of Russia. He views the question in the light it wd. be seen in by a Christian, not a Papist, living in Turkey, wh. was his own position so many years. He looks upon Russia as the only effectual barrier ag. the domination of Papacy over all the Eastern Christian Churches, & upon the Turks as a small body of armed conquerors, holding (in Europe) a much larger number of X'tians in subjugation. He can see how France, as a Papal power, can war against Russia, on the Eastern question, because if Russia is humbled, there is free scope for papacy in the East; but how England can aid her in such a struggle he cannot see, as her interests & relig. sympathies are rather with the Greek than the Latin Church. He does not seem to have much regarded the common political view of it, to wit: that Turkey must be maintained as a barrier against a preponderance of Russia wh. wd. be dangerous to the liberties & independence of the other nations of Europe, & that in repressing this over growth of Russia, Engl. & Fr. have a common interest. No better evidence can be had of the estimation in wh. [Edward] Everett is held in the best circles of Boston, at this moment, than from the charade wh. was acted on his name at Mr. Minot's, before a large company, rather promiscuous, but all of the first class in Society. Josiah P. Quincy represented Everett making a speech to a delegation of Indians, in his blandest manner, paying them the most fulsome compliments, offering to show them the University at Cambridge, though with many apprehensions lest they should draw unfavorable comparisons with the more ancient institutions of learning they left behind them in the prairies, & finally, with some elegant circumlocution, paying them [the] highest tribute of praise for the blessing of the "Indian Hair Dye", the great renovator of the human hair, &c. Just at this moment rushes in a barber, indignant at this great public official puff of a rival dye, & takes Mr. E. to task, & reminds him of his own "Hyperion Fluid", the invention of a citisen, not [to] be put down by an Indian humbug. Everett listens, in a suffering, deprecatory manner, & then assures his friend & well known fellow citisen, that he holds his invention in the highest esteem, has himself often, here & in foreign lands, borne testimony to it; & the sport of [the] thing then consists in poor Everett's attempt to compliment & conciliate both parties without offending either. 27

T h e Russo-Turkish W a r was just beginning at this time. By virtue of an EnglishFrench-Austrian alliance formed in 1 8 5 4 , the conflict was to widen into the Crimean W a r and would not conclude until July 1856.

i8$4

The Case of Anthony Burns

625

Such a charade could not have been attempted & reed, with gen. applause, in such society in Boston, unless Everett's reputation were perfectly well settled. MAY 21. The Diocesan Convention met last Wed. & held in session two days. The chief event was the question of the admission of St. Mary's Chapel for Seamen into Convention. The matter was very ill managed by H. M. Parker,28 & still worse debated. He is not fit for a leader, as he shows ill-temper & irritates his opponents. I presume St. Mary's wd. have been in last year but for him. The Bishop ruled what he called a point of order. He ruled that a Motion for the admission of St. Mary's cd. not be reed., because the Parish had not furnished the constitutional & canonical ev[idence] of its organisation. This was not a question of Parity, law, but of canon law, & furnished no point of order. But as the result was a proper one, the requiring of a new application, to be referred to the Standing Committee, no notice was taken of the error. M A Y 25. THURSD. This morning, at a little before 9 o'ek., as I was going past the C't. Hs., a gentleman told me that there was a fugitive slave in custody, in the U. S. C't room. I went up immediately, & saw a negro,29 sitting in the usual place for prisoners, guarded by a large corps of officers. He is a piteous object, rather weak in mind & body, with a large scar on his cheek, wh. looks much like a brand, a broken hand, from wh. a large piece of bone projects, & another scar on his other hand. He seemed completely cowed & dispirited. I offered to act as his counsel. He said "It is of no use. They will swear to me & get me back; and if they do, I shall fare worse if I resist". I told him there might be some flaw in the papers, or some mistake, & that he might get off. The officers told him he had better have counsel, as it wd. cost him nothing & cd. do him no harm. He seemed entirely helpless, & could not say what he wished to do; but the great thing on his mind seemed to be the fear that any delay & expense he caused his master would be visited upon him when he got back, & that his best policy was to conciliate his master as best he could. I would not press a defence upon him under these circumstances, but felt it my duty to address the Court & ask for a delay. I did this upon the ground that from all I could observe myself & from what I had heard from others, it was plain that he was in no condition to determine whether he would have counsel or not, & that no C't. wd. proceed to a trial & condemnation under such circumstances. The 28 Henry Melville Parker ( 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 6 3 ) , Harvard, 1 8 3 9 , practiced law in Boston and was very active in the affairs of the Episcopalian Church. M

A n t h o n y Burns.

626

A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

counsel for the claimant, a Mr. Edw. Griffin Parker,30 objected to the delay, in bad taste & bad judgment. The Commissioner, Edw. G. Loring, at my private suggestion, called the prisoner to him & told him what his rights were, & asked him if he wished for time to consider what he wd. do. The man made no reply & looked round bewildered, like a child. Judge Loring again put the question to him, in a kind manner, & asked him if he wd. like to have a day or two & then see him there again. To this he replied, faintly, "I would". The judge then ordered a delay until Sat. The conduct of Judge Loring has been considerate & humane. If a man is willing to execute the law, & be an instrument of sending back a man into slavery, under such a law, he could not act better in his office than Judge Loring. He professes to detest the law, but he will follow the rigid constructions the Courts have put upon it, as a matter of duty. The claimant, Col. Suttle of Richmond or Alexandria Va., was present, & sat in full sight of the poor negro all the time. I could not get over a feeling that he had seen cruel usage. His scars, his timid & cowed look, his running away, all seemed to indicate it. Before the motion was passed upon, Freeman, the Marshal, went up to Judge Loring & whispered, to wh. the Judge replied "No. He must have a necessary time". Freeman whispered again, & the judge replied, rather sharply, "No Sir. I shall give him all reasonable delays". M A Y 26. FRIDAY. As the negro was uncertain whether to make a defence, or to have counsel at all, I felt that it was improper for me to obtrude myself upon him. If any were to advise, it should be others than a lawyer, who had once oifered to act. At my suggestion, Rev. Mr. Grimes, & Deacon Pitts, (the Clergyman & deacon of the congregation of colored people) & Wendell Phillips, 31 asked leave of the Marshal to see him. This was refused. They asked him if it would be of any use to obtain an order from Judge Loring to admit them. He sd. it wd. not. They then returned to me. I told them at least to compel Mr. Freeman to refuse it, & wrote a note to Judge Loring, (who was at Cambridge, lecturing at the Law School) stating to him that I scarcely felt at liberty to act as counsel for the man & was unwilling to obtrude myself upon him, & that the proper person to see him & ascertain his wishes had been refused admission. To this, Judge Loring responded in a note to Freeman, telling him that it was the man's right to see a few friends & that if any reasonable number, two or three, wished to see him, their names must be 30 E d w a r d Griffin Parker ( 1 8 2 5 - 1 8 6 8 ) , a Boston lawyer, eventually became active in the Republican party. H e served in the state senate in 1859. 31 W e n d e l l Phillips has been noted earlier. Coffin Pitts and Leonard A. Grimes were Negroes who were leaders in their community.

i8$4

The Case of Anthony

Burns

627

taken to him & their purpose stated to him & if he desired to see them, they must be admitted. To this order, Freeman yielded, & Phillips, Mr. Grimes & Deacon Pitts were admitted. Phillips reported to me that he was a much more intelligent & resolute man than they supposed him to be, that he could read & write, & only needed a little encouragement to be brought out. He denied entirely having said he was willing to go back, & said he knew he should be sold to the N. Orleans market, as soon as his master got [him]. He gave them a power of attorney to act for him, & desired counsel & defence. They, as his attorneys, engaged me & I engaged Mr. [Charles M.] Ellis, to aid me. Our first step was to apply to Judge [Peleg] Sprague to appoint a person to serve a writ de homine replegiando on Freeman in behalf of the Negro. The law was looked up & the papers prepared by Judge Russell & Mr. [S. E.] Sewall, & the petition presented by them & myself. We put it upon the ground that the writ was an ancient Common law writ, to enforce a common law right, & showed him a form of writ established by Statute in Massachusetts before the passage of the Jud. Act of 1789. To this Judge Sprague replied that it was not a writ known to the U. S. Courts, one never issued, to his knowledge by those Courts, & as he understood it, not issuable at the Common law when the party was held under legal process. We replied that it did not appear in the writ that he was held under legal process, & that it was, on the face of the proceedings, a writ of right. But the Judge refused the writ, after stating many other reasons, on the ground of its not being a writ known to that Court. He added that if the writ was issued it would contain the clause that it was not to be served if the party was held by legal process, & could do us no good. I had not sufficiently ex [ amine ]d the subject to give an opinion, but it rather seemed to me that we were entitled to the writ valeat quantum. After this decision, at about 6 o'ck. P. M. I went up to see the Fugitive. He was confined in a small room, in the 3d. story, west end, of the Court House, with some 6 or 8 men in the room with him. The men were of the rough, thief-catching order, & were smoking & playing cards. I withdrew to a window & talked quietly with the man. He appeared a very different man from what he was the day before. He seemed self possessed, intelligent, & with considerable force both of mind & body. His hand had been broken, in a saw mill, he told me, & his face was scarred by a burn. He said that he had not lived with his master since he was 7 years old, but had always been hired out by him. That his master had offered him for sale, & he knew very well that if he was delivered up, he would never see Alexandria again, but wd. be taken to the first block &

628

A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

sold for the N. Orleans market. He said that there, he might be put to some new work he was not accustomed to, & be badly treated for not doing it well. He was in fear of his master, who, he said, was a malicious man if he was crossed. To-night, a great meeting is to be held at Faneuil Hall. There is a strong feeling in favor of a rescue, & some of the Abolitionists talk quite freely about it. But the most remarkable exhibition is from the Whigs, the Hunker Whigs, the Compromise men of 1850. Men who wd. not speak to me in 1850 & 51, & who were enrolling themselves as special policemen in the Sims affair, stop me in the street & talk treason. This is all owing to the Nebraska bill. I cannot respect their feeling at all, except as a return to sanity. The Webster delusion is passing off. Amos A. Lawrence called to offer any amount of retainer to enable me to employ some eminent Whig counsel. He said he was authorised to do this by a number of active 1850 men, who were determined it shd. be known that it was not the Free Soilers only who were in favor of the liberation of the Slaves, but the conservative, compromise men. In this suggestion, I called on Judge [Richard] Fletcher & Mr. Choate. Judge F. said that his sympathies were with us, & if there shd. be a rescue, he wd. not lift a finger to prevent it; but that he was under an especial engagement with the Reporter wh. did not leave him an option as to his time. Choate, I had an amusing interview with. I asked him to make one effort in favor of freedom, & told him that the 1850 delusion was dispelled, & all men were coming round, the Board of Brokers & Board of Aldermen were talking treason, & that he must come & act. He sd. he shd. be glad to make an effort on our side, but that he had given written opinions ag. us, in the Sims case, on every point, & that he could not go ag. them. "You corrupted your mind in 1850". "Yes. 'Filed my mind". "I wish you would file it in Court, for our benefit". Mr. Ch. G. Loring was out of town, & there was no one else that I thot would answer Mr. Lawrence's description. M A Y . 27. SATUBDAY. [ — J U N E I . THURS.] Last night an attempt was made to rescue the slave. It was conducted by a few & failed, for want of numbers, the greater part being opposed to an action then. They broke in a door of the C't. Hs. & a few of them entered but they were not supported. They killed one man, a truckman named Batchelder, who has volunteered three times to assist in catching & keeping slaves, & the officers retreated. But the men who entered were at first driven back, & the crowd thought themselves repulsed & retreated also. The men who

i8$4

The Case of Anthony Burns

62g

went in first were wounded, & on being driven out, they found that the crowd outside had deserted them. The leader of this mob, I am surprised to learn, in secrecy, was Rev. T. W. Higginson of Worcester.32 I knew his ardor & courage, but I hardly expected a married man, a clergyman, & a man of education to lead the mob. But Theodore Parker offered to lead a mob to the rescue of Sims, if 100 men cd. be got to enroll themselves, but they cd. not get 30. Robt. Carter 33 tells me that Dr. Sam. G. Howe offered to lead a mob of 200 to storm the C't. Hs. & that that wd. probably have been done, had not Higginson's attempt led the Marshal to call out the military. Immediately after this mob, the Marshal sent for a company of U. S. marines from Charlestown, & a company of Artillery fr. Fort Independence. The Mayor, too, ordered out 2 or 3 companies of volunteer militia to keep the peace, but not to aid in the return of a Slave. The hearing began at 10 o'ck. The C't. Hs. was filled with hireling soldiers of the Standing Army of the U. S., nearly all of whom are foreigners. The lasy hounds were lounging all day out of the windows, & hanging over the stairs, but ready to shoot down good men, at a word of command. Some difficulties occurred betw. them & the citisens, but nothing very serious. Mr. Ellis moved for a delay until Monday, & made a few remarks in support of the motion. E. G. Parker & S. J. Thomas followed, opposing it. Their worst enemy could not have marked out for them a worse course of remark, than they followed. They seemed to be playing into my hands, all the while, saying the very things that I wished them to say. Then the timid manner of Parker, who seemed ashamed of what he was doing, & the petty, mean voice & manner of Thomas, were the best foils I cd. have desired. I made a full reply & never spoke more to my satisfaction in my life. I am quite mistaken if the general sentiment of the Hs. was not with me, though it was packed with the creatures of Freeman. They all felt ashamed of the appearance of their counsel. The Commr. granted the adjt. My father was present, & told me that I cd. not have done better — that it was as good as it cd. be, both in matter & manner. Theo. Parker told Frank Parker that I made a magnificent speech. I had the best opportunity to bring forward all the strong points against the law & its operation. •'^Thomas Wentworth Higginson ( 1 8 2 3 - 1 9 1 1 ) , an ardent member of the abolitionist Vigilance Committee, was wounded in the attempt. He was to become the commanding officer of the first Negro regiment in the Union Army, and one of the foremost figures in Boston's literary community. 33 Robert Carter ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 7 9 ) was a prominent Free Soil supporter and editor of the Boston Commonwealth.

630

A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

In the ev. I telegraphed to Att. Gen. Clifford, 34 offering him a retainer, but he replied a professional engagement at Springfield. This ev., I met Rev. Mr. Grimes & Mr. Williams (Glidden & W.) collecting a subscription to buy the man's freedom. They had then obtained a subcrn. to the amt. of $700. The price asked was $1200. The slave told me that his life had been insured at $800, when he was in Richmond, fr. wh. he supposed he was valued at abt. $1000. It was a new language to hear a man [estimating] his own value by the rate at wh. his owners insured him. The trial of the Burns case occupied all day of Monday, Tuesd. & Wed., 29th, 30th & 31st May. Each day the C't. Room was filled with the U. S. Marshal's "guard" as he called them, a gang of about 120 men, & lowest villains in the community, keepers of brothels, bullies, blacklegs, convicts, fire-lighters &c. Mr. Andrews, the ex-jailer, says that he finds 45 men among them who have been under his charge at various times. Among them is Louis Clark, 35 a Portuguese, who keeps a famous brothel & has been engaged in several desperate fights, Albert J. Tyrrell, the murderer, a man who robbed Currier & Trott's jeweller's shop &c. These are all armed with revolvers & other weapons & occupy the rows of seats behind the bar, & the jury seats. A corps of marines from the Navy Yard about 60 in number, commanded by Major Dulany, & two companies of U. S. Artillery, about 120 men, commanded by Ridgely, 36 occupy the Court House & guard all the passages with loaded guns & fixed bayonets. To reach the Court Room one has to pass 2 or 3 cordons of police, & two of soldiers. Personally, I have been well treated, & all whom I desire to have admitted have been admitted; but there has been a great deal of rudeness & violence to others. In one instance a serjeant or corporal, in command of a guard at the foot at the stairs, ordered his men to charge. They did so, in good earnest & drove the people down the entry, & it seemed to me, who had just passed them, a wonder that some were not run through. I saw plainly that the serjeant was drunk, & called to me young Dunbar, a very civil fellow who had charge of the entry under Freeman, & :i4 Nathan Clifford ( 1 8 0 3 - 1 8 8 1 ) had been Attorney-General of the United States, 1 8 4 6 - 1 8 4 9 , and was at this time practicing law in Portland, Maine. In 1858 he was appointed to the U. S. Supreme Court, where he served for twenty-three years. 35 Louis Clark (b. 1 8 1 4 ) , alias Luigi Varelli, was a former prizefighter who had been driven out of San Francisco by the Vigilantes in 1 8 5 1 , kept a Boston brothel until i860, served with distinction at Balls Bluff, was for twenty years after the war inspector of the New York Custom House, and vanished into prison in 1887 after being convicted of assault with intent to kill. 36 Samuel C. Ridgely (c. 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 5 9 ) , a celebrated hero of the Mexican War, was at this time stationed at Fort Independence, Massachusetts, with the rank of major. His ascending military career was cut short by the contraction of a fatal illness in 1856.

i8$4

The Case of Anthony Burns

631

pointed the man out to him. He acknowledged that the man was drunk, & apologised for it, saying that he had just come upon the post, & immediately reported the fact to the officer of the day. There was frequent instances of men prohibited from going into the Courts of the State, & no one was permitted to enter [the] C't. House, judges, jurors, witnesses or litigants without satisfying the hirelings of the U. S. Marshal that they had a right to be there. All this time there were (or attempted to be) in session in the building, the Supreme & Common Pleas Courts of Mass., & the Justices & Police Courts of Boston. In most cases these Courts adjourned for want of business. Thus the Judiciary of Mass. has been a second time put under the feet of the lowest tribunal of the Federal Judiciary, in a proceeding under the Fug. Slave Law. Judge [Lemuel] Shaw, who held the S. J. C't., is a man of no courage or pride, & Judge [H. W.] Bishop, who held the C. C. PI. is a mere party tool, & a bag of wind at that. It was the clear duty of the Court to summon before it the U. S. Marshal to show cause why he should not be committed for contempt, & to commit him, if [this] required all the bayonets in Mass. to do it, unless he allowed free passage to all persons who desired to come into either of the Courts of the State. Beside the general "guard" wh. the Marshal had to keep his prisoner, there was a special guard of Southern men, some of them Law Students from Cambridge, who sat round Col. Suttle & went in & out with him. If the claimant's counsel had merely put in his record & introduced evidence to prove that the prisoner was the person named in the record, we should have had no defence except the Constitutional objections, which, of course, Judge Loring wd. over-rule, & my two points of objection to the admissibility of the Record, ist that it was a mere recital that there was a record & not a record itself, & zd that it did not contain a sufficient description of the man; for by this cruel statute, if the record is admitted it is conclusive as to every fact but that of identity. But they set out to prove the facts of slavery & escape also by parol, by the evidence of one Brent. Brent's testimony showed that at the time of the alleged escape, Burns was regularly leased to one Millspaugh, & was under his control, & even that Col. Suttle's reversionary interest was mortgaged. His testimony also showed, to the satisfaction of the Commissioner (as I learn privately) & of all lawyers, that there had been no escape. If therefore, the record was not admissible, & the case had stood on the oral proof, they would have failed to prove the right of Suttle to the possession & the fact of escape. This raised the serious question whether the record was sufficiently in form to be received, & whether it could be conclusive against evidence put in by the claimant himself. I also made the point that by offering parol proof of title & escape, the claimant must be considered

632

A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

as proceeding under the 6th section of the act, & not under the xoth. In moving an escape by parol they proved that Burns was in Richmnd. on the 20th March. We introduced strong & clear evidence] that he was here on the 1st M'ch. & so on to this time. This gave us a point on the identification. My argument was on Wed. & lasted four hours.37 I spoke entirely to my own satisfaction. My friends say it is the best speech I ever made. Even the "guard" were somewhat aifected by it, & many of them said they wished the man would get off. Judge Loring paid great attention to all that related to the identity, but took no notes of my points as to the record, the escape & the title. This pussled me a good deal. Thomas' argument was poor. Indeed, he is a small pattern of a man in every way, moral & intellectual. The Court adjourned, at 4 o'ck., over to Friday, when the opinion wd. be given. Thursday June 1st, I spent all day at home writing out my argument for the newspapers. My whole brief was on two sides of a piece of small note-paper, & consequently I was obliged to write from recollection. J U N E 2. FRIDAY. This was a day of intense excitement & deep feeling in the city, in the State, & throughout N. England, & indeed a great part of the Union. The hearts of millions of persons were beating high with hope, or indignation, or doubt. The Mayor of Boston,38 who is a poor shoat, a physician of a timid, conceited, scatter-brained character, raised by accident to the Mayoralty, has vacillated about for several days, & at last has done what a weak man almost always does, he has gone too far. He has ordered out the entire military force of the city, from 15 to 1800 men, & undertaken to place full discretionary power in the hands of Gen. Edmands. 39 These troops & the three companies of regulars, fill the streets & squares from the C't. Hs. to the end of the wharf, where the Revenue Cutter lies, & in wh. it is understood that Bums, if remanded, will be taken to Va.

The Commissioner entered the C't. Room punctually at 9 o'ck. I went to the Marshal & asked him if he knew what the decision was to be. He sd. he did not. I told him that if the decision was in favor of the prisoner, I proposed to give him my arm & conduct him through the guards & soldiers into the street. Freeman replied that he would prefer to clear 37

Reprinted in Dana III, Speeches, pp. 2 1 0 - 2 3 3 . T h e mayor was Jerome Van Crowninshield Smith (b. 1 8 0 0 ) , a Boston physician, who later edited various medical publications. 39 Benjamin Edmands, a druggist in civilian life, was commanding officer of the 1st Division of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. 38

i8$4

The Case of Anthony Burns

633

the Square first, & assured me that if the man was discharged he shd. serve no other precept upon him. The decision was short. It took no notice of the objections to the admissibility or effect of the record, but simply declared it to be conclusive as to title & escape, & sd. that the only point before him was that of idenity. On this, upon the evidence of witnesses, there was so much doubt that he could not decide the question, & wd. be obliged to discharge the prisoner. In this dilemma, he resorted to the testimony of Brent as to the admissions made by the prisoner to Col. Suttie on the night of his arrest, wh. he considered as establishing the identity beyond a reasonable doubt, & on these admissions he was convicted. Convicted on an ex parte record, against the actual evidence, & on his own admissions made at the moment of arrest to his alleged Masterl A tyrannical statute & a weak judge! The decision was a grievous disappointment to us all, & chiefly to the poor prisoner. He looked the image of despair. The Court Room was ordered to be cleared at once of all but the prisoner & the "guard". I remained with the prisoner, & so did Mr. Grimes, the preacher. W e remained in the Court Room a full hour, in company with the prisoner & this horrible pack, the "guard". Mr. Grimes talked constantly with the prisoner, & kept up his spirits as he best could. He told him he thought that it was only the point of honor with the Govt. & the Slaveholders to take him to Va., & that he wd. be bought as soon as he arrived there. This cheered him. He expressed some fear [lest] he shd. be forgotten, & said that if sold, with his weakened right hand, he wd. be sold "down the river", & being put to some new work, to wh. he was unaccustomed, would be ill-treated. This was what induced him to run away. Suttie offered him for sale, but got no bidder on account of the state of his hand. Suttie was afraid he might become useless & be left on his hands, & Burns knew he wd. be sold at any price. Mr. Thayer, of the N. Y. Ev. Post,40 remained in the room a few minutes, & we observed the character & conduct of [the] guard. Some of them lay down, & got tumbling & quarreling, & others came into the Bar, & sat at full length on the chairs. All had their hats on, & such a set of debauched, vulgar, outlawish looking fellows I never beheld. At about 11 o'ck., Burns was led back to his room. Mr. Grimes & I went with him, & remained a few minutes. I told him I should accompany him to the Cutter, & Mr. Grimes offered to go with us also. 40 Alexander Wheelock Thayer ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 9 7 ) , lawyer, was at this time a journalist for the New York Tribune, not the Post. He later served in the U. S. consular service and published a three-volume biography of Beethoven.

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A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

I told the Marshal of our intention to go down with Burns. He objected. I told him that it was a privilege always allowed to a criminal going to execution, that his clergyman & counsel shd. go with him, & strongly advised him not to refuse it. He took time to consider it, & consulted with others, & brought us word positively that it could not be permitted. W e then said we would go & take our leave of him in his room. W e went up, & began speaking with [him], at the window, as heretofore, when three of the keepers, (one of whom was the notorious Byrnes, "Augur Hole Byrnes") came up & stood by our side to listen to the conversation. I asked Mr. True, who had charge of the room, to order them to leave us, as they had always done before. In all our prior interviews, we had seen him at the window, & the keepers had withdrawn to the other end, so that we could talk without being overheard, as had been settled between Mr. Phillips & the Marshal. Mr. True replied that the Marshal had issued a new order that all conversation with the prisoner must be in the hearing of the keepers. I asked, pointing to the three keepers who stood by, "Is the order that I must be overheard by this man, & this man, & this man!" "Yes Sir. Those are the orders". "I shall hold no conversation in such company. I shall not consent to hold any conversation with the prisoner on such terms". The officer said he was sorry, but must obey his orders. I then advanced to Burns, gave him my hand, told him that I cd. not, in self-respect, converse with him on such terms, told him also that the Marshal had prohibited our going down with him, & bade him good-by. He thanked me warmly for all I had done for him, & sd. he had no doubt all had been done that cd. be done. Mr. Grimes also followed suit, & took leave of him, bidding him to trust & hope in God, & giving him his address & that of Deacon Pitts, that he might write to them, if permitted. Mr. Grimes & I walked to & fro in front of the C't. Hs. for an hour or so, the entire Square being cleared of the people, & filled with troops. Every window was filled, & beyond the lines drawn by the police, was an immense crowd. Whenever a body of troops passed to or fro, they were hissed & hooted by the people, with some attempts at applause from their favorers. Nearly all the shops in C't. & State streets were closed & hung in black, & a huge coffin was suspended across State St., & flags Union down. A brass field piece, belonging to the 4th Artillery was ostentatiously loaded in sight of all the people & carried by the men of that corps in rear of the hollow Square in wh. Burns was placed. Some 1500 or 1800 men of the Vol. Militia were under arms, all with their guns loaded & capped, & the officers with revolvers. These men were stationed

1854

The Case of Anthony

Burns

635

at different posts in all the streets & lanes that lead into Court or State streets, fr. the C't. Hs. to Long Wharf. The police forced the people back to a certain line, generally at the foot or middle of the lanes & streets leading into the main streets, & wherever there was a passage, there, a few paces behind the police was a body of troops, from 20 or 30 to 50 or 100, according to the sise & importance of the passage. The Mayor having given Gen. Edmands discretionary orders to preserve peace & enforce the laws, Gen. Edmands gave orders to each commander of a post to fire on the people whenever they passed the line marked by the police in a manner he should consider turbulent & disorderly. So, from 9 o'ck. in the morning until towards night, the city was really under Martial law. The entire proceeding was illegal. The people were not treated as rioters or ordered to disperse. No civil officers were on the spot to direct the military or to give orders when & how to act. But the people were given their line, as on a parade day, & the troops were ordered, by a military commander, to fire upon them, at the discretion of the various commanders of posts. In one case, that of Capt. Evans of the Boston Artillery, the two first orders were actually given, & in a second more the company would have fired, but for the fortunate intervention of Col. Boyd, 41 who ordered their guns to a shoulder. Mr. Almon tells me that he heard an officer mounted tell the crowd that if they passed a certain line, the soldiers were ordered to fire, & wd. certainly do so. Prof. Wyman 42 says that Capt. Young of the Col. Artillery at the head of Franklin Av., presented his pistol at every man that came to the alley, & put 2 or 3 persons ridiculously under arrest, with threats to shoot them. I myself saw sev. men of Company H. 1st Reg. at the head of Broad or Kilby st., on a slight sign of commotion in the crowd at the foot of State St., such as often is seen in large crowds, cock their guns & present them, ready to fire, without orders. An accident wd. have cost lives, & it was with great reluctance & only after repeated orders that these men wd. uncock their guns & bring them to order. It has been the greatest good fortune in the world that not a gun was fired by accident or design. No one could limit the consequences; & all concerned wd. have been in the eye of the law, murderers. Mr. Grimes & I remained in the C't. Hs. until the vile procession moved. Notwithstanding their numbers & the enormous military protection, the Marshal's company were very much disturbed & excited. They were exceedingly apprehensive of some unknown & unforeseen violence. 41 Joseph Franks Boyd ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 8 3 ) , from Charlestown, was at one time adjutant general of Massachusetts, and is probably the man referred to here. 42 Jeffries Wyman ( 1 8 1 4 - 1 8 7 4 ) was Hershey Professor of Oratory at Harvard, 1847-1874.

636

A Lawyer at Home and Abroad

The "guard" at length filed out & formed a hollow square. Each man was armed with a short Roman sword & one revolver hanging in his belt. In this square marched Burns43 with the Marshal. The U. S. troops & the squadron of Boston light horse preceeded & followed the square, with the field piece. As the procession moved down it was met with a perfect howl of Shame! Shame! & hisses. I walked slowly down the streets at a considerable distance in the rear of the procession, & when I heard the news that it had safely reached the end of the wharf, & that the cutter was steaming out to sea, I returned to my office. I remained in my office until about 8V2 P. M. revising my speech for the paper of Saturday, & went over to Parker's to tea, with Horace Gray. While at tea, the bells rang for 9 o'ck. I remarked to Gray that I had lost the 9 o'ck. coach, & must either wait a half hour or walk out. Just then [Anson] Burlingame came up & proposed to me to walk out together. I acceded to the proposal & waited some 20 minutes or so for him to finnish his tea, & then we three started together. Gray left us at Pemberton Sq. & B. & I went on thro' C't. St. We had just passed Stoddard St., walking on the left side of C't. st., going towards Bowdoin Sq., he on the inside & I on the outside, when I remember observing a commotion on my left as of people pushing, & instantly I reed, a terrible blow over my right eye. I was stunned by it for a moment. Whether I was knocked down or not I do not know. I first remember standing in the street, stupefied & bleeding, & thinking that I had been hit by some accident. I thot that an iron bar wh. is used to confine window shutters had been suddenly thrown out & had hit me, or that I had reed, a chance blow from some one in a quarrel at my side. I saw no man. The blow was fr. behind or at my side, & [I] do not distinctly remember seeing anything go across my sight, tho' I have some indistinct recollection of something like an arm or a stick passing across my sight. People came about me, & I recollect insisting upon it that I was not hit intentionally, until sev. told me they saw the man & the blow, & then I said to Bfurlingame] "Well, we've kept the field". I walked to Dr. Salter's with B., where he left me, to go to the police office to lodge a complaint, & to the newspapers. Dr. Salter applied arnica externally, for nearly an hour, reducing the swelling considerably. The weight of the blow fortunately fell on the strong bone over the eye & on the cheek bone. If it had hit the eye, it would have destroyed it. If it had hit the temple, I have little doubt it wd. have broken it in. 43 Burns eventually gained his freedom, and the details of his life in the years following his trial are noted later in the narrative.

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A view of downtown Boston, showing the Revere House, so often mentioned by Dana, and "the cars," which he regularly rode between Cambridge and Boston.

George Ticknor. After a close friendship in the early years of the Journal, Dana and Ticknor became altogether estranged, and Dana wrote: "Ticknor is a bitter man, with no knowledge of human nature" (p. 558).

William M. Evarts. "Evarts is a peculiar man. His intellectual gifts are undoubted. Success & admiration have attended him at every step. Yet there is a coldness & a certain kind of assumption about him wh. is not agreeable to many" (p. 104).

Rufus Choate. On the occasion of Choate's death Dana said to their colleagues at the Boston bar: "In his presence I felt like the master of a small coasting vessel, that hugs the shore, that has run up under the lee to speak a great homeward-bound Indiaman, freighted with silks and precious stones" (Speeches, p. 289).

James Dwight Dana, Professor of Natural History at Yale, 1849-1890. "Prof. Dana is unlike the Cambridge Dana. He looks as if all his ancestors for ten generations had traded in small wares. I never saw an educated man, in society, whose countenance had so much of the pedlar in it" (pp. 683-684).

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