At this time the Charleston papers and some northern journals declared The Tribune's southern correspondence fictitious, and manufactured at the home office. To remove that impression touching my own letters, I wrote, on certain days, the minutest records of the Convention, and of affairs in Jackson, which never found their way into the local prints.
Mournfully metropolitan was Jackson in one respect—the price of board at its leading hotel. The accommodations were execrable; but I suppose we were charged for the unusual luxury of an unctuous Teutonic landlord, who bore the formidable patronymic of H-i-l-z-h-e-i-m-e-r!
"—— Phœbus, what a name,
To fill the speaking-trump of future fame!"
Reporting the Mississippi Convention.
The Convention was discussing the submission of the Montgomery Constitution to the people. The chief clerk, with whom I formed a chance acquaintance, kindly invited me to a chair beside his desk, and as I sat facing the members, explained to me their capacity, views, and antecedents. Whether an undue inquisitiveness seemed to him the distinguishing quality of the New Mexican mind, he did not declare; but once he asked me abruptly if I was connected with the press? With the least possible delay, I disabused his mind of that peculiarly unjust misapprehension.
After a long discussion, the Convention, by a vote of fifty-three to thirty-two, refused to submit the Constitution to the people, and ratified it in the name of Mississippi. Seven Union members could not be induced to follow the usual practice of making the action unanimous, but to the last steadfastly refused their adherence.
[CHAPTER VI.]
—— My business in this State
Made me a looker-on here in Vienna.