Queen Victoria's diplomatic representative at Washington at that time, the Honorable Henry Stephen Fox, was a son of General Fox, of the British Army, who fought at the battle of Lexington in 1775, and a nephew of the eminent statesman, Charles James Fox. He had served in the British Diplomatic Corps for several years, and was thoroughly acquainted with his duties, but he held the least possible intercourse with the Department of State and rarely entered a private house. He used to rise about three o'clock in the afternoon, and take his morning walk on Pennsylvania Avenue an hour or two later. Miss Seaton says that a gentleman on one occasion, meeting him at dusk in the Capitol grounds, urged him to return with him to dinner, to which Mr. Fox replied that "he would willingly do so, but his people were waiting breakfast for him." On the occasion of the funeral of a member of the Diplomatic Corps, turning to the wife of the Spanish Minister, he said: "How very old we all look by daylight!" it being the first time he had seen his colleagues except by candle-light. He went to bed at daylight, after watering his plants, of which he was passionately fond.
John Howard Payne visited Washington to solicit from President Tyler a foreign consulate. He was then in the prime of life, slightly built, and rather under the medium height. His finely developed head was bald on the top, but the sides were covered with light brown hair. His nose was large, his eyes were light blue, and he wore a full beard, consisting of side-whiskers and a moustache, which were always well-trimmed. He was scrupulously neat in his dress, and usually wore a dark brown frock coat and a black vest, while his neck was covered with a black satin scarf, which was arranged in graceful folds across his breast. Despite his unpretending manner and his plain attire, there was something about his appearance which never failed to attract attention. His voice was low and musical, and when conversing on any subject in which he was deeply interested he spoke with a degree of earnestness that enchained the attention and touched the hearts of his listeners. After much solicitation by himself and his friends, he obtained the appointment of United States Consul at Tunis, and left for his post, where he died, his remains being finally brought to the Capital and buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.
Among the curiosities of Washington about this time was the studio of Messrs. Moore & Ward, in one of the committee-rooms at the Capitol, where likenesses were taken—as the advertisement read— "with the Daguerreotype, or Pencil of Nature." The "likenesses, by diffused light, could be taken by them in any kind of weather during the daytime, and sitters were not subjected to the slightest inconvenience or unpleasant sensation." The new discovery gradually supplanted the painting of miniatures on ivory in water-colors, and the cutting of silhouettes from white paper, which were shown on a black ground. Another novel invention was the electric, or, as it was then called, the magnetic telegraph. Mr. Morse had a model on exhibition at the Capitol, and the beaux and belles used to hold brief conversations over the mysterious wire. At last the House considered a bill appropriating twenty-five thousand dollars, to be expended in a series of experiments with the new invention.
In the brief debate on the bill, Mr. Cave Johnson undertook to ridicule the discovery by proposing that one-half of the proposed appropriation be devoted to experiments with mesmerism, while Mr. Houghton thought that Millerism (a religious craze then prevalent) should be included in the benefits of the appropriation. To those who thus ridiculed the telegraph it was a chimera, a visionary dream like mesmerism, rather to be a matter of merriment than seriously entertained. Men of character, men of erudition, men who, in ordinary affairs, had foresight, were wholly unable to forecast the future of the telegraph. Other motions disparaging to the invention were made, such as propositions to appropriate part of the sum to a telegraph to the moon. The majority of Congress did not concur in this attempt to defeat the measure by ridicule, and the bill was passed by the close vote of eighty-nine to eighty- three. A change of three votes, however, would have consigned the invention to oblivion. Another year witnessed the triumphant success of the test of its practicability. The invention vindicated its character as a substantial reality; it was no longer a chimera, a visionary scheme to extort money from the public coffers. Mr. Morse was no more subjected to the suspicion of lunacy, nor ridiculed in the Halls of Congress, but he had to give large shares of its profits to Amos Kendall and F. O. J. Smith before he could make his discovery of practical value.
The New York Tribune was first published during the Tyler Administration by Horace Greeley, who had very successfully edited the Log Cabin, a political newspaper, during the preceding Presidential campaign. The Tribune, like the New York Herald and Sun was then sold at one cent a copy, and was necessarily little more than a brief summary of the news of the day. But it was the germ of what its editor lived to see it become—a great newspaper. It soon had a good circulation at Washington, where the eminently respectable National Intelligencer and the ponderous Globe failed to satisfy the reading community.
Mr. Webster remained in the Cabinet until the spring of 1843, when the evident determination of President Tyler to secure the annexation of Texas made it very desirable that Webster should leave, so he was "frozen out" by studied reserve and coldness. By remaining in the Cabinet he had estranged many of his old political associates, and Colonel Seaton, anxious to bring about a reconciliation, gave one of his famous "stag" supper-parties, to which he invited a large number of Senators and members of the House of Representatives. The convivialities had just commenced when the dignified form of Webster was seen entering the parlor, and as he advanced his big eyes surveyed the company, recognizing, doubtless, some of those who had become partially alienated from him. On the instant, up sprang a distinguished Senator from one of the large Southern States, who exclaimed: "Gentlemen, I have a sentiment to propose —the health of our eminent citizen, the negotiator of the Ashburton Treaty." The company enthusiastically responded. Webster instantly replied: "I have also a sentiment for you,—The Senate of the United States, without which the Ashburton Treaty would have been nothing, and the negotiator of that treaty less than nothing." The quickness and fitness of this at once banished every doubtful or unfriendly feeling. The company clustered around the magnate, whose sprightly and edifying conversation never failed to excite admiration, and the remainder of the evening was spent in a manner most agreeable to all.
Immediately after the resignation of Mr. Webster the Cabinet was reconstructed, but a few months later the bursting of a cannon on the war-steamer Princeton, while returning from a pleasure excursion down the Potomac, killed Mr. Upshur, the newly appointed Secretary of State, Mr. Gilmer, Secretary of the Navy, with six others, while Colonel Benton narrowly escaped death and nine seamen were injured. The President had intended to witness the discharge of the gun, but was casually detained in the cabin, and so escaped harm. This shocking catastrophe cast a gloom over Washington, and there was a general attendance, irrespective of party, at the funeral of the two Cabinet officers, who were buried from the White House.
One of those killed by the explosion on the Princeton was Mr. Gardiner, a New York gentleman, whose ancestors were the owners of Gardiner's Island, in Long Island Sound. His daughter Julia, a young lady of fine presence, rare beauty, and varied accomplishments, had for some time been the object of marked attention from President Tyler, although he was in his fifty-fifth year and she but about twenty. Soon after she was deprived of her father they were quietly married in church at New York, and President Tyler brought his young bride to the White House.
Mrs. Lydia Dickinson, wife of Daniel F. Dickinson, a Senator from New York, was the recognized leader of Washington society during the Administration of President Tyler. She was the daughter of Dr. Knapp, and, when a school girl, fell in love with Dickinson, then a smart young wool-dresser, and discerning his talents, urged him to study law and to fit himself for a high political position in life. She was gratified by his unexampled advancement, and when he came here a United States Senator, she soon took a prominent part in the social life of the metropolis.
[Facsimile] CCushing CALEB CUSHING was born at Salisbury, Massachusetts, January 7th, 1800; was a Representative in Congress from Massachusetts, 1835- 1843; was Commissioner to China, 1843-1845; served in the Mexican War as Colonel and Brigadier-General, 1847-1848; was Attorney- General of the United States under President Pierce, 1853-1857; was counsel for the United States before the Geneva tribunal of arbitration on the Alabama claims, 1871; was Minister to Spain, 1874-1877, and died at Newburyport, Massachusetts, January 2d, 1879.