We set out for Belgium to-morrow, where I have important public business to transact. I take Harriet along to enable her to see a little of the continent, and I may perhaps have time to accompany her along the Rhine.
I cannot be long absent, because the business of this legation is incessant, important, and laborious.
Thank God! I have been enjoying my usual health here, and am treated as kindly as I could have expected. And yet I long to return home, but must remain nearly another year to fulfill my engagement with the President when I most reluctantly consented to accept the mission. Should a kind Providence prolong my days, I hope to pass the remnant of them in tranquillity and retirement at Wheatland. I have been kindly treated by the world, but am heartily sick of public life. Besides a wise man ought to desire to pass some time in privacy before his inevitable doom......
I hope to be able to take Harriet on a short visit to Paris before her return to the United States. I have but little time to write to-day after my despatches, and determined not to let another post for California pass without writing. Remember me kindly to Mr. Baker, and believe me to be with warm and sincere affection and regard
Your uncle,
James Buchanan.
[TO MISS LANE IN PARIS.]
London, November 10, 1854.
My Dear Harriet:—
I do not regard the article in the Pennsylvanian; but if Mr. Tyson has really become a “know-nothing,” this would be a different matter. It would at least, in some degree, modify the high opinion which I had formed of him from his general character and his known ability.