O! Let it never perish in your hands,
But piously transmit it to your children.”
CHAPTER III.
1852-1853.
PERSONAL AND POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH THE PRESIDENT ELECT AND WITH MR. MARCY, HIS SECRETARY OF STATE—BUCHANAN IS OFFERED THE MISSION TO ENGLAND—HIS OWN ACCOUNT OF THE OFFER, AND HIS REASONS FOR ACCEPTING IT—PARTING WITH HIS FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS IN LANCASTER—CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS NIECE.
The private correspondence between Mr. Buchanan and the new President, General Pierce, and his Secretary of State, will best explain his relations to this administration; and he has himself left a full record of the circumstances under which he accepted the mission to England in the summer of 1853.
[FROM GENERAL PIERCE.]
Concord, N. H., November 1, 1852.
My Dear Sir:—
Your kind letter of the 26th instant was received yesterday.
Your conclusion as to attending the meeting at Tammany Hall was what I should have expected, marked by a nice sense of the fitness of things.