The reason then assigned for this request is not the true one. That must be sought not in Paris but in the United States. You will understand it as well as I do upon a moment’s reflection. Your presence in the United States during the present year may not suit the views and projects of certain gentlemen; it is, therefore, necessary to devise some cause for keeping you at Paris. It is possible that if Mr. Rush was disposed to return, some cause connected with the rupture between France and Spain would be discovered to render his stay in London necessary. As that gentleman, however, has written a number of letters to his friends in Pennsylvania which may have an effect somewhat similar to that which was apprehended from your return, it is possible that it may facilitate his return.
I have written this letter under an impression that the request of Mr. Adams may arrive at Paris before you leave it. Your friends are desirous of your return, and will be disappointed if you do not. I have understood that Mr. Astor has received a letter from you as late as the 17th ult. which is indicative of your intention to return, but Mr. Astor thinks that you will not, and that you ought not. He is probably governed in this opinion by his interests and wishes. If you do not return in the Montano, which it is now said will not sail before the 20th of this month, he will see you before this letter reaches you, as I shall confide it to the care of Mr. Erving, who, it is understood, will not sail until the arrival of the Montano.
Your friends Lacock and Roberts are very decided on the question which now attracts the attention of the nation. Indeed, there are but few exceptions among your old political associates. Many of them, unfortunately, are no more, and new men have filled their places; the new-comers, however, have a high respect for your character, talents, and opinions, and wish to see and converse with you upon this question....
Mr. Crawford had his wish. Gallatin returned, and was drawn reluctantly but inevitably into the Presidential contest. No true friend of his could have desired it, for he had nothing to gain by returning into public life at a moment when there was not a single element of principle or dignity involved in the election. Never in the whole course of our history has any Presidential election turned so exclusively on purely personal considerations; never has there been one in which all parties were so helpless. Old association, the prestige of high reputation, and the long control of Treasury patronage combined to make Mr. Crawford the first candidate; he had been the selected favorite of the old triumvirate for many years, and by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison he was regarded as the best representative of the Republican party. The same view was held by Mr. Gallatin, and, on the other hand, Mr. Crawford needed Mr. Gallatin’s active support; thus it was that Mr. Gallatin became in a manner compelled to allow his supposed influence to be used for the election of Mr. Crawford as President, and was buffeted about upon the waves of this stormy and unclean ocean until at length he was glad to find even a mortifying means of escape.
His first step was to visit Washington, and thence he went to inspect his new house at Friendship Hill.
GALLATIN TO HIS DAUGHTER.
New Geneva, 17th September, 1823.
... Notwithstanding all my exertions, you will find it hard enough when you come next spring to accommodate yourself to the privations and wildness of the country. Our house has been built by a new Irish carpenter, who was always head over heels and added much to the disorder inseparable from building. Being unacquainted with the Grecian architecture, he adopted an Hyberno-teutonic style, so that the outside of the house, with its port-hole-looking windows, has the appearance of Irish barracks, whilst the inside ornaments are similar to those of a Dutch tavern, and I must acknowledge that these form a singular contrast with the French marble chimney-pieces, paper, and mirrors. On one side of that mass of stones which Lucien calls “le château,” and in full view as you approach it, is a wing consisting of the gable-end of a log house, with its chimney in front, and I could not pull it down, as it is the kitchen and dining-room where are daily fed two masons and plasterers, two attendants, two stone-quarriers, two painters, a carpenter (besides three who board themselves), Lucien, Albert’s black Peter, and Mr, Made, Mesdlles et les petits Buffle. The grounds are overgrown with elders, iron-weeds, stinking weeds, laurel, several varieties of briers, impenetrable thickets of brush, vines, and underwood, amongst which are discovered vestiges of old asparagus and new artichoke-beds, and now and then a spontaneous apple or peach tree. As to Albert, he has four guns, a pointer, three boats, two riding-horses, and a pet colt, smaller than a jackass, who feeds on the fragments of my old lilacs and althea frutex. His own clothes adorn our parlor and only sitting-room in the old brick house; for the frame house is partly occupied by the Buffle family and partly encumbered by various boxes and Albert’s billiard-table, the pockets of which are made with his stockings....
New Geneva, 15th October, 1823.
... Notwithstanding all my endeavors, more will remain to be done after our arrival next spring than I would have wished. It was impossible for me to attend to anything else for the improvement either of mills, farm, plantation, &c., all of which are in a most deplorable state.... Amidst those cares I have been disturbed by political struggles in which I felt but little interested; but the Federalists, by their repeated assertions in all the papers of the State that I supported their candidate, have compelled me, much against my inclination, to come out with a public declaration intended to show that notwithstanding the occasional aberrations of democracy and the abuse sometimes poured on me from that quarter, it was impossible that I should abandon a cause to the support of which my life has been devoted, and which I think inseparably connected with that of the liberty and amelioration of mankind in every quarter of the globe....