The modesty of the Prince’s behavior, and his perfectly frank manners attested the excellence of the training given him by his good mother and his high-souled, wise, and pious father. He entered with all the freshness of youth into every innocent amusement planned to beguile the hours of his stay.
It may be well here to mention, as an instance of Mr. Buchanan’s care for the proprieties of his station, that, anxious as it was possible for man to be to gratify the Prince, who, on more than one occasion, proposed dancing, approving of it as a harmless pastime, and fond of it as a spectacle, he yet declined to permit it in the White House, for the reason that that building was not his private home, that it belonged to the nation, and that the moral sense of many good people who had assisted to put him there, would be shocked by what they regarded as profane gayety in the saloons of the State.
The visit of the English party lasted five days, and they separated from Mr. Buchanan and Miss Lane leaving behind them most agreeable recollections.
On the Prince’s arrival in England, the Queen acknowledged her sense of the cordiality of his reception by the President, in the following autograph letter, in which the dignity of an official communication is altogether lost in the personal language of a grateful mother thanking a friend for kindness done her firstborn child. It is the Queen’s English employed to express the sentiments of the woman:
“Windsor Castle, Nov. 19th, 1860.
“My Good Friend:—Your letter of the 6th ult. has afforded me the greatest pleasure, containing, as it does, such kind expressions with regard to my son, and assuring me that the character and object of his visit to you and to the United States have been fully appreciated, and that his demeanor and the feelings evinced by him, have secured to him your esteem and the general good-will of your countrymen.
“I purposely delayed the answer to your letter until I should be able to couple with it the announcement of the Prince of Wales’ safe return to his home. Contrary winds and stress of weather have much retarded his arrival, but we have been fully compensated for the anxiety which this long delay has naturally caused us, by finding him in such excellent health and spirits, and so delighted with all he has seen and experienced in his travels.
“He cannot sufficiently praise the great cordiality with which he has been everywhere greeted in your country, and the friendly manner in which you have received him; and whilst, as a mother, I am grateful for the kindness shown him, I feel impelled to express, at the same time, how deeply I have been touched by the many demonstrations of affection personally toward myself which his presence has called forth.
“I fully reciprocate toward your nation the feelings thus made apparent, and look upon them as forming an important link to connect two nations of kindred origin and character, whose mutual esteem and friendship must always have so material an influence upon their respective development and prosperity.
“The interesting and touching scene at the grave of General Washington, to which you allude, may be fitly taken as the type of our present feeling, and, I trust, of our future relations.