I was just in time to see rising to his feet the handsomest man in the Senate, as I had long before decided. Mr. Gouverneur Morris, with his clean-cut, aristocratic features, his carefully curled peruke, his fine lace ruffles falling over his long white hands, and his immaculate stockings and pumps with their glittering buckles, was, to my mind, every inch the gentleman, and quite worthy to have called himself a blue-blooded Philadelphian, but that an unkind fate had given him New York for a birthplace. I was more than curious to know on which side he would be, and his opening sentence filled me with the assurance he was on the right side and every word was weighted. Clear-cut, each sentence dropped from his lips like a string of burnished jewels.
"Had Spain the right to make this cession to France without our consent? Gentlemen have taken it for granted that she had. But I deny the position. No nation has a right to give to another a dangerous neighbor without her consent. He who renders me insecure, he who hazards my peace and exposes me to imminent danger, commits an act of hostility against me and gives me the rights consequent on that act. Suppose Great Britain should give to Algiers one of the Bahamas, and contribute thereby to establish a nest of pirates near your coast. Would you not consider it as an aggression? It is among the first limitations to the exercise of the rights of property that we must so use our own as not to injure another, and it is under the immediate sense of this restriction that nations are bound to act toward each other.
"The possession of Louisiana by the ambitious ruler of France would give him in the New World the preponderance he has already obtained in the Old. It becomes the United States to show that they do not fear him who is the ruler of all; and it specially behooves the young and growing republic to interpose, in order to revive the energy and resistance of the half-conquered nations of Europe, and to save the expiring liberties of mankind!"
No one can imagine the fire, the grace, the inspiring tones and gestures, with which this last sentence was uttered. In my enthusiasm I looked across to my fair neighbor in the opposite gallery for sympathy. Through the veil I thought I caught her eye; but by the slightest turn of her head and an almost imperceptible movement of her hand she conveyed to me (whether intentionally or not, I was not sure) that she was not at all in sympathy with the speaker—indeed, that she disagreed with him wholly.
I looked down again into the arena below me. Slowly rising from his seat was a figure as ungainly as the other had been elegant. Red of face, with features almost coarse, and unwieldy from too great a burden of flesh, I recognized at once Mr. Morris's colleague, the famous Mr. Clinton of New York. What he said pleased me no more than his appearance, yet I could but own that no speaker had spoken with more force, more caustic satire, or more fluent eloquence. I had to admit, also, that there was a flavor of good sense and practicability about much that he said, though I was loath to admit it. He began ponderously, with pompous tones; but as he went on his voice changed until it became at times high and even rasping.
"Sublime, sir, as these speculations may appear to the eyes of some, and high-sounding as they may strike the ears of many, they do not affect me with any force. In the first place, I do not perceive how they bear upon the question before me; it merely refers to the seizure of New Orleans, not to the maintenance of the balance of power. Again, of all characters, I think that of a conquering nation least becomes the American people. What, sir! Shall America go forth, like another Don Quixote, to relieve distressed nations and to rescue from the fangs of tyranny the powerful states of Britain, Spain, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands? Shall she, like another Phaëthon, madly ascend the chariot of Empire, and spread desolation and horror over the world? Shall she attempt to restrain the career of a nation, which my honorable colleague represents to have been irresistible, and which he declares has appalled the British lion and the imperial eagle of the house of Austria? Shall we wantonly court destruction and violate all the maxims of policy which ought to govern infant and free republics? Let us, sir, never carry our arms into the territory of other nations, unless we are compelled to take them up in self-defense. A pacific character is of all others most important for us to maintain. With a sea-coast of two thousand miles, indented with harbors and lined with cities, with an extended commerce, and with a population of only six millions, how are we to set up for the avenger of nations? Can gravity itself refrain itself from laughter at the figure which my honorable colleague would wish us to make on the theater of the world? He would put a fool's cap on our head and dress us up in the parti-colored robes of a harlequin for the nations of the world to laugh at. And after all the puissant knights of the times have been worsted in the tournament by the Orlando Furioso of France, we must then, forsooth, come forward and console them for their defeat by an exhibition of our follies!
"I look, sir, upon all the dangers we heard about the French possession of Louisiana as visionary and idle. Twenty years must roll over our heads before France can establish in that country a population of two hundred thousand souls. What, in the meantime, will become of your Southern and Western States? Are they not advancing to greatness with a giant's stride? The Western States will then contain on their borders millions of free and hardy republicans, able to crush every daring invader of their rights!"
There was a slight stir in the gallery opposite. I looked up to see the figure in black rising from her seat. But even as I looked I thought I caught a direct glance from the dark eyes, and I could almost have sworn there was a slight wave of the hand as if in parting salute to me. Her companion, an older lady, rose with her, and together they turned and left the gallery. Once more I was struck by the startling resemblance to Mademoiselle Pelagie in every movement, and in the outlines of the graceful figure. I heard nothing more Mr. Clinton had to say; I was lost in an abstracted reverie as to the possibility of its being mademoiselle in the flesh. I would have liked to propose to Mr. Lewis that we go out and follow the mysterious figure, but cold reason assured me that mademoiselle was many miles away, and it was but a fond fancy that pictured her image in every dark-eyed maiden, and so shamed me from such a foolish pursuit.
"Shall we go?" said Mr. Lewis. "There will be no vote—probably none for a week at least."
I started from my reverie to find the debate over, the Senate adjourned, floor and gallery rapidly clearing. I answered with alacrity, hoping he had not discovered my abstraction: