The following letter to Mr. Brewer is interesting as showing Mr. Webster's interest in questions relating to the currency. It is well known that he himself thought that the department of activity in which he was most capable to render service to the country was that of finance, and that he would have liked very well to have taken the Treasury instead of the Department of State in Harrison's administration:
"Boston, Aug. 25, 1837.
"My Dear Sir,—I am very much obliged to you for your trouble in procuring & sending me the plan of Mr. Wood's House. I enclose the amount of the Architect's charge.
Like yourself, I look forward with much concern to the ensuing session of Congress. That there has been a considerable change, in public opinion, is certain; that this may produce a corresponding effect, in some degree, on the deliberations of Congress, is to be hoped; but whether the change has proceeded so far, as to justify the expectation that the Country is now ready to renounce, entirely, the folly of "Experiments" on the currency, & to return to the former well approved system of finance & currency, may admit of doubt. To the friends of the right cause, however, there remains nothing but a steady, honest, patriotic adherence to sound policy & the true interests of the Country.
"I am, Dr Sir,
with regard & esteem
Yr ob serv.
Dan'l Webster.
"Mr. Brewer."
Some very zealous persons were impatient of Mr. Webster's hesitation and irresolution long before the time of the anti-slavery struggle. My Uncle Jeremiah Evarts, a man whom many people think quite the intellectual equal of his son, the famous advocate, threw himself with all his zeal into the defence of the Cherokee Indians when they were removed from their homes in Georgia by the Legislature of that State, in spite of the judgment of the Supreme Court, which was set at defiance. Mr. Evarts said, "There is One who knows how to execute His judgments." That prophecy had a terrible fulfilment in the region about Missionary Ridge, named, I suppose, for the mission to those Indians maintained by the board of which Mr. Evarts was secretary, which during the Civil War was, as Horace Maynard told me, drenched with blood and honeycombed with graves. Mr. Evarts gave his life to the cause of these oppressed people. His death was caused by over-exertion in their defence. He always claimed to have Mr. Webster's promise of earnest support; and whether he were right or not, no such promise was ever kept. But I have in my possession a considerable number of bound volumes of pamphlets which belonged to Mr. Webster, including many presentation copies from their authors who were among his famous cotemporaries. One of them is a copy of Jeremiah Evarts's "William Penn," written by him in the cause of the Cherokee Indians, which was very famous in its day. On the title-page, written in pencil but still quite legible, in Daniel Webster's handwriting, are the words: "When Greece uttered her voice and stretched forth her hand for aid your hearts were moved, your kindling sympathies went out. Will you be deaf to the no less piteous Indian cry?" This single sentence shows, I suppose, that Mr. Webster was thinking of a speech to be made in the Senate in the cause of the Indians, and also what, as we have said, was his usual method of preparation, that he intended to compose a few sentences in a complete form, the rest of the speech being, so far as composition was concerned, extempore.