"I thank you, sir, for the opportunity which you have afforded me of vindicating myself in regard to this matter, and of making known my reasons for declining to perform on the occasion referred to.
"Very respectfully,
"Your ob't servant,
"Edwin Forrest."
"Robert Morris, Esq.
The editor of the paper in which the letter was published added, "Now let us see whether the benevolent souls who have been egging him on to the execution of their purposes will show a generosity like his own!"
Travelling over the country amidst all kinds of people and scenes, as he did in his avocation, Forrest naturally had many adventures. Two or three of these may be narrated as having intrinsic interest or throwing light on his character. He was once on board a Mississippi steamer when a passenger, whose name and destination were unknown, was attacked by the cholera in its most violent form. He was a dark, stalwart man, who had been promenading the deck, showily dressed, a pistol projecting from his left breast-pocket, a bowie-knife dangling under his right arm. The unknown man felt that he was doomed, and had only just time and strength to say that he had some money on his person, before sinking back dead in the presence of the horror-struck throng. The captain took from around the waist of the unfortunate man a quilted belt, a foot in width, in which were packed thirteen thousand dollars in gold eagles. As there was no known claimant for the money, it was agreed that it should be given to a hospital in New Orleans. The boat was anchored, and they hurriedly wrapped the body in a long roll of canvas and placed it in a rude box, and went on shore to bury it. It was a still, starlight night in August; and as the company landed on their sombre errand, the wide waters of the river gleamed between its dark shores. A continuous wood of gigantic cotton-wood trees stretched from the bank, their trunks and boughs clasped by great vines, which looked, among the fantastic shadows flung by the pitch-pine torches, like so many serpents crawling in every direction. Digging a trench, they lowered the box into it, with no other service than the muttered words, "In the name of God we commit this body to the ground," threw the earth over it, and returned and proceeded on their way. The experience was a most impressive and dramatic one, the circumstances of the scene combining to color and frame it into a vivid natural cartoon.
The following anecdote was published many years ago in the "Sunday Courier," under his own signature, by Charles T. Heiner, of Baltimore, and the narrative is known to be strictly authentic. It is given here in his words, abbreviated: