own and other nations. However mortifying it may be to haughty England to acknowledge it, no other sources can supply her wants.

The first time I saw Mr. Calhoun was in the Senate. A western member was urging war for Oregon; Calhoun sat silent, but was visibly chafed. The first time I heard him speak, the words were words of peace and praise for England. This was the only time during the space of a month that the name of my country had been uttered except in anger, and the voice of Calhoun was as the voice of an angel;-and for many minutes I wept, overcome by feelings which it were a vain attempt to describe. His appearance is unlike that of other men. His person is tall and thin, and I have always seen him dressed in black. His action is quick, and both in society and in the Senate very expressive. He speaks with the utmost rapidity, as if no words could convey his speed of thought; his face is all intellect, with eyes so dazzling, black, and piercing that few can stand their gaze. Sixty-four years have left their dark centre yet undimmed, and the surrounding blue liquid and pure as the eye of childhood. I

have seen but one alone with eyes so beautiful. Sometimes their intense look is reading each thought of your bosom; sometimes they are beaming with the inspirations of his own. I believe they give out light in the dark. And I have often beheld them suffused with emotion, when the feelings of that ingenuous breast have been excited by honest praise, or moved by sympathy. Mr. Calhoun's general expression is that of unceasing mental activity and great decision. His forehead is broad and full; a deep furrow extends quite across, and above the eyebrows there is considerable fulness. His hair is thick, and long, and straight, and grey, and is thrown back from his face; the eyebrows are very near to the eye, and the cheeks are denuded of flesh. The mouth is thin, and somewhat inclined downwards at the corners it is the proud and melancholy lip of Dante. His complexion is bronzed by the sun of the South.

I was often at the house of Mr. Calhoun, and if I admired his public career, I honoured even more his pure and lovely private life. I have understood that one reason of his declining the

mission to England, in 1845, was the indisposition of his daughter, whom he had himself attended during the arduous period that he was Secretary of State. He is adored in his family, and his manners, at all times agreeable, at home are captivating. "Would you wish me," said he, "to "leave my family, to sacrifice one tenth part of "the portion of life that yet remains to me, to go "to England? I have made an allotment of these "years; a portion for America, a portion for my "own private affairs, (for I am a planter, and can

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not afford to be idle,) and a portion I have "reserved for peculiar purposes connected only "with myself. But convince me that my Duty is "involved in any measure, and as that has been "through life my guide, so will I yield." (He is the most unpersuadable of men).

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"Mr. Calhoun," said I, speaking of America, you are a great experiment.”

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"We are more," said he, "we are a great hit." "Will the Atlantic and the Pacific States be "divided into separate Republics?"

"They cannot be; the Mississippi, a great “inland sea, will keep them united. The Union "is indissoluble."

On the 5th of February, I enquired, "Mr. “Calhoun, what is in the future ?”

"Peace and Free Trade," said he. And Peace we have, and he made it; and Free Trade we have, and to him we owe it. Both measures are emphatically his work.

"What is the crop of cotton?"

"Below two millions of bales."

"I have eight sons in England."

"Bring them all here; we are an exulting "nation; let them grow up with the country; "besides, here they do not want wealth. I would "not be rich in America, for the care of money "would distract my mind from more important "concerns."

"Give the Planters Free Trade, and let every "Planter be the parent as well as the master of his "Slaves; that is, let the Slaves be made to do "their duty, as well as to eat, drink, and sleep; “let industry and morality be taught them, and "the Planter will have reason to be satisfied; he "will always obtain seven or eight per cent upon "the value of his Slaves; and need never be "compelled to the distressing alternative of parting

"with them, unless he allows them, by over indul"gence, to waste his substance."

"Sir Robert Peel," observed Mr. Calhoun, "is "the great Minister of Transition."

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"I fear his Income Tax will render England a

more extreme Oligarchy than she already is," said I.

"Very probably; still, there is much Freedom "in your England."

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"The past is gone; the present is no more ; "future alone is ours." This was said, one day, in reference to the general maxims of life and living.

"I like balls, they are beautiful things; but "now I have a cough, (which I caught at the "Convention of Memphis,) and I fear the evening "air."

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"Ladies should always be dressed in white, and wear a girdle."

Mr. Calhoun has great respect for such external forms as tend to promote order and dignity; and I believe that it was he who established the rule, (during his Vice-Presidency,) that the Members of the Senate should be addressed by their distinctive appellation of "Senators."