afterward; and for eighteen or twenty years following he was, most of the time, member of one branch or the other of the Legislature, but generally of the Senate, unless absent from the country. Being a man of few words, he rarely took part in debate; but his opinions were marked by decision, what he said was to the point, his language was good, and when he was strongly moved he spoke with power. One of his colleagues in the Senate, who afterwards had long experience in Congress, and was favorably distinguished there as well as at the bar, has remarked since, that he had rarely heard public men make a short, off-hand speech with more effect than Col. Perkins occasionally did when his feelings were deeply engaged in the subject of debate.

He was never in Congress himself; although his election would have been certain if he would have accepted a nomination as candidate, and there were several occasions when it was desirable to his political friends, who predominated by a large majority in his district, to have had a commercial representative there like him. It is understood that he might at one time have been made Secretary of the Navy if he had been disposed to take charge of that department of the national government. But he does not appear to have been desirous of political distinction; and the engagements in Commerce which required his attention were too important to be made subordinate to any other demands on his time.

In the narrative addressed to his children, after relating the foregoing circumstances of his visit to Mount Vernon, he proceeds as follows:"But to return to the object of these dottings down--my own concerns. The north-west trade led to a continued communication with China, and in 1798 we bought and sent to Canton direct the ship Thomas Russell; and Mr. Ephraim Bumstead, then the eldest apprentice in our counting-house, went out as supercargo; and in 1803, we entered into an engagement with him to go to China, and there establish a house for the transaction of our own and other business when presented to them. Mr. B. took passage in a ship from Providence, belonging partly to merchants there and to J. & T. H. P.

"Mr. J. P. Cushing, then in our counting-house, went with Mr. Bumstead as his clerk. He was then sixteen years old, wrote a fine hand, was a very steady lad, and had a great taste for going abroad. Soon after their arrival in China, Mr. B. was obliged, from illness, to leave Canton with the intention of recruiting, and then returning to China. But he never returned, having died on the passage to the port for which he was bound.

"Mr. Cushing was, therefore, left at this early age to manage the concerns of the house, which were increased by consignments, and which required a good head to direct them. This, fortunately, Mr. C. possessed, and the business which fell into his hands was as well conducted as if Mr. B. had been on the spot. We afterward sent a nephew of my brother's wife, Mr. Paine, to join him. He remained but a short time in China. Mr. Cushing was taken into copartnership with us, and so continued until his return to America, or rather to the dissolution of the house in 1827. He had visited the United States in 1807, but soon returned to China, and did not leave it until twenty years after that time. He was well repaid for his undertaking by the result."

When the tidings of Mr. Bumstead's death reached Boston, Col. Perkins immediately decided to go to China himself, as there seemed to him to be no alternative in such an emergency; and he made preparations for his departure accordingly. But just before he was ready to sail, a vessel arrived in a short passage from Canton with letters from Mr. Cushing, who was his nephew, giving so clear a report of the business of the house, and showing so much ability in the management of it, that he felt safe in postponing his voyage at first, and afterwards in relinquishing it altogether

as it became obvious that Mr. C., young as he was, needed no aid in performing the duties thus devolved upon him.

Under his guidance, the house there was at length so favorably known that consignments increased until they interfered with the business of the house itself, and it became desirable to give them some other direction. A distinct commission house was, therefore, established at Canton for this purpose under the auspices and with the favor of Perkins & Co., which continues to this day, although the first partners withdrew from it rich many years ago. A long line of successors following them have managed the same establishment by turns, and retired from it successively with fortunes, with which they have returned to the United States. If all those were enumerated whose success in life might thus be traced to that first voyage of Col. Perkins to China in 1789, the number would cause surprise. Embargoes and non-intercourse," he continues in the narrative, "with political and other causes of embarrassment, crossed our path, but we kept our trade with China, and during the war of the Peninsula, embarked largely in the shipment of provisions to Spain and Portugal. Our general plan was to freight vessels, load them with flour at the South for Europe, and have the funds remitted to London. To make some necessary arrangements respecting them, I took passage in the brig Reaper, belonging to my friend Henry Lee, for London, in August, 1811. The intention of Mr. Lee was to proceed to India in the brig, taking funds from England, and returning to Boston with Calcutta cloths, which then paid a great advance. I sent funds in her, and she returned in the year 1812, during the war with Great Britain, and with great profit. Long-cloths of India then brought 25 cents per yard, though an inferior article to what is now made in this country and sold at six cents, being less than one-fourth of the price the India cloths then sold at. I remained in London during the year, or until the summer, and returned after war had been declared. While in London I bought, with the elder Mr. Higginson, goods brought into England for France, which resulted in great gain.

"In the spring, I bought a carriage, with Mr. Alexander Everett, and was made bearer of dispatches for France. At that time the only communication was by Morlaix from Plymouth. There I took a vessel of about 40 or 50 tons in which to cross the channel. As we had no use but for the cabin, we gave passage to a dozen or more Frenchmen, who had been exchanged and had no means of getting to France but by the privileged vessels which left Plymouth from time to time. Among the persons to whom a free passage was given, was one who had resided some years in our good city of Boston, and who doubtless had known me as active in resisting the principles of the Jacobins. This individual was the cause of my detention at Morlaix nearly three weeks, having reported me to the commissary at Morlaix as opposed to the French and a great friend of the English. In consequence, I was ordered to remain at Morlaix until orders were received from Paris. After writing to Mr. Barlow, the then minister of the United States, and using other means, we were permitted to proceed to Paris. During my stay at Morlaix, my limit was the town, unless accompanied by one of the gens d'armes. I visited the lead mines in that vicinity, and made other excursions within 30 or 40 miles, and was upon the whole very civilly treated by Moreau, the commissioner, after he was satisfied that my object in visiting France was commercial and not political. Moreau, the general, although from the same town, was not a relative of the commissioner, who was a great Bonapartist.

"An incident which caused me much anxiety, and which might have been attended by serious consequences, occurred in or was connected with this journey. On my leaving London, Mr. Russell, who was then charge d'affaires of the United States at the court of St James, on my going to his house for despatches, put into my hands a package of some sheets in volume, directed to Col. Tchernicheff, chancellor to the Russian minister, Prince Kourakine, at Paris. Had I considered a moment I should have doubted the

Here the narrative is broken off. It was suspended, probably, at his departure from Saratoga, where it is dated, and was never continued. But, in conversation, he gave a graphic account of the solicitude which he felt while he was detained in Morlaix, at having with him dispatches so directed, which might be discovered in his possession; of the momentous state of affairs which he found on his arrival in Paris, shortly before the open breach of Napoleon with Russia, that led to the fatal campaign in the north; of the difficulty that he had in safely delivering the dispatches; the acknowledgements that he received from the Russian embassy for doing it successfully; the angry look which he saw the emperor cast from his seat in the theatre toward the box of the Russian embassador, as if it was meant that it should be observed; and the departure of the latter from Paris the following day.

While he was at Morlaix an incident there called into action some of those qualities of heart and head which were repeatedly exercised afterward on a greater scale, the spirit that freely contributes to the alleviation of distress, and the intelligent skill which can make one liberal contribution the means of eliciting the action of a community in a good cause. The story is told in a letter to Mrs. Perkins, too long to be inserted entire, but interesting throughout, and some passages will show his habits of observation as a traveller, with something of the state of France at that time:—

"CHERBOURG, June 2, 1812.

“MY DEAR SARAH:-I can easily conceive from my own feelings how much pleasure the receipt of this letter will give you, being the only one I have written you for two months, excepting a short one from Morlaix which was not calculated to afford you much satisfaction, as I was then under a degree of restraint, which has not left me from that time to this. I am now here waiting the arri val of the Wasp (sloop of war) from England, where she returns again to land me with the dispatches from the minister at Paris to the charge d'affaires at London. You may well suppose what my anxiety is to hear from home, having received no letters of later date than February. My anxiety is much increased from the uncertainty as to our situation in regard to the war. If we are engaged in the contest, I shall find it difficult to return. My passport to leave the country was kept back, and but for exertions which I made through some persons whom I had interested in my behalf, I might have been some months longer detained.

"You will want to know what has been the disposition of my time since I arrived in France. I was detained at Morlaix fifteen days, and but for the exertions of my friends might have been there this hour, as a gentleman who arrived there a month before me has been detained there till this time, and can get no permission either to return to America or to go to Paris. Another bearer of dispatches was there a month. I was not so much ennuye as those gentlemen who were looking to Paris as the place where they were to realize golden dreams of pleasure. As I am fond of spying out wonders, I got permission to visit a lead mine, which is at no great distance from Morlaix, and which afforded me the highest gratification. There are upwards of twelve hundred persons employed at the works. The descent from the surface to the deepest part is 800 feet. I was astonished to find the price of this severe labor so low. Twelve hours' labor is exacted in the twenty-four. The time employed in going down and returning is not included. And for this the men receive about 18 to 20 cents per day, and find themselves. Men only, with a few boys, are employed in the mines. Women, both old and young, and children down to five years old, are employed in selecting the good from the bad ore, breaking it in pieces, and working it. They receive from four to seven sous, equal to as many cents, per day. They find themselves, and work from the getting up to the going down of the sun, the year through. You will ask how they subsist. I can hardly

imagine how they get along, but so it is; and I do not see but they appear as healthy as people in general who are employed in hard labor of a different kind. Black bread, moistened with a kind of lard, or bad butter, furnishes them their food, and the spring quenches their thirst. Once in a while they have a few pounds of beef boiled to pieces in a pot, containing half a barrel of water and a few vegetables. This soup, as it is called, is a sort of luxurious living, which is too good to be served often. I found that were twice the number of women wanted they might be had; and even of men of a certain age, which does not include the term when they are wanted for the army.

"When I returned to Morlaix I found my passport had arrived, so that I could not go again to visit this very interesting work. Upon the whole, my fifteen days went away much more pleasantly than I had expected, and I should not have hung myself had I been obliged to remain there a week longer.

"There is a tobacco manufactory at Morlaix, on a very large scale. Twelve hundred and sixty persons are daily at work at it. All the manufactures of snuff, and tobacco in every shape, in the empire belong to the government, who purchase the raw material and work it into the form in which it is used. I contrived to get admission, and was astonished at the extent of the establishment. "It is astonishing to observe the difference in numbers between the men and women you see in the streets in every town through which you pass. At Morlaix, they say there are fourteen females to one male in the town. You would hardly suppose there was any part of France, I mean of France as it was under the old government, in which the inhabitants of whole districts do not speak French. This, however, is the case in Brittany. The people who live a mile from the town speak no more French than they do Greek. Their language is the Welsh, and is the only one spoken by them, until they leave their villages and come to the towns to reside, or go to the army, when they are obliged to learn the French. The people who live in the towns are obliged to learn the Brittany language, or they could not go to the market, or have any communication with the country people. Before taking my leave of Morlaix, I must relate to you a fact that came under my own knowledge, by which you can appreciate the tenure by which liberty is held here.

"The family in which I lived was one of the most respectable in Morlaix, in point of property, previous to the revolution. Like many others, it was reduced to very narrow means by the then existing state of things, as their wealth consisted principally in vessels, which either perished at the wharves, or were taken by the powers which then ruled, and were totally lost to Monsieur Beau, who was their proprietor. Having been the agent for the lead mines for a long time, this was a resource to him, and although the stipend arising from this was a moderate one, yet it served to feed his wife and children, who were some six or seven in number. M. Beau died a few years since, and left his widow without any resource for the support of her family. Being a woman of a good deal of character, the company to whom the mines belong concluded to continue the agency in the hands of Mrs. Beau, who, with the aid of her youngest son, has carried on the purchases and sales to this time. The two eldest sons got clerkships in the tobacco manufactory, and a daughter was married, so that but one daughter and one son were upon the shoulders of the old lady. Their means were, to be sure, small, but their wants were few, and although their whole income was not more than six hundred dollars per ann., the son who aided his mother in the lead mine agency had made a matrimonial engagement; and not believing that 'Love would fly out of the window, although Poverty looked in at the door,' a day was designated for the marriage, and I was invited as a guest at the meeting of the family, which was to take place in the evening. The mar riage ceremony took place in the morning at the parish church, and at about 10 o'clock I was introduced to the bride, whom I found to be, as I had heard her represented to be, a very beautiful woman of about twenty, with a very prepossessing countenance, which it was universally acknowledged was a perfect index of her amiable mind. She seemed perfectly happy, and nothing but joy was visible in every countenance in the family. All was happiness and gaiety, and laugh and frolic. Mark the sad change. At 12 o'clock the bridegroom received

notice that he had been drawn in the conscription, and that on Sunday he must be at Campege, a distance of thirty leagues. This was on Thursday. In such cases entreaty is vain, and never resorted to, because always ineffectual. To go to the army was to go, to return when the exigencies of the State no longer required his services. The whole family was in a state little short of distraction when I left the town, which was early on the next morning. The lowest price at which a substitute could be procured was three thousand franes, and the fam ily could not command half the money in all its branches. The peculiar situation of this family seemed to paralyze the whole town, and led to an exertion which is seldom made, and which proved effectual in preventing this young man from being torn from the embraces of his charming wife and amiable mother. I have the satisfaction of having put the thing in train, and shall always consider the opportunity as one of the most gratifying which ever presented itself to me. After my arrival in Paris, I received a letter saying that my example had been followed, and that it had produced the effect desired. This is an anecdote, or rather this part of it, for your own private ear, and you will not, of course, show this letter."

Some years afterward he was again at Morlaix, and as a proof of the affection and respect with which the remembrance of him was cherished, he found that the room which he had occupied at the time of this occurrence had been kept in the precise order in which he left it, no article having been removed from its place.

After his return from this voyage to Europe, he took an active and very important part in measures for establishing the Massachusetts General Hospital with an Asylum for the Insane, the necessity for which had begun to be deeply felt. He was one of those to whom an act of incorporation had been granted for the purpose, with a valuable donation from the Commonwealth, on the condition that the sum of one hundred thousand dollars should be raised by subscription within a limited time. His name was at the head of the first list of trustees, and he undertook the work which his position involved with characteristic energy. His influence and his services were highly appreciated by those with whom he was engaged in that undertaking. The subscriptions were made on the condition that the full sum of $100,000 should be obtained, so that the whole depended on entire success. Besides his exertions in rousing other subscribers, he and his elder brother contributed five thousand dollars each toward the fund, and it was completed agreeably to the terms of condition. It is well known that the efforts of those who were engaged in this movement have been productive of all the good which they hoped to effect. The institution bears a favorable comparison with those of the same kind in other places, and has become celebrated throughout the world for the first successful application of the great discovery in the use of ether for surgical operations.

His elder brother and partner, James Perkins, Esq., died in the year 1822. The following passages from a notice of his death, published at the time, show the estimation in which he was held :

"While his real and most eloquent eulogy is to be sought in the course of an industrious, honorable, and most useful life, it is due to the virtues he practiced, to the example he set, to the noble standard of character on which he acted, not to be entirely silent, now that nothing remains of them but their honored memory. He had received in boyhood, under the care of an excellent mother, the preparatory instruction which might have fitted him for an academical education; but the approach of the Revolutionary War, and the discour aging aspect of the times, dictated the commercial career as more prudent.

"In enterprises extending over the habitable globe, employing thousands of