they were so hostile to his objects about the negroes, to whom allusion is made in the enclosed letter; and that he was actually without a farthing to pay for his lodgings, or to carry him and a son of his he had with him home to New Orleans. He therefore sent me your letter, and asked me to lend him two hundred and fifty pounds, offering as security certain bonds or receipts upon some bank in the United States. As to these securities, I thought very little about them, but I concluded they were good as they were offered by a friend of yours. Now, this story was a very plausible one, with the exception of the assertion that Colonel Edwards's fellowcountrymen would not assist him. But I thought it very probable that you would give any friend of yours, about whom you were interested, a letter of introduction to Lord Brougham, and hoped it was not very improbable that you might also give him a letter of introduction to me. I accordingly referred Colonel Edwards to my solicitor in London, and sent up this letter purporting to be from you. My solicitor took the letter to Messrs. Baring, who said that they knew your handwriting perfectly well, and were sure the letter was a genuine one. I have said I cared very little about Colonel Edwards's securities, but I felt that I should behave very ill to you if I permitted a 'valued friend' of yours to be arrested when I could avert it by a loan of two hundred and fifty pounds. I will indeed say more, that I should not have considered it very creditable to my country if such a friend of yours could have been so treated without any one of us coming forward to help him. I accordingly advanced the money, my solicitor taking all the legal securities that were possible, and, among others, receiving a certificate from the American consul that Colonel Edwards was the real bearer of that name. Colonel Edwards promised to repay me during this month of September, saying that he took so long a period in order to be quite certain that he should have arrived at New Orleans, and been able to transmit the money to the day. I felt myself quite secure of repayment till about three weeks or a month ago, when my solicito received a letter from Colonel Edwards at Philadelphia, not written in his own hand, but only signed by him, saying that, having had business to transact in London, he had employed a person of the name of Justin, an Englishman, to transact it for him; that, with this view, he had put his papers into the hands of this Justin; and, sending my solicitor a copy of a letter purporting to be from Justin to him, Colonel Edwards, in which he tells him he had abstracted certain securities from these papers, and had upon them borrowed two hundred and fifty pounds from my solicitor, but making no mention of the letter, purporting to be yours, at all; Justin saying that, with this fraudulent object, he had personated Colonel Edwards. This, I confess, appeared to me rather suspicious. I accordingly wrote to Brougham, when I found out that this history about Justin was a pure invention; that Colonel Edwards had really been here, that he had presented to him a letter of introduction from you, and had asked for a loan of money; but that General Hamilton, the minister from the Republic of Texas, having heard something of this, wrote to Lord Brougham to say that this Edwards had been convicted and imprisoned for forgery in Texas, and had escaped from jail; that he, General Hamilton, had told him that he knew all about him, and that Edwards had made no reply to this letter. In consequence of this information, I had communication with General Hamilton, and my solicitor showed him the enclosed letter, which he says he is confident is a forgery. "As to recovering the two hundred and fifty pounds, that, of course, is out of the question; it is also hardly possible to do any thing toward the legal conviction of Edwards for this forgery; but it may be possible, by exposing him, to prevent him from defrauding other people. I fear, therefore, you may think I am giving you a great deal of unnecessary trouble in sending you this long detail, but, as your name had been so much mentioned in this transaction, I think it is as well that you should be aware of what has taken place. And, as we seldom act without some selfish influence operating upon us, I must also admit that I am not sorry to be able to lay before you this proof that I am, and always shall be, most happy to attend to your wishes, and to do all I can to show hospitality to any friend of yours whom you may wish to recommend to me. "Believe me, my dear sir, "Hon. Dan'l Webster, etc., etc.” 1 The adventurer here mentioned, Monroe Edwards, was afterward sentenced to the penitentiary, in the State of New York, for another crime. The letter which he forged, in Mr. Webster's name, was in a handwriting closely resembling Mr. Webster's, and the signature is so well imitated that it is not remarkable that persons in London, not professing to be experts, but acquainted with Mr. Webster's writing, should have been deceived by it. Still, if it had been compared by an expert with Mr. Webster's genuine signature, the forgery would probably have been detected. The plausibility of "Colonel Edwards's" story will amuse the reader. The forged letter ran as follows: "MARSHFIELD (near Boston), October 29, 1840. "MY LORD: I have taken the liberty to introduce to the honor of your acquaintance my valued friend, Colonel M. Edwards, a highly respectable and wealthy planter of Louisiana, who visits England with the view of conferring with her Majesty's Government on the subject of two hundred African captives, now illegally held as slaves in Texas, which Africans were sold with an estate to Colonel Edwards, and imposed on him as bona fide slaves. Subsequently, learning their claims to freedom, he, with a degree of magnanimity before unknown, attempted their re Any service it may be in your lordship's power to render Colonel Edwards, in promotion of his most praiseworthy object, will be properly appreciated. 66 "I have the honor to be Right Hon. Earl Spencer, This affair had a very curious sequel. On his return to this country, Edwards committed a forgery on certain bankers in the city of New York. From the proceeds of this forgery, he remitted to Earl Spencer the money he had borrowed from that nobleman; who thereupon, being completely disarmed of his suspicions, wrote to Mr. Webster, in the most amiable manner, to express his regret that he had unjustly harbored a distrust of Mr. Webster's "friend." conviction of Edwards for this forgery on the bankers put an end to Lord Spencer's doubts. The [FROM THE RIGHT HON. J. S. WORTLEY.] "CURZON STREET, September 30, 1841. "MY DEAR SIR: I believe it will be quite superfluous for me to give an introduction to you in favor of Lord Morpeth, to whose hands I commit this letter. I have no doubt you must have made his acquaintance when you were here; but, at any rate, you must know his name well enough as a member of Lord Melbourne's late government. He and I differ in politics, and I have lately proved the successful competitor for parliamentary representative in the West Riding of Yorkshire; yet, notwithstanding this, you must not be surprised that I wish to recommend him to your notice as a private friend. He and I were contemporaries at Oxford; and he was my earliest and best friend; and our mutual regard, I believe I may safely say, has survived all our public differences. He is at present out of my reach, and therefore I know not whether he was acquainted with you when you were here or not; but, if not, I am quite sure that I exaggerate nothing when I say that an acquaintance with him cannot fail to impress you with a due estimate of those qualities of both mind and character which conciliate the respect and win attachment, personally, of all who know him. "I am the more ready to send this letter by his hands, because I rejoice in the opportunity which it gives me to recall myself to your rec ollection. “I have observed with pleasure your elevation to high office in your own country, where, I have no doubt, you will find opportunities of raising still higher your already distinguished reputation. "Believe me, my dear sir, yours very sincerely, "J. STUART WORTLEY." [FROM MR. DENISON.] "OSSINGTON, April 16, 1841. "MY DEAR SIR: I must not delay another day thanking you for a letter which gave me so much pleasure; and I should not wish to be quite the last (as I fear I may be) in making you my hearty congratulations on the high post to which you have been called; yet these congratulations not to you so much as to your country, and my country, and the civilized world at large, who are all deeply interested in seeing the politics of the United States conducted in a just, candid, and honorable course. "If we had not seen each other so lately, and if you had not had the opportunity of seeing with your own eyes, and hearing with your own ears, how the United States and every thing that belongs to them are regarded in this country, I might perhaps have thought it worth while to enter at some length on that topic, and to tell you, not only how completely all bad and jealous feelings are cured, but how sincere and uni versal the desire is to cultivate the most friendly and intimate relations with you, our brethren on the other side of the water. But all this to you must be entirely unnecessary. I make no doubt that, among the great body of the American people, the same feeling of good-will toward us prevails, and I cannot therefore entertain a doubt that our differences may be honorably and peaceably adjusted. "I remember Mr. Jefferson saying to me, that it was his entire belief that Mr. Pitt and the governments of those days delighted in war, on account of the plunder they were able to make of the public money in times of high excitement and large expenditure. But those good old days are now gone by, and even this high motive for destroying life and property is now come to an end. "You will now be overwhelmed with business, and I shall not expect any answer to this, and not a word from you till Congress has separated, and the roughest and the heaviest of your work is over, and the days are long, and you have gone down for a holiday to look at your farm. Then, if any Ossington seeds are doing themselves credit, you may find ten minutes to write me a line. Keep peace, too, and let the highway of the seas be assuredly open; and I must see about sending you a good speci.nen of of some short-horns for your farm, but I won't risk such a precious cargo to the chance of privateers and prize-hunters. "We had a very beautiful spring, and one most favorable for all farming operations. I have lately been buying some very good cattle at terrible high prices, and very soon I shall have a herd worth a visit from any of your agriculturists in search of the best short-horns. "I am busy, too, in finishing my house. I have just had over some German painters from Munich to paint my ceilings. I think Mrs. Webster went to Munich, so she will know the style of work there under the patronage of the king. My attempt is the first that has been made to introduce it into England. 66 "My neighbors, to whom you were so good as to desire your remembrances, were greatly flattered by your recollection of them. I had the clerical neighbor from Doncaster here yesterday, to lecture me on some points of farming. I told him how favorably I had imprinted his name on your mind by the story of his picking up the weed while the dog was pointing. He wanted to deny the story, but, soon afterward, he said he remembered, some years ago, finding some thorns cut off a hedge lying on his land, and that he had thrown them over into a neighbor's wheat. One day, while he was standing concealed under his own hedge, he heard the said neighbor coming down his field, and exclaiming, as he picked up the thorns, 'D- the parson, he has been here again!' "Make my best remembrances to the good Judge. Lady Charlotte desires to join with me in kind regards to Mrs. Webster. "Believe me, yours very sincerely, "J. E. DENISON." CHAPTER XXVIII. 1841-1842. -SHORT VISIT TO LORD ASHBURTON SENT AS A SPECIAL MINISTER-STATE OF THE R. WEBSTER had from the first viewed the subject of the Northeastern boundary as hopeless without an entire change in the manner of proceeding.' He had, therefore, after obtaining the President's authority, informed Mr. Fox, in the summer of 1841, that he was willing to settle the dispute by agreeing to a conventional line, or a line by compromise. This proposal was at once made known by Mr. Fox to his Government, and Mr. Webster awaited their response. In the following December, Mr. Everett, who had previously entered upon the duties of minister of the United States in England, was informed by Lord Aberdeen that the Queen's Government had determined to send Lord Ashburton as special minister to the United States, with full powers to settle the boundary and all other controversies between the two countries. This intelligence reached Mr. Webster in the latter part of January, 1842. At the same time with Mr. 1 Works, v., 97. |