his breast-pocket, and a bowie-knife stiffening his back, were amazed upon being told that the little man sitting in a corner, writing on his knee, was the great editor they had come to get a sight of.

The summons to Washington, though unexpected, Mr. Blair obeyed without hesitation and without delay. He reached the capital in sorry plight; almost penniless, with a single presentable coat, and that a frock-coat; with a great gash in the side of his head from an overset near Washington. When he entered the President's office, Major Lewis could hardly conceal his disappointment. For weeks, Mr. Blair had been the coming man to all the habitués of that apartment. Whenever General Duff had ventured to come out a little bolder than usual against the administration or its friends, they had said to one another, in effect, "Never mind. Wait till Blair comes. He will talk to him." And this was he-this little man attired in frock-coat and courtplaster! Said Major Lewis, with a sly glance at the black patch, "Mr. Blair, we want stout hearts and sound heads here."

The General took to him at once, and he to the General. At the very first interview, the President revealed to him the situation of affairs without any reserve whatever. The difficulties he had had in his own household, the alleged machinations of the nullifiers, the supposed atrocities of the bank, the imaginary devices of that arch-devil, Henry Clay, the cabinet combination against poor Major Eaton-all were unfolded. "There's my nephew, Donelson," said the General; "he seems to be leaning toward the nullifiers. But he's my nephew. I raised him. I love him. Let him do what he will, I love him. I can't help it. Treat him kindly, but if he wants to write for your paper, you must look out for him." The President invited Mr. Blair to dinner. When the hour came, the editor was horrified to find a great company of ambassadors and other high personages assembled in the East Room, all in costume superb. The tails of his uncomfortable frock coat hung heavily upon the soul of the

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stranger, who shrunk into a corner abashed and miserable. The President, as soon as he entered the room, sought him out, placed him at the table in the seat of honor at his own right hand, and completed the conquest of his heart. In Francis P. Blair, General Jackson gained a lover as well as a champion.

Like Jonah's gourd, the Globe appeared to spring into existence in a night-without capital, without a press, without types, without subscribers, without advertisements. Amos Kendall made a contract for the printing. Major Lewis, Mr. Kendall, and all the confidants of the administration exerted themselves to obtain subscribers. The office-holders were given to understand that to subscribe for the Globe was the thing they were expected to do, and the Jackson presses throughout the country, announced that the Globe was, and the Telegraph was not, the confidential organ of the administration. Subscribers came in by hundreds in a day, and the Globe became a paying enterprise in a few weeks. Partly by subscription, and partly by papers paid for in advance, a press and materials were soon purchased. A known friend of the bank advanced two hundred dollars for this purpose. The next morning, Mr. Blair, having in the meantime learned the probable object of this donation, returned the money.

To swell the profits of the Globe office, the President desired to obtain for it the printing of the departments, or, at least, a share of that profitable business. As some of the secretaries showed no alacrity to make the transfer desired, the fertile brain of Major Lewis devised a very simple but quite effectual expedient for compelling them to do so. He induced the President to issue an order to each member of the cabinet, requiring him to present to the President a quarterly account of the sums paid, and to whom paid, in his department for printing. Major Lewis drew up the order. Major Donelson, as usual, copied it. The President signed it. Such an order, in the peculiar posture of affairs at the time, was equivalent to a command to give the Globe office a share of the department printing; and the command was obeyed.

In due time, came the election of Messrs. Blair and Rives as printers to Congress, which added fortune to the fame and power given them by the Globe. Mr. John C. Rives, the well-known partner of Mr. Blair, was a gentleman who added to respectable literary attainments an extraordinary efficiency in the management of business.

The Telegraph waged an active warfare against General Jackson for several years, supporting Henry Clay for the presidency in 1832, with hopes for Mr. Calhoun in 1836 or 1840. The campaign of 1832 gave it a temporary inflation, which the result of that campaign changed into partial collapse. The editor still lives in Washington, a prosperous gentleman, delighting to tell over, to after-dinner circles, the story of his short and turbulent career as Jacksonian organ.

THE administration of General Jackson, however distracted by internal broils, whatever motives of a partisan or personal character influenced it, always came before the public with an imposing air of calm dignity and single-eyed patriotism. No one could ever suppose, from its public papers, that, from the beginning to the end of its existence, it scarcely knew a month of internal peace and real coöperative harmony.

Congress met again on the 6th of December, and on the day following Major Donelson was at the Capitol with the message, one of the most carefully elaborated documents ever presented to Congress.

It opened with jubilation. Plenty and peace had crowned the year. "With a population unparalleled in its increase, and possessing a character which combines the hardihood of

enterprise with the considerateness of wisdom," every where was seen a steady improvement. A glowing paragraph expressed the congratulations of the nation upon the success of the late revolution in France, which had enabled Lafayette to place upon the throne the prince Louis Philippe, a man who, the President hoped, would deserve the proud appellation of PATRIOT KING. The recent diplomatic triumph of Mr. McLane, which placed our trade with the West Indies on its present footing, after six previous negotiations had resulted in failure, was explained, and the negotiators on both sides duly complimented, Mr. McLane being mentioned by The Sultan had opened to us the Black Sea, and placed our commerce, in all respects, on the footing of the most favored nations. With Mexico, Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, negotiations were pending with every prospect of issues advantageous to the United States. Denmark had at length appropriated the sum of six hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the whole amount claimed, to indemnify American merchants for the spoliations of 1808 to 1811, and it now only remained for Congress to effect a just distribution of the money among the claimants.

name.

These administrative triumphs having been detailed, the authors of the message grappled with the serious business of the occasion, which was to defend the course of the President in his veto of the Maysville road, and in his withholding his assent from the light-house bill, and the bill authorizing a subscription to the Louisville and Portland Canal Company, both of which had been passed at the close of the last session of Congress. That the expense of constructing lighthouses properly devolved upon the general government, the President did not doubt; but there were some features of the light-house bill in question of which he could not approve. To the number of light-house keepers, already very large, the bill proposed to add the extraordinary number of fifty-one. The expenditures of the government for the protection of commerce were immense, and, as he had been led to conclude, unreasonable, and he looked rather to their diminution than

their increase. Moreover, the present bill contained the entirely fatal objection of authorizing certain surveys which were clearly of a local character, and designed for the promotion of local interests.

With regard to the bill proposing a subscription of the public money to the stock of a private company, he was utterly and for ever opposed to that mode of assisting public works. He thought it unconstitutional, impolitic, injurious, and demoralizing. With his consent it should never be done.

The message proceeded to vindicate the Maysville veto, the use of the veto power generally, and the proposed apportionment of the surplus revenue among the States. Amid all the clamor and controversy to which his measures had given rise, the President said he had been consoled by the reflection that if he had really mistaken the interests and wishes of the people, an opportunity would soon be afforded them of placing in the presidential chair one who would interpret their desires more correctly. Meanwhile, the money saved by the vetos would be rigidly applied to the extinguishment of the public debt.

The President repeated his recommendations for the removal of "all intermediate agency" in the election of the chief magistrate, and for limiting his period of service to one term.

He artfully defended the policy of removing the Indians, denying that the removal was either unjust or inhuman. "Doubtless," he remarked, "it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers; but what do they more than our ancestors did, or than our children are now doing? To better their condition in an unknown land, our forefathers left all that was dear in earthly objects. Our children, by thousands, yearly leave the land of their birth, to seek new homes in distant regions."

The tariff was a topic, of course, and it was touched with an uncertain hand, of course. The people were implored not to regard the tariff as a sectional matter, and to ap