Daniel Webster to Millard Fillmore, October 14, 1850

Marshfield, October 14, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,—Leaving Washington Friday, the 4th, I came that day to Philadelphia, and the next to New York, and staying on Sunday in that city, reached Boston Monday evening, the 7th, feeling tolerably well. Tuesday, the 8th, I was to have gone into State street to meet the people, but did not find myself well enough. The next day, Wednesday, I came down to my house, a good deal sick, and have hardly been out of doors from that day to this. My catarrh has held on uncommonly, and for three or four days last week, I was quite ill with it, so much so, that I called in a physician. Very sensibly, he recommends nothing but rest, patience, and herb teas. It is usual enough for the disease in its last stages to assume the form of a kind of asthmatic cough. This I have had, and hope I am now nearly over it. To-day the weather is cold, the skies bright, and every thing out doors looks well, and I hope to go over the farm. To-morrow the Turkish commissioner and suite are to be here, and I have asked some friends to meet them. It is difficult entertaining a guest, with whom one cannot exchange a word, and whose habits and wants are so unknown. We shall take care to keep all swine's flesh out of his sight; give him beef, poultry, and rice, and let him get on as well as he can, having always coffee in plenty.

Of political occurrences, and the political state of things in New York, and further south, your information is, of course, fuller and fresher than mine. In New England, affairs and opinions stand thus:

All true Whigs are not only satisfied, but gratified with every thing done by you, since the commencement of your administration. Men of property and business feel a degree of confidence and security, which it is certain they did not feel under the late administration. Indeed, I am at a loss to account for that want of confidence which appears to have prevailed. A gentleman of discernment said to me in Boston, that within a week after you had taken the chair, men met together, and, without saying a word, sufficiently manifested to one another, that, in their judgment, a highly important and conservative change had taken place.

The respectable portion of the Democratic party incline to treat the administration with respect.

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Yours, always truly,

DAN'L WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 394-5