Senator Henry Clay to Susan Jacob Clay, December 15, 1849

WASHINGTON, December 15, 1849.

MY DEAR SUSAN,—I received and read with great pleasure your letter of the 19th of October. All its details of information were agreeable to me, and I hope you will continue to write to me and to communicate every thing, the minutest circumstance concerning yourself or your dear family. I have taken apartments at the National Hotel (a parlor and bed-room adjoining), for the winter. I have an excellent valet, a freeman, and I am as comfortable as I can be. No advance has been yet made in Congress, in the public business, owing to the House, from its divided condition, being yet unable to elect a Speaker. When that will be done is uncertain; but I suppose from the absolute necessity of the case there will be, before long, one chosen.

I have been treated with much consideration by the President and most of his Cabinet; but I have had yet no very confidential intercourse with the President. I dined with him this week, and I have been invited to dine with two members of the Cabinet, but declined on account of a very bad cold. Mr. Clayton sent, me James' diplomatic note to the Portuguese minister on the case of the General Armstrong, with the inclosed note from himself. James' note has been well spoken of by the Attorney-General to me, and I think it creditable. There are some clerical inaccuracies in it, which ought to be avoided in future copies of his official notes. James might have added, in respect to the practice of impressment, that "the Portuguese Secretary, in volunteering a sanction of it, has extended the British claim, now become obsolete, beyond any limit to which it was ever asserted by Great Britain herself, she never having pretended that she could exercise the practice within the Territorial jurisdiction of a third or neutral power, or any where but on the high seas or in her own ports."

I understood from Clayton that it was intended by the President to submit to Congress the conduct of the Portuguese Government, without recommending, at present, any measure of coercion. It is desirable to get the answer to James' note, as soon as practicable, if one be returned.

I have heard from Ashland as late as the 10th instant. All the whites were well; but there had been a number of cases of small-pox in Lexington, and one of our black men had caught it, but he was getting well. Think of your present enjoyment of a delightful climate and tropical fruits, when there fell at Lexington on the 10th instant, a snow six or eight inches deep!

Your brother, the Doctor, has returned to Louisville. You said nothing in your letter to me about Thomas, Henry Clay, or my dear Lucy, and your other children. Is Henry going to school and where?

I believe I did not mention in my former letters to James that Lucretia Erwin has determined to take the black vail.

I send herewith a letter from Mary Ann's husband. My love to James and to all the family.

SOURCE: Calvin Colton, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, p. 591-3

 

Senator Henry Clay to James B. Clay, December 29, 1849

WASHINGTON, December 29, 1849.

MY DEAR JAMES, —I received your letter, communicating an account of Susan's confinement, and I was delighted to hear that she had given birth to a son, with so little of pain and suffering. I hope that she has continued to do well, and that the new comer has also been hearty. In the fine climate where you are, I trust that all your family enjoy good health.

I hear from home, but not as often as I could wish.

After three weeks, Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, a Democrat, was elected Speaker, and it was so much more important that the House should be organized than that whether Whig or Democrat should be chosen, that I was glad an election was made. Nothing of importance has yet been done in Congress.

The Portuguese Minister called on me to-day, and I had a long, long interview with him, both on matters personally relating to you, and on public affairs, the latter, of course, confidentially.

He tells me that you have a fine house and a delightful situation on the Tagus, with a beautiful prospect, etc., but that they made you pay too much rent for it.

I endeavored to impress him very seriously about our claims on Portugal, and that their rejection might lead to very grave consequences. I authorized him to communicate what I said to him to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He read to me a very ingenious and plausible argument in the case of the General Armstrong, but I told him that I thought it only ingenious and plausible, and that I thought the American claim was well founded. One of his points was that the General Armstrong began the conflict. To which I replied that the British boats approached the Armstrong in hostile array; and that, when hailed, refusing to avow whether their purposes were amicable or hostile, the Armstrong was not bound to wait until they struck the first blow, but, being authorized to conclude that their purpose was to board and capture her, she had a right to defend herself, and anticipate the fall of the blow. Exactly as, when an assault is made on a man, not yet followed by a battery, he is not bound to await the battery, but may defend himself forthwith.

As to the weakness of Portugal, since the treaty of Methuen, she has been an ally, and somewhat dependent on Great Britain. Her feelings and sympathies were with the British, and against the Armstrong. She not only did not protect the Armstrong, which as a neutral power she ought to have done, but she did nothing to repel the British violation of her jurisdiction. She did worse; when the crew of the Armstrong was brought on shore, she (Portugal) suffered and connived at their being mustered by, or in presence of, British officers, that they might select from the array those whom they chose to consider British seamen! Never was such an indignity before offered! Never before or since did Great Britain ever attempt to exercise her pretended right of impressment within the jurisdictional limits of a neutral or third power, or any where but in her own ports, or on the high seas.

The Portuguese Minister cited certain provisions of our treaty with Great Britain of 1794, and other treaties, making provision for the case of captures within the waters of the respective parties by a belligerent of either of them, etc. To all which I replied, that those treaties took the case from without the operation of the general public law, but did not affect the condition of powers (of which Portugal was one) having no such treaties with us; that as to these powers, the national law furnished the rule; and that, in cases like the Armstrong, that rule required either protection or indemnity. Protection had not been afforded, and indemnity was therefore justly due.

My manner was intentionally very earnest; and I sought to impress the Minister with the belief I entertain, that if satisfaction of our claims be withheld, it will be sought for by coercion. And I told him that I should be grieved if we had any war with Portugal, especially when my son was the accredited representative of the United States at Lisbon. I told him that I hoped he would impress his Government with the gravity of existing circumstances. He was hurt at the reference in the President's Message to this affair; but I informed him that I had reason to believe that, at one time, it was contemplated to refer to it much more seriously, and I supposed this had not been done in consequence of a hope entertained that your dispatches might soon bring the welcome intelligence that our claims had been admitted and provided for.

He spoke of a proposition before the Portuguese Cortes to elevate the grade of the mission to this country. I told him that the adjustment of our claims would be an agreeable, if not indispensable preliminary to a similar elevation of the rank of our Minister to Portugal, etc.

I presume that they will send you, from the Department of State, the President's Message, and all other public documents. My love to Susan, to dear little Lucy, and all your children, and to H. Clay, and Thomas.

SOURCE: Calvin Colton, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, p. 595-7

Thomas W. Gilmer* to Congressman Robert M. T. Hunter, March 11, 1840

Richmond, [va.], March 11th, 1840.

Dear Hunter: I have frequently during the winter desired to write to you and to receive a letter from you, as one watchman likes occasionally to hail and to hear from another in a dark night. I hope that nothing has occurred or will ever occur to interrupt for a moment that perfect and confidential familiarity which has so long subsisted between us. From all that I learn of you through the medium (a bad one, I confess) of the newspapers, I take it for granted that we are now as nearly together in politics as we were when I saw you last summer. Nothing that has happened here or at Washington, I presume, can have shaken your steadfastness or mine in the great principles to which we have both given evidence of our attachment. But let this be as it may, though you are (without design on your part) the speaker of the H[ouse] of R[epresentatives] and though I in like manner have been appointed with the executive of Virginia, you are still Bob Hunter and I am as I always was your humble servant. We can never forget the Friar Tuck scene of the Expunging winter here, nor should either of us desire its oblivion. I suppose the labors of your station have allowed you very little time for correspondence and though I shall not be more respectful than the governor of New Jersey was to you, I venture to drop you a line, to say that I hope we may occasionally interchange a thought and a word. Is there any hope that parties will ever come back to the good old lines of honest differences of opinion as to principles. For until parties do so, there is really little or no hope that the government (in any hands) will. Are we always to see the millions of freemen in our country, marshalled as the mere clansmen of ambitious aspirants for the presidency? Many, I know, indulge the hope that after November next, there will be some more definite and durable organization of political parties. I confess, however, that I see little prospect for it. The radical fault is with the press and that I fear is past remedy. I am, however, on the outposts and can see but little of the chess board. You are at the fountain head, and I have only to ask that when you have time and can communicate any intelligence which you think would do good, that you may drop me a line, not that I would have you write as a letter writer from Washington, but that you may speak as one friend should speak to another about matters of the highest public concern. We have been grasping our way onward; so far together. I shall sink the partisan of course in my new vocation here. Indeed I have been little of one for some years past. The grease has been scarcely worth the candle. If you don't find time sooner, writer to me in the dry days.

_______________

* Governor of Virginia, 1840-1841; a Whig Representative in Congress, 1841-1843; a Democratic Representative in Congress. 1843-1844; appointed Secretary of the Navy, Feb. 15, 1844, and served until his death on the Princeton, Feb. 28, 1844.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916 in Two Volumes, Volume II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter 1826-1876, p. 33-4

George Fitzhugh to Congressman Robert M. T. Hunter, December 17, 1839

Port Royal, [va.], December 17, 1839.

Dear Hunter: The mail rider brings us the news this morning that you are elected Speaker, and the first information which the papers contain, gives credence to the report. I am more elated and delighted than you can possibly be, for you may be somewhat depressed in thinking of the responsibility you undertake. I suppose now it will be more than ever becoming in you to say nothing about your preferences for president. You undertake in assuming the seat to act impartially, and you have a better chance of doing so whilst untrammelled by pledges to either party. The people too will think a neutral position dignified and becoming in a Speaker, which they would not tolerate in an ordinary member. I sometimes fear that Calhouns friends may run him against Van Buren at [the] next election, if they do, Harrison will certainly be elected. As an original question I should prefer Calhoun, but the only way to make him President is to wait till Van's eight years expire. I enclose a letter I had written yesterday, I do not give to Mr. Speaker the advice I gave to Mr. Hunter. You will excuse, I am sure my familiar mode of addressing you, as you know it does not proceed from want of the respect.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916 in Two Volumes, Volume II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter 1826-1876, p. 30-1