Yesterday's news
from home a shade more promising. The President's message to Congress on the
mediatorial propositions from Virginia is calmly and judiciously written. It
looks to that State for the preservation of the Union. The Convention of the
Border States, free as well as slave, assembled on the 30th of January, and we
ought now to have its first movements. There will be a collection of
distinguished men at it,—Rives, Tyler, Reverdy Johnson, etc. I fear, however,
they are rather effete celebrities than fit for the moment.
A curious sort of
intermediate public counsel, not employed by either plaintiff or defendant, but
seeming to act and argue as a Judge-Advocate at a Court-Martial, has addressed
an admirable argument to the Bench in 'Betsey Bonaparte's" case at Paris.
He seems a representative "pro bono publico." His name is Duvignaux.
Another singular feature of this trial was in allowing a presumptuous American
called Gould to intrude his written notions as to what was general opinion
about the marriage of Jerome and Betsey with our eminent lawyers in 1803! How
completely this could have been exploded by the production of my father's
written and elaborate view of the whole matter given to old Mr. Paterson at the
time! I have the rough draft among his relics.
