- Comrade and Muckle
- Campbell
- Barbour. James
- Simpson
- Newton— Thomas
- Tompkins.
- Little— Peter
- Magruder
- Macomb. Alexander
- Rush— Richard.
After my daily morning walk round the Capitol Square, I walked partly
round the garden— Vegetation is in progress, but Ouseley complains of the morning frosts.
There is yet no appearance of flowers. The blossoms of the Peach are
however beginning to open— My trees which came up last year from the
stone give no sign of life: but the self-planted wild cherries, which
shed their leaves only in December, are already putting forth fresh
ones— The Lombardy-Poplar aments are beginning to fall from the trees—
After breakfast two men came, one of whom invited me to visit the wild
beasts of which there is an exhibition in the City— The other had a
machine which he called a knife, and said was made by Conrade and Muckle of
New-York— In a hollow cubic, pen knife handle, with two subsidiary parts
fitting in to its centre, like the tubes of an Opera Glass there were
great numbers, he said 365, one for every day in the year, of pen knife
blades— A curious show, but of no earthly utility— A Mr Campbell brought me a
subscription paper for a republication at Philadelphia of Lingard’s History of England— I
declined subscribing, but told him I would take a set, if the work was
complete— Governor Barbour called
respecting the appointment of a professor of Philosophy at West-Point—
The present Professor Mansfield
asks a furlough till the first of September and that th. of January at New-Orleans— He caught
eagerly at this bait, and went with a numerous train of attendants, from
Nashville to New-Orleans in the dead of Winter, to exhibit himself in
pompous pageantry— His reception was equivocal; with a laborious effort
of magnificence, and mortifying indications of ill-will and disgust
among the people— Deputations were sent from various other States, from
Meetings of his devotees to meet him at the celebration, and five or six
Addresses of fulsome adulation were delivered to him, to which he
returned answers of cold and high wrought rhetorician eloquence— These
Answers were all written by Harry
Lee, who has become an inmate in his family, and attended
him to New-Orleans— As they were in an ambitious and Court-dress Style,
some of his impudent Jackalls fell into extasies in the Newspapers at
his eloquence and fine literary composition; and they were boldly
claiming for him the reputation of an elegant writer— But the General in
one of his raving fits, had sent one of his Nashville white-washing
Committee’s pamphlets on his matrimonial adventures, to Peter Force Editor of the National
Journal, and had written with his own hand, though without signing his
name, on the title page, about four times insulting to Force, and
grossly insolent to the Administration— Coarse, vulgar and false in its
invective, it was couched in language worthy of Antient Pistol, and set
all grammar and spelling alike at defiance— When the Panegyrics upon the
composition of answers to the New-Orleans addresses began to thicken,
and the peal of parasitical applause to swell, Force published literatim
the manuscript note sent him with the Nashville Committee Report, and in
a very short commentary marked the contrast between the wording of the
Note, and the tawdry elegance of the Answers to the addresses— On the
day of Force’s publication, White
the Senator and Polk a member of the
House from Tennessee, called at his Office, and asked to see the
pamphlet with the note— It was shewn them, and to the enquiry whether
they recognised the hand-writing of the Note they answered with
equivocation and evasion. The Liars of the News papers were more bold;
they denied that the manuscript note was written by Jackson, and treated
as infamous calumny the assertion that it was— This has stimulated to
the discovery of more of Jackson’s autograph Letters, and among the rest
is this one to G. W. Campbell— It is still more ferocious than barbarous
in Style and composition. It has got rs
Simpson came to solicit the appointment of
Superintendant of the Patent Office, for her
husband— It is not yet vacant; but Dr
Thornton lies at the Point of Death— Mr Newton,
member of the House from Virginia, introduced Mr. Tompkins of that State, and
Coll.
Little member from Baltimore County came with Mr
Magruder of that City— He brought a Petition of Joseph
Badger, Master of the Ship Alabama of Portland Maine; seized at
New-Orleans for carrying 14 Slaves— I signed the remission of the
penalty. General Macomb
called, and spoke of the appointment of a Professor of Philosophy at
West Point, and earnestly recommended Lieutenant Courtnay— The General for the first time spoke
to me of the political topics of the time, and avowed his own partiality
for the present Administration— He has hitherto so far as I have known
maintained an exemplary neutrality. 475Mr Rush
came with a statement of funds in the Treasury, and an estimate of the
payment on account of the public debt to be made on the 1st. of July next, which he proposes shall be
five Millions of dollars of the principal. The estimate of revenue for
the first and second Quarters of the present year, and its present
prospects, are of increase upon the receipts of the corresponding
Quarters last year— Mr Rush said he should
call a meeting of the Commissioners of the sinking fund; and expect the
Vice President would renew his
proposition to drain the Treasury by a larger payment—which could not be
made without exposing us to a deficiency, in the event of any sudden
pressure, or untoward accident, from which a hue and cry against the
Administration could be raised— Mr Rush read
me another Letter and Resolution from the Retrenchment Committee calling
for a statement of the present Organization of the Treasury Department;
the duties of all the Officers belonging to it, and other enquiries to
which Mr Rush said no other proper answer
could be given, than a reference to the Laws— We had company to dine.
S. B. and Mrs Barrell, Nathl. and Mrs
Frye, H.
Huntt J. L. Kerr,
Captain and Mrs Kuhn, C F Mercer, R. Rush, W.
S. and Mrs Smith, Miss Swan, and D.
Webster— I wrote in the Evening.