University of Virginia Library

LETTER XLVII.
In which Captain Downing relates a confidential conversation
with President Jackson while on a journey to Tennessee.

My dear old friend, — I have n't done any thing
this three months that seemed so natural as to set down
and write to you. To write the name of the Portland
Courier raises my sperits right up. It makes me feel as
if I was again talking with you, and uncle Joshua, and
cousin Ephraim, and cousin Nabby, and ant Sally, and
all of 'em. I and President Jackson got back here yesterday
from Tennessee, where we've been gone most all
summer. And a long journey we've had of it too. I
thought that from here to Portland was a dreadful ways,
but it's a great deal further to Tennessee. I did n't
think before that our country was half so large as I find
it is. It seems as if there was no end to it; for when
we got clear to Tennessee the President said we want
half way acrost it. I could n't hardly believe him, but
he stood tu it we want. Why, says he, Jack, I've got
the largest country in the world, and the hardest to govern
tu. Say what you will of free governments, where
folks will act pretty much as they are a mind to, it's the
hardest work to administer it that ever I did. I had
rather fight forty New Orleans battles than to govern
this everlasting great country one year. There are so
many, you see, want to have a finger in the pye, it's the
most difficult business you can imagine. You thought
you had a tough time of it, Jack, to take care of them
are small matters down to Madawaska last winter, with

your brave company of Downingville boys. But that's
no more than a drop in the bucket to being President
one month. I tell you, Jack, there is n't a monarch in
Europe who has so hard a time of it as I have. There
are so many cooks, the broth most always comes out
rather bad. If I have to write a message, one must put
in a sentence, and another a sentence, and another, till
it gets so at last I can't hardly tell whether I've written
any of it myself or not. And sometimes I have a good
mind to throw it all in the fire and say nothing at all.
But then again that wont do, for since I've undertaken
to be President, I must go through with it. And then
there was such a pulling and hauling for offices along in
the outset, it seemed as though they would pull me to
pieces. If I gave an office to one, Mr Ingham or Mr
Branch would be mad, and if I gave it to another Mr
Van Buren would n't like it, and if I gave it to another,
perhaps Mrs Eaton would make a plaguy fuss about it.
One wanted me to do this thing and another wanted me
to do that; and it was nothing but quarrel the whole
time. At last Mr Van Buren said he'd resign, if I would
turn the rest out. So I made a scattering among 'em
and turned 'em all out in a heap. All but Mr Lewis
and Mr Kendall who staid to give me their friendly
advice and help me through my trying difficulties.

And then again to be so slandered as I have been in
the papers, it is enough to wear the patience of Job out.
And if I got a little angry at the contrariness of the
Senate, they must needs call me a `roaring lion,' the
rascals. But that Senate did use me shamefully. The
very best nominations I made, they always rejected. To
think the stupid heads should reject Mr Van Buren, decidedly
the greatest man in the country, it was too provoking.
Yes, Mr Van Buren is the first man in this
country, and jest between you and me, Jack, he's the
only man in it that is well qualified to succeed me in the
government of this great nation of twenty-four republics.

And he must come in too, or the country wont be worth
a stiver, much longer. There's Clay, he would make
pretty work of it, if he should come in. Why, Jack, he
would gamble one half of the country away in two years,
and spend the other half in digging Canals and building
rail-roads; and when the funds in the Treasury failed
he would go to the United States Bank and get more.

Calhoun would break the Union to pieces in three
months if he was President. He's trying all he can
now to toar off something of a slice from it at the south.
And as for Wirt, he's a fiddling away with the Anti-masons.
Letting Anti-masonry alone, he's a pretty good sort of a
man; but he has n't energy enough to steer our crazy
ship of state in these stormy times. I would sooner
trust it in the hands of Mrs Eaton than him. There's
no one fit for it but Mr Van Buren; and if it was not
for getting him in I would n't have consented to stand
for another term.

But, my dear friend, by stopping to tell you some of
the conversation I and the President had along the road,
I have almost forgot to tell you any thing about myself
and the thousand things I met with on my journey. But
I can't write any more to-day. I expect to start from
here Monday on my way to Portland. You may hear
from me a few times before I get there, as I shall stop
along by the way some to see how matters go in Pennsylvany
and New York.

If you have a chance, send my love to all my folks
up at Downingville, and tell 'em old Jack is alive and
hearty.