dent. And this was natural enough; for the Prime Minister is never on good terms with the heir-apparent. Besides, Mr. Seward-who was an expert intriguer, and had many adroit and capable men in his interest-soon established confidential relations with most of the members of the cabinet; and some time before the death of the President Mr. Fillmore was reduced to a condition of insignificance and helplessness almost painful to behold. General Taylor became sensible that the office of Vice-President carried no authority or power in the councils of the nation; and being really taken possession of by Mr. Seward and his partisans, the friends of Mr. Fillmore were in danger of proscription under the opposing influence which dominated the White House. This was the state of things when General Taylor died, in July, 1850.

the Whig party was convulsed by the aspirations and intrigues of several rival candidates for the Presidency. Mr. Webster, who had for a long series of years been suffering under a hallucination of mind on the subject, was determined that his pretensions should no longer be postponed. It was his sincere conviction that the people had long been anxious to make him President, but that their wishes had been baffled by the sinister influence of the political managers. Mr. Fillmore, like every other man who had tasted the sweets of the executive office, wished for a re-election. The majority of the party preferred General Scott, who was finally made the candidate, to be ignominiously beaten by a county politician as little known as Franklin Pierce.

GENERAL TAYLOR AS A HISTORIAN.

General Taylor, although an excellent soldier, and a man of strong good sense in the every-day affairs of life, had been educated in the camp, and knew no more of statesmanship or the operations of government than a Comanche Indian; nor was he distinguished for colloquial accomplishments or narrative or descriptive talent. Then he had a habit of hesitation in conversation that amounted almost to a stammer. He spoke in a terse, sententious style upon subjects with which he was familiar, and his suggestions, especially on military matters, were marked by quick perception and sound judgment. But he was never diffuse or demonstrative, and wasted no words upon any body.

The Whig party never rallied after this overwhelming defeat, and finally disappearWhen Mr. Fillmore succeeded to the Pres-ed upon the organization of the Republican idency he found his personal opponents fill- party in 1854. ing the most important places in the government; and although an amiable man, of no strong antipathies or prepossessions, he was constrained, from the necessity of the case, to make many changes. He reconstructed his cabinet anew, with Mr. Webster for Secretary of State. Mr. Clayton, who was Mr. Webster's immediate predecessor, came back to the Senate; but Messrs. Meredith, Crawford, and Preston, his colleagues in the cabinet, fell back to private life, from which they never again emerged. Mr. Crittenden succeeded Reverdy Johnson as Attorney-General, and that fresh-water sailor, Preston, made way for Mr. Graham, of North Carolina, who afterward ran for VicePresident on the ticket with Mr. Fillmore. Thomas Corwin came into the Treasury Department, a brilliant orator, a man of genuine wit, and a charming companion, but of scant qualifications for a financial minister, and of rather loose notions in respect to official responsibility. Mr. Hall, Fillmore's old law partner at Buffalo, was made Postmaster-General. Subsequently an arrangement was made with Mr. Conkling, father of the present Senator, then Judge of the Northern District of New York, by which he was made minister to Mexico, and Mr. Hall took his place on the bench, and made an admirable and very able judge. There were some insinuations of a bargain, inconsistent with an elevated sense of delicacy and propriety. But in those days elevated notions prevailed on the subject of public morality. At the present time such fastidiousness would be generally ridiculed.

The administration of Mr. Fillmore was generally successful. With the ponderous ability of Mr. Webster, and his long experience in public affairs, it could have been nothing else. The condition of the country was such that no great enterprise or activity was needed in the administration. But

Judge Butler, a colleague in the Senate of Mr. Calhoun, calling to pay his respects to the President, begged him to describe the manner in which the battle of Buena Vista was fought. His brother, Pierce Butler, commanding the Palmetto regiment, and a very gallant officer, fell in the battle, and the judge was naturally anxious to learn the particulars of that desperate contest. "Well, well, judge, you want to know how the thing was done. Come and dine with me to-day, and I'll tell you all I know about it."

Judge Butler was a hasty, impetuous man, and the words flowed from his mouth in a torrent whenever he had occasion to speak. He was all impatience during the dinner, and the moment they were alone he brought up the subject of the battle.

"Yes, yes, judge, your brother was a brave man, and behaved like a true soldier. But about the battle-you want to know how it was fought?"

"Yes, general, if you will be so kind. I wish to learn how your troops were disposed on the field, and how you posted them to re

"Undoubtedly," said the judge; "but moral courage, more pluck and determinawhat was your order of battle ?"

the minds of the Silver-Grays, or Snuff-takers, as the conservative Whigs were termed by their radical brethren.

But mark the sequel. Such was the tact and address of Mr. Seward, and his skill in impressing himself upon those by whom he was surrounded, that he soon regained his influence with General Taylor, and in a few short months the latter permitted the cabinet, co-operating with Seward, to drive Bullitt out of the Republic for writing the article which he had inspired and ordered to be written.

I was at Niagara Falls with Bullitt in the following July when the news of the death of General Taylor reached us, and this was his exclamation: "I mourn for the kindhearted old man as I would for a father. He never acted wrong on his own motion. The filibustering knaves who practiced upon his credulity and good nature will now get their deserts, and justice will be done to all parties."

Mr. Fillmore's administration was a highly respectable one. He had had considerable civil experience, and with Mr. Webster in the State Department, there would necessarily be decorum and propriety in the general conduct of the government. He had no enterprise, no disposition to put the country on extreme courses. He surrounded himself with suitable, competent, and honest men; and national affairs, external and domestic, were in a healthy condition when he gave way to General Pierce.

son Bay Company, sought to make a sale to the government of the United States of what were termed "the possessory rights" of that company within our territory. In the treaty that settled the boundary line on our northwestern frontier certain properties and rights were secured to the company below the parallel of forty-nine, which the treaty had brought within our jurisdiction. The properties consisted of block-houses and hunting stations, with certain contingent rights that it was thought could not be maintained without danger of a collision between our government authorities and the Hudson Bay Company; and Governor Simpson, a hardheaded and sagacious old Scotchman, proposed to relinquish these rights, and every thing thereto pertaining, on the payment of a certain specified sum of money. During the last session of Congress under Mr. Polk Sir George had employed an agent at Washington to negotiate an arrangement, but no progress had been made to that end. My old friend, Governor Doty, of Wisconsin, had recommended me to Sir George as a suitable person to undertake the business; and early in the winter of 1849 Sir George wrote me, asking that I should meet him at Lachine, near Montreal, the head-quarters of the Hudson Bay Company; or, if that was inconvenient, he would see me in Washington soon after New-Year. I met him in Washington about the time appointed, and engaged to see what could be done. Evidently it would be futile to move in the matter without the approbation of the administration. In fact, unless the cabinet would consent to make the purchase an administration measure, it was not supposed to be possible to carry it through. Mr. Clayton, Secretary of State, was opposed to the project from the start; and although he behaved with great courtesy and fairness in presenting the matter to the President, there was a strong prejudice against the scheme, and it was soon abandoned.

General Pierce was a pleasant, amiable gentleman, of moderate capacity, but with no more voice or authority in the government than his private secretary. Rather by accident than design he drew about him a cabinet of uncommon ability. He was a man of facile mind, agreeable address, and a ready habit of expressing himself, but in an executive council composed of such men as Marcy, Guthrie, Davis, and Cushing his crude and superficial suggestions could have had little weight under any circumstances. Governor Simpson was an able man, of Then his notions of the proprieties of official strong common-sense, practical and clearintercourse were loose and undefined. Mr. headed in his views, an excellent judge of Buchanan represented our government at men, and the interest of the great corporathe court of St. James under his administra- tion whose affairs he administered was effition. That gentleman was always envious ciently promoted in his hands. At a dinand jealous of Governor Marcy, who was ner which he gave at Gadsby's old hotel I then Secretary of State, and instead of com- met Sir Henry Bulwer, then representing municating with the government through the British government at Washington, and the Department of State, conformably to the Mr. Evans, of Maine, who had recently finuniform practice of his predecessors in of- ished his Congressional career, which had fice, he corresponded directly with the Pres-run through nearly twenty years. I have ident, with the approbation of Pierce, who was rather pleased at the indignity thus offered the Secretary, as well as at his grim manner of resenting the affront.

THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY.

During the administration of General Taylor Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hud

rarely been more impressed by the views and suggestions of any three men. The conversation was informal and casual; but they were representative men, all of them thoroughly informed upon the topics they discussed, and expressed themselves with great force and clearness. Sir Henry was a well-equipped and highly accomplished

It may have been a semi-consciousness of bold effrontery in the man that led him to

shape of an ugly bull-pup, who always attended his steps when on shore. I never heard that he had had much occasion for this canine reinforcement, or that the bullpup had ever fought any battles for his masBut so it was, the man and the dog seemed inseparable.

man, without pedantry or pretense, and Mr. Evans was one of the best talkers of his time. No man was better instructed in re-seek for his psychological complement in the gard to the structure and operation of our government, or could more readily explain the complexities of our system, so puzzling to the best-informed foreigners. Sir George was rich in information upon subjects of which the others were comparatively ig-ter. norant; and, altogether, the conversation and the free-and-easy discussions afforded a charming entertainment. One rarely sees three such men together. They were wholly unlike, differing in their modes of thought and forms of expression, and yet alike full of information and instruction.

THAT BULL-PUP.

My private opinion is that that bull-pup had for some time been without any owner. I sometimes met the beast in the Irish quarter of the town, and sometimes in out-of-theway places, where it was clear he was following nobody, nor was any body following him, though the dog had a just pride about it, and made great pretensions either to being somebody's favorite, and to be perpetu

66 T'S wuth all o' ten dollars, that 'ere ally awaiting the arrival of some one, or else

two! Why, I hed to haul her up, an' bail her out, an' turn her upside down, an' put tar an' oakum into all them cracks-besides the time. You don't seem to think a man's time's nothin'."

"Mr. Fabbins," said I, "you know as well as I do that you couldn't have put ten dollars' worth of work on that boat. It's preposterous, your charging such a price."

"I don't know as I kin take less; tar an' oakum's riz, an' a man's time don't go for nothin'."

mans; and you would see him sauntering leisurely, as if it were nobody's business where he was bound, and he had a perfect right to stop and smell at all the corners as long as he pleased, and scrape acquaintance with any other dog he took a fancy to. I felt sorry for the young fellow, for I feared he was in dissipated habits. I suppose two lonely half lives found a sort of completeness when the fisherman and the dog met in mutual league and friendship.

But

He was an ugly and vulgar specimen, I was somewhat mystified by Fabbins's em- that bull-pup. His color was a dirty white; phasizing the value of his time. He passed his tail was short; his ears were cropped; for a river fisherman, and spent most of his his legs had the usual twist of his genus; time in his boat on the water, where he and his square pugnacious head and jaws seemed to be about as idly industrious as a looked as if they would, with maturing years, sitting hen, "whose time is nothin'," as the harden into a huge animated forceps. boy said. On shore he always moved along the most noticeable thing about him was a at the most shambling leisurely pace, as if large black spot on one side of his face, as quite indifferent to the relations between big as your hand, in the centre of which labor and capital. The only hour when he was supposed to be his left eye. This eye seemed actively employed was when he had was therefore with difficulty distinguishabrought in his boat at sunset, and sat there ble, but the right eye did double duty. I coolly breaking the legs of his captured crabs could never see that black spot over his eye to keep them from crawling back into the wa- without imagining it must have been heredter, or reducing some poor flopping cat-fish or itary from one of his quarrelsome ancestors, squirming eel to order by a final quietus. "the hero of a hundred fights," who had Josh Fabbins was a small, thin, weather-borne away the mark from some terrible beaten man of about forty-five, with a face scuffle with man or beast. which a painter would say was remarkably out of drawing. This peculiarity attached chiefly to his nose, which, in addition to its prominence, had a decided curve to the larboard, like a flesh-colored sail in the wind. His light gray eyes were near together, and had an uncertain, watery look, as if, were it not for the dike interposed by the nasal member, they might flow together, and make a feeble Cyclop of him. A spare and scattering beard partly hid his mouth and chin. He did not seem to be of the combative or Fabbins, I think, had no Celtic blood in audacious order, but like one who would his veins, or I might have anticipated, persooner gain his point by quiet and pertina-haps, something like my experience, a year cious persistence.

My dispute with Fabbins about the boat came to no definite result at this time. I persisted, however, in declining to pay him the sum he demanded, and left him in a somewhat gloomy but not defiant mood. The dog stood by all this time, looking at each of us, and seemed to know (confound that black patch of his!) all that was said. As I was leaving, he looked hard after me, as much as to say, "I'll know you when I see you again."

before, with one O'Reagan.

should make his appearance but that bullpup, followed by the shambling steps and unsymmetrical features of Josh Fabbins. "Confound it!" I said, "here he is again— but not like the birds with their little bills. He must think I am like one of these trees, and am budding all over with greenbacks. Because he finds me walking in the fields, he thinks I have eternal leisure, and therefore endless stocks and ready cash at command. Just now I was singing, ‘I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows.' I suppose he heard me, and thinks I refer to a bank in Wall Street." His dog looked hard at me. He neither barked nor growled, yet stood there as if in case of any serious altercation he would easily be master of the sit

O'Reagan was a poor shiftless Hibernian | something moving toward me, and who who came to our gate one day with a rusty scythe, and asked for a job. We let him do about an hour's work mowing at the weeds and wild-carrot tops in our lot, for which he demanded one dollar, or half a day's pay. As I declined to pay so much, he went off with some saucy words, and in a few days sent a constable with a summons to appear before a justice of the peace on a certain day to answer for my conduct. I was much provoked, for the fellow never made any endeavor to arrange matters with me. On consultation with my friends, I concluded to appear. I had some difficulty in finding the justice or his office. At last I was directed to a forlorn group of Irish houses, where I found the judge-a crude emigrant from the gem of islands over the sea-seat-uation. Moreover, he was no longer a pup. ed on his door-step, in his shirt sleeves, who, He had grown bigger and stronger, and had when I stated my case, called to the plaint- lost that flabby and sheepish look observaiff, who was within hearing, to lay down ble in many canine youngsters. He seemed his pitchfork and come into court. We quite conscious that he was emerging from then entered a bare room, with a platform unmuscular and unprotected puppyhood into and tables at one end, where the judge took all a full-grown dog's doggedness. As his his seat, and as he was not very strong on master lapsed into more marked formlessreading and writing, transacted his business of features and feebleness of gait, the ness through his son and secretary: the result of which was that, besides the one dollar to O'Reagan, there was another dollar adjudged to the court. I thought of Lear: "Oh, Regan, thou hast tied Sharp-toothed unkindness like a vulture here!"

I contented myself with giving Mr. O'Reagan a piece of good advice as to his conduct in future to his patrons, and left the court congratulating myself that the costs were no heavier.

This was in the days of the Emerald Ring of Poddersville. That ring, I think, is broken now.

The next time I saw Fabbins was on the shore road, when he stopped me with a renewal of his demand. The dog stopped too, and looked at me in a sinister way out of his one visible eye, and seemed to say, "You'd better settle that bill, or, by the Dogstar, I may have occasion to be at your shins." The wind was blowing hard from the river, and I had much ado to keep my hat on. And the fisherman's nose seemed to careen more than ever on one side, and his eyes threatened to flow together, and his face looked as if the wind had disturbed seriously some of its lineaments. I declined to make the settlement demanded, renewing my former expostulations as to its injustice. Something like the same parley occurred two or three times when I met him. I began to grow weary of the affair, and to think of a compromise with the man.

One day I was in the fields, enjoying the budding of the young leaves, and listening to the birds, and was in quite a tender and sentimental mood, when I was aware of

me.

bull-dog was gaining in shape, size, and virility, and seemed to show in his one uneclipsed eye a sullen light of reflectiveness, and a disposition to take an active part in his owner's affairs that a little disturbed Suppose Mr. Fabbins should become more than usually importunate about that ten dollars? Suppose we should grow warm about it, and he should refuse to agree to a compromise? Suppose he should see that I was growing nervous about the proximity of that cursed dog? Suppose he should be aware that the loneliness of the place and my defenseless condition were unusually favorable to his designs? Even now the beast was smelling at my legs. I stooped, and tried to pat his abominable head—a thing I should have scorned to do if I had had a pistol about me, or even a stout stick. The creature stood there, and looked at me out of his one eye like a young canine thundercloud. There were no signs of friendliness on his part--not the least symptoms of wagging his tail.

'Well, Mr. Wallingham," said the fisherman, "fine spring weather at last.”

"Very, very fine, Mr. Fabbins. But what brings you so far from the river ?"

"Oh, nothin' partickler. "Tain't the best sort o' day for fishin'. Cloudy days is best for me. Tried it this mornin'; couldn't get a darned bite. Out on the flats shad poles want fixin'. Boat sprung a leak. By-theway, Mr. Wallingham, I ain't been paid yet for that boat o' yourn; more'n five months since I mended her."

The dog seemed to second this motion, and gave a sotto voce symptom of a growl, as though he were suppressing an oath-the