Henry Adams - The Life of Albert Gallatin

I will only add that the consciousness of devoting myself to the public service to the utmost extent of my faculties, and to the injury of my health, is a tranquillizing consolation of which I cannot be deprived by any supposition to the contrary.

With perfect respect, I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servant,

The Vice-President of the United Statesand President of the Senate.

Gallatin’s Deposition in Brackenridge’s Incidents, vol. ii. p. 186.

Incidents, vol. ii. p. 68.

Gallatin’s Deposition.

See the resolutions as proposed and as ultimately adopted, in Appendix to Gallatin’s speech on the insurrection. Writings, iii. 56.

Brackenridge, Incidents, vol. i. p. 90; Findley, p. 144; Gallatin’s Deposition.

Incidents, vol. i. p. 90.

Incidents, vol. i. p. 91.

Badollet, who was at the same time a terribly severe critic of himself and of others, had little patience with Judge Brackenridge, who was perhaps the first, and not far from being the best, of American humorists. Badollet’s own sense of humor seems not to have been acute, to judge from the following extract from one of his letters to Gallatin, dated 18th February, 1790:

“J’ai vu Brakenridge à Cat-fish où j’ai été à l’occasion d’Archey, et je puis déclarer en conscience que de mes jours je n’ai vu un si complet impertinent fat. Peut-être ne seras-tu pas fâché de lire une partie d’une conversation qu’il eut devant moi. Un inconnu (à moi du moins) voulant le faire parler, à ce que je suppose, lui adresse ainsi la parole:

“N. I think, Mr. Brakenridge, you are one of the happiest men in the world.

“B. Yes, sir; nothing disturbs me. I can declare that I never feel a single moment of discontent, but laugh at everything.

“N. I believe so, sir; but your humor…

“B. Oh, sir, truly inexhaustible; yes, truly inexhaustible, – et tout en disant ces mots avec complaisance il tirait ses manchettes et son jabot, caressait son visage de sa main, et souriait en Narcisse, – truly inexhaustible. Sir, I could set down and write a piece of humor for fifty-seven years without being the least exhausted. I have just now two compositions agoing…

“N. Happy turn of mind!

“B. You may say that, sir. I enjoy a truly inexhaustible richness and strength of mind, &c., &c.”

“In the report of the commissioners of the United States to the President, it was most erroneously stated that I wanted the committee, viz., the Parkinson’s Ferry members, to remain till the twelve commissioners or conferees should report. The reverse was the fact.” Marginal note by Mr. Gallatin on pp. 98-99 of Brackenridge’s Incidents.

Incidents, vol. i. p. 111.

Findley, History of the Insurrection, p. 122; Brackenridge, Incidents, vol. i. p. 111.

Brackenridge, Incidents, vol. i. p. 112.

Writings, vol. i. p. 4.

Ibid, p. 9.

Findley, History, &c., p. 240.

Findley, p. 248.

Writings, vol. iii. pp. 8-52.

See the Speech of N.P. Banks, of June 30, 1868, Cong. Globe, vol. lxxv., Appendix, p. 385.

See, among other expressions to this effect, Lodge’s Cabot, pp. 342, 345.