446 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1954 



The Honorable James MacGregor was one of many Englishmen 

 whose friendship for James Buchanan and his niece outlasted the 

 Pennsylvanian's official duties there. This member of the English 

 Parliament expressed his admiration of the American Minister by 

 the gift of an engraved portrait of Sir John Hampden, cousin of 

 Oliver Cromwell and cochampion in Parliament against illegal tax- 

 ation of citizens by the crown. This portrait is among the mementos 

 of Buchanan's ministry to England, now in the National Collection of 

 Fine Arts. 



Harriet returned to the United States in October 1855. The fol- 

 lowing spring her uncle became a third-time candidate for the presi- 

 dential nomination. The gavel used at the Democratic Convention in 

 Cincinnati which gave him the nomination on June 19, 1856, is to 

 be seen in the collection. Harriet was 26 when he won the election in 

 the fall. 



Miss Lane served as President Buchanan's official hostess until Lin- 

 coln's inauguration. Through times of gravest national anxiety she 

 maintained at the White House an atmosphere of serenity and cordial 

 warmth that aided Buchanan's attempts to insure a period of good 

 feeling. The friendship between the White House and the Court of 

 St. James's assumed historical importance when later it offset, to some 

 extent, English sympathy for Southern suppliers of British cotton 

 mills. When the Princess Royal of Great Britain was married. Presi- 

 dent Buchanan received a letter from her father, Prince Albert, dated 

 February 16, 1858, expressing his warm personal regard for the Presi- 

 dent, and a silver medal struck in commemoration of the marriage. 



The laying of the transatlantic cable and the opening up of tele- 

 graphic communication with Great Britain furthered the pleasant 

 relations between the Queen of England and the former Minister to 

 her Court. The original copy of the official congratulations exchanged 

 on August 17, 1858, between Victoria and James Buchanan was for 

 years in the possession of the President's nephew and confidential sec- 

 retary, J. Buchanan Henry, and afterward became a part of the 

 Harriet Lane Johnston collection, where it may now be seen as first 

 matted and framed. 



Harriet's spontaneous gaiety enlivened grand occasions. A 5-day 

 visit from Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, in October 1860 called 

 for the utmost in White House entertainment. The climax of the 

 festivities was an excursion aboard the Revenue Service Cutter "Har- 

 riet Lane" (named for the President's niece by the Secretary of the 

 Treasury Howell Cobb) to Mount Vernon where the Prince and his 

 entourage, accompanied by the President, his niece and his Cabinet, 

 saw Washington's tomb. This was pictured by Thomas Pritchard 

 Rossiter (1818-1871) in a painting preserved in the collection. An- 



