AS COMMISSIONER TO SANTO DOMINGO -1871 489 



teen different expeditions were thus organized and des 

 patched, and these made careful examinations and re 

 ports which were wrought into the final report of the com 

 mission. It is doubtful whether any country was ever so 

 thoroughly examined in so short a time. One party visited 

 various harbors with reference to their value for naval or 

 military purposes; another took as its subject the neces 

 sary fortifications ; another, agriculture ; another, the coal 

 supply ; another, the precious metals ; another, the prevail 

 ing epidemics and diseases of the country ; while the com 

 mission itself adjourned from place to place, taking testi 

 mony on land tenures and on the general conditions and 

 disposition of the people. 



I became much attached to my colleagues. The first of 

 these, Senator Wade of Ohio, was bluff, direct, shrewd, 

 and well preserved, though over seventy years of age. 

 He was a rough diamond, kindly in his judgments unless 

 his feeling of justice was injured ; then he was implacable. 

 Many sayings of his were current, among them a dry an 

 swer to a senator from Texas who, having dwelt in high- 

 flown discourse on the superlative characteristics of the 

 State he represented, wound up all by saying, &quot;All that 

 Texas needs to make it a paradise is water and good so 

 ciety, to which Wade instantly replied, That s all they 

 need in hell.&quot; The nimbleness and shrewdness of some 

 public men he failed to appreciate. On his saying some 

 thing to me rather unfavorable to a noted statesman of 

 New England, I answered him, i i But, senator, he made an 

 admirable Speaker of the House of Representatives. To 

 which he answered, i So would a squirrel if he could talk. 



Dr. Howe was a very different sort of man a man of 

 the highest cultivation and of wide experience, who had de 

 voted his whole life to philanthropic efforts. He had been 

 imprisoned in Spandau for attempting to aid the Poles ; 

 had narrowly escaped with his life while struggling in 

 Greece against Turkey ; and had braved death again and 

 again while aiding the free-State men against the pro- 

 slavery myrmidons of Kansas. He told me that of all 



