92 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 



offer a premium which "you will pay for" and take a 

 mortgage on our Bond fide. "Willingness to support 

 your seheme ! that's plain English, and, We, I under- 

 stand, shall have to compete against you, with our 

 pennies against your dollars f That " Gordian Knot " 

 can not be untied by any one of us, our spades are not 

 sharp enough to cut it, and we have not "Alexander's " 

 (the great) sword to cut it, unless it be mine ! ! 

 Alex. Gordon and I am not willing to lend nor send it 

 neither to our Hort. Soc. nor any body else. 



That practical oration closed the meeting. The day 

 after my friend sent me an abridged account of the 

 proceeding, and I immediately wrote to our Lender of 

 plants of what I knew about the Premium Silver Goblet 

 and Pitcher that was to be awarded at our next exhi- 

 bition in Brooklyn. I told him that I had made up 

 my mind, and I was preparing my energy for the con- 

 test, and that I was confident to annihilate the "Jersey 

 Blues " and bring the Pitcher and silver goblets to Al- 

 bany, and that when they would visit Albany, and the 

 Albany Dutchman, I could treat them with Albany ale 

 (then famous) served up in those goblets, etc. When 

 in my vein of joking I think I made some allusions to 

 our " Borrower No. 1," whom I supposed was a " Cen- 

 turion " in the legion of "Jersey Blues." That letter 

 was private, but somehow or another it fell in the 



