68 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



Ever after my introduction to this distinguished man, he 

 treated me as a friend, and, when in 1804, 1 was preparing 

 to visit England, he gave me valuable letters of introduc- 

 tion, and still more valuable written instructions, as to life 

 in England, and especially in London, embodying the re- 

 sults of his own long experience of twenty years. In fact, 

 my acquaintance with him ceased only with his life, al- 

 though our intercourse was -mainly suspended during a pro- 

 longed absence of his, in England, caused chiefly by the 

 war of 1812 to 1815. In the mean time, I had been 

 married to his niece. 



The idea of depositing his paintings at New Ha- 

 ven, was first broached in a conversation with Profes- 

 sor Silliman. 



When returning from a journey in 1830, 1 called upon 

 Colonel Trumbull, at his lodgings, at Miss Lentner's, 

 corner of Walker Street and Broadway, New York, it being 

 my habit to pay my respects to him when I was in the city. 

 The house was large, the apartments spacious, and two con- 

 tiguous parlors, of uncommon dimensions, were adorned by 

 the paintings of Colonel Trumbull, which were advantage- 

 ously suspended all around upon the walls. I had seen 

 many of them singly before, but had never seen them all 

 together, and some of them never before. I was, therefore, 

 strongly impressed and delighted by this unexpected vision, 

 and had the good fortune to find the venerable artist in the 

 midst of his treasures. Friendly salutations were followed 

 by fuller explanations of some of the subjects than I had 

 before received ; but I was sorry to find that the great artist, 

 at seventy-four years of age, was in a position far from eli- 

 gible, and although surrounded by the splendid productions 

 of his own skill, talent, and taste, he was without a sure 

 foundation, upon which he might repose in the evening of 

 his life It might be indelicate in me, to report his 



