120 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



read in my family, and listened to with as much interest 

 as if it had been a Waverley novel. I added, that we had 

 often, in our domestic circle, spoken of his style as possess- 

 ing the simplicity and perspicuity of that of the Scriptures. 

 He said, he had always made it a rule neither to write or to 

 utter anything which a person of good intellect could not 

 understand ; and that, on an occasion when he, as chairman 

 of a committee, wrote a report, his colleague expressed his 

 surprise that he could understand every word of it ; and 

 this was even adduced as a proof that Mr. Webster could 

 not be the man he passed for, that everybody could 

 understand him. I told him, that, not being a political 

 man, I would take the liberty to say that I had approved, 

 and, in conversation, defended, his course on important 

 political occasions, when he had been censured, and even 

 abused, by some who called themselves his friends. The 

 first occasion was when the ministers of President Tyler 

 took offence, and all resigned, himself excepted.* " It was 

 obvious to me," I said, " that you remained in office in order 

 to settle the great boundary question ; you had recently 

 been in England, and personally knew the members of the 

 government ; and it was no proof of vanity in you that you 

 were conscious that you could do on that occasion what no 

 other man could ; and evidently no man in our government 

 but you could have induced Lord Ashburton to send home 

 for new instructions to enable you to adjust the boundary 

 by concession, each party reciprocally relinquishing por- 

 tions of territory, instead of adhering literally to a boun- 

 dary which the physical features of the country could not 



enable you to define." I added : " In these cases 



you did right" He modestly replied: "I meant right." 

 Alluding to France, which I had then recently visited, he 

 said that one important benefit had arisen from the French 

 Revolution. Under the old system the crown and the no- 



* Who had been also minister of the deceased President Harrison, whom 

 Tyler, as Vice-President, succeeded. 



