164 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC., 



the road-sides were lined with women and children, the male part of 

 the population having mostly joined the procession, consisting of more 

 than a hundred and fifty vehicles, many persons on horseback, and 

 some on foot. 



******* 



It was now Mr. Webster's intention to proceed to Washington, so 

 soon as he should have recovered health and strength enough to 

 encounter the journey. The President was anxious to have the nego- 

 tiation with Mr. Crampton conducted there; and he was not willing 

 to have Mr. Webster leave the Department of State, unless he would 

 consent to accept the English mission, then likely to be vacant by 

 the return of Mr. Lawrence, in which case he could settle all the 

 pending business in England relating to the fisheries and the other 

 topics. This plan was, for a short time, under consideration; but, 

 on the 25th of July, Mr. Webster informed the President that he 

 could not think of it. 



******* 



On the following day, Mr. Webster offered to place His resignation 

 in the hands of the President, if his convenience and the public in- 

 terest would be promoted by so doing. 



******* 



The President earnestly desired Mr. Webster to remain in office, 

 and to come to Washington only whenever his health would permit. 



On the 4th of August I made a short visit to Marshfield, and 

 found Mr. Webster about to proceed to Washington on the next day, 

 for the purpose of resigning his office, if an arrangement could be 

 made to fill it. On the previous evening he had received a letter 

 from the President, saying that he was surrounded by embarrass- 

 ments, and asking Mr. Webster's advice and aid. It was therefore 

 Mr. Webster's intention to go to Washington, and, if possible, after 

 affording to the President all the assistance he could, in the course 

 of ten days, to obtain his own release, if the President could fix on a 

 suitable successor. When I asked him if he could leave the fishery 

 question as he wished to leave it, he said that he should be glad to set- 

 1 le it, and could do so before Mr. Fillmore's Administration would end 

 in the following March, but that he should not remain in office on 

 that account, if the President would consent to have the negotiation 

 undertaken by some one else. Mr. Crampton, who was then with 

 Mr. Webster as a guest, talked with me very frankly about this 

 affair, and said that it could be, and no doubt would be, adjusted to 

 the satisfaction of both nations, if Mr. Webster remained in office to 

 do it." 



Mr. Webster had, in fact, already settled the fishery question in one and 

 the most important sense; for, by promptly issuing the document which he 

 published on the 19th of July, and by sending for Mr. Crampton, and receiving 

 him at Marshfield for consultation on the whole subject, he made it manifest to 

 both nations that he did not intend to allow a hasty and ill-advised step of the 

 British Ministry to imperil their peaceful relations. The dangers of a collision 

 were thus at once arrested. It was, however, afterward charged in the Eng- 

 lish press, and, subsequent to Mr. Webster's death, it was more distinctly 

 charged by Lord Malmesbury, in the House of Lords, that Mr. Webster was 

 responsible for tha alarm flt in this country; and that he was, perhaps, 

 actuated, in publishing the paper of July 19th, by electioneering motives. All 

 this was attributable to the inexact attention which is often given in England 

 to American affairs. Mr. Webster was at this time not only no candidate for 



