446 HUMBOLDT AND BANCROFT. 



greatly, judged us calmly, with the best and most fervent 

 wishes for our welfare, with no disinclination to our in- 

 crease of territory. Wishing especially that California 

 and all the noble tract of land which now belongs to us 

 on the Pacific might come to us, expressing only his 

 apprehensions of the extent of territory that circum- 

 stances might step in and interfere with the proper 

 development of free institutions. I have never heard 

 any one discuss these questions of our relations to Mex- 

 ico and our relations to Cuba more calmly and more 

 candidly, and with more gentleness towards us, and with 

 more full and perfect intimacy of all the circumstances 

 that would attend any further progress on our part. He 

 was always the friend of Young America. He measured 

 his regard for us not by any merits that we might have, 

 but by the goodness of his own heart. He was alwavs 

 ready to pour out his thoughts, his sympathies, and his 

 encouragements to any young man that came within his 

 influence. I remember, in 1820, having at that early 

 period bestowed a good deal of attention to the study 

 of languages, and, among others, the aboriginal lan- 

 guages of our own country ; he particularly pointed out 

 the proper methods of continuing inquiries and investi- 

 gations on the subject. These ideas he not only commu- 

 nicated by word of mouth, but he wrote them out at 

 considerable length, and I had the satisfaction, when I 

 returned, to communicate them to persons engaged in 

 that branch of study, and I doubt not that in some degree 

 they contributed to the development of an acquaintance 

 with the aboriginal languages of this country." 



" It has been my good fortune," says an American cor- 

 respondent of The Commercial Advertiser, writing from 



