in his personal
expenditures, as close in his bargains, as watchful over his
accumulations as he had been when economy was essential to his
solvency and progress. He enjoyed keenly the consciousness, the
feeling of being rich. The roll-book of his possessions was his Bible.
He scanned it fondly, and saw with quiet but deep delight the
catalogue of his property lengthening from month to month. The love of
accumulation grew with his years until it ruled him like a tyrant. If
at fifty he possessed his millions, at sixty-five his millions
possessed him. Only to his own children and to their children was he
liberal; and his liberality to them was all arranged with a view to
keeping his estate in the family, and to cause it at every moment to
tend toward a final consolidation in one enormous mass. He was ever
considerate for the comfort of his imbecile son. One of his last
enterprises was to build for him a commodious residence.

In 1832, one of his daughters having married a European nobleman, he
allowed himself the pleasure of a visit to her. He remained abroad
till 1835, when he hurried home in consequence of the disturbance in
financial affairs, caused by General Jackson's war upon the Bank of
the United States. The captain of the ship in which he sailed from
Havre to New York has related to us some curious incidents of the
voyage. Mr. Astor reached Havre when the ship, on the point of
sailing, had every state-room engaged; but he was so anxious to get
home, that the captain, who had commanded ships for him in former
years, gave up to him his own state-room. Head winds and boisterous
seas kept the vessel beating about and tossing in the channel for many
days. The great man was very sick and still more alarmed. At length,
being persuaded that he should not survive the voyage, he asked the
captain to run in and set him ashore on the coast of England. The
captain dissuaded him. The old man urged his request at every
opportunity, and said at last: "I give you tousand dollars to put me
aboard a pilot-boat." He was so vehement and importunate, that one day
the captain, worried out of all patience, promised that if he did not
get out of the Channel before the next morning, he would run in and
put him ashore. It happened that the wind changed in the afternoon and
wafted the ship into the broad ocean. But the troubles of the sea-sick
millionaire had only just begun. A heavy gale of some days' duration
blew the vessel along the w