mate
successor to the Presidential chair. His discomfiture was soon
completed by the publication of a letter from Mr. Crawford, which
informed the President that Calhoun, when in the Cabinet of Monroe,
proposed that "General Jackson should be punished in some form"
for his high-handed military rule in Florida. Van Buren secretly
fanned the flames of General Jackson's indignation, and adroitly
availed himself of a "tempest in a tea-pot" to complete the downfall
of his rival.

The woman used as a tool by Mr. Van Buren for the overthrow of Mr.
Calhoun's political hopes was a picturesque and prominent figure
in Washington society then and during the next fifty years. The
National Metropolis in those days resembled, as has been well said,
in recklessness and extravagance, the spirit of the English
seventeenth century, so graphically portrayed in _Thackeray's
Humorist_, rather than the dignified caste of the nineteenth cycle
of Christianity. Laxity of morals and the coolest disregard possible
characterized that period of our existence.

Mrs. General Eaton ruled Andrew Jackson as completely as he ruled
the Democratic party. She was the daughter of William O'Neill, a
rollicking Irishman, who was in his day the landlord of what was
then the leading public house in Washington City. Among other
Congressmen who were guests here was Andrew Jackson, then a Senator
from Tennessee. It was here he became interested in the landlord's
brilliant daughter Margaret, called by her friends "Peg" O'Neill.
Before she was sixteen years of age she married a handsome naval
officer, John Bowie Timberlake. He died--some say that he committed
suicide--at Port Mahon, in 1828, leaving his accounts as purser in
a very mixed condition. After the death of Timberlake, Commodore
Patterson ordered Lieutenant Randolph to take the purser's books
and perform the duties of purser. On the return home of the
Constitution it was discovered that Timberlake or Randolph was a
defaulter to the Government to a very large amount. A court of
inquiry was held on Randolph and he was acquitted, but Amos Kendall,
the Fourth Auditor of the Treasury Department, charged the defalcation
to Randolph. President Jackson, notwithstanding the decision of
the court, dismissed Lieutenant Randolph from the Navy, and refused
to give him a hearing.

The Lieutenant, infuriated by his disgrace and pecuniary ruin, in
a state of excitement pulled the President's nose in the cab