rd when young Mr. Baring wooed and won
his daughter. With the fortune her father gave her he was enabled
on his return to London to enter the House of Baring Brothers as
a partner, and on retiring from business in 1835 he was created a
Baron, with the title of Lord Ashburton. When appointed on a
special mission to Washington Lord Ashburton wrote to Mr. Webster,
asking him to rent a suitable house for the accommodation of himself
and suite. Mr. Webster accordingly rented the spacious and thoroughly
equipped mansion erected by Matthew St. Clair Clarke, Clerk of the
House, in his prosperous days. The price paid was twelve thousand
dollars rent for ten months, and an additional thousand dollars
for damages.

Mr. Webster, who had received full powers from President Tyler to
conduct the negotiations on the part of the United States, occupied
the Swann House, near that occupied by Lord Ashburton. Much of
the preliminary negotiation was carried on at the dinner-tables of
the contracting parties, and Congressional guests were alike charmed
by the hospitable attentions of the "fine old English gentleman"
and the Yankee Secretary of State. Lord Ashburton offered his
guests the cream of culinary perfection and the gastronomic art,
with the rarest wines, while at Mr. Webster's table American
delicacies were served in American style. Maine salmon, Massachusetts
mackerel, New Jersey oysters, Florida shad, Kentucky beef, West
Virginia mutton, Illinois prairie chickens, Virginia terrapin,
Maryland crabs, Delaware canvas-back ducks, and South Carolina rice-
birds were cooked by Monica, and served in a style that made the
banker diplomat admit their superiority to the potages, sauces,
entremets, ragouts, and desserts of his Parisian white-capped
manipulator of casse-roles.

Lord Ashburton was about five feet ten inches in height, and was
heavily built, as Mr. Webster was. He had a large head, a high
forehead, dark eyes, with heavy eyebrows, and a clear red and white
complexion. His principal secretary and adviser was Mr. Frederick
William Adolphus Bruce, then in the Foreign Office, who, after a
brilliant diplomatic career, was appointed a Knight Commander of
the Bath, and came again to Washington in 1865 as the British
Minister. Another secretary was Mr. Stepping, a fair-complexioned
little gentleman, who was a great wit, and who made a deal of sport
for the Congressional guests.

The treaty, as finally agreed upon, settled