publicly
refused to be a candidate. He was travelling abroad during
that year. His mental vigor was unabated, as was shown by
his answer to Cleveland's free trade message, which was cabled
across the ocean and reached the people almost as soon as
the message. But the disease of which he afterward died was
then upon him, as was known to some few of his intimate friends.
Besides that, he had had an attack at Milan, which deprived
him for a good while of the use of his limbs on one side.
In 1892 I was in the care, at Milan, of a man who I suppose
was the most eminent physician in the north of Italy, Dr.
Fornoni, who gave me an account of Mr. Blaine's illness in
the very apartments where I was ill, and which Blaine had
occupied before me. But when the convention came together
they were so eager to nominate Blaine that he was obliged
to send another cable, I think, from Paris, insisting that
his wishes should be respected. There was a great diversity
of opinion as to candidates, but little of the eager antagonism
that had characterized the preceding convention. The Republican
Party had been sobered a good deal by four years of adversity.
The delegates from Massachusetts where:

_At Large._--George F. Hoar, Worcester; Henry S. Hyde, West
Springfield; Frederick L. Burden, North Attleboro; Alanson
W. Beard, Boston.

_District._--Frank S. Stevens, Swansea; Jonathan Bourne,
New Bedford; William H. Bent, Taunton; Eben L. Ripley, Hingham;
Arthur W. Tufts, Boston; Edward P. Wilbur, Boston; Jesse M.
Gove, Boston; Charles J. Noyes, Boston; Edward D. Hayden,
Woburn; Elmer H. Capen, Somerville; William B. Littlefield,
Lynn; Samuel W. McCall, Winchester; William Cogswell, Salem;
William E. Blunt, Haverhill; Joseph L. Sargent, Dracut; George
S. Merrill, Lawrence; J. Henry Gould, Medford; David Farquhar,
Newton; William A. Gile, Worcester; George L. Gibbs, Northbridge;
John W. Wheeler, Orange; John G. Mackintosh, Holyoke; Emerson
Gaylord, Chicopee; and William M. Prince, Pittsfield.

I was very desirous that the vote of Massachusetts should
be given to John Sherman. He was, except Mr. Blaine, unquestionably
the most distinguished living Republican statesman. He had
been an able champion of the opinions which the Republicans
of Massachusetts held, and of the policies under which her
special industries had been fostered. To nominate him would
be to go back to the early habit of placing the greatest and
wisest statesmen of t