I have
succeeded to my satisfaction, and, what is better, to the satisfaction of
himself and family; so much so that one of his daughters wishes me to
copy the head for her. They all say that mine is the best that has been
taken of him. The daughter told me (she said as a secret) that her father
was delighted with it, and said it was the only one that in his opinion
looked like him; and this, too, with Stuart's in the room.

"The President has been very kind and hospitable to me; I have dined with
him three times and taken tea as often; he and his family have been very
sociable and unreserved. I have painted him at his house, next room to
his cabinet, so that when he had a moment to spare he would come in to
me.

"Wednesday evening Mrs. Monroe held a drawing-room. I attended and made
my bow. She was splendidly and tastily dressed. The drawing-room and
suite of rooms at the President's are furnished and decorated in the most
splendid manner; some think too much so, but I do not. Something of
splendor is certainly proper about the Chief Magistrate for the credit of
the nation. Plainness can be carried to an extreme, and in national
buildings and establishments it will, with good reason, be styled
meanness."

"_December 23, 1819._ It is obviously for my interest to hasten to
Charleston, as I shall there be immediately at work, and this is the more
necessary as there is a fresh gang of adventurers in the brush line gone
to Charleston before me."

A short while after this he received the news of the death of his
grandfather, Jedediah Morse, at Woodstock, Connecticut, on December 29,
aged ninety-four years. Mr. Prime says of him: "He was a strong man in
body and mind, an able and upright magistrate, for eighteen years one of
the selectmen of the town, twenty-seven years town clerk and treasurer,
fifteen years a member of the Colonial and State Legislature, and a
prominent, honored, and useful member and officer of the church."

In January of the year 1820, Dr. Morse, realizing that it would be for
the best interests of all concerned to relinquish his pastorate at
Charlestown, turned his active brain in another direction, and resolved
to carry out a plan which he had long contemplated. This was to secure
from the Government at Washington an appointment as commissioner to the
Indians on the borders of the United States of those early days, in order
to enquire into their condition with a view to their moral and physical
be