ive weeks and there is not the smallest
prospect _now_ of any difference as to business. I am willing to stay and
wish to stay if there is anything to do. The pictures that I am painting
for Mr. Van Schaick will not pay my expenses if painted here; my rent and
board would eat it all up.

"I have thought of various plans, but what to decide upon I am completely
at a loss, nor can I decide until I hear definitely from Washington in
regard to my Mexico expedition. Since Brother Sidney has hinted it to you
I will tell you the state of it. I wrote to General Van Rensselaer, Mr.
Poinsett, and Colonel Hayne, of the Senate, applying for some situation
in the legation to Mexico soon to be sent thither. I stated my object in
going and my wish to go free of expense and under government protection.

"I received a letter a few days ago from General Van Rensselaer in which
he says: 'I immediately laid your request before the President and
seconded it with my warmest recommendations. It is impossible to predict
the result at present. If our friend Mr. Poinsett is appointed minister,
which his friends are pressing, he will no doubt be happy to have you in
his suite.'

"Thus the case rests at present. If Mr. Poinsett is appointed I shall
probably go to Mexico, if not, it will be more doubtful.... If I go I
should take my picture of the House of Representatives, which, in the
present state of favorable feeling towards our country, I should probably
dispose of to advantage.

"All accounts that I hear from Mexico are in the highest degree favorable
to my enterprise, and I hear much from various quarters."

As can well be imagined, his wife did not look with unalloyed pleasure on
this plan. She says in a letter of December 25, 1823: "I have felt much
for you, my dearest Finley, in all your trials and perplexities. I was
sorry to hear you had been unsuccessful in obtaining portraits. I hope
you will, ere long, experience a change for the better.... As to the
Mexico plan, I know not what to think of it. How can I consent to have
you be at such a distance?"

However, convinced by her husband that it would be for his best interests
to go, she reluctantly gave her consent and he used every legitimate
effort to secure the appointment. He was finally successful. Mr. Poinsett
was not appointed as minister; this honor was bestowed on the Honorable
Ninian Edwards, of Illinois, but Morse was named as one of his suite.

In a note from the Honora