d when that gentleman was nominated by the whigs he left them and voted
for Mr. Polk, though he was disgusted by the trick which obtained the vote
of Pennsylvania for Mr. Polk under the pretence of his being a
protectionist. Subsequently he supported General Taylor, the whig
candidate for the Presidency, but the nomination of Mr. Buchanan, in 1857,
saw him once more with the democrats, from whom he did not again separate.
When the proposal to make government paper a legal tender for debts was
before Congress, he opposed it with great zeal, writing against it in the
democratic journals. I agreed with him that the measure was an act of
folly, for which I could find no excuse, but he almost regarded it as a
public crime. He vehemently disapproved, also, of the arbitrary arrests
made by our government during the war, some of which, without question,
were exceedingly ill advised. His zeal on these points, I think, made him
blind to the great issues involved in our late civil war, and led his
usually clear and liberal judgment astray.

I have not yet mentioned various capacities in which he served the public
without any motive but to minister to the public welfare. He was from a
very early period a Trustee of the Society Library, in which he took great
interest, delighting to make additions to its stock of books, and passing
much time in its alcoves and its reading rooms. He was one of the wardens
of Trinity Church, that mistress of mighty revenues. He was for some years
one of the governors of the New York Hospital, and I remember when he made
periodical visits to the Insane Asylum at Bloomingdale, as one invested
with authority there. During the existence of the Public School Society he
was one of its Trustees from 1834 to 1841, and rendered essential service
to the cause of public education.

His useful life closed on the 18th of March last. For some months before
this date his strength had declined, and when I met him from time to time
it seemed to me that his features had become sharper and his frame more
attenuated, yet I perceived no diminution of mental vigor. He took the
same interest in the events and questions of the day as he had done years
before, his apprehension seemed as quick, and all the powers of his mind
as active.

On the Wednesday before his death he attended one of those weekly meetings
which he took care never to miss, that of the Commissioners of Emigration,
But in one of his walks on a rainy day he