ed meeting these sturdy representatives of John Bull at his
house. Those I knew best came from "the land of brown heath and shaggy
wood," as in our family we were naturally partial to Scotchmen and, as a
rule, regarded them as desirable acquaintances. Many of these were
graduates of Glasgow University and young men of unusual culture and
refinement. I especially remember Mr. McCorquodale, a nephew of Dr.
Thomas Chalmers, the distinguished Presbyterian Divine of Scotland. He
met his future wife in New York in the person of a wealthy and
attractive widow. Her maiden name I do not recall, although I am
acquainted with certain facts concerning her lineage. She was the
granddaughter of Madame de Genlis.

I doubt whether any of these young Scotchmen whom I met remained
permanently in this country, as they always seemed too loyal to the
"Land o' Cakes" to entirely expatriate themselves. Another young
Scotchman, Mr. Dundas, whom I knew quite well through the Buchanans,
embarked for his native land on board the steamer _President_. This ship
sailed in the spring of 1841 and never reached her destination. What
became of her was never known and her fate remains to this day one of
the mysteries of the sea. In the fall of 1860 the U.S. man-of-war
_Levant_, on her voyage from the Hawaiian Islands to Panama, disappeared
in the same mysterious manner in the Pacific Ocean; and, as was the case
with the _President_, no human being aboard of her was ever heard of
again. There were many conjectures in regard to the fate of this ship,
but the true story of her doom has never been revealed. I remember two
of the officers who perished with her. One of them was Lieutenant Edward
C. Stout, who had married a daughter of Commodore John H. Aulick,
U.S.N., and whose daughters, the Misses Julia and Minnie Stout, are well
remembered in Washington social circles; and the other was Purser Andrew
J. Watson, who was a member of one of the old residential families of
the District of Columbia.

CHAPTER VIII

WASHINGTON IN THE FORTIES

My first visit to Washington was in 1845. I started from New York at
eight o'clock in the morning and reached Philadelphia late the same
afternoon. I broke the journey by spending the night at Jones's Hotel in
the lower part of the city, which was the usual stopping place of
travelers who made this trip. A few years later when the journey from
New York to Washington was made in twelve hours, it was thought that
a