VISITS TO ENGLAND
1896
In 1896 I found myself again utterly broken down in health
and strength. I had, the November before, a slight paralysis
in the face, which affected the muscles of the lower lid of
one of my eyes, causing a constant irritation in the organ
itself. After a time this caused a distortion of the lips,
which I concealed somewhat by a moustache. But it operated,
for a little while, as an effective disguise. When I came
home during the winter, an old conductor on the Boston & Albany
Railroad, whom I had known quite well, when he took my ticket
looked at me with some earnestness and said, "Are you not
related to Senator Hoar?" To which I answered, "I am a connection
of his wife, by marriage."
I found I must get rid of the work at home, if I were to
get back my capacity for work at all. So I sailed for Southampton
before the session of Congress ended. It was the only time
I had absented myself from my duties in Congress, except for
an urgent public reason, for twenty-seven years and more.
I saw a good many interesting English people. It is not
worth while to give the details of dinners and lunches and
social life, unless something of peculiar and general interest
occur. Almost every American who can afford it goes abroad
now. Our English kinsmen are full of hospitality. They have
got over their old coldness with which they were apt to receive
their American cousins, although they were always the most
delightfully hospitable race on earth when you had once got
within the shield of their reserve.
I remember especially, however, a very pleasant Sunday spent
on the Thames, at the delightful home of William Grenfell,
Esq., which I mention because, by a fortunate accident, the
visit had some very interesting consequences. There I met
Sir John Lubbock, now Baron Avebury, famous for his writings
on financial questions and on Natural History, especially
for his observations of the habits of ants. He told me, if
I am not mistaken, that he had personally watched the conduct
and behavior of more than fifteen thousand individual ants.
There was a company of agreeable English ladies and gentlemen.
They played games in the evening after dinner, as you might
expect of a company of American boys and girls of sixteen
or eighteen years old.
Mr. Grenfell was a famous sportsman. His house was filled
with the trophies of his skill in hunting. I was told that
he had crossed the Channel in a row-boat.
Sir John Lubbock invited me to breakfast with him a few days
afterward in St. James Square. There I met a large number
of scientific men, among them the President of the Geographical
Society, and the Presidents or Heads of several other of the
important British Societies. I was presented to all these
gentlemen. But I found I could not easily understand the
names, when they were presented. Englishmen usually, even
when they speak the language exactly as we do, have a peculiar
pronunciation of names, which makes it very hard for an American
ear to catch them. I could not very well say, "What name
did you say?" or ask the host to repeat himself. So I was
obliged to spend the hour in ignorance of the special dignity
of most of the illustrious persons whom I met.
Just behind my chair hung a full-length portrait of Admiral
Boscawen, a famous naval officer connected with our early
history. For him was named the town of Boscawen in New Hampshire,
where Daniel Webster practised law. The house where we were
had been his. I think he was in some way akin to the host.
I sailed for home on Wednesday. The Friday night before,
I dined with Moreton Frewen, Esq., an accomplished English
gentleman, well known on this side of the Atlantic. Mr. Frewen
had been very kind and hospitable to me, as he had been to
many Americans. He deserves the gratitude of both nations
for what he has done to promote good feeling between the two
countries by his courtesy to Americans of all parties and
ways of thinking. He has helped make the leading men of both
countries know each other. From that knowledge has commonly
followed a hearty liking for each other.
I mention this dinner, as I did the visit to Mr. Grenfell,
because of its connection with a very interesting transaction.
The guests at the dinner were Sir Julian Pauncefote, afterward
Lord Pauncefote, the British Ambassador to the United States,
who was then at home on a brief visit; Sir Seymour Blaine,
an old military officer who had won, as I was told, great
distinction in the East, and two Spanish noblemen.
The soldier told several very interesting stories of his
military life, and of what happened to him in his early days.
Of these I remember two. He said that when he was a young
officer, scarcely more than a boy, he was invited by the Duke
of Wellington, with other officers, to a great ball at Apsley
House. Late in the evening, after the guests had left the
supper room, and it was pretty well deserted, he felt a desire
for another glass of wine. There was nobody in the supper
room. He was just pouring out a glass of champagne for himself,
when he heard a voice behind him. "Youngster, what are you
doing?" He turned round. It was the Duke. He said, "I am
getting a glass of wine." To this the Duke replied, "You ought
to be up-stairs dancing. There are but two things, Sir, for
a boy like you to be doing. One is fighting; the other dancing
with the girls. As for me I'm going to bed." Thereupon the
Duke passed round the table; touched a spring which opened
a secret door, in what was apparently a set of book-shelves,
and disappeared.
Sir Seymour Blaine told another story which, I dare say,
is well known. But I have never seen it in print. He said
that just before the Battle of Talavera when the Duke, then
Sir Arthur Wellesley, was in command in Spain, the English
and French armies had been marching for many days on parallel
lines, neither quite liking to attack the other, and neither
having got the advantage in position which they were seeking.
At last, one day, when everybody was pretty weary with the
fatigues of the march, the Duke summoned some of his leading
officers together and said to them: "You see that clump of
trees (pointing to one a good distance away, but in sight
from where they stood)--when the head of the French column
reaches that clump of trees, attack. As for me I'm going
to sleep under this bush." Thereupon the great soldier lay
down, all his arrangements being made, and everything being
in readiness, and took his nap while the great battle of Talavera--
on which the fate of Spain and perhaps the fate of Europe
depended--was begun. This adds another instance to the list
of the occasions to which Mr. Everett refers when he speaks
of Webster's sleeping soundly the night before his great reply
to Hayne.
"So the great Conde' slept on the eve of the battle of Rocroi;
so Alexander slept on the eve of the battle of Arbela; and
so they awoke to deeds of immortal fame!"
But this dinner of Mr. Frewen's had a very interesting consequence.
As I took leave of him at his door about eleven o'clock, he
asked me if there were anything more he could do for me. I
said, "No, unless you happen to know the Lord Bishop of London.
I have a great longing to see the Bradford Manuscript before
I go home. It is in the Bishop's Library. I went to Fulham
the other day, but found the Bishop was gone. I had supposed
the Library was a half-public one. I asked the servant who
came to the door for the librarian. He told me there was
no such officer, and that it was treated in all respects as
a private library. But I should be very glad if I could get
an opportunity to see it." Mr. Frewen answered, "I do not
myself know the Bishop. But Mr. Grenfell, at whose house
you spent Sunday, a little while ago, is his nephew by marriage.
He is in Scotland. But if I can reach him, I will procure for
you a letter to his uncle." That was Friday. Sunday morning
there came a note from Mr. Grenfell to the Bishop. I enclosed
it to his Lordship in one from myself, in which I said that
if it were agreeable to him, I would call at Fulham the next
Tuesday, at an hour which I fixed. I got a courteous reply
from the Bishop, in which he said that he would be glad to
show me the "log of the Mayflower," as he called it. I kept
the appointment, and found the Bishop with the book in his
hand. He received me very courteously, and showed me a little
of the palace. He said that there had been a Bishop's palace
on that spot for more than a thousand years.
I took the precious manuscript in my hands, and examined
it with an almost religious reverence. I had delivered the
address at Plymouth, the twenty-first of December, 1895, on
the occasion of the two hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary
of the landing of the Pilgrims upon the rock. In preparing
for that duty I read carefully, with renewed enthusiasm and
delight, the noble and touching story as told by Governor
Bradford. I declared then that this precious history ought
to be in no other custody than that of their children.
There have been several attempts to procure the return of
the manuscript to this country. Mr. Winthrop, in 1860, through
the venerable John Sinclair, Archdeacon, urged the Bishop
of London to give it up, and proposed that the Prince of Wales,
then just coming to this country, should take it across the
Atlantic and present it to the people of Massachusetts. The
Attorney-General, Sir Fitzroy Kelley, approved the plan, and
said it would be an exceptional act of grace, a most interesting
action, and that he heartily wished the success of the application.
But the Bishop refused. Again, in 1869, John Lothrop Motley,
the Minister to England, who had a great and deserved influence
there, repeated the proposition, at the suggestion of that
most accomplished scholar, Justin Winsor. But his appeal
had the same fate. The Bishop gave no encouragement, and said,
as had been said nine years before, that the property could
not be alienated without an Act of Parliament. Mr. Winsor
planned to repeat the attempt on his visit to England in 1887.
When he was at Fulham the Bishop was absent, and he was obliged
to go home without seeing him in person.
In 1881, at the time of the death of President Garfield,
Benjamin Scott, Chamberlain of London, proposed again in
the newspapers that the restitution should be made. But
nothing came of it.
When I went abroad I determined to visit the locality on
the borders of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, from which Bradford
and Brewster and Robinson, the three leaders of the Pilgrims,
came, and where their first church was formed, and the places
in Amsterdam and Leyden where the emigrants spent thirteen
years. But I longed especially to see the manuscript of Bradford
at Fulham, which then seemed to me, as it now seems to me,
the most precious manuscript on earth, unless we could recover
one of the four gospels as it came in the beginning from the
pen of the Evangelist.
The desire to get it back grew and grew during the voyage
across the Atlantic. I did not know how such a proposition
would be received in England. A few days after I landed
I made a call on John Morley. I asked him whether he thought
the thing could be done. He inquired carefully into the story,
took down from his shelf the excellent though brief life of
Bradford in Leslie Stephen's "Biographical Dictionary," and
told me he thought the book ought to come back to us, and
that he should be glad to do anything in his power to help.
It was my fortune, a week or two after, to sit next to Mr.
Bayard at a dinner given to Mr. Collins, by the American consuls
in Great Britain. I took occasion to tell him the story,
and he gave me the assurance, which he afterward so abundantly
and successfully fulfilled, of his powerful aid. I was compelled,
by the health of one of the party with whom I was travelling,
to go to the Continent almost immediately, and was disappointed
in the hope of an early return to England.
After looking at the volume and reading the records on the
flyleaf, I said: "My Lord, I am going to say something which
you may think rather audacious. I think this book ought to
go back to Massachusetts. Nobody knows how it got over here.
Some people think it was carried off by Governor Hutchinson,
the Tory Governor; other people think it was carried off by
British soldiers when Boston was evacuated; but in either
case the property would not have changed. Or, if you treat
it as booty, in which last case, I suppose, by the law of
nations ordinary property does change, no civilized nation
in modern times applies that principle to the property of
libraries and institutions of learning."
The Bishop said: "I did not know you cared anything about
it."
"Why," said I, "if there were in existence in England a history
of King Alfred's reign for thirty years, written by his own
hand, it would not be more precious in the eyes of Englishmen
than this manuscript is to us."
"Well," said he, "I think myself that it ought to go back,
and if it depended on me it would have gone back before this.
But many of the Americans who have been here have been commercial
people, and did not seem to care much about it except as a
curiosity. I suppose I ought not to give it up on my own
authority. It belongs to me in my official capacity, and
not as private or personal property. I think I ought to consult
the Archbishop of Canterbury. And, indeed," he added, "I
think I ought to speak to the Queen about it. We should not
do such a thing behind Her Majesty's back."
I said: "Very well, when I go home I will have a proper
application made from some of our literary societies, and
ask you to give it consideration."
I saw Mr. Bayard again and told him the story. He was at
the train when I left London for the steamer at Southampton.
He entered with great interest into the matter, and told me
again he would do anything in his power to forward it.
When I got home I communicated with Secretary Olney about
it, who took a kindly interest in the matter, and wrote to
Mr. Bayard that the Administration desired he should do everything
in his power to promote the application. The matter was then
brought to the attention of the Council of the American Antiquarian
Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Pilgrim
Society of Plymouth and the New England Society of New York.
These bodies appointed committees to unite in the application.
Governor Wolcott was also consulted, who gave his hearty approbation
to the movement, and a letter was despatched through Mr. Bayard.
Meantime, Bishop Temple, with whom I had my conversation,
had himself become Archbishop of Canterbury, and in that capacity
Primate of all England. His successor, Rev. Dr. Creighton,
had been the delegate of Emanuel, John Harvard's College,
to the great celebration at Harvard University in 1886, on
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its foundation.
He had received the degree of Doctor of Laws from the University,
had been a guest of President Eliot, and had received President
Eliot as his guest in England.
The full story of the recovery of the manuscript, in which
the influence of Ambassador Bayard and the kindness of Bishop
Temple, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, had so large a
part, is too long to tell here. Before the question was decided
Archbishop Temple consulted Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, who
took a deep interest in the matter, and gave the plan her
cordial approval. I think, as I had occasion to say to the
British Ambassador afterward, that the restoration of this
priceless manuscript did more to cement the bonds of friendship
between the people of the two countries than forty Canal Treaties.
In settling Imperial questions both nations are thinking,
properly and naturally, of great interests. But his restoration
was an act of purest kindness. The American people, in the
midst of all their material activities, their desire for wealth
and empire, are a sentimental people, easily and deeply stirred
by anything that touches their finer feelings, especially
anything that relates to their history.
The Bishop was authorized to return the manuscript by a decree
rendered in his own Court, by his Chancellor. The Chancellor
is regarded as the servant of the Bishop, and holds office,
I believe, at his will. But so does the King's Chancellor
at the King's will. I suppose the arrangement by which the
Chancellor determines suits in which his superior is affected
may be explained on the same ground as the authority of the
Lord Chancellor to determine suits in which the Crown is a
party.
I was quite curious to know on what ground, legal or equitable,
the decree for the restoration of the manuscript was made.
I wrote, after the thing was over, to the gentleman who had
acted as Mr. Bayard's counsel in the case, asking him to enlighten
me on this subject. I got a very courteous letter from him
in reply, in which he said he was then absent from home, but
would answer my inquiry on his return. After he got back,
however, I got a formal and ceremonious letter, in which he
said that, having been employed by Mr. Bayard as a public
officer, he did not think he was at liberty to answer questions
asked by private persons. As the petition and decree had
gone on the express ground that the application for the return
of the manuscript was made by Mr. Bayard, not in his official,
but only in his private capacity, as he had employed counsel
at my request, and I had been responsible for their fees,
I was, at first, inclined to be a little vexed at the answer.
On a little reflection, however, I saw that it was not best
to be too curious on the subject; that where there was a will
there was a way, and probably there was no thought, in getting
the decree, on the part of anybody concerned, to be too strict
as to legalities. I was reminded, however, of Silas Wegg's
answer to Mr. Boffin, when he read aloud to him and his wife
evening after evening "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,"
which Silas had spoken of at first, as "The Decline and Fall
of the Russian Empire." Mr. Boffin noticed the inconsistency,
and asked Mr. Wegg why it was that he had called it "The Decline
and Fall of the Russian Empire" in the beginning. To which
Mr. Wegg replied that Mrs. Boffin was present, and that it
would not be proper to answer that question in the presence
of a lady.
The manuscript was brought to Massachusetts by Mr. Bayard,
on his return to the United States at the end of his official
term. It was received by the Legislature in the presence
of a large concourse of citizens, to whom I told the story
of the recovery. Mr. Bayard delivered the book to the Governor
and the Legislature with an admirable speech, and Governor
Wolcott expressed the thanks of the State in an eloquent reply.
He said that "the story of the departure of this precious
work from our shores may never in every detail be revealed;
but the story of its return will be read of all men, and will
become a part of the history of the Commonwealth. There are
places and objects so intimately associated with the world's
greatest men or with mighty deeds that the soul of him who
gazes upon them is lost in a sense of reverent awe, as it
listens to the voice that speaks from the past, in words like
those which came from the burning bush, 'Put off thy shoes
from off they feet, for the place whereon thou standest is
holy ground.'
"The story here told is one of triumphant achievement, and
not of defeat. As the official representative of the Commonwealth,
I receive it, sir, at your hands. I pledge the faith of the
Commonwealth that for all time it shall be guarded in accordance
with the terms of the decree under which it is delivered into
her possession as one of her chiefest treasures. I express
the thanks of the Commonwealth for the priceless gift, and
I venture the prophecy that for countless years to come and
to untold thousands these mute pages shall eloquently speak
of high resolve, great suffering and heroic endurance made
possible by an absolute faith in the over-ruling providence
of Almighty God."
The Bishop gave the Governor of Massachusetts the right to
deposit the manuscript either in his office at the State
House or with the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which
Archbishop Temple and Bishop Creighton, who succeeded Bishop
Temple in the See of London, were both Honorary members. The
Governor, under my advice, deposited the manuscript in the
State House. It seemed to him and to me that the Commonwealth,
which is made up of the Colony which Bradford founded, and
of which he was Governor, blended with that founded by the
Puritans under Winthrop, was the fitting custodian of the
life in Leyden of the founders of Plymouth, of the voyage
across the sea, and of the first thirty years of the Colony
here. It is kept in the State Library, open at the spot which
contains the Compact made on board the Mayflower--the first
written Constitution in history. Many visitors gaze upon
it every year. Few of them look upon it without a trembling
of the lip and a gathering of mist in the eye. I am told
that it is not uncommon that strong men weep when they behold
it.