56 Colonel Fletcher Webster.
none with deeper feeling than Fletcher had already entered the lecture field
Webster. with a discourse on China, and some
As secretary to Commissioner Cush- thought Mr. Webster presumptuous in ing, he assisted in negotiating the first thus inviting comparison between his treaty between the United States and own discourse and Mr. Cushing's. But China, which involved an absence of competent critics, who heard both eighteen months from the United these efforts, expressed a preference States. Neither the outward nor the for that of Mr. \Vebster. Vast as was homeward voyage was made in com- Mr. Cushing's learning, his oratorical pany with Mr. Cushing. Mr. Webster style was never one of the best ; while left Boston, August 8, 1843, in the Fletcher Webster's style, for clearness, brig Antelope, built by Captain R. B. simplicity, strength, and majesty, was Forbes, touclied at Bombay, November little inferior to that of his illustrious 12, 1S43, and arrived at Canton, Feb- father. He afterward expanded this ruary 4, 1844. He returned in the lecture to the dimensions of a book, ship Paul Jones, in January, 1845, but never published it; and, in 1878, the voyage from Canton to New York this manuscript, and all others left by being made in one hundred and eleven him, perished by the fire which de- days. It deserves to be stated, as stroyed the Webster House at Marsh- illustrating the admiration with which field. One of the few scraps which the merchant princes of Boston have survived this fire is a Latin regarded Daniel Webster, that the epitaph which he wrote for his father's house of Russell and Company, which horse. Steamboat, — a horse of great owned both the Antelope and the Paul speed and endurance, — and which Jones, refused to accept any passage- seldom lay down at night unless he money from his son, who was enter- had been overdriven. In English, it tained, not as a passenger, but as an ran thus : "Stop, traveler, for a greater honored guest. traveler than thou stops here."
By his voyage to China and by his On the Fourth of July, 1845, Charles
experiences there, Mr. Webster ac- Sumner delivered, before the municipal
quired, not only rich stores of curious authorities of Boston, an oration on
information and a great enlargement Peace, which provoked much hostile
of his intellectual horizon, but — what criticism ; and on the next succeeding
is particularly to be noted — a better anniversary of American Independ-
appreciation of the splendid destiny of ence, Fletcher Webster delivered an
his native land. Unlike many foolish oration on War, which was designed to
Americans, who waste their time in show that there are cases " where war,
foreign capitals, he never harbored the with all its woes, must be endured."
slightest regret that he had not been It is probably the only elaborate
born something other than an Ameri- discourse of his, which has been pre-
can ; he never desired to be anything served entire. It contains many quot-
but a free citizen of the great repub- able passages ; but we must content
lie of the West. ourselves with the following, which are
He prepared a lecture on China, quite in his father's style : —
which he delivered in many of the " We meet to brighten the memories
cities and large towns. Mr. Cushing of a glorious past, to strengthen our-
Vou I.— No. III.— B.
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