428 PEG O'NEAL. coffee room to indulge in the exhilarating conversation which wine and good company usually excite. But all would not do. Nothing would move the inflexible ladies." Mr. Van Buren's conduct completely won the affection of General Jackson, of which during the summer of 1830 he gave a most extraordinary proof. Being exceedingly sick, and not expected to live through his first term, he wrote a letter strongly recommending Mr. Van Buren as his successor to the presidency, and denouncing his rival, Calhoun, as signally unfit for the position. The letter was confided to the custody of Major William B. Lewis, of Nashville, who permitted me to copy it in 1858 for use in my Life of Jackson. It had lain in a green box, with other private documents of a similar nature, for twenty- eight years ; for, as the general in part recovered his health, it was never used for the purpose intended. Not the less, however, did General Jackson, by a long series of skillful maneuvres, secure for Mr. Van Buren the succession to the presidency. Finding the ladies resolute, and being himself consti- tutionally unable to give up, General Jackson broke up his cabinet, quarreled with Calhoun, drove him into nulli- fication, sent Van Buren abroad as Minister to England, and, in short, changed the course of events in the United States for half a century ; all because the Washington ladies would not call upon Mrs Eaton. Some time after the close of the Jackson administration Mrs. Eaton was again left a widow ; but this time, she was left a rich widow. For many years she lived in Washington in very elegant style, in a house all alive and merry with children and grandchildren. In her old age she was so unfor- tunate as to marry a young Italian dancing-master, who squandered her fortune, and brought her gray hairs in poverty and sorrow to the grave. She died in Washing- ton a few years ago, aged about eighty-four years.
