at Havana, which post had become vacant by the death of Mr. Shaler, long distinguished as our Consul at Algiers. He proceeded there alone, and in the summer returned to Washington. After remaining with us a few months, he again went to Havana alone to pass one more winter there, and then return to take charge of the office of First Comptroller of the Treasury, which General Jackson had tendered to him. He was still in Havana in the spring of 1835, when my brother Lewis left us to be married in Tennessee, and Mr. Coolidge arrived from China and came immediately to Washington, where his wife and family were still staying with us. He found my mother slowly recovering from a very severe illness, considered by our friend and physician, Dr. Hall, as a 'breaking up of her constitution,' and which was regarded by my brothers, Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin (who repaired from their homes in Virginia to their mother's bedside), as seriously alarming. She, however, recovered to a certain point, but never perfectly. Mr. Coolidge and my sister with their children returned to Boston, whilst my mother was to follow them as soon as she was able to travel. Accordingly, when her strength became sufficiently restored, she made the journey, going from Washington to Baltimore by steamer down the Potomac and up the Chesapeake Bay, she not having strength for the stagecoach ride of forty miles, then the only direct public conveyance between the two cities. My sister Mary accompanied her, and she reached Boston safely. Mr.
