If I were to tell you one-half the fine things that were said to me, and of me, in my hearing, you would think me the vainest dog extant. Yet I know how much gratified you are to hear me praised.

Now, after all this, you will not be much surprised to learn, that I think the people of Boston amongst the most agreeable in the United States. I suppose their kindness to me may have some effect on my judgment; but, divesting myself of this, as much as possible, I say they are warm-hearted, as kind, as frank, as truly hospitable as the Virginians themselves. In truth, they are Virginians in all the essentials of character. They speak and pronounce as we do, and their sentiments are very much in the same strain. Their literary improvement, as a mass, is much superior to ours. I expected to find them cold, shy and suspicious. I found them, on the contrary, open, playful and generous. They have no foreign mixture among them,-but are the native population, the original English and their descendants. In this, too, they resemble the people of Virginia, and, I think, are identical with them. They are, in republican principle and integrity, among the soundest, if not the very soundest of the people of the United States.-Would to Heaven the people of Virginia and Massachusetts, knew each other better! What a host of absurd and repulsive prejudices would that knowledge put to flight! How would it tend to consolidate the Union, threatened, as it is, with so many agents of dissolution!-My heart is set on bringing about this knowledge. How shall I effect it? If I write I shall be known, and be supposed to have been bought by a little kindness and flattery. I believe the prejudices are all on our side. The people of the North resent what they suppose to be the injustice of Southern opinion. Let them have reason to believe that we regard them with respect and kindness, and they will not be slow to give us theirs. I found it so in my own person.-And so, I believe it will be found by every man of sense from the South who visits them. What a fool have I been to join in these vulgar prejudices against the Yankees! We judged them by their pedlers. It would be as just if they were to judge us by our black-legs.

* *

I look upon your situation with great pleasure. In the retrospect, you have, to be sure, losses and privations to mourn,-but these are inseparable from the lot of life; and grief for the past is unavailing. Looking to the present, how happy is your situation! What an honoured retreat have you found for your age! A respected Judge of the highest court of the State,-your daughters happily settled,—your own circumstances at ease, your ambition, I presume, satisfied. What a quiet and honourable haven!—and most richly deserved,"an it were a thousand times greater." Nor, can I complain. I

have gained all and more than all the distinction I have deserved, I am now in the worldly eye at the top of my profession,—and in a swimming practice. What gratifies me most is that I am accounted an honest and virtuous man. This is the crown of old age. With the blessing of Heaven, my sun shall set without a spot.

*

*

* ·

*

I have sometimes thought that with prudence, industry and exertion, I might have earned a higher reputation in literature, and written something worthy of preservation. The Boston people say, in their newspapers, that my writings do not afford an advantageous view of my taste and talents. They are probably right. But this is the fault of haste and indiscretion. I ought either never to have written, or to have written more carefully. But enough of myself, and of everything else, at present. My best love to your household.

Your friend,

WM. WIRT.

In a letter to his friend Pope, soon after this, Mr. Wirt gave him a long account of his journey and its incidents; and took occasion to expatiate upon that topic which seems so much to have engrossed his thoughts at this time, the resemblance between the native population of Virginia and that of Massachusetts. This resemblance has often been noticed by others. The reader may be amused with some illustrations of it given in this letter.

"I am, by no means, prepared to admit"-he remarks—“that the comparison would be against New England, in regard to this same delicate tact and refinement of manners. Let me give you two anecdotes which will show you the deportment of each of the sexes.

"Do you remember Bishop Madison, formerly the President of William and Mary? You will remember his gentleness of spirit, and the kindness and courtesy of his address. You have never seen him recover himself from one of those embarrassments into which his affability sometimes betrayed him, with more delicacy and address than President Quincy of Harvard did on the occasion I am about to relate. He happened, when I made him a visit, to ask me in what college I had graduated. I was obliged to admit that I had never been a student of any college. A shade of embarrassment, scarcely perceptible, just flitted across his countenance - but he recovered in an instant, and added most gracefully- 'upon my word, you furnish a very strong argument against the utility of a college education.'

Was not this neatly said, and very much in the style of Bishop Madison?

"The other story will be more to your liking. In a large and promiscuous assemblage of ladies who formed, for several days, a portion of the auditory in the court-room, I was struck with the beauty and intelligence of one who sat immediately before me. She conversed occasionally with a gentleman near her, and her movements were as graceful as her eyes were intelligent. A few days afterwards, I found myself in company with her at dinner. Her conversation confirmed and even surpassed my prepossessions. She reminded me continually of Maria M. in her best days;-the same graceful manners, the same spirit and piquancy in her remarks. The last evening I spent in company in Boston, was at her house. She had a little circle around her, of which she was the soul, and the hours flew on angels' wings.' When we were about to retire, I asked her to permit me to take leave of her in our Virginia fashion, by a shake of the hand. She gave me her hand with great animation; it had a glove on. When I had reached the door she came briskly to me again— saying 'we did not shake hands in the right way, Mr. Wirt, I had my glove upon my hand.' And she offered me the same hand again ungloved, and snowwhite; and so I took it and kissed it, with all the devotion proper to fifty years. My friend B. who accompanied me, who is about my age, but with the disadvantage of being a single man, said — ‘Now, madam, you must shake hands with me.' And he offered to take the hand which had been proffered to me. Not that, Mr. B-,' said she, presenting him the other with its glove. Is not that Maria M. over again—and Virginia, besides? You should have seen the gaiety, grace and sensibility which accompanied the action, and which threw such a charm over it."

CHAPTER XV.

1830.

MR. WIRT EMPLOYED AS COUNSEL FOR JUDGE PECK ON HIS IMPEACHMENT. -ENGAGED FOR THE CHEROKEES. HISTORY OF THE CHEROKEE CASE. CORRESPONDENCE IN REGARD TO IT WITH MR. MADISON AND JUDGE CARR.IS ASSAILED IN THE PAPERS FOR TAKING A PART IN THIS CASE.-HIS VIEWS OF HIS DUTY IN REFERENCE TO IT.-PRESENTED AS A CANDIDATE FOR THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.-ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF RUTGERS COLLEGE.-ADDRESS IN BALTIMORE ON OCCASION OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF JULY.

MR. WIRT was now employed as counsel in two causes which, during the present and the ensuing year, largely attracted the public attention. One of these was the impeachment of Judge Peck by the House of Representatives. The other was the celebrated Cherokee case which occupied so conspicuous a place in the debates of Congress, and which, more than once, found its way into the Supreme Court.

The controversy between the State of Georgia and the Cherokee tribe of Indians fills an eventful page in the political history of this period. It is memorable for its excitements, its influence upon the feelings of a large section of the Union, and for the extraordinary proceedings to which it gave rise.

The Cherokees were a large and powerful tribe, who occupied a tract of country which embraced a portion of the territory now lying within the limits of Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama. There they had dwelt from time immemorial, a warlike and independent nation.

Before and during the war of the revolution, they were engaged in frequent hostilities against the white population of the neighbouring In the course of these hostilities they were subject to severe

states.

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reprisals. On one notable occasion, a combined attack was made upon them by the troops of North and South Carolina and Virginia. They were driven from their habitations, several of their villages were burnt, and a portion of their territory occupied by the assailants, who made their possession sure by the erection of fortifications. This invasion led to the negotiation of treaties, by which the tribe acknowledged the conquest, and ceded to the states, within whose chartered limits their territory lay, the lands which were thus conquered from them. These treaties were negotiated in 1777. That which concerned Georgia and South Carolina, known as the treaty of "Dewitt's Corner," was made by commissioners duly appointed by those two states respectively. I have referred to this treaty, because it is said to be an authentic foundation to the claim of Georgia over a part of the Indian territory.*

The result of this invasion and of the treaties which ensued, was to force the tribe into the more southern region, and to increase their numbers within what was then embraced by the Georgia charter.

After this treaty, that portion of the tribe which still remained on the conquered territory, it was affirmed, held their occupancy only in subordination to the authority of the states within whose borders they

were.

In the year 1785, the old Confederation negotiated, with these Indians, the treaty of Hopewell. This was a treaty which terminated a war. It stipulated for an exchange of prisoners; established a species of guardianship over the tribe; bound the Federal Government to protect the tribe against the intrusion of the whites, and finally conferred upon the tribe the privilege, if they chose to exercise it, of sending a deputy to Congress.

Georgia protested against this treaty,-holding that the Confederation was not competent to treat with Indians within the State limits. The subject of this protest was considered by Congress. It was decided against the State, and Georgia acquiesced.

After the Constitution of the Union was adopted, General Wash

*The opponents of the Georgia claim have denied, it is proper to say, that any portion of the land ceded by the treaty of Dewitt's Corner, lay within the chartered limits of that State. They described it as entirely within the boundaries of South Carolina.

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