s Clarke and Watts, how
they were imprisoned for following my advice, submitted to and approved
by General Canby, who would hardly have abetted a new rebellion; and he
made memoranda of their cases, as well as of those of many other
prisoners, confined in different forts from Boston to Savannah, all of
whom were released within a short period. Fearing to trespass on his
time, I left with a request that he would permit me to call again, as I
had a matter of much interest to lay before him, and was told the hours
at which I would be received.

Thence to the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, who in former Whig times,
as Senator from New York, had been a warm supporter of my father's
administration. He greeted me cordially, and asked me to dine. A loin of
veal was the _piece de resistance_ of his dinner, and he called
attention to it as evidence that he had killed the fatted calf to
welcome the returned prodigal. Though not entirely recovered from the
injuries received in a fall from his carriage and the wounds inflicted
by the knife of Payne, he was cheerful, and appeared to sympathize with
the objects of my mission--at least, so far as I could gather his
meaning under the cloud of words with which he was accustomed to cover
the slightest thought. One or two other members of the Cabinet, to whom
Mr. Seward presented me, were also favorably inclined. One, the War
Secretary, I did not meet. A spy under Buchanan, a tyrant under Lincoln,
and a traitor to Johnson, this man was as cruel and crafty as Domitian.
I never saw him. In the end conscience, long dormant, came as Alecto,
and he was not; and the temple of Justice, on whose threshold he stood,
escaped profanation.

In a second interview, President Johnson heard the wish I had so much at
heart, permission to visit Jefferson Davis. He pondered for some time,
then replied that I must wait and call again.

Meantime, an opportunity to look upon the amazing spectacle presented by
the dwellers at the capital was afforded. The things seen by the
Pilgrims in a dream were at this Vanity Fair visible in the flesh: "all
such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, places, honors,
preferments, states, lusts, pleasures; and delights of all sorts, as
bawds, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood,
bodies, souls, greenbacks, pearls, precious stones, and what not." The
eye of the inspired tinker had pierced the darkness of two hundred
years, and seen what was to come