is sentry-march along the main
street,--might still in my little day be seen and recognized in the
old town. Nevertheless, this very sentiment is an evidence that the
connection, which has become an unhealthy one, should at last be
severed. Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it
be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the
same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so
far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their
roots into unaccustomed earth.

On emerging from the Old Manse, it was chiefly this strange, indolent,
unjoyous attachment for my native town, that brought me to fill a
place in Uncle Sam's brick edifice, when I might as well, or better,
have gone somewhere else. My doom was on me. It was not the first
time, nor the second, that I had gone away,--as it seemed,
permanently,--but yet returned, like the bad half-penny; or as if
Salem were for me the inevitable centre of the universe. So, one fine
morning, I ascended the flight of granite steps, with the President's
commission in my pocket, and was introduced to the corps of gentlemen
who were to aid me in my weighty responsibility, as chief executive
officer of the Custom-House.

I doubt greatly--or, rather, I do not doubt at all--whether any public
functionary of the United States, either in the civil or military
line, has ever had such a patriarchal body of veterans under his
orders as myself. The whereabouts of the Oldest Inhabitant was at once
settled, when I looked at them. For upwards of twenty years before
this epoch, the independent position of the Collector had kept the
Salem Custom-House out of the whirlpool of political vicissitude,
which makes the tenure of office generally so fragile. A soldier,--New
England's most distinguished soldier,--he stood firmly on the pedestal
of his gallant services; and, himself secure in the wise liberality of
the successive administrations through which he had held office, he
had been the safety of his subordinates in many an hour of danger and
heart-quake. General Miller was radically conservative; a man over
whose kindly nature habit had no slight influence; attaching himself
strongly to familiar faces, and with difficulty moved to change, even
when change might have brought unquestionable improvement. Thus, on
taking charge of my department, I found few but aged men. They were
ancient sea-captains, for the most part, who, aft