and such an infant as our dear Mary, particularly under the melancholy circumstances that exist in my case-I say, let them tell how the chill sense of desolation has invaded their hearts-none others know." His was a pathetic fate. The diary of his voyage is touching, although there is little sentiment in it. Once only he exclaims: "Ah, Tooty! pa's Tooty, how often I think of you!" He is soon praying that his worst enemy may be preserved from sea-sickness, but consoles himself with the thought that

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God may have determined this voyage shall be the means of my restoration to health." He notes the appearance of the sea, passing vessels, changes in the weather, speed of sailing, incidents on ship-board, non-observance of Sundays-often referring to his little family at home, and closing with a semi-religious soliloquy. His health grows worse instead of better, and his spirits sink. "But for the fresh air I were as well in a prison." At length they begin to pass the islands, and fifteen days out, anchor in front of Frederickstoedt, go ashore, and he is happy enough on finding two or three New Yorkers. He describes the country, the scenery, the trees-cotton, cocoa, plantain, palm-the people, the streets, the style of the houses, acknowledging the fourth day on shore that his complaint is gaining on him, and that he begins to think of returning with Captain Clark. The next day he is resolved, and prays that he may be spared to die in his own land, if die he must. He finds hardly any virtue in the people but hospitality. After two weeks ashore his brig is ready to sail on her return voyage, and he writes: "I am as much rejoiced as the schoolboy when he hears the master is sick." The trip is in no way remarkable; but his story of how sea-sickness is followed by home-sickness and that by hemorrhages is pitiful. The hand of Death was on him. With the arrival off Sandy Hook, May 14th, the journal closes.

He was obliged to return to his work. His father besought him to take a long journey in the country on horseback. "My dear son, be persuaded; life is dear to one of your age; fly, then, to the mountains as for your life-the

last resort in your case-and let your next letter give me some comfort in this particular."'1 It was too late. In the latter part of August he went home, and within two months breathed his last in the house where he was born. A few days before he had valued his effects, mainly bills receivable, at about twenty-five hundred dollars, three fourths of which his estate realized, and made his will. His little Mary was meanwhile following her father with swift steps. General Colfax's letters of the next few months to his daughter-in-law are particularly fatherly. Surely the young widow needed sympathy. Among other things the General was very solicitous concerning the babe to be born. "As the month of March is gone," he writes, " may I now anticipate the joy of hearing that you are safe in child-bed, and that the child is a male, to bear the name of his dear deceased parent. This would be a source of real satisfaction and joy, which all our family would participate in; but with this, as with all other dispensations of Providence, we must learn therewith to be content." The event met the General's wishes. The child was born March 23d, 1823. It was a boy; it was christened "Schuyler Colfax," July 27th, by its great-uncle, the Rev. I. Y. Johnson, Pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church, at Schodack-on-the-Hudson. So the General's son was restored to him. Little Mary died in July, and was buried at her father's side in Pompton churchyard.

Mrs. Colfax continued to live with her mother in New York. As soon as her son was old enough he was sent to Forrest and Mulligan's school; afterward to Dr. Griscom's Boys' High School in Crosby Street; and when that was sold to the Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, May 1st, 1832, he attended a school opened by Messrs. Robert Carter and Richard H. Smith, corner of Broadway and Grand streets. When about nine years old he was in

1. Same letter: "Oh, my son, how shall I reply to the last sentence of your letter, where you ask the intercession of a parent's prayers!' Gloom o'erwhelming me, you shall have all you ask of me-nay, I would give more. If the life of an old afflicted man, approximating seventy, laboring under infirmities the companion of age, would satisfy a just and good God, the commutation should be made on my part, and a life spared so valuable to society, your friends, and, more especially, to your dear little family."