He Reported, I Was
Told, Direct To Mr. Seward At Washington.
He was, in fact, the sort of
diplomatist whose duties, as he apprehended them, were those of a spy.
He was a person disagreeable to look at, as in his odd-coloured
trousers, short waistcoat, and dark green dress-coat, with brass
buttons, he went elbowing about amongst the ladies and gentlemen
promenading the public walk, which commands so beautiful a view over
the St. Lawrence, called the "Platform." Phrenology would have
condemned him. Phrenology and Physiognomy combined, would have hung
him, on the certain verdict of any intelligent jury.
One day, as I was preparing to go West, a deputation from the
"Stadacona" Club of Quebec, of which I was a member, asked me to take
the chair at a private dinner proposed to be given at the club to Mr.
Vallandigham, the democratic leader of Ohio, who had come across
country from Halifax, on his way homeward - through, free, Canada - after
his seizure in bed, in Ohio, and deportation across the Northern
frontier into the land of secession. It appeared that Mr. Vallandigham,
not being a secessionist, merely desiring an honourable peace between
North and South, which he had ably advocated, had gone on to Nassau,
thence to Halifax, thence to Quebec: where he was.
I at first declined the honour. But I was much pressed. I was told that
leading citizens of Quebec and members of the late Canadian Government
would attend. That the dinner was merely hospitality to a refugee
landed upon our shores in distress; and that my presidency would take
away any suspicion that there was the slightest arriere-pensee
in the matter.
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