own house, answered gently, “We have a Minister there who cannot be bettered.” Thus already did the mission to London begin to pivot on San Domingo. I make this revelation only because it is important to a correct understanding of the case, and because the conversation from beginning to end was official in character, relating exclusively to public business, without suggestion or allusion of a personal nature, and absolutely without the slightest word on my part leading in the most remote degree to any such overture, which was unexpected as undesired. The offer of the Secretary was in no respect a compliment or kindness, but in the strict line of his endeavor to silence my opposition to the San Domingo scheme, as is too apparent from the facts, while it was plain, positive, and unequivocal, making its object and import beyond question. Had it been merely an inquiry, it were bad enough, under the circumstances; but it was direct and complete, as by a plenipotentiary. Shortly afterward, being the day immediately following the rejection of the San Domingo treaty, Mr. Motley was summarily removed,--according to present pretence, for an offending not only trivial and formal, but condoned by time, being a year old: very much as Sir Walter Raleigh, after being released from the Tower to conduct a distant expedition as admiral of the fleet, was at his return beheaded on a judgment of fifteen years’ standing. The Secretary, in conversation and in correspondence with me, undertook to explain the removal, insisting for a long time that he was “the friend of Mr. Motley”; but he always made the matter worse, while the heats of San Domingo entered into the discussion.