While in Europe as a negotiator for Peace with Great Britain, Mr. Clay was brought into immediate and familiar contact, not only with his associates, the urbane and cultivated John Quincy Adams, whose life had been divided between seminaries and courts; the philosophic Gallatin and the chivalric Bayard, but also with the noble and aristocratic Commissioners of Great Britain, and with many others of like breeding and position, to whom the importance of their mission, its protracted labors and its successful result, commended our Plenipotentiaries. A single anecdote will illustrate the impression he every where produced. An octogenarian British Earl, who had retired from public life because of his years, but who still cherished a natural interest in public men and measures, being struck by the impression made in the aristocratic circles of London by the American Commissioners, then on their way home from Ghent, requested a friend to bring them to see him at his house, to which his growing infirmities confined him. The visit was promptly and cheerfully paid, and the obliging friend afterwards inquired of the old Lord as to the impression the Americans had made upon him. "Ah!" said the veteran, with the "light of other days" gleaming from his eyes, "I liked them all, but _I liked the Kentucky man best_." It was so every where. One specimen has been preserved of Mr. Clay's felicity of repartee and charm of conversation, as exhibited while in Paris, immediately after the conclusion of Peace at Ghent. He was there introduced to the famous Madame de Stael, who cordially addressed him with--"Ah, Mr. Clay! I have been in England, and have been battling your cause for you there." "I know it, madame; we heard of your powerful interposition, and are grateful and thankful for it." "They were much enraged against you," said she: "so much so, that they at one time thought seriously of sending the Duke of Wellington to command their armies against you!" "I am very sorry, madame," replied Mr. Clay, "that they did not send his Grace." "Why?" asked she, surprised. "Because, madame, if he had beaten us, we should have been in the condition of Europe, without disgrace. But, if we had been so fortunate as to defeat him, we should have greatly added to the renown of our arms." At his next meeting with "Corinne," at her own house, Mr. Clay was introduced by her to the conqueror at Waterloo, when she related the above conversation. The Duke promptly responded that, had it been his fortune to serve against the Americans, and to triumph over them, he should indeed have regarded that triumph as the proudest of his achievements.