“Remember, O my friends! the laws, the rights, The gen’rous plan of power deliver’d down, From age to age, by your renown’d forefathers, So dearly bought, the price of so much blood; O! Let it never perish in your hands, But piously transmit it to your children.” CHAPTER III. 1852-1853. PERSONAL AND POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH THE PRESIDENT ELECT AND WITH MR. MARCY, HIS SECRETARY OF STATE—BUCHANAN IS OFFERED THE MISSION TO ENGLAND—HIS OWN ACCOUNT OF THE OFFER, AND HIS REASONS FOR ACCEPTING IT—PARTING WITH HIS FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS IN LANCASTER—CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS NIECE. The private correspondence between Mr. Buchanan and the new President, General Pierce, and his Secretary of State, will best explain his relations to this administration; and he has himself left a full record of the circumstances under which he accepted the mission to England in the summer of 1853. [FROM GENERAL PIERCE.] CONCORD, N. H., November 1, 1852. MY DEAR SIR:— Your kind letter of the 26th instant was received yesterday. Your conclusion as to attending the meeting at Tammany Hall was what I should have expected, marked by a nice sense of the fitness of things. The telegraphic despatches received late this evening would seem to remove all doubt as to the result of the election. Your signal part in the accomplishment of that result is acknowledged and appreciated by all. I hope to have the pleasure of meeting you at no distant day. Your friend, FRANK PIERCE. [FROM GENERAL PIERCE.] CONCORD, N. H, December 7, 1852. MY DEAR SIR:— I have been hoping ever since the election that I might have a personal interview with you, if not before, certainly during the present month. But the objections to such a meeting suggested by you while I was at the sea-shore now exist, perhaps even with greater force than at that time. With our known pleasant personal relation a meeting would doubtless call forth many idle and annoying speculations and groundless surmises.