It is not true that Mr. Blaine was fierce for war upon Conkling; he thought a fight was inevitable, and that the time for the President to assert himself was at the beginning; and said so. "Fight now if at all," said Blaine then to Garfield, "for your administration tapers!" As to his personal wishes, he was often overruled in the cabinet, and took it complacently. But he was warlike on the point that the President was entitled to be friendly with his friends, and must not be personally oppressed. One day Mr. Conkling in the Senate had one of the New York appointments pleasing to him taken up and confirmed, leaving half a dozen others, about evenly divided between his own and the President's favorites. Then came a crisis; and it was represented to the President that he should pull those appointments out of the Senate at once, before Conkling's power was further exhibited; and that if he did not, the bootblacks at Willard's would know that the Senator, and not the President, was first in affairs. The appointments were withdrawn, and it was perfectly understood that this withdrawal signified that the President would not allow men to be discriminated against because they were opposed to Conkling at Chicago. A letter came from General Grant in Mexico, addressed to Senator Jones of Nevada, and was published, reflecting upon Garfield's course; and at once the President wrote to the Old Commander defending his administration. This was done as a matter of personal respect. General Grosvenor of Ohio happened to be in the President's room when he mailed a copy of his letter to General Grant, and read the duplicate that was reserved. It was a very respectful and decisive statement. This letter was personal to General Grant, and the rush of events caused it to be reserved and finally forgotten, except by the few who knew enough of it to value it as an historical document. There were but a few days of the four months between the inauguration of President Garfield and his assassination that he could be said to have had any enjoyment out of the great office. It brought him only bitter cares, venomous criticisms, lurking malice, covert threats ambushed in demands that were unreasonable if not irrational. He felt keenly the accusation that he had been nominated when his duty was due another; and he was aware that friends had given color to accusation by a zeal that was unseemly. He was pathetic in his anxiety to be very right; and only the assurance that Conkling was implacable took the sting out of the haughty presumption he encountered in that severe gentleman, whose egotism was so lofty it was ever imposing, when it would have been absurd in any one else.