The death of my father and brother within a year, the sudden change in my fortunes, the Presidential campaign, and, above all, the working hard seven days in the week, had been too much for me. I began to find, little by little, that I could not execute half the work to which I was accustomed. Colonel Forney was very kind indeed, and never said a word. But I began to apprehend that a break-down in my health was impending. I needed change of scene, and so resolved, finding, after due consideration, that I had enough to live on, to go abroad for a long rest. It proved to be a very wise resolve. So I rented my house, packed my trunks, and departed, to be gone "for a year or two." I would say, in concluding this chapter, that Colonel John Forney was universally credited, with perfect justice, as having carried Grant's election. When Grant was about to deliver his inaugural speech, a stranger who stood by me, looking at the immense expectant crowd, remarked to a friend, "This is a proud day for John Forney!" "Yes," replied the other, "the Dead Duck has elected Grant." But Forney cheerfully and generously declared that it was the _Weekly Press_ which had carried Pennsylvania, and that I had managed it entirely alone. All these things were known to thousands at the time, but we lived in such excitement that we made but little account thereof. However, there are men of good repute still living who will amply confirm all that I have said of my work on the _Continental Magazine_; and that Abraham Lincoln himself did actually credit me with this is proved by the following incident. Because I had so earnestly advocated Emancipation as a war measure at a time when even the most fiery and advanced Abolition papers, such as the _Tribune_, were holding back and shouting _pas trop de zele_--and as it proved wisely, by advocating it publicly--_merely as a war measure_--the President, at the request of George H. Boker, actually signed for me fifty duplicate very handsome copies of the Proclamation of Emancipation on parchment paper, to every one of which Mr. Seward also added his signature. One of these is now hanging up in the British Museum as my gift. I perfectly understood and knew at the time, as did all concerned, that this was a recognition, and a very graceful and appropriate one, of what I had done for Emancipation--Harvard having A.M.'d me for the same. The copies I presented to the Sanitary Fair to be sold for its benefit, but there was not much demand for them; what were left over I divided with George Boker. VII. EUROPE REVISITED. 1869-1870. Voyage on the _Pereire_--General Washburne--I am offered a command in another French Revolution--Paris--J. Meredith Read and Prevost Paradol--My health--Spa--J. C. Hotten--Octave Delepierre--Heidelberg--Dresden--Julian Hawthorne and G. Lathrop--Verona--Venice--Rome--W. W. Story--Florence--Lorimer Graham--"Breitmann" in the Royal Family--Tuscany.