My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands, Dictated in My Seventy-Fourth YearTrain, George Francis
History
My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands, Dictated in My Seventy-Fourth Year
Train, George Francis
Train, George Francis, 1829-1904
The first blunder that I made in Liverpool--and the only serious one, I
believe--was in connection with shipping emigrants to the United States.
One day a man came into the office and said he was from the estate of
the Marquis of Lansdowne, and wanted to contract for the shipment of 300
passengers for New York. We soon came to terms, and I chartered the ship
President. We charged the Marquis from £3 15s. to £4 a head. I learned
afterward that these passengers were poor tenants of his estates. The
Marquis of that time was the grandfather of the present Marquis of
Lansdowne, Minister of War in the Salisbury cabinet.
At that time we had to pay $2 a head for all immigrants entering the
country. I had tried to get this changed, through Mr. Webster, but had
failed. We had also to give bond that the immigrants would not become a
public charge. It proved a very expensive contract for us, as we had to
bring back many of these paupers for the old Marquis to take care of.
When I left Boston, I had taken a partnership, one sixth interest, in
the house of Train & Co. In Liverpool I had twenty-five clerks under me,
and at one time had four ships in Victoria Docks. It may be inferred
that I conducted the business with some degree of success, as my
interest--one sixth--for the first year was $10,000. Next year, when in
London, I was invited to a grand reception given by Abbott Lawrence, 138
Piccadilly, who was then United States minister at the court of St.
James's. That day I dined with Lord Bishop Spencer of Jamaica, whom I
had met in Saratoga, and took Lady Harvey in. This was my acceptance of
the invitation he had extended to me in Saratoga. The bishop asked if I
was going to the reception of the American minister that night, and, on
my saying that I was, asked me to accept a place in his carriage. This I
very gladly did, as I had, by this time learned a great deal about the
value of state and ceremony in English life. The sequence will show how
this worldly wisdom served me.
At the dinner, however, I had had a very narrow escape. It was the
"closest call," as we say in the West, that my temperance Methodist
principles ever had. I was asked, as a great mark of distinction, to
taste the pet wine of the bishop. The bishop himself acted as chief
tempter of my old New England principles. He handed me a glass, saying:
"Mr. Train, this is the wine we call the 'cockroach flavor.' I want you
to drink some of it with us," and he glanced around his table, at which
were seated many titled Englishmen and women.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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