On my arrival I went to the National Hotel, then the most popular hotel in Washington, where many Senators and Members lodged. I found there, also, a number of charming young ladies whose company was much more agreeable to me than that of the most distinguished statesmen. We had hops, balls and receptions, but I recall very few public men I met at that time. Mr. Vinton, then the veteran Member from Ohio, invited me to join for a few days his mess; he was then boarding in a house nearly opposite the hotel, kept by an Italian whose name I cannot recall. He was a famous cook. The mess was composed entirely of Senators and Members, one of the former being Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky. I was delighted and instructed by the free and easy talk that prevailed, a mixture of funny jokes, well-told stories and gay and grave discussions of politics and law. My stay at the capital was brief as I wished to go to New York and Boston. In New York I received from a relative a letter of introduction to Benj. R. Curtis, then an eminent lawyer, and latterly a more eminent justice of the Supreme Court. When I presented my letter I was received very kindly and after a brief conversation he said he was able to do me a favor, that he had a ticket to a grand banquet to be attended by the leading men of Boston at Plymouth Rock, on the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, and that Daniel Webster would preside. I heartily thanked him, and on the next day, prompt on time, I entered the train at Boston for Plymouth. When I arrived at the hotel, which is also a station- house of the railway, I did not know a single person in the great assemblage. In due time we were ushered into the dining hall where the banquet was spread. There was no mistaking Webster. He sat at the center of a cross table with the British minister on his right and Jeremiah Mason on his left. At the other end of the room sat Abbott Lawrence and other distinguished men. The residue of the guests, merchants, poets, and orators of Massachusetts, filled every seat at the tables. I sat some way down on the side and introduced myself to my neighbors on the right and left, but my eye was on Webster, from whom I expected such lofty eloquence as he alone could utter.