There are but few references to politics in the letters of this period, but I find the following in a letter of March 20, 1866, to a cousin: "You ask my opinion of our President. I did not vote for him, but I am agreeably surprised at his masterly statesmanship, and hope, by his firmness in resisting the extreme radicals, he will preserve the Union against now the greatest enemies we have to contend against. I mean those who call themselves Abolitionists.... President Johnson deserves the support of all true patriots, and he will have it against all the 'traitors' in the country, by whatever soft names of loyalty they endeavor to shield themselves." Appeals of all kinds kept pouring in on him, and, in courteously refusing one, on April 17, he uses the following language: "I am unable to aid you. I cannot, indeed, answer a fiftieth part of the hundreds of applications made to me from every section of the country _daily_--I might say _hourly_--for yours is the third this morning and it is not yet 12 o'clock." After settling his affairs at home in his usual methodical manner, Morse sailed with his wife and his four young children, and Colonel John R. Leslie their tutor, for Europe on the 23d of June, 1866, prepared for an extended stay. He wished to give his children the advantages of travel and study in Europe, and he was very desirous of being in Paris during the Universal Exposition of 1867. There is a gap in the letter-books until October, 1866, but from the few letters to members of the family which have been preserved, and from my own recollections, we know that the summer of 1866 was most delightfully spent in journeying through France, Germany, and Switzerland. The children were now old enough not to be the nuisances they seem to have been in 1858, for we find no note of complaint on that account. In September he returned with his wife, his daughter, and his youngest son to Paris, leaving his two older sons with their tutor in Geneva. As he wished to make Paris his headquarters for nearly a year, he sought and found a furnished apartment at No. 10 Avenue du Roi de Rome (now the Avenue du Trocadero), and he writes to his mother-in-law on September 22: "We are fortunate in having apartments in a new building, or rather one newly and completely repaired throughout. All the apartments are newly furnished with elegant furniture, we having the first use of it. We have ample rooms, not large, but promising more comfort for winter residence than if they were larger. The situation is on a wide avenue and central for many purposes; close to the Champs Elysées, near also to the Bois de Boulogne, and within a few minutes walk of the Champ de Mars, so that we shall be most eligibly situated to visit the great Exposition when it opens in April."