I landed in New York the day after the battle of Gettysburg, and for the first time in the history of our trouble I felt assured as to the end, for I perceived that the attempt at invasion by the Confederacy showed that the government of it felt its affairs to be in a desperate condition, and the determination on the part of the North was evidently unshaken. From that time I never felt any anxiety as to the final result. I found my brother at the head of the construction department of the revenue service, his friend Salmon P. Chase being Secretary of the Treasury. He was desirous to keep me at home to assist him, with which desire I was ready to conform, but the opposition of his wife was so bitter that he had to decide against my staying, and, taking my wife and boy, I returned to Rome. My brother was already attacked by the malady of which, two years later, he died. Arriving in Rome, and resuming the direction of the consulate, I found to my dismay that General King had appointed as secretary of legation a local American banker, a "Copperhead," who had in the name of the government, but without authority, requested the Roman Ministry of Foreign Affairs to dispense with the visa on the passports of all American visitors, and Antonelli was, of course, too glad to be relieved of the embarrassment which had been often caused him by the regulation, which all the Southerners had asked to be relieved from. Thus I found that the principal resource of the consulate was gone. As the home government had given the strongest orders to protest against any such exception being made of American passports, I, of course, protested, but was informed that the rule had been taken at the request of my own government; and, though Antonelli knew perfectly that Hooker had no authority to enter into any negotiations with him on any subject, and that he had no official position, it suited him to accept the contrary, and my remonstrances to the minister, General King, had no effect. I then laid the matter before the Department of State at Washington, but, as General King was the close personal friend of Seward, who was quite indifferent to diplomatic scandals away from England, no attention was paid to my complaints, and I gave up the consulate to Brown, the consular agent at Civita Vecchia, to get what he could from it, and devoted myself entirely to painting, by which, with a little writing, I made enough to live in the simple manner which I was accustomed to.