DEAR SIR:—I congratulate you on your safe arrival. We have long and anxiously wished for you. God grant that your mission may answer your and the public expectation. War may do something for us; nothing else would. I have paved the way for you, and if you could add to my memoirs an assurance that we were now in possession of New Orleans, we should do well. But I detain Mr. Beutalon, who is impatient to fly to the arms of his wife. I have apprised the minister of your arrival, and told him you would be here on Tuesday or Wednesday. Present my compliments and Mrs. Livingston’s to Mrs. Monroe, and believe me, dear sir, your friend and humble servant, ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. After the business of the treaty was arranged, Mr. Monroe was sent as Minister to London, to succeed Mr. King, who wished to return home. From there he was ordered to Spain, which country he visited by way of Paris. Mrs. Monroe accompanied him in all his wanderings, and returned with him to England soon after the death of Mr. Pitt. Mr. Monroe was minister to England when the attack on the frigate “Chesapeake” placed the two countries, already irritated, in a hostile attitude, and finding his position at the St. James anything but pleasant, he returned to this country. Thus did Mrs. Monroe spend almost ten years in Europe, returning only when the country was plunging again into a second war with the mother land. She gladly sought retirement at Oak Hill, her husband’s Virginia home, and the following years passed in the enjoyment of the serene pleasures of country life—Mr. Monroe engaged during the day in reading and taking the general supervision of his plantation, while she supervised the education of their two daughters and the household duties, which, in a Virginia, home were always arduous. But this quiet home-life was not destined to last, and the husband and father resumed the duties of a politician, and was elected to the Legislature. In a few months he was again chosen Governor of the old commonwealth, and continued to discharge the duties of that office until chosen Secretary of State by President Madison. When the war of 1812 was declared, Mrs. Monroe was living in Washington City, dispensing the duties of a minister’s wife, and enjoying the society of her two daughters. As the strife came nearer home and the capital was threatened, she returned to Oak Hill, and there remained until peace was finally proclaimed. Anxious and uneasy about her husband, who was ever beside the President, she yet felt that her place was at her own home, that he might feel assured of the safety of herself and children. In 1817, Mr. Monroe became President of the United States, and removed his family to the White House, where they continued to reside during both terms of his administration. Mrs. Monroe was spoken of at this time by the leading paper of the day as follows: