The railroad had superseded his Uncle Manning’s business, as it had that of half the mercantile class in the city, and his father-in-law was in a somewhat similar predicament. At this time Elizabeth Peabody was keeping a small foreign book-store in a room of her father’s house on West Street. One has to realize these conditions, in order to appreciate the mood in which Hawthorne’s Custom House preface was written. There is one passage in it, however, that is always likely to be misunderstood. It is where he says: “I thought my own prospects of retaining office, to be better than those of my Democratic brethren; but who can see an inch into futurity, beyond his nose? My own head was the first that fell!” It is clear that some kind of an effort was made to prevent his removal, presumably by George S. Hillard, who was a Whig in good favor; but the conclusion which one would naturally draw from the above, that Hawthorne was turned out of office in a summary and ungracious manner, is not justified by the evidence. He was not relieved from duty until June 14, 1849; that is, he was given a hundred days of grace, which is much more than officeholders commonly are favored with, in such cases. We may consider it morally certain that Hillard did what he could in Hawthorne’s behalf. He was well acquainted with Webster, but unfortunately Webster had opposed the nomination of General Taylor, and was so imprudent as to characterize it as a nomination not fit to be made. This was echoed all over the country, and left Webster without influence at Washington. For the time being Seward was everything, and Webster was nothing. In a letter to Horace Mann, shortly after his removal, Hawthorne refers to two distinct calumnies which had been circulated concerning him in Salem, and only too widely credited. The most important of these--for it has seriously compromised a number of Salem gentlemen--was never explained until the publication of Mrs. Lathrop’s “Memories of Hawthorne” in 1897; where we find a letter from Mrs. Hawthorne to her mother, dated June 10, 1849, and containing the following passage: