Washburne had been promised the office of Minister to France. When he knew that Wilson was to be appointed Secretary of State, he went to Grant and asked that the appointment of Secretary might be conferred upon himself temporarily so as to give him prestige in his office as Minister. Grant saw no objection to this, but he asked Wilson's permission first. Wilson did not relish the proposition, but he consented, on condition that Washburne should not take any action as Secretary, either in the way of appointments to office or the announcement of policies. As soon as Washburne had been confirmed by the Senate, he began to make appointments and announce policies, and Grant did not immediately call him to order. Wilson accordingly notified Grant that as the conditions had been broken he would not now accept the office. Grant then compelled Washburne to resign. But meanwhile Wilson had gone to New York en route to his home in Iowa, and a messenger (A. D. Richardson) was sent after him by Grant to urge him to change his mind; he declined to do so, in terms, however, which preserved their friendship unimpaired.[113] "Who ever heard before of a man nominated Secretary of State merely as a compliment?" was Fessenden's comment on the Washburne episode. Wilson afterward served a term in the United States Senate. He was a good lawyer, a man of sound judgment, of probity and stability of character, and would have filled the office of Secretary of State creditably if not brilliantly. When Grant found that Wilson's purpose to withdraw could not be changed he offered the place to Hamilton Fish, who accepted it. Grant's mishaps in filling the Treasury Department were quite as droll as the foregoing. He first sent in the name of Alexander T. Stewart, the great dry-goods merchant of New York, as Secretary. Stewart was a Scotch-Irishman who had migrated as a young man, and had taken up the vocation of a school-teacher in his adopted country. Of his start in life he was very proud. He kept a well-thumbed copy of the New Testament in Greek on the centre table of his hospitable mansion, which he was fond of exhibiting to his guests as one of the tools of trade with which he began his career in America. Pedagogy, however, did not detain him long. He had brought some capital from the old country and he turned his attention to silks and muslins, and by diligence, skill, and integrity had reached the foremost place in the nation as a merchant, before the outbreak of the Civil War. His wholesale business was chiefly with the South, and this part of it was suddenly obliterated in 1861. Yet he recovered his leadership in dry goods before the war ended, and was then rated as third in the list of rich men in the United States, the names of Astor and Vanderbilt only being placed higher.