I told him that I was about to start for England, and that, as I had a letter signed by Mr. Webster and the President, I should like to add his signature also. "I believe that two signatures are usually necessary on Mr. Webster's paper," said Mr. Clay with a smile. He then added his autograph to the paper.
Before leaving for Liverpool, I visited Mount Vernon, of course, while in Washington, saw the Georgetown Convent, and, indeed, everything of interest in the capital at that time. Then I went back to New York and up the Hudson to West Point.
My visit to West Point was especially pleasant. I comraded with the cadets, who invited me to sleep in their tent on the campus. Among the young fellows there at the time, who was very pleasant and friendly, was Alfred H. Terry, afterward one of the most distinguished of our officers. I attended the cadets' ball at Cozzens's Hotel, messed with them, and entered into all of their sports and daily routine. I was astonished to notice that in the morning the roar of the gun did not disturb their slumbers, although it shook me from sleep. But the lightest tap of the drum aroused them instantly. It was force of habit, which, I was to learn later, enables men to sleep amid the roar of artillery on the battlefield, or amid the howling of storms on the ocean. In sleep, as in our waking hours, the trained and disciplined mind hears what it wants to hear.
From West Point I went on to Saratoga Springs. It was my first visit to these famous springs, and I enjoyed it immensely. On the boat up the Hudson I met a beautiful lady, Mrs. Carleton, who was with her sister. Mrs. Carleton was the wife of a wealthy New York merchant, who had a villa on Staten Island. I stopped at Marvin's United States Hotel. This was fifty-two years ago, and the hotel is still there, while Marvin, who entertained me more than half a century ago, died last year, his age somewhere in the nineties. I enjoyed every moment of my stay at Saratoga, for I had never seen anything of social life, and it was all new and delightful. The enormous caravansary, with its throngs of guests, its never-ceasing round of gaiety, and its own liberal life, entranced me. Manners seemed less formal then at the famous spa, and the ladies were pleased to meet any one in the most unconventional and charming way.