“I suppose much I have said cuts across your prejudice, coming from the South.  I have sought to speak sincerely to you, because you are young, impressible, and anxious for knowledge; and it is better to know an unwelcome truth, than to find out by-and-by you have all your life been believing an untruth.  Nothing is more sickening to the candid and sincere heart, than to learn its cherished opinions and dearest hopes have been nothing but fallacies; and when you are old as I am, you will have been more fortunate than I have been, if you do not find much that you have loved most, and most trusted, a deceit—­a miserable lie.  Come and see me at your leisure:  I shall always be glad to see you, and equally as glad to answer any of your questions, if these answers will give you information.”

Governor Oliver Wolcott was short in stature and inclined to corpulency; his head was large and round, with an ample forehead; his eyes were gray and very pleasant in their expression; his mouth was voluptuous, and upon his lips there usually lurked a smile, humorous in its threatening, provoking a pleasing dimple upon his cheek.  In society, in his extreme old age, for I only knew him then, he was less gay than the general expression of his features would have indicated.  He was a man of strong will and most decided character.  His individuality was marked and striking, and his tenacity of purpose made his character one of remarkable consistency.

Governor Wolcott was one of the old-school Federalists, a thorough believer in Federal principles.  He believed in the capacity of the people for self-government, if the franchise of suffrage was confined to the intelligence and freeholds of the country, but reprobated the idea of universal suffrage as destructive of all that was good in republican institutions.  Succeeding Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, he found all matters of finance connected with the Government in so healthy a condition and arranged upon such a basis as only required that he should be careful to keep them there.  During the four last years of the Administration of Washington, this prevented any display on his part of any striking financial ability.  The administration of his office was entirely satisfactory to the country, though it seemed he was only there to superintend the workings of the genius of Hamilton.  Once in my hearing he remarked, he had only to work up to the scribings of Hamilton to make everything joint up and fit well.

He held Washington in higher esteem even than Colonel Talmadge; and differed from him in many particulars relative to his character.  It was my good fortune to sit and listen, more than once, to discussions between these venerable men.  It was always amicable and eminently instructive.  Wolcott was an admirer of Mrs. Washington, Talmadge was not.  Talmadge was a military man, and saw a healthy discipline only in obedience to superiors, and exacted in his own family what he deemed was proper in that of every