ALS, twelve pages on three sets of adjoining sheets, 5.25 x 8.25, June 25, 1858. Letter to Sidney Webster, his former private White House secretary, written from Lisbon, Portugal. In part: "Your letter of May 9th was received a few days before we left Madeira and read as all your letters are with interest. We left Funchal in the Galgo a sailing packet on the 12th inst. and came to anchor it in the Tagus Sunday evening, having been eight days at sea. The voyage was on the whole favorable and altho' Mrs. Pierce was very much prostrated by constant sea sickness she sprung up quickly as soon as we were established in our spacious and well ordered apartment at the Braganza Hotel. Last evening we came from the hotel to the residence of Mr. O'Sullivan which is beautifully situated about two miles from the business part of this city and the Tagus, which is a…river several miles in width. We go in a day or two to Cintra [Sintra], a place of summer resort about 18 miles from the city, but will return in season to take passage in the next English steamer which will leave for Cadiz and Gibraltar the 2nd prox. here as at Madeira there is an evident desire to show me every desirable mark of consideration, but I have steadily declined invitations to dinner etc. and shall continue to do so unless it may seem to be necessary to dine with the young king. When we left Madeira the governor with his suite met us…and conveyed us in the government barge to the Galgo while a salute was being fired from Loo Rock. Indeed we have every reason to cherish pleasant and grateful memories of our six months in Madeira.
After leaving Gibraltar we shall proceed almost directly to Vevey and remain there perhaps till October. I believe that [Nathaniel] Hawthorne is to pass the summer at Pisa and hence we shall probably not meet until he returns to Rome next winter. I think there is little doubt that we shall meet Gov. Fish and family somewhere this summer. I received a letter from Genl. Davis three weeks since but it was dated in April & in the hand of his wife. It was a warm, interesting letter and altho' written by another hand than his own could have been dictated by nobody else. Did Genl. Cushing receive a letter from me in the winter? Why has he not written. It is evident from your letter that our views with regard to matters at home are very much alike. I am not surprised at the excitement in & out of Congress provided by the conduct of British cruisers in the waters of Cuba. If the instructions to the home squadron are like those with which Commodore MacCauley proceeded to the Gulf during my administration, when one or two similar acts had been done by Spanish men of war, the searches will speedily cease. The British Govt. will disavow the acts and that will be the end of it. Is it not amusing to see how determined the opposition had been to out-brag the Democrats in this? You may be quite sure that I have regarded, since I left the states and I hope to continue to regard with simple indifference what you think may be a source of annoyance 'one of the black flies' I am to encounter during my travels in Europe. The continuance of the assaults under present circumstances only serve to illustrate the malignity which prompted them while I was at the head of government. The refusal to re-appoint Colo. George and the withdrawal of the printing from the Patriot, will annoy Democrats and gratify the Black Republicans exceedingly. Is this way to sustain a cause? Was Dr. Loring reappointed? Mr. O'Sullivan commands in the highest degree the respect of the government here and is universally popular. Speaking as he does French & Portuguese as well as English, his circle of acquaintances is large…
Colo. Morgan is now daily expected. He was of the Gov. Medill wing of the party in Ohio which explains the principle of rotations as applied to him and to many others, who are denominated 'original friends' etc. etc. There will be no mail for England before July 2nd and I will tear this open to add a word after I return from Cintra. Where is Genl. Peaslee now and where is his home to be established? The only notice I had seen of the death of Judge Gilchrist before the receipt of your letter was in connexion with the appointment of Judge Loring to the vacant place. I was quite shocked altho' as you know I never thought that longevity could be anticipated for him. I hope to find another letter from you at Mareilles and in it an account of your visit to N.H.
Sunday‚ June 27th—I find that the mail for England will be closed tomorrow and I must therefore send this to the officer before leaving on our little trip for Cintra. It is doubtful whether the arrangements of the different lines of steamers will enable us to make the delay which we proposed of ten days at Cadiz and Seville. The probability now is that we shall go in the French line stopping a single day at Cadiz another at Gibraltar and thence direct to Marseilles. I shall write you again when we are established in Switzerland probably not before. We attended service this morning at the English chapel where we heard the service indifferently and listened to…I beg you to repress your sectarian zeal and to remember that the highest dignitary of [the] highest church can be dull. The weather here is extremely hot and we begin to long for a more northern latitude. Direct your next letter to me 'care of the American consul, Marseilles, France.' I do not know who is to succeed Colo. Morgan, but I shall make arrangements when there to have my letters forwarded. Give my kindest regards to Genl. Cushing and other friends." In fine condition.
Shortly after leaving the White House in 1857, Pierce returned to his native New Hampshire and then embarked on a three-year tour of Europe and the Bahamas. During his time abroad Pierce maintained correspondence with Webster, the son-in-law of Senator Hamilton Fish and a brilliant Manhattan lawyer who, in 1892, published Franklin Pierce and His Administration. In this remarkable letter, Pierce makes reference to numerous important figures of the day. Among these are naval officer Charles Stewart McCauley, whom Pierce had ordered to protect American interests in Cuba during his administration; his close friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, who Pierce had appointed to a diplomatic post in England; future Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who had served as Pierce's Secretary of War; Col. John Hatch George, with whom Pierce had practiced law in New Hampshire; George Bailey Loring, postmaster at Salem who was not reappointed; and John James Gilchrist, whom Pierce had nominated to the Court of Claims.
Pierce penned this lengthy letter at the beginning of his stay in Madeira in the company of John Louis O'Sullivan, a Democrat and American newspaper columnist best remembered for coining the term 'manifest destiny.' He served as American minister to Portugal under Pierce, and although he opposed the Civil War, ultimately supported the Confederacy, printing pamphlets in support of the secessionist cause. The stationery Pierce uses here is the monogrammed letterhead of O'Sullivan's wife, Susan. A superb, crisply penned epistle from the former president's time abroad.
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