and found an immense audience, lectured, got on the cars directly after, came here, and had an elegant night's rest Lecture in Chicago again Saturday, and Monday in St. Louis, on the 11th here, and in Buffalo the 10th and 13th, I think. Don't go in that waggon any more. When you feel well enough to make calls, get a hack, take Nannie with you, and leave my cards everywhere.
M. F. Maury.
The exposure and fatigue of this lecturing tour brought on his first attack of rheumatic gout, from which he continued to suffer, at intervals, until his death fifteen years afterwards.
The following letters, to his old friend the Bishop of Tennessee, contain the first allusion to the threatened civil war:—
To Bishop Otey, of Tennessee.
| My dear old Bishop, | Observatory, March 13th, 1860. |
As for the Union, I see that it will have to drift. The dissolution of it will, I fear, come before you or I would be willing to see it. With statesmanship among our rulers, patriotism among our politicians, and virtue among the people, it need never come.
I have laid by the sermon to read it aloud to all hands on Sunday.
You recollect Mr. Malory, of Florida, was an active Navy Board man, and that he was very unfair, to say the least, in the Senate towards me. He has brought in a Bill to increase the pay of all the officers "except the Superintendent of the Observatory," and two other officers. Now, what is to be done with such an uncivil disposition? I do not wish to embarrass the Bill by any opposition to it, for the officers stand greatly in need of more pay; but I think 1*11 have to suggest an amendment making the pay of the "Superintendent of the ^Observatory" that of a Captain in command. Tell me what you think of it. I send you the Bill. . . .
God bless you, my dear old friend, prays your
