Mr. Mason. In the mean time, the news of the fire, which had been attended with some appalling circumstances, had reached Washington, where Mr. Webster, on his arrival, first met the account. Before he could open his letters, his firmness was put to a great trial, by the somewhat exaggerated statements of those who hastened to give him information. But a cheerful letter from his wife, advising him not to return, reassured him; and "finding nothing lost," he says, "but house and property," and considering how critical were the public affairs, he commended his little family to their friends, and remained at Washington through the winter.

There was, indeed, no little need for such men, even if they were not political friends of the Administration. The war, although there had been some brilliant successes on the Lakes and one important victory on the ocean, had not been prosperous on the land. In Europe, the star of Bonaparte was no longer in the ascendant--disaster had overtaken him; and England, at the head of the great combination that was now closing around him, was not unlikely to be in a situation to carry on her contest with us more vigorously than before. Our Administration, not a strong one, was in want of both men and money. Perplexed, and not sure of an undivided support from its own party, it was in danger of following counsels insufficiently weighed. It was conducting the first important war that had been undertaken since the establishment of the Constitution; and on that war the sentiments of the people were by no means unanimous. New measures were to be brought forward, new powers were to be exercised, which might subject the Constitution to a severe test. These measures were to undergo the ordeal of discussion by the representatives of a people who had been accustomed to the utmost freedom of debate and criticism; who had not learned to surrender that freedom to the demands of official judgment; and who would be certain to insist that the hitherto untried powers of war, embraced in the Constitution, should not be pressed to its injury and its possible overthrow. If the war was to go on, its policy was to be settled; and perhaps there never has been a war conducted by a constitutional government and in behalf of a free people, in which the restraining influence of a vigilant and

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