lies before me; and, in order to show how inconsistent its tone is with the disclosures asserted to have been made by the Prince, the following extract will suffice:

So well pleased am I with the books, and so high an opinion do I entertain of your Royal Highness' benevolence and friendship, as to embolden me to appear before him as a suppliant for a similar favor. For years I have been desirous to acquaint myself with the writings of the French, either in civil or ecclesiastical histories, as well as in theology. If it is not asking and intruding too much upon your Royal Highness' goodness, may I hope that he will give a favorable hearing to my humble request.

From these facts, which theory seems to be more likely; that they had had a friendly communication together on historical subjects; or that the Prince had revealed to Mr. Williams the awful intelligence that he was the rightful King of France, and he was himself his subject? The journal in which the circumstances of the Prince's visit are narrated consists of sheets stitched loosely together; and it would be entirely possible to interpellate new matter into it, or indeed to write it wholly over.

The New York Courrier des Etats Unis in February, 1854, says that it had received a letter from an "honorable citizen of Buffalo, Mr. Geo. H. Haskins, who affirms that nearly two years before the journey of the Prince de Joinville to the United States, Mr. Williams had confided to him, under the seal of the most profound secrecy, that he was not what he appeared to be, and that he was in reality the Dauphin of France. As proof on this point, Mr. Williams showed Mr. Haskins an engraved portrait of Marie Antoinette, that he might judge of the resemblance between them, and also a small copper medal of devotion, such as the Indians wear about the neck, and not having any connection with any historical medal of the reign of Louis XVI. The story included all the imaginary circumstances that Mr. Hanson has collected, -the idiocy of early infancy, the sanative fall into Lake George, and the resi

dence of his guardian in New Orleans. This interview, adds Mr. Haskins, took place in Buffalo, partly in my father's office, and partly at the Farmer's Hotel, between the years 1837 and 1810; and. while I do not remember the precise date, I can affirm most positively that this conversation took place more than a year and a half before Mr. Williams' meeting with the Prince de Joinville." In connection with this, the fact appears from his journal that Mr. Williams was in Buffalo at about that time; and that he was in the habit of lodging at the Farmer's Hotel. If this testimony be true, it indicates that Mr. Williams did not derive his first impressions of his royal origin from the Prince, but that he had been brooding over the matter long before. It also goes far to cast distrust over all Mr. Williams' assertions. Furthermore, it is noticeable that, although much inquired after, no original medals or documents of any kind were ever produced by Mr. Williams. Subsequently he said that he had received letters from several French bishops and one cardinal, and also one from the secretary of the present Emperor, all inquiring into his history. But when these, or any other original letters or medals were asked for, Mr. Williams always declared that they had been lost, or burnt, or been mysteriously stolen. And while to one person Mr. Williams says that he immediately answered the Emperor's letter, to another he writes that he has refused to notice it..

But, in 1848, Mr. Williams says that he received a letter from Thos. Kimball, of Baton Rouge, informing him that an aged French gentleman had just died in New Orleans, who, on his death-bed, had broken the oath of silence which he had long before been forced to take; and that he had declared that it was he who had brought the Dauphin to this country, and had placed him among the Indians, and that the Dauphin was none other than Eleazar Williams.

Now, in the first place, there are two copies of this journal among Mr. Wil

liams' papers; and the copy from which Mr. Hanson wrote is evidently the later transcript; and it differs in several remarkable particulars from the earlier copy. Some things are added, others are taken away, and there is a change of the words "New Orleans or Havana," for "New Orleans and Helena; " and there is nothing about Vanderheyden, of Albany, in the first copy. Then, while this is all the information which the journal gives, and Mr. Williams states that he derived all his information on this subject from this letter of Mr. Kimball's; in another part of Mr. Williams' papers we have a most elaborate, extra-historical account of the circumstances under which the oath was taken by Bellanger in France, the name of the bishop who administered it," &c. Then, while Mr. Hanson, in April, 1853 (Putnam's, p. 450), says that "at the time that his previous article was prepared (January, 1853), Mr. Williams was not aware that any person named Bellanger was known historically to have been in communication with the Dauphin during the last hours spent in the Temple," I have before me a statement written by Mr. Williams before 1850, in which he uses these words: "The brave and humane Bellanger who had charge of the Dauphin arrived at Lake George," &c. I know not how we can extricate Mr. Williams in such a case without concluding that he was deceiving Mr. Hanson. Then, finally, although Mr. Kimball is spoken of as an acquaintance of Mr. Williams in the first copy of the journal,-not in the last, the published copy,-we never meet with any mention of him before or after in his life. Inquiries were naturally put to Mr. Williams as to where this person was; but he never answered them. And, although Mr. Hanson searched diligently in New Orleans, he could find no trace whatever of the death of any such Frenchman as Mr. Kimball mentions.

But from this time, 1848, paragraphs began to appear in various newspapers, in New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Albany, and other places, respecting VOL. II.-7

Mr. Williams' claims. They spoke of Mr. Williams in the third person, and purported to be founded on well-known facts in Mr. Williams' life. The public mind was being educated to wonder who this person was, and what truth there was in his claims. But, in reality, under whatever names these articles were sent to the publishers, they. all emanated from Mr. Williams himself. And this manner of writing anonymously, or under an assumed name, and as though great facts were held in reserve, was a method by which ever afterward Mr. Williams kept himself before the public eye. I quote one letter, out of many which could be given, as a specimen, written in December, 1848, to the Rev. Mr. Clark, of Manlius, New York; and this is in Mr. Williams' handwriting:

May I add here, to what I have already stated of Mr. Williams' origin, that there is certainly a mystery in the birth and descent of this man. The register of the baptisms of the family of his reputed father in Canada, which I have received within a few days past from the priest, affirms that there is no such name as Eleazar in the family of Thomas Williams. There are circumstances apparently strong in their nature which induce me to think that Mr. Williams is the Dauphin, or Louis XVII. of France.

A

And I have before me a letter written in July, 1848, to Mr. E. Irving, of New York, thanking him for the trouble which he had been at in going to half a dozen offices before he could get the notice of the Dauphin published. strong point made by Mr. Hanson in Mr. Williams' behalf was that, so far from bringing his claims before the public, Mr. Williams had been strongly averse to it. The facts which I have given prove the contrary. It is noticeable that, in these earlier publications, the point which Mr. Williams insists upon mainly is the absence of his name from the register at Caughnawaga, and the proof that he finds therein that he is not Thos. Williams' son. He barely alludes to the Prince's visit and Kimball's letter, and asks what these must mean. It was left for Mr. Hanson later to work up the antecedent probabilities,

and to elaborate and multiply the proofs.

At length, in July, 1849, an article appeared in the United States Magazine which purported to be a review of a life of the Dauphin written by Mr. H. B. Ely. But the book had no existence outside of the review, and, although I cannot say positively that the article was written by Mr. Williams, yet it is very much in his style;, and, certainly, no such person as Mr. H. B. Ely ever appeared afterward in the controversy, although inquired after. But the article served its purpose as a point d'appui, to which Mr. Williams could refer inquirers, and on which Mr. Williams could support, what was then the more important consideration to him, his claims before Congress. A letter sent under another name, but in Mr. Williams' handwriting, is before me, addressed to a member, in which he refers to the articles concerning Mr. Williams' high birth, in the public prints, and thinks that if, on the strength of them, and of the assistance rendered to the United States by his reputed father, Louis XVI., a strong speech were made, it could hardly fail to help on his suit. In a letter written in October, 1850, to a gentleman in this city, while he urges the expediency of throwing out occasional paragraphs in the papers about his claims, he only refers to them as they may help on his case before Congress. Indeed in several letters he urges his friends to keep his name and the subject before the public.

And in this anonymous way, with a view to its influencing matters at Washington, with as many men in buckram as he chose to personate, the agitation was kept up until the time when Mr. Hanson commenced his investigations. Thus in August 1850, Mr. Williams wrote, under an assumed name, of course, to a Mr. Reed of Buffalo.

It so happened that I was at the Eagle Hotel, in Philadelphia, when you and Mr. Williams (the Dauphin of France) were there. Curiosity, as well as having taken an interest in the history of the unfortunate Prince, has led me to address you, and ask you to have the goodness to inform me if you are in pos

session of any historical facts in relation to this wonderful man.

But a new direction and spirit were imparted to the subject when Mr. Hanson took the matter up. Whatever Mr. Williams' disposition was, Mr. Hanson entered into the subject con amore, and pursued it with the honest energy which characterized his nature. No hope of ulterior advantages were needed to stimulate the search; Mr. Hanson believed that Mr. Williams was indeed the Dauphin; that he had been grossly wronged; and he determined to befriend his suit. And the effect of the change is as manifest, immediately, in looking over the papers, as is the relief in going out of a fetid atmosphere into the open air. The anonymous paragraphs and correspondence under assumed names now cease, and the royal claims are put forth avowedly.

In the meantime Mr. Williams had been reduced to such straits in the West that in 1850 he came East to endeavor to engage his services to certain parties for the removal of the Senecas from the Indian territory to the upper waters of the Mississippi. But, as his overtures were declined, and he was bidden to consider the correspondence closed, and as there was nothing left for him in Wisconsin, he went to St. Regis, in the northern part of this State, where a portion of his father's tribe had a reservation, and commenced a school there. Then, as he shortly after received a missionary appointment from the Diocesan Society of New York, and the Boston Unitarian Society, and succeeded in procuring many subscriptions for his work, he made up his mind to remain in the East, and resume clerical duty. And this he was the more induced to do as there sprang up under his hand, directly he came East, a brood of new claims upon Congress and the Vermont Legislature which he could more conveniently prosecute at St. Regis. Neither his wife nor his son returned to the East with him; nor had they, in spite of Mr. Williams' representations to the contrary, even any faith in his royal aspirations.

It is not our business to examine all the new considerations in behalf of Mr. Williams' kingly claims which Mr. Hanson's assiduity unearthed. Many of them exhaust themselves in proving that the Dauphin may not have died in 1795; whereas the further and more important question for us is whether the facts of Mr. Williams' life, as revealed by his papers, go to show whether he was the Dauphin, even granting that the Dauphin did not die in 1795. We have passed in review the main grounds on which Mr. Williams rested his case; the facts are as they have been stated; the conclusion from them others may form.

A noticeable feature as revealed by Mr. Williams' papers is that, while at first, he rarely ever asserts his own confidence in his claims, his assurance seems to strengthen itself as the belief gained ground in others. And so, for three years after the appearance of the first article in Putnam's Monthly, during which time Mr. Hanson's book appeared, and the controversy waxed hot on the subject, as Mr. Williams was flooded with compliments and communications, he came to believe himself a veritable prince in disguise.

Notes are directed to him under the title of Louis XVII., and he is addressed in them as "Your most gracious Majesty." He signs himself with the royal cypher, "L. C.; " he says that "he wishes to maintain the dignity of his family by manifesting at all times in his conduct that sense of honor which becomes his royal race;" he confidently anticipates the time when he shall be called back to France to restore the government on its old basis; he writes anonymously a communication for a newspaper, declaring. that the Count de Chambord is investigating his claims, and that the Bourbon and Orleans branches are uniting in self-defence against him. He prepared also a royal manifesto in these words:

It is due to ourselves to say that in early life we imbibed a sacred regard for constitutional liberty, human rights, universal freedom, and the good of the race. And these

sentiments have been strengthened and in creased by the events of many years up to the present hour. We trust we have learned so much of the Gospel of the Son of God, that whenever an individual of the human race is found, we look upon that person as our brother, without regard to his rank or origin. We have hitherto enjoyed the quiet of a private and retired life; we have no solicitude for a responsible station in the government. Nor are we insensible to the high trust and arduous responsibilities of the Chief Magistrate of a state. But should we be called to the high office which was formerly held by our ancestors, we shall endeavor so to discharge the

duties of that station, as to show that the confidence reposed in us was not misplaced.

What use he made of this paper it is impossible to say. He also declares in he has been visited by two French Coma letter to a gentleman in this city, that missioners from France, who, he says, to all appearance are searching into the history of his life; a fact which rests on no other authority than his word. Although it does not appear that he ever had any foreign correthe Prince de Joinville, he writes to a spondent, except, in that one instance, friend that he "had lately received a communication from a respectable gentleman in France who is the nephew of Mr. Laurent, who attended upon the Dauphin for a time in the Temple. This aged gentleman, now eighty-four years old, states that he was the very person who took the Dauphin, in the night when the Dauphin was rescued, from the Temple, and bore him to a little boat in the river Seine, where he was received by friendly hands. "

And in 1857 he says that a letter from Lyons had been sent, "in the care of the house of Cope, Philadelphia," in which the following information was contained:

Monsieur I says, "With faltering steps I moved towards a dark recess containing a truckle bed; on this low couch the sovereign of France was lying, under the effects of a powerful opiate. With a throbbing heart I stretched forth my arms, and put one of them gently under his shoulders, and raised him up. 'Lend me some assistance for a moment, Monsieur,' said I. We wrapped him in a large black mantle. The mightiest of the kings of Europe was now in our arms a helpless babe. We began to descend. At the second turn,

'Who goes there?' was the challenge. 'Hearen and earth!' thought I, 'I have been deceived.' But at the next moment the voice of the officer of the guard was heard, 'Pass, pass.""

But this is not the only point at which information springs up conveniently for Mr. William's benefit, which no previous historian had ever recorded. In a memoir of Louis XVI. and Marie, during their imprisonment, in Mr. Williams' handwriting, we have this incident given on authority which he does not recollect to furnish.

In the night following the baptism of the Dauphin, that is worthy of notice which is said to have happened to the queen in her sleep, in relation to the infant. She saw her child in manhood, and his dress was all black, and he was in the midst of a large concourse of people, whom he was addressing in the most forcible language, entreating them to obey the Word of God. When the queen related her nocturnal vision to the king and and other friends, it was done with an air of pleasantry. "What," she says, "will my son be a minister of religion? Will he proclaim the faith of Christ in the fields? For surely it was in the meadow where I saw him and the people, and he was in the dress of the Reformed ministers!"

And further, while even Mr. Hanson, after all his researches, leaves the manner of the Dauphin's removal obscure, Mr. Williams conveniently furnishes a minute account of it, still, however, reserving his authority.

To effect the Dauphin's liberation, every preparation had been made by the few active friends in Paris, upon whom a profound secrecy had been enjoined as necessary to the success of their perilous enterprise, and to the preservation of their own lives. The several parts assigned to the actors immediately at the Temple were most faithfully performed, and this gave a favorable turn to the whole movement. At two o'clock in the morning, the young Dauphin, wrapped up in a bed mattress, was conveyed to a house in the neighborhood, where he was dressed in clothes made for the journey, and thence to the carriage in which he and his attendants were to be carried to Flanders and Holland, and thence to England. The Dauphin was in such a feeble state that his little remaining strength gave way as they were leaving the barriers of Paris; and the attendants became alarmed lest he should expire in their arms. He fainted several times and ceased to breathe. But on the application

of restoratives he revived, and with great simplicity entreated his attendants to carry him back.

Really, at this rate, the manufacture of history becomes the easiest thing in the world.

But, by reason of his absorption in this matter, and the continued prosecution of his Indian claims at Washing. ton, and the consequent absences from home, Mr. Williams' duties became neglected to such an extent that his missionary stipend was withdrawn in 1855. Just before this, too, his indefatigable friend, Mr. Hanson died; and, while the Bourbon discussion brought him notoriety and some presents, it did not bring success to his suite before Congress, and Mr. Williams began to be in want. He drew heavily upon the generosity of his friends; but he never was very provident, and the Indians used to say, with regard to the money which he was soliciting for them, that "he had a hole in his pocket."

In 1856 he fancied that poison had been administered to him by foreign emissaries either in Philadelphia or in this city, the effects of which poison he had been suffering from for two years. In the Spring of 1858, the public prints gave out that Mr. Williams had narrowly escaped assassination at Washington. In writing to a friend, Mr. Williams gives the following account of the affair:

For more than two years I have been warned by my friends in the Atlantic cities to be careful, and not walk out in the evenings without an attendant. I was informed in Washington that the French Emperor had agents and spies all over the country, under pretence of seeking after those who had attempted his life. The police of the city was doubled in the vicinity of my residence. In the night of the affair my spirit was raised to the highest pitch in de. fence of my life. I fell upon my antagonist like a furious lion, drove him from one corner of the room to the other, until I wrested the instrument of death from his hands. He then fled, and left the dagger on the floor, and it is now in my possession.

How much of this was fact, and how much imagination, each one must settle for himself. And yet, in this connection, it is but just to give Mr. Hanson's