tion, the Chinese Government agreed to pay the company $6,750,000, and an agreement was drawn up to that effect and signed by Mr. Root and myself. As soon as this settlement became known, strong protests were made by the Belgian holders of stock, and President Roosevelt was induced to interfere and send a remonstrance to the American Minister at Peking. But as soon as he was fully informed of the agreement he withdrew his objection, and King Leopold and his Belgian associates had to accept the settlement.

An incident of the payment of the final installment under the agreement illustrates the peculiar financial ethics which prevail in Wall Street. Among the terms of settlement it was agreed that the sum to be paid the company was to bear interest at five per cent till paid; and also that bonds which had been issued to the company bearing five per cent interest to the amount of over two million dollars might be redeemed, but if the company or holders of the bonds preferred to retain them the amount of these was to be deducted from the final installment. When we met in Mr. Morgan's bankinghouse to make the final payment, we found that his accountants had calculated interest on the full amount of payment, without taking account of the deduction for bonds which the company elected not to have redeemed. I spent a half-hour discussing this interest charge with Mr. Morgan, without convincing him that a double charge for interest on the installment and on the bonds was not just nor contemplated by the agreement. An adjournment for the payment of the last installment was taken till the next day. Mr. Morgan's lawyers thus had an opportunity to confer with him, and the next day a new account of interest was presented, with the interest on the bonds omitted, and the final payment was duly made.

I might cite other cases intrusted to me during my residence in Washington of more or less general interest, but the foregoing are sufficient to show the character of my occupation. An important branch of my practice was in acting as

counsel for foreign embassies and legations, either by regular retainers or by special engagement. Some of the heads of missions coming to Washington were without diplomatic experience and others were not well versed in our political and legal systems, and they felt that they could profit by my diplomatic experience and my knowledge of the institutions of our country. My advice always was to avoid controversies with the Department of State, and I feel that in this capacity I have been able to render a service to both our own and the foreign governments.

It has been a pleasant experience of my life to have been brought into intimate relation with lawyers of the highest standing both in America and Europe. During my diplomatic service and in the arbitration tribunals at Paris and London, as also at The Hague, and in my residence in Washington, I have met many of the first men of my profession, and I am happy to say that in professional ethics and in ability the leading American lawyers compare favorably with those of the front rank in Europe.

I may add in closing this chapter that whatever success I have had in my profession and in diplomacy is in large degree to be attributed to my close and undivided attention to my business, to the exclusion of all ulterior interests. While in the Diplomatic Service my colleagues in Mexico speculated in mining ventures, and in Europe they often dabbled in stocks. I deemed it unwise to be concerned in either. The "Emma Mine" scandal that destroyed the usefulness of our Minister in London, and the business experiences of others served me as a warning.

During my residence in Washington I had a number of tempting offers to assume the presidency or management of trust, banking, or other corporations, or to represent large business enterprises in foreign countries; but I decided that it was better to make a specialty of matters which I understood rather than be led into ventures of which I knew little

and for which I might prove not fitted. When a case was intrusted to me I sought to master every question connected with it, and if my clients were not successful it was for no want of thought, time, and attention on my part.

CHAPTER XLII

LIFE IN WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON is already, and destined to be more and more, one of the most attractive cities of the world, both in its physical appearance and social aspects. The plan upon which it was laid out is unique. Its wide streets, its many open squares and parks ornamented with an abundance of trees and garden-plots, the ever-increasing number and magnificence of its public buildings, and the picturesque character of its suburbs, charm all visitors both native and foreign.

It is purely a political capital and a residential city. Happily it has no outside commerce and scarcely any manufactures. I have always looked with disfavor upon the efforts of some of its enterprising citizens to encourage the establishment of factories and develop trade. I hope it may remain a distinctively political capital — a large village or small city. Legislation will then be more free from external influence and society will not become too much overgrown and pampered. With Congress, the Executive Departments, the Courts, and the Diplomatic Corps as its special attractions, it will continue to bring to it intelligent and distinguished citizens as permanent or winter residents, and it will come to be recognized as the most desirable city for residence in the world.

I cannot refrain from giving an extract from a letter written to me by one of our most brilliant public men, whose early death brought to a close a most promising career, to show how the Capital impresses one even in the heat of summer. William Walter Phelps wrote me in July, 1889, as follows:

"You don't know how beautiful Washington looked,

where I went in the last of June with my treaty [the Samoan General Act] and came back with my commission [Minister to Germany]. I walked by your house, took a meal or two with Blaine at the Normandie, and made my home at the Hitts. Wherever I was it seemed as if I were living in a park where there was nothing but the singing of birds and the variable shade made by the moving of luxuriant branches. What a city that Washington is in the summer-time of a leafy year, such as this was!"

One of the chief attractions of Washington is found in the number of men of eminence who make it their home on their retirement from active life. One of the most notable and charming of those whom I first met on coming to reside in the city in 1881 was George Bancroft, the Nestor of the Diplomatic Service and of American literature. He was then eighty-one years of age, but in full vigor of health and intellectual activity. He had just completed the last volume of his great work, the "History of the United States." Though he achieved much distinction in political life both at home and abroad, his most enduring fame will rest upon his history, which more than the work of any other American writer will be entitled to take its place with Gibbon's great history of the Roman Empire. Mr. Bancroft was a well-known figure in the streets of Washington, as he was quite regular in his daily horseback rides. He went very little into society at that time, but he kept open house for his friends, and I was a frequent visitor there for a number of years.

Hugh McCulloch, the financier of the Civil War, passed the years of his retirement from public service in Washington. He was called to the Capital by President Lincoln from Indiana, where for a number of years he had been at the head of the Bank of the State and in that capacity had attained much reputation as a banker. The institution had branches in the leading towns of the State, in one of which my father was an officer and a director, and in that way the two formed