Correspondence of JAMES K. POLK
I had intended to have written you a long letter today, but I must delay it to the next Steamer, when I shall have looked once more at the North Carolina papers.
My object in writing today is to enclose to you a translation of an article that appeared in the Journal des Débats in Paris during my stay there.1 Its author is a friend of mine; & its theme is one of the documents published in your administration. A more glowing sketch could never have been drawn of the state of the country at the close of an administration.
I pray my best regards to Mrs Polk. I am sure you will find happiness in your own home after all the troubles, perplexities & anxieties of Washington. Your administration will stand out in bold relief, as the most successful of the century. I am only sorry we could not have completed the repeal of the Navigation laws, in time for you to have ratified a convention abolishing them. I enclose a copy of the bill just introduced into the House of Commons2; and hope, if occasion offers, you will encourage in the Senate a strong disposition to act reciprocally on the subject.
When at home, you should digest and arrange your papers; put to paper your most important reminiscences; and either write memoirs of your times, or prepare ample materials for them. In this you will serve your own fame & your country.
I do not doubt the administration will be proscriptive. Yet I have adopted your advice,3 & at present shall not resign. I shall enjoy a little the impatience of those who cannot wait my good time for returning home. Once more. Best regards to Mrs Polk, to whom with yourself I wish from the bottom of my heart all happiness.
ALS. DLC–JKP. Probably addressed to Washington City. See also ALS, press copy. MHi.
- Enclosure not found. Bancroft most likely refers to an untitled and unsigned article in the Paris Journal des débats politiques et littéraires of February 7, 1849. It describes, with both awe and skepticism, reports carried by steamship of the amounts of gold and mercury discovered in California, “le nouvel [the new] Eldorado,” and the thousands of people headed there. Lamenting the gold-seekers’ abandonment of law and morality, the article quotes a letter, published in New York newspapers, in which Cdre. Thomas ap C. Jones reports his decision not to land at San Francisco to restore order because he believes that men sent ashore would desert. (The article describes the letter as written to the U.S. secretary of war, but it most likely refers to—though misquotes—Jones’s letter about the potential for desertion, dated November 2, 1848, to Secretary of the Navy John Y. Mason. An extract from that letter appeared in papers including the New York Herald of January 23, 1849.)↩
- Enclosure not found. A bill to partly repeal the Navigation Acts was first discussed in the House of Commons on February 14, 1849, and first read two days later. House of Commons, “A Bill to Amend the Laws in force for the Encouragement of British Shipping and Navigation,” Sessional Papers, 1848–49, Public Bills, February 16, 1849, vol. 4, pp. 331–44.↩
- Polk to Bancroft, January 5, 1849; Polk to Bancroft, January 22, 1849.↩