EARLY AFFLICTION.

11.

All the circumstances con

the sensibility is most delicately acute. nected with this gloomy period are so profoundly engraven on my memory as never to be obliterated. I suppose it was known to her attendants that my mother could not recover, but I was unconscious of it, when, on an evening, between daylight and dark, as my brother William and I were playing at ball in the yard, my aunt Nancy came to the door and said, 'Come in, boys, your mother is dying.' Words are inadequate to convey an idea of the anguish I suffered on this announcement. Scarcely had the excess of grief a little subsided, when it was renewed by the dismal business of the funeral obsequies. Dr. Prince, while praying, was so overcome by his emotions that it was with difficulty he succeeded in finishing the prayer. It was customary in those days for the body to be carried on the shoulders of men, and six or eight pall-holders to walk on each side the coffin, the mourners being arranged in the procession in accordance with the degree of alliance to the deceased. Of course, my poor father, who was almost distracted, walked first, and his two eldest sons next. Arrived at the grave, as if these circumstances were not already sufficiently harrowing, it was necessary to wait near it till the coffin was deposited and some gravel thrown upon it. At the moment this gravel rattled upon the coffin my father uttered a groan which, it appears to me, I can hear even now. For many weeks after this sad scene I never slept till I had wet my pillow with my tears. For many months after, a mark on my handkerchief, a patch on my clothes, the frill of my shirt, anything of the handiwork of my dear mother, would awaken the sense of my loss; and for years afterwards I never heard the bell of the First Church toll without its bringing the sad scene before me. During many weeks after the funeral my father shut himself up, and would see nobody except his children; and this, as was natural, had a tendency to increase my grief."

The despondency which resulted from the death of his wife was so great that my grandfather never recovered from its effects. His property, as a consequence, became so reduced that the necessity of providing for him was a chief incentive to my father's early efforts to

secure an independence. The urgent tones in whichas will be seen-he entreats his father, in his letters, to make use of his means or credit without reserve or hesitation, afford sufficient evidence of his filial affection and his generous nature.

NOTE.--The preceding chapter was written some years since, and, of course, before the name of Grover Cleveland had been suggested for the high office to which he has since been elected. As the elements of sterling integrity and unflinching courage which have marked his administration were no less conspicuous in the character of the hero of the following story, the fact will possess interest, especially to those who have faith in the law of heredity, that the great-grandfather of the President, the Rev. Aaron Cleveland of Norwich, Conn., was the brother of my grandfather, Stephen Cleveland, of whom I have given the above account.

Chicago, Dec., 1885.

CHAPTER II.

Early Years.-Cultivation of Commercial Tastes.-First Voyage.— Voyage with Captain Silsbee.-Letters to his Father.-Voyage from Havre to Cape of Good Hope.-Interest Excited by his Arrival.

My father, Richard Jeffry Cleveland, the eldest child of Stephen and Margaret Jeffry Cleveland, was born in Salem, Dec. 19, 1773. He had three brothers younger than himself, two of whom-William and Georgewere for many years merchant navigators in the East India trade from that port. They afterwards held, in succession, the office of president of the Commercial Insurance Company, and George was also president of the East India Marine Society, a charitable association composed of navigators engaged in that trade. It is simply a just tribute to their memory to say that no men ever stood higher in the estimation of their fellowcitizens, or were regarded with warmer feelings of affection by those who knew them best, than these two brothers. At the age of fourteen my father entered the counting-house of Elias Hasket Derby, where he remained four years, and acquired not only the merely technical elements of mercantile education, but an accurate knowledge and love of naval affairs, and a taste for commercial adventure. This last was wisely fostered. by Mr. Derby, who allowed his employees to become in

terested in the voyages of his ships by sending small adventures on their own account. Even the seamen were each allowed a privilege of eight hundred pounds freight, and the officers a proportionally larger amount. The building and despatching of ships to different quarters of the globe was so constantly in progress that it afforded the best possible opportunity for studying and comparing their relative qualities, while the interest in their performance and in the results of their voyages was sustained by daily conversation and discussion, in which every participant had a personal stake. Indeed, his love for the sea may be traced to a yet earlier stage, as he has told me that his favorite sport when a boy was sailing about Salem harbor in a leaky boat, which he hired at sixpence a week.

When only eighteen he went on his first voyage, impelled thereto by the wish to provide for his father, and the earliest of his letters in my possession, written to his father from the Cape of Good Hope, April 20, 1792, contains these words, which every father will appreciate:

"I long to hear how your lawsuit is settled, the event of which causes me much anxiety; but, if you should lose it, it must be a consolation to you that your children are ambitious boys, who, with such an education as is to be had in the public schools of Salem, can soon provide for themselves and their father also; and I am sure you cannot doubt the pleasure it would give us; but God forbid you should ever be in such circumstances as to want it."

His earliest voyages were made in the capacity of captain's clerk, under the command of Nathaniel Silsbee, who had been his fellow-clerk in Mr. Derby's countingroom, and was subsequently, for many years, senator

from Massachusetts. He was but little older than my father, and their friendship was of lifelong duration. Of one of these voyages, of nineteen months' duration, to the Cape of Good Hope and the Isles of France and Bourbon, at a time when the wars of the great powers of Europe rendered navigation precarious, and often demanded the skill of the diplomatist as well as that of the mariner, he says, at its conclusion,

"The voyage, thus happily accomplished, may be regarded, when taken in all its bearings, as a very remarkable one; first, from the extreme youth of all to whom its management had been intrusted— Captain Silsbee was not twenty years old; the chief mate, Charles Derby, was but nineteen; and the second mate, who was discharged at the Isle of France, and whose place I subsequently filled, was but twenty-four. Secondly, from the foresight, ingenuity, and adroitness manifested in averting and escaping dangers; in perceiving advantages, and turning them to the best account; and, thirdly, from the great success attending this judicious management, as demonstrated by the fact of returning to the owner four or five times the amount of the original capital. Mr. Derby used to call us his boys, and boast of our achievements; and well might he do so, for it is not probable that the annals of the world can furnish another example of an enterprise of such magnitude, requiring the exercise of so much judgment and skill, being conducted by so young a man, aided only by still younger advisers, and accomplished with the most entire success.

His letters to his father, in all his early voyages, give evidence of such self-confident ambition as is essential to success, and show, at the same time, that he was actuated only by generous motives. The following passages, taken from different letters, between the years 1795 and 1797, are of this character:

"If I go only short voyages, you may depend upon as large a remittance as I can possibly make, at least once a year, and I hope I