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CORNELL 
 
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 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
__ Cornell University Library 
 
 CT 275.B8685A325 
 
 An answer to the pamphlet of Mr. John A. 
 
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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924016840963 
 
ANSWER 
 
 THE PAMPHLET OF MR. JOHN A. LOWELL, 
 
 ENTITLED 
 
 "beplt to a pamphlet becentlt cikculated by 
 me. edward brooks." 
 
 NEW FACTS AND FURTHER PROOFS, 
 
 ET 
 
 EDWARD BROOKS. 
 
 BOSTON: ; 
 
 18 5 1. \ 
 
 EASTBURN'S PRESS. \ 
 
 ^ '■■■'//ii'o'^ 
 
ct 
 
 
 Ks5 
 
 0?>l2- 
 
 T 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The question •will naturally be asked, Why does this book come 
 out at so late a day, and in Mr. Lowell's absence ? 
 
 His pamphlet made its appearance about three years since. It 
 contained statements, very surprising to me, for their boldness, 
 and the entire want of proof to support them. It seemed, that 
 their author was content to rely, mainly, on personal credit and 
 standing in society. 
 
 I had made some httle progress in preparing such an answer as 
 I thought suitable, when it struck me, that some of the points, on 
 which I had been unexpectedly contradicted, were, perhaps, capa- 
 ble, on diligent search, of being set at rest, with all intelligent and 
 unprejudiced persons, by positive evidence, independently of that 
 which was in Mr. Lowell's possession, and inaccessible to me. 
 There were other points, too, on which I noted a great reserve, in 
 the " Reply," respecting material facts, intimately known to Mr. 
 Lowell, but of which I had no positive information. These con- 
 siderations determined me not to be hasty, in writing, before I 
 had ascertained what facts could be estabhshed beyond question. 
 One inquiry suggested another ; and the sort of investigation, to 
 which I was subjected, proved to be a work of more time and 
 labour than I, at first, anticipated. 
 
IV 
 
 The protracted illness of a member of my immediate family, and 
 its fatal termination, the subsequent death of my father, and new 
 duties, of a pressing character, which thereby fell upon me, and other 
 circumstances, not interesting to the reader, occasioned long inter- 
 ruptions to my unwelcome task. My inquiries, however, pursued 
 at intervals, led to some unexpected discoveries, suggesting both 
 further inquiry and greater caution in forming conclusions. Post- 
 ponement, thus far, was not to be regretted ; since, had I written 
 earher, I must have written in ignorance of some important facts, 
 tending to account, in my own mind at least, for a course of con- 
 duct, on the part of Mr. Lowell, which had before seemed inex- 
 plicable. 
 
 A greater cause of delay, than any I have yet mentioned, I 
 have found to be incident to the business of carrying through the 
 press, with needful revision, such a book as this had gradually 
 become. The tardiness of typography has greatly exceeded 
 my expectations. Nearly two years ago, my answer had been, 
 mainly, prepared. It is more than a year, since it was not only 
 completed, but, about three hundred pages had been actually 
 struck off, and a considerable further portion was in type, under- 
 going correction. 
 
 It was in this stage of progress, that I received positive inform- 
 ation, that Mr. Lowell was proposing to embark for Europe, early 
 in the following April. I did not doubt that he was well enough 
 aware, that my answer to his pamphlet was in the press ; but I 
 did not choose that there should be any room for doubt upon that 
 point in the minds of others, lest I might subject myself to the 
 imputation of purposely seeking the opportunity of his absence, to 
 put forth, unexpectedly, a printed statement concernmg him. The 
 only question was, as to the time, form, and manner, of giving him 
 notice, in consequence of my having heard that he was not in 
 good health. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the course, I concluded to take. 
 
was, to place so much of the book, as was then printed, in the 
 hands of two of his most intimate friends, with liberty to read it 
 themselves, and then, if they should think proper, to deliver it to 
 Mr. LoweU, for his private perusal, with notice that I intended to 
 proceed in its completion, as fast as circumstances would permit. 
 The residue, in manuscript, I did not think proper to put out of 
 my own hands. It lay in an illegible shape, calculated only for 
 the printer's use, and might undergo material modification and 
 amendment, as the work advanced. 
 
 I, accordingly, sent to those gentlemen all the pages, which had 
 then been struck off, and proposed to send them, in a few days, 
 about one hundred pages more, in proof sheets, if Mr. LoweU con- 
 cluded to see them. 
 
 The friends of Mr. LoweD. decided to communicate to him my 
 offer of these portions. I was informed that they did so in the 
 latter part of February, 1860 ; and that he, " unhesitatingly, de- 
 chned receiving any fragmentary part of the intended pubhca- 
 tion," — assigning as his reasons, that " the portion, not submit- 
 ted, might contain other charges, and perhaps of more importance, 
 than those sent;" that he had "already postponed his visit to 
 Europe a fuU year, under the continued threat of such publica- 
 tion, that he miglit he here to receive and answer it ;" and that, 
 " his passage having been taken, and his arrangements all made, 
 or in a state of forwardness, he could wait no longer for that 
 purpose." 
 
 He, accordingly, sailed for Europe at the appointed time. A 
 
 year has since elapsed, and he has not returned. The work of 
 
 the printer has in the mean time gone on, not so fast as I desired, 
 
 but as fast, he assures me, as its nature and his preparations 
 
 - would permit ; and this volume is now ready to be issued. 
 
 If Mr. LoweU, after direct notice, preferred, or thought himself 
 obhged, to leave it behind him, that was a matter, over which I 
 had no control. I presume I did more than any rule of courtesy, 
 
VI 
 
 in a personal controversy, requires, when I tendered to Mm the 
 advantage of seeing, before he went, and" before it was seen bj 
 others, all that was then in a state fit to be inspected. He will, 
 besides, have opportunity, now, of seeing the whole, abroad, with=- 
 in a fortnight of the time of its appearance here. I presume it 
 will hardly be expected, under these circumstances, that I should 
 await the leisure of his return from an indefinite absence, which 
 he can termiaate at pleasure. 
 
 In respect to his reasons for refusing to look at a " fragmentary 
 part," or for not being now " here, to receive and answer it," they 
 were for him to judge of; and I have no remark to make upon 
 them, except to say, that I never uttered any threats on this 
 subject, but have proceeded, from the first, quietly and steadily, 
 in preparing and printing my answer to a very ingenious and 
 plausible pamphlet, and have stated, uniformly, to my friends, 
 when asked, my intention of doing so. 
 
 There have been reports, from time to time, that, from various 
 alleged causes, I had abandoned this idea. My friends may rest 
 assured, that every one of these stories was entirely destitute of 
 foundation. I never had but one opinion, or intention, on the 
 subject. 
 
 Some friends, I know, have doubted the propriety, or ne- 
 cessity, of my original movement, in making the printed state- 
 ment, which occasioned the " Keply." That step was sanctioned, 
 however, by other friends, whose good judgement I esteem, and 
 certainly would not have been taken by me without a conviction, 
 that I could not rest in silence, with safety to my own reputation. 
 Perhaps those, who doubted, formerly, will view the question differ- 
 ently, on reading these pages. However that may be, I think 
 all must agree, that, having judged and acted as I did, thm, 
 whether wisely or not, and having been met by such a " counter- 
 blast," as that of Mr. Lowell, I have no alternative, now, but 
 either to answer it satisfactorily, or to admit the unanswerable 
 truth of a very gross and false libel. 
 
vn 
 
 Having frequent occasion, in the following pages, to advert to 
 the statements of my former pamphlet, and to Mr. Lowell's com- 
 ments upon them, I have been careful to do so by reference to 
 book and page, (distinguishing my pamphlet by the letter B. and 
 Mr. Lowell's by the letter L.) so that the reader may verify my 
 steps, if he will. Lideed, I have done more. My extracts from 
 the "Reply" are so numerous, that a great part of it will be 
 found transferred to these pages, — ^which is the more important 
 because of the time which has elapsed. I wish to leave no cause 
 ■ for complaint, that ample justice is not done to Mr. Lowell, so far 
 as justice may consist m exhibiting his own statements, in their 
 own language and colouring, 
 
 I have taken care, too, to iatroduce, — generally at full length, — 
 always in the material parts, — ^the language of letters and papers, 
 printed in evidence against me, when I remark upon them. And 
 when I rely, myself, on written evidence, I either print the doc- 
 ument at large, or refer to the place where it may be found. 
 
 This printing of former statements on each side, and of evidence 
 in extenso, adds much to the number of my pages ; and I should 
 apolo^e for the great length, to which they have run, if I were 
 writing for the entertainment of the public. But, in a private 
 personal controversy of this nature, which nobody is bound to 
 read, and which is intended only to satisfy those friends of either 
 party who may be willing to take the trouble to inform themselves 
 of the truth, I have thought fairness and completeness more im- 
 portant than brevity. 
 
 It will be seen that there is, after all, one branch of this sub- 
 ject, upon which I have found it impossible to crowd the proofe 
 into this volume, large as it is. For reasons stated, I reserve 
 them for a supplement. 
 
 Those persons, who may be alarined by the quantity of matter 
 thus set before them, may, if they please, obtain a summary view 
 of what I consider to be proved, and of what I consider remain- 
 
VIII 
 
 ing to be proved, by reading the two last chapters. In respect to 
 what I claim to have proved, they may turn to the evidence on 
 axfy particular poiat, by the references, there made, to prior chap- 
 ters, relating to the several subjects discussed. A complete 
 view of the case, however, will hardly be obtained at less paios 
 than by reading the book. 
 
 Errors, either of the press, or of my own, I could not hope, per- 
 haps, wholly to escape, in a volume of this bulk, though great care 
 has been taken to avoid them. Those which have been discovered 
 are noted below. 
 
 EDWARD BEOOKS. 
 
 Boston, May, 1851. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page n, line 33, for " May," read March. 
 
 " 55, " 31, for "Francis," rMii Frances. 
 
 " 399, " 36, for " oberservation," read observation. 
 
 " 268, " 14, for"account of 18U," read account of 1818. 
 
 " ySO, note,| line 3, for " no-," read not. 
 
 " " " " 4-5, for " Bosttou," read Boston. 
 
 " 421, line 20, after " Lyman &. Ralston," strike out the commar and iiisert a period, 
 
 " 443, " ]8, after "year," siWie Mt the comma, and insert a period. 
 
 " 450, " 24, for " adopt-," read adopted. 
 
 " 492, Heading of Oh. 49, strUce out " Mr. Kirk Boott's letter of 1826, and the com- 
 ments UPON IT," which belong to Ch. 50. 
 
 " 523, line 1, for " published," read printed. 
 
 " 576, " 13, after "also," insert the mark of a parenthesis. 
 
 " 5ti2, " 15, for " gain," read gains. 
 
 " 588, " 17, add " in which year Mrs. Lyman also removed there." I 
 
 " 619, " 90, after " payments," strilce out the semicolon. 
 
 " 715, " 38, for " ntended," read " intended." 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 1. Style and tone op the " Reply." Outline op 
 
 FACTS, WHICH LED TO MY POEMEK STATEMENT. 1 
 
 Remarks on style, &c. Extensive circulation, 1—1 
 Pretence that my controyersy is not with L. but with the late 
 
 J. W.B. - - 5-6 
 
 Outline of facts, 6-12 
 
 CHAPTER 2. JnSTiPicATiON op my pomier feinted statement. 13 
 
 No Other effectual form of redress, - - 13-16 
 
 J. "W. B.'s management as exeeutor, a fundamental question, 16-18 
 
 L. the real aggressor, who brings this into controTersy, - 18-22 
 
 My charges against J. W. B. misrepresented, 22-4 
 
 CHAPTER 3. A limited publication my last eesokt. A sin- 
 
 GULAE mistake BY MK. LOWELL. - 25 
 
 Misstatement of facts and motives, - 25-6 
 
 Letter of Messrs. Gardiner and Bartlett, March 31, 1848, 26-31 
 
 Remarks on L.'s singular mistake, 31-6 
 
 CHAPTER 4. My lettee to Me. Wells. 36 
 
 Mistake in my copy, — ^how it arose, — its extent, 36—40 
 
 L.'s exaggeration of it. No proof of general inaccuracy, 40-2 
 
 CHAPTER 5. The Lyman & Ralston settlement. - 43 
 
 Immateriality of my alleged errors, 43-9 
 
 Letter from S. Nicolson, May 12, 1848, - - 49-50 
 
 L.'s exaggerations and misstatements, - - 50-1 
 
 CHAPTER 6. My supposed mistake about compound intee- 
 
 EST. a 8EEIES OF STEANGE MISTAKES BY Me. LoWELL. 52 
 
 L.'s letter of Oct. 21, 1834, confirms my statement, generally, - 52-4 
 
 The only mistakes are his, not mine, - 54-5 
 
 Letter from John S. Tyler, August 31, 1848, 55-8 
 
 L. misunderstands his own letter, - 59-61 
 
 CHAPTER 7. Me. Lowell's mode of treating witnesses. 
 Me. William Booit. Mrs. Mary Lyman. Both unjustly 
 
 attacked. . 62 
 
 W. B. falsely held out as responsible for my pamphlet, 62-5 
 
 So, of Mrs. Lyman, — iU treatment of her, • - - 65-9 
 
 The controversy is between me and L. exdusivdy, • 69 
 
 B 
 
CHAPTEK 8. Synopsis of Mk. Lowell's argument. Ons 
 
 COKEESPONDEKCE. ... - - 69 
 
 Synopsis, - 69-70 
 
 My former complaints against L. - - 70-3 
 
 Substance of our correspondence, misstated by L. - • 73-4 
 
 The point of my inquiries evaded, in that correspondence, - - 73-5 
 
 CHAPTER 9. Completeness oe mt peoof eespecting the sub- 
 stance OP Mk. Lowell's testimony at the inquest. - 76-85 
 
 CHAPTER 10. Me. Lowe;,l's chaege against me of tampek- 
 
 ING WITH THE WITNESSES.. - ... 85-9 
 
 CHAPTER 11. How De. Putnam came to be upon the juet. 89-91 
 
 No attack; made bt me on De. Putnam. .... 91-4 
 
 CHAPTER 12. Me. Lowell's chaege of unfaieness in the 
 
 examination of the jueoes. ... . . 94 
 
 L.'s mistakes on that subject, ...... 94-100 
 
 His pretences, to account for their statements, .... 100-2 
 
 Letter from John Phelps Putnam, April 26, 1848, - 102 
 
 CHAPTER 13. Me. Lowell's witnesses. ... - 103 
 
 Suppression of a part of " the coeonek's statement," - - 103-5 
 
 Dr. Putnam and Mr. K. Boott, not unprejudiced, .... 105-8 
 
 CHAPTER 14. Summary of all the evidence respecting 
 
 Me. Lowell's testimony at the inquest. - 108 
 
 So substantial contradiction of the jurors, unless by L. himself, 108-19 
 
 CHAPTER 15. Outline of my foemee statements respect- 
 ing THE accounts. - - ... . 120-9 
 
 CHAPTER 16. Me. Lowell's peoof of Me. Boott's good man- 
 agement. His psetence that I hate no right to ques- 
 tion the account. .... 129 
 The proof cited is foreign to the issue, - - ... 129-30 
 Does not prove the fact it is cited for, ... . . 130-3 
 L.'s misapplication of one of my letters, .... 133-4 
 The probate decree set up as a bar, ' - - - - 134-7 
 Pretence of no compromise, - ... 137-8 
 Letter from Judge Warren, Dec. 19, 1844, and remarks, 139-42 
 
 CHAPTER 17. The account. Its exteeme generality. Want 
 
 of books and vouchees. - - ... 142 
 
 Account stated and analyzed, - - - - 142-6 
 
 ~ Its generality and looseness, ... . 146-8 
 
 •Want of books and vouchers, is evidence of mismanagement, - 148-54 
 
 CHAPTER 18. The account. Me. Lowell's discovbey that 
 
 IT claims only $3700, instead of $25,000. . - 154 
 
 Literal meaning of the account, • . . 154-7 
 
 A mere form to provide for L.'s debt, concealing the fact, - - 157-8 
 
 Proofs that it claims $25,000 as a debt of the estate, 158-62 
 
 My error in supposing balance to arise from overpayment, - 162-3 
 
XI 
 
 Page. 
 
 L.'s misrepresentation of its consequences, - 163-6 
 
 Alleged private interest of J. W. B. the only substantial question, 166 
 
 CHAPTER 19. The account. The pretence of an equai, dis- 
 
 TEIBUTION OF $90,000. CaSE OF THE MINOKS. •• - 166 
 
 Partial misappropriation admitted by L. - - 166-7 
 Will of Mr. Boott, senior, contemplates general maintenance of 
 
 minors by the mother, and provides for interest on their shares, 168-70 
 
 Why does not L. produce the evidence of $10,000 paid infuU9 • 170-2 
 
 CHAPTEK 20. The accotjnt. Illttstkations of the lnequal- 
 
 ITT OF DISTKIBUTION. CaSE OF Me. WiLLIAM BOOTT. 173 
 
 Cases of Mrs. Brooks and Mrs. Lyman compared, 173 
 L.'s misstatements as to W. B. - 173-8 
 His patrimony not chargeable for travelling expenses during mi- 
 nority, - - - 178-83 
 J. W. B. told him that his share was $20,000, - - - 183-5 
 Charge of contriving unfoonded aspersions, answered, - 185-7 
 Injustice of attack on W. B. - - - 187-91 
 
 CHAPTER 21. The main question of the account. Me. 
 Boott's memorandum of 1830. Its verity proved bt the 
 
 "Reply." ... 191 
 
 Balance not affected by the release of 1833, - 191-3 
 
 The question. Ou whom is the burden ? - 193-7 
 
 J. W. B.'s memorandum of 1830, as explained, - 198 
 
 Proved by the " Reply," and not by my " reminiscences," 199-205 
 
 CHAPTER 22. Mb. Boott's debts. His eiaeility foe debts 
 
 contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston. - 205 
 My statement of debts admitted, except for $50,000 in name 
 
 ofL. &R. - - - 205-7 
 
 The question of partnership, on which that debt depends, 207-11 
 
 K. B.'s views misrepresented by L. ..... 211-19 
 
 CHAPTER 23. Mr. Boott's debts. The business of the iron 
 
 FOUNDRY. More of Mb. Lowell's mistakes. - 219 
 
 Mistakes imputed to me, ... 219-22 
 
 A letter from K. B. not before printed, 223 
 
 Records of Mill Dam Foundry, - - . 224 
 
 Mistakes or misstatements of L. - - 223-31 
 
 LetterfromR. Ralston, jr. Not. 12, 1830, - • 232-3 
 
 CHAPTER 24. Mr. Boott's debts. His guardianship ac- 
 counts. ... . 233 
 His under-estimate of debt due his wards, - 233-4 
 Letter from John S. Tyler, Jan. 18, 1849, - - . 235-7 
 L.'s pretence of accurate acconnts and settlements, . 237-40 
 
 CHAPTER 25. State of Me. Boott's affairs in 1830. Dan- 
 ger OF OPEN insolvency, AND TOTAL LOSS f>F THK FAMILY 
 
 property. - . 240 
 
 Gross mistakes, or misstatements, by L. 240-4 
 
XII 
 
 Page. 
 
 Correctness of my former statements, 244-8 
 
 Market price of stocks, in August, 1830, proTed, ... 248 
 
 Amount of available means to raise money, - - 248-51 
 
 How J. '^. B. was finally relieved, - ... 251-2 
 
 CHAPTER 26. An extkaoedinaky specimen op finanoieeing 
 
 ABILITY. - - 252 
 
 L.'s gross exaggeration of assets, and reduction of liabilities, 252-8 
 
 CHAPTER 27. Pkioe, at which the stocks should ee ohakged, 
 
 IN 1830. FeETENCE OB MEEE INEOEMALITIES. WhAT BECAME 
 
 OF THE STOCKS, HELD IN TEUST IN 1818. - - 258 
 
 Rule for trustee to discharge himself, - - 259 
 
 No specific trust investment existing in 1830, - - 259-64 
 
 Pretence of customary informalities, - - - - 264-7 
 
 Trust funds properly invested in 1818, - - - - 267-70 
 
 They went, in part, to Boott & Lowell, .... 271-2 
 
 CHAPTER 28. Me. Boott's i'osition in 1830. Me. Kiek Boott's 
 
 LETTEES. - - - 272 
 
 Statement of liabilities and assets, ... . 272-4 
 
 K. B.'s letters of 1830 and 1831 reprinted, with notes, - - 274-81 
 
 CHAPTER 29. Me. Boott's position in Mat, 1831. Ciecum- 
 stanoes leading to the aeeangement of that date with 
 Me. Lowell. - - - - . - - 282 
 
 The arrangement, - - - - - 282 
 
 Made by me, at K. B.'s request, to save what could be saved, for 
 
 trust funds, - - - 283-8 
 
 State and value of trust property, in May, 1831, proved, - - 288-91 
 $32,000, only, in value, is left, clear of specialliens, - . . 291-2 
 
 CHAPTER 30. The ageeement of May, 1831. Me. Lowell's 
 
 MISTAKE WITH A CIEOUMSTANCE. . - ' 293 
 
 All, except foundry, marked as trust property, though subject to 
 
 pledges, - . 293-4 
 
 Pretence that $25,000, of J. W. B.'s, was mixed with property of 
 
 estate, - - . 294-8 
 
 All parties acknowledged the reverse, ... . . 298-300 
 
 Pretence that L. knew nothing of J. W. B.'s affairs, except from, me, 
 
 and therefore could not have so agreed, - - 301-5 
 
 CHAPTER 31. Me. Lowell's aegbment peom the ageeement 
 OP Mat, 1831, on the eealitt of the cash balance 
 
 CLAIMED FOE Me. BOOTT. . . .305 
 
 This agreement, and other facts, not disputed, prove the balance of 
 
 account unreal, .... . 305-8 
 
 L.'s sophistical argument met by a reductio ad absurdum. - 308-14 
 
 CHAPTER 32. Me. Boott's eesionation op the agency of 
 the Suffolk Manbfactueing Company. The chaege 
 
xni 
 
 AGAINST ME OF MISKEPKESENTATION ET ITALICISIKG TDENED 
 
 UPON Mr. Lowell. - - 
 
 J. W. B. wished to resign all the property, not the fonndry only, as 
 
 L. pretends, - - - - 
 
 In proof, L. quotes part, and suppresses part, of same letter, 
 L. founds a direct charge, on his owir erroneous inference, 
 
 CHAPTER 33. Me. Jackson's lettee, of Mat 8, 1831. 
 
 Produced by L. to prove J. W. B.'s fitness for the family trust, 
 "Written at my suggestion, on consultation with K. B. &c.. 
 Heirs ignorant of state of accounts, - - 
 L.'s acquaintance with the facts, - - - • 
 
 Mr. Jackson partially informed, - - ... 
 
 Chief object of letter to compel a settlement of the family accounts. 
 The letter, ... .... 
 
 Its language shows this object, ... 
 
 CHAPTER 34. Effect of me. Jackson's Letter. FnETHEE 
 
 LETTERS urging AN ACCOUNT IN VAIN. OPINIONS ESTEE- 
 
 TAiNED OF Me. Boott. Motives to long foebeakance 
 
 AND ACQUIESCENCE. 
 
 J. W. B. thereupon resigned agency of Suffolk Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, 
 Other letters to J. W. B. - ... 
 
 Why agencies were sought for J. W. B. 
 Why heirs acquiesced in his holding the property, 
 
 CHAPTER 35. State of the teust fund aftee the Ltman 
 & Ralston settlement in Septembee, 1831. Its real de- 
 ficiency PAETLT COVBEED UP IN THE ACCOUNT OF 1844, BT 
 A NEW VALUATION. - - - 349 
 
 Effect of that settlement on J. W. B.'s position, - 349-52 
 
 Mrs. Boott's trust fund deficient by more than $50,000, 352-5 
 
 How the apparent deficiency was reduced, in 1844, to S3715 44, 355-7 
 
 CHAPTER 36. AifOTHER charge against me of miseepeesesta- 
 
 TION TURNED UPON Me. LowELL. A QUERY RESPECTING HIS 
 ALLEGED LIES ON THE STOCKS, IN 1844. 
 
 This charge is founded on a mere prevarication, - 
 
 Had L. a lien for new advances to J. W. B. on property known 
 
 not to be his ? ... 
 
 L. applied moneys to one debt, appropriated to another. Could he 
 
 still hold the same lien ? - ... 
 
 314 
 
 315-20 
 320-2 
 322-6 
 
 326 
 326-7 
 
 327 
 327-33 
 
 333 
 333-6 
 
 336 
 
 .337 
 337-8 
 
 339 
 
 339 
 
 339-42 
 
 342-7 
 
 347-8 
 
 358 
 359-69 
 
 369-71 
 
 CHAPTER 37. Peetended impeegnabilitt op Me. Boott's po- 
 sition, CNDEE THE RELEASE OF 1833. 
 
 The release no discharge of claims on trust funds, 
 
 Account of 1844 provides for L.'s debt, without disclosing it. 
 
 An account beginning with amount of trust funds, in 1833, could 
 
 not have done this. 
 The assumed valuation, in 1844, is the best possible for L.'s pm-pose, 
 Ingenuity of the account, not applicable in 1 833, 
 
 371-3 
 
 373 
 373-6 
 376-7 
 
 377-80 
 380-1 
 381-7 
 
XIV 
 
 Faqi, 
 CHAPTER 38. Failube op the "Reply" to establish Me. 
 Boott's right to chakge stocks at the pbioes claimed 
 in the account. - ... - 388 
 
 L.'s explanations show no right to charge 21 shares of B. M. Co. at 
 
 $1300 a share, ... 388-94 
 
 L.'s remarks on my deplorable ighorance, 394-6 
 
 CHAPTER 39. MoEE of Mb. Lowell's lien. His means op 
 
 KNOWING THE TRUE OWNERSHIP OP THE STOCKS. STRANGE 
 MISTAKES, OB MISREPEESENTATIONS. - - - - 396 
 
 Evidence of his means of knowledge, - - -396-401 
 
 The facts, if known, in 1831, would have prevented any lien on 
 estate's property, • - ■ - 401-2 
 
 True rule of price, for charging the stocks, 403-4 
 
 Gross mistake, or misstatement, of figures by L. - 404-8 
 
 CHAPTER 40. A CHARGE against me op MISREPRESENTATION, 
 OB MISTAKE, IN MATTERS SAID TO HATE BEEN DECIDED BY 
 THE StrPBEME JUDICIAL CoURT. - 408 
 
 Case cited differs from case in question, 408-13 
 
 L. conceals fact of reduction of capital by B. M. Co. - - - 413-15 
 
 CHAPTER 41. Me. Kibk Boott's letter op Mat 10, 1833. 
 
 Position op the trust pund at that time. 416 
 
 The letter, - ■ ... 417 
 
 It proves large loss of Mrs. B.'s fund, - - • 417-20 
 
 CHAPTER 42. Position op Mr. Boott, and op the trust 
 
 PUND, AND OP the debt TO Mr. LOWELL, APTEB THE SET- 
 TLEMENT OP THE GUARDIANSHIP ACCOUNTS, IN 1835. - - 420 
 
 Deficiency of Mrs. B.'s fund, after deducting L.'s debt, - - 420-6 
 
 CHAPTER 43. Appeopeiation op trust punds to the pay- 
 ment OP Me. Boott's debts. - - - . . 426 
 L. admits receipt by him of $2000 per annum, of the income of the 
 
 stocks, as J. W. B.'s own income, - ■ 426-7 
 
 Admission involved, that $27,800 of Mrs. B.'s income was also 
 
 taken, - - 427-30 
 
 Pretence that $2000 per ann. was J. W. B.'s own, a mere piece of 
 
 sophistry, - - - ■ 430-1 
 
 Near $66,000 of Mrs. B.'s income was in fact taken, - - - 431-46 
 
 CHAPTER 44. Pretence op authority from Mrs. BootT to 
 
 APPLY her income TO THE PAYMENT OF Me. BOOTT'S DEBTS. 448 
 
 Proofs cited by L. insufficient, - - - - 448-53 
 
 No subsequent release justifies prior misappropriations, - 454-5 
 
 Amount of usual remittance to Mrs. B. exaggerated, - - 465-8 
 
 CHAPTER 45. The account compabed with other evidence 
 OF the estate left by Me. Boott's patheb. Representa- 
 tions OP A dividend of $20,000. - 458 
 Hypothetical view of the account, thus far, 458-60 
 Presumptive evidence of more capital received, - 460-1 
 
XT 
 
 J. W. B.'s representations, — ^L.'s suggestion of mistake. 
 My letter of May 17, 1821, to Hon. P. C. Brooks, 
 
 AGS. 
 
 461-4 
 464-7 
 
 CHAPTER 46. Me. Lowell's explanation of Mk. Boott's 
 
 STATEMENTS. ThE $10,000 PAYMENT TO ME. ThE AEG0MKNT 
 
 DEAWN FEOM THE SILENCE AND ACQUIESCENCE OP THE HEIRS. 467 
 
 Pretence that J. W. B. included a share of the reversions in the 
 
 $20,000, .... . 467-71 
 
 Comments on the $10,000 payment to me, 471-4 
 
 Pretence that heirs admitted ower-payment, - - - 474-7 
 
 CHAPTER 47. Case op Messes. Ltman & Ealston. Peoops 
 
 THAT the $10,000 PAYMENT TO THEM WAS ONLY ON ACCOUNT. 478 
 
 L.'s concealment of direct evidence, - - 478-80 
 
 Evidence from other sources, - - 480-5 
 
 L.'s false comment on one of K. B.'s letters, - - 485-6 
 
 CHAPTER 48. Pretended peoop, by a lettee peom Me. Kiek 
 
 BOOTT, THAI THE $10,000 PAYMENT TO Ms. LyMAN, AND TO 
 
 Me. Ralston, was only on account. - - - 487-492 
 
 CHAPTER 49. Peoop peom the "Reply" that Lyman and 
 Ealston eeceived, each, an additional $10,000 in theie 
 
 PINAL settlement. - 492 
 
 Proof stated, .... 492-5 
 
 Inference that $100,000 is omitted in the account, - - 495-500 
 
 CBLAPTER 50. The chaege against me op a disingenuous 
 USE op Mk. Kiek Boott's lettees. His letter op Sep- 
 
 TEMBEE, 1826, His settlement WITH Me. J. Weight Boott. 500 
 
 The charge against me, - - - 500-1 
 
 K. B.'s letter of Sept. 8, 1826, - ... 501-2 
 
 L.'s comments and mine, 502-5 
 
 Settlement hetween K. B. and J. W. B. — ^L.'s concealment of evi- 
 dence, .... .... 505-11 
 
 Misrepresentation of my statement respecting losses in trade, 511-13 
 
 How I suppose the money to have gone, ... 513-I8 
 
 CHAPTER 51. Summary op Me. Boott's mercantile connex- 
 ions, AND STOCK TEANSACTIONS. 518 
 
 Mercantile houses, - ... 518-20 
 
 Probate transactions, - ... 520-1 
 
 Sale of the trust stocks, and purchase in B. M. Co. . 521-2 
 
 Chelmsford speculation, .... . 522-4 
 
 Sale of guardianship stocks, — investments in trade, &c., • 524-5 
 
 Sale of trust stocks to, or by, Boott & Lowell, .... 525-8 
 
 Subsequent transactions, - . . 528-9 
 
 Letter from J. T. Morse, respecting Locks and Canals, - - 529^0 
 Settlements of J. "W. B. with K. B. &c. — Beginning of business 
 
 of foundry, - - . . . 530-1 
 
XVI 
 
 Fiai. 
 
 CHAPTER 52. The issues respecting losses oe peopertt in 
 
 TRADE AND OTHERWISE. A GREAT LOSS TO SOMEBODY, SHOWN 
 
 EROM THE "Reply." - - - - 531 
 My former statements, and present views, of the losses, and of the 
 
 omissions of the account, - - - 531-8 
 
 L.'s theory, - ... 538.9 
 
 A loss of $140,000 to $150,000 to be accounted for, - 539-41 
 
 CHAPTER 53. The evidence of Mr. J. Wright Boott's pri- 
 vate FORTUNE. . . - - - . - 542 
 
 The old house of K. B. & Son had but three business years, - 542-6 
 
 L.'s hypothesis,— J. "W. B. worth $70,000,— his father only $280,000, 546-7 
 
 Estimates of the clerks, — a statement fi-om L.'s father, - 547-9 
 
 Failure to show any thing for the $70,000, - ... 549.53 
 
 CHAPTER 54. Losses op the first house of Kirk Boott & 
 Sons. Basis on which the second house probably be- 
 gan business. - - - - - - 552 
 
 Alleged loss by bad debts in England, - - 553-4 
 
 Do. by repeal of war duties, - 554-5 
 Do. by resumption of specie payments, — ^L.'s mistake of 
 
 three years in time, .... 555-6 
 
 A gap of four years in liquidation, ... . 557-8 
 
 Capital of estate left in the new house, - - - 558-60 
 
 Mr. Boott senior's advances to Mr. Wells, - - 559 
 
 Specified losses fell, chiefly, on second house, - - 559-61 
 
 CHAPTER 55. Losses by the | second house of Kirk Boott 
 & Sons. Arguments op the "Reply" to disprove them. 
 Evidence op payments to Mr. James Boott and- to 
 
 Mr. Wells. - - .... 562 
 
 Pretence of profit disproved by K. B. - - - - 562-4 
 
 EaUacy of comparing K. B.'s property with J. B.'s, - 564-6 
 
 K. B.'s profit in Chelmsford speculation suppressed, - - 566-70 
 
 J. B. received $20,000, - - 571-2 
 
 Mr. Wells received the same less advances, 572-5 
 
 L.'s suppressions and concealments, - - - 575-6 
 
 Why J. W. B. was commonly thought rich, .... 576-9 
 
 CHAPTER 56. Concealment of facts connected wits the 
 house oV Boott & Lowell. Summary op particular 
 
 LOSSES through the mismanagement of Mr. Boott. 579 
 
 Silence concerning trust ftmds that went to B. & L. - 579-82 
 
 Amount, demanding explanation, ... . 582-3 
 
 Loss to parties interested, 8116,900, without interest, • 583-5 
 
 CHAPTER 57. In what my supposed charge op mismanage- 
 
 ■ MENT AGAINST Mr. BoOTT CONSISTED. - - - , - 586 
 
 Reasons given to Mr. Bowditch for declining to sign deed, - 587-90 
 
 Conversations with others confidential, or relating only to insanity, 590-3 
 
 Facts, inducing me not to sign deed, ... . 593-5 
 
XVII 
 
 Page, 
 
 CHAPTER 58. Pkompt agency in pkepaking and making up 
 THE ACCOUNT. Me. Lowell's kesponsibility fok its sub- 
 stantial TKUTH. - - - 596 
 Proof that L. admitted J. W. B.'s mismanagement, 596-7 
 L.'s haste to get releases beforehand, - - 597-9 
 His obtaining the family correspondence, - - 599-600 
 My former statements respecting making of account, - 600-2 
 What materials came from J. W. B. - - - 602-6 
 All the important evidence lay in books of B. & L. and L, is a 
 real accomiting party, - ... 606-9 
 
 CHAPTER 59. Mr. Boon's unwillingness to apopt the ac- 
 count drawn up by Mb. Lowell. . 609 
 What the account intended to show, - - 609-1 1 
 L.'s former admissions, and present denials, that J. W. B. refused 
 
 to sign, with reasons and proofs, . - 611-13 
 
 L. contradicted by F. Dexter, - . - 613 
 
 Further proofs that J, W. B. did refuse, for several months, - 613-20 
 
 CHAPTER 60. Mr. Lowell's unwarranted use op my name 
 
 TO PASS AN account. - - 621 
 
 My former statements, and L.'s answer, - - 622-7 
 
 L.'s misstatement of facts leading to release, 627-30 
 
 Pretence that he proposed the compromise, - 630-1 
 
 Conversation with L. leading to his letter of Dec. 10, 1844, 631-3 
 His letter of Dec. 10, 1844, in full, . ■ .633 
 
 L.'s reasons for printing one sentence only, . - - 633-7 
 My answer of Dec. 11, printed by L. without the letter answered, — 
 
 false effect produced, - ...... 637-41 
 
 Release, signed by L. for me as trustee, shown in probate court, 
 
 and account passed, Dec. 16, - ... 641-2 
 
 Premature, — ^L.'s sole act, — ^not disclosed, ... . 642-7 
 
 L. not authorized to use the release so signed, - 647-9 
 
 Judge Warren deceived as to transfer of property, 649-51 
 
 Previous notice that I would not sign as trustee, - - 651-2 
 My letter of Dec. 17, and L.'s conversation vrith me afterwards, 
 
 concealing the transaction of Dec. 16, . - . . 652-5 
 
 Foundation of pretended authority to sign for me, 655-7 
 
 Pretended want of notice before my, letter of Dec. 17, . 657-8 
 
 If so, still a purposed deception, .... 658-63 
 
 No authority, and L. knew it, - - 663 
 
 Why I signed for myself, and refused as trustee, offering to resign, 663-6 
 
 CHAPTER 61. Mr. Lowell's representations op the settle- 
 ment. Further subtraction op Mrs. Boott's income. - 666 
 A verbal agreement made,-^forthwith broken, - . . . 666-8 
 Correspondence in January, 1845, .... . 668-70 
 Confirmatory release obtained from Mrs. Boott, . - . 670-1 
 Accounts, as settled, took $4560 more of her income to make up 
 
 the nominal fund, - . ,, , . ,. . . . 671-3 
 
 Objected to by W. B. and self, when discovered, - - . 673 
 
XVIII 
 
 Page 
 
 A foolish charge of anachronism answered, - - • 673-4 
 
 Mrs. Boott's money really taken to pay L. - - - - 674-5 
 
 CHAPTER 62. Mr. Lowell's conduct in relation to the in- 
 quest. Time of his reception of Mr. Boott's last 
 
 Letter. - - ... . . . gjj 
 
 My former statement was of facts, not inferences, - - - - 676-7 
 
 Various statements as to time collated, - - - 677-9 
 
 J. C. Adams's certificate of conversation with coroner, - 679-80 
 
 Letters from Dr. Jackson, Dec. 3, 1847, and Jan. 26, 1848, ■ 680-82 
 
 Comments upon the evidence, - - 682-6 
 
 CHAPTER 63. Mr. Lowell's conduct at the inquest. His 
 
 interest in its result. ~ - 687 
 
 Onr conversation just before the inquest, .... 687-8 
 
 L.'s pretence of no interest in the verdict, &c. - - - 688-90 
 
 His probable accountability for funds lost by J. W. B. - 691-3 
 
 His loans, on stocks not the property of J. W. B. - - 693-5 
 
 He Was committed by former representations, &c. - - 695-6 
 
 CHAPTER 64. Mr. Lowell's conduct in relation to the 
 
 697 
 697-8 
 698-9 
 699-701 
 701-2 
 702-4 
 704-6 
 706-7 
 
 INQUEST. How I WAS MISLED. 
 
 L.'s reception of the letter and will, without notice to me. 
 
 Pretence that I knew his opinion that J. W. B. was sane, 
 
 L.'s letters to Dr. Boott, April 10 and 19, 1844, - 
 
 His correspondence with W. B. in June, 1844, 
 
 No notice to me, by the letters to Dr. B. 
 
 None from L.'s conversations, 
 
 His pretence of not influencing the verdict, - 
 
 His plan to get control of the inquest, - - - • 707-9 
 
 CHAPTER 65. Mr. Lowell's conduct respecting a notice 
 
 TO Mr. William Boott. His alleged motives. Some 
 
 corrections by Mrs. Lyman. .... .710 
 
 L.'s great interest in the family, — ^no part in the disputes, 710-11 
 
 Promise to notify W. B. broken, — the excuses, - - - 711-13 
 
 Pretended desire to prevent rumour of murder, - - - 714-16 
 
 L.'s reported testimony went to sanity only, - • '1' 
 
 Mrs. Lyman's corrections on sundry points, - - - 717-21 
 
 CHAPTER 66. Mr. Lowell's conduct in relation to the 
 
 LAST LETTER OF THE DECEASED. 722 
 
 Occasion of the letter, — L.'s statement of contents, - - ■ ?22-3 
 My former statements, vrith letters between F. Dexter and C. G. 
 
 Loring, - - . - 723-8 
 
 F. Dexter's letter to me, of Sept. 14, 1845, - • ?28 
 L.'s endorsement of J. W. B.'s charges, and refusal to show me his 
 
 letter, . 728-30 
 
 Pretended motives, — warning of consequences, - ■ '^"^ 
 
 Assurances that he had not shown or read the letter to any one, ■ "3^' 
 
 False account of interview with F. Dexter, - ... 737-9 
 
 Letter from F. Dexter, March 15, 1848, - - 739-40 
 
XIX 
 
 Paoe. 
 
 L.'s disregard of corrections sought, and wilfol misstatements, - 740-3 
 
 Condition of not dispnting will, and its consequence, - - - 743-5 
 
 L.'s complaint that his word was doubted, ... . * 745 
 Proof that he read parts of the letter to the coroner, the jury, Mr. 
 
 P. T. Jackson, and Dr. Jackson, - .... 745-9 
 
 Effect of his misrepresentations, 749-51 
 
 His new excuse for refusing explanation, ■ - - - 751-2 
 
 CHAPTER 67. An outline oi' mt answer to sundry new 
 
 CHARGES MADE BT Mr. LoWELL. 752 
 
 Charge of harsh treatment of J. W. B. — ^what inquiries it includes, 752-6 
 
 Insanity not an essential point for me, ... . 756-9 
 
 Mutual misleading, between L. and certain members of the family, 7S9-60 
 
 Pretence that witnesses are biased by resentments, - . • 761-4 
 
 Pretence that we did not beUeye J. W. B. insane, - - - 764-5 
 
 Pretence that we began family quarrels, 765-8 
 
 Dr. B.'s former opinions changed by confidence in L. - . - 768-70 
 
 L.'s own sudden change of opinion, — ^its cause, .... 770 
 
 Dr. Jackson's opinion rests on L.'s statements, • - • 770-1 
 
 Conduct of Mrs. Brooks and myself misrepresented by L. . ■ 771-5 
 
 A material date misprinted, by one year, ..... 775 
 
 Cause of my letter to Mr. Wells, 776-9 
 
 Sanity of J. W. B.'s ideas. Mrs. Lyman's removal not by my 
 
 instrumentality, 779-81 
 
 CHAPTER 68. A recapitulation, anU summaSt op the coS. 
 
 TROVERST, AS IT NOW STANDS. 782 
 
AN ANSWER. 
 
 CHAPTER I, 
 
 STYLE AND TONE OF THE REPLY. OUTLl 
 
 LED TO MY FORMER STATEMENT. 
 
 Mr. Lowell's " Reply" to my pamphlet, though he is quite 
 right in not naming it an answer, is highly creditable to his 
 literary ability. It indicates that he might succeed as a 
 writer of fictitious narrative. At least, he has produced 
 what the reviewers would call a slashing article — in style, 
 quite gladiatorial; Its apparent aim is not sober truth, and 
 quiet justification, but rout, victory and slaughter. Pretty 
 indiscriminate, too ; party or witness, counsel or magistrate, 
 who may chance to stand in Mr. Lowell's way, is equally 
 treated as an assailant, and with no great delicacy in the 
 choice of weapons^ even when that unfortunate position 
 happens to be occupied by some of the gentler sex. 
 
 I should not do its author justice were I to say that the 
 " Reply" answers nothing. Or explains nothing ; nor even 
 that there is no fair discussion in it ; — but I do him no in- 
 justice in saying that there is next to none, and that candid 
 statement is of rare occurrence. Some new facts, certainly, 
 are brought to light, bearing on the old subjects of inquiry. 
 But the most important of these rest, wholly, on Mr. Low- 
 ell's ipse dixit. Some new evidence is produced. But it 
 relates, chiefly, to collateral subjects, and either opens new 
 issues, or widens old ones of minor importance. 
 
 In matters of statement and reasoning, exaggeration 
 
and assumption are its constant characteristics. Some tri- 
 fling obscurities in the facts before known, or suspected, 
 are cleared up, it is true. But from the manner, in 
 which this is done, one might think it were a clearing 
 away of the whole horizon. A few mistakes of mine, in 
 particulars of very subordinate importance, are displayed, 
 with a flourish of trumpets and beating of drums, that 
 seem to announce the detection of fatal errors, involving the 
 whole merits of the controversy. Some trifling slip of 
 memory, or inaccuracy of expression, is seized upon as a 
 great prize, held up, turned over and over, repeated and mag- 
 nified, till it might seem, to a careless observer, to cover the 
 whole case. Charges, never made, are refuted with becoming 
 indignation — triumphantly, of course. Some, that I did 
 make, are treated more tenderly. The evidence concerning 
 them is either thrust aside contemptuously, as of no value, 
 or completely smothered up in smoke and mystification. In- 
 genious sophistry often evades the true point in dispute, and 
 makes much show of an answer, when there really is none. 
 A vast deal of mis-statement and monstrous assumption are 
 the groundwork, sometimes, of an argument, and sometimes 
 of an accusation, pronounced or insinuated. There is a 
 world of positive assertion, commonly without a particle of 
 proof, and sometimes respecting facts, which Mr. Lowell, by 
 his own showing, could not possibly know, and has no evi- 
 dence of, and yet proclaims like an oracle. At last, the old 
 trick is resorted to of seeming to relinquish the line of de- 
 fence, for the purpose of " carrying the war into Africa," so 
 as to produce an impression that the enemy has been driven 
 from all his positions, and that nothing remains but to cut 
 off his escape, and show him in triumph to the people. 
 Grave charges against me, personally, and against others, are 
 made prominent, with some show of evidence, such as will 
 hardly bear sifting, but may serve to mislead cursory readers. 
 The whole afi"air is conducted, too, with a tone of confidence 
 and authority, which makes it an admirable imposition for 
 popular e0"ect. To heighten this, the monotony of ac- 
 counts and arithmetical computations and dry statements of 
 
fact is pleasantly relieved by the interspersion of occasional 
 moral reflections, scraps of poetry, and veins of irony and 
 sarcasm, extremely well designed to captivate the hearts and 
 understandings of a class of readers, who have no relish for 
 sober statement and sound argument. Altogether it is a 
 bold curiosity. If I were disposed to follow its style, 
 (which I shall most carefully avoid, ) perhaps I might advan- 
 tageously borrow a phrase, and say its "audacity" "defies 
 all competition." [L. p. 63.] 
 
 Moreover, this same pamphlet, under cover of vindicating 
 a deceased friend, as well as Mr. Lowell himself, masks, in 
 truth, a venomous attack on the conduct and motives of 
 myself and others, and it has been most extensively circu- 
 lated. 
 
 My statement, made in self-defence against a prior covert 
 attack from Mr. Lowell, though printed, for convenience, was 
 sent to but few persons — at first, a very few, whom I consid- 
 ered particularly entitled to be informed of its contents, and 
 afterwards to such other friends as took interest enough in 
 the matter to solicit a copy. There I stopped. I had no 
 idea of making my private grievance a world's wonder, or of 
 entertaining the great public with a painful domestic his- 
 tory, forced from me by Mr. Lowell. 
 
 His " Reply," on the other hand, converting his former 
 secret attack into an open one, and yet pretending to treat 
 me as the assailant, who had thrown him on the defensive, 
 has been most bountifully distributed. Not content with 
 dropping it at every door of our common acquaintance in 
 this city, he has dispersed two thousand copies, I am told, 
 far and wide, through town and country, many of them 
 among strangers, and even at distant places in other states. 
 Were these measures of defence 1 let me ask. 
 
 By way of commentary I may add, that some of the many 
 persons in New-York, who were indulged with copies, are 
 said to have inquired. Who is this Mr. Brooks, who is so fa- 
 vourably introduced to our acquaintance ? Others, as I have 
 heard, have even ventured to ask, who this Mr. Lowell is. 
 It follows, of course, that the greater part of the readers of 
 
the " Reply" have never even had an opportunity of seeing 
 the pamphlet, which it pretends to answer ; but have enjoyed 
 the high privilege of feasting on Mr. Lowell's libel, quite 
 unadulterated by any of the "poison," to which its innocent 
 statements might be " turned, by passing through the alem- 
 bic of Mr. Brooks's mind." [L. p. 34. J 
 
 Even of those, who read my pamphlet formerly, I can not 
 iflatter myself that many, perhaps all, have not long since 
 forgotten, or but indistinctly remember, its statements ami 
 proofs. Few readers, I am sensible, look beyond the indul- 
 gence of a first curiosity in the scandal of a private contro- 
 versy. Few stop to compare and scrutinize evidence. 
 Hence, considering Mr. Lowell's social position, in connex- 
 ion with the tone and character of his publication, thus 
 widely disseminated, I was neither surprised nor dismayfid, 
 when I heard it announced, in certain quarters, that I had 
 been not only answered and refuted, but absolutely annihi- 
 lated, — or, as one gentleman expressed it, pulverised and 
 blown away. My surprise has rather been to find so many 
 quiet readers, of both sides, who were not, themselves, car- '■ 
 ried away by such a whirlwind, but observed, as well as they 
 could discern through the clouds of dust in the air, that 
 whatever slight damage might have been sustained by some 
 of the upper works, the foundations, at least, of my structure 
 stood unshaken. 
 
 There is enough of new matter, however, and enough of 
 impression has been produced, to call forth a serious answer 
 upon a very serious subject. Many may think, that, to place 
 us on equal ground, my present remarks and those of my for- 
 mer pamphlet ought, now, to be circulated as widely as Mr. 
 Lowell's. And so they should be, had they been written for 
 an electioneering campaign — or if my object were to do the 
 utmost possible harm to Mr. Lowell^or if I wished to pro- 
 duce, in my own favour, a merely popular effect on this con- 
 troversy. As it is, I shall follow no such example. The 
 subjects, I am obliged to speak of, are such,, that I have no 
 desire to publish them to an unnecessary extent. My object 
 is, and has been from the beginning, to correct erroneous 
 impressions, occasioned by Mr. Lowell, concerning myselfi 
 
where I think it important to have them corrected. I shall 
 not depart, therefore, materially, from the course I formerly 
 pursued, until I see greater occasion for it than I now do. 
 
 It is unfortunate for Mr. Lowell, and a matter of regret to 
 me, that I cannot make this correction, effectually, without 
 presenting him in a very disadvantageous point of vie v/. But 
 it will be found that the fault is all his own — that, during the 
 four or five years last past, he has steadily pursued a course 
 the tendency of which (though that I do not presume to 
 have been his direct object,) has been to sacrifice my repu- 
 tation to certain ends of his own ; — and that, by his late pub- 
 lication, at any rate, he has left himself no ground for com- 
 plaint of retributive consequences. 
 
 It is unfortunate, too, that I am obliged to speak of rela- 
 tives and connexions, both living and dead, under circum- 
 stances very undesirable for a public discussion, or even a 
 private communication among friends. What, then, it is 
 sometimes asked, is the necessity ? Why all this exposure 
 of intimately private affairs ? Why this raking up of old 
 family dissensions ? Why this disturbance of the ashes of 
 the dead ? What can be more discreditable ? 
 
 Mr. Lowell has not failed to avail himself of this natural 
 sentiment in exciting all the prejudice against me, which 
 such suggestions tend to create. With what candour and 
 justice we shall presently see. 
 
 Throughout his publication, he seeks to impress his reader, 
 at every turn, with the belief that my complaints of him are 
 a mere pretext to lay open to the public an old family quar- 
 rel, which he had no concern with, and to cover a malignant 
 assault on the memory of my brother-in-law, the late John 
 Wright Boott. The book opens with solemn reflections on 
 the odious character of a meditated attack on the dead, and 
 assures the reader, at the threshold, that my correspondence 
 with IMr. Lowell, in 1846, was entered upon for no other 
 end. [L. p. 1.] It closes with the declaration, that I had 
 evaded a full and fair inquiry into the merits of these former 
 controversies, when tendered to me before the legal tribu- 
 nals, — having shrunk, as is suggested, from that searching 
 species of investigation, under a consciousness of weak- 
 
ness, but intending, all the while, to appeal to the public 
 in print, with a one-sided statement, instead of submitting 
 to a fair trial in a court of law. [L. 206, &c.] Numerous 
 passages, from beginning to end, might be selected, which 
 aver that the real issues are, exclusively, between that 
 deceased gentleman and myself ; that I was blinded to his 
 merits, in his life time, by excited feelings of animosity, 
 arising out of a personal quarrel ; that I still pursue that 
 quarrel beyond the grave ; that I have been, ever since his 
 unfortunate death, only seeking excuses to blacken his mem- 
 ory ; and that I finally picked a quarrel with an innocent 
 and friendly third party, namely, Mr. John A. Lowell, only 
 to make him serve as a sort of conduit, through which I 
 might discharge my spite over the tomb of a buried enemy. 
 
 Now if all this be shown, as it will be, to be utterly un- 
 founded, its injustice and unfairness can only recoil upon 
 the head of its author. Even as the matter now stands, 
 on Mr. Lowell's showing, his contrivance is, perhaps, too 
 easily seen through to answer its purpose ; for this imputing 
 of bad motives to me seems to have had no other object than 
 to withdraw attention from Mr. Lowell's own disingenuous 
 part in an affair very unfortunate for all concerned, and to 
 heap upon me the odium, which justly belongs to himself. 
 
 How came I to enter into a correspondence with Mr. 
 John A. Lowell, in 1846 ? — and what was its tenor ? When, 
 and how, and for what purpose, came I to make a printed 
 statement ? If domestic matters, and matters affecting the 
 memory of a deceased person, have become involved in a 
 discussion between Mr. Lowell and myself, whose is the 
 fault ? 
 
 I shall endeavour to answer these inquiries plainly, — tem- 
 perately, — clearly, — without any of those startling and pun- 
 gent graces of the " Reply," which seem to resemble what 
 the actors call clap-traps. To do so, I must, first, briefly 
 recapitulate some of the leading undisputed facts. 
 
 There had been, it is too true, much unhappy dissension 
 in the family, of which I was, by marriage, a member. 
 Should I say that this was wholly caused by peculiarities 
 and eccentricities in the character and conduct of the late 
 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, I should forestall a question at issue. 
 This, for the present, I forbear. But I may safely say, that 
 these dissensions related, entirely, to the conduct of that 
 gentleman and to matters growing out of it. 
 
 It was believed, by some of us, during the latter part of 
 his life, that he had become, and in fact had long been, 
 partially insane. This was doubted,, or disbelieved, by 
 others. It was known to me, and believed by those, who 
 acted with me, that, whether insane or not, he had very 
 much mismanaged the family property, which was all in his 
 hands, and that he was, in the then condition of the family, 
 a most unsuitable trustee for some of his brothers and sisters, 
 with whom he was at variance. Others were incredulous 
 of all this, and, knowing nothing of the facts, supposed Mr. 
 Boott to have been an excellent manager of the property, 
 and attributed every suggestion of the contrary to some 
 improper motive. He had never settled the accounts of his 
 father's estate, though twenty-seven years had elapsed since 
 he took upon himself the trusts of the executorship, and 
 there was no security, for any considerable sum, in the 
 bond he had given. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the question arose, whether a 
 new fund, expected from the sale of the family mansion, 
 should be permitted to go into his hands. My previous 
 knowledge, and other circumstances, seemed to require of 
 me to judge for others as well as for myself Several of the 
 family were absent — several, who were here, I knew to be 
 mistaken as to facts — and I was, besides, a trustee for some 
 minors, who were interested. Mr. William Boott was the 
 only brother, then living, in this country. He was fully 
 persuaded of Mr. J. Wright Boott's insanity, and thought 
 him unfit to be the family trustee. Both Mr. William 
 Boott, therefore, and myself declined executing a certain 
 deed, which would have had the effect of placing the pro- 
 ceeds of the sale abovementioned in Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 hands to manage at his discretion, with security merely 
 nominal, and with knowledge, on our part, of a very indis- 
 creet investment, which he proposed. We declined sign- 
 
8 
 
 ing, until it was agreed that a ne-w trustee should be 
 appointed. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, though not a member of this family, professed' 
 himself to be a common friend, and more particularly the 
 friend of Mr. J. Wright Boott. In that capacity, and as his 
 representative, he became an active negotiator for him on 
 this subject. He prepared a paper, called an account of the 
 executorship, and claiming a balance of $25,000 to be due 
 to the executor. This I did not admit, nor believe in, and 
 the paper was very unsatisfactory, as an account, both in 
 substance and form. The negotiation, howevet,: ended in a 
 compromise, whereby the account was allowed, without 
 proof or question, on the condition of Mr. Boott's resigninf 
 his trust, and permitting a new trustee to be appointed^ 
 and the required deed of the house was then executed; 
 
 Several months after this settlement, Mr. Boott died i^ 
 suicide. An inquest was holden, which Mr. Lotvell con- 
 ducted in behalf of the family, and at which he made 
 himself a witness. I was not present at it ; neither was Mr. 
 William Boott. We knew nothing of the testimony, except 
 as it afterwards appeared in an official report. No evidende 
 had been offered by Mr. Lowell, tending to prove insanity. 
 He expressed his own opinion that the deceased was mi 
 insane. The verdict, therefore, was simply " suicide." The 
 official report of the evidence, accompanying the coronet's 
 return, contained nothing justly exceptionable in Mr. Low- 
 ell's testimony, if he believed that he had " never discoTerti 
 any thing indicating insanity in the deceased ;" [B. App. 
 p. 59.] though that testimony, in so positive a shape, and 
 without qualification, or allusion to the opposite opinioil of 
 others and to facts he had mentioned to me, that very 
 day, tending to confirm this opposite Opinion, was quite 
 contrary to my expectation, and, under the circumstanBeJ 
 detailed in my former pamphlet, a great surprise. 
 
 But the deceased left a will, enclosed, as was said, in 
 a letter to Mr. Lowell. That letter, according to Mr. Lot- 
 ell, gave a history of the family dissensions, and con- 
 tained charges against me of dishonesty, in my conduct 
 towards the writer, and, among other things, of having 
 
9 
 
 placed and kept one of his own sisters in the house with 
 him to act as my spy. Knowing these charges to be with- 
 out the slightest colour of foundation, I considered them 
 further evidence of insane delusion. Mr. Lowell, however, 
 insisted that the letter was a perfectly sane production. 
 A sight of it was therefore solicited by me, but refused. It 
 was urged and claimed as my right, under such circum- 
 stances ; but was still refused. 
 
 This WEis the origin of my difference with Mr. Lowell. I 
 had been much displeased, certainly, with other points of 
 his conduct, which had then become known to me ; but, 
 when he refused to show me a letter concerning, particularly, 
 my own character and deportment in family relations, which 
 Mr. Lowell had no right to meddle with, — while he was giv- 
 ing weight to its insulting statements, by declaring that its 
 author was perfectly sane, and that the letter itself was 
 proof of his sanity, — this conduct, as affairs stood, seemed 
 to me not the part of a friend or a gentleman. Circum- 
 stances made it a grievous injury ; — ^for the dissensions in 
 the family, while the matter of executing the deed was in 
 agitation, had become a subject of curiosity and conversation 
 among our common acquaintance, although the true causes 
 of them were little known. Statements, unjustly affecting 
 my reputation, had been made. The public excitement, 
 usually caused by a case of suicide, gave them new vitality. 
 It became known that a letter was left by the deceased, said 
 to explain the causes of his self-destruction ; and it began to 
 be whispered about that some shameful misconduct of other 
 members of the family, and of myself in particular, had led 
 to this melancholy event. Mr. Lowell's statements to third 
 persons, respecting the contents of the letter, however cau- 
 tiously made, I was satisfied were tending to strengthen 
 these rumours ; and I had reason to suspect that portions of 
 the letter itself had been shown or repeated. 
 
 As the only means left of obtaining a sight of the letter, after 
 personal applications and the intervention of a friend had prov- 
 ed ineffectual, and with the view also of proving tlie writer's 
 insanity, I availed myself of my wile's right, as an heir at 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 law, to oppose the pxobate of Mr. J. Wright Boott's will, 
 hoping to compel an exhibition of the letter at the hearing. 
 This attempt failed on a point of law, which was decided 
 against me. In the mean time, Mrs. William Lyman, another 
 sister and heir of the deceased, became, under the advice of 
 some of her best friends, and of able counsel, an opponent of 
 the will on her own account. Mr. William Boott, Mrs. Brooks 
 and myself, thereupon, conveyed to her all our pecuniary 
 rights and interests in the property. With these interests, 
 added to her own, Mrs. Lyman, by the advice of her counsel, 
 carried the cause, by appeal, to the Supreme Court. I ex- 
 pected to be a witness in the cause, and to have an opportu- 
 nity, in that capacity, of explaining some matters, which 
 concerned my own vindication, including what might be 
 charged in the letter, which it was probable would, in some 
 way, be brought out at the trial, as bearing on the question 
 of the testator's sanity. I had great confidence, that, upon 
 a fair and full investigation, a jury would be convinced, that 
 the writer of that letter was not of sound mind. Whether 
 they should be or not, I had no doubt it would appear, that 
 his death was not justly attributable to any misconduct of 
 myself, or of any other memher of the family. 
 
 About a year after the appeal, however, and before it came 
 to a hearing, Mrs. Lyman altered her determination, and 
 withdrew her opposition to the will. The law left me, then, 
 no opportunity of trying the question. My own right of 
 property, as an heir, had been parted with to Mrs. Lyman; 
 and it was, besides, too late for any other heir to make an 
 appeal. This misfortune, however, was not without its 
 consolatory circumstances ; for I felt a natural reluctance to 
 disclose, even as a witness and for my own defence, painful 
 incidents of domestic life, which a trial would have brought 
 to light. 
 
 As matter of personal reputation, I had thought it incum- 
 bent upon me to take all proper means to obtain sight of a 
 letter, said to contain serious charges against me, — ^by a gen- 
 tleman, whom Mr. Lowell and his friends, and all, wh" 
 relied on his authority, believed to be perfectly sane when 
 he made them, — in order that I might answer or explain 
 
11 
 
 them to other parties, concerned in these family matters, 
 and to my own friends, if I should find it necessary so to do. 
 I had thought it also incumbent upon me, to put the fact of 
 Mr. Boott's sanity in the way for legal investigation, since, 
 if he should be found to have been insane, that, of itself, 
 would sufficieatly answer his charges. I believed this had 
 been effectually done by Mrs. Lyman's appeal. It was 
 hardly to have been anticipated, that Mrs. Lyman would 
 abandon a cause, which she had once, under legal advice, 
 deliberately made up her mind to prosecute. 
 
 My endeavours to rectify my position, it was true, had thus 
 entirely failed ; but not from the want of any step proper for 
 me to have taken, under the circumstances. I was sensible, 
 that a prevalent opinion had grown iip to my disadvantage, 
 and that the abrupt abandonment, for reasons not known to 
 the public, of the suit, which, it was understood, was to try 
 the question of the sanity of the deceased, tended to in- 
 crease it. But no individual was, apparently, responsible 
 for the origin of this prevailing opinion. I was extremely 
 suspicious that it was, indirectly, owing to Mr. Lowell ; but 
 I had no definite ground to justify my acting on that hy- 
 pothesis. I had made up my mind, therefore, to submit to 
 my misfortune, for the simple reason that I saw nothing 
 proper for me to do towards self-vindication. The idea of 
 drawing up a formal statement, to disclose, either in print or 
 in manuscript, upon my own authority, the disagreeable facts, 
 which would have appeared upon a trial, was quite revolt- 
 ing to me. It was a last resort, which did not appear to 
 me sufficiently called for by the breath of an intangible 
 rumour. 
 
 Such, precisely, was the state of the case, when in Novem- 
 ber, 1846, 1 became, for the iirst time, informed, of testimony 
 from Mr. Lowell, at the coroner's inquest in May, 1845, 
 which did not appear in the coroner's official return, and 
 which, if correctly reported to me, called for explanation. 
 This discovery entirely altered my views as to the neces- 
 sity of action. It made certain to my mind that, which 
 I had before suspected. The testimony, not officially re- 
 ported, but known to a number of persons at the time, 
 
12 
 
 though ^liot to me, was sufficient to account for the common 
 belief. It furnished me with a responsible author, in whole 
 or in part, of calumnies widely spread. I saw that I was 
 suifering in reputation through the agency of Mr. Lowell, 
 who had acted, as I was bound to presume, under some mis- 
 take. I considered it my duty, therefore, as a gentleman, 
 to call upon him for an explanation ; and, as preliminary to 
 that, to give him the opportunity, as a gentleman, of stating, 
 in his own language, what his testimony was. This led to 
 the correspondence, which I formerly printed. [B. pp. 12-24] 
 
 Mr. Lowell evaded the most material of my inquiries, 
 and finally refused to answer them. This compelled me to 
 another step ; namely, to prove, by those, who had heard it, 
 what his testimony was. I did so, and found my informa- 
 tion concerning it substantially correct. I saw that Mi'. 
 Lowell was chiefly relied upon, in public opinion, to war- 
 rant what was commonly believed to my prejudice. It was 
 plain, from the correspondence, that he was not prepared, 
 and did not intend, to take back, amend, qualify or explain 
 any thing he had said, in a way to remove the imputation; 
 and that he would not permit, if he could prevent it, any 
 mistake to be corrected. 
 
 It was then, for the first time, that I felt the necessity, 
 and formed the determination, of printing that correspond- 
 ence, and the written declarations of the jurymen respecting 
 Mr. Lowell's testimony, with some portions of the evi- 
 dence, within my knowledge, needful to contradict it, for 
 the purpose, not of general publication, but of submitting 
 the statement to what Mr. Lowell is pleased to call " a select 
 portion of the public ;" [L. p. 2.] that is to say, a few of my 
 own friends, who I believed had got wrong impressions, and 
 some other persons, who had a particular right, or interest, to 
 know the truth. 
 
 This is a plain summary of the facts regarding my own 
 course of action. I shall presently refer, for confirmation of 
 it, to the statements of gentlemen, whose relation to me, as my 
 counsel, placed them in the best position to know the time. 
 manner, and occasion of my acting as I did. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 JUSTIFICATION OF MY FOKMER PH. IN TED STATE- 
 MENT. 
 
 If my object had been that, which Mr. Lowell suggests, — 
 to calumniate and vilify either the dead or the living, — I 
 ought, like Mr. Lowell, to have published what he calls a 
 " posthumous attack," [L. p. 141.] to the four winds. But 
 I meant to do neither more nor less than I thought the 
 necessity of the case, common regard for my own reputa- 
 tion, and respect for the opinion of judicious friends, had 
 made imperative ; and that was, to cause the very limited cir- 
 culation, above mentioned, of a printed statement. If I erred 
 in this judgement, Mr. Lowell, at least, has no right to com- 
 plain of it, considering the character and the extent of his 
 recent publication. 
 
 Neither can Mr. Lowell, justly, complain of attacks on the 
 dead, which he himself has provoked and compelled, even if 
 the statements of my former pamphlet deserved, (as I think it 
 clear they do not,) to be so regarded. Still less is it for him 
 to complain, that I disclose private family matters, to which 
 he, (who is not a member, nor even a remote connexion of 
 that family, ) says he was " no party." [Letter from Mr. Low- 
 ell, B. p. 17.] But, for reasons that will appear in the sequel, 
 it suits Mr. Lowell's purpose to hold himself out as the gen- 
 erous champion of the Boott family, without, as he pre- 
 tends, an atom of personal interest in the matter, and to play 
 the part of an indignant vindicator of the honor of a friend 
 in his grave, whom he represents to have been made the 
 subject of a cowardly attack. How all this assumption and 
 pretension will appear, when the whole course of Mr. Low- 
 ell's conduct in this matter, so far as I may be able to trace 
 it, comes to be disclosed, the reader will judge. 
 
 If Mr. Lowell can not, can the public, can any of my 
 friends, can any of the Boott family, reasonably complain 
 
14 
 
 of the course I have taken ? I am well aware how highly 
 objectionable it is to expose to the gaze of strangers, without 
 necessity, the privacy of domestic life, or to discuss, in print, 
 questions of personal infirmity and individual character, or 
 conduct, whether of the dead or of the living. I am entirely 
 sensible how rarely complete justice can be done, in any 
 controverted matter, upon mere ex parte statements and 
 proofs. I was struck with some sensible remarks on this sub- 
 ject, in a respectable journal of this city, not long since, 
 caused by a very gross case of mistaken interference on the 
 part of the press, and even of a portion of the city govern- 
 ment, (at the invitation, apparently, of nobody concerned,) in 
 matters of a strictly private character, affecting several re- 
 spectable persons, whose actions and motives were thus 
 brought into public discussion". The concluding sentences 
 were as follows : " There are, doubtless, cases of violation of 
 rights, which cannot be redressed without appeal to the pub- 
 lic tribunals, or to the public sentiment. But, in general, the 
 more completely such griefs are suffered to repose in the shade 
 of entire privacy, the better it is for all concerned. A wan- 
 ton invasion of that privacy should be regarded as one of 
 the greatest offences against good manners, and should be 
 punished by the pointed censures of the public opinion." 1 
 entirely subscribe to these sentiments, and must submit to 
 the censure, if I fail to satisfy every impartial reader, that 
 this is, precisely, one of those cases, which constitute an ex- 
 ception to the general rule. 
 
 Will any man tell me what he is to do, who has the mis- 
 fortune to discover that his good name and estimation in the 
 community, in which he lives, have been secretly undermined, 
 in some serious matter, by a person of high standing in that 
 community, who, being applied to, refuses all reparation! 
 Shall he take the law into his own hands, and administer 
 summary justice upon the offender, after the fashion of bar- 
 barians ? Or shall he break the law, according to the usage 
 sanctioned among gentlemen in many civilized communities, 
 by calling out the offender, to shoot him, or be shot by him, 
 with all the ceremonies prescribed by the code of honour! 
 
15 
 
 In either event, how stands the question as to the truth of 
 the calumnies, that had been uttered ? Is that settled by the 
 direction of the bullet, or by any act of personal violence, 
 employed or attempted? Is the wounded reputation set 
 right, in the estimation of those, among whom he lives ? 
 
 Presuming that these modes of supposed redress, however 
 available, and however sanctioned in some parts of the world, 
 do not receive the countenance and approval of this commu- 
 nity, I repeat, What is the injured party here to do ? He may 
 have two other modes of proceeding open to him — appeal to 
 the law, and appeal to public sentiment. He can have no 
 other. Without discussing the value of suits for damages, 
 and the estimate of a man's reputation in dollars and cents, 
 by twelve men drawn out of a ballot box, or the advantage 
 of trying his antagonist by indictment, on his own oath, 
 when an offence has been committed against the Common- 
 wealth, it is enough to say that, in my own case, I was ad- 
 vised that Mr. Lowell had not spoken any actionable slander, 
 nor been guilty of any indictable matter. He had not 
 charged me with murder, or any other crifne, or legal mis- 
 demeanour, that I know of. He had, at that time, only ver- 
 bally stated, as facts, certain matters, that were not absolutely 
 true, or, if literally true, had so stated them as to convey, 
 by the omission of other facts, false impressions, and had 
 thereby caused it to be believed, by many persons, that I. by 
 a course of unjustifiable conduct, had caused a brother-in-law 
 to take his own life. Whether he believed his statements to 
 be true or not, and whether he purposely, or carelessly, 
 omitted the other statements, which should have been made, 
 or whether he did not believe in the truth of those matters, 
 which I think should have been stated, are questions wholly 
 immaterial to my present point ; since the result of our cor- 
 respondence, in December, 1846, was, that he refused to 
 reconsider, or even to restate,^ for my information, his for- 
 mer testimony to the jury, or to permit me to inquire into 
 its correctness, or to aid me, in any way, in rectifying a mis- 
 take, if one had been committed. 
 
 Here then was a case of grievous injury, for which the 
 
16 
 
 law, as I was advised, afforded no remedy. Once more let 
 me ask, What is a man, so situated, to do, to reinstate him- 
 self in public opinion ? Can he do any thing but appealto 
 that public opinion, by stating and proving the truth of his 
 case ? And, if that case involves a long and complicated 
 state of facts, can he make that appeal otherwise than in 
 print ? Can he do less, to answer any good purpose, than to 
 circulate such a statement among that limited portion of the 
 public, with which he particularly associates ? 
 
 It must be plain, to every intelligent reader, that there is 
 and can be no other effectual mode of redress, for cases be- 
 yond the reach of the ordinary tribunals ; and that, in every 
 case of this nature, the propriety of the proceeding must de- 
 pend upon the merits and the circumstances of the particulaj 
 case. What then was the case ? 
 
 Was it true, or was it not, that Mr. J.Wright Boott had shown 
 himself an unsuitable trustee of the family property ? This, 
 unfortunately, was a principal question, not to be avoided in 
 considering my justification. The idea of his mismanage^ 
 ment lay at the bottom of it. Mr. Lowell's testimony and 
 statements to the jury, and his statements to other persons 
 at various times, had, in effect, declared to them, without 
 my knowledge at the time, or in any tangible shape for 
 more than eighteen months, what he now boldly declares 
 in print, namely, that there had been no mismanagement 
 on the part of Mr. Boott ; — that, instead of his being a 
 debtor to his father's estate, the estate was a debtor to 
 him ; — that I was informed of this by a true and complete 
 account, prepared by Mr. Lowell ; — that, notwithstanding 
 such knowledge, I insisted on Mr. Boott's resignation of 
 the trust ; — that my course of action in that matter, was, 
 therefore, wholly unjustifiable, and could be attributed only 
 to the animosity and ill feeling against Mr. Boott, which 
 Mr. Lowell falsely charges me with having cherished and 
 still cherishing. This had been represented, not as a par- 
 donable misapprehension of the true state of the case, but as 
 a wanton and malignant attack on a gentleman of high honour 
 and nice feelings, in the full possession of his reason, yet 
 
17 
 
 driven to take refuge in suicide, from these groundless accu- 
 sations by me and by other relatives, who were thus morally 
 responsible for his death. Mr. Lowell, if he had not made 
 that direct statement, had, at least, lent the full weight of 
 his opinion and of his testimony, in the fundamental facts 
 above stated, to propagate and uphold the belief, that con- 
 duct of mine, utterly inexcusable, had led to the suicide. 
 I am aware that Mr. Lowell does not admit all this, but I 
 shall prove, if I have not already proved, every word of it. 
 
 Indeed, the evidence of it was distinctly before me in the 
 solemn written declarations of the jurors. I had been, more- 
 over, just assured by Mr. Lowell, in our correspondence, that 
 there could be no mistake for him to correct, since he knew 
 and meant precisely what he had said ; having, as he insisted, 
 very cautiously weighed his words, in consequence of the 
 delicacy of his position, and of the feeling, which he knew to 
 exist in the family. [Letter from Mr. Lowell, B. p. 23.] 
 What then was I to do ? What would Mr. Lowell himself 
 have done, under like circumstances? Would he have per- 
 mitted, — should I permit, — so gross and unfounded a calumny 
 as I assert this to be, yet resting on such authority, to go 
 uncontradicted ? Should I shrink from an investigation of 
 the facts, or should I court it in the only way left open for 
 me ? What step could I take, adequate to the occasion and 
 the end, except, since there was no remedy at law, to state 
 and prove the truth of the case, not to the general public, 
 but to my friends, for their private information, in the only 
 remaining form, in which a statement could have due effect ? 
 
 Was I to be silent, because a death had happened, when 
 the very question was, whether I had not caused that death 
 by false, unfounded and malignant charges ? If the deceased 
 had, also, charged me, as Mr. Lowell said he had, with 
 dishonest conduct towards him, and the living repeated and 
 endorsed the charge, should the living not be held to answer 
 it, nor the facts necessary to my own vindication be shown, 
 because they relate incidentally to the conduct of the dead ? 
 Can it be, in cases of dispute and dissension among a num- 
 . ber of persons concerning the conduct of one of them, who 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 happens to die, in the midst of the controversy, that the 
 survivers of his party hecome, thereby, privileged to make 
 what misrepresentations, and to publish what calumnies 
 they please, and that the survivers of the opposite party, 
 however calumniated, are hound to submit in silence, oa 
 penalty of being held up to public execration, as wanton in- 
 vaders and violators of the tomb ? Such may be Mr. Low- 
 ell's peaceful philosophy, when he finds it for his interest to 
 adopt it. It is not mine ; nor do I believe it will be that of 
 intelligent and fair-minded readers, upon a just understand- 
 ing of this case. I trust I have treated, and ever shall 
 treat, the memory of the departed, with all the respect and 
 tenderness, consistent with the necessity imposed upon me of 
 explaining my own conduct ; but I hold that to be a mistaken 
 delicacy indeed, which would sacrifice the reputation of the 
 living to that of the dead, by any falsehood, dissimulation, 
 or straining of the truth ; and I shall presently leave it to 
 the reader to judge, whether Mr. Lowell's otherwise com- 
 mendable zeal in the cause of a deceased friend, which 
 happens, to be closely identified with his own, has not, some- 
 times, hurried him into that unfortunate kind of mistake. 
 
 But is it not monstrous, that I should be arraigned, % 
 Mr. Lowell, on this charge ? Who, I desire to ask, brings 
 the dead into this field of controversy ? Is it I ? Mr. Lowell 
 says to me, in effect, " You killed this unfortunate man by 
 false accusations;" — and so he says to others, whenever the 
 qiiestion of his death arises. I answer, " I made no false 
 accusations. I said no more than the occasion required ; said 
 it not to him, but to the conveyancer, who called upon me 
 for an act, which I was obliged to refuse, and to assign my 
 reasons for refusing. I said nothing, even to that gentleman, 
 in a harsh or offensive form ; and all I said, was, as you, Mr. 
 Lowell, know, strictly true ; and so I will prove." " Oh ! no ;" 
 says Mr. Lowell, " you must not dare to attempt to defend 
 yourself in that way — it would be a sacrilegious attack upon 
 the memory of the dead ! I only say, you drove your late 
 brother-in-law, by false accusations, to take his own life ; M^ 
 that you must submit to. I have a letter, besides, in which 
 
19 
 
 he says what amounts to the same thing himself — a letter, 
 written almost in the very act of self-destruction, and written, 
 ' with great calmness, as befitted the occasion.' " [Letter 
 from Mr. Lowell, B. App. p. 60.] " But," I answer, " he 
 was insane when he said so ; the very charges you speak 
 of, against me, were the offspring of his insanity. Will 
 you have the goodness to let me see the letter ? I think I 
 can satisfy you, by internal evidence, of the writer's insani- 
 ty." "By no means;" says Mr. Lowell, "it is a ' sacred 
 trust,' [B. App. p. 68.] and I shall show or read it only 
 to such persons as I please — certainly not to you, whom my 
 friend charges with a degree of dishonest conduct towards him, 
 which occasioned his death." " Then," I reply, " you com- 
 pel me to prove, by other means, the fact of his insanity." 
 " Oh ! no ;" says Mr. Lowell again, " you must not attempt 
 to prove that — it is attacking a mun in his grave ! And / 
 assure you, as I do every body, that he had not a tinge of 
 insanity about him, and that his letter ' evinces no aberra- 
 tion of mind,' [Letter from Mr. Lowell, B. App. p. 60.] but 
 qiiite the reverse ; it ' strongly tends to prove that the said 
 John W. Boott was sane when the same was written.' !" 
 [Lowell's af&davit, B. App. p. 68.] 
 
 Now, I submit to the reader, whether this idea, so much 
 insisted on by Mr. Lowell as good cause of public indigna- 
 tion against me, namely, that nothing touching the merits 
 of the question is to be inquired into, because it relates to a 
 person, who is no longer in the midst of us, would not be, 
 under such circumstances, positively ridiculous, were it not 
 that the subject is one of most grave and melancholy 
 import. 
 
 As to the scandal of publishing family dissensions, which 
 is also laid at my door, they were, in this case, unfortu- 
 nately, too well known long before the death of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott. Mr. Lowell declares this, when he desires to excuse 
 himself by their notoriety. [L. p. 16.] They were known 
 to all those persons, at leeist, among whom I sent my 
 pamphlet. The scandal of publishing them, to the world at 
 large, rather belongs to Mr. Lowell, than to me. 
 
20 
 
 The knowledge of such a fact, among those who knew 
 it, was, of course, calculated to produce unfavourable impres- 
 sions against the whole family, without much discrimi- 
 nation. The shocking death, which followed, had it been 
 found to be the effect of insanity, would naturally have 
 corrected this ; for the character, conduct, and sanity of the 
 deceased were known to have been the very subjects of 
 dispute. His subsequently ascertained derangement would, 
 well enough, have accounted for all pre-existing difficulties. 
 Mr. Lowell's interference, — I do not speak of motives, but, 
 I say his interference in fact, — and the promulgation of 
 his opinions, prevented this desirable result, and led 
 to surmises and suspicions, in the public mind, of a most 
 distressing character, infinitely more injurious, to certain 
 members of the family, than any thing before known or 
 suspected. 
 
 Now, although this mischief had been done, it was not 
 wholly irreparable. If it can, even at this late day, be satis- 
 factorily shown, that those former dissensions were not the 
 case of an ordinary family quarrel, equally discreditable, com- 
 mpnly, to all, who are engaged in it, but that all the troubles, 
 which had existed in this family, for years, arose out of the 
 extravagant and unreasonable conduct of one individual, 
 whose peculiar position, as holder of the common property, 
 and male head of the household, was such, that his eccentric 
 ities could not but affect the whole circle, while his strange 
 suspicions and unfounded charges, against one and another, 
 and almost all in turn, were constantly producing extreme 
 exasperation and distress, so long as he was considered a 
 fully accountable being, — and if it can also be shown, that 
 this extravagant demeanour was found, in the end, to be fairly 
 attributable to mental derangement, I beg to ask, whether, 
 in showing these facts, in my own defence, I am guilty, as 
 Mr. Lowell pretends, of a scandalous offence against the 
 decencies of life. In defending myself, do I not, also, 
 relieve the whole family from the chief discredit of an 
 otherwise disgraceful quarrel ? Do I not even vindicate the 
 memory of the deceased from every imputation of moral 
 
21 
 
 delinquency 7 Does this course of justification, then, de- 
 serve the reprobation, with which Mr. Lowell affects to visit 
 it so indignantly ? 
 
 What, let us inquire, would have been the probable con- 
 sequence, had Mr. Lowell taken a different course at the 
 inquest, and a verdict of "suicide caused by insanity" had 
 been found ? From the singular nature and partial char- 
 acter of the insanity, with which this unfortunate gentle- 
 man was, in my belief, afflicted, it is not surprising that 
 diversity of opinion about it should have existed, in his life- 
 time, among different members of his family. Such cases 
 in families are by no means of the rarest occurrence ; 
 and they are apt enough, when they do unfortunately occur, 
 to excite irritation and to occasion dissension, till the fact is 
 settled ; — ^though I believe a case resembling this, in all its 
 features, never before existed. The event, which had hap- 
 pened, — a death by suicide, — ^was one, which, by itself, when 
 no insanity had been previously suspected, is apt, by most 
 minds, to be attributed to that cause. Had the facts been in- 
 quired into, and an impartial jmy had so found, would not all 
 the family have been likely to acquiesce in that result, and 
 to adopt, at last, the opinion, which had long been enter- 
 tained by some of them? To me it seems scarcely doubt- 
 ful ; and the effect would have been, I believe, to heal 
 the dissension by the removal of its cause. Mr. Lowell's 
 interference, alone, precluded and prevented, as I shall show, 
 any such probable consummation. 
 
 Which, let me ask, then, is the real aggressor, in respect 
 to these family interests ? — a stranger, who thrusts himself 
 into them, and not only prevents that probable and highly 
 desirable result, but chooses to attach himself to one of the 
 parties, and to make himself the champion of that party at 
 the expense of the other, to whose misconduct, instead of 
 the insanity of the deceased, he attributes the death, — or 
 one of the persons so attacked, who, in defending himself, 
 removes just cause of censure from the whole family ? And 
 which is most justly chargeable with harming the reputation 
 
22 
 
 of the dead, — he, who declares that certain "grave errors" 
 which he is obliged to admit, [L. p. 165.] were the willfi 
 acts of a sane man, or I, who ascribe them to a degree 
 of mental obliquity and perverseness, on certain subjects 
 amounting to a peculiar species of insanity ? 
 
 Mr. Lowell, indeed, throughout his book, accuses me of 
 charging Mr. J. Wright Boott with intentional falsehood and 
 fraud. Can any thing be more unjust or untrue ? I not 
 only made no such charge, but I took the utmost pains to 
 prevent even an inference, from facts, which the questiottof 
 his suitableness for a trustee compelled me to state, preju. 
 dicial to his character as a man of honor and upright inten- 
 tion. Let me cite one or two extracts from my foimet 
 pamphlet in proof of this : — 
 
 " I have expressed, above, my conviction of Mr. Wright Boott's 
 partial insanity, in the last years of his life. I have alluded, alio, 
 to his incompetency as a safe depositary of trust propertj- 
 which subject will carry me back to a date long before the idea 
 of his insanity, on any subject, had distinctly occurred to me. I 
 have since been led to doubt, whether there was not a tinge of it 
 even at that early period. But whether there was, or not, I shall be 
 obliged to state facts, showing such a singular disregard of the 
 duties of a trustee, as commonly understood and practised, that I 
 desire, in the outset, to make known the opinion, which I uniformly 
 entertained and expressed of him in one particular, lest my remaib 
 should otherwise be misconstrued into an unmanly attack on the /mm 
 of the dead. My business lies with a gentleman, who is alive, aid 
 well able to defend himself, if I do him wrong. That I shall care- 
 fully endeavour not to do. I do not desire, nor intend, to attack even 
 that gentleman — unless it be considered an attack to exhibit facts and 
 proofs, adduced in self-vindication, which may be found at variance 
 with his statements, or, at least, lead to inferences different from Iiii 
 own. But in respect of the late Mr. Wright Boott, whom I am 
 reluctantly compelled to speak of as perfectly incompetent for the 
 office of a trustee, I entertained for him, during aa acquaintance" of 
 more than twenty years, a very high regard, and never felt a feelwg 
 of unkindness towards him, except during a short period of great 
 rudeness on his part, before I had become impressed with the belief 
 of his insanity. I take pleasure, therefore, in recording the fact, 
 notwithstanding what I shall be obliged to say concerning his man- 
 agement of trust property, that, from the first to the last of our inter- 
 course, I considered him a man of unblemished integrity, and a high, 
 I may say even chivalrous, sense of honour. But he had great pecul- 
 iarities — among them, that of seeming to consider the whole family 
 property his own, to deal with as he pleased — investing it accordingly) 
 not as a trustee, but in his own private name — using it in unwaH^t- 
 
23 
 
 able speculations — which greatly impaired it, and at one time threat- 
 ened its total loss — rendering no account of it to any body, and in fact 
 keeping none — consulting no other heir-respecting it — and, in general, 
 without any business habits whatever, holding himself above all the 
 ordinary responsibilities of a legal trust, on the due execution of 
 which others were dependent. But all this, which it required a long 
 and intimate acquaintance with him to understand the causes of, I 
 attribute to peculiarities of character, which amounted at last, if not 
 at first, in my judgement, to mental hallucination." [B. p. 8.] 
 
 And again, after having stated some of the facts, which 
 went to show his mismanagement of the property, and his 
 incompetency as a trustee, apart from the question of insan- 
 ' ity, I said : — 
 
 " And yet I desire to repeat, that this incompetency did not arise 
 ■ from want of integrity, or of high-toned feeling, nor from want of 
 intelligent perceptions ; but from want of judgement, and want of accu- 
 rate business habits, and total negligence of accounts, coupled with 
 certain peculiar ideas, which always confounded generosity and 
 justice, and certain extraordinary notions concerning his own rights 
 and powers over the property of his father's estate. Far from being 
 entirely selfish in his principles of action, it was, probably, a desire 
 to maintain the old firm, for the benefit of the family, as he conceived, 
 which induced him to embark the estate in trade," &c. 
 
 [Here follow like excuses, for other particular facts, which had been stated as 
 evidence of mismanagement.] 
 
 " And so other good and generous motives, operating in connexion 
 with his own peculiar views of affairs, caused him, in many other ways, 
 to waste the family property, dealing with it always as if it were his 
 own, to do with as he pleased, and appi-opriating it even to the 
 security, or payment, of his own personal debts, without even con- 
 sulting the other heirs upon the subject." [B. p. 50.] 
 
 Passages of this tenor might be multiplied, and not a line, 
 or a word, I am confident, can be found of a contrary ten- 
 dency. Whenever truth and self-defence compelled me to 
 state a fact, from which readers, unacquainted with the 
 peculiar character of the deceased, might possibly infer, if it 
 stood unexplained, that he was not only negligent, but 
 criminal, not only eccentric, but vicious, I took pains to 
 point out a cause and a motive, consistent with the integrity 
 of purpose, which I every where ascribed to him ; and every 
 error of his life, referred to by me, was set down to that 
 idiosyncrasy, which marked him from the beginning, and 
 which terminated at last, if it did not originate, in such posi- 
 
24 
 
 tive derangement, on certain subjects, as made him, in my 
 judgement, no longer an accountable being. 
 
 What shall we say, then, to the candour and justice of Mr. 
 Lowell, in such passages as this ? 
 
 " That a generous and high minded purpose of this sort should be 
 turned into a weapon against Mr. Boott, to bear out the imputatioi 
 that he had knowingly defrauded the heirs, and sustained the frad 
 ly his own oath, is one of the most cruel perversions of truth in the 
 whole pamphlet." [L. p. 34.] 
 
 " But even if Mr. Boott credited all he had ever received; and 
 charged no more than he had paid, there was one way left, in whitli 
 he might defraud the estate, and that was by charging the estate wilt 
 the stocks on hand at a higher price than he had a right to do. Mr, 
 Brooks does not fail to avail himself of the opportunity of making 
 this imputation also." [L. p. 66.] 
 
 " Is it not deplorable to see a gentleman, in Mr. Brooks's position, 
 groping about in utter darkness and ignorance, to find some txcw 
 for attacking the honour of the living and the dead'' [L. p. 72.] 
 
 " Is it to be believed, unless Mr. Brooks means to impeach tiie 
 character of Mr. Kirk Boott also, that that gentleman would have 
 recommended, or allowed to be selected, a person, who had been 
 guilty of the moral delinquencies attributed by Mr. Brooks to Mr. J, 
 Wright Boott ? [L. p. 102.] 
 
 For Mr. Lowell's satisfaction, as well as that of the 
 reader, I make it known, that the Italics, in these sen- 
 tences, are my own — ^for Mr. Lowell is very punctilious' and 
 sensitive on the subject of Italics. [L. p. 83-4, 204.] 
 
 duotations of this description might be made to a great 
 extent from the pages of the "Reply." Is the charge just, 
 fair, or true ? 
 
 I defy Mr. Lowell to point out a single passage of my 
 former pamphlet, which, being fairly taken in connexion 
 with its context, and with the foregoing extracts from my 
 pamphlet, and with other passages in it of like tenor, can , 
 justify this charge. 
 
25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A LIMITED PUBLICATION MT LAST RESORT. A SINGULAR MIS- 
 TAKE BY MR. LOWELL. 
 
 Not content with thus systematically misrepresenting me 
 as a reviler of the honour and honesty of the dead, nor with 
 constantly repeating the idea that my whole course of action, 
 after the decease of Mr. J. Wright Boott, was directed to the 
 finding of an excuse for publishing these defamations, Mr. 
 Lowell even goes so far as to invent, or imagine, a fact or 
 two, for the purpose of giving colour to these suggestions. 
 Mrs. Lyman, he represents as a mere puppet in the hands of 
 Mr. William Boott and myself, made, first, to set up an ap- 
 peal against the probate of her brother's will, and afterwards 
 to withdraw it, only to suit our supposed game of showing off 
 a sham inquiry at law into the fact of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 sanity, in order that the final failure of a trial, seemingly 
 through her fault, but really, as Mr. Lowell suggests, at our 
 bidding, might furnish the long-looked-for excuse for a pub- 
 lication. [L. p. 210.] 
 
 In confirmation of this statement, which is utterly desti- 
 tute of foundation, he asserts, as a fact, that I, at first, inter- 
 posed an appeal myself, as " trustee under the will of Mr. 
 Kirk Boott of Lowell," in which capacity, he con-ectly 
 states, I had no legal interest, to set aside Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 will. This, he thinks, upon the whole, could not have been 
 a blunder of counsel, " after several months of preparation," 
 which he supposes to have been expended in the cause, but 
 rather attributes it to a deep design of mine, (in which my 
 counsel must, of course, have participated,) to enter a ficti- 
 tious appeal, in order that it might be defeated on technical 
 grounds, in the higher court, and so " a better apology 
 might thus have been afforded for Mr. Brooks's appeal to the 
 public." [L. p. 209.] Now will it be believed of Mr. Low- 
 
26 
 
 ell, who so piques himself upon his accuracy, and never 
 admits a mistake, that his whole course of remark on this 
 subject is founded upon a supposed fact, which never hap- 
 pened ? 
 
 Upon this point, and the whole subject of my actions 
 and motives, so far as they could be known to others, with 
 whom I was confidentially dealing as my counsel in these 
 matters, I now submit the following letter : — 
 
 LETTER FEOM Messrs. GARDINER and BARTLETT. 
 
 Boston, March 31, 1848. 
 Edward Brooks, Esq. 
 Dear Sik, 
 
 In compliance with your request of the 22d inst, we make tie 
 following statement. 
 
 In the summer of 1845, we were retained by you as counsel, and 
 in the fall of that year, we were retained as counsel for Mrs. Lyman 
 also, — to oppose the probate of the will of the late Mr. J. W. Boott, 
 
 The ground of the proposed opposition was the alleged legal incac 
 pacity of the testator to make the will in question, by reason of a 
 partial insanity, supposed to have affected him in that particular ad 
 
 Mr. Franklin Dexter acted with us, as counsel, for a short time; 
 but he was about going to Europe, and was retiring from /professional 
 engagements. We consider his connexion with the case to have 
 ended with the hearing in the Probate Court, which he was present 
 at, but took no active part in. 
 
 You were urgent to have the case brought to a hearing as early as 
 possible ; but it was not in fact heard till late in October, althongli 
 the will had been filed for probate in March. 
 
 Before we were spoken to in behalf of Mrs. Lyman, and while 
 acting exclusively as your counsel, we had several conferences with 
 you and with Mr. William Boott. Most of the facts, bearing on the 
 question of insanity, which you have since stated in a printed form, 
 were then communicated to us, and with them some, as within your 
 or his personal knowledge, which you have not thought proper to 
 disclose in your printed statement, but which tended strongly, in our 
 opinion, to corroborate the other proof of Mr. J. W. Boott's derange- 
 ment of mind on certain subjects. Your own belief of the testator's 
 monomania was always expressed to us in the strongest terms ; and 
 so was Mr. William Boott's ; — and from the facts stated to us it 
 appeared to be well warranted. 
 
 We were very early informed, that neither you, nor Mr. Wilta 
 Boott, desired to alter the disposition of the property, except on Mrs, 
 Lyman's account, who was represented as hardly dealt by, and in 
 need of all she might be entitled to. Your personal objects, in pro- 
 posing to contest the will, as made known to us, were, to compel the 
 production, by Mr. Lowell, of a letter written by Mr. J. W. Boott, 
 shortly before his death, enclosing the will, and said to contain certam 
 
27 
 
 charges against you ; and also to establish, judicially, the insanity of 
 the writer, as the best answer to those charges, and to other imputa- 
 tions respecting your conduct and motives. 
 
 Shortly before the hearing in the Probate Court, we were, jointly 
 with Mr. Dexter, consulted, for the first time, by yourself and Mr. 
 William Boott, in behalf of Mrs. Lyman. We all met with you and 
 Mr. William Boott, by appointment, for that purpose. After a consult- 
 ation of some length, we concurred in the opinion that, viewing Mrs. 
 Lyman's case professionally, and without regard to mere matters of 
 feeling, which counsel could not judge of, hers was a proper case for 
 the real trial of the validity of the will in the Supreme Judicial Court, 
 where the final trial would necessarily be, according to the usual 
 course of practice ; and upon the facts stated to us, as capable of 
 proof, including those confidentially communicated, we were all of 
 opinion, that a jury would probably be satisfied, that the testator was 
 not of sound mind, in the sense of the law, when he made his will, 
 cutting her off from any share of his property ; and if so, that it 
 would be set aside in her favour. 
 
 We were informed, that Mrs. Lyman had requested this consulta- 
 tion on her account ; and we saw, then, or afterwards, a letter from 
 her to you, dated Oct. 21, 1845, directing you to employ us as her 
 counsel, and desLrLng us to understand that it was her own voluntary 
 act. 
 
 We had understood, before, that neither Mr. William Boott, nor your- 
 self, proposed to take, for your own benefit, any share of the property, 
 if the will were set aside. You were, besides, considered to be material 
 witnesses on the question of insanity. Hence it was arranged, that 
 your rights and interests in the property should be assigned to Mrs. 
 Lyman. A deed for that purpose was, soon after, prepared, and 
 was executed by yourself and Mrs. Brooks, and by Mr. William 
 Boott, conveying your respective rights, as heirs at law of Mr. J. W. 
 Boott, in trust for Mrs. Lyman ; — which deed would take effect when 
 executed by and delivered to the trustee therein named. 
 
 This consummation was withheld till after the preliminary hearino- 
 in the Probate Court, in order to preserve your right to appear there 
 in person, as you preferred to do, for the single purpose of callinc for 
 the letter above mentioned. There was no previous arrangement, as 
 to the particular right, or capacity, in which you should make that 
 call ; but the course proposed was, that you, as a nominal party, 
 should hear the proof offered of the execution of the will, and intro- 
 duce evidence of the testator's insanity, sutficient for a prima facie 
 case, and then call for the letter, both as a paper containing state- 
 ments, respecting yourself, which would have a material bearing on 
 the point of insanity, and also as a paper accompanying, endorsing 
 and republishing the will, with directions concerning the disposition 
 of property. The sole object of the hearing, on your part, was to 
 present, on this double ground, the question, whether a production of 
 the letter, by Mr. Lowell, either as a party, or as a witness, should, 
 or should not, be ordered in that court. Upon its decision, either 
 way, your appearance was to be withdrawn, and an appearance 
 entered for Mrs. Lyman, as the real party having a pecuniary inter- 
 est, and intending to try the validity of the will. 
 
28 
 
 The hearing took place on the 24th, 25th, and 28th of October, 
 1845, and was conducted conformably to this previous arrangement. 
 
 Mr. Lowell has fallen into an error in stating, at page 209 of his 
 pamphlet, that, after the judge had ruled the points in his favour 
 '• the learned counsel, who appeared for the remonstrants, stated, that 
 he would withdraw all opposition in their behalf individually, and 
 enter an appeal to the Supreme Court in the name of Edward 
 Brooks, trustee under the will of Mr. Kirk Boott of Lowell." 
 
 No such notice was given. No appeal was ever suggested, or thonght 
 of, by either of us, at that hearing, except for Mrs. Lyman. 
 
 Mr. Lowell appears to have confounded two distinct matters,— 
 one occurring on the 24th, and the other on the 28th, of October. 
 This we are enabled to state with certainty, on comparing our present 
 recollections with the very full and accurate minutes taken at the 
 time, i'n which the fact appears, distinctly, as now stated. 
 
 On the 24th of October, after the subscribing witnesses of the will 
 had completed their testimony, the judge asking who appeared to 
 oppose it, Mr. Bartlett, at first, answered, on your suggestion, "I 
 appear for Edward Brooks, trustee for the children of Kirk Boott," 
 Mr. Lowell thereupon remarked, that " as Mr. Kirk Boott died 
 before Mr. Wright Boott, Mr. Brooks can have no interest in this 
 property as trustee for his children." Mr. Bartlett said, " then I 
 appear for Edward Brooks and wife," — and immediately called Mr. 
 Robert C. Hooper to the stand. Mr. Green, however, requested to 
 be examined first, which was agreed to. 
 
 After his and Mr. Hooper's examination, which latter was at some 
 length, the intended call for the letter was made. This led to a dis- 
 cussion of the legal rights of the parties on that point, which continued 
 till the adjournment of the court. 
 
 On the following day, (Oct. 25,) it was resumed ; and after much 
 argument on both sides, the judge ruled, that Mr. Lowell had such 
 an interest, under the will, that he was not compellable to be exam- 
 ined as a witness, or to produce any paper in that capacity ;— and 
 that, in order to bring, properly, before the court the further question, 
 which had been argued, whether he might not be required to file the 
 letter as a testamentary paper, or otherwise to produce it, as a party 
 in the cause, by reason of its supposed bearing on the question of 
 insanity, an affidavit of the facts and a written motion ought, first, to 
 be filed. The further hearing was then adjourned to Oct. 28. 
 
 On that day, affidavits on each side being filed, the question of 
 ordering the letter to be produced was submitted, without further 
 argument ; and the judge ruled against the motion. 
 
 Mr. Bartlett then gave notice, that Mr. and Mrs. Brooks withdrew 
 from the cause. 
 
 A question thereupon arose about costs, which were, at first, 
 claimed by Mr. Lowell, but afterwards waived. As counsel for Mrs. 
 Lyman, we thought it desirable to have this trifling point distinctlj 
 settled, before any other step was taken, lest you should be objected 
 to as a witness in the Supreme Court, on account of your liability for 
 costs in the court below. 
 
 When that point was finally disposed of, Mr. Bartlett gave notice. 
 
29 
 
 that he would now enter an appearance in the cause for Mrs. Mary 
 Lyman, but should offer no further evidence, nor any remarks on 
 that, which had been inti-oduced. 
 
 The judge then said, that, upon the testimony of the subscribing 
 witnesses, he should allow the will, remarking, however, that his 
 decree was rather pro forma, as some evidence of hallucination had 
 been shown. 
 
 Ml". Bartlett, upon that, gave notice, that Mrs. Lyman would enter 
 an appeal in due season. 
 
 One of Mr. Lowell's counsel then announced the resignation of his 
 trust as executor ; and Mr. Lowell himself added, that he desired, also, 
 to resign the office of special administrator, to which he had been for- 
 merly appointed. 
 
 Some conversation followed respecting a successor to the latter of- 
 fice, and it was agreed, among the counsel, that Mr. F. C. Loring 
 might be appointed. 
 
 This ended the proceedings in the Probate Court. 
 
 The only allusion, in the course of them, to any supposed interest 
 of yours, as trustee for Mr. K. Boott's children, was, as above stated, 
 at the first entry of an appearance, (October 24,) which was regarded 
 by us as merely formal, and to make you a temporary party, in a 
 hearing not expected to decide any thing, except, whether the judge 
 of probate would, or would not, order the letter to be filed. The only 
 notice given of an intended appeal was, as above stated, on the 28th 
 of October, in the name and behalf of Mrs. Lyman, the only party, 
 whose pecuniary interest was considered by us to be at stake, and for 
 whom we were to conduct the real trial, pursuant to the previous ar- 
 rangement. 
 
 Her appeal was accordingly entered, within the thirty days allowed 
 by law ; and such further steps were taken, in preparing for the trial, 
 as her counsel thought advisable. 
 
 The most important of these was the filing of a bill of discovery 
 against Mr. Lowell, to compel, in that form, the production of the let- 
 ter. That bill was filed January 17, 1846. Mr. Lowell's plea, in 
 avoidance of the discovery sought, was not filed till the 26th of March 
 following. We doubted, whether it would be sustained, and were de- 
 sirous to bring it to an early hearing, thinking that a previous know- 
 ledge of the contents of the letter might aid, materially, in preparing 
 for the main trial. There was no opportunity, however, for a hearing 
 on the plea at the March term. It necessarily went over to another ; 
 and the main cause went with it, waiting the disposal of this prelimi- 
 nary question. 
 
 In regard to any agency of yours, or of Mr. WilUam Boott's, about 
 the cause, after the appeal, the facts, so far as known to us, are as 
 follows : — 
 
 Mrs. Ljrman, living out of town, communicated with her counsel 
 only by an occasional note, or message. We considered ourselves 
 charged with the general conduct of the case, and empowered to take 
 such steps towards it as we thought for her interest, regarding its pe- 
 cuniary result, and every point affecting herself. We sometimes con- 
 versed with you, as the friend nearest at hand, when information was 
 
30 
 
 wanted. "We do not remember to have seen or heard from Mr. Wil- 
 ham Boott on the subject at any time pending the appeal. Mrs. Ly. 
 man's signature to the bill of discovery was obtained by you, at our 
 request. We did not consider either you or Mr. William Boott as 
 having any interest in the suit, except as it was, incidentally, desirable 
 to each that. Mr. J. W. Boott's insanity should be established by a 
 verdict. 
 
 After the continuance of the cause to the November term of 1846, 
 the first communication we had from any body on the subject was a 
 note, dated September 25, addressed to us jointly, from Mrs. Lyman, 
 written upon her return, as we understood, from a visit at Northamp- 
 ton, to apprise us of her " change of purpose with regard to a further 
 prosecution of the suit upon Mr. J. W. Boott's will." The reasons 
 assigned had no relation to the merits of the question, in a legal pomt 
 of view, but turned, entirely, on points of feeling, in regard to the 
 memory of her deceased brother, which counsel could appreciate, but 
 could not advise upon. 
 
 We have, since, seen notes, dated the 26th and 27th of the same 
 September, from Mrs. Lyman to you, and to Mr. William Boott, in- 
 forming each of you of her altered determination. 
 
 You consulted us, shortly after, to know whether there was any 
 way, in which you could be reinstated as a party in the cause, or oth- 
 erwise bring the question of Mr. J. W. Boott's sanity to the test of 
 a legal investigation. We advised you that we saw none ; and thatif 
 Mrs. Lyman adhered to her present determination, (which, however, 
 could not be carried into effect until the court should next sit, in No- 
 vember,) the appeal must be withdrawn, and the will be thereby setup, 
 You gave us to understand, repeatedly, pending this controversy, that 
 you should be very unwilling to advise, or influence her, respecting 
 the suit, lest she might act, or be supposed to act, from regard to yout 
 position and wishes, rather than her own. 
 
 Before the sitting of the court, we received a second note from 
 Mrs. Lyman, repeating her desire that the suit should be dismissed. 
 Both the appeal and the bill of discovery were dismissed accordingly, 
 early in the November term. 
 
 We have never doubted, and do not now doubt, that Mrs. Lyman 
 acted upon her own judgement, after taking the advice of counsel and 
 friends, when she made her appeal ; nor that she acted upon her own 
 views and feelings, exclusively, and from the disinterested motives she 
 assigned, when she discontinued it. Mr. Lowell's suggestions that she 
 may have been guided, in this, by your advice, or that of Mr. William 
 Boott, — that she moved throughout in mere accordance with your 
 or his desire, — and that there never was any serious intention of bring- 
 ing the case to trial, are, so far as we have any means of knowing, or 
 forming an opinion, quite unfounded and mistaken. Among our 
 means of knowledge are several notes of instruction, or inquiry, re- 
 ceived by one of us from Mrs. Lyman, in her own hand-writing, dur- 
 ing the pendency of the suit. 
 
 We are bound to make the same remark concerning his suggestion 
 that you always intended an appeal to the public through the press, 
 and were, from the first, only seeking an opportunity, or excuse for it. 
 
 The fact, known to us, is, that, when Mrs. Lyman determined to 
 
31 
 
 ■withdraw her appeal, you expressed to us your regret at the loss of 
 the opportunity you had counted upon to set certain matters right, 
 through the means of a public trial ; hut you also expressed a degree 
 of satisfaction, that you might now consider yourself fairly excused 
 from the necessity of making disagreeable disclosures, with that view, 
 by circumstances beyond your control, and for which you were nowise 
 responsible. We had no doubt, at that time, that the whole contro- 
 versy was ended in every form. 
 
 It was not till after the dismissal of Mrs. Lyman's suit, and a day 
 or two before your first letter to Mr. Lowell, dated November 28, 
 1846, that you told us of information, as just received by you, respect- 
 ing testimony of Mr. Lowell at the inquest, which did not appear 
 in the official return, and which you thought presented a new state of 
 facts, requiring some action on your part, in reference to Mr. Lowell 
 personally. After consulting us, you expressed your determination to 
 call on Mr. Lowell, himself, to state what his testimony was, and to fol- 
 low it up by such further action as his answer might suggest. It 
 seemed to us possible that this course might lead to mutual explana- 
 tions, calculated to remove all difficulty between you. The corres- 
 pondence, afterwards printed, speaks for itself. 
 
 We may properly add, that, in the many conferences held with you, 
 from the time of our being first retained as your counsel, we do not 
 remember, or believe, that the idea of publishing any thing, otherwise 
 than by a trial, respecting the unfortunate dissensions, in which you 
 had been involved, was ever suggested, until the period of that cor- 
 respondence ; and then it appeared to arise from the belief you ex- 
 pressed, that Mr. Lowell had not dealt by you fairly and frankly ; that 
 you had been injured in consequence in the estimation of others ; 
 that he had no disposition to relieve you from that consequence, or to 
 make any explanations ; and that, in the absence of any legal remedy 
 for such a case, there was no other course left for you than that, which 
 you took. 
 
 Regretting much that your correspondence with Mr. Lowell did not 
 lead to a different result, we are, very respectfully, 
 Your obedient servants, 
 
 W. H. GARDINER, 
 SIDNEY BARTLETT. 
 
 This letter requires no comment. But the passage it 
 refers to, in Mr. Lowell's pamphlet, relative to certain pro- 
 ceedings in the Probate Court, is remarkable enough to be 
 quoted at large. It is this : — 
 
 " On the hearing before the Probate Court, after the judge had ruled 
 the points, there raised, in my favour, the learned counsel, who appear- 
 ed for the remonstrants, stated that he would withdraw all further 
 opposition in their behalf individually, and enter an appeal to the 
 Supreme Court in the name of Edward Brooks, trustee under the 
 will of Mr. Kirk Boott, of Lowell. This announcement was certainly 
 
32 
 
 an astounding one. Mr. Kirk Boott died eight years before his 
 brother, and of course could not be one of his heirs-at-law. Was this 
 a blunder ? It certainly seemed to me hardly credible that it was so, 
 after several months of preparation, with the aid of counsel, whose 
 learning and astuteness are well known. "Was it not rather a nominal 
 appeal, of which it was expected that I should take advantage to de- 
 feat them at the trial ? It might then have been said, that they had 
 been ready to meet the question before the Supreme Court, and that 
 I had evaded it on merely technical grounds. A better apology might 
 thus have been afforded for Mr. Brooks's appeal to the public. 
 
 However this may have been, I had it evidently in my power to 
 secure the establishment of Mr. Boott's will, by simply allowing them 
 to appeal, in the form they had themselves proposed. But I remem- 
 bered what Mr. Boott himself would have wished me to do under 
 such circumstances ; and, following his own precedent, I threw aside 
 the immunity thus offered to me, and informed the court, that the ap- 
 peal in that form would not lie. The appeal was then entered in the 
 name of Mrs. Mary Lyman." [L. p. 209.] 
 
 The self-complacency of this paragraph is amusing enough, 
 when it comes to be seen, by the foregoing letter and the 
 original minutes therein referred to, that Mr. Lowell is, all 
 the while, mistaken in his fact. He has mixed up occur- 
 rences that were four days apart, and had no relation to each 
 other. A remark made in reference to a proposed first ap- 
 pearance, for the purposes of that particular hearing, he 
 ascribes to the proposed entry of a final appeal, after the hear- 
 ing was over. The difference is, that, whether I were al- 
 lowed to appear, at the hearing, in one capacity or another, 
 rightly or wrongly, was totally immaterial. All I wanted 
 was a temporary standing in the Probate Court, that would 
 authorize me to move for the production of the letter ; and, if 
 no objection had been taken, then, to my appearing as trus- 
 tee, however irregular that might have been, it would have 
 answered all my purposes perfectly well. But, when it came 
 to the case of an appeal, it was fundamental that the appeal 
 should be rightly taken by a proper party. Otherwise it 
 would be a nullity. 
 
 As trustee under the will of Mr. Kirk Boott, of Lowell, I 
 could not appeal — and never proposed to — nor in fact did 
 any body appeal, or propose to appeal, as appears by the 
 foregoing letter, except Mrs. Lyman, in her own right. Yet 
 Mr. Lowell asserts otherwise in the most positive terms, and, 
 
33 
 
 by an anachronism, which transposes a certain remark from 
 the 24th to the 28th of October, and by some other species 
 of license, which affixes the remark to a different event from 
 that, to which it belonged, contrives to make a right of 
 property apparently dependant upon it, when, in truth, at 
 the time the remark was made, nothing depended upon it 
 but the question, whether, in point of form, I should call for 
 the letter in one person's name and behalf, or another's. 
 
 Having thus fabricated a basis, out of a mere error of 
 memory, he proceeds to build upon it a theory, concerning 
 my motive in claiming the supposed appeal under/aZse colours ; 
 and, what is curious enough, he not only remembers with 
 perfect distinctness, and asserts with characteristic positive- 
 ness, that I did so claim the appeal, but he remembers also 
 the high-toned feeling, which induced him, on that occasion, 
 to interpose and correct what he saw to be a mistake, fatal to 
 the interest of his opponents. " I remembered,'" says he, 
 " what Mr. Boott him,self would, have wished me to do un- 
 der such circumstances ; and following his own precedent, I 
 threw aside the im,munity thus offered me, and informed the 
 court that the appeal in that form would not lie "! This 
 was truly a magnificent generosity. How unfortunate that 
 it should turn out to have been only a dream ! 
 
 Such an instance of mis-recollection in a gentleman, who 
 is so ready to charge inaccuracy upon others, and so unac- 
 customed to admit the possibility of any mistake of his own, 
 is the more unaccountable, as the hearing in the Probate 
 Court was quite a modern transaction, in which he took an 
 active part and the strongest interest. I dwell upon it, how- 
 ever, not so much for its own importance, as for the sake of 
 the illustration it affords, that Mr. Lowell is quite as likely as 
 his neighbours to mis-remember some older facts, that did not 
 deeply concern him at the time, and perhaps more likely than 
 they to add a little imagination to his memory. What would 
 he have said of me, were we to change places in this mat- 
 ter ? One may easily imagine, by what he does say in cases 
 of error far less remarkable. If I may be allowed to try my 
 
34 
 
 hand at an imitation, I think we should have seen somethinj 
 after this fashion. 
 
 " It is a very important question, what degree of relianei 
 is to be placed upon a statement so deliberately made and s( 
 circumstantial in its details." [L. p. 95.] " It throws somf 
 light upon the accuracy of Mr. Brooks, an accuracy vital te 
 almost every issue he has raised." [L. p. 123.] " Mr. Brooks 
 is wrong, as usual, both in his facts and his law." [L. p. 72,1 
 " With his usual accuracy" [L. p. 93.] he confounds an ap. 
 pearance in a cause with the claim of an appeal — a request 
 to be heard on a call for a letter, with the demand of a statute 
 right to vacate a decree. " So much for Mr. Brooks's law, 
 Now for his facts." [L. p. 73.] He asserts positively, that 
 I announced my intention to appeal as " trustee under the 
 will of Mr. Kirk Boott of Lowell." [L. p. 209.] I never did 
 any such thing. Nobody proposed an appeal but Mrs. Lyman. 
 A remark was made about my appearing as such trustee to 
 call for a letter, and he audaciously describes it as claiming in 
 that capacity a final appeal of the cause. It was made on 
 the 24th of October, and " Mr. Brooks has the coolness" 
 [L. p. 92.] to speak of it as if it were made on the 28th. Bat 
 " this contempt for chronology is characteristic of Mr. Brooks's 
 mind." [L. p. 193.] Besides, he not only perfectly remembers 
 a fact, which never happened, but he remembers it with a cir- 
 cumstance. He calls to mind the sentiments of magnanimity, 
 which filled his own bosom, and overflowed from his lips, 
 upon the occasion of an event, which he himself has invent- 
 ed. " This requires a peculiar constitution of mind. To 
 me it would be impossible." [L. p. 12.] He goes even so far 
 as to build consequences upon his imaginary reminiscence. 
 He sees in it a motive of cunning contrivance on ray 
 part, to forge an excuse, a year or two before its time, for a 
 publication, already conceived by its author, and designed to 
 be launched at some distant day to calumniate the dead. Now 
 when such grave charges are founded upon such egregious 
 blunders, the man who makes them cannot be allowed "to 
 shelter himself behind his own ignorance." [L. p. 44.] Fee- 
 bleness of memory, and incompetency to understand legal 
 
35 
 
 proceedings, are qualities, " which may be pardonable in 
 themselves ; but a gentleman who is afflicted with them has no 
 right to convert them into weapons against his neighbours." 
 [L. p. 44.] " Such aspersions may answer a temporary 
 purpose ; fortunately they always vanish before the first ray 
 of truth ; — 
 
 ' No falsehood can endui-e 
 Touch of celestial temper, hnt returns 
 Of force to its own likeness.' " [L. p. 143.] 
 
 This, or something near it, is what Mr. Lowell would have 
 been likely to say of me, under similar circumstances. It is 
 a specimen of his mode of dealing with such matters, scarcely 
 over-coloured, for it is nearly all his own language. 
 
 Now I shall not follow the example he sets, by imputing 
 to him habitual and universal inaccuracy, in consequence of 
 this, and of other more invportant mistakes, which will be 
 pointed out in the course of these remarks. On the con- 
 trary, I readily concede to him general habits of exactness 
 in business, clear perceptions, and a good memory, but not 
 papal infallibility. 
 
 Neither shall I follow him in assuming a tone, which 
 might seem to arrogate to myself some unusual perfection of 
 human faculties. But, I trust I shall make it appear, that, 
 in matters of business, I generally know what I am about, 
 and remember the substance, at least, of what is important 
 to be remembered. When a mistake is pointed out to me, 
 if it really be a mistake, — for many, charged by Mr. Lowell, 
 are his mistakes and not mine, — ^I shall not only frankly admit 
 it, but do what I can to repair it ; and then ask the reader 
 to consider, after all proper corrections are made, how far the 
 substantial merits of the case are afiected. 
 
 Perhaps, in this connexion, and before proceeding to the 
 main topics of discussion, I may as well notice some of the 
 most striking of the errors, or supposed errors, of my former 
 pamphlet, which Mr. Lowell holds up with such an air of 
 triumph to his readers, in proof that my statements, gene- 
 rally, cannot be relied on. I do not understand that he 
 intends, any where, to impeach my veroMty, Indeed, it is 
 
36 
 
 remarkable, that he does not undertake, except, I believe, in 
 one single instance, and in that he will presently find him- 
 self much in the wrong, — to contradict my report of any 
 of his own conversations with me, or remarks made in my 
 presence, though many are referred to ; — a tacit admission 
 one would think, that my memory cannot be, habitually, 
 quite so inaccurate in such matters, as he would have it 
 believed. He, nevertheless, makes this sweeping charge 
 of gross habitual inaccuracy and defective memory, [L, 
 p. 109, et passim.] ; and couples it with the allegation that 
 nearly all the important facts, stated in my pamphlet, rest 
 upon my own memory without further proof, [L. p. 81.] ; 
 and, consequently, that none of its statements can be trusted. 
 We shall see, as we proceed, how much, or how little, that 
 is essential to the merits of this controversy, does really 
 depend on my unassisted memory ; and how far that is 
 successfully impeached. But this is matter for another 
 chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MY LETTEE TO MR. WELLS. 
 
 The most remarkable instance of plain mistake, vhicb 
 has been pointed out, is in what I supposed, at the time 
 of preparing my pamphlet, to be the exact language of pMt 
 of a letter to Mr. Wells, which I intended to extract. I took 
 it from a supposed copy in my own possession. Mr. Lowell, 
 having obtained the original from Mr. Wells, has printed 
 the whole letter, and I believe correctly. He has also 
 printed, in parallel columns, to make the dissimilarity as 
 conspicuous as possible, 1. The extract, which I had made, 
 consisting oifour sentences, as they stand in my copy, with 
 the common concluding words of a letter, "very truly 
 
37 
 
 yours, &c." — 2. The same sentences, as he says they stand in 
 the original, adding two other sentences before the conclud- 
 ing words, "yours, <fcc.," and adding, a/?er that, a postscript. 
 Hence, the one citation is about twice the length of the 
 other ; and since I had spoken of my extract • as the conclud- 
 ing part of a letter, and had added the words, "very truly 
 yours, <S6c." the difference certainly seems, at the first look, 
 quite unaccountable. 
 
 The sight of it, on Mr. Lowell's page, immediately brought 
 to mind a circumstance, not adverted to, at the time of my 
 making the quotation, as affecting the four sentences in 
 question. 
 
 The variance happened in this way. The letter itself 
 was very hastily written ; — its style shows that ; — ^and it was 
 immediately sent, without the precaution of taking a copy. 
 More than a year afterwards, it came to be alluded to in a 
 correspondence, which had arisen between Mr. Wells and 
 Mr. Wniiam Boott, in the months of November and Decem- 
 ber, 1843; and, in consequence of some remark about it, 
 Mr. Wells sent the letter to Mr. William Boott, for his inspec- 
 tion. Mr. Boott, afterwards, mentioned the circumstance to 
 me, in consequence of the question, which had arisen between 
 him and Mr. Wells. My attention being thus drawn to it, 
 I requested him to let me have the letter for a short time, 
 intending to make a copy. Mr. Boott, accordingly handed 
 it to me. I had proceeded in the making of a copy through 
 nearly the whole letter, (which is a pretty long one,) and as 
 far as the end of the Jirst of the four sentences now in ques- 
 tion, when, being interrupted, I put the copy into my desk, 
 and the original into my pocket. Soon after, Mr. Boott 
 called at my office, and informed me that Mr. Wells had 
 asked for a retmn of the letter. Not wishing to detain it 
 a moment under such circumstances, nor reflecting that 
 it would leave me with a copy not quite complete, I im- 
 mediately gave it up to Mr. Boott. A day or two after- 
 wards, on taking the copy from my desk, and seeing where 
 I had left off, I added, from memory, the three next sen- 
 tences, being all that referred to nwney matters, and of 
 
38 
 
 which I thought I could recall the language, as well as the 
 ideas. Of the residue, which I thought lay entirely in the 
 postscript, I merely made a memorandum, without undertak- 
 ing to set down the words. 
 
 This is the explanation of the way, in which the discre- 
 pance arose ; and, in looking at my copy, four years after- 
 wards, when I was preparing my pamphlet, it did not occur 
 to me that there was any part of it, which had not been 
 literally copied, except the part referred to in the memoran- 
 dum of the postscript at its foot. I therefore took the four 
 sentences, which I wished to use, not doubting that they 
 conformed, precisely, to the original. 
 
 Now on looking at the whole letter, and adverting to the 
 occasion, upon which I referred to it, it will be seen, that the 
 only subject of fair comparison lies in the four sentences, 
 which 1 intended to extract. They are the only parts of the 
 letter, which have any reference to my pecuniary dealings 
 with Mr. Wells ; and it was solely upon that subject that I 
 referred to the letter at all, in a note, the object of which 
 was to show, that I had not intended to act oppressively to- 
 wards Mr. Wells, as had been represented, concerning a cer- 
 tain mortgage. [B. p. 137.] In respect to my breach of in- 
 tercourse with Mr. Wells, and its causes, I purposely alluded 
 to them only in the most general terms, and said, expressly, 
 that, " whether I was right or wrong, in taking the notice of 
 this, which I did, is a point, which I am not anxious to clear 
 up, it being a matter of feeling, depending on circumstances 
 requiring a long explanation, and which, perhaps, others, af- 
 ter all, might not appreciate ; but I should be sorry to be 
 thought, by my friends, guilty of the meanness and injustice 
 of using my power as a creditor to do an essential injury to 
 an old friend, because a difference had arisen between us. It 
 is on this point only, that I wish to correct misrepresenta- 
 tion." [B. p. 138.] Accordingly, after stating the other facts 
 in relation to it, I said, " I concluded a letter, written in no 
 unfriendly spirit towards Mr. Wells, (though I spoke of Mr. 
 Wright Boott in it, under the provocation of the moment, in 
 harsher terms than I should now deliberately approve,) in the 
 
39 
 
 following ■words," [B. p. 138.] setting out the quotation in 
 question, which I thought to be the actual conclusion (as ac- 
 cording to my copy it is,) of the letter, without its postscript, 
 which I did not intend to quote, or allude to. 
 
 The whole letter, postscript and all, except the four sen- 
 tences concerning pecuniary relations, it will be seen, referred 
 to matters of private history, which had no connexion what- 
 ever with the point specified, and matters, which, from 
 motives of kindness to Mr. Wells and his family, as well 
 as motives of respect to the memory of the deceased, I 
 particularly wished to avoid detailing and explaining to 
 third persons. This is now made impossible by the act of 
 Mr. Lowell. He has chosen to print the whole letter. I shall 
 have occasion, therefore, by-and-by, to return to the sub- 
 ject of my correspondence with Mr. Wells, which has now 
 become, through Mr. Lowell's instrumentality, the property 
 of the public ; and the reader will then find this letter re- 
 printed by me with the explanations, which belong to it, and 
 which, unless I am much mistaken, will give him an idea of 
 its merits, very diiFerent from that, which may have been 
 derived from Mr. Lowell. At present, I wish to confine 
 myself to the discrepances between my quotation and the 
 original, with a view of seeing what they amount to, as 
 evidence to support Mr. Lowell's charge of a general habit 
 of inaccuracy and defective memory. 
 
 In the first place, I repeat, that the only fair subject of 
 comparison is the part, which I intended to quote. In the 
 next, I remark, that the variations, there, from the original, 
 are, under the circumstances above stated, no great proof of 
 general incorrectness. My copy, made at the time and in 
 the manner above-mentioned, corresponds, precisely, with the 
 original, as printed by Mr. Lowell, through ujfwards of a 
 page and a half of that print, and down to the end of the 
 sentence, beginning " There are some matters of business be- 
 tween us," &c. ; — which sentence my quotation began with. 
 The remaining three sentences of the quotation are those not 
 copied at all, but which I wrote down from memory, in De- 
 cember, 1843, and quoted /owr years afterwards, without ad- 
 
40 
 
 verting to that circumstance, on the supposition that they 
 were an exact copy. 
 
 That the reader may see, precisely, what the departures 
 from the original are, in these four sentences, and that they 
 do not essentially vary the ideas, I now set them side by 
 side, in Mr. Lowell's fashion ; and that the reader may, also, 
 see with what fairness Mr. Lowell makes comparisons, I have 
 added, as he does, in one of the columns, all of the letter 
 that follows : — 
 
 FKOM MT COPT. 
 
 1. There are some matters of 
 business between us, which, as we 
 cannot conduct them in the pleas- 
 ant manner we have done, I wish 
 to have closed. 
 
 2 . The mortgage on your estate, 
 I presume, you will find no diffi- 
 culty in transferring ; as it is worth 
 much more than its cost. 
 
 3. 1 should like to have it settled 
 within ten days, or a fortnight, if 
 convenient to you. 
 
 4. The other money matters be- 
 tween us are of no consequence. 
 Very truly yours &c. 
 
 Edward Bkooks. 
 
 FROM THE ORIGINAL, 
 AS PRINTED BY MR. LOWELL. 
 
 1. There are some matters of 
 business between us, which, as we 
 cannot conduct them in the pleas- 
 ant manner we have done, I wish 
 to have closed. 
 
 2. The mortgage I hold on your 
 estate you can, no doubt, easily 
 transfer to some one else, as the 
 estate is worth a good deal more. 
 
 3. Pray do so, and if possible, 
 within a fortnight. 
 
 4. Our other concerns are not 
 important. 
 
 5. You will some day see this 
 business in its true light, though I 
 have no hope that you will do so 
 now. I suppose it is intended for 
 some good purpose, that one, and 
 he, let us hope, not in his right 
 mind, should poison the peace of 
 so many. 
 
 Yours &c. 
 
 Edward Bkooks. 
 
 P. S. You must see that while 
 you, the eldest member of the fam- 
 ily, countenance this man, by al- 
 lowing him to go without remon- 
 strance, it is virtually taking his 
 part. 
 
 Mr. Lowell remarks " that the words not only quoted, but 
 emphasised, by Mr. Brooks — ^^ if convenient to you" — are not 
 in the original letter, and would have materially modified the 
 
41 
 
 peremptoriness of the requisition." [L. p. 124.] He does not 
 pretend that the other variations materially affect the sense. 
 Now I beg to ask, what there is so particularly peremptory in 
 these words of supplication ? " Pray do so, and, if possible, 
 within a fortnight^ Do they really mean, or would they con- 
 Yey to Mr. Wells, any thing more than the words, "I should 
 like to have it settled within ten days, or a fortnight, if con- 
 venient to you ?" They certainly did not to my own mind ; 
 for the latter phraseology was, of course, intended, in a copy 
 for my own use, to be identical with the former. That Mr. 
 Wells did not think the words, actually used, so very peremp- 
 tory, as Mr. Lowell thinks they are, is evident from the 
 manner, in which he spoke of my request, in his letters to 
 Dr. Boott, for which I refer to the note on this subject in my 
 former pamphlet. [B. p. 137.] I may refer, also, to the letter 
 from Dr. Boott, which contains the extracts from these 
 letters of Mr. Wells. It will be found printed in the course 
 of my present remarks. But Mr. Lowell, of comse, knows 
 better than Mr. Wells. At any rate, it is clear enough, 
 from the explanation now given, that the vaiiations from 
 the original, in the four sentences quoted, were purely acci- 
 dental, and not made for the purpose of mending my case. 
 Indeed Mr. Lowell does not intimate otherwise. But his 
 farther remark is, that "it is all-important that his [Mr. 
 Brooks's] accuracy should be tested, wherever he has afforded 
 us an opportunity of doing so. A more correct opinion can 
 thus be formed of the reliance to be placed on such of his remi- 
 niscences, as cannot be subjected to the same ordeal." [L. p. 
 125.] 
 
 Now, considering that this letter had been written more 
 than fourteen months before I began to make a copy of it ; 
 that I had not even seen it in the interval ; and that, after 
 copying to a certain point, the letter itself was given up, — the 
 residue having been only hastily glanced over, — and that I 
 undertook, a day or two after, to set down this part of it from 
 mere recollection, my ability to recall its ideas so exactly, 
 and its language so nearly, I think I may claim as proof of a 
 tolerably good memory, instead of one so " signally treacher- 
 
42 
 
 ous," [L. p. 95.] as Mr. Lowell -would have his readers ie- 
 lieve. At any rate, I was not so much out of the way as 
 Mr. Lowell is, in his " reminiscences" of the proceedings in 
 the Probate Court, where he turns the whole idea topsy- 
 turvy, by remembering a particular expression, and imagining 
 it was used for an occasion, which .never happened, but 
 which he, nevertheless, thinks he remembers, with a number 
 of circumstances altogether visionary. 
 
 I admit that Mr. Lowell has, in this instance, caught me 
 in a mistake, which may go for what it is worth. But as 
 to his printing, as a part of the comparison, all .that following 
 part of the letter, which. begins " You will some day see this 
 business in its true light," i&c.,thatis only !ano.thei,specimen 
 of Mr. Lowell's fairness in argument. It, obviously, has 
 nothing to do with the money concerns, which I was speak- 
 ing of, nor with those .parts of the letter respecting money 
 matters, which were all I intended to quote.; hut relat6B,,iej- 
 clusively, to the subjects treated of in a former part of rthe 
 letter, which I intended not to lay before the reader, for 
 reasons that will soon be ;made obvious. This every body, 
 who takes the pains to read the whole letter, will see. 
 
 It would have been as impertinent for, me to have quoted, 
 in that connexion, those subsequent sentences,, which Mr. 
 Lowell prints, as to have quoted the whole letter ; and it is 
 equally impertinent in Mr. Lowell to print them, as proof of 
 my inaccuracy in quotation, or want of memory. My mis- 
 take was, at most, a mistake ; in itself, of very little imjuA- 
 tance, and purely accidental. Mr. Lowell's, unluckily.; can- 
 not be set down either as unimportant or as an acxidenl. 
 He makes an appeal to the eye, by his parallel colmnns, 
 w'hich operates as a fraud on the understanding. 
 
43 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE LYMAN & RALSTON SETTLEMENT. 
 
 Another error, which I admit, and which Mr. Lowell makes 
 a great handle of, lies in my account of a settlement between 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott and his partners, Messrs. Lyman & Ral- 
 ston, to which their wives and some of their creditors were 
 parties. 
 
 The arrangements, growing out of the embarrassments of 
 that partnership, were somewhat complicated in their details, 
 and extended through a considerable period, in the years 1830 
 and 1831. In fact, different arrangements were made, at 
 different times, within those years, up to the final settlement. 
 One of them resulted in the negotiation of a mortgage of the 
 Mill Dam Foundry to friendly creditors in Philadelphia, for 
 the sum of $30,000. By another, the reversionary interests 
 of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston, in their father's estate, 
 were assigned to their brother, Mr. J. Wright Boott. The ob- 
 ject and the effect of all the arrangements was to prevent a 
 public failure, and to relieve Mr. Boott from pending endorse- 
 ments for Lyman &> Ralston, to the amount of $30,000, and 
 other existing, or apprehended, liabilities. 
 
 Both Mr. Lowell and myself, as friends of all parties, were 
 consulted in this business, and took an active part in effect- 
 ing Mr. Boott's extrication. Some of the details fell more 
 particularly under my superintendence ; in others, Mr. Low- 
 ell was the more immediate and active agent. At the time 
 of my writing respecting them, sixteen or seventeen years 
 had elapsed, and I had nothing but my memory and a few 
 letters from Mr. Kirk Boott, on the subject of his brother's 
 embarrassments, to rely upon. It is not very surprising, 
 therefore, that I should have fallen into some errors, concern- 
 ing the details of so complex a matter, or should have viewed, 
 as cotemporaneous, transactions, that were, in truth, separated 
 
u 
 
 by a short interval. Neither is it very surprising that Mr. Lowell 
 should be able to correct me, in these particulars, since he in- 
 forms us, " the settlement with Messrs. Lyman «fc Ralston was 
 made by myself [Lowell] in behalf of Mr. Wright Boott, and 
 all the original papers are still in my possession."[h. ^.W] 
 
 It may be well, however, to see what the errors amount 
 to, how much bearing they have on the main question, 
 and how Mr. Lowell treats them. 
 
 My account of the matter was as follows : — 
 
 " It was found that $30,000 might be raised upon a mortgage of 
 the foundry, as a friendly, rather than a business, arrangement. But 
 Mr. Wright Boott, and we as his friends, insisted, that if he should 
 execute a mortgage of the Mill Dam Foundry, to raise funds to take 
 up the note of Lyman & Ealston, it would be unjust ; since it would 
 leave the balance due by Mr. Wright Boott, as guardian, unprovided 
 for ; and this we were very anxious should be paid in full. I refer 
 to the letters of Mr. Kirk Boott, in the appendix, for an explanation 
 of our views on this point. 
 
 " It was finally arranged, that this mortgage should be made of the 
 Mill Dam property, to raise the $30,000, and take up the note of 
 Lyman & Ralston for that amount, on condition that Lyman & 
 Ralston, and their wives, both of them sisters of Mr. Wright Boott, 
 should assign to Mm all their reversionary interest in their father's 
 estate. Their present property, so far as received, had already 
 gone ; and whatever was due to them, being due to their husbands, 
 was merged in the partnership business. This arrangement was 
 accordingly effected, in September, 1831, Mr. J. A. Lowell being 
 one of the persons, who called on those ladies, for the purpose of pro- 
 curing their signatures to the necessary papers." [B, p. 41.] 
 
 And I added — 
 
 " A release, so obtained, from his endorsement of Lyman & Kals- 
 ton's note for $30,000, was the only advantage ever realized by 
 Mr. Wright Boott from the $70,000 invested by him in the Mill Dam 
 speculation. The mortgagee, who was one of Mr. Ealston's familyi 
 afterwards took possession, and foreclosed the mortgage." [B. p. 41.] 
 
 On this subject, Mr. Lowell, — ^who had remarked, shortly 
 before, that "if Mr. Brooks had stated nothing, except so 
 far as he was really informed, he would have omitted a 
 large portion of his book," [L. p. 107.] — ^begins by remark- 
 ing, that "the settlement effected with Messrs. Lyman & 
 Ralston, in Sept. 1831, affords a good opportunity of testing 
 the accuracy of Mr. Brooks's memory;" [L. p. 107.] and, 
 referring to parts of the statement above cited, he proceeds as 
 follows : — 
 
45 
 
 " Not one of these statements has a shadow of truth. Mr. Wright 
 Boott received by that settlement, besides the reversions of his two 
 sisters, which will be worth at his mother's death $32,000, a payment 
 in cash, or its equivalent, of $7,624, making in all nearly $40,000. 
 
 " The mortgage in question was not created as part of that settle- 
 ment ; on the other hand, it was expressly stipulated in the agree- 
 ment, that it should be taken up, as a preliminary step to all further 
 proceedings. It was accordingly discharged in October, 1831, and, 
 of course, it was never foreclosed. 
 
 " Subsequent events have made Mr. Brooks familiar with the fact, 
 that Mr. Boott's sisters assigned to him their reversionary interests ; 
 but he asserts [p. 41.] that this was a condition insisted on by Mr. 
 Boott, before he would join in the mortgage of the Mill Dam Foun- 
 dery ; whereas that mortgage was made the year before, and the 
 money went to the relief of those ladies' husbands." [L. p. 108.] 
 
 I had also stated that the "business of the Mill Dam 
 Foundry, so far as Mr. Wright Boott's concern in it ex- 
 tended, was gradually wound up, leaving the residuum subject 
 to the mortgage above mentioned, in which it was finally ab- 
 sorbed;" [B. p. 46.] and had expressed, in a different part of 
 my pamphlet, an opinion, as follows : " I presume, before the 
 business was finally wound up, his loss there, including 
 interest, was not much short of $100,000." [B. p. 115.] 
 Upon these passages Mr. Lowell comments in the following 
 language : — 
 
 " I do not doubt, that such is Mr. Brooks's judgement ; and his 
 presumption is undeniable. But he is evidently ignorant, that, by the 
 settlement of 1831, Mr. Boott parted with his whole right, title, and 
 interest in the Mill Dam Foundery, and had no more to do with its 
 winding up, or the subsequent gain or loss, than Mr. Brooks or I had. 
 
 " In short, Mr. Brooks has not stated one single condition of that 
 settlement aright. 
 
 " By this time, I think, it must be pretty evident that Mr. Brooks 
 has undertaken to enlighten the public about transactions, of which 
 he never knew any thing, or which he has completely forgotten." [L. 
 p. 109.] 
 
 Now the only point of the original argument, on which 
 
 all this discussion about the terms of the settlement bears, 
 
 is this: — to determine what amount of property, whether of 
 
 his own, or of his father's estate, Mr. J. Wright Boott had 
 
 invested and lost, for all present available purposes, in that 
 
 concern. In August, 1830, he admitted his investment there 
 
 to be $70,000, [B. p. 37.] which I understood to be the amount 
 
 of the moneys actually paid in, without taking an account of 
 
46 
 
 interest, on the one side, or of profits and losses, if any, on the 
 other. The concern had been, at that time, about four years 
 in operation, and it was continued, with Mr. J. Wright Boott a 
 partner, more than a year longer, under the embarrassments 
 of a heavy debt, " doubtful credit," as Mr. Kirk Boott states, 
 [B. App. p. 19.] and a bad business. I see no cause, there- 
 fore, from any thing Mr. Lowell has disclosed, to alter my 
 opinion, that, " before the business was finally wound up," and 
 " so far as Mr. Wright Boott's concern in it extended," and 
 for all presently available purposes, his immediate loss there, 
 including interest, was not much short of f 100,000. I say 
 "immediate loss," and "presently available purposes," 
 with reference to the main question, which I had under 
 discussion, namely, whether Mr. Boott had kept good his 
 trust funds. Reversionary rights in the fund itself weie not 
 means of keeping the fund whole, nor to be counted as 
 property for that purpose, and they carried no income 
 to oifset against accruing interest. At any rate, what I 
 stated, on that subject, (the amount of loss,) was stated as 
 opinion merely. I am not answerable for it as a statement 
 of fact ; and Mr. Lowell is at liberty to think my opinion 
 presumption, or not, as he pleases. 
 
 What then is the substantial difference of fact, in our 
 respective statements, as to the terms of the settlementj so 
 far as they afi"ected Mr. Boott's pecuniary position in respect 
 to the trust fund ? It consists in a sum of $7,624, and no 
 more, which Mr. Lowell says was paid to Mr. Boott in cash, 
 or its equivalent, as part of that settlement. He furnishes 
 no proof of it, beyond his own statement, although he says 
 he has all the papers in his possession. But I take it, for 
 my present purpose, to be so, and aver, that this is the only 
 material fact, in the terms of the settlement, as disclosed by 
 him, which I either " never knew " or had " completely 
 forgotten," and therefore omitted to state. It is the only 
 new fact, or variation from my statement, which affects the 
 argument in the smallest degree ; and I shall by-and-by 
 restate the accounts with that correction. The reversions 
 of the sisters, subject to their mother's life estate, what- 
 
47 
 
 ever they may have been worth at the time of the settle- 
 ment, I had myself stated were assigned to Mr. Boott as 
 part of the final arrangement, though Mr. Lowell, instead 
 of giving me credit for it, would cause it to be understood, 
 by his account of the matter, that I had omitted that also. 
 
 All the other matters of detail, which Mr. Lowell says are 
 erroneously stated by me, are of no consequence, if they are 
 erroneously stated, except for the purpose of " testing the 
 accuracy of Mr. Brooks's memory." Now I very readily 
 admit, that, on looking back, through a vista of nearly seven- 
 teen years, upon transactions, in which I was only an adviser 
 £md agent for others, with no direct personal interest, and with 
 no opportunity to refresh my memory, as Mr. Lowell does 
 his, by examining original papers, — although I did remember 
 " pretty well " the fact of the settlement, and its substan- 
 tial result, and remembered, perfectly well, all that was 
 essential to the main question under discussion, — ^my re- 
 collections of some immaterial details, for which I did not 
 undertake to tax my memory very severely, were so far indis- 
 tinct, that an arrangement, which terminated in the making of 
 a certain mortgage, became blended, in my own mind, with 
 the subsequent and final settlement, a few months later. I 
 was wrong, therefore, in stating that " It was finally ar- 
 ranged that this mortgage should be made of the Mill Dam 
 property, to raise the $30,000, and to take up the note of 
 Lyman & Ralston for that amount, on condition that Lyman 
 & Ralston and their wives, both of them sisters of Mr. 
 Wright Boott, should assign to him all their reversionary 
 interest in their father's estate." But, though wrong in 
 making the mortgage and the assignment cotemporaneous, 
 I was not wrong in the main fact, that this assignment of 
 the reversionary interests was one condition and principal 
 element of the settlement, as finally arranged. And if Mr. 
 Lowell is right in his recollections, I was not very much out, 
 in connecting this assignment of reversionary interests with 
 the negotiation about the mortgage; since he states, in 
 another place, that when Mr. Booit first called on Lyman & 
 Ralston to give him security for his endorsements, " they 
 
48 
 
 replied, that he had already security in his own hands in 
 the reversionary shares of their wives in the trust funds, 
 which they were ready legally to assign to him for this pur- 
 pose. This would not answer, and a long negotiation ensued,^ 
 which ended in Mr. Boott's joining in a mortgage of the 
 Foundery property to the amount of $30,000, for their ben- 
 efit." [L. p. 77.] So that my unassisted memory, if some- 
 what inexact, was not " signally treacherous," even there; 
 since such an assignment, it seems, was part of the same 
 negotiation, which ended in Mr. Boott's joining in the mort- 
 gage, though the actual execution of that assignment did 
 not in fact occur till the final settlement of their accounts, 
 several months afterwards. As to the suggestion, "that 
 subsequent events," only, " have made Mr. Brooks familiar 
 with the fact that Mr. Boott's sisters assigned to him their 
 reversionary interests," I refer Mr. Lowell to the deed of 
 assignment ; by which he will see, that I was a witness to 
 the signature of all the parties, and took their acknowledge- 
 ment, [B. app. p. 23.] he himself being a witness only to that 
 of Mrs. Lyman. Mr. Lowell, however, now claims, charac- 
 teristically enough, the whole merit of having negotiated that 
 settlement ; and, for myself, — ^being rather ashamed of that 
 feature in it, by which the property of the wives was taken 
 to pay the debts of their husbands, — I am quite content that 
 he should have it. 
 
 I was also wrong in stating, that " the mortgagee, who 
 was one of the Ralston family, afterwards took posses- 
 sion and foreclosed the mortgage." But Mr. Lowell is 
 hardly right, when he denies this, in stating, as he does, 
 that the terms of the negotiation, as finally settled through 
 him, were, that "the whole property in the Mill Dam 
 Foundery was to be sold to a. joint stock company," [L. p. 79.] 
 without stating who that company were, and what became 
 of the property ; because the denial and the assertion, taken 
 together, without further explanation, convey a false impres- 
 sion. The truth is, that I was wrong as to the form, in 
 which the thing was done, but right as to its substantial 
 effect. It is true, as Mr. Lowell states, that the mortgage, 
 
49 
 
 made late in 1830, was discharged at the time of the final 
 settlement in 1831, instead of being held and foreclosed ; 
 and it is true that the property was sold to a joint stock 
 company. But that, which he has omitted to state, is, that this 
 joint stock company consisted, entirely, of the Messrs. Ralston 
 themselves and Mr. Lyman, — the latter having little more 
 than a nominal interest, in consequence of his indebtedness 
 to his partner, Mr. Ralston ; — that stock in the company 
 was issued, or assigned, in lieu of the discharged mortgage, as 
 a substituted security ; — that the concern struggled along, in 
 this new form, several years longer, with some other nominal 
 stockholders, brought in as agents to conduct the business, or 
 to keep up the corporate organization ; — that the business 
 never prospered, and was finally wound up with a great 
 loss to Mr. Ralston ; (that fact, indeed, Mr. Lowell does 
 state in another connexion, page 202 ;) — and that the whole 
 property passed, in consideration of their advances, into 
 the hands of the Ralston family, by whom it was long 
 held in this market for sale, and was recently sold for 
 thirty thousand dollars, — exactly the amount of the original 
 mortgage, without interest. 
 
 This I hold to be pretty much the same thing, in efiect, 
 as an entry and foreclosure under the Ralston mortgage. 
 For, the fact, of the supposed foreclosure, was stated, only to 
 show how little the property turned out to be intrinsically 
 worth : and that Mr. J. Wright Boott never got any thing out 
 of it, except what he got by the settlement, — which Mr. 
 Lowell admits. The property passed entirely out of his 
 hands ; and that was all that was material to my statement. 
 
 Most of the facts, now above stated, are very notorious ; 
 and, for the rest, I refer to the records of the corporation, and 
 to the following note from its present clerk and treasurer : — 
 
 Iv'OTE FEOM Mr. SAMUEL NICOLSOX. 
 
 Deak Sir, — The property of the corporation, called "the Propri- 
 etors of the Mill Dam Foundery," of -vrhich I am the present Clerk 
 and Treasurer, was lately sold by the Messrs. Ealston, of Philadel- 
 phia, for thirty thousand dollars. 
 
 The conveyance was made by a transfer of shares in the corporate 
 
50 
 
 stock, in all one hundred and forty shares, of which one hundred 
 and thirty-six came from the Messrs. Ralston and the executors of 
 the late Mr. Ralston, and the remaining four shares from Messrs, 
 Curtis & Leavens, who were the officers of the corporation, and held 
 
 them in that capacity. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Samuel Nicolson. 
 May 12, 1848. 
 
 This, I believe, is the sum of my errors on this head ; 
 and it is only another specimen of Mr. Lowell's fairness 
 of statement, to charge me with saying, " over and over 
 again, that Mr. Boott's investment there was sunk," and 
 that " a release from his endorsements of $30,000, was the 
 only advantage ever realized by Mr. Wright Boott from the 
 $70,000 invested by him in the Mill Dam speculation,"— 
 [L. p. 108.] without showing the connexion, in which these 
 expressions were used. 
 
 I had just stated the fact of the assignment of the re- 
 versionary interests, as part of the final arrangement, when 
 I said, in that immediate connexion, that " a release 
 so obtained from his endorsement of Lyman & Ralston's 
 note for $30,000, was the only advantage ever realized," 
 &c. These material words, "so obtained," — that is, ob- 
 tained by a settlement, just above described, in which 
 description the assignment of the reversions was distinctly 
 included, — are wholly omitted by Mr. Lowell, in his quota- 
 tion of my language, and nothing is put in to supply the 
 effect of their omission. Instead of informing the reader, 
 that the words, he quotes, were expressly qualified by a refer- 
 ence to that fact, he informs him of exactly the reverse, by 
 quoting the words without the qualification, declaring that 
 there is not " a shadow of truth " in these words, [L. p. 108.] 
 and immediately adding, that Mr. Boott received these rever- 
 sions by the settlement, as if I had said nothing about them. 
 And although it is true, that, after having once described the 
 settlement with that material feature, and after having qual- 
 ified my first statement of Mr. Boott's loss by express refer- 
 ence to it, I did not always repeat the qualification, when, in 
 
51 
 
 other parts of the pamphlet, I spoke, in general terms, of the 
 loss as total, yet, the whole discussion of the question, whether 
 his investment was sunk or not, was in reference to the 
 existing integrity of the trust fund, and not in reference to 
 the amount of Mr. Boott's reversionary interest in it, which 
 would add nothing to the fund, was totally immaterial to 
 the main question, and from which he never, in fact, 
 realized any thing to the day of his death. 
 
 Yet, Mr. Lowell refers to these general expressions of 
 mine, — divested of that context, — declares them to be false, 
 and states, in proof of their falsehood, — as if it were a new 
 fact coming from him, — not only the payment of the f 7624, 
 (which I admit was overlooked by me, if I ever knew it,) 
 but also the very same fact, concerning the reversions, which 
 I had myself stated, without giving me credit for it in any 
 form. Is that fair argument ? It is, at least, one specimen 
 of Mr. Lowell's book. 
 
 To return then to the relative degree of reliance to be 
 placed on our respective statements, when dependant on 
 mere memory, — the instances, thus shown up, of my for- 
 getfulness of certain immaterial details in this settlement, are 
 not found to be opposed by any superior accuracy of recollec- 
 tion in Mr. Lowell, writing, as he does, with the original 
 papers before him. With such aids to memory as these, who 
 can doubt, that I should now recall much that has .escaped 
 me ? I am inclined to believe, that I should recollect some 
 things, which Mr. Lowell, with the light of the papers before 
 him, has not thought proper to tell. At any rate, I think I 
 perceive one erroneous statement of his, concerning this 
 settlement, infinitely more important, to the principal in- 
 quiry, than all mine put together. This I shall again advert 
 to in its proper place. 
 
52 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MY SUPPOSED MISTAKE ABOUT COMPOUND INTEREST. A SERIES 
 OF STKANGE MISTAKES BY MR. LOWELL. 
 
 Another case, relied upon to impeach my accuracy, and 
 made to appear somewhat striking, lies in the following 
 statement, illustrating certain peculiarities of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott's business character, his fitness for a trustee, and his 
 management as executor. It relates to the settlement of 
 certain of his accounts, as guardian to persons out of the 
 immediate family. 
 
 " Mr. Lowell and myself assisted him in the adjustment of 
 accounts. How much he required such assistance, and the peculiarity 
 of his ideas in such matters, are illustrated by the fact, that he, for a 
 long time, insisted upon making them up with interest compound- 
 ed, at frequent intervals, although he charged nothing for his services. 
 The compound interest would have made a diiference of about 
 910,0(10 in the amount to be paid. And he could hardly be persuaded 
 not to account on that false principle, although it was apparent that 
 the money, he would so appropriate, helonged to Ms father's estate, and 
 not to him. Left to himself, he would have taken the properly of 
 his brothers and sisters, for the purpose of giving it to his wards, un- 
 der the idea that it was no more than duty required. We succeeded, 
 however,^n rectifying his accounts, in that and some other particulars, 
 and nothing being charged for the services of nearly twenty years, the 
 heirs of Mr. Francis Boott, who knew nothing of the hazard, to which 
 their property had been put, were extremely well satisfied with the 
 settlement." [B. p. 49.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell's comment is in the following language : — 
 
 " To show what Mr. Brooks's reminiscences are worth after such a 
 lapse of time, I will adduce a single instance. He says (p. 49,) that 
 in February, 183.5, Mr. Boott settled his accounts as guardian; that 
 he for a long time insisted upon maliing up the accounts with interest 
 compounded at frequent intervals, and that the compound interest so 
 to have been allowed ' would have made a difference of $10,000 in the 
 amount to be paid.' 
 
 " Now I happen to have, among the papers received in my capacity 
 as executor to Mr. Boott, an original letter, which I wrote to him on 
 this very subject. It is as follows : 
 
53 
 
 "Boston, October 21, 1834. 
 
 "Joiix W. BooTT, Esq. 
 "My Deak Siu, 
 
 " The mode of computing interest, whicli you have adopted, is one 
 Ttry unreasonably favorable to the minors. If you do not think 
 proper to charge any commission for your services of nearly twenty 
 years, which, considering the present relative situation of the parties, 
 so different from what it was at the opening of the account, and differ- 
 ent owing to your good judgment and exertions in their behalf, is an 
 excess of liberality on your part, — if, notwithstanding all these con- 
 siderations, you persist in not charging them any thing for your ser- 
 vices, you surely have done enough, without allowing them an exor- 
 bitant rate of interest for the sums, which have lain in your hands. 
 I roughly went over one of the accounts, the other day, on the prin- 
 ciple of allowing no interest on income until it became funded by 
 being added to the principal on the following first of January, and 
 found that this would make a difference of about S800, or, on the 
 three accounts, of S2500. 
 
 " I should like to see you upon this subject whenever you are at 
 leisure. 
 
 Tours truly, 
 
 J. A. LOWELL." 
 
 " Here then it appears that the difference in the modes of computing 
 interest would have been S2500, instead of SI 0,000, to which it has 
 grown when refracted through the prism of Mr. Brooks's memory ! If 
 all his statements of sums are to be divided by four, it will make a 
 material difference in the result. Yet nearly the whole of this book, 
 so far as money matters are concerned, rests on Mr. Brooks's memory." 
 [L. p. 81.] 
 
 My first remark upon this is, that Mr. Lowell seizes upon 
 the most insignificant part of the whole statement, namely, 
 the amount of the difference between simple and compound 
 interest, as if it were the essence of the thiag. With refer- 
 ence to the purpose, for which the statement was made, in 
 illustration of Mr. Boott's peculiarities, it is of no manner of 
 importance whether the sum were $10,000, or more, or less, 
 provided it were a sum worthy of consideration. If it were 
 $5000, or even $2500, as Mr. Lowell would have it, it VTOuld 
 have answered the purpose of the illustration equally well ; 
 and, in that case, I should only have to regret the appearance, 
 on my part, of that spirit of exaggeration, for the sake of 
 striking statements, which characterizes Mr. Lowell's " Reply," 
 and which, I trust, I am not generally chargeable with. I 
 certainly did not mtend so to write, and am not conscious of 
 it, in a single instance. 
 
54 
 
 Fairly viewed, Mr. Lowell's cotemporaneous letter, even if 
 I was wrong as to the sum, instead of being a successful im- 
 peachment of the general accuracy of my memory, applied to 
 an old transaction, (which is the point, for which it is cited,) 
 is, in fact, a striking confirmation of it, in all that was essen- 
 tial. It proves, just as I had stated, that, when Mr. Boott 
 made up his guardianship accounts, they required to be 
 reformed in the matter of interest ; — that he had adopted the 
 false principle of allowing compound interest, from "an 
 excess of liberality," while he charged nothing for his ser- 
 vices of nearly twenty years ; — that Mr. Lowell was consulted 
 about it, and, of course, I was, or I should not have known the 
 facts ; — and that we objected to his mode of stating the inter- 
 est, as " unreasonably favourable to the minors." The accounts, 
 as tinally settled, show that we succeeded, at last, in induc- 
 ing him to charge simple interest only. These are the mate- 
 rial facts, stated by me from mere memory, and now proved by 
 Mr. Lowell's letter, connected with the accounts. 
 
 My next remark is, that the only proof given, that my 
 estimate of the sum was erroneous, is this same letter from 
 Mr. Lowell ; in which he stated to Mr. Boott, that, by going 
 over one of the accounts " roughly," on a certain principle of 
 computing interest, which he describes, he found it would 
 make a difference, in Mr. Boott 's favour, on that account, "of 
 about $800, or on the three accounts of $2500." On the 
 other hand, F stated the effect of compounding, on all the 
 accomats, at a round sum, of " about $10,000." This, then, 
 is only another case of Lowell versus Brooks. But that is 
 quite enough for Mr. Lowell, who appears to enjoy an envia- 
 ble consciousness of being always in th,e right, — especially 
 in a matter of accounts, — of which he considers me wholly 
 incompetent to judge. 
 
 Mr. Lowell must excuse me, considering my feebleness in 
 that particular, if I am unable to feel the full confidence, that 
 he feels, even in his statements on such subjects. I prefer to 
 look for myself, with such poor ability as I have. And this 
 leads me to my third remark, namely, that, if Mr. Lowell 
 meant to say in that letter, as he now thinks he did, that 
 
55 
 
 the difference between simple and compound interest, on all 
 the accounts then in question, was only f 2500, instead of 
 $10,000, he was, incredible as he may think it, very much 
 out of his reckoning. 
 
 I have obtained from the Probate Office a copy of one of 
 these accounts, (the same which Mr. Lowell selects [L. p. 98.] 
 as an example of Mr. Boott's successful administration of a trust 
 fund,) and, on examining it, I find that the difference between 
 simple and compound interest, on the items it contains, is sever- 
 al thousand dollars, instead of about eight himdred dollars, as 
 Mr. Lowell supposes it to have been. I do not know that this 
 is the identical accoimt, which Mr. Lowell " roughly " went 
 over, in 1834 ; but his letter shows, that the several accounts, 
 then in his possession, were so nearly alike, that he assumes the 
 difference he speaks of to be about the same in each. And if 
 so, I say, the difference in each, of compounding or not com- 
 poimding interest, with aimual rests, amounts to several 
 thousand dollars, instead of several hundred dollars, as Mr. 
 Lowell says. 
 
 To set this matter at rest, since Mr. Lowell thinks my 
 statements cannot be relied on, I placed the account, for 
 examination, in the hands of a gentleman, whose professional 
 skill in such matters will hardly be disputed. I now refer 
 to the result, as stated by him ; and that will save the ne- 
 cessity of printing the account, and the computations. 
 
 LETTER FBOM Mk. JOBCN S. TTLEB. 
 
 Boston, August 31, 1848. 
 Edwakd Bkooks, Esq. 
 
 Sir : — I have carefully examined the copy yon sent me, from the 
 records of the Probate Office, of the account of " John W. Boott, 
 surviving guardian of Francis Boott," dated January 1st, 1835, and 
 passed January 12, 1835. 
 
 It begins with a debit of SI 2,500, received in cash, September 30th, 
 1816, from the administrator on the estate of Mr. Francis Boott, the 
 father of the ward, and embraces transactions extending through the 
 entire period from that date to the date of the account, — i. e. a 
 period of about eighteen years and three months. 
 
 The credit side consists (after a small allowance for probate fees) of 
 yearly disbursements for the expenses of the ward, entered, uniformly, 
 under the date of September 30, in each year, and of a sum of 
 $8849 59, paid over in cash, « to order of said ward," at the settle- 
 
56 
 
 ment of tlie account, and of sundry enumerated stocks, credited, "at 
 cost," as transferred at the same time, amounting, in the aggregate, to 
 $18,760 16. 
 
 The debit side, after the entry of the above mentioned sum of 
 $12,500, September 30, 1816, is composed of the several items of 
 interest and dividends received, from time to time, on the investments, 
 and of a profit on certain stocks sold, and of one item for a premium 
 on the sale of a right of subscription, and of the following concluding 
 item : — 
 
 " 1835, January 1. With interest on sundry moneys in his hands, 
 per interest account settled with his ward since her coming of age, 
 $7012 88." 
 
 The whole capital, originally received, appears to have been invest- 
 ed, soon after, in United States 6 per cent, stocks — and these stocks 
 appear to have been re-sold, in 1818 and 1821 — producing, in the 
 latter year, upwards of $11,000 in cash, which does not appear to 
 have been greatly reduced by new investments, or other expenditures 
 of money, until the two or three last years embraced in the account. 
 The annual receipts from income usually exceeded the annual pay- 
 ments for expenses of the ward, and for investments made ; so that 
 considerable cash balances appear to have been in the guardian's 
 hands from year to year, and a large balance, in the whole, for quite 
 a long period. These uninvested sums are the foundation of the debit 
 above mentioned of $7012 88, for interest of moneys. 
 
 The inquiries you put to me are, — 
 
 " 1st. Was this sum intended to represent simple interest at six 
 per cent., or compound interest ?" 
 
 " 2d. If the former, what is the difference in amount between that 
 and the interest compounded annually ?" 
 
 Since the $7012 88 appears to have been the balance of an "in- 
 terest account settled with his ward," which is not annexed, nor the 
 date of the settlement given, I have not the means of determining 
 either the exact date up to which interest was, in fact, computed, or 
 the precise steps, by which this sum was arrived at. The method I 
 have adopted, therefore, to answer your questions, is to reconstruct the 
 interest account from the .data which the probate account furnishes, 
 up to the dates mentioned below. 
 
 [Here follow remarks, which would not be very intelligible to the reader with- 
 out the account, and which I therefore omit] 
 
 The only facts, not deduced directly from the account itself, which 
 I assume for the purposes of the computation, are, — 
 
 1. That the time of settlement with the ward, at which interest 
 ceased to run, did not exceed one year before the date of the probate 
 account, presuming that the guardian would not omit to charge him- 
 self with interest for a longer period than that. 
 
 2. That the rate of interest, whether simple or compounded, is six 
 per cent, per annum. 
 
 3. That the original capital of $1 2,500 was invested so soon after 
 its receipt, that no interest need be charged upon that, but only upon 
 the receipts and payments of subsequent years. 
 
57 
 
 4. That no interest runs, except from the end of each year, and 
 upon the balance accruing from the cash transactions of the year add- 
 ed to the principal sum on hand at its commencement. 
 
 5. That the years begin and end on the 30th of September. 
 
 6. I have also assumed, on your information, that the two shares 
 of stock in the Boston Manufacturing Company, bought in 1820, 
 were bought at the original subscription price for the new stock then 
 issued, viz. 51150 a share. 
 
 [Here follow further remarks, which I omit, for the reason ahove stated.] 
 
 The proof that all the assumptions I speak of, taken together, do 
 not vary essentially from the facts, is this. The final balance of sim- 
 ple interest brought out by the computation, at the end of eighteen 
 years, differs from the balance of interest stated in the probate ac- 
 count, by only S130 11, though the whole amount of interest is up- 
 wards of 87,000. 
 
 With these explanations, I answer your questions as follows : — 
 
 1. The sum of $7,012 88, in the probate account, must have been 
 intended to represent simple interest only. That is to say, the result 
 of my own computations, on the assumptions above mentioned, ap- 
 proaches that sum so nearly at simple interest, and differs from it so 
 widely at compound interest, as to indicate that it was probably in- 
 tended for the balance of simple interest, at six per cent, per annum, on 
 all moneys paid and received by the guardian, up to the date of the ac- 
 count, or to some date not far from it, and to make it ceetaix that it 
 does not represent compound interest up to that date, nor any date 
 within several years of it. 
 
 2. Interest at six per cent, per annum, computed from the same 
 data and compounded annually, would have amounted, at the last 
 complete year within the period of the account, viz. September 30, 
 1834, to $10,879 38. Consequently, the difference between compound 
 interest and the sum charged for interest in the account, viz. 57,012 88, 
 is found, at that date, to be $3,866 50. 
 
 This goes upon the presumption, that the guardian may have pre- 
 pared himself to pay over the balance at the end of the year, although 
 the probate account was not, in fact, settled until several months after ; 
 and, therefore, that he is not to be charged with interest after Septem- 
 ber 30, 1834. 
 
 But, if the compound interest should be computed up to the date, at 
 which the entry of interest is made in the probate account, viz. Jan- 
 uary 1, 1835, the amount of the difference between compound interest 
 at that date, and the sum charged for interest in the account, would 
 be 84,057 33. 
 
 This, strictly, answers your questions. But I have already stated 
 that simple interest at six per cent, per annum., computed from the 
 data of the account and on the assumptions stated, differs, by one 
 hundred and thirty dollars eleven cents, from the sum charged for in- 
 terest in the probate account. This may arise, either from seme error 
 of computation, or from the dates, within the years, fi-om which Mr. 
 Boott considered interest to run, or from some other elementary differ- 
 ence, which cannot be positively ascertained, without seeing the inter- 
 
58 
 
 est account stated by him, or knowing the steps, by which he arrived 
 at the sum of $7,012 88. 
 
 But any difference, except that arising from gross errors, must be 
 within certain limits ; and in reference to those limits I would further 
 state, that the true difference between simple and compound interest, 
 computed from the data of the account, at the rate of six per cent. 
 per annum., amounts, at the date of the account, if my computations 
 are correct, to S3,927 22. Computed to September 30, 1834, it 
 amounts to $3,736 39. 
 
 If the date of the settlement of interest with the ward were some- 
 what earlier than this, the amount of the difference would be somewhat 
 less. But, the uninvested cash balance constantly on hand, after 1821, 
 with no very great diminution till 1832 — 3, as shown by the probate 
 account, was so large, and for such a length of time, that the differ- 
 ence between simple interest and interest compounded annually, upon 
 that balance, up to any date, within the last year of the account, 
 which may be assumed as the actual date of the settlement of the in- 
 terest account with the ward, cannot have amounted to a sum very 
 much less than is above stated. 
 
 Variations in the days of the year, from which interest may have 
 begun to run on the payments and receipts of each year, and all the 
 other elementary differences, which the probate account leaves a lati- 
 tude for, between my assumptions and the data, upon which the sum 
 of $7,012 88 may have been arrived at, (gross errors only excepted) 
 cannot reduce the amount of difference between simple and com- 
 pound interest, to a sum less than somewhere between $3,000 and 
 $4,000. 
 
 I enclose my computations, which have been made with great care, 
 and I believe without errors. 
 
 And am. Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 JOHN S. TYLER. 
 
 The difference, then, between the simple and the com- 
 pound interest, on this single account, is, at least, |3,736 39 ; 
 and Mr. Lowell has the misfortune to say it is only |800! 
 
 He speaks, in his letter, of three such accounts, which I 
 suppose were then in his hands. But there were, in truth, 
 four of them in all, not very unlike each other on the point 
 in question. It will be seen, therefore, that instead of mak- 
 iag an egregious blunder, or even exaggerating the fact, 
 when I said "the compound interest would have made a 
 difference of about ten thousand dollars in the amount to be 
 paid," I kept myself far within the limits of the truth ;* and 
 
 * By a letter from Mr. Tyler of later date, which the reader wiU come to in 
 its place, he will find the diiTerence, on aU the accounts, was more than $12,000, 
 
59 
 
 since I spoke from mere memory, without a scrap of paper to 
 look at, I am quite content that this instance should be taken, 
 " to show what Mr. Brooks's reminiscences are worth after 
 such a lapse of time," — Mr. Lowell's letter to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 But I will not do Mr. Lowell the injustice to leave my 
 readers under the impression, that, when he was deliberately 
 examining Mr. Boott's accounts, inl 1834, with a view to 
 advise him how to compute interest, he really made so 
 gross a miscalculation as to set down at eight hundred 
 dollars, a difference, which was, in truth, little, if at all, 
 short of four thousand dollars. The mistake is not in his 
 letter, but in his book. Strange as it may seem, he does 
 not understand his own letter; and, even with the letter 
 before him, has neither " reminiscence," nor perception, of 
 the point he was then advising upon. 
 
 This letter did not intend to state the difference between 
 simple and compound interest. It states the difference be- 
 tween two different modes of compounding ; namely, 1. 
 putting each item of cash received on interest, from the day 
 it was received to the end of that year, and then adding the 
 item, with this increment of interest, to the principal sum 
 on hand at the beginning of the year, and making the aggre- 
 gate a new capital, to draw interest for the next yeeir ; — 2. 
 computing no interest on such items of receipt within the 
 year, in which they are received, but adding the simple items 
 themselves, without any increment for interest, to the prin- 
 cipal, at the end of the year, and taking that sum for the 
 new capital. 
 
 Both are methods of compounding, but one causes accu- 
 mulation considerably faster than the other ; and the differ- 
 ence, on this account, is very likely to have been about eight 
 hundred dollars, as Mr. Lowell's letter stated it to be. This 
 cannot now be ascertained, from the account itself, as recorded 
 in the Probate Office, since the dates of days are not given 
 in it, though the receipts of each year are distinguished. 
 But careful attention to the language of the letter will show 
 very plainly, that the difference above stated is that, to 
 
60 
 
 which Mr. Lowell referred when he said, " I roughly -went 
 over the accounts, the other day, on the principle of allow- 
 ing no interest on income until it became funded, by being 
 added to the principal on the following first of January, and 
 found this would make a difference of about $800." 
 
 The truth is, that Mr. Boott, at first, made up his ac- 
 counts on the ultra principles of not allowing moneys to 
 rest in his hands a day without drawing interest, and of 
 compounding the interest annually. In that form they 
 went to Mr. Lowell, and the first correction suggested was 
 that, which his letter explains, namely, striking out all interest, 
 between the annual rests, on sums received in the interyals. 
 But that was not the end of it. If it were, the account 
 would now stand with interest, compounded from year to 
 year, according to that principle ; whereas, the sums 
 charged for interest are simple interest alone. It was a 
 long time before the accounts were brought into the shape, 
 in which they were finally settled. Dates show that. Mr. 
 Lowell's letter was written in October, 1834 ; the accounts 
 are made up to January 1, 1835, with interest to that 
 day. In the mean time, I was brought in to the consult- 
 ation, and set my face against the principle of allowing 
 compound interest at all, when no commission was charged 
 for services, and when it was apparent that the money must 
 come, not out of Mr. Boott's own pocket, but out of other 
 trust funds in his hands. Mr. Lowell concurred with me; 
 and we, finally, though not without great difiiculty, brought 
 Mr. Boott over to the adoption of our views. 
 
 After the lapse of more than a dozen years, Mr. Lowell, 
 though his memory may not be " signally treacherous," had 
 totally forgotten these particulars. But he finds, among Mr. 
 Boott's papers, fortunately, as he thinks, an old letter, from 
 himself, on the subject of these guardianship accounts. The 
 letter objects to Mr. Boott's mode of computing interest as 
 " very unreasonably favourable to the minors." It urges, that 
 the omission of all charge, for services of nearly twenty years, 
 is liberality enough, without allowing " an exorbitant rate 
 of interest" besides. It goes on to show that another mode 
 
61 
 
 of computing interest would make a difference, on each ac- 
 count, of about eight hundred dollars in Mr. Boott's favour. 
 Misled by these general resemblances to the case stated by me, 
 resemblance in everything, apparently, except the sum spoken 
 of, Mr. Lowell jumped, as he sometimes does, to a conclusion, 
 and took it for granted that he and I were speaking of the same 
 thing throughout, that his difference was my difference, 
 and that my memory had multiplied the figures by four. In 
 his eagerness to destroy my credibility in such matters, by 
 convicting me of mistakes at every turn, he recklessly charg- 
 es this as one, without taking the pains to examine, carefully, 
 the account, which was before him, or to go over it ever so 
 " roughly," for the piupose of seeing what the compound in- 
 terest would amount to, or even to consider the language of 
 his own letter with sufficient attention to understand its 
 true meaning. 
 
 Yet what a confidence is there in his present statement ! 
 " Here, then," says he, — after quoting his own letter as the 
 highest authority, — " Here, then, it appears, that the differ- 
 ence in the modes of computing interest would have been 
 $2500, instead of $10,000, to which it has grown when 
 refracted through the prism of Mr. Brooks's memory!" 
 How complacently are we made aware, that, " if all his 
 [Brooks's] sums are to be divided by four, it will make a ma- 
 terial difference in the result" ! And with what a boldness 
 of hyperbole does he amplify the effect of my supposed mis- 
 take, by adding, " yet nearly the whole book, so far as money 
 matters are concerned, rests on Mr. Brooks'' s memory" ! And, 
 after all, there are no mistakes, miscalculations, nor mis-recol- 
 lections in the matter, but his own ! 
 
 The reader will find the same confidence, complacency, 
 and hyperbole abundantly sprinkled over Mr. Lowell's pages. 
 He must every where look out for them, and make due allow- 
 ances ; though, perhaps, after this single exposition, (others 
 quite as remarkable, and far less excusable, will follow,) he 
 may think it would have been as well for Mr. Lowell to have 
 said less about my " usual accuracy," and the value of my 
 " reminiscences." 
 
62 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MR. Lowell's mode of treating witnesses, mr. William 
 
 BOOTT. MRS. MARY LYMAN. BOTH UNJUSTLY ATTACKED. 
 
 I have now answered the three principal counts of the in- 
 dictment against me for gross inacciiracy and feebleness of 
 memory. Many other errors are charged, with equal bold- 
 ness, in support of it ; but I have picked out the most prom- 
 inent, and have given a fair sample, in the varieties above 
 selected, of what they all come to. For the rest, when they 
 are important enough tO' be noticed, I shall notice them in 
 connexion with the topics, to which they relate. 
 
 The same sort of impeachment of credibility, on various 
 grounds, is extended by Mr. Lowell to almost every person 
 referred to by me as authority for particular statements. Some 
 are treated as accomplices in my crime of self-vindication ;— 
 and, for one reason or another, scarcely one of them, accord- 
 ing to him, is to be believed. Now it is no part of my busi'' 
 ness to defend other persons against Mr. Lowell's attafik, 
 except so far as I may have been the means of subjecting them 
 to it, or so far as their testimony may be material for my use> 
 But, in respect to both Mr. William Boott and Mrs. Mary 
 Lyman, I have, on one or other of these grounds, a word or 
 two to say. 
 
 Mr. Lowell affects to consider Mr. William Boott as much a 
 party to my former pamphlet, " as if his name had been emblai^ 
 zioned [meaning, probably, printed] with that of Mr. Edwaid 
 Brooks, on its title page." [L. Preface.]. This is his excuse) 
 (he says it " requires no apology," although he evidently feels 
 that it does,) for publishing portions of that gentleman's most 
 private and confidential communications with a brother i» 
 London, and letters, or parts of letters, to other persons, for the 
 
63 
 
 purpose, — ^not openly avowed, but scarcely concealed, — of im- 
 peaching his veracity, and of otherwise harming his reputa- 
 tion, in matters very remotely coimected with the subjects 
 in controversy. 
 
 How far he has succeeded, by these means, in contradict- 
 ing any thing, which that gentleman has said, and how far 
 he has dealt fairly with the statements he pretends to oppose 
 to each other, we shall see when we come to that part of 
 the case. 
 
 But I feel bound, in justice, to contradict, at the outset, 
 the assumption, on which Mr. Lowell proceeds, that Mr. 
 William Boott is responsible for any thing contained in my for- 
 mer pamphlet, except what is expressly stated there as standing 
 on his authority. The "Reply" treats him as responsible for 
 the whole — ^the discussion on the subject of accounts, as well 
 as the discussion on the subject of insanity. For example, 
 speaking of the accounts, Mr. Lowell says, in his usual lan- 
 guage of exaggeration, (L. p. 37,) — " After passing months in 
 their analysis, aided by Mr. William Boott, and by two of 
 the ablest lawyers in Boston, he [Brooks] entertains no 
 doubt," &c. Now so far was Mr. William Boott from aiding 
 me, in preparing my statement on the subject of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott's accounts, or my statement of any thing connected with 
 his management of the family funds, that he did what he 
 could to dissuade me from touching those topics. He wished 
 me to confine my statement, so far as it raised any issue con- 
 cerning Mr. J. Wright Boott, strictly, to the evidence of his 
 insanity. 
 
 I gave to this subject much consideration ; and regretted, 
 deeply, that I could not see my way to any possibility of 
 avoiding the question of mismanagement. It was, in my 
 judgement, and that of judicious friends, the very turning 
 point of the whole issue between Mr. Lowell and myself—^ 
 the corner stone, which lay at the foundation of the ques- 
 tion, whether the charge against me, of having caused a death 
 by false accusations and willful persecution, was well or ill 
 founded. All that I have since learned has tended to confirm 
 that opinion. 
 
64 
 
 If Mr. J. Wright Boott had, indeed, not mismanaged the fam- 
 ily property ; if the account, which Mr. Lowell had prepared for 
 him, did, indeed, exhibit the true results of his management, 
 and omitted nothing, which justly belonged to it, and was 
 settled, with my assent, as being just what it ought to be ; all 
 that part of Mr. Lowell's testimony, which occasioned injury 
 to me, might have been, very nearly, as Mr. Lowell said it 
 was, — testimony, of which I had not " any right to complain." 
 It would have been impossible for me, as Mr. Lowell now de- 
 clares it is, to justify my conduct, on that hypothesis, unless 
 by admitting, contrary to the truth, that I had acted, through- 
 out, under a mere mistake, which, if it might be a faint 
 excuse, was no justification. 
 
 The question of Mr. J. Wright Boott's insanity was one, 
 which I knew, from its nature, must be difficult of proof, and 
 liable, on that account, to remain doubtful in some minds; 
 that of his accounts, so far as was necessary to show his unfit- 
 ness for a trustee, and the propriety of my doing what I did, 
 I knew could be made as clear as the light of the sun, to all, 
 who would attend to them. And although it was a necessity 
 most painful to me, which led into that range of inquiry, 
 I satisfied myself, and hoped to satisfy others, that the diffi- 
 culty, about his management of the family property, was only 
 a part of that peculiarity of character, which developed itself, 
 at last, in a more striking form ; but which, I believe, gov- 
 erned his actions, from a very early period, in a degree, 
 which rendered him less accountable, morally, than other 
 men, and would excuse, to every charitable mind, all that 
 might, otherwise, have seemed amiss. 
 
 But, whether I was right or wrong, in the conclusion to 
 which my judgement brought me, after the fullest deliberation, 
 it was my judgement, not Mr. William Boott's ; and whatever. 
 I have done, or said, in pursuing its dictates, is my deed and 
 word, not his. It is only a piece of Mr. Lowell's hasty 
 assumption, and carelessness of justice, which, — for the sake 
 of a short triumph, and of a plausible excuse for attacking an 
 important witness, under cover of self defence, — pretends to 
 hold him responsible for that, which he never aided, did not 
 
65 
 
 even approve, and in fact may, more properly, be said to have 
 opposed. 
 
 Thus much I am bound to declare, in justice to him ; and 
 however Mr. William Boott may have aided me, formerly, by 
 simply supplying his own testimony to the point of his 
 brother's insanity, I desire to have it understood that his aid 
 ceased there, and that I take upon myself, exclusively, the 
 whole responsibility of the subject of accounts, and all that 
 relates to pecuniary transactions, or to the duties of a trus- 
 tee — viewing it as my misfortune, not less than that of the 
 late Mr. J. Wright Boott, that I am absolutely compelled, 
 by his disinterested friend, Mr. Lowell, to treat of them. 
 
 Mr. Lowell's mode of dealing with Mrs. Lyman, — a lady, 
 peculiarly circumstanced, alone and unprotected, — is less ex- 
 cusable than his attack on Mr. William Boott. 
 
 It will be remembered, by those, who have read my former 
 pamphlet, and I now inform those, who have not, that this 
 lady was no party, originally, to the controversy about Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott's accounts, or the refusal to sign a deed ; nor, 
 in any way, to the effort, which led to his removal from the 
 trust, by a voluntary resignation in pursuance of a compro- 
 mise. She had, long before, conveyed to him aU her right 
 and title to the family property. Consequently, she neither 
 had herself, nor represented, any personal interest whatever 
 in those proceedings. The part she took in them, so far as 
 she took any, was merely as a matter of feeling, and was en- 
 tirely on his side. 
 
 Mr. Lowell knew all this. Indeed he had, before him, my 
 extract from a letter of Dr. Boott, written when the question of 
 signing the deed was just beginning to be agitated, in which 
 he desires Mr. William Boott, in advising his mother, to 
 " speak of J. W. B. as tenderly as possible ;" — and adds, 
 " Mary's letter [Mrs. Lyman's] is full of generous appeals 
 in his behalf." [B. App. p. 36.] Not only was this extract 
 before him, but it would seem, from Dr. Boott's statement, 
 as cited by Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 128], that the letter itself, from 
 Mrs. Lyman, must have been, (imless destroyed, — ^which is 
 not suggested and not likely,) in Mr. Lowell's own possession. 
 
66 
 
 He uses others of her letters, written in the privacy of family 
 confidence, which he thinks he can use to discredit her; (I 
 shall consider them in their place ;) but he makes no allusion 
 to this letter of generous appeal in her brother's behalf. 
 
 She had been much ill used by that brother. She did not, 
 in his life-time, attribute it to insanity. Having had scarcely 
 any intercourse with him for years, she did not believe him 
 insane, at the time of her testimony at the coroner's inquest. 
 Reflection, afterwards, and the opinions of others, coupled 
 with the strange thiags she had herself seen and known of 
 him, and especially with Mr. Lowell's account of the inco- 
 herent, extravagant, and unfounded statements of his last 
 letter, convinced her, finally, of the fact. Under legal advice, 
 she appealed, it is true, from the probate of his will, on the 
 ground of his insanity, and proposed to contest it, as she had 
 a right to do, in the higher • court. So far, she became 
 actively opposed to Mr. Lowell, the executor of that will. 
 Did she deserve to be subjected to any discourtesy for that? 
 If she did, she had, long siace, voluntarily abandoned that 
 suit, and abandoned it against her pecimiary interest, upon 
 the same impulse of feeling towards her deceased brother, 
 which had sometimes led her, in his life-time, into " generous 
 appeals in his behalf." From that time to this, she has kept 
 aloof from the controversy. 
 
 She was no party to my pamphlet, directly or indirectly. Mr, 
 Lowell, himself, does not suppose her to have been. He says, 
 " she has, with great propriety, declined anyparticipatiom inthis 
 posthrmious attack." [L. p. 141.J Yet how does he treat her? 
 He procures and publishes a statement, from Dr. Jackson, of 
 her demeanour and language, (as witnessed by that gentleman, 
 on the occasion of his being called to see the body of Mr. 
 Boott,) during the first paroxysms of a sister's agony of grief, 
 at the shocking sight of a brother killed by his own hand. 
 He embodies that in an argument, designed to show, that this 
 brother was the victim of a conspiracy, to which she was a 
 party. Particular expressions, uttered by her in this state of 
 violent emotion, are published, without a word of explanation, 
 as if they were the confessions of a criminal, to contradict 
 
67 
 
 her calmer and more deliberate statements. He cites por- 
 tions of her confidential letters, without her permission, and 
 without citing other portions, which might have given them 
 a different complexion, with the view of convicting her of 
 falsehood in her statements at other times. He undertakes to 
 array against her, Miss Sarah Wells, and Mrs. Wells, and even 
 Mr. Wells, for the same object ; although he does not publish 
 one word of statement from either of them. It all rests on his 
 own statement. He repeats Mr. J. Wright Boott's insane 
 idea, and undertakes to maintain and prove its reality, that 
 she was my spy over the conduct and actions of that luifor- 
 tunate gentleman, and that she had been placed by me in 
 his house for that purpose. Nay, he states as facts, with the 
 same view of impeaching Mrs. Lyman, matters not known to 
 himself, and of which he cites no proof, nor refers to any 
 authority ; and taking it for granted that she would deny 
 them, he interposes a threat to silence her, when he says, 
 " I hold myself pledged to prove the accuracy of this state- 
 ment, if denied by Mrs. Lyman." [L. p. 140.] Again he 
 says, " Nor do I mean to allege, that Mr. Brooks ever knew 
 the real state of the facts in relation to Mr. Boott's treatment 
 of Mrs. Lyman. A misrepresentation exists somewhere." 
 [L. p. 143.]* Why all these broad insiauations, and all but 
 direct charges, against a lady, who- was no party to my pam- 
 phlet, and whose former statements, connected with my narra- 
 tive, had been referred to by me, as I myself declared, without 
 her knowledge or concurrence ? [B. p. 156.] Is this courte- 
 ous ? Is it manly ? Is it fair ? 
 
 But, at the same time that he thus seeks to discredit this 
 lady, he undertakes to make her a witness against me. He 
 says, " I must, however, do that lady the justice to say, that 
 I am authorized to contradict nearly every thing, stated as on 
 her authority, in Mr. Brooks's pamphlet." [L. p. 140.] Nearly 
 every thing ! I do not know what that lady may have author- 
 ized Mr. Lowell to say, in her behalf; but I have reason to 
 
 * To preyent any possible mistake, I gire notice that the Italics, ahove, are not 
 Mr. Lowell's. In these pages, they may, generally, be understood to be my own, 
 unless I state otherwise. 
 
68 
 
 believe that her authority to contradict any statement of mine, 
 was confined to two or three matters very unimportant, -when 
 coupled with the qualifying additions, which accompany the 
 correction. My reason is, that I received a letter from the 
 lady herself soon after the appearance of my pamphlet, by 
 which it appeared, that, upon some sudden impulse of feeling, 
 she had taken offence, I thought without just foundation, at 
 some things in it ; and by which it also appeared, that she 
 considered me to have misstated her in the particulars above 
 referred to, which she wished me immediately to correct. 
 Finding it not done so immediately as she desired, she, un- 
 fortunately, thought proper to address Mr. Lowell, or his coun- 
 sel, on the subject ; and we see how she is rewarded for that. 
 The errors she stated to him were, no doubt, the same she 
 had stated to me. A correction of these errors I intended 
 to make, agreeably to her request, as soon as a fair oppor- 
 tunity offered. I understood Mr. Lowell was about to give 
 me the opportunity. He has done so ; and I shall make the 
 corrections when I . speak of those subjects. But, when Mr. 
 Lowell says he is " authorized to contradict nearly every thing 
 stated as on her authority," in my pamphlet, this, I imagine, 
 is only his mode of stating an authority to correct two or 
 three small matters. 
 
 In respect to them, they were my reports of former con- 
 versations, not had with reference to this, or any other, par- 
 ticular use of them ; and I did not consult her about them, 
 while preparing my pamphlet, because I did not wish to im- 
 plicate her in any such movement. It is very possible, therefore, 
 that I may have misunderstood what I supposed I had heard 
 from her. At any rate, I accept her amendments, which will 
 not be found essential to the main matters in dispute. And, 
 although I have no authority to say one word for that lady, and 
 indeed she has expressed her desire that her name might not 
 even be mentioned, (which is obviously impossible in the 
 present state of the controversy, and after what has passed,) 
 yet, without undertaking to answer Mr. Lowell's attack upon 
 her so particularly as I otherwise might, I feel bound, at least, 
 since I have been the means of bringing it upon her, to enter 
 
69 
 
 my protest against such an unprovoked assault, by a man, and 
 a man of strength in this community, against a woman — 
 a lady of refinement, who never was a party to this contro- 
 versy, and who has absolutely refused, and still refuses, to 
 enter into any farther contest on these subjects, even for 
 self-defence. 
 
 Henceforth, at least, let there be no misunderstanding of 
 the fact. I only am responsible for what I print ; and my 
 complaint is of Mr. Lowell alone. The debate lies between 
 him and me, exclusively ; and he cannot be allowed to divert 
 attention from the question of his own conduct and of my 
 conduct, by attempts to implicate others, for the sake of 
 throwing discredit upon any statement derived from them, or 
 by unfounded suggestions that he is, himself, made a mere 
 cover to excuse a premeditated attack upon the dead. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SYNOPSIS OF MS. LOWELl's AEGUMENT. OUB COKRESPONnENCE. 
 
 It is time to turn to the more important and direct issues. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, in his " Reply," instead of confining himself 
 to a mere line of defence, by showing, if he could, that the 
 rumours, which had grown up to my disadvantage and injury, 
 did not originate in, or were not spread and sustained by, his 
 declared opinions and statements, now takes bolder ground. 
 He assumes, substantially, to justify the rumours themselves, 
 as well founded. This he does by the following train of argu- 
 ment : — 
 
 His premises are, 
 
 1. That the late Mr. J. Wright Boott was, in substance, " a 
 remarkably good manager of trust property ;" [L. p. 97.] that 
 as executor and trustee, he conducted the business of his 
 father's estate, in the main, excellently well, and caused no 
 
70 
 
 loss of it, either to immediate heirs, annuitants, or rever- 
 sioners ; that the account of his executorship, as prepared by 
 Mr. Lowell for settlement in the Probate Court, was full 
 accurate, and unexceptionable ; and, consequently, that any 
 charges of mine, to the contrary of all this, must have been 
 founded in error, if not in willfulness and spite. 
 
 2. That Mr. J. Wright Boott was no more insane, at any 
 period of his life, or in respect to any subject, than Mr. 
 Lowell himself; and, as is intimated under a disclaimer, not 
 near so much so as I am. 
 
 3. That he was most unjustly persecuted, and cruelly ill- 
 treated, by myself and wife, Mrs. Mary Lyman, and Mi'. Wm. 
 Boott, (and I think Mr. Robert C. Hooper is intended to be 
 included,) as parties really leagued against him, to effect his 
 ruin. This, indeed, is not, usually, averred by Mr. Lowell 
 in open and direct terms, though, in one place, direct aver- 
 ment is barely couched under an interrogative form ; [L. p. 146.] 
 but it is, at any rate, a point fully argued, with all the ability 
 and semblance of proof, that he can bring to bear upon it, as 
 part of his reasoning on the question of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 insanity, and under the guise of showing, that there were 
 reasonable grounds for him, as a sane man, to believe in 
 that conspiracy. 
 
 4. That, being as perfectly sane as any man in the commu- 
 nity, he, nevertheless, under such circumstances, killed himself. 
 
 The inevitable conclusion, — not stated by Mr. Lowell, in his 
 " Reply," but left for others to draw, — is, in conformity with 
 the previous rumours, and in conformity with the belief infused 
 into the minds of the jurors, that he was driven to suicide by 
 the unmerited persecution of this knot of conspirators. 
 
 Such is the argument, now written, printed, and most ex- 
 tensively published, which Mr. Lowell gives me the oppor- 
 tunity, and in effect challenges me, to answer. 
 
 He has taken much pains to declare and insist, over and 
 over again, that, in the late Mr. Boott's life-time, he was no 
 party to the then existing controversy, concerning the state 
 of mind and conduct of that gentleman ; that he knew nothing 
 of its merits, refused to hear either side upon them, kep' 
 
71 
 
 himself perfectly impartial and aloof, espoused no cause, and 
 had no personal interest in the disputed questions ; and that, 
 when he came to he a witness before the coroner's jury, he 
 stated nothing, but what his duty imperatively compelled, 
 and nothing, which I, mider the circumstances, had a right 
 to complain of, or must not myself have stated, had I been 
 a witness. [Letter from Mr. Lowell, B. p. 17.] 
 
 Now I never charged Mr. Lowell, formerly, although he 
 answers as if I had, with having any interest of property in 
 these matters, other than that of being a lender, in his capacity 
 of trustee for others, of large sums of money to Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, under peculiar circimistances, implicating the estate of 
 his father ; but in a manner nowise dishonorable, so far 
 as I knew, to Mr. Lowell. Besides being such a lender of 
 trust funds, he had been a former partner of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, and there had been much confidence, and at differ- 
 ent periods of his life, considerable pecuniary dealings be- 
 tween them. So much I stated ; so much Mr. Lowell admits ; 
 and all I charged upon him, in this respect, was, that these 
 circumstances, and his own temperament, had made him a mere 
 partisan, in the matters of controversy and discussion in the 
 family relating to the late Mr. Boott, instead of being, as he 
 was commonly reputed to be, an unprejudiced bystander, inti- 
 mately acquainted with the parties and the facts, whose opin- 
 ions were, therefore, entitled to the greatest weight. 
 
 I never charged upon him, though he answers as if I 
 had, that he deliberately and intentionally testified to that, 
 which he knew to be imtrue ; but what I charged was, that 
 he testified, like a zealous witness, under the strong biases 
 and with the strong prejudices above described, disclosing 
 facts, and withholding facts, so as to have produced, — what I 
 did not charge him with intending, — ^false impressions, deeply 
 injurious to me ; and that he did this without notice to me, 
 and in fact without my knowledge, until eighteen months had 
 elapsed. 
 
 A further complaint was, that he had, since, been miwUling 
 to do any thing to correct the false impressions he had occa- 
 sioned ; and that, holding himself, or pretending to hold him- 
 
72 
 
 self, above all chance of mistake, he -would neither enquire, nor, 
 so far as depended upon him, permit an inquiry, whether there 
 was any thing to be corrected ; and that he even refused to 
 give me such information, concerning his testimony, as might 
 lead to a correction of the mistake, if there was one. 
 
 That was the substance of my complaint, on this head, 
 against Mr. Lowell, both as a witness, and as a gentleman, 
 afterwards called upon to explain his testimony. There were 
 other points of his conduct complained of ; but not affecting 
 the question of his interest and bias in this case. If any 
 reader has rmderstood a single passage of my former pamphlet 
 otherwise than as now stated, I desire that it may be looked 
 at again, and I think it will be found to contain nothing, in 
 its language, exceeding what I now declare to have been the 
 extent of my complaint, on that point, against Mr. Lowell, 
 I confine my remark to the language of vcij former pamphlet, 
 because I had, at that time, no information of material facts, 
 which have since come to my knowledge. The pages, which 
 follow, written upon a different state of information, must 
 speak for themselves. 
 
 But, if any reader of that former pamphlet doubted whether 
 I were well warranted, then, in charging Mr. Lowell with 
 having filled the part of a mere partisan, before he was a 
 witness, and while he was a witness, he cannot doubt it now, 
 if he has been a reader of Mr. Lowell's " Reply." He declares, 
 in our correspondence, that he never testified to any thing, 
 of which I have a right to complain, — that is, according to his 
 notions of my rights and his assumption of the facts in the 
 case. But we see what he says now, deliberately, in print. 
 We see what his ideas and opinions are declared to have been, 
 on the subjects, to which his testimony related. We see, by 
 those declarations, what his testimony on some points must, 
 necessarily, have been, if he alluded to those matters ; and 
 he does not pretend to deny that he did allude to them, 
 although he says he did so in a way that I have no right to 
 complain of. I think otherwise. That was the great gen- 
 oral issue between us, involving many particulars, and among 
 them Mr. J. Wright Boott's character and conduct as a trustee. 
 
This question, what Mr. Lowell's testimony was before the 
 jury of inquest, has now become, comparatively, unimportant ; 
 becaiose all the promijlgation of opinion, statement of fact, 
 allegation, and insinuation, whatsoever, which he conveyed 
 to the jurors at the coroner's inquest, or to other persons 
 at other times, directly or indirectly, are now swallowed up 
 in one publication, under his own pen and name, speaking for 
 itself, in unmistakable language, and from which he has no 
 retreat. 
 
 Still, it is quite material, in reference to his and my accu- 
 racy, and the credibility of witnesses, and the motives and 
 merits of our respective publications, and the purpose of the 
 correspondence, which led to them, and the whole course 
 of his and my proceedings, to see how the matter now stands, 
 according to my former statement and his reply, upon the 
 question, what his former testimony was. 
 
 Did I make an unfounded charge there ? And how are my 
 proofs answered ? 
 
 And here, let me remark, the "Reply" begins with mis- 
 stating the gist, — ^if I may borrow an expressive term from the 
 lawyers, — of the correspondence between us. Mr. Lowell 
 states, that the allegation in my letters was, (and he prints it 
 in those same emphasizing Italics, which he thinks so intol- 
 erable when used by me,) that, at the inquest on the body 
 of Mr. Boott, he had testified, directly, that Mr. Boott " had 
 been driven to the act of suicide by unjust and injurious 
 charges of mismanagement of his father's estate, and that 
 Mr. Brooks was named by me [Mr. Lowell] as one of the 
 authors of these charges." [L. p. 2.] 
 
 This, I say, is a mere misstatement of my original com- 
 plaint ; and I refer, in proof, to the correspondence, printed in 
 my former pamphlet ; [B. pp. 12-25.] especially to my letter 
 of Dec. 15, [B. p. 18.] which contains a summary of all that 
 had preceded it, showing how the substance of my inquiries 
 had been evaded, and pointing, for the third time, to that 
 which I desired most to be informed upon. I did not charge 
 him with having testified, in direct terms, as he above states. 
 I told him, in my first letter, that thrcnigh his statements, as 
 
74 
 
 I was informed, the jury -were led to believe what he above 
 states ; and I detailed, in substance, the particulars, whichl 
 understood he had communicated to the jury, and which 
 had led them to that belief; namely, that he had inves- 
 tigated Mr. Boott's accounts, and had found that there was 
 no ground whatever for any suspicion of improper manage- 
 ment of the business ; and that, instead of Mr. Boott's owing 
 any thing to the estate, a clear balance of |25,000 was 
 ascertained to be due, from the estate to him, for volun- 
 tary and gratuitous advances ; and that, notwithstanding this, 
 some of the heirs refused to sign the deed of the house until 
 the accounts should be settled, and the property placed in 
 other hands ; to which /ac^s, it was said, an expression of qpm- 
 ion was added, that these unjust and injurious proceedings had 
 led to the suicide ; and I told him, further, that I was in- 
 formed that he had used my name in connexion with time 
 statements. 
 
 His answer denied the use of my name " in connexion 
 with the unhappy dissensions in Mr. Bootfs family," and 
 denied the expression of " any opinion as to the merits or 
 demerits of the parties engaged in them," but gave me no 
 information as to the particular allegations of fact, which 
 I had inquired about, nor as to the expression of opinion con- 
 cerning the cause of the suicide. 
 
 My second letter called his attention to this, as not meeting 
 the inquiry, and pressed for an answer to the unanswered 
 matters. 
 
 His reply, suggesting that he might well have claimed, as a 
 witness, to be exempted from such inquiries, insists, neverthe- 
 less, that he had already sufficiently answered them, and gives 
 no further answer, except to deny, — though rather by implica- 
 tion than directly, — the expression of the opinion " that any 
 imjust and injurious proceedings towards Mi-. Boott led to his 
 death," and to assm-e me, generally, that he had given no 
 testimony, of which I, in his opinion, " could have a right to 
 complain." 
 
 My third letter showed, pointedly, wherein his former an- 
 swers were insufficient, and that they left me still uninformedj 
 
75 
 
 by him, as to the facts he had stated. From that I now 
 make the following extract. 
 
 " The whole substance of your testimony, as reported to 
 me, in my view of the matter, lies in what was said con- 
 cernins touk examination or the accounts, and its results 
 
 AS FOUND BT YOU, AND COMMUNICATED TO THE HEIRS, Connected 
 
 with what was said concerning the previous complaints of 
 the heirs, their subsequent conduct, and the fatal result, 
 which followed. My inquiry is, whether that was, substan- 
 tially, your statement, or whether I have been misinformed 
 about it. If you think I have no right to ask you that, be- 
 cause you were speaking as a witness, I pray you to say so 
 distinctly. Otherwise, I pray you to answer, distinctly, my 
 original inquiry ; or, if there was any indistinctness in that, 
 my inquiry as I now put it ; whether you did, or did not, 
 make a statement to that effect, or what statement, substan- 
 tially, you did make on that subject." [B. p. 22.] 
 
 The answer to this weis a mere refusal, though in respect- 
 ful terms, to give any further information on the subject ; and 
 so all explanation, and hope of explanation through Mr. Low- 
 ell, ended. 
 
 Does Mr. Lowell then state, or does he mis-staXe, the sub- 
 stance of what my letters alleged his testimony to be ? 
 
 What I desire to call attention to, particularly, in the cor- 
 respondence, is, that he shirked, and evaded all information 
 whatever on the subject of his own testimony about the ac- 
 counts, as proof that Mr. Boott had been falsely charged by 
 me with mismanagement of his father's estate. 
 
76 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 completeness of mv proof hespecting the substance of mb. 
 Lowell's testimony at the inquest. 
 
 Starting with this erroneous assumption of the tenor of oui 
 correspondence, Mr. Lowell proceeds to endeavour to disprove 
 a different charge from that, which was made. It is needtess 
 to inquire how effectually he has done this ; but it may be 
 proper to see how far he has altered, or modified, the case, 
 as it really stood, upon the evidence I afterwards produced; 
 for, ia my pamphlet, I stood upon the evidence, and not 
 upon the mere information referred to in my letters. 
 
 That evidence was the formal declarations, in writing, be- 
 fore a magistrate, of Jive, out of six, of the persons, who com- 
 posed the coroner's jury. The declaxations were taken, after 
 due notice to Mr. Lowell of the time and place appointed for 
 the purpose, with a request that he would attend personally, 
 and bring counsel with him, if he pleased. [B. p. 24.] h 
 respect to the remaining juryman, my notice was as follows: 
 " I have not spoken to Dr. Putnam, the. sixth juryman, on ac- 
 count of his delicate position as a brother-in-law of yours; 
 but I should be glad to have his statement also, if agreeahle 
 to you and himself." It appears not to have been agreeable 
 to Mr. Lowell, either to invite Dr. Putnam, or to attend him- 
 self. In fact, it was not agreeable to him, it seems, that any 
 body should attend ; for he took some pains, through his 
 counsel and the coroner, to prevent the other jurymen from 
 doing so. [B. p. 25.] All five, however, did attend ; and as 
 Mr. Lowell did not, I was compelled to proceed ex parte, m 
 taking their testimony. To that testimony I now refer, 
 printed in full in my former pamphlet, [B. pp. 27-31.] ; and, 
 for the convenience of the reader, I extract the following 
 summary : — 
 
77 
 
 " Now upon the first point denied by Sir. Lowell — the use of my 
 individual name — two of the five jurymen, Mr. Learnard and Mr. 
 Dyke, positively affirm it. A third. Dr. Palmer, says it is his im- 
 pression. Mr. Learnard recollects, that ' he particularly mentioned 
 the name of Mr. Edward Brooks, as one of such heirs.' Mr. Dyke 
 says, ' He stated, in particular, the name of Mr. Edward Brooks, as 
 among the heirs who so refused to sign the deed.' All agree that 
 the heirs were spoken of — which included me by description, and 
 must have been so understood by every person, who knew my con- 
 nexion with the family. 
 
 " Upon the second point denied by Mr. Lowell, namely, the ex- 
 pression of any opinion upon the merits or demerits of the parties, 
 or that there had been any unjust and injurious proceedings of the 
 heirs towards the deceased, Mr. Andrews says, ' The impression I 
 goijfrom what Mr. Lowell said, was, that the refusal of the heirs to 
 sign the deed affected his mind, and was probably the remote cause 
 of his death.' Dr. Palmer says, ' From what I heard of the evidence 
 of Mr. Lowell, I should have had a very unfavourable impression of 
 Mr. Edward Brooks, had I not known him before.' ' It was ex- 
 pressed, that Mr. Boott had been unfairly crowded by the heirs, dur- 
 ing the time he had been executor.' He ' represented this result as 
 a decided vindication of Mr. Boott against the unfounded charges 
 of the heirs.' ' My impression was, that this crowding by the heirs 
 had affected his mind, and that it had depressed him so it might have 
 led to his death.' Mr. Learnard says, ' He said Mr. Brooks was a 
 violent man.' ' The impression he left on my mind was, that the 
 conduct of the heirs, in thus refusing to sign the deed, might be the 
 cause of Mr. Bootfs death.' Mr. Dyke says, ' He stated, that Mr. 
 Boott was a man of such fine feelings and §uch integrity, that this re- 
 fusal so operated upon his mind as to cause his death.' Mr. Brown 
 says, ' I merely recollect, in general, that Mr. Lowell attributed the 
 death of Mr. Boott to the unhappy difliculties in the family, especially 
 in relation to the estate.' 
 
 " These seem to me sufficient expressions, or indications, of Mr. 
 Lowell's opinion touching the merits and demerits of parties, who may 
 have differed with Mr. Wright Boott, or with each other, upon any 
 controverted matter respecting his conduct. 
 
 " Upon the third point, which I regard as the most important, 
 namely, the testimony, which Mr. Lowell declined giving me any in- 
 formation upon, there is no material difference among the witnesses, 
 so far as they undertake to give the particulars. Mr. Andrews says, 
 Mr. Lowell testified, that the heirs ' had refused to sign the deed, on 
 the giound that the estate had been mismanaged,' — but 'that it 
 proved, on an investigation of the executor's accounts, that there was 
 no foundation for supposing that the estate had been mismanaged ; 
 that he, Mr. Lowell, assisted Mr. Boott in making up his accounts, by 
 which it appeared, that a clear balance was due from the estate to 
 Mr. Boott, to the sum of $ 25,000/ Dr. Palmer, after saying that 
 ' it was expressed, that Mr. Boott had been unfairly crowded by the 
 heirs,' adds, ' he stated that Mr. Boott had a great aversion to figures, 
 and to making out accounts ; and that he, Mr. Lowell, made out his 
 
78 
 
 accounts for Mm ; and, on completing his accounts, he discovered 
 that, instead of Mr. Boott being indebted to the estate, the estate was 
 debtor to him, in the sum of $ 25,000. He, Mr. Lowell, represented 
 this result as a decided vindication of Mr. Boott against the un- 
 founded charges of the heirs, as to the management of his estate.' 
 Mr. Learnard says, ' He said, the heirs summoned Mr. Boott into 
 court to render his accounts ; and that he, Mr. Lowell, as a friend of 
 the family, examined, into the accounts, and found that there was a 
 balance due from the estate to Mr. Boott of » 25,000.' Mr. Dyke 
 says, he stated that ' the heirs, among whom was Mr. Edward Brooks, 
 refused to sign the deed of the property, because, as I understood him, 
 he had mismanaged the estate.' ' It was stated by him that the accounts 
 were examined, and a balance was found due to Mr. Boott of about 
 $25,000.' Mr. Brown, without undertaking to state particulars, 
 says, he recollects io general, ' that Mr. JjovieW attributed the death 
 of Mr. Boott to the unhappy difficulties in the family, especially h 
 relatio7i to the estate.'" [B. pp. 31-33.] 
 
 To this may be added another extract from the testimony 
 of Mr. Andrews, namely, — " It was my impression, from all I 
 heard and saw, that Mr. Lowell was extremely anxious to 
 have Mr. Boott made out a sane man." [B. p. 33.] 
 
 Now what says Mr. Lowell to all this ? 
 
 His iirst remark is, that " the object of Mr. Brooks was not 
 to elicit the truth ; otherwise he would have summoned all the 
 persons present at the inquest. > These were nine in number, 
 the coroner, six jurymen, Mr. Kirk Boott, and myself. Of 
 these five only were examined before the magistrate." [L, 
 p. 3.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell, here, affects to consider it objectionable, that he 
 was not summoned, and permitted to state what his former 
 testimony was. Can any thing be more ridiculous? Had 
 I not already called upon him by letter, and urged him, again 
 and again, to make that statement ? Had he not evaded, as long 
 as it was possible, and finally refused to answer, those inqui- 
 ries, on which, I told him, I laid the greatest stress ? Had I not 
 next invited, and urged him by repeated notices, to present 
 himself, in person, before the magistrate, at the time of the 
 examination, where he might have heard the witnesses, and 
 put such questions as he wished, and might also have made 
 his own declaration, if he pleased ? 
 
 But he says, that, after consulting his advisers, " the invita- 
 
79 
 
 tion was viewed, by me and by them, simply as an insult, and 
 was met, as it deserved to be, with silent cDntempt." [L.p. 3.] 
 
 Indeed ! Fair notice, and an opportimity offered to be 
 present at an inquiry concerning himself, were viewed as an 
 insult ! What would he have said, had I proceeded, in such 
 an inquiry without giving him any notice at all ? Or what, 
 if I had sent him a formal summons to appear as a witness, 
 with the view of compelling him to stats what he had re- 
 fused to state voluntarily, and said I had no right even to ask 
 him? [Letter from Jt. Lowell, B. p. 16.] Would not that 
 have been an insult too ? Would he not have treated that, 
 also, with " silent contempt ?" — ^knowing, as he did, or if not, 
 learning, as he would, from his counsel, ihat he was under 
 no legal obligation to obey such a summons, and that, in 
 the absence of any suit pending, he could not be compelled 
 to testify, especially not to testify against himself. 
 
 So, in respect to the sixth jurjrman, — ^is it not amusing to 
 hear Mr. Lowell complain, that I did not summon Dr. Put- 
 nam, when he was informed, that I omitted to do so only 
 " on account of his delicate position as a brother-in-law ; " 
 and that " I should be glad to have his statement, also, if 
 agreeable to you [Mr. Lowell] and himself" ? As a point of 
 courtesy merely, I had studiously avoided calling Dr. Putnam 
 to be a witness against Mr. Lowell ; but that Mr. Lowell 
 might not be prejudiced thereby, I begged him to produce 
 that witness himself. Yet Mr. Lowell complains, that he 
 was not produced, and argues from it that my object weis 
 "not to elicit the truth "! 
 
 It is true, that, in addition to the jurymen, I might have 
 called the coroner, and I might have called Mr. Kirk Boott ; 
 and so could Mr. Lowell, if his object had been that the truth 
 should be elicited. But what had either of these persons to 
 do with the taking of the testimony at the inquest? Mr. 
 Kirk Boott, though present, was only a spectator. He took 
 no part in the proceedings. In fact, I doubt if I even knew, 
 at the time I examined the jurors, whether he was present at 
 the whole hearing, or not. The coroner, I of course knew 
 must officially have presided ; but I also knew, that it was the 
 
80 
 
 business of the jury, under their oaths, and not of the coroner, 
 to receive and weigh the evidence, and to render a true verdict 
 upon it. They were, therefore, the proper persons, as it 
 seemed to me, — and not the coroner, nor Mr. Kirk Boott,— by 
 whom to prove what the testimony was, upon which they 
 acted. 
 
 The real case, therefore, is this : The whole audience, at 
 that inquest, consisted of eight persons only, besides the party, 
 whose testimony is in question. Of those eight, six were 
 sworn to find a verdict upon the evidence. One was a pre- 
 siding officer, who had no such duty to perform; and one 
 was a mere bystander. The party himself is called upon, by 
 letter, to state what his own testimony had been, and refusesi 
 He is then invited to be present at an examination of the jurors, 
 and he treats the invitation with " silent contempt." Five of 
 the six jurors, having no connexion with either of the parties 
 concerned in the inquiry, are summoned for examination. 
 The sixth, being intimately connected with the party, whose 
 former testimony was in question, is not simimoned, for that 
 reason ; but the party is requested to produce him, if he 
 pleases, and he does not. The five, who were summoned, are 
 all examined. Yet, we are told, the object of this inquiry 
 could not have been " to elicit the truth," because the fre- 
 siding officer, and the mere bystander and the sixth juryman, 
 whom the party did not choose to produce, and the farty 
 himself, who had refused to disclose the matter in question, 
 and would not even be present at an inquiry about it, were 
 not examined also ! 
 
 Now, ordinarily, I suppose two or three intelligent, unim- 
 peached, and imcontradicted witnesses, of the same fact, are 
 as good evidence of it as a hundred. If the question be, what 
 had occurred in a crowded court-room, must one summon the 
 whole auditory, instead of two or three such witnesses, selected 
 from those, whose attention was solemnly called to the occur- 
 rence, at the time, in the discharge of a sworn duty ? Or, if he 
 does not, is he to be told, that the omission shows that he does 
 not wish to arrive at the truth ? So far from being faulty in 
 the number of my witnesses, I think most persons will con- 
 
81 
 
 sider, that I went to an extreme, in calling every juror save 
 one, and inviting the other party to bring that one. 
 
 But, after all, the only important iaquiry is, whether the 
 witnesses, who were not called, would, or could, have mate- 
 rially contradicted those, who were called, on the main points 
 in question. From their present statements, published by 
 Mr. Lowell, I hold it to be clear that they could not. This 
 we shall see presently. 
 
 But, Mr. Lowell supposes I must have had some particular 
 motive, in not calling the coroner ; and says it was, that I had 
 " ascertained beforehand " that he would not sustain me. [L. 
 p. 4.] Now I had a better reason than that, besides the 
 reason that he was not sworn, as the jurors were, to attend 
 to the evidence. My additional reason was, that he had 
 stated the same transaction one way at one time, and another 
 way at another time, — and that within three or four days 
 after its occurrence. I refer to his contradictory statements 
 to Mr. Dexter and to Mr. Loring, respecting his knowledge of 
 the contents of the letter produced by Mr. Lowell at the in- 
 quest. [B. pp. 151-153.] After that, how was it possible 
 for me to place great reliance on the accuracy of his recollec- 
 tions and statements a year and a half later ? 
 
 But why did I not call my young friend, Mr. Kii'k Boott ? 
 asks Mr. Lowell. Certainly, not from any lilce distrust of him ; 
 but, simply, for the reasons, that he had no official connexion 
 with the inquest ; that there were witnesses enough without 
 him ; and that I did not wish to implicate him, unnecessarily, 
 any more than Dr. Putnam, in a proceeding, which would ap- 
 pear somewhat adverse to Mr. Lowell, whose friendship, in 
 many ways, I believed to be valuable to him. Mr. Lowell, 
 however, thinks he sees a different motive ; and says, " I am 
 authorized by Mr. Kirk Boott to say, Mr. Brooks knew, from 
 his own lips, before his book was printed, that he would not 
 have sustained him." [L. p. 4.] 
 
 Observe, — Mr. Lowell is careful to say, only that I knew 
 
 this before my book was printed, — ^not that I knew it at the 
 
 time of the examination. But, even as Mr. Lowell states it, 
 
 I strongly suspect an over-statement. I cannot think that that 
 
 11 
 
62 
 
 gentleman, (Mr. K. Boott,) meant to authorize the idea; 
 clearly held out by Mr. Lowell, that he -ttrould contradict, 
 generally, the statements of the jurors, as printed by me. I 
 shall not believe that, until I learn it from Mr. K. Boott him- 
 self. 
 
 I had never held any conversation with that gentleman, on 
 this subject, at the time of the examination. Long after, and 
 when my book was in fact partly printed, I had one for the 
 first and only time, not sought by me, but arising, acciden- 
 tally, upon the occasion of his calling at my office for a dif- 
 ferent pxirpose, — a purpose of business, connected with the 
 trust under his father's will, whieh led me to speak of Mr. 
 Lowell, who was associated with me in that trust. 
 
 In the course of the remarks then made, I alluded to the 
 testimony at the inquest, and referred, particularly, to Dr. 
 Palmer's statement, that Mr. Lowell " represented this result," 
 — that is, the result of the accounts,—" as a decided vindica- 
 tion of Mr. Boott, against the tmfounded charges of the heiis, 
 as to the management of his estate." [B. p. 28.] I think 
 I read the statement to him, from Dr. Palmer's written declar- 
 ation. Mr. K. Boott thereupon remarked, either, that he did 
 not hear Mr. Lowell say that, or, that he did not recoiled 
 hearing Mr. Lowell say that ; " but," he immediately added, 
 " there was considerable conversation between Mr. Lowell 
 and the jurors, after the inquest was over, ivhich I did not 
 distinctly overhear ; and he might have said it then." 
 
 This, so far as I recollect, was the whole extent of Mr. K. 
 Boott's contradiction, — if it deserves to be called so, — in that 
 conversation, of any expression, or representation, attributed 
 by either of the jm-ors to Mr. Lowell. Mr. Lowell, however, 
 says, in the most general terms, that I knew from Mr. K. 
 Boott himself, that he would not have sustained me ; as if he 
 would not have confirmed the jurors in any part of their 
 testimony ! He repeats [L. p. 15.] that " he [Brooks] had been 
 expressly informed by Mr. Kirk Boott, that he well remem- 
 bered, that I [Mr. Lowell] had not given any such testimffi^ 
 to the jury as Mr. Brooks alleged!" And he complains 
 
— "Yet the benefit of this statement of Mr. Kirk Boott is 
 no -where given to me throughout the book." [L. p. 4] 
 
 Now I, certainly, should not have had the least objection, 
 except from a desire not to implicate Mr. K. Boott, unneces- 
 sarily, in this business, to have given Mr. Lowell the full 
 benefit of that gentleman's statement, as it was actually made 
 to me, and as I have now given it above, if he can find any 
 benefit in it. It does not strike me as mending Mr. Lowell's 
 case. To me it is quite indifferent, whether, what he said to 
 the jurors was said in the form of testimony, or otherwise. 
 But if, after the inquest was over, he entered, gratuitously, into 
 conversation with the jurors, and thereby enlarged, or quali- 
 fied, the effect of any thing he had just said as a witness, so 
 Tnuch the worse, as it seems to me, for Mr. Lowell. 
 
 The substance of my complaint is, that, by what he said to 
 those gentlemen, and by his manner of saying it, he conveyed 
 erroneous impressions, injurious to me. I do not say, that he 
 intended to do so, but I say such was the fact. If, imme- 
 diately following his testimony, there was, as now appears 
 from Mr. K. Boott, and will presently appear by another wit- 
 ness, a desultory conversation besides, in which he took part, 
 it would be natural enough for the jury, in giving an account 
 of what Mr. Lowell had said, after the lapse of eighteen 
 months, to blend the conversation with the testimony, — 
 especially when nothing occurred to call their attention to 
 the distinction : and the effect, on them, of a statement from 
 Mr. Lowell, would be the same, whether made under oath 
 or not. But if it were made, in a mere conversation, what 
 becomes of Mr. Lowell's excuse, that he could not avoid say- 
 ing what he did, because he was under the obligation of 
 a witness ? [Letter from Mr. Lowell, B. p. 17.] That Dr. 
 Palmer and other jm-ors did, in one way or the other, derive 
 the impression, from what Mr. Lowell said, and from his 
 manner of saying it, that he meant to represent the state of 
 the accounts as "a decided vindication " of the late Mr. Boott, 
 against the charge of mismanagement, made by some of the 
 heirs, can not be doubted, if Dr. Palmer and the other jurors 
 are believed. And Mr. K. Boott said nothing to me, and says 
 
84 
 
 nothing now, in his printed statement, [L. p. 13.] which tends 
 to contradict Dr. Palmer, as to the facts, which he says were 
 stated by Mr. Lowell, nor as to the manner, in which those 
 facts were stated. They produced on Dr. Palmer, and on the 
 other jurors, a particular impression, which may not have been 
 produced on Mr. K. Boott, either because he did not hear what 
 they heard, or because of previous opinions and feelings, 
 which affected him, and did not affect strangers. Mr. Lowell, 
 certainly, now represents the accounts as a positive vindication 
 of the late Mr. Boott's management. And since he does not 
 deny, that he spoke of the accoimts at the inquest, it may 
 fairly be inferred, that he, in effect, did so represent them on 
 that occasion, even if Dr. Palmer and Mr. K. Boott should 
 happen to disagree in their recollections of particular ex- 
 pressions used ; still more, if words were addressed to Dr. 
 Palmer, in conversation, which Mr. K. Boott admits he did 
 not hear. How could Mr. Lowell, if he believes what he now 
 prints, have spoken of the accounts, then, otherwise than as 
 he speaks of them now ? 
 
 Indeed, it is the more probable, that this representation 
 of the accounts, as vindicating the late Mr. Boott against 
 false charges, may have been njade during the colloquy, which 
 followed the inquest, and which Mr. K. Boott said he did 
 not hear, from the fact, that Dr. Palmer's strong impression 
 about it was derived, not merely from the words used by Mr. 
 Lowell, but also from his extremely emphatic manner of de- 
 liyprjng tlf\em, with his right arm raised in the air, — whi^b 
 vyould have heen very unsuitable for a witness, calmly deliv- 
 ering his testimony upon oath. 
 
 This, it is true, does not appear in Dr. Palmer's mitten 
 declaration before t^e magistrate ; for this witness appeared, 
 as the witnesses did geiierally, extremely cautious not to 
 make over-strong statement;? ; and this excessive caution, some- 
 t;imes, led them to soften expressions and descriptions, to a 
 lo^er point than the truth would have justified. But any 
 body, who is curious enough to inquire of Dr. Palmer, I have 
 no doubt, will find the truth to be as I now state ; and that 
 the words actually used by Mr. Lowell, in this emphatic 
 
85 
 
 manner, were " triumphant vindication." So Dr. Palmer has 
 stated to me, and to others. The fact, of the manner of 
 making such a statement, will not he incredible to those who 
 are acquainted with Mr. Lowell. 
 
 I should add, that I was not acquainted with this fact of a 
 conversation, in addition to the testimony, at the time of the 
 examination of the jurors, and consequently their attention 
 Avas not called to it. I shall presently prove the fact hy an- 
 other of Mr. Lowell's witnesses. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MB. Lowell's charge against me or tajipering with the 
 
 WITNESSES. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, next proceeds, to suggest, that I had prepared 
 the witnesses, hy previous conversations ; or, in other words, 
 had taught them what to say ; and that the examination was, 
 in other respects, unfairly conducted. [L. p. 4 et seg.] Very 
 flattering this, both to the witnesses and to the magistrate, as 
 well as to me. I take it to be one of those " petty insinua- 
 tions," with which Mr. LoweU says Tny pamphlet abounds. 
 [L. p. 20.] But let us see upon what this imputation is 
 founded. 
 
 The supposed tampering with the witnesses, appears to be 
 a mere inference, by Mr. Lowell, from certain statements, said 
 to have been made by Mr. Coroner Pratt, respecting my con- 
 versations, not with any one of those witnesses, but with the 
 coroner himself. [L. p. 5.] The evidence of these state- 
 ments, of Mr. Pratt, is said to be a memorandum, made by 
 Mr. Lowell's counsel, Charles G. Loring, Esq. Dec. 19, 1846, 
 of an interview he had just held with Sir. Pratt. This date, 
 it will be observed, is the day after my notice to Mr. Lowell, 
 
86 
 
 that I had requested the five jurors to appear before John Phelps 
 Putnam, Esq. on Monday the 21st of Dec, for the purpose of 
 taking their testimony. [B. p. 24.] Though Mr. Lowell 
 treated my notice, otherwise, with " silent contempt," it seems, 
 he did not, after all, so utterly despise it, but that he thought 
 it prudent to have his coimsel see the coroner in the mean 
 time ; and the effect of the interview appears to have been, 
 that the coroner called on the several members of the jury, or, 
 at least, on three of them, who spoke of it afterwards, and en- 
 deavoured to deter them, severally, from appearing before the 
 magistrate, at the time and place appointed. [B. pp. 25, 26.] 
 This circmnstance, to which Mr. Lowell's attention was 
 called, by a letter from me, at the time, and which was par- 
 ticularly stated in my former pamphlet, is not denied by Mr. 
 Lowell to have been a movement proceeding from him. 
 
 But, to return to the interview between Mr. Loring and 
 Mr. Pratt. Since the evidence, of what was said by Mr. Pratt, 
 lies in Mr. Loring 's memorandum, it would have been more 
 satisfactory, certainly, if the memorandum itself had been 
 printed, that we might know the whole of the conversation, 
 so far as it appears by that paper ; and when question is made, 
 by Mr. Lowell, of the fairness of my proceedings in the tak- 
 ing of testimony, I cannot but remark, that, when Mr. Lowell 
 caused the coroner's statements to be taken down in writing, 
 on two different occasions, (viz. an interview with Mr. Loring, 
 mentioned in his letter to Mr. Dexter of March 12, 1845, 
 [B. App. p. 61.] and this second interview of Dec. 19, 1846,) 
 I should have been far from considering myself insulted, if 
 he had given me notice, and an opportunity to be present, 
 either in person, or by my counsel, at those examinations.* I 
 had no such notice ; and in respect to this second interview, 
 we have no knowledge of the contents of Mr. Loring's memo- 
 randum, except from Mr. Lowell's account of it. Without 
 claiming to quote its exact language, he says, — " From a 
 memorandum made," &c. "it appears that Mr. Brooks had 
 made many applications to him (the coroner) on the subject 
 of the inquest," and, among other things, had inquired, 
 " whether there had not been improper management^ in get- 
 
87 
 
 ting Dr. Putnam put upon the jury, and whether Mr. Lowell 
 had not suggested the questions put to the witnesses, and 
 otherwise interfered at the inquest, and that he [Mr. Pratt] 
 had replied, that Mr. LoweU had had nothing to do with it, 
 and would not have been allowed to meddle, if disposed ;" — 
 and "that Mr. Brooks had, repeatedly, asked him about the 
 use of several ' little words ' by Mr. Lowell at the hearing." 
 "From this," says Mr. Lowell, "we may infer, how he had 
 dealt with those members of the jury, whom he saw before 
 the examination, and afterwards summoned to be present at 
 it." [L. p. 5.] 
 
 Now, if Mr. Lowell really wishes to know, how I had dealt 
 with the members of the jury, or any of them, and what in- 
 fluence I had used to corrupt their testimony, I advise him to 
 apply to those gentlemen themselves for information, instead 
 of making inferences about it, from what the coroner says of 
 my conversations with him, held without reference to the 
 taking of testimony at all, but simply for my own informa- 
 tion on certain points. And here, I would remark, that when 
 the memorandum is referred to by Mr. Lowell, as showing 
 that Mr. Pratt said I had made " many " applications to him, 
 and that I had " repeatedly " asked him about the use of 
 those " little words," either Mr. Pratt, or the memorandum, 
 or Mr. Lowell, is egregiously mistaken. 
 
 I made some inquiries of Mr. Pratt at one time, soon after 
 the inquest, about the course of proceeding, and among other 
 things inquired, how Mr. Lowell's brother-in-law, Dr. Put- 
 nam, happened to be upon the jury ; for that seemed to me a 
 remarkable accident, if it was an accident. Some inquiries 
 were also made, either by me, or for me, about the same time, 
 concerning the contents of the letter, and concerning what 
 was said of it at the inquest ; which, I presume, are the " little 
 words " spoken of. Upon another occasion, before the date 
 of Mr. Loring's memorandum, I exchanged a few words with 
 Mr. Pratt, on another point connected with the proceedings. 
 But I have not the least recollection, or belief, of ever having 
 asked him, upon any occasion, "whether Mr. Lowell had 
 not suggested the questions put to the witnesses," or of re- 
 
88 
 
 ceiving from him any "indignant denial," of which Mr. 
 Lowell complains I have not given him the benefit. If there 
 had been any such denial, and especially any indignation in 
 it, I think I should have recollected the circumstance, and 
 would, certainly, have given Mr. Lowell the full benefit of 
 that. 
 
 The truth is, I never got much information of any kind 
 from the coroner, though it seems to have ilowed freely 
 enough in the other direction ; and after the discrepance in 
 his statements about the letter, above referred to, I had 
 but one conversation with him on any subject, until after Mr. 
 Lowell's publication. But, on the 13th of April, 1848, he 
 happened to call at my office, to see, on some ofiicial busi- 
 ness, another gentleman, who was then a temporary inmate 
 of my office. Finding me, Mr. Pratt himself introduced 
 this subject, by remarking, that Mr. Lowell had sent him 
 a copy of his pamphlet, and by asking for a copy of mine. 
 I then availed myself of the opportunity, thus profiered, 
 to hold a few minutes conversation with him ; and, as 
 Mr. Lowell had taught me how that business should be 
 done, I requested the other gentleman, who was present, to 
 make a memorandum of what passed, though not without 
 fair notice to Mr. Pratt, by making the request aloud. This 
 memorandum I shall, shortly, print. At present, I have only 
 to remark, that Mr. Pratt confirmed, on that occasion, the 
 statement made by Mr. Kirk Boott, and said, " There was a 
 general conversation after the inquest; Mr. Lowell talked 
 with the jury." But, he added, — and I pray Mr. Lowell to 
 take the benefit of it, — " I did not hear him say any thing 
 against you." Some of the jurors, it seems, thought other- 
 wise ; and as they state what he did say, the reader may 
 judge for himself, whether it was, in its natural effect, against 
 me, or not. I never supposed it was, in form, a mere invec- 
 tive, — which may be Mr. Pratt's idea of speaking against 
 a man. Dr. Palmer says, in his declaration, " From what I 
 heard of the evidence of Mr. Lowell, I should have had a 
 very unfavom-able impression of Mr. Edward Brooks, had I 
 not known him before." Indeed, Dr. Palmer told me, that 
 
89 
 
 he never saw me, afterwards, in the street, without thinking 
 on what Mr. Lowell had said of me, and wondering if it could 
 possibly be true. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HOW DR. PUTNAM CAME TO BE UPON THE JCHT. NO ATTACK 
 MADE BY ME ON DR. PUTNAM. 
 
 One Other extract, from the memorandum, in my possession, 
 of this last mentioned conversation with the coroner, may now 
 be made. It is in the following words, — ^Mr. Pratt speaking : 
 — " I said I should want one good physician on the jury. 
 Mr. Lowell said, Dr. Putnam is at the house, and will he 
 a good man. I knew Dr. P., and mentioned his name to 
 the officer who summoned the jury. This was before Dr. 
 Palmer was summoned." 
 
 The coroner had informed me, on the same subject, soon 
 after the inquest, that he found Dr. Putnam with Mi-. Lowell 
 at the house, when he went there, and that Mr. Lowell 
 asked him to put Dr. Putnam on the jury ; — to which he an- 
 swered, that the constable had gone to summon a list ; but that 
 the constable himself was to be one of the jury, as he usu- 
 ally was, and that he (the coroner) could leave oif the consta- 
 ble, and put Dr. Putnam on in his place, — and that he did 
 so. Which, of these two accounts, is in exact accordance 
 with the reality, or whether either of them is, is more than 1 
 can say. They both agree, however, in the main fact, that 
 Dr. Putnam came to be a member of the jury through Mr, 
 Lowell's suggestion. 
 
 Of this first conversation, there was no witness but myself; 
 and, though I relied on my own recollection of it, I did not rely 
 on Mr. Pratt's ; and therefore, when I alluded, in my pam- 
 
90 
 
 phlet, to such information, as received from some quarter, I 
 did not name my authority, lest my statement of it should, 
 possibly, meet with a contradiction from Mr. Pratt. But, 
 being now provided with a memorandum, made by a third 
 party, of a subsequent conversation, heard by him, which, 
 though it describes some of the circumstances differently, 
 substantiates the principal matter, I now refer to what I had 
 formerly heard from the coroner, in order to show, that I had 
 good ground, although I did not then disclose it, for certain 
 comments. 
 
 And now, let us see, what Mr. Lowell says about this : — 
 
 " If Mr. Brooks is to be believed, I not only endeavoured to influ- 
 ence the verdict of the jury by my own testimony, and by suggesting 
 questions to be put to the other witnesses, but I also managed to get 
 Dr. Putnam put upon the jury. ' One,' says Mr. Brooks, [p. 26.] 
 ' who had not been originally summoned for the purpose, was at the 
 house, by the invitation, I believe, of Mr. Lowell, and was put upon 
 the jury, by Mr. Lowell's suggestion to the coroner, as I am informed. 
 This was Dr. Putnam, a brother-in-law of Mr. Lowell.' 
 
 " This paragraph, it was hoped, would answer the double purpose 
 of throwing a suspicion of unfair management upon me, and of dis- 
 crediting beforehand the testimony of Dr. Putnam. Who Mr. 
 Brooks's informant was, we are not told ; it seems, however, from Mr. 
 Loring's memorandum of December 19, 1846, above cited, that the 
 coroner had distinctly assured Mr. Brooks that the suspicion was 
 unfounded." [L. p. 189.] 
 
 If it so seems, from Mr. Loring's memorandmn of Decem- 
 ber 19, 1846, all I have to say about it is, that it seems, from 
 the memorandum made by my friend Mr. Adams, April 13, 
 1848, that the coroner then distinctly assured me exactly the 
 other way; and I refer, in proof, to Mr. Adams's memorandum, 
 in a subsequent part of these remarks. 
 
 Mr. Lowell then goes on to state what the fact was. 
 
 " The fact was this : the coroner told me that it would be neces- 
 sary to have a medical man in attendance, and asked me to procure 
 one. Dr. Jackson expressed a reluctance to attend, and I called 
 upon my family physician, Dr. Putnam. Neither he, nor I, had 
 the slightest expectation that he would be put upon the jury, nor did 
 either of us make any suggestion to that efi'ect." [L. p. 189.] 
 
 Now I shall not be so discourteous to Mr. Lowell as to 
 suggest, that his statement, on this point, is overborne by Mi. 
 Pratt's. But Mr. Pratt, it now appears, has, on two several 
 
91 
 
 occasions, stated to me, and upon the last of them in the 
 presence of a disinterested auditor, whose certificate I shall 
 give, that ilr. Lowell did make the very suggestion, which he 
 says he did not. And suice 3Ir. Lowell chooses, in repeated 
 instances, to rely on Blr. Pratt, as a good witness against me, 
 I think it is but fair that I should " give him the benefit " of 
 what his own witness says about him. It is certainly imfor- 
 tunate, for Mr. Lowell, that he and his witness caimot agree 
 better than this ; but I leave the contradiction to go for 
 what it may be worth. 
 
 Mr. Lowell then adds the following remark : — 
 
 " I think the impartial reader will hardly fail to ask, what there is 
 in Dr. Charles G. Putnam's character or position, that authorizes Mr. 
 Edward Brooks to hazard the innuendo, that, in the capacity of a juror, 
 he would not appreciate the solemnity of the obligation upon him, or 
 could be swerved from the strict and conscientious performance of his 
 duty." [L. pp. 189, 190.] 
 
 I should have been glad if Mr. Lowell had been pleased to 
 point out the particular passage, which he supposes to contain 
 this harsh imiuendo. I am not conscious of it. Assuredly, 
 I never intended to intimate any such thing. I never enter- 
 tained the idea. If any thing, in my pamphlet, is fairly 
 entitled to that construction, I most sincerely ask Dr. Put- 
 nam's pardon for it, and am happy in the opportunity of de- 
 claring, that I have the most entire confidence in his charac- 
 ter £is a physician and a gentleman. I am the more solicitous 
 to make this declaration, because I perceive from a letter of 
 Dr. Putnam, printed by Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 14.] that he 
 thinks it necessary to disclaim having made a proposal " to 
 embody in the verdict the fact that Illr. Boott weis sane ;" 
 which three of the jury said was proposed by some one, and 
 that they did not recollect by whom, while two of them did 
 not recollect the proposal at all ; — and " therefore," says Dr. 
 Putnam, " by the process of exclusion, the imputation rests on 
 me." Mr. Lowell represents this as " a matter personal " to 
 Dr. Putnam, [L. p. 14] and Dr. Putnam, himself, apparently 
 considers it an " imputation." 
 
 What I said, on that subject, will be foimd at p. 157-8 of 
 my former pamphlet. I was commenting upon the evidence. 
 
92 
 
 and was, of course, obliged to take it as I found it. I ex- 
 tracted the statements of the five jurymen relating to this 
 point, and showed from them, that this proposal could not, 
 probably, have come from either of those five persons, nor 
 from the coroner ; and I then added as follows : — 
 
 " There was nobody else, by whom it could have been proposed, 
 except Mr. Lowell, or his brother, Dr. Putnam, the sixth juryman. 
 There was one other person present, a son of the late Mr. Kirk 
 IJoott, but I understand he took no part in the proceedings. 
 
 "In this connexion, the further statement of Mr. Andrews de- 
 serves to be borne in mind. 
 
 " ' There was a question suggested hy Mr. Lowell to three of the 
 witnesses.'" [B. p. 158.] 
 
 In a fair commentary on what the witnesses had said, 
 knowing nothing of the fact myself, I could not assume to 
 exclude, positively, either Dr. Putnam or Mr. Kirk Boott, any 
 more than Mr. Lowell. Of Mr. Kirk Boott I could say, with 
 truth, as I did, that I imderstood "he took no part in the 
 proceedings." Of Dr. Putnam I could not say that ; and I 
 did not conceive that the character of either of the gentlemen 
 had any thing to do with the question. It would have been 
 a mere mistake. But, I submit to the reader, upon the extract 
 above made, and still more upon the context, which preceded 
 and followed it, that the imputation, such as it was, and 
 whether well or ill founded, of leading the jury to a conclusion, 
 and of desiring to have that conclusion appear, affirmatively, 
 in their verdict, was directed, throughout, against Mr. Lowell ; 
 and that Dr. Putnam has mistaken me, if he infers, that, by 
 any process of exclusion or otherwise, any imputation was 
 meant to rest upon him. Mr. Lowell, himself, understood it 
 precisely as I intended he should ; for he says, elsewhere, 
 " Another instance of a like kind is the attempt to fix upon 
 me a proposal that the coroner's jury should bring in a verdict 
 that Mr. Boott was a sane man." [L. p. 19.] 
 
 I am aware, that Mr. Lowell proceeds to make certain state- 
 ments, which, if admitted, would tend to narrow the field of 
 exclusion, so far as to make my remarks, on this proposal, 
 properly applicable to Dr. Putnam, rather than to himself But 
 that is his doing, not mine ; and I am not prepared to admit 
 
93 
 
 the unqualified con-ectness of what he says on that subject, 
 which is as follows : — 
 
 " Upon this proposal, very rightly characterized by Mr. Brooks as 
 an extraordinary one, there are some severe comments. But the 
 learned counsel of Mr. Brooks might have informed him, that no one 
 is permitted to be present at the deliberations of a jury. The propos- 
 al, if made, came from one of themselves, Was Mr. Brooks igno- 
 rant of this ? or, knowing it, was he willing to hazard the innuendo, 
 trusting to the ignorance of his readers ?" [L. p. 19.] 
 
 This alleged exclusiveness of a jury, at their deliberations, 
 is perfectly true, as every body knows, of a jury, which has 
 tried a cause in court, and is sent out to find a verdict. The 
 rule of the court forbids them to communicate with others 
 in such cases ; and the court is capable of enforcing its own 
 rule. But who believes this to be true in cases of inquest, 
 when the jury have no guidance but that of a coroner and 
 a constable, and no court to set aside their verdict? Perhaps, 
 in strict propriety, a coroner's jury ought to hold itself boimd 
 by the same principle, and to allow no stranger to be present, 
 except as a witness, and while testifying. But there is no 
 such nicety, I imagine, in the usual practice of such bodies, 
 especially in cases where there is no suspicion of murder. 
 I do not speak, of course, from any personal experience ; for 
 I never attended a coroner's jury in my life. Mr. Lowell's 
 friendly offices saved me that necessity, on the only occasion 
 when I might, otherwise, have been called to that disagree- 
 able duty. But such is my belief. I wrote under that idea. 
 If I am shown to be mistaken in it, I shall most readily re- 
 tract all I have said, on the subject of this proposal, as likely 
 to have come from Mr. Lowell. 
 
 But, it appears, that, in this very case, conversation was held 
 with the jurors relative to the subject of their inquiry ; and 
 that Mr. Lowell expressed some of his ideas in that conver- 
 sation. True, Mr. Pratt says this was " after the inquest ;" by 
 which he means, I suppose, after the verdict of " death by sui- 
 cide " was made up ; but whether it was so, or not, is more 
 than I know ; and if it was, the verdict was still, I presume, 
 under the control of the jury, and amendable by an addition, 
 on the distinct point of insanity. However this may be, I 
 
94 
 
 desire to have it understood, that I never said, nor intended to 
 intimate, that I thought Dr. Putnam to he the author of this 
 proposal, nor that there was any thing derogatory to his char- 
 acter in it, if he had been ; nor that there was any improprir 
 ety in his acting en the jury, at the request of Mr. LoAvell. 
 Still less have I ever suggested, or thought, " that, in the 
 capacity of a jui'or, he would not appreciate the solemnity of 
 the obligation upon him," [L. p. 189] or that he could, know- 
 ingly, " be swerved from the strict and conscientious perform- 
 ance of his duty." [L. p. 190.] 
 
 Like other men, I suppose him liable to be influenced, in 
 his judgement, by previous impressions, and by the opinions 
 of friends, whose opinions he is accustomed to respect. But 
 even that I do not attribute to him, in relation to this verdict, 
 There was nothing, certainly, in the evidence laid before that 
 jury, except the bare fact of a suicide, which could have jus- 
 tified a verdict of insanity ; and I have no reason to suspect, 
 that Dr. Putnam knew facts, known to Mr. Lowell, which, if 
 proved, might well have induced him to pause for further 
 inquiry, before he c:onsented to omit the finding of the fact of 
 insanity. This idea of an intended attack on Dr. Putnam 
 may be safely dismissed, as another of Mr. Lowell's false 
 issues. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MR. Lowell's chabge of unfairness in the examination of 
 
 THE jurors. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, after inferring, from my inquii-ies of another 
 person for a difierent purpose, that I must have gradually in- 
 fused into the minds of five jurors, "by repeated inquiries and 
 insinuations," [L. p. 6.] what I desired them, as witnesses, to 
 say, concludes, that " the result of the examination was such 
 
95 
 
 as might have been expected ;" and is obliged to admit, that 
 they "all agree, that my [Mr. Lowell's] testimony tended, 
 more or less clearly, to the conclusion, that the death of Mr. 
 Boott was attributable to uneasiness of mind, caused by the 
 unhappy difficulties in the family, especially in relation to the 
 estate." [L. p. 6.] 
 
 " Even to this conclusion," he adds, " Mr. Brooks's wit- 
 nesses would hardly have come, if the examination had been 
 conducted with a decent regard to fairness ! " [L. p. 6.] 
 
 This is very plain speaking. It is as much a reflection 
 upon the magistrate, who took that testimony, as it is upon 
 me ; and I may very well ask, after the manner, and nearly 
 in the language, of Mr. Lowell, " what there is in Mr. John 
 P. Putnam's character or position, that authorizes Mr. John A. 
 Lowell to hazard the innuendo, that, in the capacity of a 
 magistrate, he would not appreciate the solemnity of the obli- 
 gation upon him, or would be swerved from the strict and 
 conscientious performance of his duty ? " [L. p. 189.] 
 
 He was, at that time, an entire stranger to me. I never 
 spoke to him in my life, nor knew him even by sight, until 
 I called upon him to fix a time for the hearing, after he had 
 been spoken to, by my counsel, to engage his services as a 
 magistrate. But he was recommended, by one of my coun- 
 sel, as a gentleman of known respectability in his profession, 
 accustomed to the taking of depositions with exact fidelity, 
 and usually employed by him, for that duty, in important 
 cases. He was, in fact, employed by him, and not by me, 
 in this case. 
 
 It will be borne in mind, besides, that it was not expected 
 to be an ex parte proceeding at all. Three days' notice had 
 been given to Mr. Lowell, with the choice of appearing with 
 or without counsel, as he pleased. [B. p. 24.] After waiting 
 a reasonable time, no one appearing in his behalf, the ex- 
 amination proceeded without him. Mr. Putnam was scrupu- 
 lous, in the outset, to inform the witnesses, that he had no 
 power to compel them to testify, and that no oath could be 
 administered. In other respects, the business was conducted 
 in what I understand to be the usual manner of taking depo- 
 
96 
 
 sitions. The witnesses were successively examined, and their 
 respective statements written down as delivered. Each was 
 asked, in the first place, whether he had been on that jury of 
 inquest, and whether Mr. Lowell was a witness before it ; and 
 was then requested, to state what he recollected of Mr. Low- 
 ell's testimony on that occasion. When he had told his gen- 
 eral story, and came to a pause, particular questions were put, 
 by me, on such further points as I wished to be informed 
 upon, and supposed the witness might know. The magis- 
 trate proceeded slowly and carefully, taking much pains to 
 secure the exact language of the witness, reading each 
 sentence over to him as he proceeded, and allowing him to 
 correct it if it were not precisely as he meant to have it ; 
 and such corrections were in fact made, in several instances. 
 Finally, after assuring himself that the witness intended the 
 whole declaration, precisely as it was made, it was submitted 
 to the witness, for his own examination, and subscribed by 
 him. 
 
 Now what says Mr. Lowell ? " We are led to infer, that 
 they were all examined together. If so, each had the benefit 
 of having his memory refreshed by the evidence, and by the 
 running commentaries of his associates." [L. p. 6.] 
 
 This is one of the cases, in which Mr. Lowell runs into an 
 inference without any premises. It is true, that the wit- 
 nesses were not kept in separate apartments. This is some- 
 times done in a capital trial ; but is not done in orduiary 
 cases of examination, in court or out of court. But the wit- 
 nesses were successively examined ; the statement of one was 
 completed before that of another was begun ; there was 
 no interruption, prompting, or running commentary from any 
 quarter ; and, as it happened, they did not all heai- each other's 
 testimony ; for one witness, whose recollections are perhaps 
 fuller, and more distinct, than either of the others, did not 
 come in till the examination of several, if not of all, the 
 others, was concluded. The order, by the way, in which 
 the declarations are printed in my pamphlet, is the order, in 
 which the papers happened to be tied together by the magis- 
 trate, and is not the order, in which the examinations oc- 
 
97 
 
 cured, as, it would seem, Mr. Lowell, also, erroneously 
 infers. 
 
 " At any rate," says Mr. Lowell, " the questions put to 
 them were of so leading a character, that in an open court, 
 where the rights of the adverse party were duly guarded, no 
 lawyer, having any regard for his professional reputation, 
 would have ventured to put them ; " and he thinks, that the 
 learned counsel, who advised me in this business, must have 
 taken especial care, that the fact of their absence should be 
 recorded in my pamphlet. [L. p. 7.] 
 
 I am not aware that these gentlemen were desirous of that 
 protection, though it is not imlikely that my questions were 
 very inartificially put ; for I profess no skill, or experience, in 
 that matter. I should greatly have preferred, that my counsel 
 should have been present to conduct the examination. In 
 that case, I think it probable, that the testimony might have 
 been put in much better shape, and perhaps more information 
 might have been obtained from the witnesses. But I con- 
 sidered myself, impliedly, engaged to Mr. Lowell, by the tenor 
 of my notice to him, not to avail myself of counsel, if he did 
 not. [B. p. 24.] Had I done so, we should, imdoubtedly, 
 have been told, that that was a very unfair proceeding ; and 
 that the adroitness of these gentlemen of the law had con- 
 trived to extort from the witnesses what they had never in- 
 tended to say. 
 
 As it w£is, I conducted the examination, so far as it de- 
 pended on me, as well as I knew how ; and, I am sure, with- 
 out any art of wilfully leading a witness astray, even if I 
 might be deemed capable of that baseness. Does not Mr. 
 LoweU himself furnish an apt illustration of this ? He says, 
 " We are not favoured with the questions as put ; but three 
 of the witnesses say, ' He [Mr. Lowell] did not say that the 
 letter charged Mr. Brooks with dishonesty, or Mrs. Lyman 
 with being a spy in the house,' — ^no one of the others, be it 
 observed, having said that I did. I submit to every lawyer, 
 under whose eye these pages may come, whether the words 
 ' spy ' and ' dishonesty ' were not put into the witnesses' 
 mouths." [L. p. 7.] 
 
98 
 
 Now I confess, that, having heard, from Mr. Lowell, that 
 such was a part of the contents of that letter, and desiring to 
 know, whether he had disclosed this to the jury, I very bluntly 
 asked those witnesses, who spoke of the letter, whether Mr. 
 Lowell did not say that it contained the words above quoted. 
 This was very unprofessional, no doubt ; and if it was a 
 leading question, as I suppose it was, I leave it to all the law- 
 yers of the Suffolk Bar to say, whether the effect was not to 
 lead the witnesses exactly the wrong way. Instead of tes- 
 tifying that Mr. Lowell did say so, every one of them said, 
 point blank, that he did not. I leave it, therefore, again, to 
 the lawyers, to say, whether I should have put such a ques- 
 tion, if I had talked the witnesses over beforehand, and taught 
 them how to answer me, as Mr. Lowell supposes. 
 
 But Mr. Lowell points out " one irrefragable proof," that 
 the words, ascribed to him by some of the witnesses, must 
 have been prompted by Mr. Brooks. It is this : — that I sup- 
 posed the final bargain for the sale of the house to have been 
 made by Mr. Lowell, — ^which he shows from a passage in my 
 pamphlet, — whereas, Mr. Lowell says, that the bargain was, 
 in fact, made by Mr. Boott himself ; and he further states, 
 that he, Mr. Lowell, never personally requested the heirs to 
 execute the deed, — which latter fact he shows also to have 
 been stated in my pamphlet. He then quotes the declar- 
 ation of Mr. Andrews, one of the jurors, who said, that Mr. 
 Lowell testified, " that he, John A. Lowell, had concluded a 
 sale of the estate in Bowdoin Square ; that upon an investi- 
 gation of the title, a doubt existed, as to whether Boott, 
 as executor, could convey that estate, and that it was neces- 
 sary that the heirs should join in the conveyance ; that he, 
 Mr. Lowell, called upon the heirs to obtain their signatures," 
 «fcc. Now, argues Mr. Lowell, since I did not make the sale of 
 the house, and since Mi\ Brooks supposed that I did, it is 
 plain, that Mr. Brooks must have put this into the mouth of 
 the witness. [L. p. 8.] 
 
 In answer I might retort the argument. Since it appeals, 
 by Mr. Lowell's own showing, that I did not suppose Mr- 
 Lowell himself had ever called upon the heirs to obtain their 
 
99 
 
 signatures to the deed, and since Mr. Andrews says, that Mr. 
 Lowell stated that he did, his own process of reasoning proves, 
 that this witness could not have got his ideas from me, and did 
 not testify from my prompting. 
 
 But how does it happen that the witness and I should, 
 both, have got the same idea of JVIr. Lowell's having made 
 that bargain ? I answer, we both got it from the same ex- 
 cellent authority, — Mr. Lowell himself. Although the actual, 
 final bargain may have been, as Mr. Lowell now says, con- 
 cluded by Mr. Boott, and Mr. Darracott may have dealt di- 
 rectly with Mr. Boott in making it, Mr. Lowell will hardly 
 deny that he had a general agency in that business ; — that he 
 had himself made one previous bargain which fell through ; — 
 that the note, given for the purchase-money, on the final 
 bargain, came to his hands ; — that he was Mr. Boott's negoti- 
 ator about the settlement with the heirs ; — and that he always 
 spoke and acted as if he were the general head and conduct- 
 or of the whole affair. Indeed, the letters of Mr. Darra- 
 cott, printed by Mr. Lowell, [L. pp. 153, 154.] show, that 
 pending the negotiation, Mr. Darracott always communicated 
 to Mr. Lowell what had passed between him and Mr. Boott 
 on the one hand, and between him and me on the other. It 
 was very natural, therefore, for Mr. Lowell, even if Mr. Boott 
 did, in truth, make the original bargain, to speak of it in such 
 terms, that a hearer might infer that Mr. Lowell had made it, 
 when that particular fact was not a point directly in question, 
 but an immaterial circumstance. My impression was, cer- 
 tainly, derived from nobody but Mr. Lowell ; and I see no 
 reason to doubt that Mr. Andrews derived his from the same 
 gentleman, in the course of the conversation, after the inquest 
 when Mr. Lowell, probably, used many loose and strong ex- 
 pressions, which he might not have used in the giving of 
 careful testimony. 
 
 It was then, probably, that he spoke to Dr. Palmer of the 
 " triumphant vindication " of Mr. Boott by the accoimts, and 
 used to Mr. Learnard " so remarkable an expression " [L. p. 9.] 
 as that "Mr. Brooks was a violent man;" and, considering 
 the business of the inquest concluded, he may have forgotten, 
 
100 
 
 in other unguarded phrases, the great caution and reserve, 
 with which he probably intended to testify, and thinks 
 he testified, and perhaps did, while he was speaking under 
 oath, although the jurors, not having their attention called 
 to distinguish between testimony and conversation, speak of 
 it all as if it were said on the witnesses' stand. So that, 
 after all, Mr. Lowell's " irrefragable proof" comes only to his 
 own present assertion, that he did not make a certain bar- 
 gain, which he had, always before, caused others to under- 
 stand that he did make. The supposed proof is founded, 
 entirely, on his own perfect conviction, that he never makes 
 a mistake, nor says one word more or less than strict accuracy 
 requires. 
 
 One other comment on the evidence deserves notice for 
 its curiosity. Mr. Lowell says, " I appeal to every man 
 conversant with human testimony, to consider what is the 
 value of evidence so procured, after the lapse of nearly 
 two years, when the most upright and conscientious men are 
 so liable to confound what was said by one witness on the 
 stand with what may have been said by another, or with im- 
 pressions received aliunde at the time, or afterwards gradu- 
 ally made by repeated inquiries and insinuations." [L. p. 6,] 
 The reader has already seen upon what the hypothesis of 
 the " repeated inquiries and insinuations " is founded ; but he 
 must be at great loss to understand the foundation of the other 
 suggestions in this sentence, when he remembers, that the 
 only witnesses examined at the inquest, besides Mr. Lo-well, 
 were Mrs. Lyman and the two women servants in the house ; 
 and that their evidence, as Dr. Putnam states, "related cUf^ 
 to the individual peculiarities of the deceased." [L. p. 14] 
 If Dr. Putnam had added to this " their observation of the 
 movements of the deceased on the preceding night, and their 
 discovery of his death, that morning, with its attendant cir- 
 ciunstances," he would have stated the whole of their evi- 
 dence. 
 
 Which, then, of these females, does Mr. Lowell mean to 
 suggest, might, possibly, have been confounded with him, in 
 the minds of the jurors ? Is it not an affront to the reader's 
 
101 
 
 understanding, to throw out the idea, that any one of the 
 things, which I consider a subject of complaint, and which 
 the jurors attribute to Mr. Lowell, might have been said by 
 some other witness, when there was no other witness there, 
 who could, possibly, have said any thing about the state of 
 the accounts, the sale of the house, and the other business 
 transactions, which were the subjects of his testimony and 
 conversation ? 
 
 As to "impressions received aliunde at the time," who was 
 there, " at the time, " but himself to convey them? Does he 
 mean to suggest, that they might have come from Dr. Put- 
 nam, or Mr. Kirk Boott ? If so, he might easily have proved 
 the fact. Not an individual else was present with the jurors, 
 the coroner and the constable, — all strangers to the deceased 
 and his concerns, — except Mr. Lowell and the female wit- 
 nesses ; and the latter were present only while testifying. 
 
 In respect to impressions supposed to have been " after- 
 wards, gradually, made, by repeated inquiries and insinua- 
 tions," I can only say, that I never even asked a question 
 of any one of the jurors until just before, or at, the examina- 
 tion. I appeal to them for the fact ; — and for the purpose of 
 dissipating all these groundless suggestions, I now propose 
 to Mr. Lowell to have those gentlemen, once more, called 
 together. Let us meet, face to face, in the presence of all of 
 them, and hear what they will say upon this matter, or upon 
 any other matter cormected with that inquest, and with their 
 declarations, which Mr. Lowell may venture to make the 
 subject of interrogation. I should be extremely glad, with 
 the additional knowledge I now have of the truth of this 
 case, to have their testimony taken over again in the presence 
 of Mr. Lowell. I propose this. If it be not agreed to, let 
 us hear no more of these charges and insinuations, against 
 me, and the jurors, and the magistrate, of colluding, to create 
 unfair or exaggerated testimony. 
 
 To conclude this matter of the alleged unfairness of the 
 examination, and worthlessness of the evidence, I will now 
 present a letter, on that subject, from the gentleman, who took 
 the declarations, and then leave it to Mr. Lowell to settle the 
 
102 
 
 question with the jurors, severally or collectively, whether 
 they were, as he suggests, mere instruments of my tuning, 
 or whether they had not some notes of their own to utter. 
 
 LETTER PEOM Me. JOHN PHELPS PUTNAM. 
 
 "16 Court Street, April 26, 1848. 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 " Your note of the 25th inst. has been received, in which you call 
 my attention to certain statements in a pamphlet lately published by 
 Mr. John A. Lowell, in reference to the examination of certain wit- 
 nesses before me, and wherein you ask me to state my recollection of 
 the manner, in which that examination was conducted, and also who 
 first called upon me in reference to taking the testimony. 
 
 In reply, I would say, that I was first applied to, in reference to 
 this matter, by Mr. Sidney Bartlett, and that I had no personal ac- 
 quaintance with you until the day of the examination. When the 
 witnesses came before me, I stated to them that the examination was 
 not an oificial one, and that I was only to take down their declara- 
 tions, as they saw fit to make them, and I believe that you, also, said 
 to them something to the same purport. 
 
 " I cannot now state very particularly, as to the manner, in which 
 the questions were put by you, or how far any of them might have 
 been open to the legal objection of being leading in their character. 
 It was, of course, necessary for you to direct the attention of the 
 witnesses to the points, upon which you wished their testimony ; but I 
 have no recollection of any thing, in your manner of examination, 
 like ' putting words into their mouths,' or of any thing, in any part of 
 the proceeding, which could be characterized as ' unfair,' in the least 
 degree. 
 
 " Very respectfully, yours, &c. 
 
 "J. P. PUTNAM. 
 
 "Edward Brooks, Esq." 
 
103 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MR. LOWELL'S WITNESSES. 
 
 After this assault, by insinuation, on five respectable wit- 
 nesses, as persons, whose evidence was so got up that it ought 
 not to be believed, Mr. Lowell says, " I shall now proceed to 
 present the testimony of the remaining four persons, who 
 were present at the inquest, but not at the examination, viz. 
 the coroner. Dr. Putnam, Mr. Kirk Boott, and myself ".' 
 [L. p. 10.] This he thinks of a superior quality ; yet it 
 consists of statements entirely ex parte, and open to more 
 than every objection taken, by Mr. Lowell, to the testimony 
 produced by me. 
 
 The coroner's statement, by the way, is nothing new. It 
 is the very same, which I had already printed, in a letter from 
 Mr. Loring to Mr. Dexter, dated March 12, 1845. As Mr. 
 Lowell correctly says, it appears in the Appendix to my 
 pamphlet. But he also says, that it was " not presented with 
 the other testimony in the text, and is put entirely out of 
 view in his [Mr. Brooks's] commentary upon that testimony." 
 [L. p. 10.] 
 
 This is another of Mr. Lowell's unfortunate mistakes ; 
 for, besides printing it in an appendix, I quoted the coroner's 
 statement, verbatim,, and at full length, in the body of my 
 text, [B. p. 152.] and compared with it the statements of the 
 several jurors, on the subject of the letter of the deceased, 
 produced at the inquest, — ^which subject had led to the coro- 
 ner's statement. [B. p. 154.] I referred to it again, with 
 particularity, as evidence on another point, in my concluding 
 remarks. [B. p. 163.] 
 
 The essential difference, in our respective modes of pre- 
 senting the coroner's statement, is this : — I printed it in full, 
 without the suppression of a single word ; whereas Mr. Lowell 
 
104 
 
 prints it under this heading,—" The Coroner's Statement,"— 
 as if it were the whole, and yet omits an entire sentence-^. 
 a sentence of some consequence, too, since it discloses the 
 fact, that Mr. Franklin Dexter, whose general accuracy Mr. 
 Lowell admits, [L. p. 168.] declared, that he (the coroner) 
 had stated a part of the same matter differently at another 
 time, — which is quite material to the credibility of the state- 
 ment. The omitted sentence is in these words : — " That Mr. 
 Dexter was mistaken, in saying that he (Mr. P.) said that he 
 saw, or heard, the greater part of the letter — ^that it was a 
 very long letter and very little was read to him." I ask the 
 reader to compare the two statements, as printed in my 
 pamphlet, [pp. 152, 153.] and in Mr. Lowell's, [p. 12.] and he 
 will see this difference. I also refer him to Mr. Dexter's 
 letter of March 13, 1845, written after receiving notice of 
 this denial by Mr. Pratt, in which Mr. Dexter says, " I now 
 state, in brief, that I am quite sure I reported Mr. Pratt 
 correctly in substance," &c. [B. pp. 153, 154] 
 
 Mr. Lowell, not only prints the statement with this sup- 
 pression, but remarks upon it, that " It was rendered within a 
 few days after the inquest, when all the facts were fresh 
 in his mind, and was not elicited hy any intimation of what 
 Mr. Dexter had reported him to have said, or of any points 
 between the parties, as Mr. Loring expressly states in his 
 letter communicating it to Mr. Dexter." [L. p. 10.] 
 
 Now it is true, that Mr. Loring's letter does contain a 
 remark to that effect ; but, if Mr. Pratt had not, in some 
 way, been informed of the object of the interview, how hap- 
 pened he to say, " Mr. Dexter is mistaken in saying," &c.? 
 
 It may be that the conversation was begun, by Mr. Loring, 
 without stating to Mr. Pratt the object of the inquiries ; but 
 it is very plain, from Mr. Pratt's remark, that this caution 
 was forgotten, by somebody, long before the conversation! 
 ended. Yet Mr. Lowell, not content with referring to this 
 expression in Mr. Loring's letter, declares anew, on his own 
 authority, that the coroner's statement, (by which must be 
 understood the whole of it,) " was not elicited by any inti- 
 mation of what Mr. Dexter had reported him to have said ;" 
 
105 
 
 and he suppresses a sentence, from the midst of that state- 
 ment, which proves that the coroner then, at least, knew the 
 fact that Mr. Dexter had so reported him. If the language 
 of Mr. Lowell can be literally true, still, when coupled with 
 the omission of a part of Mr. Pratt's statement, it serves to 
 mislead the reader, on a point, which affects, materially, the 
 credibility of that statement ; and this omission, by Mr. 
 Lowell, is not much amended by his quoting the omitted 
 sentence in another part of his pamphlet, after an interval 
 of nearly one hundred and sixty pages, when he had occa- 
 sion to use it for a particular argument. [L. p. 168.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell, however, after pointing out the grounds, on 
 which he claims a superiority of credit for the coroner's 
 statement, concludes, that "evidence so given [that is, pri- 
 vately to Mr. Lowell and his counsel, in the presence only 
 of a young student] will, in the judgement of persons 
 competent to judge, outweigh a volume of such as Mr. Brooks 
 has procured, under the circumstances above enumerated." 
 [L. p. 10.] For myself, I must be permitted to doubt, whether 
 any reader, who reads both sides, will be found of sufficient 
 competency to form such a judgement. 
 
 Dr. Putnam and Mr. Kirk Boott are next commended, as 
 witnesses of peculiar value, — not because their statements 
 were made, like the coroner's, nearer to the time of the in- 
 quest, and while their recollections must have been fresher 
 than those of the iive jurors, — on the contrary, they were, in 
 fact, a little later ; but a reason is assigned, for giving them 
 unusual weight, which strikes me as curious. It is, that they 
 " were both conversant with my [Mr. Lowell's] situation in 
 relation to the deceased and his family, and were, therefore, 
 more competent than strangers to appreciate my conduct at 
 the inquest." [L. p. 10.] They " would take the deepest 
 interest in the evidence presented at the inquest, and there- 
 fore pay the strictest attention to it." [L. p. 15.] That is 
 they knew something of the matter beforehand, and were 
 prepared, with preconceived opinions and prejudices, to hear 
 what their friend Mr. Lowell had to say, and are, on that 
 account, better witnesses than merely impartial persons on 
 
106 
 
 the general question, whether Mr. Lowell testified in a man- 
 ner, of which I have a right to complain. Is not this some- 
 thing new under the sun ? The principle seems to be, that 
 the more bias a witness has, the more credit he should carry ! 
 
 Now it is needless for me to say of these two gentlemen, 
 that, on the score of upright intention, no persons in this 
 community are, in my belief, entitled to more credit than 
 they. On the other hand, it is not suggested, in the "Re- 
 ply," that the witnesses, whom I examined, are not, also, en- 
 titled to be respected as men of truth ; and they, certainly, 
 were free from any imaginable temptation to tell an inten- 
 tional falsehood. But the question is, which kind of witness 
 is likely to be most accurate in his recollection of the general 
 effect of what Mr. Lowell said, in its hearing upon my 
 reputation, as well as of the particular facts, that were stat- 
 ed, — ^he, to whom the facts, so impressive in their character, 
 were all new, and therefore more striking, and who had no 
 previous idea of the relations of parties, and of the merits of 
 the controversies, — or he, who knew the relations well, and 
 who was remotely concerned in these pending controversies, 
 or connected with those, who were, and who had a set of 
 ideas, applicable to the case, already derived from Mr. Lowell, 
 or from other sources ? Such a question cannot admit of two 
 answers, — especially when the very point in dispute is, 
 whether Mr. Lowell testified fairly towards me, upon a 
 state of facts, the truth of which he asserts, and / deny. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, himself, illustrates the comparison, when he 
 shows how strongly these witnesses must have been imbued 
 with his notions on the merits of the previous controversy 
 in the family, respecting Mr. J. Wright Boott's conduct and 
 accounts, and his fitness to be a trustee ; for Dr. Putnam, it 
 seems, on the evening of the inquest, expressed to a friend, "in 
 strong terms, his sense of the extreme caution and forbear- 
 ance," which Mr. Lowell had shown in his testimony; [L p. 
 10.] while Mr. Kirk Boott, on the same evening, told his 
 mother, that Mr. Lowell " had testified with a reserve and 
 tenderness towards the absent, and a self-possession," which, 
 his " known attachment " to the deceased, " and the excite- 
 
107 
 
 ment attending so horrible a catastrophe rendered quite re- 
 markable." [L. p. 10.] 
 
 Had I sought, I could hardly have found, terms better 
 suited to show how completely these gentlemen sympathized 
 in Mr. Lowell's views and feelings, believing, as they doubt- 
 less did, every word, uttered by him, to convey an oracular 
 truth. Yet, whether he was forbearing and tender towards the 
 absent, or the reverse, depends, obviously, on the truth and 
 justice of his and their views of the previous facts, — ^which 
 facts are the very matter now in issue. By what other 
 standard, than either their own prior conception of the facts 
 of the case, or Mr. Lowell's statement of them at the time, 
 could they, possibly, have determined, in their own minds, 
 whether he was tender and forbearing, or not, towards ab- 
 sent persons, whose conduct was alluded to ? The idea, clearly, 
 involves judgement on the merits of that conduct ; and shows 
 that, in the opinion of those gentlemen, the individuals, so 
 pointed at, well deserved marked reprobation. It is obvious, 
 that, in their minds, I was already condemned, without a 
 hearing. Does the reader then see cause, on this ground, to 
 place the testimony of these two witnesses, who, on Mr. 
 Lowell's own showing, were thus prejudiced in the case, so 
 infinitely above that of five, who had no prejudice ? And 
 here, again, since Mr. Lowell says so much about fairness 
 of proceeding, I ask, why he did not give me fair notice of 
 his intention to take testimony on this subject ? "Why, if his 
 object was " to elicit the truth," did he not give me oppor- 
 tunity, as I, on a like occasion, had given to him, to be 
 present at an examination of these witnesses, to hear what 
 they had to say, and to put questions, if I pleased, instead of 
 causing them to prepare ex parte statements, of which the 
 first notice to me is their appearance in print ? 
 
 Besides, when these gentlemen speak of the tenderness 
 and forbearance of Mr. Lowell towards the absent, let it be 
 noted, that they confine their remarks, expressly, to the testi- 
 mony, which he gave under oath. They do not refer 
 to what he said in conversation, after the inquest. Mr. K. 
 Boott, indeed, told me, that, although he saw Mr. Lowell con- 
 
108 
 
 versing with the jurors, he did not distinctly hear what was 
 said to them. 
 
 This fact, — ^the subsequent conversation, — explains, to my 
 mind, much, that was otherwise difficult to account for. 
 What things were said by Mr. Lowell, in the hearing of the 
 jurors, cannot be doubted, upon the concurrent testimony of 
 so many intelligent and unbiased witnesses. That some of 
 those things should have been deliberately stated by him in 
 the solemn form of sworn testimony, was difficult to believe. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SUMMABY OF ALL THE EVIDENCE KESPECTING MB. LOWELL's TESTI- 
 MONY AT THE INQUEST. 
 
 I presume every reader is, now, fully prepared, from the 
 course of Mr. Lowell's remarks and insinuations, to find 
 some direct, positive, and startling opposition, between his 
 witnesses and mine. But how is the fact ? Will it be be- 
 lieved, that, after all this parade of circumstances, supposed 
 to detract from the credit of one set of witnesses, and to 
 enhance that of the other, it turns out, that no one, of the 
 three witnesses, relied upon by Mr. Lowell, has ventured to 
 gainsay a single word, which had been testified by either of 
 the five, whom I caused to be examined? Yet, every reader, 
 who will take the pains to compare, carefully, their several 
 statements, will see this, and that there is, really, no essential 
 discrepance among them ; none, at least, which is not ade- 
 quately accoimted for by the conversation after the inquest, 
 when all were not listening to the same remark at the same 
 time, and by the different states of mind, in which the sev- 
 eral witnesses estimated the effect of what Mr. Lowell said, in 
 its bearing upon me. 
 
109 
 
 There is no direct contradiction among them as to the 
 facts, which Mr. Lowell stated. They differ, only, in the 
 manner of expressing them, or in the degree of particularity, 
 with which they describe his testimony. Indeed, the state- 
 ments of Mr. Lowell's witnesses, and his own statement, are 
 extremely general. They, apparently, avoid going much 
 into particulars. Let us briefly compare them with the more 
 formal declarations of the jurors. 
 
 In the fiirst place, the witnesses, examined on my part, con- 
 cur in showing, that they derived, from the whole testimony, 
 a general impression, that the death was attributed by Mr. 
 Lowell to the effect, on a sensitive mind, of the difficulties 
 about the settlement of Mr. Boott's accounts, and his alleged 
 mismanagement of his father's estate, and the refusal of some 
 of the heirs, on that ground, to execute a certain deed. Now 
 it is remarkable, that Mr. Lowell's witnesses, brought up ex- 
 pressly to counteract mine, do not deny, that they had the 
 same impression, although their general descriptions of Mr. 
 Lowell's testimony do not show, quite so clearly and strongly, 
 that this impression was a necessary inference from the testi- 
 mony alone. 
 
 How is it, then, when we come to the particulars of what 
 Mr. Lowell said 7 The five jurors declare, that Mr. Lowell 
 spoke of dissensions in the family, and do not say that he 
 expressed any direct . opinion on their merits. [Ante p. 77.'] 
 Both Dr. Putnam and Mr. Kirk Boott state the same fact ; 
 [L. p. 13.] and the only difference, in their manner of stat- 
 ing it, is, that they declare, affirmatively, that Mr. Lowell 
 did not express his opinion. The coroner says nothing about it. 
 
 The five jurors declare, in substance, that Mr. Lowell spoke 
 of an idea of mismanagement, entertained by some of the 
 heirs, and stated, that Mr. Boott was summoned, in conse- 
 quence, to settle his accounts, as executor ; that these ac- 
 counts were disputed ; that he [Mr. Lowell] made them up 
 himself, as some say, or examined them himself, as others 
 say ; that it turned out, that, instead of a deficiency, there 
 was a balance due from the estate to Mr. Boott of $25,000 ; 
 and that Mr. Boott's feelings were much hurt by the conduct 
 
110 
 
 of these heirs. [Ante pp. 77-8.] No one of Mr. Lowell's wit- 
 nesses denies either of these statements ; — on the contrary, 
 each, so far as he goes, tends to con&m them. The coroner 
 says, " Mr. Lowell stated, that Mr. Boott's accounts had been 
 disputed, but that they had been passed, and he, [Mr. Low- 
 ell] had supposed that his mind was relieved on that point." 
 [L. p. 13.] This is all the coroner says on the subject. 
 Mr. Kirk Boott says, " You told him, that 7ny uncle's accounts, 
 had been disputed, but that they had been settled some time 
 since. You did not say by whom his accounts had been 
 disputed, or that you considered this to have induced his 
 death." [L. p. 13.] This is all Mr. Kirk Boott says on, the 
 subject. Dr. Putnam's recollection of Mr. Lowell's statements 
 on the same point is, " that Mr. Boott had lately made up 
 his accounts, as executor of the estate of his father ; that ob- 
 jection had been taken to said accounts by some of the heirs, 
 but that they had been finally passed ; that, pending the 
 settlement, Mr. Boott had been much troubled in mind." [L 
 p. 13.] Mr. Lowell's own statement, drawn up, he says, at 
 the time of our correspondence, [L. p. 11.] represents, that, 
 in reply to the question, whether " he had known of Mr. 
 Boott's being troubled in mind on any subject," he stated, 
 " that there had been family dissensions, of the merits of 
 which I knew nothing ; that latterly Mr. Boott had been sum- 
 m,oned to settle his accounts, as executor of his father's will ; 
 that he had presented an account at the probate office, show- 
 ing a balance in his favour, which had been allowed." These 
 statements, therefore, of Mr. Lowell and his witnesses, taken 
 together, affirm, positively, that he testified, that there was a 
 dispute between Mr. Boott and some of the heirs, relative to the 
 accounts of his executorship ; — that he was summoned to a 
 settlement ; — that the account presented in the probate office 
 showed a balance in his favour; — that it was disputed, and was, 
 notwithstanding, passed; — and that, pending this settlement, 
 he had been much troubled in mind ; and while they make 
 these affirmations, agreeing entirely, in substance, with those of 
 the five jurors, they do not deny the further statements of 
 those witnesses that he said the balance in Mr Boott's favour 
 
Ill 
 
 amounted to $25,000, and that he (Mr. Lowell) had made up, 
 or examined the accounts himself, and that the idea of vnis- 
 management, as executor, was entertained by some of the 
 heirs, — which, indeed, would seem to be involved in the fact 
 of their disputing his accounts. So that the several state- 
 ments, on this head, are perfectly consistent. 
 
 Again, the five jurors declare, that Mr. Lowell said, 
 in substance, that, pending this question of the accounts, 
 and notwithstanding the balance was found to be in Mr. 
 Boott's favour, some of the heirs refused to execute a deed 
 of the house. [Ante pp. 77-8.] Neither the coroner, nor 
 Mr. K. Boott, nor Dr. Putnam, alludes to this at all ; but Mr. 
 Lowell's own statement admits, that he said, Mr. Boott " had 
 been somewhat troubled in his mind by a refusal of some 
 of the heirs to sign a deed of the house, but that this had 
 finally been done ; " [L. p. 11.] and this stands in immediate 
 connexion with the statement, that he had been summoned, 
 (which was untrue,) to settle his accounts as executor, that 
 the accounts were presented in the probate court, and showed 
 a balance in his favour, and were allowed ; — the inference 
 from which, (contrary to the fact,) is, that they were allowed 
 by the judge of probate, notwithstanding the opposition of the 
 heirs, who had summoned him. 
 
 On another point, which was in question, Mr. Lowell said, 
 in our correspondence, "I did not mention your name, or 
 that of any other person before the coroner's jury, in connex- 
 ion with the unhappy dissensions in Mr. Boott's family." 
 [B. p. 15.] The idea conveyed by this was, that he did not 
 mention my name at all, in either close, or remote, connexion 
 with that subject. 
 
 Of the jurors, whom I examined, Mr. Andrews and Mr. 
 Brown did not speak to this point. Dr. Palmer said, " My 
 impression is, that he mentioned Mr. Edward Brooks's name 
 as one of the heirs; meaning, as appears by the context, one 
 of the heirs, who called for accounts and refused to sign the 
 deed. [B. p. 28.] Mr. Learnard said, " he particularly men- 
 tioned the name of Mr. Edward Brooks as one of such heirs;" 
 i. e., heirs, who objected to signing the deed. [B. p. 29.] 
 
112 
 
 Mr. Dyke said, " he stated, in particular, the name of Mr. 
 Edward Brooks, as among the heirs, who refused to sign the 
 deed." [B. p. 30.] Now what say the witnesses on the other 
 side ? The coroner's statement is, " that, Mr. Lowell had 
 never mentioned Mr. Brooks's name in his presence, except 
 in reply to the question, who were the members of Mr. 
 Boott's family." [L. p. 12.] Dr. Putnam, following Mr. 
 Lowell's letter, says, you "expressed no opinion in regard to 
 such dissension, nor did you mention the name of any person 
 ill connexion with it" [L. p. 14.] Mr. Kirk Boott, on the 
 other hand, states this in a form, which seems to explain 
 the coroner's exception, and also to explain what Dr. Put- 
 nam means, when he says Mr. Lowell did not mention the 
 name of any person in connexion with the subject of the dis- 
 sension ; for, Mr. K. Boott says, " you named to the coroner 
 the different members of the family, hut did not state who were 
 the friends of m,y uncle and who were not." [L. p. 13.] And 
 finally, it is admitted, by Mr. Lowell's own statement, as he 
 now presents it, [L. p. 11.] that, " in answer to a general in- 
 quiry, who were the members of Mr. Boott's family, I [Mr. 
 Lowell] enumerated them, beginning with the mother," &c. 
 It is beyond controversy then, that he did mention my name 
 as one of the heirs, in the course of the same testimony, 
 which described the facts of family dissensions, disputed ac- 
 counts, and a refusal to sign a certain deed, by which Mr. 
 Boott had been much troubled in mind ; and the whole dif- 
 ference among the witnesses comes to one of degree, as to 
 the closeness or remoteness of the connexion between my 
 name and the other topics. Indeed, the differences of the 
 witnesses, throughout, are those merely of degree and colour- 
 ing, from Mr. Learnard, who says Mr. Lowell declared, that 
 " Mr. Brooks was a violent man," down to Dr. Putnam and 
 Mr. Kirk Boott, who say, that the manner, in which he spoke 
 of the absent, was truly tender and forbearing ! 
 
 But the only fair question upon this point, — the use of my 
 name, — is, whether or not my name was so used, that the 
 jury must have understood, from all that was said, and, from 
 the circumstances of the case, as made known to them, that 
 
113 
 
 I was one of the persons, who disputed the accounts, and re- 
 fused to sign the deed, on the ground of an alleged misman- 
 agement, which was disproved by. the act of the judge of 
 probate, in allowing the accounts with a balance in Mr. 
 Boott's favour, notwithstanding the opposition of these per- 
 sons. And who can doubt this, when several of the jurors 
 declare that they so understood it, and no one of the wit- 
 nesses, on either side, states that he understood otherwise ? 
 Mr. Lowell suggests, indeed, that the dissensions of the fam- 
 ily, and my part in them, were already quite notorious, and 
 did not need to be stated by him for the information of the 
 jury. [L. p. 6.] So much the worse for Mr. Lowell. So 
 much the more readily would the jury apply to me any re- 
 marks he made on these subjects, and understand that they 
 had his authority for the impressions they derived from the 
 whole testimony. 
 
 Another point in question was, what was said about the 
 letter of the deceased, which Mr. Lowell produced, and 
 whether any part of it was read. The coroner had said to 
 Mr. Loring, soon after the inquest, that he " inquired of Mr. 
 Lowell if the letter alluded to the suicide, and he said it did ;" 
 — and "that he [the coroner] did not know, till this mo- 
 ment, [the time of his statement to Mr. Loring,] that Mr. 
 Brooks's name was mentioned in the letter." [L. p. 12.] 
 The inference from this would be, that no part of it was 
 read, and that nothing else was said about it. Of the wit- 
 nesses, whom I examined, Mr. Andrews did not speak of 
 the letter. Mr. Dyke only mentioned its production, and no 
 particular question was put to him respecting it. Dr. Palmer's 
 statement was, that Mr. Lowell "said it contained his (Mr. 
 Boott's) will, and made him his executor, and requested him 
 not to think the worse of him for the course he had taken." 
 " My impression is, that he was asked if there was any thing 
 more in the letter, which bore upon the case, and he replied 
 there was nothing more." [B. p. 29.] Mr. Learnard de- 
 clared, that "the coroner asked him [Mr. Lowell] if it con- 
 tained any thing excq)t of a business nature, and he said it 
 did not." [B. p. 29.] Mr. Brown said, "he [Mr. Lowell] 
 
114 
 
 read a part of the letter, which said, that he, Mr. Boott, 
 hoped, that the method -which he took to end his wretched- 
 ness, would not lead Mr. Lowell to think the worse of him, 
 I asked Mr. Lowell if there was any thing else in the letter, 
 which bore upon the case. He said he had read all, which 
 related to it." [B. p. 30.J To three of these witnesses I put 
 the particular question, whether Mr. Lowell said any thing 
 about its charging me with dishonesty, or about its charg- 
 ing Mrs. Lyman with being a spy in the house, and they 
 said he did not. 
 
 Now what say the new witnesses ? Nothing, certainly, 
 which mends the case for Mr. Lowell. Dr. Putnam's state- 
 ment is, " You produced a letter recently received from Mr. 
 Boott, relating, as you said, chiefly to private affairs. The 
 coroner declined hearing anything of a^nVa^e nature; and, 
 under his direction, you read such portions only as he consid- 
 ered requisite, and sufficient for the proper investigation of 
 the case." [L. p. 14.] By this, it would seem, in confirm- 
 ation of the statement of Mr. Brown, that some portions of 
 the letter were read; and that other portions, which Mr. 
 Lowell said related to private affairs, were not read. What 
 the parts read related to. Dr. Putnam does not inform us. 
 According to Mr. Brown, they spoke of the means taken by 
 the deceased to e7id his ivretchedness. But what did Mr, 
 Lowell say respecting the parts, which were not read ? Ac- 
 cording to some of the witnesses, he said, they did not bear on 
 the case. According to Dr. Putnam, he said, they related to 
 private affairs. But, according to Mr. K. Boott, he also gave 
 some idea of the nature of those affairs; for Ae says, "You 
 [Mr. Lowell] told him [the coroner] you had received a let- 
 ter, written by my uncle the day of his death ; that you 
 would prefer not to show the letter, as it contained chakges, 
 which he was not here to substantiate. The coroner did not 
 see the letter, [i. e. at the inquest] neither did you state to 
 him any thing it contained relative to family troubles." 
 [L. p. 13.] 
 
 According to this, although no particular of its contents, 
 relative to family troubles, was stated or read, the jury were 
 
115 
 
 tntormed, as a reason for not reading it, that "it contained 
 charges, which he [the deceased] was not here to substan- 
 tiate." Charges against whom ? It does not appear that 
 Mr. Lowell mentioned my name in that immediate con- 
 nexion; but, from the whole testimony, taken together, 
 was not enough disclosed to the jury, to authorize them to 
 infer, that the charges were against those of the heirs, who 
 had disputed the accounts and refused to execute the deed ? 
 Who they were, Mr. Lowell says truly, was very notorious. 
 What were the jury to thiuk of this intimation of charges, 
 which could not bedisclosed, coupled with the extraordinary 
 facts, which were stated, and the opinion of Mr. Lowell, that 
 the deceased was not insane ? The withholding of the letter, 
 though consented to by the coroner, was regarded by the 
 jury as very strange. They were put to wonder and con- 
 jecture about it. Mr. Brown, the foreman, says, " I have 
 been frequently on inquests. It has been invariably the 
 case, that all papers, calculated to throw light upon the case, 
 especially those written soon before the death of the de- 
 ceased, should be given up to the jury. I never knew before 
 an exception. The fact of his not giving up the letter made 
 an unfavourable impression on my mind." [B. p. 30. j Dr. 
 Palmer says, that though Mr. Lowell stated there was noth- 
 ing more in the letter, which bore on the case, " My im- 
 pression was, that there was something more in the letter, 
 from his not being willing to give it up." [B. p. 29.] And 
 Mr. Andrews says, though speaking of the testimony of Mr. 
 Lowell generally, and not of the letter in particular, "I re- 
 marked to Mr. Dyke, and I suppose I made the remark gen- 
 erally, that there was som,ething behind the curtain, which 
 we did not see ; and that we should probably hear more of 
 this matter." [B. p. 28.] 
 
 My present object, however, is not to discuss the propriety 
 of Mr. Lowell's course at the inquest, or the truth of what 
 the jury understood from him ; that will be done in due 
 time ; I am now only looking at the new evidence, produced 
 by Mr. Lowell, respecting his testimony, to see how far it 
 alters the case, formerly shown by me ; and upon this point, 
 
116 
 
 of the contents of the letter, I only call the reader's atten- 
 tion, now, to the fact, that the statements of his -witnesses 
 do not contradict any thing said on that subject by the wit- 
 nesses, whom I examined ; but they add a new fact, which 
 seems to be material, namely, the fact, that Mr. Lowell said 
 the letter contained charges against somebody ; and that, 
 since the writer was not there to substantiate the charges, it 
 was a reason why the letter should not be read, or laid he- 
 fore the jury. This mystery, made about the letter and its 
 charges, helps, I think, to account for the strong impression 
 produced upon the jury. It is also remarkable, that Mr. 
 Lowell, in his own statement, prepared at the time of our 
 correspondence, does not say one word about this letter.; al- 
 though that statement purports to be a complete account of 
 the substance of his testimony. [L. p. 11.] And if that 
 was, in truth, the whole of it, and the whole of what he 
 said in conversation, on the same occasion, why should he 
 have been unwilling to disclose it to me at the time of our 
 correspondence, — especially if he felt confident, as he now 
 affects to be, that there was nothing objectionable in the ac- 
 counts ? If there were nothing to conceal, why, when I 
 asked him, did he not frankly tell me what his testimony 
 had been, and thereby take away, at once, the principal 
 excuse, which he says I was always seeking, for a publi- 
 cation 1 — especially when he took pains to assure me, that 
 his motive for answering me at all, was "a hope that it 
 might relieve the unpleasant feeling and misapprehension 
 under which you [Brooks] laboured." [Letter from Mr. 
 Lowell, B. p. 16.] 
 
 The five jurors speak of several other particulars of Mr. 
 Lowell's testimony, which are not adverted to by his wit- 
 nesses. These, of course, stand entirely uncontradicted, un- 
 less by himself. Mr. Lowell's own contradiction is confined 
 to a few expressions, which he thinks he could not have 
 used, forgetting, as he evidently does, the loose conversation, 
 which followed the testimony; as is proved by two of his 
 own witnesses. But what is curious enough, considering 
 that we deal with a man of such scrupulous accuracy, is, that 
 
117 
 
 the particular expressions, which he selects for contradiction, 
 and distinguishes hy quotation marks, as if they were ex- 
 tracted, verbatim, from the declarations of some of the jury- 
 men, are not to be found, as he quotes them, in those declar- 
 ations. The passage, I refer to, is as follows ; — "I am confi- 
 dent that I did not say that I, ' as a friend of the family, 
 had examined the accounts, and found that there was no 
 ground of complaint ; ' nor that I had ' so represented it to 
 the heirs ;' nor that ' some of them had, notwithstanding, 
 refused to sign a deed of the house.' Indeed such state- 
 ments have an inherent absurdity," &c. [L. p. 11.] 
 
 Now, although these quoted expressions are to be found, 
 very nearly, in one of my letters to Mr. Lowell, written be- 
 fore the examination of the jurors, and stating the informa- 
 tion I had then received respecting his testimony, they are 
 not expressions used by either of the witnesses in their declar- 
 ations, which were all I relied upon in my pamphlet. The 
 ideas may be similar; but these are not their words ; and 
 when Mr. Lowell is labouring to show, that the testimony of 
 the jurors ought not to be believed, because I had put words 
 into their mouths, why does he, while giving the reader an 
 impression that he is contradicting their statements, select ex- 
 pressions from my letters instead of their declarations ? He 
 himself first puts words, which they never used, into the 
 mouths of the witnesses, and then denies that they are true. 
 The witnesses, indeed, do say, unfortunately for Mr. Low- 
 ell's denial, what comes, in effect, to the same thing, though 
 not in those precise words ; and such statements have, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Lowell, an "inherent absurdity." Why? Be- 
 cause, he says, " The refusal to sign the deed occurred in 
 May, 1844 ; no request that they [the heirs] should sign it 
 was, after that period, ever made to them ; whilst the ac- 
 counts were not made up, or presented, until November, 1844." 
 [L. p. 11.] The refusal, by the way, first occurred in April, 
 not May ; but I beg to ask, whether there was not a contin- 
 uing refusal, to sign the deed, from that time, until the final 
 settlement was agreed upon ? The accounts were not made 
 up, or rather not presented, it is true, till Nov. 18, 1844 ; but, 
 
118 
 
 it is also true, that the settlement was not agreed upon until 
 sometime in December ; Mr. Lowell himself says, Dec. 11. 
 [L. p. 191.] In the mean time, (some of the heirs having 
 originally refused to execute the deed without a change of 
 the trustee, which involved a settlement of accounts,) if the 
 request for its signature was not formally renewed, after the 
 accounts were presented, it was only because the original 
 ground of refusal still continued unchanged, until the agree- 
 ment of compromise was made. Before that event, Mr. Lowell 
 was negotiating with me, or my counsel. Judge Warren, to in- 
 duce us to allow the account, in order that the deed might 
 be obtained. It was literally true, therefore, that Mr. Low- 
 ell's statement of the result of the accounts was represented 
 to the heirs, and that some of them, notwithstanding, did, 
 continually, refuse to sign the deed, until it was, at last, 
 otherwise agreed, on a compromise. So that Mr. Lowell 
 might well have stated this to the jury, just as it was 
 expressed in my letter, without the absurdity of attributing 
 " an antecedent event to a subsequent cause," which, he 
 says, " requires a peculiar constitution of mind," and to 
 him " would have been impossible." [L. p. 12.] He might 
 have so stated, consistently with truth ; the jurors, in sub- 
 stance, say, he did so state ; no one of his own witnesses 
 denies it ; and the reason he assigns, why he could not so 
 have stated, is the supposition of an absurdity, which does 
 not exist ; for the account was presented on the 18th of No- 
 vember, and the deed in question was not made till the 14th 
 of December. The dates of the papers put this beyond dis- 
 pute. 
 
 In respect, therefore, to the substance of Mr. Lowell's tes- 
 timony at the inquest, enlarged by what he said to the ju- 
 rors in the conversation, which immediately followed it, 
 there cannot be any important question, upon a fair view of 
 the evidence on both sides. The direct declarations of the 
 five witnesses, examined in December, 1846, are so clear, 
 upon its general complexion, that Mr. Lowell himself cannot 
 but admit, that " they all agree," that his testimony "tend- 
 ed, more or less clearly, to the conclusion, that the death of 
 
119 
 
 Mr. Boott was attributable to uneasiness of mind, caused by 
 ' the unhappy difficulties in the family, especially in relation 
 to the estate,' " [L. p. 6.] of which the deceased had the man- 
 agement ; while he also admits that he stated his opinion, 
 without qualification, that the deceased was not insane. 
 The same witnesses all speak, positively, too, and with that 
 general agreement, coupled with slight variations, which 
 marks fair testimony, to certain particular facts, stated by Mr. 
 Lowell, which led them to that conclusion, and pointed it at 
 me, as the party, who had chiefly caused these difficulties, 
 and this melancholy consequence. The statements on the 
 other side, obtained by Mr. Lowell from the coroner, in March, 
 1845, and December, 1846, and the letters obtained by him 
 from Dr. Putnam and Mr. K. Boott, in December, 1846, and 
 January, 1847, are not found, upon a fair comparison, to 
 contradict those declarations on any material point, but 
 confirm them in such facts as they particularly speak of. 
 And since those witnesses are all, by circumstances, fa- 
 vourably disposed to Mr. Lowell, and two of them plainly 
 sympathize in his general views of the case, I ask, whether, 
 if there were any essential error, or mis-statement, in the de- 
 clarations of the jurors, Mr. Lowell would not have obtained, 
 from these friendly witnesses, the decided correction, or direct 
 contradiction, to which he would have been justly entitled? 
 His omission to do so, makes them, in effect, corroborative 
 witnesses of the whole matter, and makes Mr. Lowell a wit- 
 ness against himself, — as indeed he is, to a great extent, by 
 the terms of his own published statement, prepared, as he 
 says, before he knew what the jurors would testify. His 
 own unsupported contradictions, after that, can only prove 
 inaccuracy of recollection or wilfulness in error. 
 
120 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OUTLINE OF MY FORMER STATEMENT RESPECTING THE 
 ACCOUNTS. 
 
 We have, no-w, settled the point, I trust, that Mr. Lowell's 
 remarks to the jury, whether in the form of testimony or of 
 conversation, were, in substance, what I had supposed them 
 to be. It is plain that their tenor was in entire accordance 
 with the allegations, and the real or pretended opinions, 
 which he has since had the temerity to print. The truth 
 and justice of the printed " Reply " are next to be exam- 
 ined ; and I shall proceed to demonstrate, from the evidence 
 in my former pamphlet, and from the " Reply " itself, con- 
 nected with other evidence contained in these pages, that 
 the opinions it promulgates, if honest, are mistaken ; that its 
 arguments, though sometimes specious, are deceptive ; and 
 that its statement of fundamental facts is essentially untrue. 
 
 I propose to begin with the matter of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 accounts, and the topics, connected therewith, regarding his 
 fitness for a trustee, independently of the question of his 
 sanity ; — this being the matter, which I consider to lie at the 
 foundation of the whole controversy between Mr. Lowell 
 and myself. To be intelligible, I must make a brief reca- 
 pitulation of the substance of my former statements on the 
 subject. 
 
 Mr. Kirk Boott, the elder, died in 1817, leaving, as was 
 reputed, quite a large property for that day, all personal, 
 except a house, store, and lot of land, which were appraised 
 at $34,100 only. His will established particular trust funds, 
 out of his personal estate, for the benefit, during life, of his 
 widow and of two sisters. These funds amounted, in the 
 aggregate, to f 111,111 12. The fund for the widow was 
 f 100,000 ; the income of it was to be hers, and she had, 
 besides, a life estate in the mansion-house. All the resi- 
 
121 
 
 due of the personal property, except household furniture 
 and other chattels, bequeathed to the widow, was given, 
 equally, to the testator's children, nine in number. The 
 reversion of the annuity funds and of the mansion-house 
 was, also, given to them. 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, the eldest son, by the effect of the 
 will and other circumstances, united in himself the respon- 
 sible posts of sole surviving partner, sole executor, sole trus- 
 tee of the trust funds, and sole testamentary guardian of the 
 minor children ; so that the whole family property, except 
 the mansion-house, was at his disposal ; and the mansion- 
 house he was empowered, as executor, to sell, on certain 
 contingencies, with the assent of the widow. 
 
 The inventory, returned to the probate office, exhibited 
 only the real estate and the chattels bequeathed to the wid- 
 ow. Its whole amount was short of f 37,000, of which the 
 mansion-house constituted $24,000, and the store in State- 
 street, devised specifically to Mr. J. Wright Boott, in addi- 
 tion to his share of the general property, constituted $9600. 
 The residue of the real estate, appraised at $500, was de- 
 vised to the widow. 
 
 An account, settled by the executor in the Probate Court, 
 in 1818, charged him with stocks purchased, to the exact 
 amount (within one cent) of the particular trust funds, 
 taking the stocks at par and excluding the premiums paid 
 for them. The nominal foot of the account was a little 
 short of $117,000. Of this, however, $10,000 was a mere 
 counter-entry, representing that amount not yet payable 
 on certain bank stock charged at its peir. In other words, 
 the account showed cash, realized and invested at that date, 
 to the amount of nearly $107,000, and an engagement to 
 pay $10,000 more, shortly, to complete an investment. It 
 gave no further information concerning the estate ; and no 
 other account of the property was ever settled, or presented, 
 until a controversy had arisen and a change of trusteeship 
 had become necessary, more than twenty-six years after. 
 
 No settlement was ever made with any one heir, for his or 
 her share of the property presently divisible, though mon- 
 
122 
 
 eys were paid to, or for, the heirs respectively, sometimes spe- 
 cifically on account of their patrimony, and sometimes not, 
 and with no regularity, or equality. The heirs never knew, 
 and had no means of knowing, except from some occasional 
 and general statements, verbally made by Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, what they were entitled to receive. 
 
 This arose from peculiarities of his character, which led 
 him to wrap himself in total reserve on such subjects, com- 
 bined with an extraordinary degree of deference and confi- 
 dence on the part of every member of the family, and with 
 a want of solicitude, quite unusual among so many persons, 
 about mere pecuniary interests. These circumstances, habit- 
 ually, restrained them from attempting to penetrate Mr. 
 Boott's reserve by calling for a statement and settlement 
 of accounts. 
 
 The family, until separated by marriages, all lived togeth- 
 er, as members of Mrs. Boott's household, in a style of such 
 liberal expenditure as belongs to people of fortune. Mr, 
 Boott kept no accounts with the individuals, nor with the 
 estate. His verbal statements, on particular occasions, uni- 
 formly represented, and caused it to be understood, that the 
 dividend of each child, upon a final settlement, would be 
 $20,000 in possession or thereabouts, besides a share of the 
 reversions. This was, in effect, a representation that the 
 personal estate of the father had amounted to about $180,000, 
 besides the trust funds of about $111,000. These sums, 
 added to the inventory, would have made the whole property, 
 real and personal, left by the father, upwards of $320,000 ; 
 for all which, except the property named in the inventory, 
 (short of $37,000,) Mr. J. Wright Boott, if the fact were as 
 he represented it, stood accountable, as executor or trustee, to 
 the nine heirs, of whom he himself was one. That is, he 
 should have held, or accounted for, as executor or trustee, 
 in all, over $290,000, of which $20,000, in immediate pos- 
 session, and something more than $12,000 in reversion at 
 the deaths of the respective annuitants, belonged to himself. 
 Of course, during the lives of the annuitants, he was bound 
 to show $111,000 secured in trust for them, and $160,000 
 
123 
 
 (i. e. $180,000, less $20,000 for his own share,) held in trust 
 for his brothers and sisters, subject to be reduced by what- 
 ever sums he might have paid over, or should pay over, to 
 them, out of the $160,000, for account of their respective 
 shares in it. 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott had been a partner with his father, 
 about three years, under the firm of Kirk Boott & Sons. 
 Another partner, but for a very short time, was the present 
 Doctor Francis Boott, of London. By the direction of the 
 will, the business of the firm was to be carried on, by Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott, for the joint account of the estate and 
 himself, till March 19, 1818, when it was to be wound up, 
 and the estate distributed. The terms of the partnership 
 were, three fourths of the profit or loss to the estate, and one 
 fourth to Mr. J. Wright Boott, after deducting five per cent, 
 interest on the capital employed. 
 
 The distribution directed never took place ; but, at the 
 expiration of the term fixed by the will, Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott took up the business in partnership with two of his 
 brothers, (the late Mr. Kirk Boott, of Lowell, and Mr. James 
 Boott,) and carried it on, under the old firm of Kirk Boott 
 & Sons, until January 1, 1832, when that house was dis- 
 solved, and Mr. J. Wright Boott formed a new partnership 
 with Mr. John A. Lowell, under the firm of Boott & Lowell, 
 which firm prosecuted the same business till July 1, 1824, 
 when that also was dissolved. My belief, as I stated, was, 
 that the capital of the estate in the old house had been carried 
 into the business of the new house of Kirk Boott & Sons ; 
 that there had never been any accurate settlement of accounts 
 between them ; and that nothing had been taken out, so as 
 to be distinguishable as the separate property of the estate, 
 except in the formation of the trust fund, by the investments 
 described in the probate account of 1818. 
 
 The business of the second house of Kirk Boott & Sons, 
 as conducted by the three brothers, appeared to me, from cer- 
 tain evidence, which I stated, to have been attended with 
 great loss. That of Boott & Lowell, I had no evidence 
 about. I also stated my reasons for believing that Mr. J. 
 
124 
 
 Wright Boott, though commonly reputed to be a man pos- 
 sessed of some $50,000, or more, in his own right, was really- 
 worth little or nothing, unless of a reversionary character, at 
 the time of the formation of the partnership of Boott & 
 Lowell ; and that, whatever losses were met with, in the 
 mercantile business pursued after the death of the father, fell, 
 in effect, mainly, upon the family property, and under cir- 
 cumstances, which made the executor personally hable for 
 them to the heirs. 
 
 During the continuance of this mercantile business, Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott became interested in mamifacturing busi- 
 ness also. He first made a considerable investment in the 
 Boston Manufacturing Company, and afterwards went, large- 
 ly, into the Lowell (then called Chelmsford) speculation. 
 Early in 1826, he also went into the business of an u:on 
 foundry, in company with his brothers-in-law, Messrs. Ly- 
 man & Ralston. He embarked a very large sum in that, 
 which was mostly, if not wholly, lost. The concern fell 
 under great embarrassment. A ruinous failure was appre- 
 hended. In 1830 and 1831, Mr. J. Wright Boott found him- 
 self compelled to make disclosures of his affairs to one of his 
 brothers and to Mr. John A. Lowell and myself; and it then 
 appeared, that he had no property whatever standing in 
 his name as executor, or trustee ; that even the particulai 
 trust fund, formed in 1818, no longer existed as a separate 
 and distinct fund ; that every thing in his hands stood in 
 his own individual name, as if it were his own property ; and 
 that the funds of the estate had been so mingled, indiscrim- 
 inately, with his own, (if he had any, which could justly be 
 called his own, after settling with his father's estate,) that, 
 through his various operations in trade and speculation, al- 
 ways conducted in his own name, it had become impossible 
 to say, at the time of these disclosures, what item of prop- 
 erty, besides the store, was his own, and what, besides the 
 mansion-house, was the estate's. But it also appeared, very 
 clearly, that all the property he then held, of every descrip- 
 tion, was insufficient to meet his debts and liabilities, (includ- 
 ing a debt of $20,000 to certain wards, not of the immediate 
 
125 
 
 family,) and to cover his mother's annuity fund. Had he 
 been compelled, suddenly, to pay off these debts and liabili- 
 ties, out of the family, it was plain that it could only have 
 been done by appropriating to that use a large portion of the 
 annuity fund, as well as all the present property of his broth- 
 ers and sisters, beyond what had been paid to them ; and 
 such was the disastrous state of his affairs, that there was 
 even danger of a total loss of the family property. 
 
 The most valuable kind of property, he held, was a large 
 amount of manufacturing stock. But, nearly the whole of 
 this was pledged for large sums of money ; namely, a debt 
 of |30,000 to Mr. Lowell, and one of $21,000 to Mr. Sturgis, 
 as agent for Mr. Gushing. The residue was conveyed to me, 
 in trust, to secure, in the first instance, the debt of $20,000 
 to his wards, (for which the estate was liable,) and next to 
 secure the estate. Means were taken to prevent a sacrifice of 
 all this valuable stock, and to secure it to the estate, subject 
 to these debts. His other assets were gradually reduced to 
 money, and applied to the payment of the debts out of his own 
 family. He was, thus, by degrees, extricated from the more 
 pressing embarrassments ; but, whatever property of his own 
 he might formerly have had, except certain reversionary in- 
 terests, it was at that time lost ; and whatever remained in 
 his hands belonged to the trusts of his father's estate, to which 
 he admitted himself largely indebted, though no account 
 was settled, by which the amount could be ascertained. 
 His brothers and sisters, out of tenderness to him, voluntarily 
 released, in 1833, all their claims, except on the reversions of 
 the annuity funds. Through friendly arrangements, he was 
 enabled to hold on to the manufacturing stock, — the whole 
 of which was admitted to belong to him only in his capacity 
 of executor, though subject to the private debts, for which 
 he had pledged it. It yielded large income, and rose in 
 value ; and by means of its income, and of the conversion 
 of his other assets, these incumbrances were gradually les- 
 sened. At last, his debt, out of the family, became reduced 
 to the single sum of $25,000, due to Mr. Lowell, and secured 
 by a large amount of the manufacturing stock. 
 
126 
 
 The income from all the manufacturing stock, held either 
 by himself, as executor, or in pledge by Mr. Lowell, was 
 sufficient to keep down interest on the debt ; to pay about 
 $5000 a year to his mother, who had removed to England; 
 and to meet the expense of an establishment kept up at the 
 family mansion. He engaged in no new business, and had 
 no means of meeting these various expenditures, except the 
 income of the manufacturing stock, — the whole of which 
 stock was considered to have been purchased with the funds 
 of the estate, and to belong to him only in his capacity 
 of executor. 
 
 My general position, therefore, was, that a large amount of 
 the property of the estate had, in fact, gone to the payment 
 of Mr. J. Wright Boott's private debts, and had been lo§t by 
 him in the business he had engaged in. Of this, no com- 
 plaint ever was, or probably ever would have been, made by 
 - any of the heirs ; but the fact is material in its bearing on the 
 present controversy. I did not attribute this to any wrong' 
 intention whatever on his part ; but to want of system in 
 business, and of accuracy in accounts, and to the omission of 
 proper settlements, and to singular obliquities of perception on 
 the subjects of family property, and of the duties of a trust, 
 in which none but his own family were concerned ; and to 
 other peculiarities of character, amounting, at last, in my 
 judgement, to plain insanity. Circumstances had placed the 
 affairs of the estate in a position, from which they could not 
 be extricated, unless very gradually ; and extreme tender- 
 ness and forbearance towards Mr. J. Wright Boott, on the 
 part of every member of the family, who knew any thing of 
 the facts, suffered the care of the property to remain in his 
 hands for many years, during which he exhibited no dis- 
 position either to engage in new speculations, or to make 
 changes of investment ; and it so remained until new events 
 arose, which dictated, in 1844, a different course of action. 
 
 His conduct had, for some time, betrayed evident symp- 
 toms of insanity, in my opinion, and in that of some others 
 of the family. He had, besides, become completely estranged ' 
 from many of them. In this state of the family relations, a' 
 
127 
 
 bargain had been made for a sale of the mansion-house, on 
 terms satisfactory to all interested in it ; but deeds of con- 
 firmation were required from the heirs, to give the purchaser a 
 good title. I refused, for one, and Mr. William Boott refused 
 also, to execute such deeds, if the purchase money was to be 
 left at Mr. J. Wright Boott's disposal and management, — it 
 being understood that he intended to invest the proceeds, 
 partly at least, in the purchase of an estate in the country, 
 and the erection upon it of a house and green-house, for his 
 own use ; which, as an investment of trust property, did 
 not meet our approbation. The appointment of a new 
 trustee thus became requisite ; and that involved a settle- 
 ment of the executor's accounts at the Probate Office. Mr. 
 John A. Lowell acted for Mr. Boott in the business. The 
 debt of $25,000 to Mr. Lowell was still unpaid, and he 
 still held the manufacturing stock, which had been pledged 
 for it. That stock I considered to be the property of the 
 family, but pledged for Mr. J. Wright Boott's private debt, 
 under such circumstances, as I then supposed, that no at- 
 tempt ought to be made to prevent its application to the 
 payment of Mr. Lowell. When, however, it became neces- 
 sary to state an account of the executorship, instead of 
 beginning with the position of the estate at the time of the 
 release from the heirs in 1833, and placing the security for 
 Mr. Lowell's debt on its true ground, an executor's account 
 was prepared for Mr. Boott, by Mr. Lowell, in a form, which 
 purported to be an account of the executorship from the be- 
 ginning, and to exhibit, at the same time, an apparent bal- 
 ance of $25,000, as due from the estate to the executor. 
 Mr. Lowell, contemporaneously with the presenting of this 
 account, reconveyed to Mr. Boott, in that capacity, the 
 shares, which he had held in pledge. The account was 
 extremely general, appearing to state certain supposed re- 
 sults, rather than to exhibit actual transactions in detail. 
 It purported to account for capital, exclusive of real estate 
 and chattels bequeathed to the widow, to the amount of 
 about $186,000 only. Of this, |90,000 was claimed to have 
 been distributed among the heirs, leaving a deficiency of 
 
128 
 
 about $4000, to be made up, in the fund for the support of 
 Mrs. Boott. It exhibited, however, personal property on 
 hand, amounting, at its cost, to $119,000, from which, 
 $25,000 and upwards was claimed to be deducted, as being 
 due to the executor personally. 
 
 I considered this a mere form, intended to provide for the 
 payment of the debt to Mr. Lowell, without admitting, upon 
 the face of the account, that the property of the family had 
 been taken to pay it ; and I supposed the account to have 
 been framed in the manner, in which it was framed, for the 
 purpose of bringing out that apparent balance, so as to pro- 
 vide for the payment to Mr. Lowell, in the form most 
 agreeable to Mr. Boott, and to give up, for the security of 
 Mrs. Boott's annuity fund, all the property, that would still 
 remain, after payment of that debt, which was the last 
 remnant of the embarrassments of 1830. In that view, all 
 proof of the account was waived, under an agreement of 
 compromise, — the heirs executing the required deed of the 
 mansion-house, — Mr. Boott resigning his trust, — a new 
 trustee, satisfactory to all parties, being appointed, — and 
 releases of all claims on Mr. Boott, either as executor or 
 as trustee, being filed in the Probate Office, upon which, in 
 lieu of other vouchers, the account was passed, as an account 
 agreed to by all parties concerned. 
 
 Such is a very general outline of my former statement, 
 omitting numerous details, to which I shall have occasion to 
 advert, when they become material, in considering Mr. 
 Lowell's " Reply." 
 
 The proofs, I exhibited, were chiefly of a documentary 
 character. Little depended on my own unassisted memory, 
 — Mr. Lowell, to the contrary, notwithstanding. I was par- 
 ticularly careful to distinguish between facts, stated as of my 
 own knowledge, and mere inferences ; and when I stated in- 
 ferences, I exhibited, in extenso, the evidence, from which 
 they were drawn, so that my readers could judge, for them- 
 selves, how far they were warranted. If Mr. Lowell had 
 followed that example, instead of dealing in round assertions, 
 without showing his proofs, or showing only "choice ex- 
 
129 
 
 tracts," instead of documents in full, (except in a few instances) 
 it would have left him, comparatively, little ground to stand 
 upon. But the ground, on which he stands, now, is so little, 
 that I have no desire to make it less. I propose, only, to clear 
 off the mystification, in which it has been envelope^, so that 
 its true dimensions and character may be distinctly seen. In 
 truth, nothing, in the foregoing statement, that is essential to 
 the main question, has been, in the least degree, shaken by 
 the " Reply." The statement will be found to require modi- 
 fication in some particulars ; but every new piece of evidence, 
 which I have discovered, has tended to prove the loss and 
 mismanagement more conclusively, and to indicate that they 
 could hardly have been unknown to Mr. Lowell. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 MR. Lowell's proof or mr. boott's good management. 
 
 HIS PRETENCE THAT I HAVE NO RIGHT TO q.UESTION THE 
 ACCOUNTS. 
 
 The general question, forced upon me by Mr. Lowell, is. 
 Did, or did not, Mr. J. Wright Boott mismanage the concerns 
 entrusted to him as executor, trustee, and guardian, under his 
 father's will ? 
 
 Mr. Lowell, as we have seen, undertook to testify, or state, 
 in terms, or effect, to the coroner's jury, that my unfortunate 
 brother-in-law had been falsely charged by me with mis- 
 management in those relations ; and he now undertakes to 
 say, that this gentleman " was, in substance, whatever he 
 might be in form, a remarkably good manager of trust prop- 
 erty." [L. p. 97.] 
 
 To be sure, the particular proof, he adduces, is one of Mr. 
 Boott's guardianship accounts, for a ward not belonging to 
 
130 
 
 the immediate family. This is merely raising a new and 
 false issue. It has nothing to do with the management of 
 his father's estate, which is the whole matter in controversy. 
 It serves, however, to draw aside the attention of the reader 
 from the .true question, and at the same time to give him a 
 false impression of Mr. Boott's financial ability, by exhibit- 
 ing, for his admiration, what Mr. Lowell calls " so brilliant a 
 result," [L. p. 99.] in the building up, from a capital of 
 $12,500, one of $27,600, after having appropriated about 
 $11,000 to the expenses of the ward. "If any one," says 
 Mr. Lowell, " can point to a more successful administratiou 
 of a trust fund, I should like much to see it." [L. p. 99.] 
 
 Now I have no disposition to go much into the particulars 
 of this account, since it is not the account, with which my 
 business lies. But, since Mr. Lowell puts it forward, in so 
 triumphant a tone, as an uncommon example of excellent 
 administration, I feel bound to point out a few facts con- 
 cerning it. 
 
 I refer, for the evidence of them, to the account- itself in 
 the probate records, to Mr. Lowell's list of the property, 
 [L. p. 99.] and to a second letter from Mr. John S. Tyler, 
 respecting the amount of cash in the guardian's hands, 
 which I shall by-and-by print. [Post, Ch. 24] • 
 
 In the first place, the reader's admiration at the thing must 
 be considerably abated, when he is told, that the period of 
 accumulation was upwards of eighteen years, and when he re- 
 flects, that an ordinary six per cent, investment, of such a cap- 
 ital, if the income were added from year to year to the invest- 
 ment, and nothing were withdrawn for expenses, would, in 
 that time, produce about $37,000, instead of $27,000, with- 
 out any extraordinary skill in the manager. In the next 
 place, it appears by the account, that the expenses of the 
 ward, during the first ten years, averaged only about |420 
 a year, and that the guardian charged nothing, for his own 
 services and expenses in the business, during the whole terra 
 of the account. An excellent trust investment of the whole 
 capital was made in the outset, it is true, by the purchase of 
 U. S. stocks at a low price ; but, at that time, the father ot 
 
131 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott was associated with him in this guardian- 
 ship, and doubtless directed that investment. Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, as surviving guardian, afterwards sold out these 
 stocks, and a profit accrued, in consequence of their low 
 cost, of about $2000. The subsequent investments, made 
 by Mr. J. Wright Boott, were all, except to the amount of 
 about $2500, embarked in the specied risks of manufacturing 
 and insurance. With these facts before us, we shall find 
 no such astonishing proof of good management, in a fortu- 
 nate result, aided by the omission of usual charges. 
 
 But what shall we say, when we further find, that, of the 
 $27,000 and upwards of property, delivered to the ward, in 
 1835, nearly $9000 was uninvested cash ? and that, of this 
 uninvested sum, upwards of $7000 was the mere simple 
 interest of moneys, which had been lying in the guardian's 
 hands, for his own use, some ten or twelve years, to an 
 amount alm,ost equal to the original capital 1 Does that 
 prove good management ? Or, is it an answer to say, that, 
 as the event turned, the ward lost nothing by it ? 
 
 True, Mr. Lowell informs us, that, " with respect to his 
 having had a part of the money in his own hands, at times, 
 paying interest therefor, I am authorized by Judge Loring, 
 [the husband of this ward,] to state that the ■ accounts 
 were annually made up and submitted to Mrs. F. Boott, 
 [her mother,] the investments being explaitied and thor- 
 oughly understood and approved by her." [L. p. 99.] 
 
 Now, if Judge Loring has authorized these statements, in 
 all their length and breadth, as matter within his personal 
 knowledge, I shall certainly deem them to be unquestiona- 
 ble, although they must carry back his acquaintance with 
 the dealings, between the mother and the guardian of his wife, 
 to a somewhat early period ; for the ward could have been 
 only about three years old, when the guardianship began. 
 But one cannot fail to remark, on inspecting the account, 
 how little trouble it must have cost the guardian to explain 
 his investments, during a pretty long series of years, within 
 which, with a large siun of money to invest, there was 
 scarcely a single investment made ; and as for the thorough 
 
132 
 
 understanding and approval of the accounts, by Mrs, P. 
 Boott, unless she differs from most ladies in such matters, 
 every man of business will be able to estimate the value of 
 that. What does it mean, when we find large cash balances, 
 for years, uninvested, except that she reposed absolute confi- 
 dence in Mr. Boott's ability, as she well might in his inten- 
 tion, to do ample justice to his ward ? What would she have 
 thought, in 1830, when the uninvested moneys, lying in his 
 hands, on this single account, with the simple interest upon 
 them, amounted to over $15,000, unsecured, except by his 
 guardianship bond, had she been aware of the fact, and had 
 she also known, that he was, at that time, actually insolvent, 
 and without means of paying this debt, and like debts to her 
 other children, except by taking for that purpose the prop- 
 erty of his mother, and brothers and sisters ? Would that 
 have met her unqualified approval ? Such was the fact, in 
 1830, as will presently be seen ; and when he settled his 
 accounts with these wards, in 1835, he was, then, enabled 
 to pay them, in full, only by using property, which justly 
 belonged to his father's estate. 
 
 I have already shown, [Ante, Ch. 6.] that it was no fault 
 of Mr. J. Wright Boott, that this account did not exhibit a still 
 more brilliant aspect. He would have swelled the $27,600 of 
 final property, by the addition of about $4000 more, in 
 compounding interest. I used the fact, formerly, to illus- 
 trate a characteristic peculiarity, which seemed to disenable 
 him from perceiving, that, circumstanced as he was at the 
 time of this settlement, generosity to his ward was injustice 
 to others, more intimately dependant on him. The examin- 
 ation of this account, which Mr. Lowell has occasioned, 
 by dragging it up as a specimen of such uncommonly 
 judicious trusteeship, now leads me to observe another fact 
 in it, which both illustrates further the sort of romantic sen- 
 timent, which Mr. Boott carried into these business transac- 
 tions, and tends, at the same time, to throw more light on 
 that increase of capital, which Mr. Lowell applauds so loudly. 
 During the first four or five years of his guai'dianship, 
 and before the great sale of stock in 1821, which 
 
133 
 
 about $12,000 in his hands, he not only charged nothing 
 for services, but repeatedly over-invested on this account ; 
 that is, he chose, not only to give his services, but to use 
 his own moneys, or the moneys of his father's estate, as the 
 case may have been, to make up a good account for his 
 ward. And yet, from 1821 forward, instead of over-invest- 
 ing, he so entirely changed his course, as to sell stock, held 
 for this particular ward, to the amount of about $12,000, 
 and to make like sales for his other wards, and to keep the 
 greater part of the proceeds, for his own use, uninvested, 
 until the time of settlement was near at hand. 
 
 So much for the particular example, which Mr. Lowell 
 chooses to produce, of Mr. Boott's excellent management and 
 business-like habits as a trustee. It seems to me rather an 
 unfortunate illustration ; and the manner, in which Mr. 
 Lowell treats it, upon a hasty glance at the result, without 
 attending to facts, which become apparent upon examina- 
 tion of the account, and which, when seen, counteract his 
 own object, affords another example of just such carelessness 
 as he is so fond of imputing to me. 
 
 But another carelessness, less venial, lies in a prefatory re- 
 mark, made by way of excuse for putting forward a supposed 
 instance of good management so entirely foreign to the issue. 
 He says, " I will take, in preference, [to the accounts directly 
 in issue] another set of accounts, concerning which Mr. 
 Brooks has charged him [Mr. Boott] with 'unfaithfulness.' " 
 [L. p. 98.] 
 
 This last word is marked by Mr. Lowell as a quotation ; 
 and though he makes no reference, it is plain that he in- 
 tended to allude to a passage in one of my letters to Mr. 
 Wells, (printed by Mr. Lowell, at p. 120) in which I spoke 
 of his (Mr. Boott's) " unfaithfulness as a guardian and exec- 
 utor." Whoever reads that letter will see, that it relates to 
 Mr. Boott's conduct towards his brothers and sisters only. 
 It makes no allusion to wards, out of the immediate family. 
 The unfaithfulness, spoken of, whether that was a proper 
 term to use or not, applied, entirely, to his care of the family 
 property. It was as the testamentary guardian of his broth- 
 
134 
 
 ers and sisters, while under age, and as executor of his fa- 
 ther's will, that, in a moment of just irritation, I described 
 him as unfaithful. The whole context of the letter shows 
 this so plainly, that I can hardly attribute Mr. Lowell's peiv 
 version of it to mere oversight. But, having, as he conceived, 
 a very striking instance before him of successful execution 
 of a trust, in the case of Mr. Boott's guardianship of certain 
 children distantly related to him, he picks this phrase out of 
 my letter, where it is applied to the guardianship of Mr. 
 Boott's own brothers and sisters, and represents me as hav- 
 ing applied it to the very case he is about to adduce. Why 
 is this ? Simply because he could not show a favourable ex- 
 ample of guardianship, in the case of the brothers and sisters, 
 as he thought he could, in the case of the cousins, to a very 
 eminent degree ; and, by making me characterize " so brill- 
 iant a result " as "unfaithfulness" of guardianship, he con- 
 trives to impress his reader with the belief, that my language 
 was not merely harsh and uncalled for, but so utterly desti- 
 tute of any reasonable foundation, as to indicate perverseness 
 of mind and malignity of purpose. Is this fair dealing ? 
 
 Had Mr. Boott shown such accounts, and made such set- 
 tlements, with his brothers and sisters, producing a like 
 accumulation of capital for them, I should never have 
 dreamed, under any provocation, of calling his guardiansMp 
 unfaithful ; although, in view of the means, by which the 
 result was accomplished, I might not have considered it the 
 best proof in the world that he was " a remarkably good 
 manager of trust property. ^^ But, when we find, as we 
 shall, that this very " brilliant result " was attained, for his 
 other wards, at the expense of his brothers and sisters, every 
 reader will begin to wonder where the proof of the good 
 management lies. 
 
 Let us turn, then, to the accounts, which really are in 
 issue. 
 
 Mr. Lowell's first and last position, in respect to the pro- 
 bate account, which he prepared for Mr. Boott, is, that I have 
 no longer a right, either in law or in conscience, to question 
 it, because it has once been settled* and passed ; and that, if 
 
135 
 
 I do, most unconscientiously, persist, notwithstanding, in 
 denying its correctness, the burden is on me to prove what 
 the account ought to be, and to establish, beyond question, 
 each particular error. [L. pp. 37. 208.] I believe I shall 
 have no difficulty in showing enough of error and of material 
 omission, for all purposes of this inquiry ; and, although I 
 may not be so fully and minutely possessed of all Mr. Boott's 
 transactions, during the period of his executorship, as to be 
 able to state an exact account myself, I am much mistaken 
 if I do not show enough of error and omission to throw a 
 considerable burden upon Mr. Lowell. 
 
 But, the argument is, that, if the account was settled, as I 
 aver, upon a compromise, it was the basis of that compromise, 
 that it should never, afterwards, be disputed. The passing of 
 the account, it is said, was, " to Mr. Boott, a question of more 
 than money ; — it was a question of life. And by every prin- 
 ciple of honour, and humanity, and fair dealing, he was as 
 much entitled to the benefit of the compromise, if compro- 
 mise it were, at the bar of public opinion, and after his death, 
 as when alive and claiming the final allowance of his account 
 before a court of probate." [L. p. 208.] 
 
 This is fine declamation ; but the truth of the principle, it 
 asserts, depends, entirely, on what the question is, and between 
 what parties. If Mr. Lowell means to say, that I have no 
 right to disturb the pecuniary settlement, or to go behind 
 the account for the purpose of setting up a valuable claim, in 
 the absence of any fraud, or essential mistake, shown in the 
 account, or in the settlement, I should entirely agree with 
 him, whether the account were passed on full proof, or by 
 mere agreement without proof. But, if he means to say, that 
 I have no right, in honour and fairness, — ^because that account 
 was permitted to pass, without proof or question, upon a pre- 
 vious compromise, — to inquire, now, whether Mr. Boott man- 
 aged his father's estate judiciously and profitably or other- 
 wise, and to inquire, with reference to that question, what the 
 account shows, and what it ought to have shown, I beg the 
 reader to consider, how, and between whom, this issue has 
 arisen. 
 
136 
 
 The compromise, on the basis of that account, was a com- 
 promise between me and Mr. Lowell, he acting as the agent 
 of Mr. Boott, and as a party directly interested in its settle- 
 ment, so far, at least, as the payment of a large debt to himself 
 was concerned, for trust moneys, that he had lent to Mr. 
 Boott. If the settlement fairly imported, or implied, that no 
 question was afterwards to be made about Mr. Boott's former 
 management of his father's estate, it was a bargain that 
 tied Mr. Lowell, as much as it tied me. Can he break the 
 compact, when he pleases, and yet hold me in honour bound 
 to silence ? What happens ? Without my knowledge, and 
 without provocation, Mr. Lowell covertly gives out to a cor- 
 oner's jury, and to others, that I had falsely charged Mr. 
 Boott, in his life-time, with mismanagement of a trust, 
 and that this account, prepared by Mr. Lowell, and exhibit- 
 ing a balance in Mr. Boott's favour,— disputed by me, (so the 
 statement went,) but allowed, nevertheless, by the judge of 
 probate, — was a triumphant vindication of Mr. Boott, and posi- 
 tive proof that my charge was destitute of foundation ; — and, 
 by connecting this with other statements, he causes it to be 
 believed, that Mr. Boott came to his death in consequence of 
 that false charge and of other misconduct of mine, connected 
 with it. Let the reader judge, then, whether I am not at lib- 
 erty, or rather whether I am not bound, to prove, in my own 
 justification, that the charge was true, this account to the 
 contrary notwithstanding, and that I was compelled, by cir- 
 cumstances, to act as I did. 
 
 As between me and Mr. Lowell, where the present issue 
 lies, the whole subject has been thrown open by his own 
 act, in breach of the spirit of the compromise, as he himself 
 states it. Not only so, but I insist further, that, as between 
 him and me, the burden rests, not upon me to rectify this ac- 
 count, or to point out its errors with precision, but upon him 
 to show its substantial correctness ; since it was an account 
 prepared by himself, as will presently appear, from materials 
 and data in his own possession, quite inaccessible to me,— an 
 account, which was never proved, nor supported by the ex- 
 hibition of a single voucher, and one, which, he knows, I 
 
137 
 
 never admitted to be a full and true account, but which, 
 denying the apparent balance to be due, I suffered to pass, 
 without proof or question, in the probate court, only upon 
 the faith of a compromise out of court, which Mr. Lowell 
 now disregards, and even repudiates; 
 
 Yes, Mr. Lowell has the boldness to deny, by implication 
 at least, that there was any compromise in the case. " I do 
 not know," he says, " what sort of a compromise that is, 
 where one side gives up every thing and the other nothing — 
 literally nothing ; for, as to Mr. Boott's declining, as he did, 
 to accept the trusteeship, I had said to Mr. Loring, before 
 the accounts were presented at the probate office, that I 
 should advise Mr. Boott, as soon as they were passed, to give 
 up all charge of the property in order to avoid any future 
 collision." [L. p. 206.] 
 
 Now, the compromise agreed upon, as I state it, was, that 
 Mr. William Boott, and Mrs. Brooks and myself, would execute 
 the required deed of the mansion-house, and would also exe- 
 cute a full release of all claims on Mr. Boott, and would per- 
 mit his account to pass, without question or proof, provided he 
 would resign his trust, and place the remaining funds, which 
 his account admits, together with the proceeds of the mansion- 
 house, in the hands of a new trustee, namely, C. G. Loring, 
 Esq., in whom all parties had confidence. This, says Mr. 
 Lowell, weis no compromise, because " I had said to Mr. 
 Loring, before the accounts were presented at the probate 
 office, that I should advise Mr. Boott, as soon as they were 
 passed, to give up all charge of the property." What Mr. 
 Lowell may have said to his own counsel, nobody knows 
 but themselves. It is not pretended that such an idea had 
 been communicated to me. -And what does it amount to ? 
 Why, that, if and when the accounts should be passed, Mr. 
 Lowell might, probably, unless he should alter his mind, 
 advise Mr. Boott, as a friend, to retire from the trust. But 
 does it follow that Mr. Boott, his accoimt being passed, 
 would have taken the advice ? Is it certain, even, that Mr. 
 Lowell would have urged it ? 
 
138 
 
 However this might have been, the question, then at issue, 
 was, whether this account should be allowed by the parties 
 interested, or not. On the part of myself and Mrs. Brooks and 
 Mr. William Boott, knowing nothing of Mr. Lowell's secret 
 intentions, or private conferences with his counsel, it was 
 said, in effect, — "We have no faith in this account; we 
 have no belief that it is possible for Mr. Boott to establish 
 it ; indeed, we feel confident that the balance claimed is 
 not due ; — ^but we also know, that Mr. Boott has no other 
 present means to pay your debt, and that, under a former 
 pledge, the property of the estate became, as we suppose, 
 justly, though perhaps not legally, bound for it. We are, 
 therefore, content, and will agree, to waive all objections, 
 and forego all proofs, and take the account just as it stands, 
 on the sole condition, that Mr. Boott shall surrender his trust, 
 and pass over the property, which he admits, into other 
 hands." Mr. Lowell, thereupon, protesting his own belief 
 that the account is all right, and that he can prove it, never- 
 theless agrees, that, if the opposition to it be withdrawn, 
 Mr. Boott shall resign, and the property be passed over, as 
 we require. Is not that a compromise ? Is it not a compro- 
 mise, by which we gain our point, as much as Mr. Boott, or 
 Mr. Lowell, gains his ? Is it the less a compromise, because 
 Mr. Lowell secretly intended, all the while, to advise Mr. 
 Boott to resign, even if his account should be contested and 
 proved ? 
 
 Fortunately, it is not left for Mr. Lowell and myself to 
 settle this question on our respective statements ; for we have 
 the contemporaneous exposition of a disinterested party, 
 through whom the bargain was made. I refer to Judge 
 Warren, with whom, acting for me, Mr. Lowell held the in- 
 terviews, which, he himself says, " are very fairly reported 
 in the letter of that gentleman to Mr. Brooks." [L. p. 34] 
 I printed that letter formerly, but only in an appendix. I 
 now insert it in my text. Italicising, with Mr. Lowell's good 
 leave, those parts, to which I desire to draw present, atten- 
 tion ;— • 
 
139 
 
 LETTER FROM C. H. WARREN to E. BROOKS. 
 
 Boston, Dec. 19tli, 1844. 
 Deab Sir : — 
 
 In compliance with your request, I state to you, very briefly, tbe 
 circumstances within my knowledge, relating to the compromise, re- 
 cently made between the heirs of the late Mr. Boott. 
 
 On my return to the city, on Nov. 24, 1 saw you, for the first time, 
 upon the subject of Mr. J. W. Boott's accounts as executor and trus- 
 tee. You then entered into a full history of the circumstances of the 
 estate, and the management of the property by the executor, with 
 which you were very much dissatisfied. Yota handed me, at that time, 
 a paper, prepared by yourself, and addressed to the Judge of Probate, 
 setting forth the particulars, in which you thought Mr. B. had failed 
 to discharge his duty as executor ; which paper you proposed to file 
 in the probate office. At the same interview, you disclaimed any 
 imputation of moral delinquency, or fraudulent conduct on the part of 
 Mr. B., and stated, that, although you did not believe that the account 
 presented by Mr. B. was correct, or that he had the means of present- 
 ing a correct account, still, you were not disposed to enter upon a rigid 
 investigation of it, if the property, remaining in his hands, could be 
 transferred to some other person, so that you coidd be certain that its 
 future management would be such as to uphold the trust fund, and 
 ensure a fulfilment of the wishes cf the testator in regard to it. 
 
 It seemed to me, upon reflection, that your views of the subject 
 were such as admitted of an adjustment of a long-standing difficulty, 
 in a manner honourable to all parties ; and, from that time, I address- 
 ed myself to the accomplishment of that object. 
 
 I advised you not to file the paper, before referred to, in the pro- 
 bate office ; as it might tend to excite further ill feeling, and would, 
 perhaps, present an insuperable obstacle to a compromise between the 
 parties. I then had a conversation with Mr. Loring, the counsel of 
 Mr. B., and intimated to him, that I should be most happy in being 
 instrumental in making an adjustment of the matter in controversy. 
 He met my advances promptly, and asked me to have an interview 
 with Mr. Lowell. Mr. Lowell, afterwards, called upon me, and, after 
 a full and free conversation upon the subject, / proposed to him to 
 tvaive all examination of the account and its vouchers ; that Mr. B. 
 should resign his trust ; and that the heirs, upion his doing so, should 
 give him a release from all further claims upon hira. 
 
 At a subsequent time, I named Mr. C. G. Loring, as a gentleman, 
 whose appointment would be peifectly satisfactory to yourself and Mr. 
 "W. Boott. 
 
 Mr. Lowell entertained the strongest belief, that the account presented 
 by Mr. J. W. Boott was correct, and could be sustained throughout ; 
 and it would certainly be unjust to him, to say that his subsequent 
 conduct in the matter was founded upon any distrust on that point. 
 At least, he did not intimate any such distrust ; nor did I put my prop- 
 osition to him on any such ground. 
 
14Q 
 
 The only motive, I presented, for the adoption of the proposed 
 course, was, the great desirableness of preventing any further difficulty 
 in regard to pecuniary matters, among the members of the family, 
 
 Mr. Lowell, after consultation with Mr. J. W. Boott, acceded to 
 MT PROPOSITION ; and as a consequence, Mr. B. has resigned the 
 trust, Mr. Loring has been appointed trustee, and property to the 
 amount of $100,000 or more, besides the purchase-money of the house, 
 ($46,000,) has been transferred to him. The income of this goes to 
 Mrs. Boott for her life, and, upon her death, the principal will be 
 divided among the heirs. I should have stated that the amount, above- 
 named, is subject to the payment of about $18,000 to Mr. J. W. Boott, 
 — the balance claimed as due to him on the account, after dedupting 
 dividends on Merrimack stock, received by him after the rendition of 
 the account. 
 
 The release viras then executed by yourself, Mrs. Brooks, and Mr. 
 "W. Boott ; and thus the whole matter was settled. No party appeared 
 in the probate court to question Mr. J. W. Bootts account ; and, so 
 far as J heard, no examination of vouchers has been had, or sought. 
 I will only state further, that, upon the facts stated to me, I did advise 
 you to withhold your signatures to the deed of the house, until all 
 matters in conti-oversy were adjusted. 
 
 In my view of the matter, NO concession has been made by either 
 party as to the corkectness ok incorrectness of the account 
 presented in the probate office ; but, there being no imputation of 
 fraud, the compromise has been effected upon a basis whollt 
 irrespective of that question. 
 
 I am, very truly, yours, 
 
 C. H. Waeeen. 
 
 Edward Brooks, Esq., Boston. 
 
 Is it not amazing, that, in the face of this report of the 
 facts, admitted by Mr. Lowell to be a fair one, he should 
 venture to suggest, that there was no compromise, because 
 he had once privately said to his own counsel, (withholding 
 the fact from me and from my counsel,) that, when the ac- 
 counts should be passed, he intended to advise Mr. Boott 
 to surrender his trust, — and, therefore, that it was a case, 
 in which one party gave up every thing, and the other 
 literally nothing ? Mr. Lowell may thus prove that he got 
 the better of me in a bargain, by pretending to yield a point, 
 which he never intended to stand upon ; but that cannot 
 disprove the fact, that there was a bargain, and one, which I 
 thought, and which he represented, to be mutually advan- 
 tageous, and mutually concessive. 
 
 In respect to the correctness of the account, it appears. 
 
141 
 
 however, by Judge Warren's statement, that the question 
 was simply withdrawn and waived by mutual consent, 
 under a certain agreement, entered into for the sake of an 
 amicable family settlement, intended to avoid that question, 
 which remained an open one, though each party retired from 
 the threatened contest, expressing full confidence, real or 
 feigned, in his own ability to secure the victory, if he had 
 chosen to pursue it. Mr. Lowell says, the understanding 
 was, that this question should never be agitated again. 
 Granted: — Yet he, in plain violation of that understand- 
 ing, raises this very question anew, when he cites this same 
 account against me, as a thing foreclosed, in proof that I had 
 falsely charged with mismanagement the party, in whose be- 
 half it was stated. In doing so, does he not place the truth 
 of the account, for every purpose except that of the actual 
 pecuniary settlement, which adopted it as a basis of compro- 
 mise " irrespective of that question," precisely where it was ? 
 The burden, 1 submit to the reader, in reference to this new 
 issue, fairly stands just where it originally stood. The passing 
 of the account, without proof, by agreement for a particular 
 purpose, bound nobody to it except for that purpose. For 
 every other, the paper is neither an admitted account, nor an 
 account proved ; but the party, who now produces and relies 
 upon it, for a new and collateral purpose, is bound to produce 
 the proofs and vouchers in his own possession, just as the 
 executor would have been, upon contest in the probate 
 court. " Such is the decision of law, of equity, and of com- 
 mon sense." [L. p. 37.] 
 
 Nor does it make any difference that the party, who pro- 
 vokes the question, is not the nominal party, who presented 
 the account ; or that this nominal party is no longer alive to 
 argue it. All the extrinsic proofs, which he then had, were, 
 and are, we shall find, in Mr. Lowell's possession, or control ; 
 and although Mr. Lowell says, while urging this ground of 
 defence, that he is " not possessed of his [Mr. Boott's] famil- 
 iarity with the facts," [L. p. 37.] yet, it will be seen, that, 
 whenever it becomes necessary to interpose an explanation, 
 he assumes, without scruple, to know all about them ; and 
 
142 
 
 that, in truth, the advantage, as between him and me, on 
 every point relating to the accounts, is, in respect both to 
 knowledge and means of knowledge, altogether on his side. 
 In point of honour and fair dealing, theU, Mr. Lowell can 
 never be allowed to protect himself from inquiry, by setting 
 up the merely technical notion that I am estopped from ques- 
 tioning the truth of this account ,■ nor to relieve himself from 
 the production of his vouchers, by denying the compromise, 
 and suggesting that a pro forma allowance of the account 
 in the probate ofSce has shifted the burden of proof ; nor 
 to escape, from a dilemma of his own creation, by pretend- 
 ing that the death of Mr. Boott has put it out of his power 
 to explain. All this should have been thought of before 
 he ventured to set up this account against me, as proof that 
 I had made false accusations ; and I now challenge him to 
 show, that it is, what he says it is, a triumphant vindication 
 of Mr. Boott's character as a trustee, and proof of his good 
 management of his father's estate, — which point, necessarily, 
 involves the accuracy and completeness of the account itself. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE ACCOUNT. ITS EXTREME GENERALITY. WANT OF BOOKS 
 AND VOUCHERS. 
 
 This account, though once printed by me, and once by 
 Mr. Lowell, in full, [B. App. p. 43. — L. p. 38.] must be ex- 
 hibited anew, at least in its principal statements. But that 
 is soon done. For, laying aside the amount of the inven- 
 tory, which consisted entirely, as before shown, of real estate 
 and a small amount of chattels, specifically bequeathed to the 
 widow, and laying aside some small items of gain and loss 
 in sales, resulting in a balance of $133 61 only, and also 
 
143 
 
 a few minute items of expense for probate fees, amounting 
 in the aggregate to $23 only, the whole account consists 
 of three items of debit, and two of credit, as follows : — 
 
 JOHN WEIGHT BOOTT, EXECUTOE OF KIRK BOOTT. 
 
 Dr. 
 
 1. " Cash received from the firm of Kirk 
 Boott & Sons, in part of the testator's 
 interest in that copartnership, and in- 
 vested in stocks to constitute the trust 
 fund, as by his [the executor's] account 
 settled at a probate court, May 11, 
 
 1818," $116,783 95 
 
 2. " Cash received of Boott & Lowell, in 
 liquidation of the outstanding property 
 
 of Kirk Boott & Sons," 69,389 99 
 
 186,173 94 
 
 3. " Income received on the trust fund for 
 the widow, from March, 1818, to Nov. 
 1844," 274,686 36 
 
 Cr. 
 
 1. " Cash paid to the heirs, nine in number, 
 
 810,000 each," 90,000 00 
 
 2. '' Income paid to, or for account, and by 
 
 order of, the widow," 274,686 36 
 
 460,860 30 
 
 364,686 36 
 
 " Leaving in his [the executor's] hands to 
 be accounted for," 96,173 94 
 
 The small items, mentioned above, namely, 
 $133 61 on the debit side, and $23 on 
 the credit side, add to this balance 
 ($133 61 less $28,) 110 61 
 
 Making the actual cash balance, according 
 
 to the account, 96,284 55 
 
 The amount of the inventory is also charged 
 
 on the debit side, viz. 36,984 75 
 
 But all the items in it, except the mansion- 
 house, are also entered on the credit side, 
 and they amount to 12,984 75 
 
 The difference is 24,000 00 
 
 This remains charged on the debit side of 
 the account, and represents the appraised 
 value of the mansion-house ; which was 
 not property in the executor's hands, 
 and is, as Mr, LoweU admits, immaterial 
 
144 
 
 Brought over, $96,284 55 
 
 to our discussion. [L. p. 39.] I add 
 this to the above balance, only that the 
 reader may see its conformity to the 
 nominal balance of the account, as print- 
 ed both by me, and by Mr. Lowell, 24,000 00 
 
 which is 120,284 55 
 
 The account then goes on to say : — 
 
 " To meet which he [the executor] has the 
 
 following property : 
 39 shares in the Boston Manufacturing 
 
 Co.— 
 Of 18 shares cost $1150 each, $20,700 00 
 Of 21 shares cost $1300 each, 27,300 00 
 
 48,000 00 
 
 71 shares in the Merrimack Manufacturing 
 
 Co. at cost, 71,000 00 
 
 Mansion-house in Bowdoin Square, 24,000 00 
 
 Stable in Bowdoin-street, deeded to exec- 
 utor by J. W, Boott, in 1831, 2,500 00 
 
 145,500 00 
 
 Less cash balance due to the executor," 25,215 45 
 
 [See the account, B. App. p. 43, and L. p. 38.] 120,284 55 
 
 Since the mansion-house represents nothing in the execu- 
 tor's hands, or for which he "was accountable, it seems to be 
 agreed, by Mr. Lowell and myself, that it may be deducted 
 both from the debit side of the account, and from the mem- 
 orandum of property at its foot. 
 
 The balance of the account will then staiid, as above 
 at $96,284 55 
 
 The items of property above enumerated, 
 
 amount to 145,500 00 
 
 Deduct the mansion-house, here also, 24,000 00 
 
 1_ 121,500 00 
 
 " Less cash balance due to the executor," 25,215 45 
 
 96,284 55 
 
 This is the entire account, with the exceptions, I have men- 
 tioned, of a number of items, which make a show of something, 
 and come to nothing. There are no schedules annexed, or 
 
145 
 
 referred to, of the particular receipts, or payments, which go 
 to make up the large sums spoken of; and there are no dates 
 whatever, except the date of the inventory, and of the settle- 
 ment of the former probate account, and the date, under 
 which this present account was rendered. Three fifths of 
 the account consist of the income, which is both debited 
 and credited in mass. It stands, equally, on each side, and 
 does not affect the final balance. Laying aside this aggre- 
 gate of income, for the purpose of looking at the components 
 of the final result stated, the account may be still further 
 simplified, and may be stated in round numbers, as follows : 
 
 JOHN WniGHT BOOTT, AS EXECUTOR OF KIEK BOOTT. 
 
 De. 
 
 1. For cash received from the old firm of 
 Kirk Boott & Sons, before May 11, 
 1818, and invested by him in stocks to 
 constitute the trust fund, as by his pro- 
 bate account settled at that date, $116,700 00 
 
 2. For cash received from Boott & Low- 
 ell, in liquidation of the property of Kirk 
 Boott & Sons, 69,300 00 
 
 186,000 00 
 
 Ce. 
 
 3. For cash paid to the nine heirs, $10,000 
 
 each, 90,000 00 
 
 " Leaving in his hands to be accounted for," 9 6,000 00 
 
 " To meet which he has," — i. e. the exec- 
 utor has, in his capacity of executor, — 
 
 39 shares of the Boston Manufacturing Co. 
 
 which cost $48,000 00 
 
 71 shares of the Merrimack Manufacturing 
 
 Co., which cost 71,000 00 
 
 And a stable, conveyed, in 1831, by J. W. 
 Boott, personally, to himself as exec- 
 utor, at 2,500 00 
 
 121,500 00 
 
 " Less cash balance due to the executor," 25,500 00 
 
 $96,000 00 
 
 Add to this the $275,000 of income said to have been re- 
 ceived in the aggregate, and said to have been paid in the 
 aggregate, and the reader has before him the whole substance 
 
146 
 
 of that, which Mr. Lowell avers to be a fall, complete, and 
 accurate account of Mr. Boott's twenty-seven years of ex- 
 ecutorship ! 
 
 I stated, formerly, three classes of objections to this paper :— 
 1. Such as arise upon its face, or in connexion with the will, 
 inventory, and probate : papers. 2. Such as appeared by 
 comparing it with facts, not «f record, but positively known 
 to me, and of which I stated the evidence. 3. Such as are 
 found by comparing it with other probable facts,.which I did 
 not pretend to have positive knowledge of, but put forward 
 as reasonable inferences from certain evidence, which il 
 stated, leaving it to the other party, on whom the burden of 
 explaining and proving this part of the case properly lay, to 
 show, if he could, that my inferences were not well founded. 
 
 The tendency of all these objections was, to show that 
 the account could not be accepted,, as a complete and accu- 
 rate exhibition of all the transactions, nor even of the results 
 of all the transactions, of the period, to which it relates; 
 and that no such balance,, as it claims, really belonged to 
 Mr. Boott. 
 
 Mr. Lowell has attempted an answer ; — ^with what success 
 let us now see. 
 
 In the first place, on the face of the paper I objected, that 
 this was no account, but a mere general statement of, sup- 
 posed results ; and such as gives ■ no opportunity to an inter- 
 ested party, by the particulars of sums and dates, to test 
 their correctness, or to trace the property throug-h the va- 
 rious uses, which may have been made of it, to its final: sha^je; 
 — and consequently, that it is impossible to ascertain, from 
 the face of the paper, even if such facts as are stated in it be 
 literally and strictly true, whether the executor has, upon 
 that hypothesis, charged himself with all he was properjy 
 chargeable for, or not. Is not this so ? 
 
 By such a paper, Mr. Lowell, who prepared it, in effect, 
 merely says, — " The executor received, more than twenty- 
 six years ago, a sum of $116,700 from the old firm of Kirk 
 Boott & Sons, on account of the estate's interest in that firm, 
 as appeared by his account at that time, in which' he charged 
 
147 
 
 himself with certain stocks, to that amount, purchased for 
 the annuity funds, directed by the will. At some time 
 after, — ^but when, how, and to whom, I leave you to guess, — 
 he sold all those stocks ; some at a loss and some at a gain ; 
 but he gained, in the whole, $133 61 by the sale, and this 
 I now charge him with. What he did with that $117,000, 
 (the proceeds of the sale,) from that day to this, I do not 
 state ; but you will see, at the end of this account, what 
 property now stands in his name as executor." 
 
 " At another time, but when, or how, I cannot tell, he re- 
 ceived another large sum, viz. $69,300, from another firm, 
 called Boott & Lowell, which sum I consider as belonging 
 to the estate, and charge accordingly. How Boott & Low- 
 ell came to have it, or what the estate had to do with that 
 firm, is not for you to know ; nor does the executor under- 
 take to say, that this was the final result of the liquidation 
 of the whole estate ; it is enough for him to say, that the 
 sum, I speak of, was received in liquidation, total or partial, 
 as the case may be, of some outstanding property of the old 
 firm of Eirk Boott & Sons, for which Boott & Lowell had 
 become accountable." 
 
 " At some or other times, the executor paid $10,000, in 
 cash, to each of the heirs, making $90,000 ; and this, sub- 
 tracted from the receipts above mentioned, leaves $96,000." 
 
 " He also received, in the way of interest and income 
 upon all the sums and all the items of property, that have 
 ever been in his hands, during, or within, these seven and 
 twenty years, say $275,000; but there is no use in telling 
 when, or in what sums, or what particular property it all 
 came from; because I assure you, that, at some time or 
 other, he paid it all away again, 'to, for account, or by order 
 of, the widow.' " 
 
 " He now has on hand, to show for his investments, one 
 hundred and ten shares in the Boston and Merrimack man- 
 ufacturing companies, all standing in his name as executor, 
 which cost $119,000, and a stable, which he sold to himself 
 as executor, in 1831, for $2500, as his deed will show. 
 How he came to hold so much property in this capacity is 
 
148 
 
 immaterial; for you will be pleased to observe, that the 
 estate owes him, personally, a cash balance of more than 
 $25,000. How that arose it is unnecessary to explain; for 
 you must perceive, that, if you take that sum out of my 
 valuation of all the property held by him as executor, it will 
 leave just |96,000, and that will exactly balance this ac- 
 count." a. E. D. 
 
 I submit to the reader, whether this is not a perfectly fair 
 translation, into common language, of all the statements of 
 this paper, (leaving out the real estate and specific be- 
 quests as immaterial,) and whether these statements em- 
 brace the ordinary characteristics of a trustee's account, or of 
 an account sufficient for any business purpose whatever. 
 
 Mr. Lowell has not condescended to furnish the slightest 
 answer to this complaint of extreme generality and loose- 
 ness. Indeed, how could he ? The thing is apparent ; and 
 there can be no good answer to it, except inability to state 
 a better account. 
 
 I attributed these defects, formerly, to the fact, that Mr. 
 Boott had kept no accounts for more than twenty years, if he 
 ever did, either with the estate as a whole, or with the par- 
 ticular trust funds, which he was bound to set apart and dis- 
 tinguish, or with the individual heirs, or with the annui- 
 tants ; and that, with few exceptions, he had kept no vouch- 
 ers for any thing. 
 
 Was not this true ? Mr. Lowell, with some faint attempts 
 to intimate the contrary, does not venture any positive as- 
 sertion on the subject one way or the other ; and, upon the 
 whole, this allegation must stand as tacitly admitted by his 
 " Reply." Indeed, in one place, he says, he stated to Judge 
 Warren, " the deficiency of books and papers on Mr. Boott's 
 part, so far as related to the earlier transactions;" [L. p. 35.] 
 which statement might, with equal propriety, have been ex- 
 tended to the latest of them, except such as may have passed 
 through Mr. Lowell's own hands, and may therefore appear 
 in his books. 
 
 He further says, that he offered to exhibit to Judge War- 
 ren, if he would appoint a time of meeting, at Mr. Lowell's 
 
149 
 
 olEce, "all the documents from which the accounts had 
 been made up." [L. p. 35.] 
 
 This offer I never before heard , of ; and Judge Warren 
 states no such fact in his letter ; — -although he does state the 
 great confidence in this account expressed by Mr. Lowell, — 
 than which, I am sure, nothing can be more probable. But 
 such an examination of vouchers, Mr. Lowell says, " Judge 
 Warren considered to be unnecessary;" [L. p. 35.] as, of 
 course, it was, under the proposal, then made, for a settle- 
 ment on terms of compromise, which superseded all investi- 
 gation. But what were "all the documents" then offered? 
 Why does not Mr. Lowell produce them now ? — now that 
 the question of the account, then waived, has arisen, and has 
 become a subject of serious controversy ? How happens it, 
 that he does not show a single one of these " documents," 
 from which, he says, " the accounts had been made up? " 
 If they were such as would positively prove the account in 
 question, or any part of it, without at the same time contra- 
 dicting other parts, or if they were such as would remove 
 a single objection, without starting new ones, I think we 
 may safely assume, that he would not have omitted them 
 in a " Reply," designed to overwhelm his adversary. In- 
 deed, since his professed object is to vindicate the memory 
 of a friend, if he possessed such convincing proofs of the 
 reality and justice of this account, as his supposed offer to 
 Judge Warren would seem to intimate, I do not see how, in 
 justice to that friend, he could have persuaded himself to 
 withhold them from the pages of his " Reply." 
 
 When he has a document, which he thinks clear to his 
 point, does he ever fail to produce it ? When he has not, he 
 contents himself with bold statement, on the weight of his 
 own authority. 
 
 One document, which he does produce for a different pur- 
 pose, incidentally proves that, which I assert, respecting the 
 total want of usual account books and vouchers. It is the 
 letter of Charles G. Loring, Esq., used by Mr. Lowell as 
 evidence, on the question of insanity, but which speaks, by 
 the way, of " the pressure of the circumstances, in which he 
 
150 
 
 [Mr. Boott] was placed, by his inability to render detailed 
 accounts." [L. p. 157.] So, the fact, that he, habitually, 
 neglected the -rendering and settling of accounts, is proved, 
 by implication, in respect to transactions with the principal 
 annuitant, under which head the account in question pur- 
 ports to cover near $275,000 of receipts, and an equal amount 
 of payments. The proof is, a document formerly printed 
 by me, — namely, Mrs. Boott's Release, (executed, in London, 
 before this, or any other, account was stated,) which recites, 
 that, " by reason of the unlimited confidence always existing, 
 between us, the settlement of periodical accounts has not 
 been thought necessary," [B. App. p. 38.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell, it is true, in one passage, ventures to assert, , 
 inferentially, that Mr. Boott had detailed accounts in 1826. 
 He refers to a passage in a letter from Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 printed by me, in which, under the date of February 8, 
 1826, that gentleman says of his brother, "as he \& pre- 
 paring to settle the estate and pay over the balances, it is in- 
 cumbent on me to come to a settlement with him." [B. App. 
 p. 15.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell's remark on that is, — "He therefore had ac- 
 counts sX Xh.aX time." [L. p. 98.] 
 
 Not feeling, myself, the force of that logic, I beg to ask, 
 if he had books of account, or detailed accounts drawn out. 
 on paper, in 1826, what became of them ? No loss, eitheriof 
 books or papers, is pretended after that date. Mr: Lowell, 
 indeed, makes a general assertion, in another place/; that 
 " documents necessary to enable him to state all the particu- 
 lars of his accounts had been lost or destroyed ;" [L. p. 58] 
 but, unluckily, he refers, in a note, to the particular occasion, 
 on which he supposes such a loss to have arisen, and says, 
 it was by the burning of " the books of Boott & Pratt, and 
 of both firms of Eirk Boott & Sons," in a fire, which 
 destroyed Mr. Boott's store. Now when did, this happen? 
 Why, he himself tells us, it was " in April 1825," and, he: 
 believes, " did not apply to his papers and memorandums,"— 
 some of which, he well remembers, " were in the iron safe 
 and were saved, though much discoloured." But he 
 
151 
 
 " the loss of the original books, will, however, account for 
 Mr. Boott's inability to replace any papers lost or mislaid." 
 [L. p. 69.] This is another conclusion, which does not seem 
 to me very logical. But, at any rate, a fire in April, 1825, 
 could not have consumed the accounts, which Mr. Lowell 
 supposes Mr. Boott to have had in February, 1826 ; and I 
 ask, again, what became of them ? 
 
 Mr. Lowell can only venture to intimate, that they may 
 have been voluntarily destroyed by Mr. Boott himself; or, 
 at least, that no pains could, or should, have been taken 
 to preserve them, since they were useless, after the release 
 obtained from the heirs, in 1833. [L. pp. 31. 59.] 
 
 Is that likely ? What motive does the release afford for 
 destroying or neglecting papers, which, if Mr. Lowell is right 
 in his view of the accounts, would have clearly proved, — not 
 that Mr. Boott was indebted to the other heirs at the time of 
 that release, but — that they were indebted to him 1 — and that 
 a large amount of property, held by or for him, apparently as 
 executor, really belonged to himself in his private capacity, and 
 always had ? Did a release from the heirs of their claims on 
 him, supersede the evidence, by the supposed accounts, of his 
 claims on them, or on the property apparently theirs ? The 
 supposition is not merely in itself without proof or likelihood, 
 but, when connected with the account now in question, and 
 with Mr. Lowell's other hypotheses, it becomes absurd. If 
 Mr. Boott had purposely destroyed his accounts, upon the 
 ground that they were superseded by a release, it would 
 be the best evidence in the world that they had exhibited 
 a balance against him, which the release discharged, and 
 the best evidence in the world that the account, now in 
 question, cannot exhibit the true result of all his transactions 
 as executor. 
 
 But all these suggestions of loss and destruction are merely 
 frivolous. It is plain, from such a statement, that no accounts 
 were kept by the executor, — ^no vouchers, ordinarily, taken. 
 Besides, if they had formerly existed, but had been lost or 
 destroyed, either accidentally or purposely, I should be glad 
 to know what were' "all the documents, from which the 
 
152 
 
 accounts had been made up," which Mr. Lowell says he 
 offered to show to Judge Warren in 1844 ? And further, if 
 the books of Kirk Boott & Sons were destroyed by the fire 
 , of 1825, there is no pretence that any such calamity has 
 befallen the books of Boott & Lowell. Why does not the 
 account give us the particulars of the executor's transactions, 
 so far as they appear in those books ? Those books will be 
 found, presently, to have embraced a very interesting period 
 in the history of Mr. Boott's investments, and, it would seem, 
 that they embraced, also, a record of all his cash dealings, 
 whether for the estate's account, or his own, within that 
 period. Why are we not furnished with those particulars ? 
 Why are we told nothing from those books, except that, at 
 some dateless time, the firm of Boott & Lowell paid over to 
 the executor the very precise sum of f 69,389 99 ? 
 
 Certain it is, that no account had ever been filed in the 
 probate court, except that of 1818, admitted to have been a 
 partial account, intended to cover only particular trust funds, 
 and not to disclose the final interest of the heirs. Certain it 
 is, that the business of the old firm, in which the estate was a 
 partner, was required to terminate in March, 1818, and must 
 have been finally wound up, and its results ascertained, with- 
 in a few years after. Certain it is, that those results had never 
 been stated in a probate account. Records prove that. I aver 
 that they had never been stated in any private account, ren- 
 dered to the heirs. Mr. Lowell does not pretend to deny the 
 truth of that averment. I asserted, formerly, that there 
 never was a final settlement with any one heir, nor any pay- 
 ment made as a final payment, — none, at least, founded upon 
 so small a sum as $10,000. No evidence to the contrary is 
 produced by Mr. Lowell ; nor does he venture, directly, to 
 contradict the assertion. It is also now plain, that, except 
 such accounts as may have been kept for their own business, 
 and for Mr. Boott, by the mercantile firms, with which Mr. 
 Boott was connected, the last of them terminating in 1824, 
 no accounts, formal or informal, of the business of the estate, 
 had been kept, and that no vouchers relating to it had been 
 usually taken. It is equally plain, from the face of the paper, 
 
153 
 
 which I now comment on, and from Mr. Loring's statement, 
 that, in 1844, when it had become necessary for Mr. Boott to 
 show something, that might answer for a discharge from his 
 trust, he was utterly unable to exhibit a proper and intelli- 
 gible account, detailed or otherwise, of his transactions with, 
 or for, the estate and its trust funds, from his neglect in keep- 
 ing proper accoimts and taking proper vouchers. 
 
 Now what is the question ? — Whether Mr. Boott had shown 
 himself a competent and suitable trustee of this property, or 
 not ; and I submit to every candid reader, that, — considering 
 the nature, nmgnitude and amount of the transactions ; the 
 length of time, through which they had run ; the number of 
 persons interested ; the complex relations, in which Mr. Boott 
 stood as surviving partner, executor, trustee, and guardian ; 
 the necessary ignorance of women, minors, persons out of the 
 country, persons not in business, and persons nowise connect- 
 ed with the several firms, concerning the real transactions of 
 a remote period ; — the total neglect and omission to settle, ren- 
 der, or keep, accounts, and usual documentary evidence, of 
 complicated pecuniary transactions, and the consequent ina- 
 bility to make, at last, any more satisfactory statement of 
 them than the paper offered, in 1844, as a probate account, 
 running back to the time of the death of the testator in 1817, 
 are conclusive evidence of unfitness for the trust, even if there 
 were nothing else in the case. And we cannot but remark, 
 that Mr. Lowell harms, instead of helping, his cause, when he 
 undertakes to show, that, during a large part of the same pe- 
 riod, Mr. Boott kept and rendered detailed accounts of his 
 dealings as guardian of persons not of his own family, — ex- 
 plaining to the mother of his wards, annually, as is stated, the 
 true posture of their affairs, and building up for them, what 
 Mr. Lowell esteems, a successful and brilliant result. Does 
 not this fact tend to prove the existence of that idiosyncracy, 
 attributed by me to Mr. Boott, which led him to look upon 
 the property of his own family in a very different light from 
 that of others in his hands, and to fancy that he had a right 
 to deal with it as his own ? 
 
154 
 
 I do not mean to overlook, in these suggestions, the em- 
 barrassment, which might well have arisen from the destruc- 
 tion of the hooks of the two firms of Kirk Boott &' SonSj 
 if they were destroyed in 1825. But, would any trustee, of 
 ordinary prudence and discretion, and of proper business 
 habits, who had lost his books of account by such a casualty, 
 have failed, either immediately to open new ones, and to 
 record therein a statement, as exact, as circumstances would 
 permit, of the then condition of the trust property in his 
 hands, and to keep accurate accounts of it thenceforward,— 
 or else to settle periodical accounts in the jHJobate office, 
 which might have dispensed with the necessity of books ? 
 If we had, now, an exact statement of affairs as they stood 
 immediately after the fire in 1825, (long before which time 
 the business of the old firm must have been wound up,) 
 and proper accounts after that, how much of this discussion 
 and how much of embittered controversy would have become 
 superfluous, if not impossible ! 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE ACCOUNT. MH. LOWELL's DISCOVEKT THAT IT CLAIMS ONLI 
 $3700, INSTEAD OF $25,000. 
 
 To return to the face of the account. I formerly remarked 
 upon it, as follows : 
 
 " The paper states in effect this — that all the money, which originallj 
 came to the hands of the executor, for investment, or distribution, as 
 capital, belonging to the estate, was only about $186,000 
 
 out of which he had distributed among the heirs, 90,000 
 
 leaving only of the capital invested, or to be invested, 96,000 
 
 That all the income he had ever received on this capital had been 
 paid over " to, or for account, and by order of, the widow ;" so that 
 
155 
 
 he had only to account, further, for the $96,000 of undistributed cap- 
 ital. But the account then goes on to state, that, at the date of its 
 rendition, he holds, in his capacity of executor and trustee, (besides 
 the mansion-house,) property representing his own investments, as 
 executor, to the amount of 4>121,500 
 
 and, since the undistributed capital, which remained, was 
 
 only 96,000 
 
 that he had invested, as executor, more than there was, by $25,500 
 and consequently, that the estate owes him that money, less some small 
 items, which reduce it to the exact sum of $25,215 45." [B. p. 101.] 
 
 " This," I said further, " is certainly a very extraordinary 
 statement, if true ; and, if it does not prove insanity, must at 
 least be set down for proof of mismanagement." [B. p. 101.] 
 
 That I now repeat ; and couple with it the further remark, 
 that Mr. Lowell's answer to it is one of the boldest pieces of 
 sophistry and fiction, that I ever saw put forth in print ; 
 though, like all other sophistry and fiction, it has, of course, 
 some verisimilitude, and some degree of plausibility, to make 
 it imposing. 
 
 According to the declaration of one of the jurors, (Dr. Pal- 
 mer) Mr. Lowell stated, at the inquest, " that Mr. Boott had a 
 great aversion to figures, and to making out accounts ; and 
 that he [Mr. Lowell] made out his accounts for him ; and on 
 completing his accounts, he discovered that, instead of Mr. 
 Boott being indebted to the estate, the estate was debtor to 
 him in the sum of $25,000." [B. p. 28.] But Mr. Lowell 
 has, now, entirely eclipsed the brilliancy of that former dis- 
 covery, by a new one. He has recently discovered that 
 Mr. Boott never pretended to claim a debt of f25,000, 
 but only one of $3700,— as, he says, the account shows. 
 He devotes some space to this subject, and his concluding 
 language is, " All then that Mr. Boott ever claimed (Mr. 
 Brooks, Mr, William Boott, and their learned counsel to the 
 contrary notwithstanding,) was, that he had overpaid the 
 heirs, $3700, and not, as they allege and doubtless believe, 
 |25,000." [L. p. 40.] This, in a certain sense, which looks 
 to the mere personal obligation of the heirs, or of some of 
 them, arising out of an over-payment, and according to one 
 form of analyzing the account, for the purpose of extracting 
 
156 
 
 the amount of that personal obligation, may be argumenta- 
 tively, true ; — but the idea, intended to be conveyed, is not 
 true, according to the natural and apparent sense of the exter- 
 nal statements of the probate paper. Neither is it true, as 
 matter of substance, that Mr. Boott did not claim, by this 
 account, or rather that Mr. Lowell did not claim for him, 
 $25,000 of the estate's property, as due, or belonging to, 
 himself. This I hope to make clear. 
 
 In the passage above extracted, I was commenting upon 
 the mere face of the paper, and pointing out its palpable ab- 
 surdity, as an actual account of the whole executorship from 
 beginning to end, which it pretends to be. In that view, I spoke 
 of it as indicating that the executor claimed to have invested 
 more than there was, on his own showing, to invest, by 
 $25,000, and as claiming, in consequence, f 25,000 to be due to 
 himself. 
 
 Did I, in this, either misstate, or overstate, the fair effect of 
 its language ? What else is the natural meaning of the de- 
 claration, that he (the executor) holds property to the amomit 
 of 1145,000-00 
 
 or, deducting the mansion-house at 24,000 00 
 
 personal property, and a stable, to the amount of 121,500 00 
 " less cash balance due to the executor," 25,215 45 
 
 following, as this does, the statement of certain receipts and cer- 
 tain payments, which, if true and complete on both sides, left 
 $96,000 only of funds for investment, instead of $121,500 ? 
 
 Does it mean that Mr. J. Wright Boott has, or holds, in his 
 own right, $121,500 of property, in corporate shares and a 
 stable, by way of showing that he is able to respond for a 
 balance of $96,000 ? Certainly not. Mr. Lowell does not 
 pretend this. It is the accounting party, who speaks, — the ex- 
 ecutor, as such, — and says, that he, virtute officii, holds that 
 property. He shows, too, that he well understands the dis- 
 tinction ; for, a part of that property, — the stable, — he describes 
 as having been formerly conveyed from J. W. Boott, as a pri- 
 vate person, to the executor, as an official ; — and, if we look, 
 out of the account, to the fact, we find that, not only the sta- 
 
157 
 
 ble, but the shares of manufacturing stock, were, really, at or 
 before the time of accounting, conveyed to him as executor, 
 and that the same were conveyed by him, to his successor in 
 the trust, as property of the estate ; and when the paper takes, 
 by deduction from the aggregate amount of that property, a 
 certain sum, under the words, " less cash balance due to the 
 executor," what does it assert, but that the sum, so taken out, 
 is a cash balance due to him, constituting a charge upon the 
 whole property, and that the estate, or, which is the same 
 thing, the property of the estate, owes him that amount of 
 money ? 
 
 Mr. Lowell, however, finds a recondite meaning in all this, 
 which he explains to be, that so much of Mr. Boott's private 
 property had happened, by circumstances, which he narrates, 
 and which I shall presently deal with, to be placed erroneously 
 in his name asexecutor ; — property, which had been pledged to 
 Mr. Lowell for a debt of $25,000, and which he had himself, 
 in 1844, reconveyed to Mr. Boott as executor, in consequence 
 of an arrangement made with me, in 1831, presently to be 
 spoken of. He says, that this " cash balance, [of the ac- 
 count,] is merely a specification of his [Mr. Boott 's] debt to 
 me, [Mr. Lowell] which had become mixed up with his ac- 
 count as executor, in consequence of the interference of Mr. 
 Brooks in 1831." [L. p. 43.] A very singular mode, certain- 
 ly, this, of specifying a private debt of $25,000 from Mr. 
 Boott to Mr. Lowell, to call it " a cash balance due to the ex- 
 ecutor," from the estate, or property, he is accounting for ! 
 The remark, however, serves at least to show that I was right 
 in my supposition, when I first saw the account, as heretofore 
 stated, that it was framed, — as it was framed, — with a view to 
 provide for Mr. Boott the means of paying that debt to Mr. 
 Lowell, without admitting and recording the fact, that the 
 property of the estate was taken to pay it with. The final 
 cause of this " cash balance," is, as I rightly conjectured Mr. 
 Lowell's debt. We are no longer left in doubt on this point • 
 for Mr. Lowell informs us, that 
 
 " This form of presenting the account was adopted by the advice of 
 Mr. Loring. It was that gentleman's opinion, that, as part of the as- 
 
158 
 
 sets, although not belonging to the estate, did, nevertheless, stand in 
 Mr. Boott's name as executor, it was proper and necessary, that tfcer 
 should be introduced into the account, to prevent question or confu- 
 sion hereafter ; and that, therefore, Mr. Boott should claim the dif. 
 ference, as a balance due to him, which he could at once apply to the 
 
 PAYMENT OF HIS DEBT TO ME." [L. p. 42.] 
 
 Now I doubt not that my friend Mr. Loring, being profes- 
 sionally consulted, may, upon such a statement of facts as was 
 presented to him, have advised this, or some such form, as 
 the best means to effect the twofold object sought by his 
 clients, — namely, to provide at once for Mr. Lowell's debt, 
 and for the protection of Mr. Boott's reputation as a trustee. 
 But, if the object was, " to prevent question or confusion 
 hereafter," and at the same time to show that Mr. Boott 
 designed, by that account, to claim a debt of $3700 only, 
 instead of f 25,000, as Mr. Lowell has lately discovered, or to 
 make, upon the face of the account, " a specification" of the 
 fact, that Mr. Boott owed Mr. Lowell |25,000, and of the 
 alleged facts, that the heirs of the estate owed Mr. Boott 
 $3700, and that some of the property, that stood in his name 
 as executor, never in fact belonged to the estate, but was 
 always his own, and that this property of his was to pay Mr. 
 Lowell, — I think that this learned and upright lawyer, who, 
 scorning all indirection and coverture, habitually means what 
 he says, and knows, preeminently well, how to say what he 
 means, would have found language more competent to express 
 these various matters than the dark and mystical language 
 of this account, — ^which seems admirably adapted to hide 
 every one of them, or, like an ancient oracle, to speak in any 
 sense, that the after occasion might require. 
 
 Did that gentleman, (Mr. Loring,) understand, at the time 
 he was consulted upon this account, that Mr. Boott was claim- 
 ing $3700 only, instead of $25,000 ? Did Mr. Lowell himself so 
 imderstand it ? If he did, it is very strange that be should 
 never have expressed such an imderstanding of it till his book 
 came out. How stands the evidence on this point, — as to 
 the understanding all round ? In the first place, what says 
 the paper ? " Cash balance due to the executor, $25,215 45." 
 That seems, p'7"??ia facie, plain enough. 
 
159 
 
 In the next place, Judge Warren, that fair reporter of the 
 settlement, what says he ? 
 
 " Mr. Lowell, after consultation with Mr. J. W. Boott, acceded to 
 raj proposition ; and as a consequence, Mr. B. has resigned the trust, 
 Mr. Loring has been appointed trustee, and property to the amount 
 of $100,000 or more, besides the purchase money of the house, 
 ($46,000) has been transferred to him. The income of this goes to 
 Mrs. Boott for her life, and upon her death the principal will be di- 
 vided among the heirs. I should have stated that the amount above- 
 named is subject to the payment of about $18,000 to Mr. J. W. Boott, 
 the balance claimed as due to him on the account, after deducting 
 dividends on Merrimack stock, received hy him after the rendition of 
 the account." [Ante p. 139.] 
 
 On turning to the after account, settled by Mr. Boott, Decem- 
 ber 23, 1844, (the day of the completion of the arrangement,) 
 we find the executor charging himself with sums received 
 after November 18, (the date of the account now in question,) 
 and that the amount of the Merrimack dividends, referred to 
 by Judge Warren as so received, is stated at $7100. [See B. 
 App. p. 52.] That is, Judge Warren, writing under the date of 
 December 19, 1844, while the settlement was yet in progress 
 towards completion, declares, that the amount to be handed 
 over is " subject to the payment of about $18,000 to Mr. J. W. 
 Boott, the balance claimed as due to him on the account, after 
 deducting dividends on Merrimack stock, received by him 
 after the rendition of the account," which dividends we find 
 to be |7100 ; and, of course, we perceive that Judge Warren 
 understood, lefore those dividends were received, that " the 
 balance claimed as due to him, [Mr. Boott] on the account," 
 was about $25,000. 
 
 Again, this after account, settled Dec. 23, charges the ex- 
 ecutor with the balance of the preceding account, of Nov. 18, 
 and with his new receipts, and prays to be allowed for the 
 property transferred to the new trustee, namely, the thirty- 
 nine shares of the Boston Manufacturing Company, and the 
 seventy-one shares of the Merrimack Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, and the stable, all passed over, in full, as property of 
 the estate, together with a " note of Wm. Lawrence^ Esq. for 
 
160 
 
 purchase money of estate in Bowdoin Square," (i. e. the man- 
 sion-house, which had been sold,) $46,000 00 
 
 " From the proceeds of which," (so the account 
 states) " the said trustee," (i. e. the trustee then 
 newly appointed) " is to pay the cash balance due 
 to the executor," 25,215 45 
 
 So, the inventory of the new trustee, after specifying this 
 note of $46,000, says, " of which sum f 25,215 45 belongs to 
 John W. Boott, executor, being balance in his favour per 
 account settled;" — and, accordingly, this sum is deducted 
 from the face of the note, or, in other words, paid to Mr. 
 Boott out of the proceeds of the mansion-house. 
 
 These papers then, surely, speak, plainly enough, of real 
 debt, and real payment. [See the account and the inventory, 
 B. App. pp. 53, 55.] 
 
 A few days before this, on the 17th of December, 1844, 
 (which was two days before Judge Warren's letter above cited,} 
 I wrote a letter to Mr. Lowell, informing him that I did not 
 intend to join with him, as one of the trustees under the ■mil 
 of Mr. Kirk Boott of Lowell, in any act, which might bind 
 his heirs to the compromise, made for myself and wife per- 
 sonally, but should prefer resigning my trust. A part of the 
 language of that letter is, " I am not prepared to say, that, 
 on a full, fair and just settlement of accounts, the executor is 
 entitled to claim a balance of $25,000." [See letter, B. App. 
 p. 50.] Does not that show, clearly enough, how I under- 
 stood the claim at the time ? Does it not show, also, that 
 Mr. Lowell knew how I imderstood it ? If he understood 
 otherwise, and that the real debt, intended to be claimed, was 
 only $3700, why did he not say so then ? I have given an 
 account of the interview, which followed, [B. p. 127.] and 
 Mr. Lowell has commented upon it. [L. p. 193.] There is 
 no pretence of any such notice. 
 
 Again, a few days before this, and on the very eve of the 
 compromise, Mrs. Brooks wrote a letter to her mother, under 
 date of December 11, 1844, heretofore printed, in which is 
 the following language : "He [Mr. Lowell] told Mr. Brooks, 
 that neither he, nor Mi-. Boott, had ever considered that debt of 
 
161 
 
 $25,000 in any light but as a private one of Mr. Boott's ; and 
 Mr. Brooks replied, — ' And yet a part of the estate was pledged 
 to you as security for it, and Mr. Boott has paid you out of 
 his mother's income more than |30,000 as interest' — which 
 Mr. Lowell could not deny." [B. App. 48.] " Mr. Boott has 
 moreover taken advantage of our discharge, given him at a 
 time of great distress and embarrassment, as an act of kind- 
 ness, and not one of justice, to bring in his accoxmts in such 
 a way as to make it appear as if the estate was in debt to 
 him f 25,000, — -just the amount of his private debt to Mr. 
 Lowell," &c. [B. App. p. 49.] This is another proof of 
 the contemporaneous understanding on our part. But this is 
 not all. The letter went to Mrs. Boott, and was transmitted 
 by her from London back to Mr. Lowell, as he admits. [L. p. 
 205.] He had notice then, again, of what he now calls my 
 "delusion," [L. p. 204.] in supposing this account to be a 
 claim of $25,000 as due to the executor /roOT the estate. Did 
 he seek to dispel it ? On the contrary, we had an interview 
 soon after his receipt of that letter, in which he spoke of it 
 with some excitement, and said much, but not one word to 
 the effect, now suggested, that the accoimt claims a debt of 
 $3700 only, and that the property he held in pledge was Mr. 
 Boott's own property. 
 
 Finally, he testified, or stated, at the inquest, as four of 
 the jurors say, that, by the accounts, as made up by himself, 
 it appeared, " that a clear balance was due from the estate to 
 Mr. Boott of $25,000 ; "— " he discovered, that, instead of Mr. 
 Boott being indebted to the estate, the estate tvas debtor to 
 him, in the sum of $25,000 ; " — " he, Mr. Lowell, as a friend 
 of the family, examined into the accoimts, and found that 
 there was a balance due from the estate to Mr. Boott of 
 $25,000 ; " " It was stated by him that the accounts were ex- 
 amined, and a balance was found due to Mr. Boott of about 
 $25,000 ;" — [See Declarations, of Andrews, Palmer, Learnard, 
 Dyke, B. pp. 27 — 30.] all which, positively stated by every 
 one of my witnesses, who speaks to the point at all, is contra- 
 dicted by no one of Mr. Lowell's witnesses, as I have hereto- 
 fore shown. To be sure, Mr. Lowell now says, in reference 
 
162 
 
 to some of the statements of that period, that he could not 
 have made such statements, because they were not true. 
 [L. p. 8.] But the jurors, nevertheless, say that he did make 
 them; and, upon the particular point in hand, the account 
 says : " Gash balance due to the executor, $25,215,45 ;" and 
 the subequent prqbate papers show that this cash balance, 
 claimed, was ia fact allowed and paid by the new trustee, not 
 out of any specific property, which the executor previously 
 held, and might, possibly, have had a personal interest: ia,, but 
 out of the proceeds of the real estate sold, — ^thus charging it 
 upon the general fund of the heirs, and treating it as a real 
 cash debt, due from them, as heirs, to the executor, assuch., 
 
 In the face of all this, Mr. Lowell, to escape the pressure 
 of an argument, resorts to the following ingenious mode of 
 producing an impression on his reader that Mr. Boott never 
 pretended to claim from the heirs, and that he never pretended 
 to claim for him, more than $3700, instead of $25,000 ! 
 
 I should premise that there are, obviously, two distinct 
 questions involved. One is, whether, as matter of fact, ex^ 
 trinsic to the account, and independently of its statements, 
 Mr. Boott was, at this time, the real owner of an equitable 
 interest, to the extent of $25,000, or thereabouts, in certain 
 stocks, which Mr. Lowell held in pledge for the private debt of 
 that amount due from Mr. Boott to him. This will be dis- 
 cussed ia due time. The other question is, whether the ac- 
 count CLAIMS a debt of $25,000 as due to Mr.' Boott from the 
 estate. 
 
 I have already extracted, from my former pamphlet, [Ante; 
 p. 144.] the view, which I first took of the statements of the 
 account, for the purpose of showing their glaring inconsist- 
 ency and absurdity, in setting forth a balance of receipts 
 beyond payments to the amount of $96,284 55 only, and then 
 setting forth apparent investments, as executor, to the amount 
 of $121,500, charged with the claim of an unexplained cash 
 balance due to the executor of $25,215 45, which claim is, 
 apparently, inserted by way of forcing the balance of property, 
 to agree with the balance of alleged receipts and paymenlSi 
 That view I still think entirely correct. But, in the course of 
 
163 
 
 subsequent remarks on the account, I inadvertently spoke of 
 it as claiming this cash balance to be due, by reason of the 
 executor's having distributed to the heirs so much money 
 beyond his receipts. This, as a comment upon the allega- 
 tions of the account, I readily admit was an oversight, and 
 a mere error. It is very true, as Mr. Lowell states, [L. p. 
 40.] that the account shows cash receipts to the 
 
 amount of only $186,307 55 
 
 Less for probate fees and other small charges, 23 00 
 
 186,284 55 
 That, of this sum, the trust fund for the widow 
 
 is not distributable till her death, 100,000 00 
 
 Leaving distributable among the heirs, according 
 
 to the admission of the account, only 86,284 55 
 And that Mr. Boott claims, by the same account, 
 
 to have paid to the heirs, 90,000 00 
 
 Making an alleged over pa3rment of 3,715 45 
 
 So that the whole cash balance, claimed, ($25,000,) is not 
 stated, by the effect of the account strictly analyzed, to arise 
 from over-payment to the heirs ; but about $3700 of it appears, 
 constructively, to have been claimed on that ground, and the 
 residue for some other cause, which the account does not 
 explain. 
 
 Now for Mr. Lowell's argimient. He selects, for his com- 
 ment, not the passage above extracted from page 101 of my 
 pamphlet, with which I began my examination of the accoimt, 
 but one from page 116, which is as follows : — " The account 
 alleges, in effect, that, by reason of cashpayments to the heirs, 
 beyond what was due to them, by $25,000, that amount of 
 the property, invested and held by Mr. Wright Boott as execu- 
 tor, belongs to him personally." Taking this as if it were 
 my original and main proposition, concerning the superficial 
 absurdities of the account, he proceeds to demonstrate its 
 error. He boldly sets forth the entire account, as if it were a 
 most unexceptionable document, challenging investigation. 
 He next analyzes its statements, in the maimer above shown, 
 to produce a claim of $3700 only for over-payment ; and he 
 
164 
 
 repeats the demonstration in another form to make it tell. Of 
 course, he has easily overthrown my above cited position, in 
 the mind of every reader. He then proceeds to make certain 
 statements of fact, (which I will presently consider,) out of 
 the account, for the purpose of showing, that, when he re- 
 conveyed to Mr. Boott, as executor, the shares, which he 
 held in pledge, he " conveyed to the estate more than it 
 was entitled to receive by precisely $25,000." [L. p. 42,] 
 He then goes on as follows : 
 
 " Thus far the mistake of Mr. Brooks is an innocent and not very 
 unnatural one. When, however, he proceeds to draw inferences bear- 
 ing hard on Mr. Boott's reputation and on mine, carelessness on his 
 own part can hardly be pleaded in justification. 
 
 " Thus, when he says of Mr. Boott, (p. 101) that the account shows, 
 ' that he had invested, as executor, more than there was, by 825,500, 
 and that consequently the estate owes him that money, less some small 
 items,' and adds, ' This is certainly a very extraordinary statement, 
 if true ; and if it does not prave insanity, must at least be set down 
 for proof of mismanagement :' — 
 
 " Or when he says of me, (p. 87) ' Mr. Lowell had, before the 18th 
 of November, 1844, induced him [Mr. Wright BoottJ to adopt a form 
 of account, prepared by Mr. Lowell himself, exhibiting an apparent 
 balance of $25,000, and a fraction, as due from his father's estate to 
 him :' — 
 
 " Or when he allows Mrs. Brooks to say, (App. p. 49) that her 
 brother has brought in his accounts ' in such a way as to make it 
 appear as if the estate was in debt to him $25,000, just the amount of 
 his private debt to Mr. Lowell :' — 
 
 " Or when he represents the passing of the account as so materially 
 altering the state of Mr. Wright Boott's property, as to increase the 
 amount receivable by Mrs. Kalston as residuary legatee, from $16,000 
 to S40,000, and holds me therefore responsible to prove a new pub- 
 lication of his will by Mr. Boott : — 
 
 " When Mr. Brooks brings all these various and most serious 
 charges, as corollaries from the balance exhibited in the account, he 
 cannot shelter himself behind his ovra ignorance and incompetency to 
 understand accounts. These qualities may be pardonable in them- 
 selves ; but a gentleman, afflicted vrith them, has no right to convert 
 them into weapons against his neighbour." [L. p. 43, 44.] 
 
 Now every one of these propositions of mine, all preceding 
 the erroneous passage, which Mr. Lowell had fastened on, and 
 which propositions he treats, by position and context, as if they 
 had been corollaries from that error, I maintain are perfectly 
 just and true, and nowise dependent upon the proposition shown 
 
165 
 
 to be erroneous. Those, which speak of the claim, as a claim 
 that the estate owes Mr. Boott $25,000, are dependent only 
 upon the natural meaning of the language of the account, as 
 it had always before been understood and interpreted by all 
 parties concerned, including Mr. Lowell, and as every reader 
 may now interpret it for himself. They have no relation to 
 the question what that claim was founded upon, and whether 
 it proceeded from alleged over-payments to the heirs, or from 
 some other cause. And the proposition referred to, respecting 
 the increase of Mrs. Ralston's legacy from $16,000 to $40,000, 
 depends, not upon any statement of the account, nor upon any 
 reasoning of mine concerning its mere statements, but entirely 
 upon this extrinsic matter of fact, viz., whether, previously to 
 the stating of that account, $25,000 of Mr. Boott's private 
 property was really mingled with property of the estate, in 
 certain shares of manufacturing stock, lying under pledge to 
 Mr. Lowell. If there was no such mixed property in those 
 shares, which I shall presently show, then it is certain that 
 the settlement of that account, in the form, in which it was 
 stated, increased Mr. J. Wright Boott's property and Mrs. Ral- 
 ston's legacy by that amoimt, giving to his will an eifect, that 
 was never intended at the time it was made. Yet, Mr. Lowell, 
 having gained an advantage by overturning an erroneous po- 
 sition of no importance to the main inquiry, and having pre- 
 sented that proposition as if it were, itself, the very question, 
 and as if the other positions, above mentioned, all rested upon 
 it, continues to hold up that false idea throughout his book ; 
 and returning, towards the end of it, to my remarks on the 
 responsibility he takes in refusing to produce the letter, which, 
 he says, enclosed and republished Mr. Boott's will, he repeats, 
 that " the whole criticism, is founded on that old delusion, 
 that Mr. Boott's accoimts show a balance due to him of 
 $25,000 /or advances m,ade to the heirs, whereas they show 
 only $3700 so advanced." [L. p. 203.] 
 
 Now this may be all very well as a specimen of the art of 
 fencing ; but it was not wise to venture upon it in print. It 
 is a device too easily detected ; and, when detected, seems 
 rather to show a thirst for victory on any terms, than a desire 
 
166 
 
 " to elicit the truth ;" — which, as before remarked, lies ia mat- 
 ters of fact, quite beside the statements of the account, or 
 my reasoning upon them, whether right or wrong. 
 
 To call the language of the account any thing else than a 
 claim of $25,000 for a deht, alleged to be due/rom the estate 
 to the executor, is an affront to common sense, and the peo- 
 ple's English. To dispute whether the account asserts this 
 debt to have arisen from over-pa5nnent, or over-investment, or 
 an accidental confusion of property, is a mere quibbling about 
 terms, or about an immaterial fact. The only substantial 
 point of inquiry is, whether this apparent cash balance of the 
 account is a real one ; or, in other words, whether Mr. Boott 
 had, in truth, that amount of his own property, lying in the 
 shares, which Mr. Lowell conveyed to him, as executor, for 
 the purpose of enabling him to settle his probate accounts. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE ACCOUNT. ITS PRETENCE OF AN EQUAL DISTRrBUTlON OF 
 $90,000. CASE OF THE MINOKS. 
 
 Before taking up the main question of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 supposed ownership of $25,000 in the property transferred to 
 him as executor, (an inquiry, which involves a range of facts 
 not apparent from the account,) let me, briefly, dispose of Mr. 
 Lowell's answers to certain other objections, arising upon the 
 face of the paper, connected with the will, and with the 
 former probate accoimt of 1818. 
 
 I. objected, that the account, now in question, if true and 
 complete, shows over-payment to the heirs, (I was misled, by 
 its language, only as to the amount,) and that it shows a mis- 
 appropriation of trust funds in making such over-payment ; 
 
167 
 
 and this, I alleged, was without the consent or knowledge of 
 the heirs, who were thus allowed to eat up, in ignorance, so 
 much of their reversionary interest, under the idea that they 
 were only using their share of present divisible property, and 
 leaving their reversionary share, unimpaired, to retire upon at 
 a future day. [B. p. 106.] 
 
 To this we have no answer. Indeed over-pa3rment, to the 
 extent of more than $3700, is expressly admitted, as we have 
 just seen ; and Mr. Lowell's own figures show, that Mrs. 
 Boott's undistributable trust fund was reduced by it, from 
 $100,000, to little more than $96,000. [L. p. 40.] 
 
 Was not that mismanagement ? 
 
 In addition to this, I showed, from the account of 1818, 
 that its foot exhibited the probable original formation of a 
 trust fund, designed to cover the several trusts for Mrs. Boott, 
 and for the two sisters of the testator, amounting, together, to 
 $111,000, and up^^J'ards. The funds, to cover these several 
 trusts, ought to have been kept separate and distinct, but 
 appear to have been blended in one. That they were so, 
 Mr. Lowell admits. [L. p. 24.] AU the investments of that 
 fund are shown, by the account in question, to have been 
 afterwards sold, producing about $117,000 ; and I objected, 
 that no account whatever is given of the reinvestment of that 
 sum, nor of the changes that occiured in its employment, 
 except as they may be inferred from the fact that certain 
 property is stated, twenty-six years after, to be in the execu- 
 tor's hands, amounting, at cost, to $121,500, subject to an 
 alleged cash balance due to him, whereby it is reduced to 
 little more than $96,000,— the fund of $11,000 for the two 
 sisters having thus wholly disappeared, together with a por- 
 tion of the fund for the widow, without any account of the 
 time, manner, or cause of their disappearance, unless dis- 
 tribution, at some time, is to be inferred ; — ^which, if it were 
 the fact, I aver to have been imknown to the heirs. 
 
 To this there is no answer, and the fact is plain. Is that 
 due accounting, or proper management ? 
 
 I further stated that, — 
 
168 
 
 ' " Another mismanagement, equally apparent on the face of the ac- 
 count, lies in the statement that $10,000 exactly, and no more, was 
 paid to each of the heirs. If so, it was a great injustice to the minors, 
 and directly contrary to the provisions of the will. According to the 
 will, the shares of those who were of age, in the divisible property, 
 were payable in March, 1818. But the shares of the minors were to 
 be placed out at interest and paid to them, when they should come of 
 age. The share of the youngest child, (Mr. William Boott) by accu- 
 mulation of compound interest, would have nearly, or quite, doubled at 
 the time he was entitled to receive it. Yet the account states, that 
 all the heirs were paid just alike, and precisely $10,000, at whatever 
 time it was payable ; and does not state that the shares of the minors 
 were placed out at interest for their benefit ; but, on the cont»ary, 
 does state, that all the income of all the moneys and investments of 
 the executor, from the beginning to the end of his executorship, was 
 ' paid to, or for account and by order of, the widow ;' and though he 
 speaks of it as 'income received on the trust fund for the widow! he' 
 gives no account of income received from any other source, although 
 it is plain, that large sums of money, beyond the $100,000 appropri- 
 ated to the widow, must, at times, have been in his hands, and some 
 of them for years, during the minority of the owners." [B. p. 106.] 
 
 To this a partial answer is attempted. Mr. Lowell denom- 
 inates this charge, against Mr. Boott, " strange recklessness ;" 
 because, he says, although it was provided in the mil, that 
 the shares of the minors should accumulate, this was alterei 
 by the codicil, which provides " that the clothing and educat- 
 ing of each of them shall be charged to him or her by my said 
 wife Mary, and be allowed to her." To this the "Reply" 
 adds, "to any one familiar with the expensive habits of 
 the family, the idea of any accumulation from savings on the 
 interest of $10,000, if the expenses of the minors were charge- 
 able to them, is preposterous. No one knows this better than 
 Mr. Brooks." [L. p. 65.] 
 
 Now to this I might reply, in Mr. Lowell's style, that " to 
 any one fajniliar with the habits of the family, the idea of 
 any specific charge having been made to the minor children, 
 for their personal expenses, is preposterous. No one knows 
 this better than Mr. Lowell." 
 
 But, I will simply content myself with averring, that no 
 such charges were ever made to any of them, while menibers 
 of their mother's household, either by her, or by Mr. J. Wright 
 
169 
 
 Boott ; and that no account was ever kept with any one of 
 them. If this be not so, let Mr. Lowell show the contrary 
 by " all the documents " in his possession. 
 
 Besides, Mr. Lowell overshoots his mark, greatly, in sug- 
 gesting that the estates of the minors were made chargeable, 
 by the testator, for their share of " the expensive habits of the 
 family," if, by that, he means general maintenance, according 
 to the style of living in Mrs. Boott's establishment. The pro- 
 visions of the will,— ^by which I mean, of course, the will and 
 codicil, taken together,^-are very distinct on this point. By 
 the original will, the interest of the $100,000 fund was given 
 to Mrs. Boott, not only for her own support, but, expressly, for 
 " the support of our Tninor children, and for the educating of 
 them, until they each shall arrive at the age of twenty-one 
 years ;" and the proportional share of each minor, in the 
 general estate, was directed "to be placed out at interest 
 on good security," imtil they should respectively come of 
 age, when it was to be paid to them. By the codicil, it is 
 provided, that, until May 19, 1818, (the appointed day of 
 distribution,) " my wife and family are to be maintained^ 
 clothed, and the children educated, in the same manner as 
 during my life-time, the expenses of which are to be charged 
 to m,y estate ;" and after that date, the provisions of the orig-, 
 inal will are so far altered by the codicil, that, instead of 
 throwing the entire expense of the minors upon the widow's 
 income, it is provided, in the language before quoted, — ^not that 
 she should be relieved from the expense of general mainte- 
 nance, but—" that the clothing and educating of each of them 
 shall be charged to him or her by my said wife Mary, and 
 be allowed to her." This was, of course, optional with her ; 
 and, if she made such charges, they were to " be allowed to 
 her." And, in respect to the placing of the shares at interest 
 on good security, the will is only so far modified by the cod- 
 icil, that the executor, or guardian, is authorized, in case the 
 testator's sons should carry on the old mercantile business on 
 their own account, to lend to them the portions of the minors, 
 "they paying interest for the same." [See the Will and 
 Codicil, B. App. pp. 5-9.] 
 
170 
 
 The -widow, therefore, was still left bound to support her 
 minor children, with a right to charge, if she pleased, their 
 clothing and school bills, — ^which, I venture to say, she never 
 did, — and the shares of the minors were still to be at interest, 
 and accumulating, subject to that contingent charge. Sup- 
 posing, for argument's sake, such charges to have been made, 
 and supposing the share of each child in the divisible estate 
 to have been $10,000 only, as Mr. Lowell contends, insteaidof 
 $20,000, as I contend, will Mr. Lowell pretend, that, during 
 the entire minority of these children, (the youngest being 
 about twelve years of age at the father's death,) their expenses 
 of this description, measured by the scale of from twenty to 
 thirty years ago, amounted to any thing approEiching |600 a 
 year each ? Will he say, that there was no room for accumu- 
 lation from the interest on f 10,000, after paying such bills? 
 Or, that the expenses of all, boys and girls, of different ages, 
 were just alike ? If not, how happens it, that when they came 
 of age, successively, they should all be found entitled to just 
 the same sum ? Not only so, but just the same sum with those 
 heirs, who were adults at their father's death, and for whom no 
 accumulation was directed ? I submit to the reader that the 
 objection is not answered ; — ^that there is no account given, 
 even by implication, of interest, not payable to the widow, 
 upon considerable sums, which must either have lain in the 
 executor's hands, for years, or shoidd have been lent by him on 
 interest ; — and that the payment of f 10,000 and no more to 
 each heir, supposing that to have been the original distribu- 
 tive share, was a great injustice to some of them, and a direct 
 violation of the spirit and letter of the wUl. 
 
 Was there no mismanagement in all this ? And is not this 
 a necessary inference from the account ? 
 
 Another objection related to the allegation of the account 
 that $90,000 had been distributed among the nine heirs, in 
 full, as Mr. Lowell asserts, of their respective shares, rever- 
 sions excepted. As this is nearly connected with the subject 
 I have been just discussing, it may well enough be noticed 
 here, although it involves the statement of some facts, not 
 shown by the probate records. 
 
171 
 
 I formerly declared my belief, that much more than $90,000 
 had been permitted to go to the use of the heirs ; but not with 
 any equality, nor as a regular distribution. [B. p. 109.] I ad- 
 mitted, that, in my own case, I had received from Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott his personal promissory note for the exact sum 
 of f 10,000, which note I, afterwards, exchanged for Mr. Kirk 
 Boott's, at the request of that gentleman, and heard no more 
 of. [B. p. 35.] The note of Mr. Kirk Boott, which I received 
 in that exchange, was paid, many years after, in the course 
 of the settlement of his estate ; and, thus, so much of the 
 sum due to Mrs. Brooks from her father's estate was, at last, 
 realized. The note of Mr. J. Wright Boott, which I so ex- 
 changed, had been handed to me, by him, Dec. 29, 1823, 
 expressly as a payment on account, and not in full, of Mrs. 
 Brooks's then distributive share. This fact, my receipt, in 
 Mr. Lowell's possession, if he would have the goodness to 
 produce it, would undoubtedly prove. 
 
 Payments of like amount were made, a year or two before, 
 to two others of the heirs, (Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston,) 
 whose husbands gave receipts, also, which Mr. Lowell might 
 produce, if he would; and which, if produced, would be 
 found, I doubt not, to exclude, like mine, the idea of a final 
 settlement, or of payment in full. 
 
 This branch of the subject, involves the question, how much 
 a distributive share really was, or was then represented to be. 
 I shall have occasion to discuss it more fully hereafter. At 
 present, I only undertake, in passing, to say, in the face of 
 this allegation of the account, and of Mr. Lowell's bold asser- 
 tions, that no one heir ever received the sum of $10,000, as a 
 payment, in full, of his or her distributive share of the estate, 
 reversions excepted. 
 
 If I am wrong, how easy is it for Mr. Lowell to convict me 
 of my error ? He pretended, in his interviews with Judge 
 Warren, that this account " could be sustained throughout," 
 beyond any possibility of question ; [See Judge Warren's Let- 
 ter, ante, Ch. 16.] and he pretends, now, in his pamphlet, 
 [L. p. 208.] that Mr. Boott would not have had the least diffi- 
 culty in proving it, if its opponents had not backed out 
 
172 
 
 from the contest. Now, if there was any one thing in it 
 easily proveable, promded it icere true, it would be this final 
 distribution. Every heir, who received his 1 10,000, wodd, of 
 course, have given his receipt. The receipts, foJ every such 
 payment, are, of course, in the possession of Mr. Lowell, as the 
 executor of Mr. Boott. I challenge him to produce them. 
 Let us see the evidence of this pretended distribution and set- 
 tlement. All the papers, needful to establish that final pay- 
 ment, if there were any such final payment, must be few, 
 short, easily printed, and perfectly conclusive in Klieir cha^ 
 acter, one way or the other. Why does not Mr. Lowell 
 ■simply show these papers, instead of writing an elaborate 
 argument to prove, by indirection, that $10,000 apiece must 
 have been distributed to the heirs, and that this was aJl, or 
 more than all, they were entitled to receive ? If he can 
 produce an original receipt, in full, from any one hmr, for his 
 or her distributive share of all the estate^ reversions excepted, 
 made upon receiving from the executor sums to the amount 
 of $10,000, or its equivalent, and no more,— or, if be can 
 produce any form of receipt, which expresses, that, in consid- 
 eration of f 10,000 paid, in the aggregate, and no more, the 
 executor is discharged from all further claim, except for the 
 reversion of the particular trust funds, I shall be obliged to 
 admit myself mistaken on a most material point. If he 
 neither produces such a paper, nor shows some more satis- 
 factory excuse for the omission than yet appears, he must ex- 
 pect to have his pretence of an equal distribution of f9O,0OQ, 
 in settlement with the heks, treated with no more jespect 
 than it deserves. 
 
173 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE ACCOUNT. ILLUSTHATIONS OF THE rNEQ,TJALlTT OF DISTRI- 
 BDTION. CASE OF MK. WBLLIAM OBOOTT. 
 
 The account claims that a capital of exactly $90,000 had 
 been equally distributed among the nine heirs, and that pre- 
 cisely $10,000 had beefl paid to eacli of them in full settle- 
 ment for his or her distributive share, except in the reversion 
 of Mrs. Boott's annuity fund, which, of course, could not be 
 distributed in her life-time. This alleged equal distribution 
 I aver to be an unfounded pretence. 
 
 To show that, without adverting, uimecessarily, to the 
 affairs of other members of the family, (which I may, at last, 
 be driven to by Mr. Lowell,i) I thought myself, formerly, at 
 liberty to state, among other proofs, that, in my own case, 
 besides the $10,000 note, Mrs. Brooks received the complete 
 furnishing of a house, at her marriage. Mr. Lowell adopts 
 the statement [L. p. 63.] I might have stated, by way of 
 contrast, that Mrs. Lyman, who was married on the same day, 
 received no such outfit. But I pray Mr. Lowell to note, that 
 I do not now state this on her authoriiy. I state it as a 
 matter of family history, well known to me at the time, if not 
 to Mr. Lowell. 
 
 I also adverted to the case of Mr. William Boott, because it 
 was mentioned in a letter, which, irom its connexion with 
 Mr. LoweU, I felt called upon to print. I mentioned this as 
 the CEise of an heir, who had never received, in payment of his 
 patrimony, " any specific sivm, though it is true, that a con- 
 siderable expense must have been incurred on his account, 
 before he was of age, while travelling in Europe, of which 
 no account was ever kept or rendered, and for which there 
 was no voucher." [B. p. 55.] 
 
 " This charge," Mr. Lowell says, " rests of course on Mr. 
 William Boott's personal knowledge ;" [L. p. 61.] and he, con- 
 
174 
 
 sequently, makes it an excuse for a personal attack on that gen- 
 tleman, in matters, which have very little relation to the sub- 
 ject in hand, accompanied by insinuations, manifestly in- 
 tended to harm his general reputation, so far as Mr. Lowell's 
 authority may go, for the purpose of detracting from his 
 credit as a witness. 
 
 Now, I have already stated, that Mr. William Boott is ac- 
 countable for nothing, in my former pamphlet, but that por- 
 tion of the narrative, which is expressly declared in it to rest 
 upon his authority ; and that is confined, strictly, with I 
 believe one single exception, which I shall presently notice, 
 to facts bearing, exclusively, on the question of insanity. As 
 to the circumstances of Mr. William Boott's absence in Europe, 
 at an early period of his life, they were all very well known 
 in the famUy at the time. Mr. J. Wright Boott travelled 
 with him there, the first year, as Mr. Lowell informs us. 
 [L. p. 61.] Shortly before the return of Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
 Mrs. Boott made a visit to Europe, and was absent about two 
 years, mostly living, or travelling, in company with Mr. 
 William Boott. In 1834-5, 1, also, was in Europe, with Mis. 
 Brooks, and, when in Paris, we lived in the house with 
 Mrs. Boott, and Mr. William Boott, and Dr. Francis Boott 
 and his wife and children, where we all made one family. 
 After our return, family correspondence and intercourse kept 
 me, of course, well advised of Mr. William Boott's move- 
 ments, occupations, and mode of life, abroad. My former 
 statements, on that score, required no information fi:om him. 
 It was equally well known to me, that Mr. J. Wright Boott 
 kept no accounts, and took no paias to keep vouchers for 
 these matters of family expense ; and I had known,' for 
 years, speaking in common parlance, though it may not have 
 been the strict personal knowledge required ia a court of law, 
 that Mr. William Boott had never been settled with by his 
 brother, nor received any thing as a specific payment on 
 account of his patrimony. He had, besides, been consulted 
 by me on a draft of a petition to the judge of probate, which, 
 when the executor's account was presented, in 1844, I pre- 
 pared, as a paper to take counsel upon. The paper, was m 
 
175 
 
 fact never presented, nor even signed ; but it purported to 
 object to this item of the account on the ground above-men- 
 tioned. I had no occasion, in the preparation of my pamphlet, 
 for any information from Mr. William Boott on these heads, 
 and in fact had none. Mr. Lowell's excuse, therefore, for 
 publishing matters personal to Mr. William Boott, such as 
 they are, rests upon an assumption equally gratuitous and 
 unfoimded. 
 
 But how does Mr. Lowell deal with me in the matter ? 
 
 He begins by stating, that " it is alleged [by me] in distinct 
 terms and in various forms, that that gentleman [Mr. William 
 Boott] never received any thing from his father's estate." 
 [L. p. 60.] Is it so ? We shall see. 
 
 He then says, that, " in the memorial prepared for present- 
 ation at the probate office, by Messrs. Edward Brooks and 
 William Boott, [meaning the draft above mentioned, which I 
 put into the hands of counsel, but which was never signed 
 by any body,] it is expressly said, and if my memory serves 
 me, without qualification, that Mr. Wright Boott had never 
 paid his brother any thing towards a settlement." [L. p. 60.] 
 The Italics, here, are Mr. Lowell's, — ^notwithstanding his gen- 
 eral objection to that form of type. 
 
 This only shows that Mr. Lowell's memory, sometimes, 
 serves him no better than he thinks mine serves me. I ex- 
 tract, from the memorial, the passage he refers to. 
 
 " The said William Boott on his part says, in regard to this item, that 
 he has never h^&a. furnished with any account by the executor of any 
 kind whatever, nor has he ever received the sum of $10,000, nor any 
 other sum, for, or on account of, a settlement with the said executor, as 
 one of the heirs." 
 
 This paper, which Mr. William Boott neither contributed 
 to make, (as Mr. Lowell would have his reader believe,) nor 
 even adopted, (unless allowing me to submit it to counsel, 
 for advice, can be so construed,) does not assert, as Mr. Low- 
 ell pretends, that this heir had never received any thing, 
 which may have proceeded from the estate, or that his brother 
 had never ^a»c? any thing for him, which, upon a just settle- 
 ment of his account as an heir, might not, properly, have 
 
176 
 
 been charged against his share of the common patrimony, 
 and so have gone " towards a settlement ;"■ — ^but that, which 
 it asserts, is to the effect that there never had been a settle. 
 ment ; that the executor had never stated his account with 
 him as an heir ; and that he had never received f 10,000, or 
 any other specific sum, intended and known to be a. payment 
 of, or in settlement for, his share of the inheritance ; which 
 is a very different thing. And the latter is the just effect of 
 what I said on this subject in my pamphlet. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, however, (who has no more respect for context, 
 and order of remark, than he says I have for chronology,) has 
 an ingenious way of beginning at the wrong end of a series 
 of statements, and turning them inside out, so as to make them 
 appear to serve a purpose, for which they were not intended. 
 Some instances of this sort of unfairness have already been 
 noticed. Another occurs here. 
 
 He begins, as above shown, with the general assertion that 
 I had alleged, in distinct terms and various forms, that Mr. 
 William Boott " had never received any thing from hisfathei^s 
 estate" He follows that with his " reminiscence " of the 
 memorial, as alleging " that Mr. Wright Boott had neYeipaid 
 his brother any thing, towards a settlement." Next comes an 
 extract from a letter of Mrs. Brooks to her mother, printed in 
 my Appendix, which used the words,- " when William has not 
 been paid any part of his portion," without stating the tacit 
 exception, well known to Mrs. Boott, of the expenses incurred 
 for him in Europe. He then proceeds to cite, in support of 
 his general assertion concerning my allegations, a single pas- 
 sage, from page 84 of my pamphlet, which, taken by itself, 
 might, perhaps, bear that construction. I was then comment- 
 ing on Mr. J. Wright Boott 's wUl, and asked this question :— 
 " In the division of the bulk of his property, why should Mr. 
 William Boott, thejbrother, of whom he had once been particu- 
 larly fond, to whom he had paid nothing on account of the 
 $20,000, or more, which should have come to him from his 
 father's estate, and who had generously released him, in his 
 distress, from all claim on that account, have been wholly cut 
 off? " Mr. Lowell picks out, from this sentence, for the pur- 
 pose of citation, the words which I have Italicised above. 
 
177 
 
 That is, he selects, from a sentence, one of several circum- 
 stances in it, all of which had been previously explained, and 
 are here alluded to, in passing, as matters, with which the 
 reader has been already made familiar, and he treats that inci- 
 dental allusion as if it were the subject of the sentence, and 
 the principal proposition laid down by me on that subject. 
 
 Having thus smuggled a false idea into the mind of the 
 reader, he goes on, with great appearance of candour, to 
 admit that there are passages, in which " this broad assertion 
 is, prudently and in anticipation of my reply, qualified as fol- 
 lows :" [L. p. 60.] and he then quotes, from page 109, a part of 
 another sentence, in these words, — "unless allowing him to 
 spend a great deal of money, while a boy, in Europe, is to be 
 deemed a payment on account of his capital, while members 
 of the family, at home, were living at the general expense of 
 the estate." And, finally, he quotes, from page 55, the sen- 
 tence, which occurred ^rs< in my pamphlet, on this subject. 
 Here I was commenting, directly, on the claim of the account 
 for a pretended equal and final distribution, by the payment 
 of $10,000 to each of the heirs, in settlement for their shares ; 
 and, in reference to that, I stated, that Mr. William Boott 
 " never received any specific sum, though it is true that a 
 considerable expense must have been incurred on his account 
 before he was of age, while travelling in Europe, of which 
 no account was ever kept or rendered, and for which there 
 was no voucher." This was my original statement of the 
 case ; it is, to the letter, a perfectly true statement ; and all 
 the subsequent passages, which Mr. Lowell quotes, either 
 referred, or alluded, to that, and necessarily carried with them 
 its qualification, even if I did not repeat it, (as I believe I 
 usually did,) whenever I spoke of the non-payment to Mr. 
 William Boott. Yet, says Mr. Lowell, " it is alleged, in dis- 
 tinct terms and various forms, that that gentleman had never 
 received any thing from his father's estate "! And it is made 
 a subject of complaint, by Mr. Lowell, that this charge, with- 
 out the qualification, had been made in Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 life-time, " in letters not communicated to him, and intended 
 to affect the opinion of his mother " ! [L. p. 60.] As if 
 
178 
 
 she did not know, as well as Mr. J. Wright Boott, the circum- 
 stances of her youngest son's long absence in Europe .'—espe- 
 cially when she had lived there with him the greater part 
 of two years ! Mr. Lowell, by the way, speaks, above, of 
 " letters " written with that view, and containing " this broad 
 assertion," that nothing had been paid to Mr. William Boott, 
 without the qualification. If it had been an object for Mr. 
 Lowell to confine his statements to a resemblance of the 
 truth, he would have said " a letter ;^^ for the only one, that 
 I am aware of, containing such a statement, is the letter from 
 Mrs. Brooks to Mrs. Boott, printed by me, and referred to 
 above. The occasion of its being written will appear by- 
 and-by. 
 
 As to the complaint, that my draft of a memorial for the 
 judge of probate, " since Mr. Boott's death, at least, has been 
 put in circulation," [L. p. 60.] that is simply a mistake. It 
 was, before that event, shown, in confidence, to my counsel, 
 and to Mr. William Boott. It was, afterwards, shown, in like 
 confidence, to some very particular friends, in answer to their 
 inquiries, caused by reports, which took their origin, I believe, 
 from Mr. Lowell. But this, also, was before the death of 
 Mr. Boott. I have no recollection, or belief, that any one 
 has seen it sifice his death, except my counsel. At any rate, 
 it is not true, that it " has been pufin circulation," at any 
 time. 
 
 But let us now see what qualifications of my former state- 
 ments, on this branch of the subject, I ought to make, upon 
 Mr. Lowell's present showing. 
 
 It is stated by him, [L. p. 61.] that " Mr. William Boott 
 went abroad, for the benefit of his health, in 1833, [being 
 then scarcely seventeen years of age,] and, after travelling, 
 under the charge of his brother Wright, about a year, was 
 left in Europe to pursue the study of medicine, and did 
 not return until November, 1827." That is, he was absent, 
 altogether, five years or more ; of which period something 
 less than a year and a half was after he came of age, accord- 
 ing to the date given by Mr. Lowell. [L. p. 63.] If he is 
 right in that, I was mistaken, then, in speaking of this 
 
179 
 
 gentleman as under age, throughout the entire period of his 
 stay abroad. That was literally true only for more than 
 seven tenths of the period. 
 
 Mr. Lowell says I was " very much mistaken " in stating, 
 " that for these expenses in Europe there was no voucher ;" 
 and he refers to certain original letters and accounts current 
 of Mr. Samuel Williams, of London, and of other merchants 
 abroad, which he has found among Mr. Boott's papers. [L, 
 p. 62.] 
 
 That Mr. Lowell happens to find vouchers of this descrip- 
 tion, for a part of this period, is owing to nothing but the 
 accidental circumstance, that the transactions passed through 
 the hands of foreign bankers, or commission merchants, who, 
 of course, transmitted their accomits to their employer, Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott. So far as those accounts may vouch payments, 
 specifically and distinctly, for Mr. William Boott's own use, 
 I admit the correction. 
 
 The main question, however, on this point, is, whether the 
 allegation of the probate account, that $10,000 had been paid 
 to Mr. William Boott in a distribution of the estate, and in full 
 for his share, except in the reversions, is true ? It is not pre- 
 tended, by Mr. Lowell, that any such payment had been 
 made, otherwise than by defraying that gentleman's European 
 expenses, or by his living at home, after his return. Now 
 the amount of Mr. William Boott's expenses abroad, at that 
 early period of his life, is, of course, unknown to me. I 
 imagine it is to himself. Mr. Lowell admits that it is un- 
 known to him. 
 
 " What the amount of Mr. William Boott's expenses were, during 
 the four years of his residence abroad, after his brother's return to 
 this country, I [Mr. Lowell] do not know." [L. p. 61.] 
 
 He says nothing of the expense of the year before that 
 return. Of that he is, evidently, equally ignorant. How is 
 this, if I was so " very much mistaken," in supposing that 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott was not accustomed to state and keep 
 accounts and vouchers of these matters ? 
 
 The accounts cui'rent of Mr. Samuel Williams, referred to 
 
180 
 
 by Mr. Lowell, run, as he says, from October, 1825, to No- 
 vember, 1827. [L. p. 61.] That is, they cover the last two 
 years, only, of Mr. William Boott's foreign residence ; and 
 sixteen months, out of the twenty-four, were, according to 
 Mr. Lowell, after he was of age. [L. p. 63.] But is it not 
 very clear, from Mr. Lowell's showing, that he did not ex- 
 pend his whole patrimony in Europe, as Mr. Lowell pretends, 
 so as to justify this charge, in the probate account of 1844 ? 
 Our views of accounts, it has been seen, sometimes differ 
 widely ; but, as I have never seen the particular accounts 
 current spoken of, I take, for my present purpose, his own 
 statement of them. 
 
 He says, the charges, in those accounts, which belong to 
 Mr. William Boott's personal expense, for those last two years, 
 amount to $6500 ; and that he knows no reason to doubt, 
 that the two preceding years were equally costly. [L. p. 61.] 
 But are the expenses of a boy from eighteen to twenty, 
 usually, as large as those of a young man from twenty to 
 twenty-two ? — Do the expenses of a student at a medical 
 school, (if that was Mr. William Boott's position, as Mr. Low- 
 ell asserts,) usually compare with those of a gentleman trav- 
 elling in Europe, or beginning to occupy, there, a place in 
 society? 
 
 During the greater part of the " two preceding years," 
 however, Mr. William Boott was, in fact, living or travelling, 
 in Europe, in company with Mrs. Boott, a large portion of 
 the time being spent in Paris. The last two years, on the 
 other hand, were after his mother's return to this country, 
 and were passed by him in Great Britain, and were, no doubt, 
 attended with considerable expense. He alludes to this in 
 one of his letters from Dublin, printed by Mr. Lowell. [L. 
 p. 132.] His expenses, there, are, manifestly, no criterion 
 for those of earlier years, passed elsewhere, and under differ- 
 ent circumstances. The argument, however, is, that if those 
 years were " only half as costly, he still expended the 
 sum of $10,000, charged to him in the account, before he 
 returned to this country." [L. p. 61.] Suppose he did, 
 (which is entirely gratuitous,) that does not meet the true 
 
181 
 
 question. The question is, — ^not how much money, in the 
 whole, Mr. William Boott's residence in Europe may have 
 cost to somebody, but, — ^whether this sum is rightfully charg- 
 ed to the estate by the executor, in his account of 1844, as a 
 distributive payment of capital. In other words, the fair in- 
 quiry is, how much of that $10,000, (if he spent any such 
 sum,) was properly chargeable upon his share of the patri- 
 mony? 
 
 Until he came of age, we have aheady seen, that his patri- 
 mony was expressly exempted, by his father's will, from all 
 charge, except for clothing and education. If his mother, 
 with the concurrence of the testamentary guardian, chose, 
 instead of maintaining him at home, to send him abroad, at 
 the age of seventeen, and to maintain him there, during the 
 residue of his minority, although this was done from the best 
 and'kindest motives of motherly and brotherly affection, all 
 this does not alter the will, nor authorize the executor and 
 guardian to charge, upon the estate, and his ward's patrimony, 
 a class of expenses abroad, for which, during minority, he 
 was not chargeable, at home. Even the clothing and educa- 
 tion bills were optional with the mother to charge against 
 him or not. There is no evidence, and I have no belief, that 
 she ever authorized, or that Mr. J. Wright Boott ever made, 
 on her account, any such charge against Mr. WUliam Boott, 
 or against any other one of her children. Be that as it may, 
 the general expense of his liviag and travelling in Europe, 
 from seventeen to twenty-one, clearly did not touch his 
 patrimony, any more than the many superfluities of indul- 
 gence allowed by Mrs. Boott to her children, at home, touched 
 theirs. 
 
 Perhaps it may be said, that so much, at least, of the entire 
 expenditure, during minority, as belongs fairly to the partic- 
 ular items of clothing and education, ought to be regarded, in 
 equity, upon a settlement of accounts, in 1844, as a payment 
 out of his patrimony, even if no specific charge were made 
 for them, at the time. I do not admit this ; but, assuming it 
 for the present, the question would then arise, what was the 
 amount, which Mr. J. Wright Boott, if authorized by Mrs. 
 
182 
 
 Boott, might have charged against Mr. William Boott's share 
 of the estate, for the expense of his clothing and education, 
 while a minor in Europe ? Mr. Lowell does not tell us this ; 
 but it was, certainly, a matter for the mother and guardian, 
 and not for the boy himself, to regulate ; and Mr. Lowell 
 does tell us, that it appears, by a letter from Mr. Williams of 
 London, to Mr. Welles of Paris, that the regular allowance 
 for all his expenses, (so Mr. Lowell reads it,) was only £100 
 a year ! [L. p. 61.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell remarks, by the way, that this allowance comes 
 to " 5^500, the interest at five per cent, of ^'10,000." [L. p. 
 63.] What of that ? He affects to consider it proof, that 
 ^10,000 was the known, and admitted amount of each heir's 
 inheritance. Had the allowance happened to be |400, he 
 might, with just as much force by way of an argument, have 
 remarked, that this sum is just the interest at four per cent, 
 of $10,000. Whatever the amount of the patrimony was, 
 and whether it was lent to the firm imder the authority of 
 the will, or lay in the executor's and guardian's hands unac- 
 counted for, the rate of interest, to be paid for it, undoubt- 
 edly was six per cent., and the allowance, to help Mr. Low- 
 ell's argument, ought to have been j^600 ; or, if it was |500, 
 the share ought to have been only about $8300. 
 
 But let us consider, for a moment, how Mr. William Boott's 
 account with his share of the estate ought to have stood, on 
 the day of his majority, supposing that share to have been no 
 larger than Mr. Lowell pretends, that is, $10,000. According 
 to the will, it should have been on interest from March 19, 
 1818, to June 15, 1826, when, according to Mr. Lowell, Mr. 
 William Boott attained his majority. [L. p. 63.] If the interest 
 were not withdrawn, but reinvested, and nothing were charged 
 for clothing and education, — which I aver to have been the 
 fact, — the fund should, then, have amounted to about 
 ^16,000. But, supposing him to have been charged with 
 that class of expenses, what were they? For the four years, 
 from the age of thirteen to that of seventeen, while he was 
 living at home, they could hardly have exceeded $1200, in 
 the whole, according to the scale of that day ; and while 
 
183 
 
 abroad, from the age of seventeen to that of twenty-one, 
 if we appropriate, for that class of expenses, the whole of 
 his allowance, as shown by Mr. Lowell, it would add but 
 $2000 for these four years ; and allowing interest upon 
 these charges, as we do on the other side of the account, 
 we shall find, on the day he came of age, a balance of, at 
 least, $12,000, to represent his patrimony, besides rever- 
 sionary interests. From that day, it is true, all his ex- 
 penses became a charge upon his own property ; and, estimat- 
 ing them according to the rate indicated by Mr. Lowell, with 
 a proper interest account, both upon the charges and upon 
 the property, he should have found, on his return to this coun- 
 try, some seven or eight thousand dollars, at least, remaining, 
 out of the original ten thousand, after all proper and allowable 
 charges had been made. If the original amount were $20,000, 
 or near it, as I aver, instead of $10,000, as Mr. Lowell avers, 
 the accumulation by interest, during minority, beyond the 
 expense, for which the minor's property was legally chargea- 
 ble by his father's will, would have been enough, probably, 
 to have covered all Mr. William Boott's expenses in Europe, 
 after he was of age, and to have left his original share quite 
 unimpaired ; and this, it will presently be seen, must have 
 been the view originally taken by Mr. J. Wright Boott, to ac- 
 count for his representations, in 1827, of the amount then 
 due to Mr. William Boott. 
 
 That gentleman may well be excused, therefore, for having 
 ^^ forgotten" as Mr. Lowell ironically remarks, " that he had 
 consimied his entire patrimony before he was twenty-three 
 years of age." [L. p. 63.] No such fact had happened, even if 
 we admit Mr. Lowell's unfounded assumption that the original 
 share was only $10,000, instead of $20,000, or near it, as I 
 shall show it was. But without discussing, now, the question 
 what it really was, I may suggest, that Mr. William Boott had 
 the best reason in the world for believing, that he was en- 
 titled, even after all his expenses in Europe had heen paid, to 
 $20,000, exclusive of reversions ;— for Mr. J. Wright Boott 
 told him so. This is the single exception, I spoke of, to my 
 statement, that all the facts, in my former pamphlet, resting 
 
184 
 
 on Mr. William Boott's authority, related, exclusively, to the 
 question of his brother's sanity. 
 
 How does Mr. Lowell get over this fact ? I stated it, dis- 
 tinctly, in my former pamphlet ; [B. p. 55.] but Mr. Lowell 
 never once alludes to it in his " Reply." The fact will 
 be found to deserve a little more consideration. It deserves, 
 too, a more particular report of the circumstances than I for- 
 merly gave. 
 
 The statement was not made to me with any reference to 
 the use I made of it, nor any where near the time of my pre- 
 paring my pamphlet, but many years Eigo, and under circum- 
 stances, which impressed it on a memory not yet successfully 
 impeached. The date I cannot fix precisely ; but it was after 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott's embarrassments of 1830, and at a time 
 when Mr. William Boott was thinking of engaging in a 
 particular business. He talked with me on this point, and 
 mentioned, in the course of the conversation, that, upon ask- 
 ing about the amount of his property, in Wright's hands, 
 soon after his return from Europe in 1827, (since which time 
 he had, then, never exchanged a word with his brother on 
 the subject of property or accounts,) he was told, by him, that 
 he would have $20,000, from the property soon to be divided. 
 Before this conversation between Mr. William Boott and my- 
 self, the disclosures had been made by Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
 to Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, which I shall presently no- 
 tice more fully ; and we had thereby become aware, that Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott had lost all his own property, and had not 
 enough in his hands even to make good the particular trust 
 funds established by his father's will, — as will presently dis- 
 tinctly appear. For reasons, which will also appear, I did 
 not feel myself at liberty to lay open this state of the case 
 to the other heirs. But, that Mr. William Boott might not 
 act upon a false idea, I advised him not to place too much 
 reliance upon any statement of his brother, made so many 
 years ago, with some remark intimating that I thought there 
 might be a mistake. I remember well the warmth, with 
 which Mr. William Boott, looking on my distrust as a sort 
 of reflection on his brother, insisted, that there could be 
 
185, 
 
 no mistake, because Wright certainly knew best, and cer- 
 tainly told him so. Finally, I recommended to him to con- 
 sult his brother again about the state of his affairs, and to 
 push him to some distinct answer. He did so, as he soon 
 after reported to me. He stated to his brother what he was 
 thinking of, and what he knew about a particular opportunity 
 to engage in business, and urged him, on that account, to let 
 him know exactly how he stood. Mr. J. Wright Boott, being 
 thus urged, abruptly answered, with some bitterness of tone, 
 " You are not worth a farthing, nor I either ;" and so the 
 conversation ended. 
 
 The reader will bear in mind, that, in the interval of 
 a number of years, between the two conversations of Mr. 
 William Boott with his brother, Mr. J. Wright Boott had 
 become sensible of the fact, that he had lost, not only his 
 own property, but all the property of his father's estate, not 
 previously paid to the heirs, except a remnant, which was in- 
 sufficient even for his mother's trust fund, and left nothing 
 for any unpaid heir, except a share of what might remain 
 of the reversionary property, at his mother's decease. 
 
 All this, though disputed by Mr. Lowell, I shall abundantly 
 make good. The conversations, between me and Mr. William 
 Boott, rest, of course, on my own credibility ; but I may refer, 
 in confirmation of them, to that gentleman. 
 
 In qualifying my remark, that Mr. William Boott had re- 
 ceived no specific payment on account of his patrimony, by 
 adding, " though it is true, that a considerable expense must 
 have been incurred, on his account, before he was of age, 
 while travelling in Europe," Mr. Lowell complains, that Mr. 
 Brooks " contrives to introduce, with apparent simplicity, no 
 less than three unfounded statements, afiecting the character 
 of his own brother-in-law, removed by death from the oppor- 
 tunity of a reply." [L. p. 64.] Here we have another speci- 
 men of Mr. Lowell's candour. He specifies the unfounded 
 statements as follows : — 
 
 " 1. That Mr. Wright Boott allowed these expenses. 
 
 2. That Mr. William Boott was a boy, and under age at the time. 
 
 3. That he was travelling, by permission of his brother, in Europe. 
 
186 
 
 All three allegations are distinctly set forth, and all three are utterly 
 unfounded" [L. p. 63.] 
 
 The distinctness of these allegations seems to be Mr. Low- 
 ell's work, rather than mine. But I beg to ask, what there is, 
 in my language, above quoted, that reflects on the character of 
 Mr. Boott ? — ^unless as a manager of trust property, which is the 
 very point I am compelled by Mr. Lowell to discuss. When 
 I denied the payment to Mr. William Boott of any specific 
 sum oh account of his patrimony, ought I not to have made 
 the qualification I did ? Could I have made it in more appro- 
 priate terms ? — or terms less reflecting on Mr. J. Wright Boott ? 
 
 I ask further, whether my statements, on this head, were, 
 as Mr. Lowell charges, " utterly unfounded " ? So far from 
 it, as to the facts, all I said turns out, by his own statement, 
 to have been strictly true, except that, according to his state- 
 ment, Mr. William Boott was not under age during a por- 
 tion of the period, in which his European expenses were 
 incurred. Mr. Lowell, indeed, says also, that he was not 
 travelling in Europe, while under age, or at least not by his 
 guardian's permission, but that he was placed at a medical 
 school ; [L. p. 54.] and he says, that Mr. William Boott 
 spent, before he was of age, more than he was allowed, and 
 that I reflect upon Mr. J. Wright Boott for having permitted 
 him to do so. The reflection Mr. Lowell makes. I simply 
 stated the fact, as I supposed it to be, namely, that con- 
 siderable expense must have been incurred on his account, 
 while under age, and travelling in Europe ; and Mr. Lowell 
 now says, that this was the fact, except that, instead of trav- 
 elling in the strict sense of the term, he was only away from 
 home, and at a medical school. That I certainly made no 
 point of ; nor is the fact, as Mr. Lowell now asserts. I never 
 intended to intimate a doubt, which I am sure I do not feel, 
 that Mr. J. Wright Boott did, with his mother's sanction, 
 what he considered, at the time, to be for the best interest 
 of his ward and youngest brother. In one sense, at least, 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott must be deemed to have allowed the 
 expenses, if, during the wardship, he furnished the funds and 
 paid the bills. 
 
187 
 
 The point, made by Mr. Lowell, is one, however, which 
 I never ofFered to discuss. I discussed nothing but the alle- 
 gation of the probate account, that $10,000 had been paid 
 to this heir for his patrimony ; and I alluded to the expenses 
 in Europe only as they bore on that question. If Mr. 
 William Boott spent there more than his brother intended he 
 should spend, he, certainly, (considering his age, and the 
 circumstances,) is not more to be blamed for it than Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, to whom I impute no blame on that account, 
 and who, I am confident, never intended to charge, nor ever 
 did charge, the expenses so incurred, duriag the term of 
 minority, to the account of his ward's patrimony. No such 
 idea was ever dreamed of, in my belief, until Mr. Lowell 
 made up the probate account of 1844 ; and we shall presently 
 .see, how reluctantly Mr. J. Wright Boott (then, as I think, 
 in a very disordered state of mind,) adopted it. 
 
 But, it is very apparent, that all this cavilling, about my 
 pretended attacks on Mr. J. Wright Boott's general character 
 and reputation, is only forcing a false issue, for the purpose of 
 justifying, or excusing, Mr. Lowell's own attack on Mr. 
 William Boott, whom he insists on treating as a joint author 
 of my pamphlet. It affords to Mr. Lowell a shallow pretext 
 for misinforming the reader, that that gentleman, while a 
 youth, neglected " the golden opportunity," which, according 
 to Mr. Lowell, his brother had provided for him, " to study 
 medicine in the best schools of Paris and Dublin, to qual- 
 ify him to gain his livelihood as a physician or surgeon ;" 
 [L. p. 64.] and for further misinforming the reader, that, after 
 wasting "his entire patrimony" in foreign capitals, he lived, 
 for more than ten years, " for aught that appears, at the ex- 
 pense of the estate." [L. p. 62.] 
 
 Nothing can be more unjust. I never before heard, and 
 do not now believe, that Mr. J. Wright Boott carried his 
 brother to Europe, or that he left him there, with any such 
 purpose, or under any such definite arrangement, as Mr. Low- 
 ell now ventures to assert, on his own unsupported authority. 
 It is true, that, Mr. William Boott, while in Europe, and after 
 his brother had left him there, did, at one time, turn his 
 
188 
 
 attention to medical studies, and prosecuted them with inter- 
 est and assiduity. This, so far as I know, or believe, was 
 entirely his own movement, and not in pursuance of any 
 arrangement made for him, or suggestion made to him, by 
 his brother Wright. Indeed, I may say, that I know this, so 
 far as the subject admits of knowledge ; for I was myself with 
 him in Paris, at the time when he had but lately begun to pros- 
 ecute medical studies. I refer to the time, before mentioned, 
 when Mrs. Boott, Mrs. Brooks and myself, Dr. Francis Boott 
 and his family, and Mr. William Boott, were all living there, 
 together, in 1824-5. Mr. J. Wright Boott had returned to 
 Boston in the autumn of 1823. Mr. William Boott's plans 
 and pursuits were, of course, subjects of interest to our family 
 circle, in Paris ; and I well remember Dr. Francis Boott's 
 relating to us the fact of Mr. William Boott's first attendance 
 there at an anatomical lecture. Mr. William Boott told me, 
 besides, of his having begun to study medicine, a very short 
 time before, at Edinburgh. Probably Dr. Boott's example, 
 perhaps his advice, may have suggested this pursuit to his 
 brother. The idea appeared to have originated at the time, 
 of which I speak ; and it is certain that he had not been 
 placed at a medical school by Mr. J. Wright Boott, and had 
 not been engaged in medical studies by any direction from 
 him, nor until some considerable time after Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott had left Europe. 
 
 It is also true, that, after a year or two, he abandoned 
 the idea of pursuing medicine, as a profession, for reasons 
 stated in a letter, which Mr. Lowell prints. [L. p. 132.J 
 He came home, in 1827, and was informed that he had 
 $20,000 of his own to live upon. If he lived, therefore, 
 in fact, as Mr. Lowell asserts, at the expense of the estate, 
 it was only because he was misinformed and misled, as to 
 the state of his own property, by the brother, who had it in 
 his keeping, and who, alone, knew its amount, if any body 
 did. But he in fact lived, as the other unmarried members 
 of the family lived, with his mother ; whose house was, by 
 her desire, the common home of all her unmarried children. 
 At whose expense they all, in reality, lived, depends upon 
 
189 
 
 accounts, which Mr. J. Wright Boott never stated, nor in 
 fact kept. They have, in truth, never been stated to this 
 day ; for, as to the account of 1844, — except for the purpose 
 of furnishing a form, under which Mr. J. Wright Boott might, 
 by consent, be discharged, — ^I shall show that it was equiv- 
 alent to no account at all. The property of all the family, 
 however, was in his hands ; and their unbounded confidence 
 in him allowed it to rest there, without account. Every 
 child of Mrs. Boott was given to understand, that $20,000 
 apiece was to come from it as a present inheritance. Mr. 
 William Boott was perfectly justified, therefore, upon the 
 information he had, in living as he did, and cannot be held 
 accountable to any man, certainly not to Mr. Lowell, for 
 having done so. He, however, repeatedly expressed his 
 desire to enter into business. In this, he received no encour- 
 agement from his eldest brother. Such was my understanding 
 at the time. But, after the declaration, which amounted to 
 a confession, extorted in the manner above stated, from Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott, of his inability to account for the $20,000, 
 which Mr. William Boott had been told was his, he embraced 
 the earliest opportunity to take up such a pursuit as he 
 thought himself qualified to engage in ; and, after a previous 
 short engagement in a mercantile agency, he went, as is 
 well known, into the employment of one of the principal 
 corporations at Lowell, on a handsome salary, much beyond 
 the wants of a single man, and he continued in that employ- 
 ment for a number of years, and until that branch of the 
 company's business was brought to a close, sometime after 
 the death of Mr. J. Wright Boott. 
 
 Besides this, it should be remembered, that, when his 
 brother's misfortunes became partially known in the family, 
 (although he had no idea of the extent to which the family 
 property was implicated,) he freely joined in the release of 
 1833, by which all the heirs in this country, who then had 
 an interest in the estate, hoping to relieve Mr. J. Wright Boott 
 from the depression, under which he laboured, discharged 
 him from all legal accountability to them for any thing be- 
 yond the annuity funds. In doing so, Mr. William Boott was 
 
190 
 
 much the largest contributor to that object ; since every other 
 heir had already received $10,000, at least, on account of his 
 patrimony, and some had received the full ^^20,000, to which 
 they were entitled, as I think the sequel will show. This was 
 an act of generosity, which gave him a right to rely upon his 
 brother's honour, (a reliance, which, I doubt not, he esteemed 
 perfectly safe, so long as that brother was in his right mind,) 
 that he should not be allowed to suffer by it, further than 
 the necessity of the case might imperatively require ; and 
 my belief is, that he had no idea, until he got it from me, 
 at a later period, of the extent, to which his own and the 
 family property had been lost, beyond all hope of recovery. 
 The foregoing facts were well known to me, and I believe 
 they were to Mr. Lowell, at the time of their occurrence. At 
 any rate, what reasonable excuse has Mr. Lowell for the un- 
 founded imputations on general character, which he has thus 
 wantonly hazarded ? I am no representative of Mr. William 
 Boott, it is true ; but I feel bound to defend him, so far as facts 
 go within my previous knowledge, against an attack equally 
 uncalled for and unmerited, when the only pretext for it is 
 my pamphlet, to which he contributed nothing, except his 
 own testimony to his brother's insanity. He believed that, 
 as I did, to be the sole cause of all the troubles in the family, 
 and the only excuse for conduct, which will presently appear, 
 I think, to have been otherwise utterly unaccountable. Did 
 that belief of Mr. William Boott, — or his acting upon it, — or 
 his permitting me to publish, in his defence, as well as mine, 
 against current calumnies, a statement of some of the facts, 
 on which his belief was founded, — ^afford the slightest excuse 
 to Mr. Lowell for publishing these personal detractions, on 
 subjects never put in issue by me, and concerning the char- 
 acter of a gentleman, who, whatever his sentiments may 
 have been, hud published nothing against Mr. Lowell ? Mr. 
 Lowell, now, publishes for him, his confidential remarks to 
 his brother. Dr. Boott, of London. Some of them may 
 have been far from agreeable to Mr. Lowell. But do these 
 private communications between brothers, upon their own 
 
191 
 
 famay affairs, afford the slightest excuse for this public • 
 attack ? 
 
 Finally, what shall we say to Mr. Lowell's modest conclu- 
 sion on this head ? It is in the following words : — 
 
 " There can be no reasonable doubt, that he [Mr. "William Boott] 
 has received more than any other one of the heirs from the common 
 property." [L. p. 62.] 
 
 More than ani/ other one! — ^Not even excepting Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott ! Such is the extravagant pretence, which Mr. 
 Lowell ventures to put forth iu terms of positive assertion. I 
 thiak it wiU be an effective answer to show, as I shall, that 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, after the entire loss of his own property, 
 to say nothing of that of brothers and sisters, lived, for fifteen 
 years, in the family mansion, without any income of his own, 
 or other means of support than the remaining family property 
 in his hands, including his mother's income, and paid, be- 
 sides, within that time, in principal and interest, at least 
 $60,000 of either the estate's money, or his mother's income, 
 in discharge of his private debts, to Mr. Loweli himself! 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE MAIN QUESTION OF THE ACCOUNT. MR. BOOTt's MEMORAN- 
 DUM OF 1830. ITS VEMTT proved by THE "REPLY." 
 
 It is time to proceed to the main question of this probate 
 account. 
 
 Was there, in truth, at that date, a cash balance of $25,000 
 due to Mr. Boott, and chargeable either upon the property 
 held by him, nominally, as executor, or upon the general 
 
192 
 
 estate ? Was there not, on the contrary, a large balance due 
 from him ? 
 
 These questions arise, it must be remembered, without regard 
 to the effect of the release, signed by most of the heirs in 
 1833. Until the reading of Mr. Lowell's " Reply," I had 
 always supposed that this release, discharging Mr. Boott from 
 all legal accountability to the heirs, who signed it, except for 
 the reversionary funds held under the special trusts of the 
 will, was intended to be relied upon in proof of the sufficiency 
 of the account; or rather as a legal dispensation from all 
 proof or inquiry, concerning any property, which might have 
 come to the executor's hands, other than he is therein charged 
 with. That this was my imderstanding, at the time of the 
 negotiation and compromise respecting it, appears by the fol- 
 lowing passage, in the letter before mentioned, from Mrs. 
 Brooks to her mother, written at that period : — 
 
 " Mr. Boott has, moreover, taken advantage of our discharge, given 
 him at a time of great pecuniary embarrassment, as an act of kind- 
 ness and not one of justice, to bring in his accounts in such a way, as 
 to make it appear cts if the estate was in debt to him $25,000, just the 
 amount of his private debt to Mr. Lowell," &c. [B. App. p. 49.] 
 
 This letter, it will be remembered, was put into Mr. Low- 
 ell's hands ; for Mrs. Brooks had said in it to her mother, " You 
 are at liberty to make what use you choose of my letter. 
 Write to Mr. Lowell, and ask him, as a man of honour, if it is 
 not all true." [B. App. p. 49.] Under that authority, Mrs. 
 Boott sent the letter to Mr. Lowell. He admits its receipt. 
 [L. p. 205.] He was, therefore, aware that we imderstood this 
 form of the account to have been founded on the supposed 
 effect of the discharge. Yet, if that were an error, as he now 
 says it was, and the account were really intended to embrace 
 all receipts and payments during the whole executorship, un- 
 affected by the discharge of 1833, why did not Mr. Lowell, 
 being thus informed of our understanding to the contrary, 
 disabuse us on that point ? — and why did he not, then, vouch- 
 safe the remarkable explanation, which he now gives ? Would 
 he not have done so, had it then occurred to him ? How 
 
193 
 
 much of misunderstanding and unhappiness, all round, might 
 have been avoided, if a true explanation could then have been 
 made, that would have shown to me the grievous mistake, 
 under which, according to Mr. Lowell, I must all along have 
 laboured ! 
 
 However that may be, we have, now, no choice in the mat- 
 ter. The " Reply " insists, that the account is literally cor- 
 rect, and that Mr. Boott repudiated the idea of availing him- 
 self of that discharge. " Knowing," says Mr. Lowell, " that 
 Mr. Boott had received a discharge in full, which would be a 
 complete bar against all demands, I asked him why he did 
 not commence his accounts from the date of that discharge. 
 He answered ; ' No, Mr. Lowell ; I am determined to begin 
 from the beginning, and show that the estate has not been 
 wasted in my hands.' " [L. p. 31.] Accordingly, although 
 Mr. Lowell thinks the position of the accounting party would 
 have been perfectly impregnable, (which I shall presently 
 consider,) if he had stated an account beginning at the date 
 of the release, he says that Mr. Boott, being charged " with 
 having mismanaged and wasted the estate, a mere technical 
 immunity would not suit his lofty spirit ; his honour was im- 
 plicated, and it was dearer to him than life. He chivalrously 
 threw aside the aegis of his discharge. He tendered a full 
 account of his stewardship. He defied his assailants to the 
 proof," &c. [L. p. 206.] The meaning of all which, in plain 
 and simple English, is, that the account is declared, by Mr. 
 Lowell, to have been intended, by Mr. Boott, for a full and 
 complete summary, as upon its face it purports to be, of all his 
 receipts and payments, throughout the entire term of his 
 executorship, and consequently is to be considered and dealt 
 with precisely as if no release had ever been given to him by 
 the heirs. 
 
 It is said, plausibly enough, that "to impugn these ac- 
 counts," — that is, so far as to demonstrate some error material 
 to the general result, — it must be shown, "either that Mr. 
 Boott received more, or that he paid away less, than is stated 
 in the account." [L. p. 45.] That, however, plausible as it 
 may seem, is by no means the whole question. Another, 
 
194 
 
 equally important, is, at what time the executor's cash bal- 
 ance is to be struck and deemed to have been invested, for 
 account of the estate, in the property then held by Mr. Boott 
 in his own private name ? Or, of all the property held by him 
 at any time under his own name, what portions, if any, are 
 to be considered as original investments for the estate, and 
 what for himself? The form, in which Mr. Lowell states 
 the question, adroitly evades and shuts out those branches of 
 inquiry, which, of themselves, when truly answered, will be 
 found decisive against the pretended cash balance of the pro- 
 bate account. 
 
 But that I am under the burden, as Mr. Lowell contends, of 
 re-forming the account, or of showing, exactly, how the error 
 has arisen, and in what it consists, I deny ; at least, until Mr. 
 Lowell has first put me in possession of " all the documents," 
 from which it was made up. I deny that the burden, as it 
 originally stood, is shifted in the issue between us. F, I re- 
 peat, on a hearing in the probate court, Mr. Boott would have 
 been boimd to prove the particulars, and to exhibit his evi- 
 dence of the facts stated, Mr. Lowell is equally bound now to 
 do so, upon the new issue, which his assertions, founded upon 
 the assumed substantial accuracy of the accoimt, and directed 
 against me on that basis, have raised. He chooses to exhibit 
 nothing, however ; and, yet, has the assurance to call on me, . 
 either to prove the reception by Mr. Boott of some particular 
 sum, which the account does not state, or else to prove that 
 he had paid away less, in the whole, than it does state. He 
 shelters himself from the production of documents, except 
 so far as he finds it for his interest to produce them, under 
 the plea that the formal decree of the probate court, allowing 
 the account, under a previous agreement of the parties to 
 permit it to pass without question, dispenses with all vouch- 
 ers and further inquiries, now that its reality has come into 
 question, upon his allegation that it was a good proveable 
 account. If that were so, the account, so passed, would 
 simply prove itself, and it would be quite absurd to be talking 
 about burden of proof. If he means, as he sometimes says, 
 that the affair of the account is concluded, let him rest 
 
195 
 
 upon that. If not, and other proofs may now be gone into, 
 what can he more ridiculous than to insist that the burden 
 is on me to produce them, when " all the documents, from 
 which the account was made up," are in his own possession! 
 He expressly refers to materials furnished by Mr. Boott, and 
 to the books of Boott & Lowell, as the sources, from which 
 he drew this exhibit. [L. pp. 30, 31.] But he carefully 
 locks up all these books and papers, and then, with an air of 
 confident defiance, cries out. Now, prove the errors and 
 omissions, if you can ! 
 
 With this disadvantage, I, nevertheless, proceed to the in- 
 quiry, protesting, by the way, against Mr. Lowell's doctrine 
 of "burden of proof, but admitting that one important problem 
 to be solved, on the question of mismanagement, though by 
 no means the only one, is, whether the executor has either 
 charged himself with too little money received, or credited 
 himself with too much as paid away. I pass by, for the pres- 
 ent, the great item of near $275,000, set down for income, 
 said to have been both received and paid,-^-not as immaterial, 
 but — ^because it stands on both sides of the account ; and if 
 it all arose from the investment of the widow's trust fund, as 
 the account supposes, it belonged to her, and, whether really 
 paid to her or not, would not afiect the final cash balance, in 
 which the heirs were, directly, concerned. Supposing, then, 
 all income and interest of moneys to have been properly 
 disposed of, is it a fact, that Mr. Boott had received, as ex- 
 ecutor, no more than $186,000 of moneyed capital from his 
 father's estate, and that he had distributed $90,000 of it 
 equally among the heirs ? 
 
 The latter branch of the inquiry, which respects, more 
 particularly, Mr. William Boott's portion, has already been 
 discussed. The payment of $10,000 to him, either in full, 
 or on account, of his distributive share, I deny, for reasons 
 already stated. The payment, in some form or other, of at 
 least that sum, to all the other heirs, I admit ; and inequal- 
 ities of payment, beyond the $10,000, depend upon first 
 establishing the fact that there was more to be distributed. 
 
 The main question, then, turns upon the other side of the 
 
196 
 
 account, and is embraced in two items only, — ^namely, the 
 item of nearly f 116,700 debited as received prior to May 11, 
 1818, in part of the testator's interest in the firm, of which 
 he was a partner, and the item of nearly f 69,300 debited 
 as received, at some date not given, from the firm of Boott & 
 Lowell, — a firm, which did not exist in the testator's life- 
 time, and in which his estate had no legitimate concern. 
 Was the executor justly chargeable for no more than this ? 
 Was this all the property, which should have remained after 
 a just and legal settlement of the father's estate, except his 
 mansion-house, and other specific items of the inventory? 
 
 Mr. Lowell has the justice to concede, (and I rather think, 
 it is a singular instance of his conceding any thing not for his 
 own advantage,) that direct proof, from me, of what the ex- 
 ecutor had received, (all the books and papers, that exist, 
 being in Mr. Lowell's own hands,) was, from the nature of 
 the case, impracticable. [L. p. 45.] The inquiry involved 
 the history of several firms, and of many private transactions 
 of Mr. J. Wright Boott, either unknown to me, or known 
 only in the most general way. Since all his investments, 
 whether intended to be for the estate, or intended to be for 
 himself, had, for a long series of years, been made in his 
 own sole name, with nothing to distinguish the one from 
 the other, a part of the inquiry was, what private fortune of 
 his own Mr. J. Wright Boott had, to mix in these invest- 
 ments ; what the aggregate of the investments at any time 
 was known to have amounted to ; and what losses he had 
 met with in his private business, or in business, which he 
 had no right to undertake on account of the estate, although 
 its funds may have been in fact borrowed and used for that 
 business. 
 
 No executor's account having ever been settled, or stated, 
 except the account of 1818, which admitted a realization of 
 cash, within sixteen months from the testator's death, out of 
 his interest in the first firm of Kirk Bpott & Sons, to the 
 amount of about $116,700, and no priv>ate account of his sub- 
 sequent transactions, either as executor or on his own behalf, 
 being open to me, in order to show that more had, afterwards. 
 
197 
 
 come to the executor than the $69,300 admitted to have been 
 received through Boott & Lowell, I could, of course, only ad- 
 duce circumstantial evidence. But the circumstances shown^ 
 which I shall presently allude to, were such as to call loudly 
 for explanation, and, if not satisfactorily explained, to leave 
 the conclusion inevitable, that the account had omitted some 
 large sum, for which the executor was properly chargeable. 
 Mr. Lowell attempts to explain these circumstances, consist- 
 ently with the truth and completeness of the account, and to 
 adduce other circumstances in corroboration of it. These 
 will presently be examined ; and I think the remarkable fact 
 will appear, that he is most free to explain those transactions, 
 of which he has least personal knowledge and no evidence, 
 and that he discloses least of those, which he is able to state 
 precisely, and in full, with proper proofs, if he would. 
 
 The first circumstance, to which I shall call attention, is a 
 written statement, by Mr. J. Wright Boott, of his own prop- 
 erty, and that of the family in his hands, as it stood in 
 1830. This is a good starting point ; because the informa- 
 tion comes, directly, from Mr. J. Wright Boott himself, and is 
 in his own hand-writing. Such a document is irresistible, so 
 far as it goes ; and its statements, except in the accuracy of 
 the valuation, are confirmed, in every particular, by extrinsic 
 evidence. The paper does not tell us, it is true, what Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott's own property originally was, nor what that 
 of his father's estate was, nor how much of either had wholly 
 disappeared before that time, nor in what way any part of it 
 had gone. Upon these points, we are still left to inference 
 from other sources. But, it shows all the property, whether 
 of his own or his father's, then left in his hands, and in what 
 it was invested. The particulars of this property we are en- 
 abled to trace, thenceforward ; and we know, exactly, what 
 became of every item. His state of indebtedness, at that 
 time, is also matter of positive proof; and thus, by con- 
 nexion with other facts, which are beyond question, we shall 
 be brought to see, with certainty, the fallacy of the pretended 
 cash balance of $25,000, claimed as due to the executor 
 in 1844, even if we do not see the exact amount, for which 
 
198 
 
 he was then justly chargeable in that capacity, beyond the 
 receipts mentioned in his account. 
 
 To this question, — the balance claimed, — ^I shall first ad- 
 dress myself. 
 
 The paper, above referred to, was handed to me by Mr. Boott 
 himself, near the end of August, 1830, for the purpose of show- 
 ing the total assets in his hands, except what he held for ac- 
 count of the family of his cousin, the late Mr. Francis Boott. 
 That paper I now reprint, with the explanation formerly 
 given of it : — 
 
 MR BOOTT'S MBMOEAiroUM. 
 
 « Mill Dam, . 
 
 . $70,000 
 
 
 Store, 
 
 15,000 
 
 
 Note, Wells & Lilly, . 
 
 14,000 
 
 
 Sturgis, 
 
 42,000 
 
 21,000 
 
 J. A. Lowell, 
 
 50,000 
 
 30,000 
 
 Other Shares, . 
 
 19,000 
 
 
 Stable, 
 
 3,000 
 
 
 $213,000 " 
 
 " This requires some explanation to make it intelligible. The first 
 column of figures is supposed to represent property ; the second, cer- 
 tain debts, for which a portion of it was pledged. The first item sig- 
 nifies the amount, which Mr. Wright Boott had at that time invested 
 in the Mill Dam Foundry, or in the business there carried on by him 
 in partnership with Messrs. Lyman & Ralston. The second item is 
 a store in State-street, which was left him by his father, as a partic- 
 ular bounty, distinct from his share in the residue of the estate. The 
 third item was a note of Messrs. Wells & Lilly, formerly booksellers 
 in this city, whose affairs were in process of liquidation. Mr. Wells 
 was the brother-in-law before mentioned. The note was payable to 
 Mr. Wright Boott personally, and was for money lent to aid them hi 
 their business. It was, in truth, the note of Robert Lilly, the liquidat- 
 or of that concern, though called, in the memorandum, the note of 
 Wells & Lilly. The next three items were shares of manufacturing 
 stock, viz. seventy-two shares in the Merrimack Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, at Lowell, and thirty-nine shares in the Boston Manufacturing 
 Company, at Waltham. Forty-two of the former were pledged to 
 the Hon. William Sturgis, or to J. P. Gushing, Esq., for whom he 
 acted, as collateral security to Mr. Wright Boott's note for 821,000. 
 Twenty-five of the former, and twenty-five of the latter were pledged 
 to Mr. J. A. Lowell, as collateral security to another note of Mr. 
 Wright Boott, for $30,000. The remaining nineteen shares continued 
 unpledged. The last item was a stable, in rear of the family mansion- 
 
199 
 
 house estate, which he had purchased from Mr. "William Dehon a few 
 years before." [B. p. 37.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell's remark upon this is : — 
 
 " On the strength of a mere pencil memorandum, unsigned and 
 without date or caption, and relying on his memory after a lapse of 
 sixteen years to interpret that memorandum, he [Brooks] undertakes 
 to put us in possession of the whole state of Mr. Boott's property and 
 liabilities, and to found upon these reminiscences charges of utter 
 insolvency and of a reckless and unprincipled use of the property of 
 others ; charges deliberately made after full time for consideration, 
 against the memory of his wife's brother." [L. p. 79, 80.] 
 
 For the purpose of persuading his readers that no faith can 
 be placed in this memorandum, and my exposition of it, Mr. 
 Lowell, thereupon, proceeds "to show what Mr. Brooks's 
 reminiscences are worth, after such a lapse of time," by the 
 instance of my supposed mistake in estimating the difference, 
 between simple and compound interest, in Mr. Boott's guar- 
 dianship accounts, at $10,000, instead of f25G0, at which 
 Mr. Lowell, by a most ludicrous mistake of his own, sup- 
 poses he had himself, formerly, estimated it. His unfortu- 
 nate series of blunders on this head I have already pointed 
 out. [Ante, Ch. 6.] Let us look, then, to his present com- 
 ments on the memorandum. 
 
 On the strength of that paper, every reader of my former 
 pamphlet will see, that I undertook to put the reader in pos- 
 session of the state of the whole property in Mr. Boott's 
 hands, as represented by himself, and nothing more. His 
 liabilities, except so far as a portion of this property was 
 specifically pledged for them to Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, 
 are not named, nor alluded to, in the memorandum, nor did 
 I, as Mr. Lowell asserts, rely upon it for them. I expressly 
 referred the reader to other sources. But, as to my inter- 
 pretation of the paper, — through which Mr. Lowell endeav- 
 ours, thus, to shake its credit, as a thing, which rests, entirely, 
 for its effect, upon a remarkably poor memory of mine, after 
 the lapse of sixteen years, — it so happens, that there is not 
 an item of it, which Mr. Lowell himself does not elsewhere 
 admit, or incidentally prove. 
 
200 
 
 What would he have the reader believe that he means to 
 deny or question ? That it is a list and valuation of prop- 
 erty, made by Mr. J. Wright Boott himself, for some purpose, 
 is apparent upon its face. The time and occasion of its 
 being made are, besides, apparent enough from Mr. Kirk 
 Boott's letters, printed formerly in my Appendix, and which 
 I shall presently reprint. As to the items of real estate, 
 under the heads of " Mill Dam," " Store," and " Stable," 
 my explanation only went to fix their identity with the iron 
 foundry at the Mill Dam, the store devised to Mr. Boott by 
 his father, and the stable bought by him in rear of the fam- 
 ily mansion. Does Mr. Lowell dispute the identification ? 
 The records of the Registry of Deeds, the will of Mr. Boott, 
 senior, and the probate account of 1844, prove every one of 
 these. And so does Mr. Lowell himself. 
 
 In his general narrative of affairs, he thus identifies the 
 first item, just as I did : — " Being, in 1826, out of business, 
 in consequence of the breaking up of our copartnership, and 
 having naturally a strong mechanical turn, he [Mr. Boott] 
 entered into the business of casting iron, at afoundery which 
 he erected for that purpose at the Mill Dam." [L. p. 75.] 
 In commenting, afterwards, on one of my estimates of Mr. 
 Boott's pecuniary position, he says, " The Mill Dam prop- 
 erty, Mr. Boott's half of which had cost $57,000 independ- 
 ent of advances of about f 13,000 more, is also deducted in 
 full, as unavailable." [L. p. 90.] These sums, added, ex- 
 actly correspond with the first item of the memorandum, 
 " Mill Dam, |70,000 ;" and the statement confirms what I 
 had said of it, viz. that the $70,000 was intended to repre- 
 sent the amount of cash, which Mr. Boott had actually paid 
 into that concern. This extract also serves to show Mr. 
 Lowell's more intimate knowledge than mine of the manner, 
 in which that sum was made up. 
 
 Again, speaking of a supposed possible loss of papers, he 
 refers to " the fire that destroyed Mr. Bootfs store in April, 
 1825." [L. p. 59.] It was rebuilt, and he tells us that, at 
 the time of the memorandum in question, "^/te store in 
 State-street was for sale ;" [L. p. 87.] and again, " the store 
 
201 
 
 he afterwards sold for $16,000 ;" [L. p. 86.] thus showing, his 
 intimate knowledge of that item, and confirming my " rem- 
 iniscences," where I had nothing but memory to guide me, 
 in stating that " the store in State-street Mr. Wright Boott 
 had been enabled to sell for $1000 more than it had been 
 estimated at in his memorandum." [B. p. 46.] 
 
 So, of the remaining item of real estate, Mr. Lowell says, 
 " The stable he had recently bought for the benefit of the 
 estate, supposing, as he himself informed me, that he thereby 
 acquired a right of way into Bowdoin-street." [L. p. 86.] 
 
 In respect to Wells & Lilly's note, my interpretation of 
 that item, it has been seen, went only to explain who Wells 
 & Lilly were, how the debt arose, and that it was, in truth, 
 the note of Robert Lilly, given as liquidator of their concerns. 
 This item was also proved by the deed of trust, under which 
 I afterwards held it. In that paper it was described as " a 
 certain promissory note given to said Boott by Robert Lilly, 
 for the sum of $14,000, whereon has been paid the sum of 
 $966 61." [B. App. p. 23.] But Mr. Lowell proves this 
 item too, — and proves that he knew more about it than I 
 had stated, — for he says, " The debt of Wells & Lilly was 
 secured by a mortgage of personal property, and was. a few 
 years later, paid in full ;" [L. p. 86.] and again, " The debt 
 of Wells &/ Lilly was one which had grown out of advances 
 made by Mr. Boott, senior, to his son-in-law Mr. Wells, and 
 subsequent advances by Mr. Wright Boott himself." [L. p. 
 87.] These facts may be correct ; but they had not been 
 stated by me. 
 
 We have now disposed of the whole memorandum, except 
 the three items, " Sturgis," " J. A. Lowell," " Other Shares," 
 — the only parts of the paper, which had much ambiguity 
 about them to explain. It is clear that the last relates to 
 shares of something, and since they are spoken of as other 
 shares, it is equally clear that the preceding items must have 
 related to shares also. I explained them all to mean shares 
 in the Boston and Merrimack Manufacturing Companies, 
 rated at par, one hundred and eleven in the whole, of which 
 nineteen were unpledged, and ninety-two were pledged to 
 
202 
 
 Mr. Sturgis and Mr. Lowell ; and I undertook to state how- 
 many shares there were of each kind of stock, and how- 
 many of each were held hy the respective pledgees, and that 
 the second column of the memorandum, containing the 
 figures " 31,000," and " 30,000," expressed the amount of 
 the debts, for which they were held. I further explained, 
 that there were some other shares in the same stocks, held 
 by Mr. Boott at the time, in his own name, but which he 
 considered to belong to his account as guardian of the chil- 
 dren, and trustee for the widow, of Mr. Francis Boott, and 
 which he therefore did not put into this memorandum. [B. 
 p. 39.] 
 
 If this were all mere " reminiscence," was it not, never- 
 theless, to a fraction, true ? The certified transcripts, which 
 I printed, from the stock legers of these two companies, 
 together with the trust deed, and the probate account of 
 1844, in which these same shares reappear, (less one which 
 had gone to another account, as the record of transfers 
 shows,) proved the facts as I stated them, and proved that no 
 other shares in these companies were held at that time by- 
 Mr. Boott, excepting those, which he, soon after, transferred 
 to his account as guardian, or trustee, for the members of 
 Mr. F. Boott's family. But, if there were any deficiencies in 
 my proof, Mr. Lowell himself has supplied them. 
 
 As to the thirty-nine shares of the Boston Manufacturing 
 Company, I ventured to inquire, why, in the probate account, 
 some were put at the original subscription price, and some 
 at a higher price. Mr. Lowell, in a passage too long for cita- 
 tion, [L. p. 68-71] enters into a laboured explanation, which 
 purports to account for the whole thirty-nine shares at the 
 prices charged, and shows, that certain other shares of the 
 same stock, originally subscribed for, (concerning which I 
 had been misled, because they were all subscribed for and 
 taken by Mr. Boott in his own name,) belonged to his ac- 
 count as guardian and trustee for Mr. F. Boott"s family, and 
 not to his father's estate — thus incidentally proving so much 
 of the memorandum, and corroborating what I had said re- 
 
203 
 
 Bpecting those shares, which did not appear in it, and show- 
 ing how well acquainted he is with all the facts. 
 
 So, in respect to all the shares of manufacturing stock, 
 which my interpretation ascribed to that paper, as standing 
 under the heads of " Sturgis," " J. A. Lowell," and " Other 
 Shares," rated together at fill, 000, Mr. Lowell, commenting 
 upon Mr. Boott's assets, and not then pretending to deny my 
 interpretation, says, " the manufacturing stock had cost htm 
 $9000 m.ore than the par value, at which it is put down in 
 the memorandum, and he had clearly a right to charge it to 
 the trust fund at its cost." [L. p. 86.] He, accordingly, 
 adds that sum to the footing of the memorandum, in his 
 estimate of resources,— thus plainly admitting all that re- 
 mained to be admitted on the debit side of that paper, and 
 showing, again, his intimate acquaintance with the facts, by 
 stating the actual cost of that stock to Mr. Boott, which was 
 wholly unknown to me. 
 
 On the very next page [L. p. 87] he inquires, " and what 
 were his debts ? He owed Mr. Wm. Sturgis, for Mr. Gush- 
 ing, $21,000. He owed me for the estate of Jonathan 
 Amory $30,000" ; and these are the precise sums set against 
 those names on the credit side of the paper. 
 
 To complete the proof, from Mr. Lowell's own lips, it only 
 remains to show, that forty-two of the Merrimack shares 
 were pledged for that debt to Mr. Sturgis, and twenty-five 
 of each stock to Mr. Lowell for his debt. This we gather 
 from himself, in detached sentences, as follows : — Speaking 
 of Mr. Boott's pecuniary position, he says, " He had tempo- 
 rarily borrowed, on a pledge of stocks, $51,000." [L. p. 88.] 
 In endeavouring to exculpate himself from too intimate a con- 
 nexion with some of the subjects of inquiry, he says, " I 
 had had no personal dealings with Mr. Wright Boott, except 
 that I had lent to him, a few years before, a large sum of 
 money, from the trust funds in my hands, belonging to the 
 estate of Jonathan Amory, on a pledge of manufacturing 
 stock." [L. p. 29.] What the sum was he states at p. 87, 
 as above shown. In endeavouring to convict me of a mis- 
 take, concerning Mr. Boott's having paid off his debt to 
 
204 
 
 Mr. Sturgis, (I shall have a -word more to say on that 
 subject in due time,) he says, " I paid the $21,000 to Mr. 
 Sturgis, and took the debt to my account as trustee, at the 
 request of Mr. Boott, who preferred to be indebted to me 
 alone. The effect of the transaction was to relieve one half 
 of the stock which had been pledged to Mr. Sturgis, as the 
 shares which I already held, with the twenty-one shares 
 transferred to me by him, amply secured me for the whole 
 of my advances." [L. p. 96.] So, in endeavouring to give 
 a different version from mine (about which I shall also have 
 occasion to speak by-and-by,) of a certain agreement men- 
 tioned by me, whereby those stocks, which he originally 
 held in pledge from Mr. Boott in his private name, were 
 transferred by Mr. Lowell to Mr. Boott, as executor, and then 
 re-pledged by Mr. Boott, in that capacity, to Mr. Lowell, he 
 again admits all I had stated respecting them in my inter- 
 pretation of the memorandum. [L. p. 41. J And when he 
 desires to explain how the pretended cash balance of $25,000 
 arose, he admits that he re-conveyed these same shares, once 
 more, to Mr. Boott as executor, on the day of the presenta- 
 tion of the accounts. [L. p. 42.] The number, so re-con- 
 veyed, is fixed by the transcript from the record of transfers. 
 In short, without multiplying instances, wherever the im- 
 mediate occasion requires him, in the course of his " Reply," 
 to state the same facts, he states them as of his own knowl- 
 edge, in precise accordance with the memorandum as ex- 
 plained by me, and proves, singulatim,, every particle of its 
 contents, and of my explanation of them, as a statement of 
 all the assets held by Mr. Boott, for his own account and the 
 account of the estate, at the date, which I give to the paper; 
 and, on the other hand, although the course of his argument 
 rendered it most imperative upon him to show for Mr. Boott 
 as much of private property as possible, and although the 
 intimacy of his acquaintance with Mr. Boott's affairs displays 
 itself at every turn, he does not pretend, in any page of his 
 book, to point out, or to suggest that there was, to be pointed 
 out, a single other item of property then in Mr. Boott's im- 
 mediate possession, (reversions I shall speak of presently,) 
 
205 
 
 ■which this memorandum does not include, except (and these 
 are my exceptions, not Mr. Lowell's,) mere articles of personal 
 use, and the stocks, which he held for the F. Boott family. 
 
 I have, then, only two inquiries to put to the reader. 
 
 First, May we not safely assume, that this was indeed all 
 the property Mr. Boott then held, (except as above excepted,) 
 and that my interpretation of the paper, so far as it does not 
 explain itself, was literally and perfectly correct ? 
 
 Secondly, Is it consistent with that fairness and frankness, 
 which the public have a right to expect from Mr. Lowell, 
 in such a communication, that, when it serves his purpose to 
 weaken the credit of the memorandum, he should not scruple 
 to suggest, that the paper derives its value solely from my 
 " reminiscences," and that these are not to be depended on, 
 notwithstanding he himself asserts, with a greater minute- 
 ness of knowledge than I could boast of, every fact, which it 
 states, or which I had stated respecting it, when it serves 
 his purpose to avail himself of those facts in his own vindi- 
 cation, or in support of his argument ? 
 
 If these inquiries should be answered as I think they must 
 be, the reader will have arrived at one point, that he may safe- 
 ly rest upon. We shall soon see the inevitable consequences. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 MR. BOOTt's debts. HIS LIABILITY TOR DEBTS CONTRACTED IN 
 THE NAME OF LYMAN ^ RALSTON. 
 
 I plant myself on the memorandum, above printed from 
 the original in Mr. Boott's hand-writing, as a document, 
 which, in respect to the truth and completeness of its con- 
 tents, is now proved by Mr. Lowell, in every particular, 
 
206 
 
 precisely as I had stated it in my former pamphlet. It 
 stands wholly independent now, if it did not originally, of 
 my memory for explanation. It stands proved, and in effect 
 confessed, to be a true exhibit of all the property, in present 
 possession, held by Mr. Boott, at the time it was made, out 
 of which the claims of his father's estate and his own debts 
 were to be satisfied. 
 
 The next inquiry is, what were his debts, exclusive of any 
 thing he may have owed to his brothers and sisters, as heirs 
 of his father's estate, or to the trusts under his father's will ? 
 I stated them formerly, [B. p. 39.] from his own verbal in- 
 formation accompanying the memorandum, thus : — ■ 
 
 An uninvested cash balance, due on his guardian- 
 ship accounts for the minor children of Mr. Francis 
 Boott, estimated by him at - - - - - $20,000, 
 His own notes to Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, - 51,000 
 His endorsements of certain paper of Lyman & 
 Ralston, then pressing, ----- 30,000 
 
 101,000 
 
 To this I added, — ^not as resting on any one par- 
 ticular .statement of his, but as my own inference, 
 from all I learnt on the subject, then and after- 
 wards, — ^his liability for debts of Lyman «fc Ralston, 
 beyond the $30,000 above mentioned, estimated 
 by me at 50,000 
 
 151,000 
 
 Now what says Mr. Lowell ? 
 
 " He was indebted on his guardianship accounts about 
 $20,000, and had endorsed the paper of Lyman & Ralston 
 to the amount of $30,000, for stock purchased for the iron 
 foundery." [L. p. 77.] "He owed Mr. William Sturgis, for 
 Mr. Gushing, $21,000 ; he owed me, for the estate of Jona- 
 athan Amory, $30,000." [L. p. 87.] Thus the "Reply" 
 distinctly admits each item of my specification, except the 
 last. 
 
207 
 
 How is it with that ? 
 
 Mr. Lowell does not question its amount. I rested that 
 upon a letter of Mr. Kirk Boott, [B. App. p. 19.] in which he 
 said, " He [Mr. Ralston,] admits that the dehts of L. & R. 
 are $80,000 ; — and do you not think it prohable that they will 
 turn out more ?" I certainly did ; and so did Mr. Kirk Boott. 
 But I took the minimum for my statement, and interpreted 
 that to mean, not $80,000 hesides the $30,000, which Mr. J- 
 Wright Boott had specially endorsed, but $80,000 including 
 the endorsements ; and I set down the addition of debt, be- 
 yond the endorsements, at $50,000 only. This certainly 
 was not to be complained of. But Mr. Lowell's ground of 
 complaint is, that, for this sum, whether more or less, Mr. 
 Boott " was no more liable than Mr. Brooks, or myself," [L. 
 p. 90.] because, he says, on the alleged authority of Mr. 
 Ralston's recent statement to him, "Mr. Boott never was a 
 partner of that house, nor liable for their debts, except so far 
 as he endorsed them." [L. p. 89.] 
 
 The explanation given is, that Messrs. William Lyman and 
 Robert Ralston, Jr. , brothers-in-law of Mr. Boott, were com- 
 mission merchants, doing business, as partners, at Philadel- 
 phia and Boston; "in the former place under the style of 
 Ralston & Lyman, and in the latter under that of Lyman 
 & Ralston ;" and that the business of the Mill Dam Foundry 
 was a separate concern, for the casting of iron, in which, only, 
 Mr. Boott was jointly interested with them. [L. p. 76.] 
 
 On this state of facts, Mr. Lowell thinks it certain, and as- 
 serts with his usual positiveness, again and again, that there 
 was no liability of Mr. Boott for the debts of Lyman & Ral- 
 ston, or Ralston & Lyman, except so far as he became their 
 endorser ; [L. p. 76. 89., &c.] and he accordingly inveighs 
 against me, as a wanton calumniator of the memory of Mr. 
 Boott, for having imputed to him a pecuniary liability, which 
 Mr. Lowell says, did not belong to him. He thinks this a 
 criminal negligence, at least, — especially with the letters of 
 Mr. Kirk Boott in my hands, which, he says, so far from sup- 
 porting my "extravagant statements," on the contrary, "ex- 
 pressly contradict him [Brooks] on the point of Mr. Boott's 
 
208 
 
 liability for the |.50,000 of Lyman & Ralston's private 
 debts." [L. p. 93.] 
 
 Now I am by no means satisfied, on Mr. Lowell's dicta- 
 torial assertion, that I committed any error here. It contra- 
 dicts, too strongly, my whole current of impressions formed 
 at the time. I will not be quite so absolute as Mr. Lowell, 
 in affirming that Mr. Boott actually was liable for the whole 
 of these debts. I had no doubt of it when I made the fore- 
 going statement ; and 1 believe it now. But, when it is so 
 positively denied, and, as is said, on the authority of Mr. 
 Ralston, I agree that it is a point to pause at. 
 
 In these recent controversies, involving Mr. Boott's sanity, 
 and the validity of his will, of which Mrs. Ralston is the 
 residuary legatee, Mr. Ralston's pecuniary interest happens 
 to place him on that side of the cause, which Mr. Lowell has 
 undertaken to advocate. But that, I am sure would not 
 affect his statement of a fact within his personal knowledge. 
 The present, however, is not properly a question of fact ; 
 it is one of opinion, in a matter of law, depending on many 
 facts, concerning which we have not the benefit of Mr. Ral- 
 ston's statement. It would be foolish, in me, to pretend 
 certainty, in a mere legal conclusion, without more exact 
 knowledge, or present recollection, of all the facts than I 
 claim to possess at this moment. But that, of which I am 
 certain, is, that both Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, upon the 
 knowledge we had at the time, apprehended the full ex- 
 tent of liability above stated, and apprehended it so seriously, 
 that we both advised and acted upon that idea. And since 
 Mr. Lowell ventures to assert, that Mr. Kirk Boott's letters 
 do not countenance my " extravagant statements," I shall 
 presently give the reader an opportunity to judge of that for 
 himself. 
 
 As to the facts now stated by Mr. Lowell, it is true, that 
 Messrs. Lyman & Ralston had been in partnership, as com- 
 mission merchants, at Philadelphia and Boston, and I believe 
 under the different styles mentioned, for some considerable 
 time before the project of the Mill Dam Foundry was formed. 
 It is also true, that their commission house continued to exist 
 
209 
 
 after that scheme was entered into. It is further true, that 
 the business done at the foundry, for the joint account of 
 Mr. Boott, Mr. Lyman, and Mr. Ralston, was the casting 
 of iron ; but this involved, of course, purchases, sales, and 
 various contracts, made elsewhere, with the use of either 
 large capital, or large credit. All that business, of the joint 
 concern, not done at the foundry, was transacted, I believe 
 entirely, in the name of Lyman & Ralston at Boston, and of 
 Ralston & Lyman at Philadelphia. Mr. Boott's name did 
 not appear, I believe, in any of these contracts. 
 
 I think it probable, too, that Mr. Boott had no interest in 
 the mere commission business of Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, 
 if there was any, transacted for other parties. That, with 
 the difference of firms, may be what Mr. Ralston relies upon, 
 if he says Mr. Boott was not a partner in their house ; its 
 ostensible partners not considering him interested in the pe- 
 culiar profits and losses of their commission business. But 
 my belief, derived from the representations, at the time, of 
 both Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, is, that their capital and 
 means had, gradually, become so completely absorbed in the 
 business of the foundry and its incidents, that, at the time of 
 which I speak, their other business was, and long had been, 
 nearly nominal ; that their principal, if not their sole agency, 
 as commission merchants, was, then, in the business of the 
 Mill Dam Foundry, and in business closely connected with 
 it, in which Messrs. Boott, Lyman, and Ralston were all 
 jointly interested ; that the debts, growing out of that busi- 
 ness, though contracted in the name of Lyman &, Ralston, 
 or of Ralston & Lyman, were for the joint use and benefit of 
 themselves and Mr. Boott ; and that Mr. Boott had, conse- 
 quently, made himself personally liable for those debts, 
 whether he specially endorsed them or not. 
 
 One difficulty about a settlement among these parties, if I 
 remember rightly, was, that the affairs of the two firms, of 
 which Messrs. Lyman & Ralston were nominally the sole 
 members, and the affairs of the foundry, which embraced 
 both them and Mr. Boott, and which were transacted through 
 one or both of these firms, were so intermingled and compli- 
 
210 
 
 cated, that it seemed impossible, thoroughly, to extricate the 
 one from the other. Under the arrangements made among 
 the parties themselves, it may be perfectly true, that Mr. 
 Boott was not considered by his associates to be a partner in 
 all their dealings ; and in consequence of disproportionate 
 advances made by him on the joint account, it may be also 
 true, that they were bound to hold him harmless, to the ex- 
 tent of their own property, against debts contracted in their 
 own name, even when they grew, distinctly, out of operations 
 for the foundry. But, in such cases, creditors would not be 
 bound by the private agreements of the parties, nor by the 
 components of the particular firm, with which they, nomi- 
 nally, dealt, (since " Lyman & Ralston " was a mere house of 
 agency,) but would have a right to look to Mr. Boott, when 
 discovered, as a partner and principal, by the rules of law, 
 whether his associates considered him so or not ; and the ap- 
 prehension, at the time was, that, unless some arrangement 
 should be made to prevent the failure of Lyman & Ralston, 
 Mr. Boott would be charged by their creditors, not only for 
 his endorsements, which was certain, but also for their other 
 debts, as debts contracted for his use jointly with them, al- 
 though his name did not appear. 
 
 According to my recollection, the parties did not even 
 agree, among themselves, as to the extent to which Mr. Boott 
 ought, in justice to his partners, to contribute for the liqui- 
 dation of these debts. Indeed, I shall presently show evi- 
 dence of it. And although Mr. Kirk Boott and myself looked 
 upon them as debts, which Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston ought, 
 under the circumstances, to provide for, if they could, we 
 were far from thinking that their creditors would be likely 
 to take the same view, or to abstain, on that account, from 
 asserting their large claims on Mr. Boott. I am quite unable 
 to perceive any thing in Mr. Kirk Boott's letters of the time 
 which contradicts this idea. On the contrary, if they do not 
 any where distinctly assert it, they at least seem to me per- 
 fectly consistent with it, throughout. It is true, that he some- 
 times speaks of these debts, and even of the endorsed paper, 
 which Mr. Lowell admits was given for "stock purchased for 
 
211 
 
 the iron foundery ;" [L. p. 77.] as no debts of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott. But, in these cases, I understand him to be referring 
 only to the private arrangements of the partners, and to the 
 state of accounts among themselves, arising out of their un- 
 equal advances in the joint concern, and to particular schemes, 
 then in contemplation, for the raising of money to meet the 
 debts, and to the question, on which of them, as between 
 themselves, that burden ought to fall, and not with any ref- 
 erence to the rights of their creditors. 
 
 His first letter to me on the subject, dated September 26, 
 1830, shows the points, upon which he desired in the outset, 
 to be informed, as appears by the following extract : — 
 
 " It did not occur to me to inquire what are the relations of R. & L. 
 and J. W. B. with respect to the works on the Mill Dam. Are they 
 partners ? In whose name does the property stand ? Has any in- 
 cumbrance been made ? If not, are there any means of preventing 
 the property from heing attached f [B. App. p. 16.] 
 
 His next, after he had informed himself on some of these 
 points, begins, thus : — 
 
 Lowell, Sept. 29, 1830. 
 " Mr Dear Sik : 
 
 If such a statement as you have recommended can be made up, 
 which I fear J. W. will find almost impossible, it certainly would 
 greatly facilitate the settlement. The truth may be approximated, 
 if not correctly ascertained. The immediate difficulty appears to lay 
 with R. & L., and J. W. B.'s engagements on their account. For, as 
 they are all partners in as far as the M. D. F. is concerned, if 
 R. & L. are unable to meet their payments, or get their notes re- 
 newed, there is fear that the whole of this property may he taken hy 
 attachment." [B. App. p. 16, 17.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell himself does not question, but on the contrary, 
 with singular inconsistency, expressly admits, that such an 
 apprehension was entertained. " Both these liabilities," he 
 says, referring to the guardianship accounts and the endorse- 
 ments, "he could have met from his own resources; but 
 there was an apprehension that the Mill Dam property might 
 be attached for the private debts of Lyman & Ralston " 
 [L. p. 77.] 
 
 And here it may be material to consider in what manner. 
 
212 
 
 and upon what parties, it was supposed such an attachment 
 might operate. Now this, also, is correctly stated by Mr. 
 Lowell, so far as concerns the Mill Dam property, and so far 
 as he admits the indebtedness of Mr. Boott. He only does 
 not admit the extent of the mischief apprehended. His lan- 
 guage is,— 
 
 " Should this event [the attachment] ocour, he might not be able 
 to meet his engagements as endorser and guardian. His father's 
 estate was implicated in this issue to this extent, that his father was 
 his bondsman, as guardian, g,t the probate office." [L. p, 79.] 
 
 In other words, if the Mill Dam property were taken, for 
 what Mr. Lowell is pleased to call " the private debts of Ly- 
 man & Ralston," it was feared that Mr. Boott might be un- 
 able to pay, not only his endorsements for them, but his own 
 private debt to his wards, which Lyman Sf, Ralston had noth- 
 ing to do with, and that his father's estate might be compell- 
 ed to make good that deficiency, so that the loss would ulti- 
 mately fall on the parties interested in that estate. Upon the 
 same principle, if he were indebted, besides, to his father's 
 estate, so much more loss would be likely to fall on these 
 parties. 
 
 It may also be material to consider what the Mill Dam 
 property was, and how it was held. It was a large manufac- 
 turing establishment, consisting of land, water-power, expen- 
 sive buildings and water-wheels, and all the machinery used 
 in the processes carried on there, with the usual incidents of 
 such an establishment in full operation. The title of the 
 fixed property was vested in John Wright Boott and William 
 Lyman alone, as the records of the registry of deeds in Nor- 
 folk show. I have, besides, among other letters from Mr. 
 Ralston, one written while the negotiation of the mortgage, 
 formerly spoken of, was under consideration, in which he 
 complains of the omission of his name in the title deeds. 
 But it is needless to introduce it for this purpose, since Mr. 
 Lowell himself states that one half the property belonged to 
 Mr. Boott, [L. p. 90. J which is true so far as the legal title 
 was concerned. Yet Mr. Kirk Boott writes at the time— 
 " there is fear that the whole of this property may be taken 
 
213 
 
 by attachment ;" and Mr- Lowell, as above quoted, admits 
 that it was so apprehended. 
 
 Now will Mr. Lowell have the goodness to inform us, why 
 it was apprehended that Mr. J. Wright Boatt's half of this 
 property would be taken by attachment, if he were not liable 
 for the debts ? In regard to the real estate, the case is clear. 
 The half, though undivided, was his separate estate. How 
 was it to be attached for L3nman & Ralston's private debts ? — 
 that is, debts due from themselves alone, and not from Mr. 
 Boott ? So, in respect to the joint personal property, how 
 was Mr. Bootfs interest in that to be taken away frpm his 
 own creditors, and given to the separate creditors of Lyman 
 & Ralston ? Joint liability, involving Mr. Boott, was mani- 
 festly understood to be at the bottom of the whole appre- 
 hension. And how strange is it, that Mr. Lowell should be 
 so very sure, now, that there was no such liability, admitting, 
 at the same time, that so many intelligent persons (himself, I 
 doubt not, among them) were apprehensive of it, then, while 
 the facts were all fresh before them. 
 
 Perhaps he may say, the fear was, because of the endorse- 
 ments, and that Mr. Kirk Boott refers only to them. But 
 Mr. Eirk Boott does not place his apprehension on that 
 ground. He places it, expressly, on the ground of the part- 
 nership. " For," says he, "as they are all partners, in as far 
 as the M. D. F. [Mill Dam Foundry] is concerned, «/" R. & L. 
 [Ralston & Lyman] are unable to meet their payments, or to 
 get their notes renewed, there is fear," Sfc. It is manifest, 
 from other passages also, and indeed from the general tenor 
 of his letters, — which are plainly apprehensive of a great ruin, 
 not only to Lyman «fc Ralston, and to Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
 but to the general family interest in his brother's hands, and, 
 most especially, to his mother's trust fund,^ — that he was far 
 from considering that the extent of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 liability was to be measured by the comparatively small 
 amount of the special endorsements, or even by the value of 
 the Mill Dam property alone ; for if Mr. Boott's own property 
 there was in danger of attachment, so was all other property 
 held by him as his own. 
 
214 
 
 It is Mr. Lowell's cue to brighten, as much as 
 what he calls "this dark period of Mr. Boott's life," [L. p. 79.] 
 and, therefore, to pass lightly over the contemporaneous let- 
 ters of Mr. Kirk Boott. I certainly have no desire to darken 
 it further. I wish only to present the fact in its true aspect, 
 as it was then viewed; — and, perhaps, I did not myself, 
 formerly, make these letters of Mr. Kirk Boott so prominent 
 as I should, when I put them all into an appendix. But I 
 shall have occasion, presently, to introduce them into my 
 text, to illustrate further the apprehended extent of the dan- 
 ger to. the family property, and other points in the case. At 
 present, I will only make one or two short extracts. 
 
 In the letter last referred to, he says, " Since this unhappy 
 disclosure, I get neither sleep or rest." [B. App. p. 17.] And 
 again he writes, " I feel, that, if left alone by any chance 
 with my mother, that I shall hardly be able to contain my 
 feelings." [B. App. p. 19.] Now those, who had the pleas- 
 ure to know Mr. Kirk Boott of Lowell, do not need to be 
 informed, that he was not one of those over-sensitive per- 
 sons, who are liable to be thrown off their balance by a light 
 matter ; but a man of uncommon firmness and self-command. 
 Had Mr. J. Wright Boott's position been, what Mr. Lowell 
 represents it, that of a man worth from $70,000 to $80,000 
 in his own right, who had suffered himself to be drawn into 
 an engagement for other people, to the limited amount of 
 f 30,000 only, and that based upon good property and a pros- 
 perous business, (for such Mr. Lowell declares to have been 
 the understood condition of the Mill Dam Foundry) I beg to 
 ask, what there was, in that position of affairs, to alarm and 
 agitate, with days of anxiety and sleepless nights, the strong 
 nerves and energetic mind of Mr. Kirk Boott ? What was 
 there to excite, in a man of his temperament, intelligence, 
 age, and experience in business, such a tumult of feelings as 
 he could hardly restrain himself from pouring into a mother's 
 ear? It was not fear of unpleasant consequences to his sis- 
 ters, Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston, alone, (since they must, 
 necessarily, have participated in the misfortune of their hus- 
 bands,) but, in the event of the failure of Lyman & Ralston, 
 
215 
 
 the fear, which he states, is of the attachment of Mr. J. 
 Wright Bootfs property, with all its train of disastrous con- 
 sequences to him and his dependants. Why disastrous to 
 these dependants, if Mr. J. Wright Boott's own funds only, 
 and not those of his father's estate, were invested in the iron 
 foundry, and well invested too, as Mr. Lowell says, to the 
 extent of only $70,000, and if his whole outstanding liability, 
 on that account, was only $30,000 ? He might lose more 
 or less of his own investment, but that could hardly bring 
 ruin upon others, if Mr. Lowell's views are correct. 
 
 Yet, says Mr. Lowell, " no bad management of the foun- 
 dery business is any where hinted at," by Mr. Kirk Boott. 
 [L. p. 81.] It was a property, "which there is no pretence 
 was then considered a bad investment." [L. p. 90.] " The 
 foundery was supposed to be doing a good business; and 
 their accounts showed a profit, which had been applied to 
 the enlargement of the works. This concern owed no debts, 
 except one of $2500 to Col. Thorndike;" [L. p. 78.] for 
 even the $30,000 of endorsed paper he regards, here, as not 
 given for debts of that concern, though he had just said it 
 was given "for stock purchased for the iron foundery." [L. 
 p. 77.] 
 
 Now it is true, that Mr. Ralston believed, as is often the 
 case with persons of little experience in that kind of busi- 
 ness, that they had been making large profits. But, unfor- 
 tunately, these had always gone " to the enlargement of the 
 works." So they always continued to go, while any paper 
 show of profit lasted, and until the business of Messrs. 
 Lyman & Ralston was finally wound up, with a very heavy 
 debt beyond all the assets, as Mr. Lowell admits. [L. p. 202.] 
 This was some time after Mr. Boott's extrication from the 
 concern; and the fixed property, which, Mr. Lowell says, 
 had cost, in 1830, $114,000, [L. p. 90.] after remaining in 
 the hands of the Ralston family, for many years, almost, if 
 not quite, unproductive, was sold, at last, as we have seen, 
 in 1847, for $30,000. [Ante. p. 49.] 
 
 Although Mr. Ralston, therefore, at the time now spoken 
 of, may have entertained no doubt, that their business 
 
216 
 
 was really prosperous, and that they were only suffering 
 a temporary embarrassment, for the want of a little ready 
 money, Mr. Kirk Boott did not participate in those opin- 
 ions ; still less, in Mr. Lowell's present opinion, that the 
 concern owed only $2500! In his letter of October 10, 
 1830, he says, '< Ralston judges favourably of the business 
 on M. D., [Mill Dam] and I confess it looks less desperate on 
 paper than I expected. Still it is an up-hill business with 
 such a load of debt." [B. App. p. 18.] He had heard Mr. 
 Ralston's representations, he had examined his figures, and 
 he could only be brought to confess, that the business looked 
 " less desperate — on paper" — than he had expected. But he, 
 manifestly, felt no confidence in it. He trembled at the 
 " load of debt" He wished to see the accounts more thor- 
 oughly sifted. In a letter, soon after, he asks, "cannot an 
 assignment be made, and kept secret for the present, that 
 would bar attachment, at all events till we see the result of 
 the accounts of the M. D. F. 7" [Mill Dam Foundry.] [B. 
 App. p. 19.] 
 
 In another of still later date, as the contents show, he 
 writes : — 
 
 " I saw E. R. [Robert Ralston, Jr.] yesterday afternoon, and ex- 
 plained to him, very fully, that the plan he proposed for raising money 
 on the M. D. F. could not be assented to. That in any event, /. W. 
 B.fdt it to he his duty to assign over his property for the security of 
 all his creditors ; and that in so doing, it seemed impossible but that 
 the M. D. F. must be stopped. That however well his statements 
 looked on paper, it did appear to me there must be some fallacy in 
 them. And that as far as I could see, it was doubtful whether any 
 profit had yet been derived from carrying on their works." 
 
 " Some competent person should make out a statement of the affairs 
 of the M. D. F. If a profit could be shown, adequate to their sup- 
 port, and to the gradual liquidation of the debts, it might be a judicious 
 course ; but, if otherwise, I felt assured that J. W. B. would not con- 
 sent. To accomplish this, I am to send down Tufts, my clerk, and 
 upon the result we Could determine whether this course ought to be 
 adopted," [B. App. p. 21.] 
 
 Now Mr. Lowell does not overlook these passages. On 
 the contrary, he expressly refers to them, though he does 
 not quote their language. And how does he represent them ? 
 He says : — 
 
217 
 
 "No had management of the foundery business is any where hinted 
 at. Mr. Boott merely says (App. p. 21), that it was doubtful whether 
 any profit had yet been derived from carrying on those works ; and 
 again, that, if a profit could be shown equal to the support of the 
 works, and the gradual liquidation of the debts (of Lyman & Ralston,) 
 it might be a judicious course to go on ; and that he will send down 
 his clerk, Mr. Tufts, to examine the books with the view of determm- 
 ing this point. The result of Mr, Tufts's investigation is not given ; 
 hut the works were permitted to go on." [L. p. 81, 82.J 
 
 Of course, Mr. Lowell's reader, if he was not pains-taking 
 enough to turn to my appendix and examine the whole letter 
 for himself, was, by this, given to understand, and Mr. Lowell 
 meant he should understand, that the whole question under 
 consideration was, whether the works should be "permitted 
 to go on;" that Mr. Kirk Boott's opinion was, that it might 
 be judicious, if a certain amount of past profit could be 
 shown ; that the solution of this question was to depend on 
 the result of Mr. Tufts's investigation ; and that, since " the 
 works were permitted to go on," the result of that examination 
 must have been satisfactory to Mr. Kirk Bobtt, and must 
 have established the profitable character of this business, at 
 least in his opinion. 
 
 I will now present the residue of that letter, coming in be- 
 tween the two paragraphs already extracted, that the reader 
 may see for himself, whether he had been given to under- 
 stand rightly, by Mr. Lowell, concerning its contents, and 
 concerning the evidence of Mr. Kirk Boott's favourable 
 opinion. 
 
 " He [Mr. Robert Ralston, Jr.J was evidently seriously alarmed. 
 In the evening. Ash. [Mr. A. Ralston.] and he took me into the 
 library. Ash. remarked that all the debts coming due were to his 
 familf , and that they might be postponed ; and that, if it were possible 
 to divide the stock there into shares, he thought it would be possible 
 to induce some of his creditors to take shares for their debts ; and 
 that he would himself. That J. W. B. should have his proportion ; 
 and that, if this were accomplished, he might then hypothecate them 
 without stopping the works. This morning he proposed to me the 
 following : That Lyman should convey to R. R. [Mr. Robert Ral- 
 ston, Jr.] all his interest in the M. D. F., as well as any claim upon 
 J. "W. B. as executor, and his reversionary interest in the estate. 
 That the partnership should he dissolved. That the stock should be 
 made a joint concern. That ^, W. B. should take charge of the works, 
 
218 
 
 and R. R. manage the business in town. That $10,000 shoald be 
 withdrawn as soon as practicable, to pay cash advances, made by 
 Matt., [Mr. Matthew C. Ealston.] and that he would undertake that 
 the other debts should lay for years, and be reduced out of the profits 
 of the concern." [B. App. p. 29.] 
 
 The matter referred to, then, was not the general question 
 whether the works should go on or not ; but whether they 
 should go on upon a particular scheme, namely, the turning 
 of the, concern into a joint stock company, — the shares to be 
 divided between the Ralstons and J. Wright Boott — Mr. 
 Boott to take his full proportion of the stock, and to conduct 
 the works under his own charge, for account of that com- 
 pany. 
 
 Now the works were not permitted to go on according to 
 that scheme, but according to a modification of it, contain- 
 ing this essential change : The joint stock company was 
 formed ; but it consisted of the Ralstons and Mr. Lyman, in- 
 stead of the Ralstons and Mr. Boott. Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
 acting upon his own judgement, with the concurrent advice of 
 Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, and of Mr. Lowell, would have 
 nothing to do with it. The result of Mr. Tufts's investiga- 
 tion, if he made any, was, to satisfy Mr. Kirk Boott, — and if 
 not he was otherwise satisfied, — that there was not such, profit 
 in the business as would make it a judicious course for the 
 works to go on. Mr. Ralston still thought otherwise ; and 
 the consequence was, that Mr. J. Wright Boott, under the ad- 
 vice above mentioned, sold out to his partners, at great appar- 
 ent loss, all his interest in the concern, upon the basis of a 
 settlement, which Mr. Lowell himself effected, and gives 
 some account of. The loorks went on, it is true, — ^but upon 
 a new and different account, not concerning Mr. J. '\yright 
 Boott, nor his father's estate, for whom and which it was 
 preferred to meet the present loss, rather than to take the risk 
 of continuing a business so poorly thought of by Mr. Kirk 
 Boott, and which, as the event proved, tm-ned out most dis- 
 astrous. Yet, because the works were not physically stop- 
 ped, Mr. Lowell, knowing these facts, suggests to the reader, 
 that the going on, after what Mr. Kirk Boott had said, (as 
 Mr. Lowell represents it,) shows th.^ favourable opinion formed 
 by Mr. Kirk Boott of that excellent investment. 
 
219 
 
 This seems hardly so exact, or so ingenuous, as one might 
 expect from a gentleman, who assumes so high a tone, and 
 who sprinkles his pages, so plentifully, with charges upon 
 others of mistake and unfairness. 
 
 L 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MR. BOOTt's debts. the business or THE IRON FOUNDRY. MORE 
 
 OF MR. Lowell's mistakes. 
 
 For the main fact stated in the preceding chapter, the sale 
 of the concern to a joint stock company, Mr. Boott retiring, 
 I need only refer to Mr. Lowell himself. [L. p. 79.] In- 
 deed, he says, in reference to my former pamphlet, "but 
 he [Brooks] is evidently ignorant that, by the settlement of 
 1831, Mr. Boott parted with his whole right, title and in- 
 terest in the Mill Dam Foundery, and had no more to do 
 with its winding up, or the subsequent gain or loss, than Mr. 
 Brooks or I had." [L. p. 109.] So that, whether I were 
 ignorant of this fact, then, or not, we do not, now, disagree 
 about it. 
 
 I beg to say, however, in passing, that Mr. Lowell's infer- 
 ence of my ignorance of a fact, very well known to me at 
 the time, is founded only on the errors, which I have already 
 admitted, in my recollections, without sufficient papers to 
 guide me, of some of the details of those old and complicated 
 affairs, and more particularly, it would seem, on this single 
 sentence of mine : — " I presume, before the business was 
 wound up, his loss there, including interest, was not much 
 short of $100,000;"— on which Mr. Lowell modestly re- 
 marks, "I do not doubt such is Mr. Brooks's judgement ; and 
 his presumption is undeniable." [L. p. 109.] But, in this he 
 seems, himself, to have forgotten, that Mr. Boott's memoran- 
 
220 
 
 dum, showing an investment in the foundry, at that date, to 
 the amount of $70,000, was made in the summer of 1830 ; 
 that a large amount of interest had already accrued upon it, 
 (for the business was begun in 1826 ;) that the business went 
 on for the joint partnership account, and badly enough, till 
 September or October, 1831, [L. p. 108.] with much probable 
 further loss, besides accruing interest ; that about two years 
 more elapsed, before the engagements, made to Mr. Boott, 
 by his partners, in their settlement, were fully performed, as 
 appears by the date of the surrender by Mr. Lowell of the 
 last of the collateral securities, which he held for those en- 
 gagements ; and that my opinion, whether right or wrong, 
 of the extent of Mr. Boott's loss, including interest, was 
 founded, expressly, upon the winding up of the business, "so 
 far as Mr. Boott's concern in it extended," [B. p. 46.] and 
 not upon its final abandonment by Lyman & Ralston, as he 
 would have the reader suppose. I had forgotten only, or 
 rather did not turn my attention to, the immaterial fact of 
 the particular manner, in which Mr. Boott's concern in the 
 foundry terminated. 
 
 The truth is, I was well acquainted with the whole course 
 of the transactions at the time. The deeds and legal papers, 
 connected with it, were, generally, drawn by me. Among 
 other gratuitous services, I was instrumental in obtaining for 
 Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, in June, 1831, the act incorporating 
 " The proprietors of the Mill Dam Foundry," under which the 
 joint stock company was formed. I even allowed myself to 
 be named in the act as an associate, to facilitate them in ob- 
 taining it. I was much urged to take an interest under it, 
 and even to consent to stand as a nominal stockholder, if I 
 would not be a real one ; and, in that form, to lend, further, 
 my name and countenance to the scheme. But all this I 
 steadily declined, — though much disposed to oblige them,— 
 because I never felt the least confidence in the concern, nor, 
 particularly, in their valuation of the property ; which, after 
 they had bought out Mr. Boott, was turned in to the corpora- 
 tion at the nominal price of |120,000, paid, of course, with 
 stock issued to the associates, who were no other than Messrs. 
 
221 
 
 Lyman and Ralston themselves, and other members of the 
 Ralston family, creditors of the old concern, who took stock 
 in the new, either for payment or security. One other gen- 
 tleman, only, of this city, then a clerk of Lyman & Ralston, 
 was, in the outset, the nominal holder of a single share, lent 
 to him, as I understood, or taken upon a guarantee against 
 loss, to induce him to act as clerk of the corporation, and to 
 aid in keeping up its organization. Even the mortgage, to 
 one of the Ralston family, which I thought had been fore- 
 closed, I have since found, by the Registry of Deeds in Nor- 
 folk, I myself discharged as his attorney ; though the papers 
 having passed out of my hands, that fact, being one of no 
 great interest in itself, and wholly immaterial to the present 
 controversy, did not occur to me. I now find, that, of the 
 one hundred and twenty shares originally created in this joint 
 stock company, one hundred and two were issued to Messrs. 
 Lyman & Ralston, and the rest were distributed between Mr. 
 Robert Ralston the father, and Messrs. A. & G. Ralston, with 
 one to the clerk. Thirty-four of Lyman & Ralston's were 
 immediately transferred to Mr. Lowell, " for J. W. Boott," as 
 collateral security for their engagements to him in the settle- 
 ment ; and Mr. Lowell held a portion of them, on that ac- 
 count, till about two years after. Fifty more were transfer- 
 red to Matthew C. Ralston, the holder of the mortgage, which 
 was thereupon discharged. From him they soon passed to 
 Robert Ralston, the father, who thus became, virtually, as- 
 signee of the mortgage debt, and of its new security ; and by 
 other transfers, stock, to the amount of one hundred and 
 fourteen shares, became, ere long, collected in his hands, and 
 were held by his executors until the final sale of the prop- 
 erty, in 1847, — the other shares (including a new issue of 
 twenty,) being then held by other members of the Ralston 
 family ; and by the officers of the corporation here, who, it 
 seems from Mr. Nicolson's letter, [Ante. p. 49.] were official 
 holders, and not parties in interest. Such are the facts, as 
 they now appear, (except the last,) by the records of the cor- 
 poration, — leading to the substantial result, which I formerly 
 stated, namely, that the whole property became vested in 
 
222 
 
 the Ralstons, (though not by foreclosure of the mortgage,) 
 and that it eventually produced to them |30,000 only, which 
 was the principal of the mortgage debt. 
 
 Upon all the facts now known, my belief is, still, that the 
 whole concern, taken from beginning to end, with a mercan- 
 tile interest account, was greatly more than a total loss ; and 
 that Mr. Boott's share of that loss, up to the time when he 
 became fully extricated, by the complete fulfilment, in 1833, 
 of the terms of the settlement, made in 1831, was, with an 
 interest account, not at all short of |100,000, excepting so 
 far as a part of it may have been got back by his settlement 
 with Lyman & Ralston, in 1831, partly in the shape of rever- 
 sionary property, and partly in the shape of a discharge for 
 the debt he owed them as executor. The extent of this I 
 shall consider hereafter. 
 
 For what I say, above, respecting my own distrust of the 
 property at the time, and respecting my unwillingness to be 
 connected with it, I am able to refer to another letter of Mr, 
 Eirk Boott, not before printed ; and this is the more valuable, 
 because it serves to confirm, if confirmation were needful, 
 what I have said of his opinion ; for it seems he advised Mr. 
 Ralston, instead of going on with his joint stock company, to 
 make an absolute sale and quit the business. It would have 
 been fortunate, as Mr. Ralston would now admit, if that ad- 
 vice had been taken. The only further explanation, needful 
 to the understanding of the letter, is, that, being desirous to 
 turn oE, gently and without offence, the solicitations of ray 
 friends, I requested Mr. Kirk Boott to soften the matter for me, 
 and to put my refusal on the ground that the business was 
 out of my line, and that I was no fit judge of that kind of 
 property, with such other suggestions as he might think 
 proper. Of course, I did not wish to tell Mr. Ralston, in di- 
 rect terms, that I thought his foundry of little or no value, 
 and his business not worth pursuing, though it would seem, 
 that Mr. Kirk Boott did not stop much short of that, in ex- 
 pressing his own opinion, which he had, no doubt, a right to 
 express with great frankness, from the course of the conver- 
 sation, as well as because he was a very competent judge of 
 such property and business. This is the letter : — 
 
223 
 
 LETTEB FROM Me. KIEK BOOTT. 
 
 " Lowell, Sunday Morning. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 According to my promise, I delivered to Ealston the 
 papers you gave me, and explained very frankly to him the reasons 
 why you could not, and ought not, to become interested with him in 
 the Mill Dam property in the way he suggested. I explained to him 
 your desire to serve him, hut at the same time remarked, that your 
 taking the lead would not produce the effect he seemed to expect, 
 owing to the connexion subsisting between you ; but that if it should, 
 it was placing you in an awkward position, as sanctioning a valua- 
 tion of the property, of which you have formed no judgement, but 
 which, it would be inferred, you had carefully examined, and approved. 
 He took it in good part, but seemed unwilling to listen to any dispar- 
 aging views of the value of this property. 
 
 I advised Mm to endeavour to make an absolute sale, as I supposed 
 he could make an advantageous removal to Philadelphia. I am in- 
 teiTupted — but will explain more fully when I see you. I had no 
 opportunity to write, but sent a message, by Mr. Wells, which I sup- 
 pose you would understand. My wife intends going with Dr. Bige- 
 low, and will take Sarah. Love to Eliza. 
 
 Yours, in haste, 
 
 KIRK BOOTT." 
 
 Edward Brooks, Esq., Boston. 
 
 To return, then, to Mr. Lowell. He undertakes to say, that 
 the foundry, for which alone, he says, Mr. J. Wright Boott 
 was liable, stood quite free from debt, except a small sum of 
 |2500 due to Col. Thorndike ! Now, in addition to the evi- 
 dence of great indebtedness in the letters of Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 I may remark, that it would be a novelty under the sun, in 
 this country at least, if extensive iron works were conducted, 
 for a series of years, by persons of moderate capital, (two, at 
 least, of the three partners having, at that time, I may safely 
 say, no capital, unless borrowed, and I believe this will ap- 
 pear to have been equally true of the third,) and yet owe noth- 
 ing, except a mortgage debt of $2500 for the land, on which 
 they stood — for such was the character of the debt to Col. 
 Thorndike. Mr. Lowell may be right ; but the proceedings 
 of the joint stock company seem to speak a different language. 
 Por, it appears by the records of the corporation, that their 
 first act, after fixing their capital at $120,000, the (nominal 
 price, at which Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, after settling with 
 Mr. Boott, sold the property to the corporation,) was to ex- 
 
224 
 
 press the understood condition of that sale, and of the settle- 
 ment with Mr. Boott, by the following votes : — 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE RECORDS. 
 
 " Voted, that this corporation take the whole property, real and 
 personal, which has hitherto belonged to John W. Boott, Wilham Ly- 
 man, and Robert Ealston, jun., as conveyed by deed subscribed by 
 them, dated September, 1831, at a valuation of $120,000 — it being 
 understood, that said corporation shall pay all bills, debts, oe 
 NOTES, contracted, or given, bt said copartnership of said Boott, 
 Lyman, and Ralston, and shall fuljU, all theie contracts for 
 work or otherwise ; it being also understood, that the corporation is 
 to have the advantage of all bills, or debts, due to the said parties, 
 and contracts on hand." 
 
 " Voted, that this corporation will guarantee and save harmless 
 John W. Boott, William Lyman, and Eobert Ralston, jun., and their 
 executors and administrators, from all actions, suits, costs, and dam- 
 ages, on account of a note given by the said Boott & Lyman to Israel 
 Thorndike, for S2500, dated the 16th day of March, A.D. 1826, and 
 payable in seven years, with interest, and on account of ant and 
 ALL other debts contracted hy said Boott, I/yman, and Ralston, 
 
 ANT, or either op them, FOE THE USB OF THE COPAETNEKSHIP 
 
 HITHERTO EXISTIN& BETWEEN THEM, all wMch debts sholl be paid 
 by this corporation at maturity" 
 
 This it may be remarked, is, substantially, the declaration 
 of Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston themselves ; for they were the 
 only stockholders present at the meeting, besides the clerk. 
 They passed the votes. The debt to Mr. Thorndike was 
 particularized, because it was a mortgage debt, binding the 
 real estate specifically. But an indefinite quantity of " bills," 
 "debts," "notes," and "other contracts," are recognized as 
 binding, personally, the late "copartnership of said Boott, 
 Lyman, & Ralston," and requiring a guarantee from the cor- 
 poration, to Mr. Boott, no less than to Messrs. Lyman and 
 Ralston, notwithstanding the special security he had from 
 them, as Mr. Lowell informs us, against the endorsed paper. 
 [L. p. 79.] 
 
 This seems to be what Mr. Lowell calls " another contem- 
 poraneous exposition, to be offset against his reminiscences," 
 [L; p. 104.] or rather against his present statements, found- 
 ed, as he leaves the reader to infer, on the reminiscences of 
 Mr. Ralston. 
 
 But, there is one other authority upon this subject, which 
 
225 
 
 Mr. Lowell will hardly dispute, — ^that is, himself. For he 
 does not seem to have been always of opinion, that " this con- 
 cern owed no debts, except one of $2500 to Col. Thorndike;" 
 or that Mr. Boott was not, in fact and in law, liable for them. 
 Mr. Lowell takes no notice whatever of a letter of his own, of 
 a date so recent as Jan. 31, 1845, which I printed in my for- 
 mer pamphlet. [B. p. 130.] The question then under dis- 
 cussion was, whether Mr. Boott was justified, in using the 
 property of his father's estate in the business of this foundry. 
 Mr. Lowell undertook to say, that a letter of Mr. Eirk Boott 
 authorized the assertion, that I had, myself, formerly, consid- 
 ered him justified in doing so. I asked to see the letter, and 
 Mr. Lowell transmitted me a copy of that part of it, on which 
 he relied. It showed nothing like what he had pretended. 
 This the reader will see by looking at it, with my former re- 
 marks in that connexion. [B. p. 129, &c.] But what I now 
 call attention to is a single sentence from Mr. Lowell's own 
 letter to me, transmitting the extract from that of Mr. Kirk 
 Boott. It is this :— 
 
 EXTRACT FKOM Mk. LOWELL'S LETTEB. 
 
 " You will remember, that, bj a settlement afterwards made with 
 Lyman & Ralston, Mr. Boott was exonerated from all the debts 
 o/ THE Mill DamFocndebt; and ofcourse, the fund was not dimin- 
 ished, as Mr. K. Boott feared it might be." [B. p. 130.] 
 
 That is to say, Eiccording, to Mr. Lowell's past and present 
 assertions, taken together, Mr. Boott was exonerated from 
 debts he was never bound for, and exonerated from all the 
 debts of a concern, which owed no debts ! — unless, indeed, 
 we except one of only $2500 to Col. Thorndike, and that se- 
 cured by a mortgage of property, which cost $114,000 ! [L. 
 p. 90.] 
 
 These corporate records, and the deeds and letters I refer 
 to, are the only documents open to me bearing on this question. 
 If Mr. Lowell would have the kindness to exhibit those pa- 
 pers, which he says he has, relating to the final settlement 
 between Mr. Boott and his copartners, they would, undoubt- 
 edly, throw further light upon it. That he has been careful 
 not to do. But until he does, or until something more than 
 
 29 
 
226 
 
 his own inferences, -without the documentary proof, shall be 
 produced, he must excuse me for not readily abandoning, at his 
 suggestion, my impressions, formed from facts known to me 
 at the time, that the copartnership of Boott, Lyman, and Ral- 
 ston, under whatever name its business had been transacted, 
 was in a state of very heavy indebtedness ; that its debts con- 
 stituted a part of Mr. Boott's personal liabilities ; and that 
 great apprehensions were entertained, lest not only the prop- 
 erty of the foundry, but other property in his hands, stand- 
 ing as his own, and unprotected by the name of executor, or 
 trustee, for the trusts, to which it justly belonged, might be 
 attached, and taken to satisfy those debts. The amount of 
 them, for which he was so liable, I believe to have been about 
 f 50,000, besides the $30,000 of paper specially endorsed. 
 
 While on this subject of the Mill Dam Foundry, let me 
 dispose of one or two other remarks of Mr. Lowell above 
 cited. He says there was no bad management of its business 
 — or rather, he says in terms, that Mr. Kirk Boott's letters con- 
 tain no hint of it, and he would have it thence understood, 
 that there was none. One would think there was hint enough 
 of bad management, by somebody, in the disastrous state of 
 affairs, which Mr. Kirk Boott's letters so plainly indicate. 
 One species of it, however, is particularly apparent, — the same, 
 which runs through every thing, with which Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott was connected, — want of regular systematic accounts, 
 and of strict attention to the condition of financial affairs. 
 
 The disclosure, made in 1830, was as great a surprise to 
 Mr. Kirk Boott, (his letters show that,) as to me. The sud- 
 denness of it would seem to show, that the embarrassment, 
 which led to the disclosure, must have been as surprising to 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott as to either of us. The first advice, there- 
 upon given to him by his brother, was, " to bend all his atten- 
 tion to making up an accurate account of the works on the 
 Mill Dam." This Mr. Kirk Boott mentions in his letter to 
 me, of Sept. 26, 1830. [B. App. p. 16.] My answer, it seems, 
 suggested the preparation of some more comprehensive state- 
 ment, — probably of all his accounts with the foundry, with 
 his wards, and with his father's estate. But Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 
227 
 
 aware, to some extent at least, of his brother's failings as an 
 accountant, replies, on the 29th of September, "if such a 
 statement as you have recommended can be made up, which 
 I fear J. W. will find almost impossible, it certainly would 
 greatly facilitate the settlement. The truth may he approxi- 
 mated, if not correctly ascertained." But, no statement of 
 any kind could ever be got from Mr. J. Wright Boott, and no 
 fitting one, even of the affairs of the foundry, from either of 
 the partners. A month later it is still wanting ; for Mr. Kirk 
 Boott then asks, can not an assignment be made and kept 
 secret, that would bar attachment, at all events, till we see the 
 results of the accounts of the M. D. F. ?" [B. App. p. 19.] 
 It is not till months after that, that certain calculations on pa- 
 per appear to have been shown by Mr. Ralston. But they 
 were not accurate accounts, nor such calculations as Mr. Kirk 
 Boott was able to place confidence in ; — for his observation 
 was, " that however well his statements looked on paper, it 
 did appear to me, that there must be some fallacy in them ; 
 and that, as far as I could see, it was doubtful, whether any 
 profit had yet been derived from carrying on the works." 
 [B. App. p. 31.] 
 
 This was at a time, when, as the letter shows, the scheme 
 of a joint stock company was talked of ; which must have 
 been shortly before, or shortly after, the obtaining of the act 
 of incorporation with that view. The act was passed June 
 22, 1831. This fixes, with sufficient nearness, the date of Mr. 
 Kirk Boott's letter. He had been waiting, then, some eight 
 or nine months, at least, for that " accurate account of the 
 works on the Mill Dam," to the making of which he recom- 
 mended his brother, at the outset, "to bend all his attention." 
 He had got nothing, but the imperfect and superficial figures 
 of Mr. Ralston. What is the consequence ? In answer to 
 the suggestion of a joint stock company, in which his brother 
 is to be concerned, he says, " in the mean time some compe- 
 tent person should make out a statement of the affairs of the 
 M. D. F." " To accomplish this I am to send down Tufts, 
 my clerk, and upon the result, we could determine, whether 
 this comse might be adopted." And what was the conse- 
 
228 
 
 quence of that ? Since Mr. Kirk Boott usually did what he 
 undertook, it may be fairly presumed, in the absence of any 
 evidence to the contrary, that he did send down his clerk. 
 The consequence was, that Mr. J. Wright Boott sold clear 
 out of the concern, upon the best terms he could, and as soon 
 as terms could be agreed on. 
 
 So much for the evidence of good management in Mr. 
 Kirk Boott's letters ! 
 
 Mr. Lowell, after thus repudiating the idea of any misman- 
 agement of the foundry, is obliged, in another part of his ar- 
 gument, to state a case, which looks very like it, viz. the final 
 winding up, by his late copartners, after Mr. Boott had quitted 
 the concern, " with outstanding debts of the firm, amounting, 
 after deducting all assets, to |111,188 22." [L. p. 202.] 
 But, perceiving how that might bear, his zeal to carry Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott through every thing, leads him to throw the 
 whole blame of this on Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, by a note 
 in this form : — 
 
 " It is also notorious, that it was from his connexion with this firm, 
 in the business of the Mill Dam Foundery, axii not from any misman- 
 agement of his own, that Mr. Boott suffered the loss of a large part 
 of his private fortune." [L. p. 202.] 
 
 Indeed, by implication, he seems to exonerate Mr. Ralston, 
 also, from any share of the mismanagement, and to throw the 
 whole blame on Mr. Lyman, " after that gentleman's lips are 
 sealed by death." [L. p. 89.] For he not only shows, in 
 stating the results of the partnership accounts, "a total of 
 
 166.000 that Mr. Ralston had lost by Mr. Lyman," [L. p. 
 
 202.1 but he, elsewhere, is careful to inform us, that " Mr. 
 Ralston was a thorough man of business ; but Mr. Lyman, 
 on whom devolved the management in Boston, though an 
 amiable and gentlemanly man, was without mercantile expe- 
 rience, and inadequate to so heavy a responsibility." [L. p. 76.] 
 
 Now, I am no representative of Mr. Lyman, and Mr. Ral- 
 ston is not only a friend, and a brother-in-law, but a gentle- 
 man, for whom, on many accounts, I feel the highest esteem. 
 So I did for Mr. Lyman, in his life-time, who stood to me in 
 
229 
 
 the same relations. I have no desire, therefore, to institute, 
 unnecessarily, a comparison between them in their business 
 capacities, nor am I under any necessity to join such an issue 
 in this case, though Mr. Lowell offers it. My relation to Mr; 
 Boott would have enjoined equal caution in respect to him, 
 were it not that I am, unfortunately, compelled to speak of 
 his conduct and habits, as a man of business, by the ques- 
 tions, which are forced upon me by Mr. Lowell. Mr. Lowell 
 thinks this unjustifiable in the extreme, and emphatically 
 declares, " that few things are more odious, in the view of 
 mankind in general, or more repugnant to their instinctive 
 sense of propriety, than an attack on the memory of the 
 dead." [L. p. 1.] So he begins his book. Yet, we see, so 
 " signally treacherous " is his memory, that before he gets to 
 the end of it, he does not hesitate, himself, when his line of 
 argument requires it, to commit the same sort of outrage, as 
 he affects to consider it, upon Mr. Lyman. I charge Mr. 
 Boott, who is dead, with incompetency and mismanagement. 
 According to Mr. Lowell, " Few things are more odious in 
 the view of mankind." Mr. Lowell charges Mr. Lyman, 
 who is dead, with incompetency and mismanagement. But 
 who, of mankind, will suspect, that there is any thing odious 
 in that ? 
 
 Now it is but just, as Mr. Lowell must admit, that Mr. Ly- 
 man should be heard on this point ; and if I am called upon 
 to state, I must say, that both of Mr. Boott 's partners, but more 
 particularly Mr. Lyman, complained to me grievously, at the 
 time, of his management at the works, which, during the co- 
 partnership, were under his particular charge and direction. 
 Mr. Ralston, being in Philadelphia, could not personally over- 
 see them. Mr. Lyman's principal charge was at the counting 
 room of Lyman & Ralston, in Milk-street, Boston. Mr. 
 Boott's place was at the Mill Dam. He oversaw and directed 
 the building of the works, and all the operations, processes, 
 and expenditures of the mill. His course of proceeding 
 passed under the constant oberservation of Mr. Lyman who 
 resided in Boston. The complaint of this gentleman used to 
 be, that Mr. Boott insisted on a much larger and more costly 
 
230 
 
 and more hazardous scale of operation, than he (Mr. Lyman) 
 had any idea of, when he embarked in the business. He 
 ■wished and expected to have it confined, mainly, to a small 
 manufacture of grates, for the bmning of anthracite coal, 
 which he desired to introduce into this market from Philadel- 
 phia. But he was constantly overruled by Mr. Boott, who, 
 according to his habit, entertained more expansive views; 
 and, since he furnished the capital, Mr. Lyman felt obliged to 
 submit. 
 
 Mr. Boott was not even content to confine himself to the 
 business of casting iron on a large scale, but projected and 
 chose to attempt, in combination with it, against Mr. Lyman's 
 judgement and remonstrances, and I believe against Mr. Ral- 
 ston's also, quite a distinct branch of iron working, which 
 proved unsuccessful. If I may be allowed to indiUge in a 
 further " reminiscence," I may add, that. Upon one occasion, 
 when I visited the foundry in company with Mr. Lyman, he 
 pointed, in illustration of his remarks, to a certain part of the 
 works, and said, " there lies $30,000 !" I saw nothing but a 
 quantity of bricks and mortar, forming, to all appearance, an 
 ordinary furnace, of moderate dimensions. The explanation 
 was, that it was built, by Mr. Boott, for the purpose of testing 
 some fancied improvement in the making of steel; — that 
 $30,000 (a sum which seems almost incredible, but which I 
 am confident was the sum named by Mr. Lyman,) had been 
 spent in a system of experiments for that end, which entirely 
 failed ; — and that this furnace was all there was to show 
 for the money ! 
 
 These are facts, which, though Mr. Lyman be dead, and 
 though Mr. Ralston may prefer not to be a witness on the 
 subject, are, no doubt, capable of proof by other persons, if it 
 were worth while to hunt up evidence on so collateral a mat- 
 ter. I know nothing of the facts myself. I know only what 
 Mr. Lyman told me. I have letters, however, of Mr. Ralston, 
 not on that particular subject, but indicating his dissatisfax;- 
 tion with Mr. Boott in several respects. Without undertaking, 
 therefore, to settle the question, to which of the three the 
 ruin was most attributable, I think I may safely say, that it 
 
231 
 
 is very unjust to thro-w the whole blame on Mr. Lyman, 
 even if it were not that Mr. Lowell thinks nothing can justify 
 such aspersions on the dead. My belief is, that the " load 
 of debt" crept up, mainly, from injudicious management and 
 unprofitable expenditure, at the works, and by the particular 
 orders of Mr. Boott. 
 
 Let me now point out one more error, as I take it to be, of 
 Mr. Lowell. He says Mr. Boott was the owner of one half of 
 the foundry ; [L. p. 90.] and I have admitted that the legal 
 title of the real estate so stood. Lyman & Ralston, jointly, 
 he says, o"wned the other half, or, in his own language, " were 
 to be interested to the extent of one half in the new enter- 
 prise." [L. p. 76.] Now so far as the legal title was concerned, 
 the other half stood in the name of Mr. Lyman alone ; and 
 Mr. Ralston complained of Mr. Boott, who directed the con- 
 veyance, for having left him out. But the mere question of 
 legal title to the land, settles nothing as to the relative extent 
 of the partnership interest by private agreement ; and that I 
 take to have been one third each. I state this on the author- 
 ity of Mr. Ralston, not as a " reminiscence," but as he stated 
 it at the time. It appears by the following letter, which 
 bears also somewhat on other points above alluded to, viz. 
 his dissatisfaction with Mr. Boott, after the difficulties began, 
 and the disagreement of the partners as to the amount, which 
 Mr. Boott ought, equitably, to contribute to the liquidation of 
 the debts. That is, it will be seen, that Mr. Ralston claims 
 in this letter, that Mr. Boott was mistaken in supposing, that 
 he had furUished so great a proportion of the funds, compared 
 with Mr. Ralston, as he had insisted that he had ; and, if so, 
 he had of course the more to furnish to his partners towards 
 payment of the debts. Mr. Ralston, also, claims to have been 
 interested one third in the joint establishment, and on that 
 ground insists on being admitted, equally with Mr. Boott and 
 Mr. Lyman, into the legal title. It also seems, that Mr. Boott 
 had, at one time, refused to admit that claim, on the ground 
 of his greater advances ; that he had afterwards intimated 
 "though indistinctly," a disposition to yield it ; and that the 
 claim is urged by Mr. Ralston as an act of " simple justice " 
 
232 
 
 with no doubt, on his part, that it will be agreed to by Mr. 
 Lyman, but with some diffidence of Mr. Boott's final assent. 
 
 I print the letter entire, since I see nothing in it improper 
 to be published, or which Mr. Ralston can reasonably object 
 to my using, for the correction of misstatements, which might, 
 otherwise, seem, after Mr. Lowell's reference to him, to rest 
 on his authority. It is simply "a contemporaneous exposi- 
 tion" of certain facts ia the case. The Italics correspond 
 with the underscoring of the original. 
 
 LETTEE FEOM Mk. EALSTON. 
 
 « Philadelphia, Nov. 12, 1830. 
 
 Mx Deab Sik, 
 
 I arrived here yesterday, after having had rather 
 an agreeable journey, although it rained nearly all the way. Colonel 
 Baldwin was my companion as far as New York, and from his friend- 
 ly conduct, I flatter myself that he may become a very good customer. 
 
 As I anticipated, before sending on the mortgage, I found my friends 
 here exceedingly astonished that my name does not appear in the 
 title papers of the M. D. F. ; and as they think so much of it, it occur- 
 red to me, that, perhaps, from what J. W. B. said to you, and from 
 what I gathered from him, though indistinctly, that he may be of dif- 
 ferent mind from what he was before he became convinced, as I think 
 he now must be, that he has not furnished so great a proportion of the 
 funds, and that he will now consent to do me the simple justice of 
 placing me where I should have been from the beginning. Will you, 
 therefore, if you approve of it, call upon him, and see if he will now 
 sign the deed, which you had the kindness to make out ? If he does, 
 to get L.'s signature, also, to it. As we are all liable to accidents, and 
 as any thing which might happen to either J. W. B. or W. L. would 
 place me in an exceedingly awkward predicament, my friends have 
 thought that I ought not even to delay the thing until my return. My 
 father thought that I ought to consult Mr. Chauncey on the subject. 
 But, upon informing him of the exceedingly respectable opinions had 
 from counsel in Boston, he waives his opinion. It has been suggest- 
 ed, that if any thing should occur, which could prevent J. "W. B. and 
 W. L. from placing my name in the papers, as interested one third, it 
 would leave a stigma upon their names, that they should have made 
 so important an omission, whilst I was absent, and of course unable 
 to attend to my own interests, and those who have placed confidence 
 in me. I do not think, however, that many arguments, if any, will be 
 necessary to bring the thing about, as I am satisfied, and so are my 
 friends, that the omission was accidental, and that J. W. B., upon fur- 
 ther reflection, must be convinced of the propriety of doing what I 
 have asked. 
 
 The paper, which was to have been signed, is in the portfolio, which 
 I used at Boston, together with the Thomdike deed. By describing 
 
233 
 
 them to Anne, she will be able to give them to you. I hope that you 
 will excuse this additional trouble, which nothing but the importance 
 of the case could induce me to ask of yon. W. L. will sign the paper 
 without a moment's hesitation, and I flatter myself that J. "W. B. wiU 
 also. 
 
 With love to Eliza, I am, in much haste, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 EOBT. EALSTON, Jr." 
 Edwakd Brooks, Esq., Boston. 
 
 And now, having pointed out several apparent mistakes of 
 Mr. Lowell, in this part of the case, I should only adopt his 
 pretensionary style, if I were to say, " By this time I think 
 it must be pretty evident, that " Mr. Lowell " has undertaken 
 to enlighten the public about transactions of which he never 
 knew any thing, or which he has completely forgotten," [L. 
 p. 109.] unless he prefers to claim the alternative of perfect 
 knowledge, accurate recollection, and wilful misrepresenta- 
 tion. Instead of this, I yield to the possibility, that he may 
 have better evidence, among the papers in his possession, to 
 bear out his statements, than I have yet seen. But if so, let 
 him produce it, and we shall soon see where the truth lies. 
 Otherwise, I must be permitted to adhere to my former and 
 present opinions. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MR. BOOTt's debts. HIS GUARDIANSHIP ACCOUNTS. 
 
 I trust I have now shown, that Mr. Lowell has not suc- 
 ceeded in maintaining his assertion, that there were no debts 
 contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston, for which Mr. 
 Boott was responsible, except such as he had specially en- 
 dorsed ; and that I am not chargeable with mistake in the 
 amount, for which he was, at the time, supposed to be respon- 
 
234 
 
 sible ; nor, so far as appears by any evidence yet produced, 
 in the amount, for which he actually was responsible. 
 
 There is one other item, however, in my foregoing state- 
 ment of liabilities, concerning the extent of which I admit a 
 mistake, since discovered, though Mr. Lowell does not correct 
 it. Can it be that he was mistaken too ? Or does he, after 
 correcting so many of my supposed mis-reminiscences, omit 
 to point out this, only because it happens to make against 
 his side of the argument ? 
 
 Mr. Boott, at the time of handing me the memorandum of 
 1830, loosely estimated his debt, to his wards of the F. Boott 
 family, at about the round sum of $20,000. I, accordingly, 
 took it to be so, in my former pamphlet, without further 
 examination ; and Mr. Lowell is careful to confirm my state- 
 ment. [L. p. 77.] But his unlucky attack upon me, for a 
 supposed mis-recollection, to the extent of $7500, in the dif- 
 ference between simple and compound interest, as ascertained, 
 some years after, in the settlement of those accounts, led me 
 to examine one of them critically ; and I was then surprised 
 to find, that the amount of uninvested cash, in Mr. Boott's 
 hands, on that single account, without interest, was, at the 
 date of his memorandum, about f 9000 ; and that simple 
 interest would add about f 6000 ; and that compound interest, 
 which was, afterwards, Mr. Boott's idea of the principle to 
 settle upon, would, in 1830, have brought the whole debt, on 
 that single account, up to about f 17,000. This led me to 
 look at the three other accoimts, two of which, I found, did 
 not differ, materially, in this respect, from that, which I had 
 examined. On the fourth, there had been a partial settlement, 
 on occasion of the ward's marriage in 1826. Being clear in 
 my recollection of Mr. Boott's representation, yet wondering 
 at the strangeness of the fact, that he should have made so 
 great an under-estimate of his indebtedness to his wards, I 
 placed the four accounts in the hands of an experienced 
 accountant, for examination, with instructions to ascertain, 
 from their statements, the actual condition of the guardian's 
 cash balance, with and without simple interest, from year to 
 year. The result, at the period now spoken of, appears by 
 the following letter : — 
 
235 
 
 LETTER FROM Mr. JOHN S. TYLER. 
 
 ''Boston, January 18, 1849. 
 Edwakd Beooks, Esq. 
 Sir, 
 
 It is some months since I ascertained, at 
 your request, the difference between simple and compound interest, 
 on the probate account of ' John W. Boott, surviving guardian of 
 Frances Boott.' You afterwards requested me to take the same ac- 
 count, and three other probate accounts, by the same party, as surviv- 
 ing guardian of ' Mary Boott, now Mary Goodrich,' of ' Harriet 
 Boott, now Harriet Loring,' and of ' Francis Boott,' all running from 
 Sept. 1816, to Jan. 1835, and to state from them the position of the 
 guardian's cash account, with each of his wards, from year to year, and 
 the amount due to or from him, in each year, for the cash balance, 
 with the simple interest. 
 
 Having done this, as soon as my other engagements would permit, 
 I now transmit the several cash accounts, showing the balances from 
 year to year, both with and without interest. I send also a condensed 
 abstract, which shows, in a tabular form, the results of all the four ac- 
 counts. That is, it shews the amount due, in each year, to or from 
 the guardian, on each account, for principal, for interest, for principal 
 and interest, added, and also the aggregate result of the four accounts 
 for each year. 
 
 Thus, for the years 1830 and 1831, which you called my attention 
 to more particularly, the statement of the table is as follows : 
 
 Dates. 
 1830. 
 
 Sept. 30, 
 (( 
 
 Names of 
 Wards. 
 
 Frances, 
 Mary, 
 Francis, 
 Harriet, 
 
 , Frances, 
 Mary, 
 Francis, 
 Harriet, 
 
 Cash 
 advanced. 
 
 598 78 
 598 78 
 
 Cash 
 in hand. 
 
 $9,492 83 
 
 9,429 53 
 8,968 28 
 
 Interest 
 at 6 per cent. Debt. 
 
 5,614 00 15,106 13 
 2,907 05 2,308 27 
 5,763 54 15,193 07 
 5,402 94 14,371 22 
 
 Total. 
 
 
 27,890 64 
 598 78 
 
 19,687 53 46,979 39 
 
 Actual Debt, 
 
 6,156 91 15,205 58 
 2,871 13 2,272 35 
 6,285 96 14,992 90 
 5,894 08 14,079 68 
 
 
 
 27,291 86 
 19,687 53 
 
 46,979 39 
 
 46,979 39 
 
 1831. 
 
 Sept. 30 
 ft 
 
 $9,048 67 
 
 8,706 94 
 8,185 60 
 
 
 
 25,941 21 
 598 78 
 
 21,208 08 46,550 51 
 Actual Debt, 
 
 
 
 25,342 43 
 21,208 08 
 
 
 
 46,550 51 
 
 46,550 51 
 
236 
 
 , The column headed ' Gash in hand,' is intended to represent the 
 principal sum due, after it has begun to draw interest. Thus, for the 
 year 1830, against the name of ' Frances,' the sum of $9,492 83 is 
 the uninvested balance of all the guardian's actual cash receipts and 
 payments, in previous years, for the account of that ward, down to the 
 end of the last preceding year, i. e. Sept. 30, 1829, without interest. 
 The balance is carried forward to 1830, as a debt drawing interest. 
 
 The column headed ^Interest,' is the aggregate of the simple mter- 
 est on that balance for one year ending Sept. 30, 1830, added to the 
 simple interest of like balances in the preceding years, less simple in- 
 terest on the advances of former years, where they occur. If, for in- 
 stance, the day selected for stating the account of the year, i. e. Sept. 
 30, happens to show a larger sum paid out, at that moment, than the 
 aggregate receipts of the year, added to the sum on hand at its com- 
 mencement, this is treated as a debt due to the guardian, on which in- 
 terest is to run. This balance, in his favour, is carried forward to the 
 next year, and one year's interest is then allowed him upon it ; — so 
 that the column of interest shows the result, in any particular year, of 
 the interest on the cash balances of all preceding years, added, or sub- 
 tracted, as the case may require. This is as favourable a mode to 
 the guardian, of computing an interest account against him, as could 
 be adopted. 
 
 The column headed 'Debt,' shows the state of the guardian's ac- 
 count with each ward, from year to year, for principal and interest 
 combined. 
 
 One other point in the table requires explanation. What I set 
 down, in 1830, under the head ^Gash advanced,' on the account of the 
 ward ' Mary,' might well be regarded, since the principal of the debt 
 to her has disappeared, as so much paid, in partial extinguishment of 
 the larger balance of interest, than really due to her, though not as- 
 certained to be so until the final adjustment of the interest account in 
 1835. But, by treating it as an advance of principal, instead of part 
 payment in reduction of interest, I adopt the most favourable method 
 for the guardian, of computing interest against him down to the end of 
 the account, because the advance carries interest, while, to avoid com- 
 pounding, no interest is permitted to run on the balance of interest 
 already accrued, and which, at this time, constitutes the whole debt. 
 Thus, by comparing her account in 1830 and 1831, it will he seen, 
 that, without any new payment by the guardian, the debt of 1830 is 
 reduced in 1831 by the sum of 835 92, that being one year's interest 
 on $598 78, the nominal advance of 1830. I adopt this principle, 
 highly favourable to the guardian, under your general instructions to 
 err, if at all, on the side most favourable to him. And I find, besides, 
 that the result of the computations, on this method, corresponds, more 
 nearly than the result by any other method I have tried, with the 
 sum actually charged in the probate account, for the balance of inter- 
 est as ascertained and settled in 1835. 
 
 The means, by which I get the data to compute interest upon, were 
 explained in my former letter. The same data, of course, enabled me 
 to ascertain the balance of principal on hand and uninvested, in each 
 particular year. 
 
237 
 
 [Here follow detaUs of explanation, at some length, which are omitted, as not 
 important to the reader without the accounts.] 
 
 The four accounts, as now stated, present the following general 
 view of tte course of the business : — 
 
 At the end of the year 1817, the guardian had received, on the four 
 accounts, about »1850 more than he had paid. That balance is car- 
 ried forward, and makes a debt in 1818, for principal and one year's 
 interest, of near $2000, The next year he slightly over-invested, and 
 thereby became in advance $66 76. That balance is carried forward 
 in the same manner, and interest upon it is credited to him. In 1819, 
 he received enough to pay off that balance, and leave him in debt 
 about $1600. In 1820, he again over-invested, and with the interest 
 upon his advances, the aggregate of the four accounts, in 182 1 , stood 
 in his favour about $4600. But in that year, besides other receipts, 
 he sold between 11,000 and 12,000 dollars worth of U. S. 6 per cent, 
 stocks on each account, and consequently, in 1822, had a balance of 
 cash in hand, after paying off his advances, amounting in the four ac- 
 counts to over $45,000, and with one year's interest to near $48,000. 
 The account, both of principal and interest, was increased in the fol- 
 lowing year, and the aggregate amounted to nearly $52,000. It had 
 risen in 1826, to near $58,000. The partial settlement then made, 
 with the ward, who was married in that year, paid off about one fourth 
 of the principal, and something towards interest, so that the aggregate 
 of debt in 1827, stood reduced to about $46,000. It remained about 
 the same, with small intermediate fluctuations, until the marriage of 
 the second ward, in 1831. The payment then made, reduced it, in 
 1882, below $39,000, and, after that, it continued to be gradually re- 
 duced, from year to year, until its final extinction, in Jan. 1835, at 
 the settlement of the probate accounts. 
 
 In addition to the fact that the interest is, throughout, mere simple 
 interest, computed on the principle most favourable to the guardian, and 
 very much more favourable than the usual mode of computing simple 
 interest on a merchant's account, I may state, that, if the interest 
 were compounded from year to year, on mercantile principles, the 
 result, upon the four accounts, would be an increase of indebtedness, 
 in 1835, by more than $12,000. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obt. servt., 
 
 JOHN S. TYLER." 
 
 It thus appears, upon evidence, wMch cannot be disputed, 
 namely, the formal accounts made up by Mr. Boott in 1834-5, 
 Mr. Lowell assisting, and I also being consulted respecting 
 interest, — ^presented and sworn to by the guardian, — settled 
 with the parties adversely interested, — allowed and recorded 
 in the probate court, where any reader may see them who 
 pleases, — ^that, in 1830, when Mr. Boott supposed himself 
 indebted on those accounts only about $20,000, (as I state 
 
238 
 
 from my recollection, and Mr. Lo-well confirms from his,) [L 
 p. 77.] he was, in fact, indebted, for moneys in his hands, 
 and simple interest upon them, upwards of |46,000. 
 
 Here, it may be noted, by the way, is another fact, serving 
 to prove, how loose and inaccurate Mr. Boott was, in his 
 accounts and habits of business. For I have no belief that 
 he had any intention to under-state, to Mr. Kirk Boott and 
 myself, his actual liabilities, so far as he was willing to over- 
 come his habitual reserve by stating them at all. Interest, 
 not then calculated, he, probably, did not take into considera- 
 tion. But even upon the principal of the debt, he was out of 
 his reckoning by about $7000 ; which could hardly have 
 happened, if he had been in the habit of keeping accurate 
 accounts, with regular entries well posted up. 
 
 We are told, indeed, that while Mr. Lowell was a clerk in 
 the house of Kirk Boott &, Sons, Mr. J. Wright Boott's ac- 
 counts, with these wards, were annually computed and settled ; 
 and that Mr. Lowell still possesses copies of them, in Mr. 
 Boott's hand-writing. [L. p. 98.] None are produced, so that 
 we may see what sort of accounts they were ; and what is 
 meant, by saying they were settled, I do not understand. 
 They certainly were not settled in the probate court; its 
 records show that ; and since Mr. Boott, after his father's 
 death, was the sole guardian of these minors, who was there, 
 out of court, but himself, with whom they could have been 
 settled ? 
 
 Besides, the account in question began September 30, 
 1816 ; and Mr. Lowell left the house of Kirk Boott & Sons, 
 in March, 1819 ; [L. p. 33.] so that he cannot have known 
 the fact, of which he speaks, to have happened more than 
 twice, at most, during his clerkship. And yet, from the 
 manner, in which he speaks of it, one would naturally sup- 
 pose, that he was speaking of some settled habit and course 
 of proceeding, which, to his knowledge, ran through a series 
 of years. 
 
 But admitting that Mr. Boott, with the aid of clerks in the 
 house, kept proper accounts at that time, this was ten or a 
 dozen years before the period, to which I refer. It would 
 
239 
 
 seem, too, that while he was a member of the firm of Boott 
 & Lowell, beguming in 1822, [B. p. 111.] his accounts of re- 
 ceipts and payments, as guardian, were kept for him in the 
 books of that house ; for Mr. Lowell furnishes us with en- 
 tries, from their cash book, in April, 1822, of some of the 
 very items, which appear in these probate accounts of 1835. 
 [L. p. 69.] But that firm was dissolved in 1824 ; [L. p. 28.] 
 and after that, where was Mr. Boott's accountant? and where 
 were his accounts ? 
 
 Mr. Lowell tells us, that he is informed by Judge Loring, 
 that they " were annually made up and submitted to Mrs. 
 F. Boott, the investments being explained, and thoroughly 
 understood and approved by her." [L. p. 99.] But, if Judge 
 Loring is rightly quoted, of what period does he mean to. 
 speak, from any knowledge of his own ? His marriage, with 
 one of the wards, was in 1831. The time of Mr. Boott's 
 strange mistake, respecting the amount he owed on these ac- 
 coimts, was in 1830. And what sort of accounts was he in 
 the habit of showing to Mrs. Boott ? If they were like his 
 probate acounts, they stated neither receipts from sales, nor 
 payments for purchases, but only receipts for dividends and 
 pa3rments for expenses. It requires some skill in accounts, 
 and a good deal of labour, to make out from them the actual 
 state of the cash, and of the investments, at any particular 
 date. In fact, the bulk of the capital, at this period, was not 
 invested at all, but lay in the guardian's hands ; which is not 
 apparent, to an inexperienced observer, on the face of the 
 paper, because neither cash balances, nor investments, are 
 directly stated, though the entries of dividends received 
 enable one, who has skill and patience, to find out these 
 matters, by a laborious process. The probate accounts, them- 
 selves, as made and settled in 1835, though probably correct 
 in their results, are very inartificial and incomplete in their 
 statements. This appears by the letters above cited from 
 a competent accountant. They would furnish little light 
 enough to Mrs. F. Boott. 
 
 The probability seems to be, that, so long as Mr. Boott 
 was a member of either of the mercantile houses above- 
 
240 
 
 named, his cash account may have been properly kept there, 
 by somebody. After that, he may have had some memoran- 
 dum of his stock transactions, and may have taken receipts 
 from Mrs. F. Boott for moneys paid to her on account of his 
 wards. He may have had some memorandum also, to remind 
 him of the dividends he received. If not, they could be ascer- 
 tained from the books of the corporations, whose stock he 
 held. With such materials, he was enabled to make up such 
 accounts, as he did make up, in 1834-5 ; — and Mr. Lowell 
 knows very well, that there was trouble enough in getting 
 them, at that time, into any tolerable shape for settlement. 
 It is quite absurd, therefore, for him to pretend, that, after the 
 dissolution of the partnership of Boott &, Lowell, any books 
 of account were kept by Mr. Boott, in a suitable state to inr 
 form himself, readily, from time to time, much less to inform 
 others, how his affairs stood. If he did, how came he, in 
 1830, to state his liability, on these guardianship accounts, at 
 more than fifty per cent, less than it was ? Mr. Lowell must 
 answer that question, and decide on the alternative. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 STATE OF MH. BOOTt's ATFAIBS IN 1830. DANGER OF OPEN INSOL- 
 VENCY, AND OF TOTAL LOSS OF THE FAMILY PBOPERTY. 
 
 I have now shown what Mr. Boott's assets were, as stated 
 by himself, in 1830, (exclusive of stocks held specifically for 
 Mrs. F. Boott and her children,) and that Mr. Lowell con- 
 firms the statement, out of his own knowledge, in every par- 
 ticular, adding nothing, except certain reversions, of which I 
 shall presently speak. 
 
 I have also shown what Mr. Boott's debts and liabilities 
 were, out of his own family, as admitted by himself, and by 
 
241 
 
 Mr. Lowell, to the amount of $101,000. I have further 
 shown a probable liability, well understood at the time, 
 though disputed now by Mr. Lowell, for $50,000 more ; and 
 I have proved the fact, that one of the admitted liabilities 
 was under-estimated, in my former pamphlet, by 26,000. 
 
 It remains to put these things together, with a fair valuation 
 of the assets, to arrive at Mr. Boott's real position in 1830. 
 
 One statement, formerly made by me, has been treated, by 
 Mr. Lowell, as if I had intended that for an actual valuation 
 of aU the property, made for the purpose of comparing it with 
 the estimated liabilities. This is a mere misrepresentation. 
 
 My statement was this : — [B. p. 39.] 
 
 " The nominal assets in his hands, of every kind, were $213,000 
 But of these, the largest item, the investment in the iron 
 foundry, was of very doubtful value, and scarcely 
 available for an emergency ; — it turned out noth- 
 ing, - $70,000 
 
 And the note of Mr. Eobert Lilly, though event- 
 ually paid, was quite imavailable, - - 14,000 84,000 
 
 Leaving, of available property, only - . . . $129,000 
 And of this, there were specifically pledged, for his pri- 
 vate notes above mentioned, ninety-two shares of the 
 manufacturing stock, estimated at - - - - $92,000 
 
 Leaving free, and immediately available, at its market 
 
 price, property estimated at - - - - . $37,000 
 
 Which was to meet his endorsement of - - $80,000 
 And the balance of his guardianship account, 20,000 
 And the general debts of Lyman & Ealston, in 
 the event of their failure, - - - - 50,000 100,000 " 
 
 I see nothing to correct in this, now, very material for the 
 view I was then taking ; which was stated thus : — 
 
 " So that he had, at that time, literally, nothing to show for the con- 
 siderable estate, which he was supposed to hold in trust for his mother 
 brothers and sisters ; and was in danger of insolvency, even if the 
 whole property of the estate were appropriated to his use." TB. p. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, after remarking on the "assumptions, as curi- 
 ous as they are manifestly unfair," [L. p. 91.] supposed to be 
 
242 
 
 contained in this estimate, concludes with the following coni- 
 ment : — 
 
 "Indeed his summing up shows liabilities of $100,000, with avail- 
 able assets of only S37,000 to meet it ; in other words, a deficit of 
 $63,000 ! 
 
 It is astonishing that Mr. Brooks did not see, that the extravagance 
 of such statements must defeat their object. How have things re- 
 sulted ? 
 
 Mr. Boott entered into no mercantile business or specu- 
 lations afterwards ; yet he paid all his debts, as enumer- 
 ated by me above, amounting to - - - - - $167,000 
 And left a property, receivable at the death of his mother, 48,000 
 
 $215,000 
 And this has been done, according to Mr. Brooks, not only out of 
 nothing, but in the face of a deficit, in 1830, of $63,000. If this 
 were true, he has certainly shown financial talents, to which the his- 
 tory of commerce affords no parallel." [L. p. 91.] 
 
 Now as to property receivable by Mr. Boott, at the death 
 of his mother, (and which by the way, was never received, 
 since he died in her life-time,) even if the expectation were 
 worth, in 1830, the $48,000, at which Mr. Lowell is pleased 
 to rate it, I ask, what had that to do with his present assets 
 available to pay debts with, and to keep good his trust fund ? 
 If the property, held in trust, were to be taken for the pay- 
 ment of his own debts, what would he have to receive out of 
 it, at his mother's death ? In that view, and for that purpose, 
 his reversionary interest in the trust fund was a mere shadow. 
 I do not deny, that his share of a reversion, after his mother's 
 life, in certain undivided real estate, not belonging to the 
 trust fund, (namely the mansion-house,) may, so far as that 
 went, be called actual property, though to come into posses- 
 sion at a distant and uncertain time. But what is that species 
 of interest really good for, in difficult times, as a security to 
 raise money upon ? 
 
 In the next place, let me call attention to the very curious 
 process, by which Mr. Lowell makes up this sum of $215,000. 
 He says, Mr. Boott, after 1830, paid debts to the amount of 
 $167,000. What these debts were, we find, by turning 
 to the " Reply," at page 87. Among them, the reader will 
 
243 
 
 see is the balance of the probate account of 1844, being 
 $120,284 55, less $24,000 for the mansion-house, leaving 
 $96,284 55 of personal property, due from Mr. Boott, as ex- 
 ecutor. Now, this $96,284 65 represents, so far as it goes, 
 Mrs. Boott's trust fund, which being passed over to Mr. 
 Boott's successor in the trust, at the settlement of his ac- 
 counts, is thus coimted as part of the $167,000 of debt paid. 
 To this $167,000 of debt paid, Mr. Lowell adds $48,000 for 
 the property receivable by Mr. Boott, at his mother's death. 
 But of what is that $48,000 composed? It consists of three 
 shares, one ninth each, of the reversionary property, which 
 was to accrue to the heirs at Mrs. Boott's decease ; namely, 
 Mr. Boott's own original share, as one of the nine heirs, and 
 the two shares of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston, which he ac- 
 quired as a purchaser, in the partnership settlement with their 
 husbands. That reversionary property consisted of the man- 
 sion-house, and the trust fund. Consequently, the $48,000 
 includes three ninths of the $96,284 55, representing that 
 trust fund, which sum was already counted as part of the 
 $167,000 of debt paid. That is to say, one third of $96,000, 
 being $32,000, is counted twice over ; once as a part of a 
 DEBT PAm, and once as part of the property to be received, 
 by Mr. Boott, at his mother's death. By this curious kind of 
 double vision, Mr. Lowell arrives at his imaginary sum of 
 $215,000, supposed to represent the assets, which Mr. Boott 
 must have had, in 1830, before he began to pay off the debt 
 of $167,000 ! 
 
 Having reached this ingenious point, Mr. Lowell, next pro- 
 ceeds to treat my figures as pretending to show an actual as- 
 certained deficit, in 1830, of $63,000 ; out of which deficit, 
 he says, according to me, the $215,000 of assets, according- 
 to him, must have been realized ! No wonder Mr. Lowell 
 considers "that the extravagance of such statements must 
 defeat their object." And, yet, some of his readers have 
 swallowed all this, coming from such eminent and accurate 
 authority, as if it were a perfect mathematical demonstration 
 of some ridiculous blunder on my part, instead of being, as it 
 
244 
 
 is, either a very ridiculous blunder, or a very shameless im- 
 position, on the part of Mr. Lowell. 
 
 Let us see, then, what 1 did say, fairly interpreted, concern- 
 ing the alleged deficit of ^63,000, and how far that, which I 
 said, was true. 
 
 My remark was, that Mr. Boott, in 1830, had " nothing to 
 shmc for the considerable estate he was supposed to hold in 
 trust for his mother, brothers and sisters ; and that he was in 
 danger of insolvency, even if the whole property of the estate 
 were appropriated to his own use." 
 
 Now I beg to ask, first, what had he, at that time, to show 
 for Ms trust? Nothing was held by him, ostensibly, ■ as 
 trustee or executor. Whatever he held stood in his own pri- 
 vate and individual name. Mr. Lowell does not dispute that. 
 Whatever he had pledged, had been transferred in his own 
 name, as his own property. Mr. Lowell does not dispute 
 that. What, of this pledged property, could he apply to his 
 trust ? Shares of manufacturing stock, already conveyed away 
 to secure private debts, were out of his hands, and beyond 
 his own control. These, certainly, were not available, at 
 that moment, for trust purposes. He had not them to show 
 for the estate. What they might have sold for, and what 
 balance Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, the pledgees, might have 
 had to pay over from the proceeds, if he had failed, and had 
 become notoriously insolvent, and they had been compelled 
 to sell, in order to realize their debts, is another question, of 
 which I was not then speaking. This sweeps off ninety-two 
 of the one hundred and eleven shares of manufacturing stock, 
 mentioned in the memorandum. We are then reduced, for 
 the purposes of the trust fund, to the remaining items of that 
 memorandum — •the nineteen shares still unpledged, the foun- 
 dry, the store, the stable, and Lilly's note. These were all 
 the parcels of property left in Mr. Boott's hands, for the con- 
 struction of a trust fund ; and since there were pressing 
 demands, from strangers, to be answered out of them, the 
 question, as I put it, was, what were these immediately avail- 
 able for, to turn into cash, if needful, to prevent a failure? 
 
 The question was, how f 30,000 should, at once, be raised, 
 
245 
 
 to meet the endorsed paper of Lyman & Ralston, then about 
 to fall due ; — ^how other sums should be raised, to meet other 
 debts, contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston, which 
 •were soon to follow ; — and how a still further sum should be 
 raised, to make good the deficit on Mr. Boott's guardianship 
 account, regarded, on all hands, as a debt of honour, that must 
 be provided for in fuU, even if we, who were consulted about 
 it, and the other members of Mr. Boott's immediate family, 
 should suffer. For this, I refer to Mr. Kirk Boott's letters. 
 [B. App. p. l'6-22.] 
 
 The first needful step was, to raise $30,000, at once. In 
 this view, I said, the iron foundry, though called f 70,000, in 
 Mr. Boott's memorandum, " was of very doubtful value, and 
 scarcely available for an emergency." [B. p. 39.] I was 
 wrong in adding the incidental remark, "it turned out 
 nothing." What it did turn out, will presently be seen. 
 But was it available for this emergency? and available for 
 enough, with the other means, to prevent a failure, if neither 
 Lyman, nor Ralston, who had no property not already either 
 embarked in the foundry, or lying in Mr. Boott's hands, had 
 been able to raise any thing ? Mr. Lowell affects to ridicule 
 the idea that it was not. " As if," says he, " a property cost- 
 ing $114,000, which there is no pretence was then considered 
 a bad investment, would not, at any time, have commanded 
 a loan of less than a third of its cost!" [L. p. 90.] If this 
 were so, will he be good enough to explain what the difficulty 
 was, about meeting the endorsements, which so much agi- 
 tated Mr. Kirk Boott ? — and why it was, that a loan of so 
 small a sum as twenty thousand dollars on mortgage of this 
 property, being little more than one sixth of its cost, was the 
 thing talked of, when $30,000 was the immediate demand; 
 and other sums were wanted ? I say twenty thousand dollars, 
 only, was the sum talked of, to be raised on a mortgage of 
 
 that property. This is proved by Mr. Kirk Boott, who says, 
 
 " If the loan is made of $20,000, J. W. B. should insist, I do 
 think, upon his proportion to be invested for the heirs of F. B. 
 And if this is not assented to, I do not think he ought to joiji 
 in the mortgage." [B. App. p. 19.] 
 
246 
 
 But, says Mr. Lowell, "Mr. Brooks tells us, two pages 
 after, that it was found that f 30,000 might be raised upon it 
 by mortgage, adding, ' as a friendly, rather than a business 
 arrangement.'" [L. p. 90-] True, that sum was, at last, 
 borrowed, in Philadelphia, by Mr. Ralston, from a member of 
 the Ralston family, on this security ; but it was entirely a 
 matter of accommodation. It could not have been done in 
 Boston, still less in Philadelphia, as a business affair. It will 
 be remembered, that the property was, already, under a 
 mortgage of $2500 to Mr. Thorndike. It was only a second 
 mortgage, that could be offered for a new loan. As a business 
 loan, to be effected in Boston, on that security, $20,000 was 
 the utmost hoped for ; and it was extremely doubtful whether 
 that, or any considerable sum, could be got, as every business 
 man, who remembers the state of financial affairs, here, in 
 1830, will readily believe. 
 
 In addition to general scarcity of money, we were all 
 panic-stricken with the extensive ruin of great manufacturing 
 establishments, and of wealthy persons connected with them, 
 which had just occurred. The names of Dover, Ware, Can- 
 ton, and many others, that might be mentioned, are an awful 
 memento. Owing to the personal liability law, first repealed, 
 or rather modified, in the year of which I speak,* a share in 
 a manufacturing company was still regarded, by most persons, 
 as a sort of plague-spot ; and that species of property, when 
 held by individuals unincorporated, was, with few excep- 
 tions, scarcely admitted to be security for any thing. What 
 capitalist, in Boston, was ready to lend upon it? Mr. Lowell 
 knows all this ; and yet does not hesitate to mislead super- 
 ficial readers, not likely to know or remember such things 
 after eighteen years, by suggesting, with a note of admira- 
 tion, the absurdity of supposing that a private manufacturing 
 establishment, of no great note, and struggling under a load 
 of debt, " would not, at any time, have commanded a loan of 
 less than a third of its cost !" 
 
 Why even the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, which 
 has always stood, preeminently, at the head of public favour 
 
 * Mass. Laws, of 1829, Ch. 53, passed Feb. 23, 1830. 
 
247 
 
 and confidence, was, then, in so poor repute, that Mr. William 
 Sturgis required forty-two shares of its stock, worth, in ordi- 
 nary times, from fifty to sixty thousand dollars, to secure Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott's note, then supposed to be a very good one, 
 for $21,000 ! And Mr. Lowell himself, with all his personal 
 confidence in Mr. Boott, as well as in good manufacturing 
 property, deemed twenty-five shares of the same stock, and as 
 many more of the Boston Manufacturing Company, of which 
 he was himself the Treasurer, (shares, which, formerly, had 
 been freely bought and sold at $1500 the share,) [L. p. 71.J 
 to be no more than adequate security for his loan of $30,000 ; 
 though, three years before, he appears to have considered 
 thirty-six shares of the two stocks abundant security for the 
 same sum. [B. App.p. 30. 32. Also, L. p. 29.] Yet, he pre- 
 siunes to inform his confiding readers, with this evidence 
 staring him in the face, that Mr. Brooks only makes himself 
 ridiculous, when he calls the Mill Dam Foundry, a property 
 then of " very doubtful value, and scarcely available for an 
 emergency." 
 
 What I undertake to aver, as matter of fact, is, that it 
 would not, and did not, at that time, command a business 
 loan of $20,000. I made applications, myself, on request of 
 the parties, to several large capitalists, by whom that loan 
 was refused ; it remained doubtful whether any considerable 
 sum could be procured upon that property, until, as a mere 
 matter of friendly accommodation to Mr. Ralston, the loan of 
 $30,000 was, at last, made by one of his fanodly. 
 
 Lilly's note, I said, too, "though eventually paid, was quite 
 unavailable." This Mr. Lowell, also, treats as ridiculous, — 
 especially because it "was secured by a mortgage of personal 
 property ;" [L. p. 86.] meaning, I presume, printing presses, 
 and other stock of a bookselling, printing and publishing 
 establishment. Mr. Lowell may impose on some readers in 
 this way ; but let State-street decide to-day, from its recent 
 experience, what the over-due note, so secured, of a printer, 
 not in the highest mercantile credit, and engaged in a busi- 
 ness by no means prosperous, would be good for to raise 
 money upon, at a moment of scarcity and alarm, when notes 
 
248 
 
 not dishonoured, and certain from their character to be paid 
 at maturity, have been lately seen, in a time of scarcity 
 without alarm, to be selling at a discount of from one to two 
 per cent, a month. 
 
 What is left ? A store, good, perhaps, for what it was set 
 down at in the memorandum, — ^15,000. It produced, after 
 some improvement of affairs, in 1831, $1000 more. A stable, 
 rated by Mr. Boott, in the memorandum, at $3000. It was 
 appraised, fourteen years afterwards, at $1500 only, and 
 was actually sold for that sum, when real estate, there situated, 
 had risen greatly in value. [B. App. p. 55.] In 1830, it prob- 
 ably would not have brought jJJlOOO. Nineteen unpledged 
 shares of manufacturing stock, viz. five of Merrimack, and 
 fourteen of Boston Manufacturing Company. What were they 
 worth in the market ? The following certificate shows : — 
 
 CEKTIFICATE. 
 
 " I certify the following market prices from actual sales, in August, 
 1830 : 
 
 Merrimack Manufacturing Co. per share, $900 00 
 Boston Manufacturing Co. « 666 67 
 
 CHA8. TOREET. 
 Boston, Aug. 13, 1849." 
 
 That is, the nineteen shares would have produced less 
 than $14,000. 
 
 Let us now put the available means together, and see 
 what money could, at once, be raised upon them, for the 
 purpose of carrying on the business of the foundry, and 
 avoiding a failure. 
 
 From the foundry, I assume, that there 
 might have been raised, on a business 
 mortgage, at most _ - . . $20,000 
 
 The store, by a forced sale, might have 
 
 produced, not exceeding - . - 15,000 
 
 The stable, do. do. do. do. 1,000 
 
 The nineteen unpledged shares, do. 14.000 
 
 What was to be met ? 
 
 60,000 
 
249 
 
 Debts, contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston, to the 
 amount of $80,000, towards which they had nothing to con- 
 tribute, except their interest in this foundry, and then- claims, 
 in right of their wives, on Mr. Boott himself. Was not Mr. 
 Boott then in danger of utter insolvency, even if the whole 
 family property in his hands had been appropriated to his 
 use? 
 
 But, argues Mr. Lowell, this supposes |92,000 of factory 
 stock, which had been pledged for |51,000 only, to be una- 
 vailable for any thing beyond it — " as if any creditor would 
 refuse to take the right of redemption at its full par value of 
 $41,000 !" [L. p. 90.] I beg to ask if Mr. Lowell would ? 
 when its market value, as the foregoing certificate shows, 
 was only $27,000.* And I beg to ask, further, whether it is 
 usual for a man, not intending insolvency, but wishing to 
 preserve his credit, and keep up his business, to sell his right 
 of redemption, in stocks held by other persons, who have lent 
 upon them as much as they will bear ? 
 
 But Mr. Boott shall have the credit of this right of redemp- 
 tion also. I will add for it $27,000 to the $50,000 of assets 
 above enumerated, — ^raising his immediate moneyed means 
 to $77,000. 
 
 Still, I ask, whether he was not in danger of insolvency, 
 even if the whole property of the estate in his hands, so far 
 as it was presently available, had been appropriated for his 
 debts ? 
 
 For, besides the debts of the foundry, as above, $80,000 
 he had to make good his guardianship debt, which 
 I rated formerly at 20,000 
 
 100,000 
 
 * The shares pledged were forty-two shares of Merrimack to Mr. Sturgis, and 
 twenty-five shares of the same to Mr. Lowell, i. e. sixty-seven shares, worth, at 
 S900 per share, jgogoo' ^^ 
 
 Twenty-five of Boston Manufacturing Company, at $666 67, 16 666 75 
 
 Pledged for 
 Surplus value, 
 
 76,966 75 
 51,000 00 
 
 26,966 75 
 
250 
 
 Brought forward, flOO.OOO 
 
 and that debt was, in truth, as now appears, under- 
 rated by 26,000 
 
 Total of debts, out of the family, to be met, 126,000 
 
 Total available assets, as above, including the sur-. 
 
 plus value of the pledged shares, 77,000 
 
 And where is the triist fund all this while ? Nothing is 
 left for it, but Robert Lilly's unavailable note, and a right of 
 redemption in an undivided third, or half, as the case may 
 be, of the Mill Dam Foundry, subject to the supposed 
 mortgage of $20,000, and to a prior mortgage of |2500. If 
 we add to this Mr. Boott's own reversion in one undivided 
 ninth of the mansion-house estate, (subject to his mother's 
 life interest, ) which might have been sold for a very small 
 sum, we have the sum total of his available means. 
 
 Now I do not put this forth as an actual deficit, which 
 events proved; — we know they, fortunately, proved other- 
 wise, But*, I say, this was the palpable danger, in which he 
 then stood.; — and that, with the losses and sacrifices, incident 
 to an insolvency, had it occurred, the danger extended to 
 the sweeping off of the whole family property. And there 
 is not an item, in the combination of elements making up 
 this estimate of dangers, which Mr. Lowell has ventured to 
 question, except Mr. Boott's liability for the unendorsed pa- 
 per of Lyman & Ralston. There is nothing in the estimate, 
 which he can shake in the smallest degree, unless he be able 
 to show, by some evidence not yet produced, that we were 
 all mistaken at the time, in supposing Mr. Boott liable for 
 those debts, which I have estimated at f 50,000. If it could 
 be made out that Mr. Boott was not liable for any part of 
 them, this would diminish his total liability, out of the fam- 
 ily, to f76,000j and leave, from his above-stated available 
 means for the paying of debts, (including the surplus value 
 of the pledged shares,) about flOOO, to be added to the 
 items above named as left for his trust fund. Bat, when 
 the estimated assets and liabilities of an insolvent debtor 
 
251 
 
 come to be so nearly balanced as this, I ask what, according 
 to all experience, is likely to be the result of a forced 
 liquidation? 
 
 I leave the reader then to judge, whether I have not given 
 a perfectly fair and reasonable view of Mr. Boott's apparent 
 position at that moment, in relation to danger of insolvency ; 
 and whether Mr. Lowell, instead of making me ridiculous, 
 has not made himself so, by the manner, in which he has 
 assailed my statement. 
 
 The "Reply" tells us, however, that, to recover from 
 such a position as I represent, and have |48,000 left, receiv- 
 able at the death of Mrs. Boott, requires " financial talents to 
 which the history of commerce affords no parallel." [L. 
 p. 91.] Perhaps so. But the talents employed in the opera- 
 tion were, almost exclusively, those of Mr. Lowell. 
 
 The first step for Mr. Boott, after getting temporary relief 
 by the friendly loan in Philadelphia, obtained by Mr. Ral- 
 ston, was, to effect a settlement with Messrs. Lyman & 
 Ralston, (who, with their Philadelphia friends, greatly over- 
 rated the value of the foundry and its business,) whereby 
 they, with some other members of the Ralston family, be- 
 came, under a corporate name, its sole owners, and assumed 
 its debts. This, as they were not permitted to fail, relieved 
 Mr. Boott, at once, from |80,000 of his liability, and averted 
 from him all danger of public insolvency, through the pres- 
 sure of strangers. The settlement, also, entitled him to two 
 thirds of the |48,000 (supposing that valuation correct,) 
 mentioned as receivable at his mother's death, since the 
 reversionary shares of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston, were 
 ceded to him in that settlement. This bargain, Mr. Lowell 
 says he made ; [L. p. 109.] and an excellent one it was for 
 Mr. Boott and his family. 
 
 The next step was, to gain time for the liquidation of the 
 remaining debts, so as to avoid sacrifices, especially of the 
 manufacturing stock, which yielded large income, and was 
 likely to rise in value with returning prosperity. This was 
 done through the friendly agency of Mr. Lowell, who be- 
 came, at last, the sole creditor out of the family. 
 
252 
 
 A third step was, to use the family property, -whenever it 
 became necessary to do so, for the payment of Mr. Boott's 
 debts. This I do not say was done by Mr. Lowell ; but the 
 greater part of the payments was made to himself, and he 
 could hardly be ignorant of the source, from which they 
 came, unless he wilfully shut his eyes, or took an entirely 
 false view of Mr. Boott's pecuniary position. Perhaps, from 
 his present statement, we may be bound to presume that to 
 have been the case. The reader, however, will be better 
 able to judge of this hereafter. 
 
 The only remaining step for Mr. Boott was, to make up an 
 executor's account, in a form, which seemed to bring his 
 father's estate in debt to him, in a sufficient sum to cover 
 the balance of his debt to Mr. Lowell, and to induce the 
 heirs to accept that account in full settlement. For this, he 
 certainly was indebted to the agency of Mr. Lowell. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 AN EXTRAORDINAKT SPECIMEN OF FINANCIERING ABILITY. 
 
 The remarks in the foregoing chapter have anticipated the 
 evidence on some points ; but, if they are found to be borne 
 out in the sequel, they will help, at least, to solve the riddle, 
 which Mr. Lowell propounds, and to explain the kind and 
 degree of " financial talents," which, with the aid of extreme 
 indulgence and forbearance from every member of his fam- 
 ily, freed Mr. Boott from the thraldom of debt, and made 
 him the nominal owner of a handsome expectancy, to fall in 
 at his mother's death. 
 
 But, it is time to turn to Mr. Lowell's estimate of affairs 
 at the same period, and to see what assumptions, " curious," 
 if not "unfair," we may find in that. 
 
253 
 
 He takes Mr. Boott's memorandum atid founts its foot as 
 good property, (foundry and all,) for what it is set down at. 
 He admits, that the valuation of the stable, at $3000, was 
 mistaken, and that it was eventually sold (i. e. fourteen 
 years afterwards,) for $1500 only. But, he Says, " still if he 
 [Mr. Boott] had made this investment in good faith, and for 
 the benefit of the estate, he had a right to charge it at the 
 cost." [L. p. 86.] Suppose he had, how would that help 
 him to pay his debts to other people ? So, of the manufac- 
 turing stock, on the same principle, it is said, he had a right 
 to charge it to the trust fund at $9000 more than the par 
 value, because that was its cost to him ; and Mr. Lowell 
 adds this sum, accordingly, to the foot of the memorandum. 
 Yet, instead of $9000 more, it was then worth in the market, 
 as we have seen, $20,000 less than its par value. It was 
 available for only about $90,000, to pay debts with, instead 
 of $120,000, at which Mr. Lowell reckons it. Having thus 
 rated the manufacturing stock at $30,000 more than it was 
 then worth, and the foundry at its cost, the stable at $3000, 
 and the other items as they stand in the memorandum, — 
 
 " This brings his assets," says Mr. Lowell, "to $222,000 
 " He had, in addition, his reversionary share of his 
 father's estate, from which he would eventually 
 receive $16,000," [L. p. 87.] and he accordingly 
 sets this down at 16 qOO 
 
 Bringing up the apparent assets to 238,000 
 
 The " reversionary share," here spoken of, is one ninth of 
 Mrs. Boott's trust fund of $100,000, and one ninth of the 
 mansion-house estate, which, when sold, in 1844, produced 
 $46,000. One ninth of these two sums gives, the one a 
 fraction more than $11,000, the other a fraction more than 
 $5000, making Mr. Lowell's $16,000 of additional assets. 
 
 Pause here, good reader, for one moment, and consider 
 the extraordinary concentration of false assumptions in this 
 single sentence of the "Reply." 
 
254 
 
 To begin with the real estate. It produced in 1844, 
 |46,000. Mr. Lowell assumes that to have been its value in 
 1830. But the same estate had been appraised, in 1818, at 
 $24,000 only. [B. App. p. 13.] It had risen no doubt consid- 
 erably, before 1830, but it had also fallen back again, as all 
 real estate in Boston did ; and dealers in that article will well 
 remember its extraordinary depression at that time. It rose 
 again, rapidly, from 1834 to 1837. The contraction of the 
 currency then occasioned a sudden fall ; from which it once 
 more slowly recovered. In 1844, it had nearly regained the 
 height of 1836. But in 1830, this estate was not worth morej 
 at the very utmost, than $30,000, instead of $46,000, at which 
 Mr. Lowell assumes it. One ninth of it, in present possession, 
 at $30,000 for the whole, would have been about $3300. 
 But it was subject to the life estate of a lady then about sixty- 
 three years of age ; and, by the common rule of the annuity 
 table, the value of the reversion, reckoning interest of money 
 at six per cent, per annum, was little more than fifty per cent, 
 of the value in present possession. Mr. Lowell assumes the 
 two values to be identical. The actual value of a ninth in 
 reversion, if the estate were worth $30,000, was about $1700. 
 Mr. Lowell sets it down at $5000 ! 
 
 So as to the trust fund. One ninth of $100,000, it is tnie, 
 is about $11,000. But, that $11,000 was a property not to be 
 reached, till the expiration of the life interest of a person then 
 sixty-three years of age ; and its immediate value, in 1830, 
 subject to that postponement, was only equal to about $5700. 
 Yet Mr. Lowell assumes it to be $11,000 ! Nor is that all. 
 Its valuation, at $5700, supposes it to be a property certain to 
 accrue and come to hand, when the life estate expires. In 
 other words, it supposes the $100,000 to be all safe and 
 sound, and securely invested. Mr. Lowell assumes that too! 
 although it is the very matter in dispute ; and although he 
 himself admits, that there was no property, then, specifically 
 set apart for a trust fund; — and although it is clear, that 
 whatever Mr. Boott held, at the time, was subject to the 
 claims of his other creditors ; — and although the final probate 
 account, prepared by Mr. Lowell in 1844, after all had been 
 
255 
 
 done that could be, without disturbing Mr. Lowell's own se- 
 curity, to repair the damage of 1830,— admits the trust fund 
 to be still short, nearly |4000 ; and although, as will pres- 
 ently be seen, it was, at that time, (1830,) really defective by 
 nearly $70,000. Besides this, let me ask, what Mr. Boott's 
 reversion, in a fund consisting of personal property in his 
 own keeping, without even the ordinary security of a good 
 probate bond,* even supposing the fund all safe at the time, 
 was worth, as a saleable, or convertible market commodity ? 
 What would the purchaser be able to buy, except the personal 
 undertaking of Mr. Boott to account for it, at some indefinite 
 time, perhaps thirty years distant 1 What money lender, 
 without any other security, would have advanced a dollar 
 upon that? 
 
 But I have not quite done with this yet, Mr. Lowell, here, 
 counts the same thing twice over, just as he had done before. 
 He first reckons up and values all the property, of every de- 
 scription, which Mr. Boott had in his hands. He then argues, 
 that $100,000 of this property was for a trust fund; and that 
 one ninth of that trust fund would be Mr. Boott's own, when-^ 
 ever the trust should end, by Mrs. Boott's decease. This 
 being the case, says he, we must add, in 1830, to the $100,000 
 held in trust, one ninth of that sum for Mr. Boott's eventual 
 share of it ! As if a share of the fund itself were so much 
 MORE property !!! 
 
 Such is the way, in which Mr, Lowell builds up an aggre^ 
 gate of $238,000, on one side of the account, and says. These 
 are the assets ! Let us see what he does with the other side 
 of the account. He proceeds as follows : — 
 
 " And what were his dehts ? 
 He owed Mr. William Sturgis, for Mr. Gushing, $21,000 00 
 
 He owed me, for the estate of Jonathan Amory, 30,000 00 
 
 Balance of his account, as executor, $120,284 55 
 
 Less the mansion-house, included in that bal- 
 ance, but not in the stssets above enumer- 
 ated, 24,000 00 
 
 96,284 55 
 
 * The sureties were Mrs. Boott and Mr. W. Wells. 
 
256 
 
 Brought forward, S9 6,284 55 
 
 Due to the children of Mr. F. Boott, 20,000 00 
 
 167,284 55 
 Excess, being Mr. Boott's private fortune, if we rely 
 
 upon the pencil memorandum, 70,715 45" 
 
 [L p. 87.] 
 
 Now, here, the reader will remark, Mr. Lowell excludes, in 
 the first place, all liability for the debts of Lyman & Ralston, 
 — not merely for the $50,000, which have been in question 
 between us, but for the $30,000 of endorsements also, about 
 which, he admits, there was no question. He, next puts down 
 the debt to the children of Mr. F. Boott at |20,000, instead 
 of ^46,000, as it really was. In that, it is true, he follows 
 me, and I cannot affirm, that he knew better than I did. 
 But, at any rate, it is so much mistake and under-estimate. 
 He next assumes, that Mr. Boott owed to his father's estate 
 only about f 96,000, for all the trust property, which was, or 
 should have been, in his hands, that being the statement of 
 the probate account of 1844, — the truth of which is the great 
 question in issue between us. And thus, even if we lay aside 
 that question, and take the probate account to be perfectly 
 correct, it will be seen, that Mr. Lowell contrives, by reckon- 
 ing the assets of 1830 at nearly f 100,000 more than they 
 ' were worth,* and the undisputed liabilities at $56,000 less 
 than they come to,f to carve out, from these two excesses, an 
 " excess " indeed, as he himself calls it, of $70,715 45. And 
 this, he says, was ''Mr. Boott's private fortune, if we rely 
 upon the pencil memorandum." 
 
 After this exposition, I venture to hint, that Mr. Lowell 
 
 * Keversions, (being assets made out of the whole cloth,) $16,000 
 
 Valuation of manufacturing stock above market price, 29,000 
 
 Stable, over-valued, 2,000 
 
 I'oundry do. at least 50,000 
 
 97,000 
 
 t Endorsements, 30,000 
 
 trnder-estimate of guardianship accounts 26,000 
 
 56,000 
 
257 
 
 might have appeared better had he been less obtrusive, in 
 his " Reply," on the head of assumptions. Is it not amazing, 
 that even the most devoted of his admirers should have 
 suffered themselves to be led into captivity by such glaring 
 absurdities, though put into the form of simple arithmetic, 
 and announced with the air of a perpetual dictator ? 
 
 It is true, that Mr. Lowell begins, as if he were putting 
 all this forth under the guise of a mere piece of reasoning on 
 the memorandum ; and as if that were a statement, which he 
 does not intend by any means to admit, but is willing to take 
 as «iy statement to argue upon. Yet, we have seen what his 
 own admissions are, respecting the truth of the contents of 
 every part of that paper; [Ante. Ch. 21.] and we cannot but 
 perceive, that he, immediately, turns his argument into posi- 
 tive valuation of assets, and positive estimate of liabilities, for 
 the purpose of arriving at a particular conclusion, thus stated : 
 " It cannot then be maintained, that Mr. Boott had inten- 
 tionally used the property of his father's estate in the Mill 
 Dam Foundery." [L. p. 87.] 
 
 The pamphlet, which the " Reply" purports to answer, did 
 not undertake to maintain that he had. This is one of Mr. 
 Lowell's devices for drawing away the attention of the reader 
 from the real issue, by pretending to answer a charge, which 
 nobody had made. And, after all, he does not answer that, 
 which he assumes for the sake of answering, otherwise than 
 by the absm-dities above exposed. 
 
 My position was, that Mr. Boott, with good intentions, and 
 from the best motives, had gone into this business, in con- 
 nexion with two brothers-in-law, mainly to aid them ; that 
 he had been drawn in, by degrees, deeper than he at first 
 contemplated ; and that, as it turned out, this, in combination 
 with other circumstances, occasioned great loss to his father's 
 estate. Whether he originally intended to put the funds of 
 the estate mto this business, or not, was a point I did not 
 discuss. I only showed, incidentally, that, upon a former oc- 
 casion, Mr. Lowell not only admitted, by necessary implica- 
 tion that Mr. Boott did, in point of fact, so employ the funds 
 of the estate, but contended, that he was justified in doing so. 
 
 33 '-' 
 
258 
 
 Indeed he went so far as to contend, that I had myself admit- 
 ted this at the time, and to cite in proof of it a letter of Mr. 
 Kirk Boott, which was found, on examination, to contain no 
 such statement. [B. p. 129.J Tlie " Reply " takes no notice 
 of all this. Nobody, who had read that pamphlet alone, could 
 ever have got from it the idea, that Mr. Boott had employed 
 the estate's funds in this business, still less the idea, that Mr. 
 Lowell had insisted that he was justified in doing so. Yet 
 so it is, as he, who turns to my former pamphlet, will see. 
 
 I do not suppose it, now, material to settle what Mr. Boott's 
 original intentions were in this matter ; and it may be prema- 
 ture to discuss, as yet, even the question, whether or not he 
 in fact used the funds of his father's estate in the business of 
 the iron foundry, though Mr. Lowell's pretended demon- 
 stration of the contrary certainly goes far to show that he 
 did. But it is material to consider, with reference to Mr. 
 Lowell's estimates, and with reference to proceedings pres- 
 ently to be spoken of, the principle, \i]pon which the "Reply" 
 assumes to charge to the trust fund ihe manufacturing stocks 
 at their alleged cost. This question may as well be disposed 
 of now, as hereafter, but is proper matter for another chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER XXYII. 
 
 PRICE AT WHICH THE STOCKS SHOULD BE CHARGED IN 1830. 
 PRETENCE or MERE INFORMALITIES. WHAT BECAME OF THE 
 STOCKS, HELD IN TRUST IN 1818. 
 
 The question of the price, at which stocks, or other prop- 
 erty, should be taken, upon a retrospect of Mr. Boott's 
 position in 1830, arises, at present, upon the supposition of a 
 settlement to be made as of the year 1830, between Mr. 
 Boott and his father's estate. 
 
259 
 
 When a trustee invests, absolutely and distinctly, for his 
 trust, I agree, that he is to charge the investment at its cost; 
 and if, by the course of events, without fault on his part, it 
 should become worth much less, he is not answerable for 
 that ; but, whenever he settles his account, he is to be 
 allowed what he paid in the purchase of the investment. 
 To entitle himself to that allowance, however, his first step 
 is to prove, that the purchase was made, specifically, for 
 account of the trust. For, if he buys for himself on specu- 
 lation, and the article falls on his hands, it is plain that he 
 cannot, then, turn it over to the account of his trust, and 
 claim to have it taken at what he paid for it, instead of what 
 it may then be really worth. 
 
 The ordinary proof, by the accounting party, of such an 
 investment, is the production of a receipt for the money paid, 
 with the certificate or other evidence of title to the property 
 purchased, showing that it has been properly placed in his 
 name as trustee. Mr. Lowell does not pretend that any such 
 evidence as this could be ofiered in 1830. Now I do not say 
 that no other proof can, or ought tOj be accepted, under any 
 circumstances ; nor that the trustee ought to suffer for a 
 mere omission of form. But that, which I do say, is, that 
 the burden is, and ought to be, on him, to show, substan- 
 tially and clearly, that the thing, which he seeks to charge 
 at more than its existing market value, was actually bought, 
 specifically, for the trust account, on which he seeks to 
 charge it ; and that it was paid for with the trust moneys, 
 which he desires to have allowed to him in exchange for it. 
 Let us then apply these common principles, Avhich nobody 
 can question, to the state of Mr. Boott's affairs as shown 
 in 1830. 
 
 It is admitted by Mr. Lowell, that Mr. Boott ought to 
 have had in his hands, 1 100,000, at least, of trust money so 
 invested. He only refuses to admit that there should have 
 been, as I contend, a larger sum in trust. It is also admitted, 
 that he had not one dollar invested in any thing by the 
 name of executor, or trustee, or marked by any other exter- 
 nal badge of a trust. He had a confused heap of real and 
 personal estate, mentioned in his memorandum, all standino- 
 
260 
 
 in his own private name, as his own private property. Now 
 I ask Mr. Lowell to select, out of this, what he pleases, and 
 say what did belong to the trust, and what did not ? This 
 burden is on him, when he asks, for Mr. Boott, the privilege 
 of a trustee, in charging to his trust account, in 1830, certain 
 property at more than its then market value, on the ground 
 that it had cost him more. Not one item, of all the property 
 mentioned in the memorandum, is distinguishable from the 
 rest, except the store in State-street, which was Mr. Boott's 
 own, by gift from his father. Out of the residue, amounting, 
 nommally, by the memorandum, to near $200,000, which, I 
 ask, are the items, that shall be taken to make up, in 1830, 
 the $ 100,000 of admitted trust fund ? Mr. Lowell says, in 
 effect, that the investment of this fund lay in the manufac- 
 turing stocks and the stable, when he says that Mr. Boott 
 had a right to charge them to his trust, at their cost, not- 
 withstanding they had fallen in value. These, then, are the 
 specific things, which, according to Mr. Lowell, had been 
 bought, by Mr. Boott, to the extent of $100,000, with the 
 moneys of his father's estate, and which were held by him, 
 in 1830, to that extent of cost, specifically, for the trust, 
 although he had neglected to preserve the ear-mark. 
 
 How can this be? We are to account for 1 100,000. The 
 stable, though valued in the memorandum "at $3000, had 
 cost, according to the account of 1844, only $2500. We 
 must find the other $97,500 of outlay in the manufacturing 
 stock. There were, in all, by the memorandum, one hun- 
 dred and eleven shares, rated at $111,000, (the par,) but 
 which, Mr. Lowell says, had, in fact, cost $9000 more, 
 making $120,000, of which $97,500, as his argument sup- 
 poses, was the estate's money. But, which are the shares 
 that represent it ? Of the one hundred and eleven, it 
 appears that ninety-two stood pledged to Messrs. Sturgis & 
 Lowell, for personal loans to Mr. Boott. Mr. Lowell does 
 not mean to say, surely, in order to make up the $120,000 
 of cost, that the nineteen unpledged shares had cost 
 $97,500, and that the ninety-two pledged shares had cost 
 only $23,500. Does he then mean to say, that Mr. Boott 
 had pledged, for his own debts, the very same sliares, 
 
261 
 
 •which he had purposely bought with the estate's money, 
 and which he held specifically as a trust investment, having 
 merely omitted to mark them as such? If he does, he 
 says a much harder thing than I had ever said of Mr. Boott ; 
 because it is plainly impossible that this should have been 
 done, to such an extent, undesignedly. Yet, there is no 
 escaping the fact, that the ninety-two shares were, and that 
 a large part of them had been for years past, so pledged. 
 And if we look to the transcript of the records of transfers of 
 the two corporations, whose stocks are in question, we shall 
 find that Mr. Boott, from the beginning, bought and sold, 
 pledged and lent, these shares, at pleasure, and dealt with 
 them in all respects as his own. [B. App. p. 30-33.] The 
 only conclusion, then, consistent with that fairness of inten- 
 tion, which I ascribe to Mr. Boott, and with that perfect 
 sanity and clearness of judgement, which Mr. Lowell claims 
 for him, is, that he did not purchase these shares, originally, 
 as a specific investment for his trust fund ; and that Mr. 
 Lowell does him great injustice, when he suggests that he 
 did so, by claiming to charge them to the trust fund at 
 cost, and by adding, on that principle, an advance of $9000 
 above their par value, at a time when they were worth about 
 $21,000 less than their par, for the small object of bettering 
 Mr. Boott's unfortunate condition in 1830, on the question 
 of insolvency. Or was the real object to make a show of 
 assets, which might bring out, more easily, for Mr. Boott, 
 the apparent means of paying his debt to Mr. Lowell, 
 without seeming to take for it the property of the estate ? 
 
 If, then, the bulk of the $100,000 trust fund was not lying 
 in these shares, particularly, where Was it ? Mr. Lowell sug- 
 gests nothing else, the stable excepted, as intended for a spe- 
 cific investment. The store was no part of the trust fund ; 
 that was, certainly, Mr. Boott's private property, devised to 
 him by his father's will. Was the trust fund invested in the 
 iron foundry, or in Lilly's note ? There is nothing else left. 
 But Mr. Lowell scouts the idea that Mr. Boott had put any 
 part of his father's estate intentionally, into the foundry. 
 That $70,000; then, was not, according to Mr. Lowell, a spe- 
 
262 
 
 cific investment of the trust fund, and no loss, arising out of 
 that piece of property, could justly be borne by the estate. 
 
 We come down, then, to the little matter of Lilly's note. 
 In respect to that, the " Reply " informs us that " the debt of 
 Wells & Lilly was one, which had grown out of advances 
 made by Mr. Boott, senior, to his son-in-law, Mr. Wells, and 
 subsequent advances by Mr. J. Wright Boott himself" [L. p. 
 87.] Here, then, we touch something, which, according to 
 Mr. Lowell, seems to have a smack of executorship about it. 
 The $14,000 was a debt, it would seem by his statement, 
 which began with advances made by the testator, in his life- 
 time, and which advances were extended and augmented 
 after his decease, by the executor. 
 
 Can this be so ? The note was payable to Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott personally ; and it was assigned, soon after the time, of 
 which we now inquire, by Mr. Boott to me, in trust, to secure, 
 among other things, Mr. Bootfs own private debt to the chil- 
 dren of Mr. F. Boott. I formerly stated this, which Mr. 
 Lowell does not deny ; and I printed the trust deed in proof 
 of it. [B. p. 42. App. p. 23.] 
 
 I collected, whilst I held this note, considerable sums, both 
 of principal and. interest, on account of it. These, by a sep- 
 arate agreement, were paid over to Mr. Boott, to be paid by 
 him to Mr. Lowell, on account of his own debt in that quar- 
 ter, as his receipts printed by me show. [B. App. p. 26-28.] 
 And Mr. Lowell, pretending a suggestion from me, which I 
 never made, nor imagined, that Mr. Boott had intentionally 
 deceived me as to the application of the money, indignantly 
 repels the charge, and assures us, now, that the money all 
 went, bona fide, to the reduction of his debt ; just as I intend- 
 ed it should. [L. p. 96, 7.] I added, in my former statement, 
 that the balance of the note was finally collected, and applied 
 by Mr. Boott to the payment of his own private debts ; [B. p. 
 48.] and this Mr. Lowell does not pretend to question. How 
 could this note, then,, have belonged to Mr. Boott as executor, 
 when he was all the while treating it, and its proceeds, as his 
 own? 
 
 Besides all this, the probate account is, as Mr. Lowell as- 
 
263 
 
 sures us, ^fwll account of the whole executorship, from be- 
 ginning to end ; but he also assures us, that this note grew 
 in part, out of advances made by the testator himself; yet 
 neither the note, nor a particle of its proceeds, appears any- 
 where in that probate account. We must conclude, then, 
 since Mr. Boott always treated that note as his own, and does 
 not include it, nor any part of its proceeds, in his executor's 
 account, either that Mr. Lowell is mistaken as to its origin, 
 or else that Mr. Boott, considering it, as it was, a poor piece 
 of property to hold as an investment for the estate, and desir- 
 ing to accommodate the promisor, took it to himself, and ac- 
 counted to the estate for the advances, which the testator had 
 made upon it, although he has strangely omitted to state this 
 transaction in the probate paper. 
 
 We are thus, reluctantly, but inevitably, brought to the 
 ■conclusion, from Mr. Lowell's own statements, admissions, 
 and arguments, that there was nothing in Mr. Boott's hands, 
 in 1830, traceable as a distinct and separate investment for 
 the account of his father's estate. If any thing contained in 
 the memorandum of 1830 can be traced, by evidence not yet 
 disclosed, to a purchase with the estate's money, for the spe- 
 cific account of the estate, it is incumbent on Mr. Lowell, 
 who possesses all the evidence, so to trace it, when he assumes 
 the right of charging it, in 1830, to the estate at its cost, 
 although, it was, then, worth much less. And when it shall 
 have been so identified as the estate's property at the original 
 purchase, it will then be incumbent on Mr. Lowell to show 
 when, and how, it afterwards became the private property of 
 Mr. Boott, so as to account for his using it as his own. Until 
 this shall have been done, I must be permitted to account for 
 the use made of it, by assuming that it was not purchased 
 specifically for the estate. 
 
 Where, then, was the admitted trust fund in 1830? Where 
 could it be, but in Mr. Boott's own pocket ? entering into 
 all his affairs ; mingled, inextricably, as an undivided interest, 
 with all the property he held and all that was due to him, 
 subject to all that he owed. In short, it was one hundred 
 thousand dollars resting upon nothing but Mr. Boott's per- 
 
264 
 
 sonal responsibility, and his probate bond, with two sureties, 
 one of Avhom had very little or no property, and the other 
 none, except an income from the trust fund itself, and a life 
 interest in the house she occupied. 
 
 This Mr. Lowell is compelled to admit, in effect, when he 
 seeks to apologize, as he does, for a fact, which he could not 
 deny, in the face of the evidence I adduced. Speaking of 
 his interview with Judge Warren, he says, 
 
 " I stated to him expressly, that I could not carry to Mr. Boott any 
 proposal, that did not include a full and literal passage of his accounts 
 as presented ; that Mr. Boott's honor was involved in this issue, and 
 must not be perilled by me ; that I admitted that Mr. Boott had al- 
 lowed stocks belonging to the estate to stand in his own name for sev- 
 eral years, and that this I did not pretend to justify ; that I had, how- 
 ever, no doubt, that Mr. Boott believed himself, at the time, to be, as 
 I believed him to have been, a creditor to the estate ; and that, until 
 the moment of his having become alarmed about the solvency of Ly- 
 man & Ralston in 1830, it had never occurred to him as a possibility, 
 that in so doing he was jeoparding the property of the estate." fL. p. 
 35.] 
 
 Upon this passage, I must be permitted to inquire, in pass- 
 ing, in what way, and to what extent, Mr. Boott could, pos- 
 sibly, have believed himself, in and before 1830, to have been 
 a creditor of the estate ; and how Mr. Lowell could possibly 
 have believed it. The transaction, out of which the pre- 
 tended cash balance, claimed by the account of 1844, arose, 
 as alleged by Mr. Lowell, happened (we both concur as to 
 the time,) in May 1831. [B. p. 43. L. p. 29.] I shall pres- 
 ently go into that matter more particularly. Just now, I have 
 only to remark, that an event, which happened in 1831, 
 could not have made Mr. Boott a creditor in 1830. 
 
 Apart from that transaction, how could the credit have 
 arisen, unless from his advancing to or for the heirs, more 
 than they were entitled to receive ? In no other form has an 
 advance for the estate been suggested on either side. The 
 account in question does not pretend it. I erroneously sup- 
 posed, in my former statement, that the account of 1844 
 meant to claim the whole $25,000, said to be due to the ex- 
 ecutor, as having sprung from that cause. But Mr. Lowell 
 
265 
 
 has very clearly demonstrated that this was an error. He has 
 shown, beyond dispute, that the account, strictly analyzed, 
 really claims only |3700 as over-paid to the heirs. But while 
 it claims this as an over-payment, it does not Claim that Mr. 
 Boott is a creditor of the estate on that account, since the sum, 
 so alleged to have been over-paid, is taken from the trust fund 
 of $100,000, which is thereby reduced to |96,000 and a 
 fraction, as Mr. Lowell has most satisfactorily shown. [L. p. 
 87.] Now, since the executor had no right to take from that 
 fund, during the life of Mrs. Boott, and give to the heirs, he 
 was in 1830, very plainly, by the admission of the probate 
 account, a debtor, and not a creditor, to his trust, for that sum, 
 ■with a claim over, it may be, upon the particular persons to 
 whom the alleged over-payment went. They may have 
 been, individually, Mr. Boott's debtors for it, if there had 
 really been any such over-payment. The estate certainly 
 was not. I cannot see, therefore, how the fact, which Mr. 
 Lowell endeavours to excuse, is accounted for on the hypoth- 
 esis suggested by him. 
 
 The "Reply" is, afterwards, still more emphatic, on the 
 subject of the unfortunate position of the estate's property :- 
 
 " That Mr. Boott should have allowed stocks, which he had sub- 
 scribed for as an investment partly for his trust funds, partly for 
 his wards, and partly for himself, to stand in his own name un- 
 separated, is certainly unjustifiable ; and so I have at all times, and in 
 all places, to himself and others, uniformly represented it. It will be 
 remembered, however, that it was not formerly the practice of exec- 
 utors and trustees to make so careful a distinction of these forms as 
 is now customary ; and that merchants, especially, are much accus- 
 tomed to owing, and having due to them, large sums on book account ; 
 and so long as their ledger balance is on the right side, no apprehen- 
 sion, or consciousness of irregularity, is entertained on this score." [L. 
 p, 88.] 
 
 Now what have I ever said, up to this moment, which bears 
 so hardly on Mr. J. Wright Boott as this? His professed 
 friend and ardent champion, having been intimately connected 
 with Mr. Boott in business, and necessarily acquainted with 
 his habit of dealing in this respect, finds himself compelled, 
 for his own vindication, lest he should be suspected of aiding 
 
266 
 
 and abetting such irregularites, to avow, not only that Mr. 
 Boott's allowing the trust funds to stand, undistinguished 
 from his own, in stocks purchased partly for them, and partly 
 for himself, was, in Mr. Lowell's opinion, "unjustifiable," 
 but that he, Mr. Lowell, had so, " at all times and in all pla- 
 ces, to himself [Mr. Boott] and others, represented it." Yet, 
 up to the moment of threatened insolvency, and of actual in- 
 ability to place the entire trust funds in security, Mr. Boott, 
 regardless of these friendly remonstrances, persists in what 
 Mr. Lowell declares to be an " unjustifiable " practice. 
 
 Do not my readers begin to suspect some strange obliquity 
 of vision, on the subject of family property, and some pe- 
 culiar notions about such a trust, in one, who is admitted, on 
 all sides, to have been actuated, in most matters, by high 
 sentiments of honour? Do they not, at any rate, begin to 
 see, on Mr. Lowell's admissions, some evidence of misman- 
 agement and incompetency for a trust of this character ? 
 
 Mr. Lowell tells us, in excuse, that merchants in good 
 credit and with a balance on the right side, are apt to over- 
 look these little matters, and not to distinguish carefully, 
 when they come to trust investments, between their own prop- 
 erty and that of other people. I doubt whether Mr. Boott's 
 failure, in that respect, can justly be turned oif on the mercan- 
 tile class as a body. But, perhaps, Mr. Lowell knows best. 
 He thinks his readers will remember, however, " that it was 
 not formerly the practice of executors and trustees to make 
 so careful a distinction of these form,s as is now customary." 
 I am surprised that Mr. Lowell, a trustee for the public, as 
 well as on so many private accounts, for a very large amount 
 of property, should hold out the idea, that this mode of deal- 
 ing with trust funds is a mere matter of form, or that he 
 should think that Mr. Boott, acting on that principle, "faith- 
 fully complied with all the material provisions of the will," 
 [L. p. 24. J and that he "was, in substance, whatever he 
 might be in form, a remarkably good manager of trust prop- 
 erty." [L. p. 97.] 
 
 If these are Mr. Lowell's notions of form and substance in 
 the management of trust moneys, it is certainly right, con- 
 
267 
 
 sidering his position, that he should thus publicly declare 
 them. But I cannot readily believe, that these are Mr. Low- 
 ell's real sentiments. They rather seem to me the subter- 
 fuges of an indefensible case in the hands of a man of ability, 
 but who is, unfortunately, aiflicted with a constitutional 
 weakness, which forbids him ever to admit any thing making 
 against himself, or his argument, merely because it is true. 
 He admits only when he is convicted, or when self-defence, 
 on some other point, requires it. He admits, on the latter 
 principle, that the practice now referred to is unjustifiable. 
 But he admits it, only with a qualification, intended to cover 
 the case in hand, — for he says that mercantile men, formerly, 
 did not take the distinction, now generally conceded, be- 
 tween investing for one's self and investing for others. I 
 should be very glad to accept that excuse, if it were true in 
 the particular instance. But was it so with Mr. Boott ? 
 
 The first item, (after the amount of the inventory,) in the 
 account of 1844, is the foot of a former probate account, 
 settled in 1818. The account of 1844 declares, that the 
 amount of that old account was, then, (in 1818,) "invested 
 in stocks, to constitute the trust fund;" [L. p. 38.] meaning 
 not the fund of $100,000 only, but, also, the additional 
 $11,111 13, directed by the will to be funded for the benefit 
 of the testator's sisters. I showed this, formerly to have 
 been intended, by the marked correspondence of sums, — the 
 amount of investments, mentioned in that account (of 1818,) 
 exclusive of premiums paid for the stocks, and separately 
 charged, as an expense attending the formation of the fund, 
 being exactly $111,111 11. The premiums, added to the 
 par of the stocks, make up the foot of the account of 1818 ; 
 and that account specifies the several investments. [B. App. 
 p. 14.] Now how were these several investments made by 
 Mr. Boott ? — In his own private name ? or in his name as 
 executor 1 
 
 One of the items is five hundred and ten shares of the 
 Suffolk Insurance Company. [B. App. p. 14.] The follow- 
 ing letter from the President of the company speaks for 
 that :— 
 
268 
 
 LETTEE FKOM Mb. P. W. HAYWAED. 
 
 « Office of Suff. Ins. Co. 
 Boston, 15th March, 1848. 
 Deae Sie, 
 
 1 find by the books of the Company, that on the first 
 day of April, 1818, five hundred and ten shares were transferred to 
 J. W. Boott, executor, which remained in his name as executor, until 
 April 15, 1824, when he transferred them to Mr. Henry Cabot. 
 Very respectfully, your obt. servt., 
 
 P. W. HAYWAED. 
 Ed. Beooks, Esq." 
 
 This investment, as executor, seems, by the foregoing 
 letter, to have remained undisturbed for six years. 
 
 Anather large item, in the account of 1811, is $31,111 11 
 of U. S. 7 per cent, stock. [B. App. p. 14.J Here is a cer- 
 tificate, which accounts for that : — ■ 
 
 7 PER CENT. LOAN OF 1815. 
 
 " JOHN W. BOOTT, EXECUTOE, OE BOSTON. 
 
 1818. Purchases. 
 
 April 1, From Kirk Boott & Sons, loan 1815, $16,577 20 
 
 " « Jno. W. Boott, » 15,420 00 
 
 $31,997 20 
 
 1818, Saks. 
 
 April 30, To Henry Cabot, .... $886 09 
 
 1822. 
 Oct. 1, « Boott & LoweU, - - - - 31,111 11 
 
 $31,997 20 
 
 I certify that the above is an accurate copy from the United States 
 Loan Book, kept at the Merchant's Bank, Boston. 
 
 H'T F. FLAGG, Acct." 
 
 The amount actually put, at first, into Mr. Boott's name, 
 as executor, seems to have overrun, by a few hundred dol- 
 lars, the exact sum named in the account ; but this excess, 
 it appears, was disposed of immediately, so as to leave in his 
 hands, as executor, the particularly uneven sum, which the 
 
26 
 
 trust required, within one cent. This stock seems to have 
 remained, in the executor's name, for four and a half years, 
 and then to have been transferred to the firm of Boott &. 
 Lowell. 
 
 By the same account, (of 1818) $43,000 were invested 
 in U. S. 6 per cent, stock. [B. App. 14] So much of this 
 as relates to the loan of 1813 is referred to in the following 
 certificate : — 
 
 LOAN OF 1813. 
 "JOHN W. BOOTT, EXECUTOR, OF BOSTON. 
 
 1818, Purchases. 
 
 April 1, From Kirk Boott & Sons, 1813, S21,000 00 
 
 $21,000 00 
 
 1819, Sales. 
 
 July 24, To Peter C. Brooks, guardian, $3,500 00 
 « " Moses Brown, 1,000 00 
 
 " « Jno. Parker, 3,000 00 
 
 Aug. 24, « P. C. Brooks, guardian, 500 00 
 
 " " Boston Marine Ins. Co. 13,000 00 
 
 7,500 00 
 
 13,500 00 
 $21,000 00 
 
 I certify that the above is an accurate copy from the United States 
 Loan Book, kept at the Merchant's Bank, Boston. 
 
 H'T F. FLAGG, Acct." 
 
 This stock appears to have been disposed of by the ex- 
 ecutor within a year and a half. The residue of the U. 
 S. stocks, mentioned in the account of 1818, was, probably, 
 in some loan of a different year, and I have not succeeded 
 in finding the book, which records it. 
 
 The only other item of investment, named in the account 
 of 1818, is two instalments paid upon two hundred shares of 
 SuflFolk Bank stock — the remaining instalments not having 
 then become payable, as the account shows. For this stock, 
 since it was incomplete, no certificates had then, probably, 
 been issued. [B. App. p. 14.J The receipts, for the instal- 
 ments paid, it may be presumed, expressed, that they were 
 paid as executor ; — since they would not, otherwise, have been 
 
270 
 
 vouchers for that account. But it is probable, that Mr. 
 Boott had subscribed, as he did in all other like cases of 
 original subscription, which have come to my knowledge, 
 in his own private name ; and in this case, when the last 
 instalment was paid in, several months after the settlement 
 of his probate account, the certificate appears to have been 
 filled up in his own name, without adding as executor, and 
 to have been taken out by him in that form. How this 
 should have happened, unless by an, oversight, does not ap- 
 pear. The fact appears from the books of the Sufiblk Bank, 
 which I have examined. 
 
 But, with this single exception, of a certificate not received 
 till after the probate account was settled, it appears, that 
 every investment, mentioned in the account of 1818, of 
 which a record has been found, was made distinctly as exec- 
 utor, and was clothed by name, as it should have been, on 
 the face of the papers, with the trust, to which it belonged. 
 
 Not only so, but it appears by the foregoing certificates, 
 that several of the stocks had, previously, been bought, 
 either in Mr. Boott's own private name, or in the name of the 
 firm of Kirk Boott & Sons, while he was liquidating the 
 concerns of that house, and preparing to pay over from the 
 house to the executor. But, when the proper point of time 
 is reached, and the payment is made by the house, — when 
 he is preparing to go into the probate court, not as surviving 
 partner, but in his capacity vf executor and trustee, for the 
 purpose of settling an account there, he transfers these very 
 stocks, from himself, and from the mercantile house, to himr 
 self AS EXECUTOR, and takes out the proper evidence of that 
 new title. How can Mr. Lowell, then, pretend, that Mr, 
 Boott did not understand and recognize the duty of an ex- 
 ecutor and special trustee on that point? — or that it was 
 not understood "formerly," so far as he was concerned, 
 as well as it is now ? 
 
 The papers, which I have now introduced, lead to another 
 remark. I complained, it will be remembered, originally, 
 of the extreme generality of the probate account of 1844, 
 as not giving proper information to interested and ignorant 
 
271 
 
 parties, to enable them to see, whether the executor ac- 
 counted for all, that he was bound to account for, or not, 
 even admitting the literal truth of every fact directly stated 
 in the account. The account showed the original formation 
 of a trust fund, in 1818, by the purchase of certain stocks. 
 It stated, in a single entry, certain gains and losses on the 
 sale of those stocks, but did not show when they were sold, 
 nor to whom, nor what was done with the proceeds. On 
 these points we were left to conjecture and vague inference, 
 from the single fact, that certain other property is stated in 
 the account to be on hand in 1844; which property might 
 have been purchased, directly, with these proceeds of the 
 former stocks, and immediately upon their sale, or might 
 have been purchased after twenty intermediate changes of 
 investment, upon which gains, or losses, may have been 
 made, not shown by the account. The property is not traced, 
 by the account, so as to connect its beginning and its end. 
 
 The possible loss of books and papers has been suggested, 
 by Mr. Lowell, as the cause of so unusual an omission. But, 
 if that were so, the main facts could, nevertheless, have been 
 supplied, to a great extent, if not fully. The same sources, 
 at least, were open to Mr. Boott, and to Mr. Lowell, which 
 have been open to me. And inquiry has now enabled me to 
 fix the dates, which the account omits, of the several sales, 
 and to show that the proceeds did not go, or at least did not 
 irmnediately go, into the maniifacturing stocks, which the 
 account shows to have been on hand in 1844, although the 
 account, by the paucity of its statements, leaves us to infer, 
 that these manufacturing stocks might have been the imme- 
 diate successors of the stocks sold, and suggests nothing else. 
 Where did the stocks on hand in 1818 go ? The U. S. 7 per 
 cent, stocks, at least, went to Boott 4" Lowell, as appears by 
 one of the foregoing certificates. And so did the two hun- 
 dred Suffolk Bank shares, as the books of that bank show. 
 All this, no doubt, has its explanation ; and Mr. Lowell as 
 the siu-viviag partner of the firm of Boott & Lowell, can of 
 course give it. But why did not the fact appear on the face 
 of an account prepared by Mr. Lowell, pm-porting to be, and 
 
272 
 
 now represented by Mr. Lowell to be, a full and true account ? 
 And why, when the truth and completeness of the account 
 are so seriously questioned, has this fact not appeared in any 
 explanation yet given by Mr. Lowell, professing, as he does, 
 to clear up its obscurities ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 MR. BOOTT's position IN 1830. MR. 
 
 To return to the state of affairs in 1830. Instead of esti- 
 mating only, as I formerly did, the amount of property held 
 by Mr. Boott, which was invmediately available, to prevent a 
 failure, if Mr. Ralston had not succeeded in getting funds 
 from his friends in Philadelphia, I propose now to make the 
 inquiry, which Mr. Lowell seems to prefer. I ask, what, in 
 that event, would have been Mr. Boott's real position, had the 
 failure occurred, and had he been compelled to come to a 
 speedy settlement with all his creditors ? 
 
 For this purpose, I lay aside all question about indebted- 
 ness to his father's estate, beyond what the account of 1818 
 shows. That account admitted a purchase of stocks, for the 
 particular trust funds required by the will, to the amount, in- 
 cluding premiums paid, of nearly $117,000; and since it 
 appears, that, in 1830, there was no specific investment 
 remaining on that account, Mr. Boott must be presumed, 
 until Mr. Lowell shows the contrary, to have owed the whole 
 of it to his father's estate. To the extent of $100,000 for 
 Mrs. Boott, this indebtedness is not disputed even by Mr. Low- 
 well. He may pretend, on the theory of the account of 1844, 
 that $17,000, of the $117,000, had been distributed. But 
 that will appear, presently, to be an mifounded pretence ; and I 
 
273 
 
 claim, for the present, to set down, as debt, the «Aofe sum, 
 which Mr. Boott had invested for those trusts, and for which 
 he had iwthing specific to show, in 1830. 
 
 DEBTS AND LIABILITIES. 
 
 He owed, then, to his father's estate, for the trust funds, 
 
 formed by the probate account of 1818, about _ $117,000 00 
 
 He owed Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, together, as is 
 
 admitted, Sl'OOO 00 
 
 He owed to his wards of the F. Boott family, for prin- 
 cipal and simple interest, as is proved by Mr. Tyler's 
 statement, 46,000 00 
 
 He owed for his endorsements, on account of the 
 
 Lyman & Ralston paper, as is admitted, 80,000 00 
 
 And he was liable to be charged, for other debts con- 
 tracted in their name, on account of the foundry, 
 according to my estimate, 50,000 00 
 
 Total debts and liabilities, $294,000 00 
 
 What were all his assets, set forth in his own memoran- 
 dum, fairly worth ? For this purpose, I estimate property at 
 its market value, so far as it had a fixed market value. Other 
 property I estimate at what it eventually produced, except 
 the disputable items, Lilly's note, and the iron foundry. 
 The former I take at par, the latter at its full cost. This 
 is, certainly, a most favourable view for Mr. Boott ; since it 
 supposes him enabled to hold the least available property till 
 it could be turned to advantage, and allows for the foundry 
 much more than Mr. Lowell pretends to have got for it, and 
 for Lilly's note more than it in fact produced, as will 
 presently appear. 
 
 ASSETS. 
 
 71 shares of Merrimack Manufacturing Company at 
 
 the proved market price, $900 per share, $64 800 00 
 39 shares of Boston Manufacturing Company, 
 
 do. $666 67, do. 26,000 00 
 
 The store, at what it produced in 1831, 16 000 00 
 
 Thes^ble « « "1844, i;500 00 
 
 Kobert LiUy s note, at par, 1^ qqq r.r. 
 
 The iron foundry, at its cost to Mr. Boott, 7o'oOO 00 
 
 $192,300 00 
 
274 
 
 Should we throw away from the debts and liabilities, 
 every thing, which Mr. Lowell does not admit, (except the 
 increased balance of the guardianship debt, as proved by 
 Mr. Boott's own accounts,) it would take from that side of 
 the account only $67,000,* and still leave to be provided 
 for, the sura of $227,000, with a fund of only $192,300 to 
 meet it. 
 
 The valuation of the assets Mr. Lowell, certainly, cannot 
 complain of It will appear, presently, that the two last 
 items are valued, above, at about $50,000 more than they 
 produced. 
 
 Was Mr.Boott, then, at this time, solvent, or insolvent? 
 Was he, or not, in danger of actual insolvency, even if the 
 whole family property in his hands were appropriated to his 
 use ? Is it true, that there was no good cause of apprehen- 
 sion for the safety of Mrs. Boott's trust fund ? 
 
 Mr. Kirk Boott's contemporaneous letters will be a fit con- 
 clusion to this part of the case. The reader may judge from 
 them whether they support my " extravagant statements," 
 or not. I print in Italics the parts, to which I desire to 
 draw attention ; and I have added a few notes, to show the 
 bearing of particular passages. Some of these may anticipate 
 subjects, which require to be discussed ; but, in the mean 
 time, they will inform the reader how I understood Mr. Kii'k 
 Boott's language, where it may seem obscure. 
 
 ME. KIEK BOOTT'S LETTERS. 
 
 Kirk Boott to Edward Brooks, September 26, 1830. 
 
 My Dbar Sik : 
 
 I felt too jaded last evening to seek a private interview with J. W. 
 B., [Mr. J. Wright Boott] and my alFairs at Lowell rendered it 
 necessary that I should get back as soon as possible. I have written 
 him by this post, recommending him to bend all Ms attention to 
 making vp an accurate account of the works on the Mill Dam- 
 observing that the course proper for him to pursue must depend, 
 in good measure, upon the state and value of this property. But that 
 
 * Debt to the estate, not admitted by Mr. Lowell, S17,000 
 
 Debt of Lyman & Ealston, do. 50,000 
 
 $67,000 
 
275 
 
 the debt to F. B:s children must he settled in full at all events ; and 
 that to effect this, should be his first and chief object. ^ 
 
 It did not occur to me to inquire what are the relations of R- & i- 
 [Ralston & Lyman] and J. W. B. with respect to the works on the 
 m Dam. Are they partners ? In whose name does the property 
 Snd? Has any incumbrance been made? If not are there any 
 menns of preventing this property from being attached 
 
 I have been necessarily so much from home lately, that I have 
 much to attend to here ; yet I will come down, if I can be ot any 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 ^' KmK BooTT. 
 
 Sunday, Sept. 26. 
 
 Kirh Boott to E. Brooks, September 29, 1830. 
 
 Lowell, Sept. 29, 1830. 
 
 Mt Deab. Sir : 
 
 If such a statement as you have recommended can be made up, 
 which I fear J. W. [Mr. J. Wright Boott] will find almost impos- 
 sible, it certainly would greatly facilitate the settlement. The truth 
 may be approximated, if not correctly ascertained. The immediate 
 difiiculty appears to lay with R. & L., and /. W. B.'s engagements on 
 their account. For, as they are all partners in as far as the M. D F. 
 [Mill Dam Foundry] is concerned, if R. & L. are unable to meet 
 their payments, or get their notes renewed, there is fear that the 
 whole of this property may be taken by attachment. 
 
 To prevent the possibility of such an event, it does seem to me that 
 prudence dictates that they should join in an assignment, provided 
 such a measure can be taken without injuring the credit of R. & L. 
 Were my mother without company,* I am by no means sure that a 
 general assignment would not be best ; but in this, I think she should 
 have a voice. I feel confident that she anticipates difficulty, and do 
 not believe thut finding her income greatly abridged, would very seri- 
 ously affect her. But to learn that F. B.'s children were sufferers 
 through J. W. B.'s agency, would afflict her beyond measure. I 
 thought, when I met you and R. [Mr. Ralston] the other morning, 
 that he assented to the nropriety of that debt's being first paid in full. 
 At least, I considered his silence as acquiescing, and I told J. W. B. 
 that this would be agreed to. 
 
 I had a note from J. W. B. last night, written in the greatest dis- 
 tress. He says, " if that sum should not be paid in full, I am not 
 only ruined in property, but in reputation forever. I am indifferent 
 about the future, as respects myself, as to the means of subsistence ; 
 but to bear a brand of dishonor, I cannot contemplate with compos- 
 ure. And besides, if the children are paid in full, and this claim of 
 
 * That is, as I understand, if it were not for tlie F. Boott cHldren, who, it was 
 thought, must be paid in full. 
 
276 
 
 tlteirs also,* the whole burden will fall upon my poor mother, who mU 
 have means so diminished that her comfort and happiness will he de- 
 stroyed, and, if her mind should dwell much on her situation, you will 
 see her health decline — perhaps destroyed.f I do wish now that 
 THE PROPERTY wus taken out of my hands, to be appropriated as I 
 first pointed out4 I am bound hand and foot, and can do nothing of 
 myself. It is, certainly, equally for the interest of the heirs that the 
 fund left to my mother should he made good ; it will come to them 
 eventually." 
 
 I have written to him a few lines, to say that I will be in town on 
 Saturday, but how to advise or assist him is more than I can tell. 
 But for R. ^ L.'s affairs, I have no doubt that an assignment of all 
 HIS PROPERTY, out of wMch F. B.'s heirs' claim should be first paid, 
 and the residue divided among the other crevitors, would be the 
 most advisable course.^ I am almost worried out. Committee after 
 committee keep coming up in relation to the increase of the Appleton 
 Works, or a new xioncern, for all of which many calculations are re- 
 quired, taking all my time, and, since this unhappy disclosure, I get 
 neither sleep or rest, and after next week I shall commence the half 
 yearly accounts of the M. M. Co. [Merrimack Manufacturing Com- 
 panyr.] 
 
 I do not mention this with a view of avoiding any labor, which I 
 will most cheerfully encounter, but to account for my not coming 
 sooner to town. This state of suspense is worse than all the rest, 
 except the fears of J. W. B. as to character. I do hope B. S) L. wiU 
 not urge this claim, if it can possibly be helped. 
 
 Ever very truly yours, 
 K. B. 
 
 Kirh Boott to Edward Brooks, September 29, 1830. 
 
 Evening, Sept. 29, 1830. 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 I wrote you this afternoon, to say that I would be in town on Sat- 
 urday. Since then I have your second letter of the 28th. I cannot, 
 
 * Referring, as I understand, to the claim of Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ealston, that 
 Mr. Boott should pay, on their several accounts, the sums due from him, as execu- 
 tor, for unpaid balances of the shares of their i-espectire wives in their father^ 
 estate. 
 
 t Mr. LoweU pretends that there was no apprehension of any loss of the trust 
 funds. Yet this is the language of Mr. J. Wright Boott himself. 
 
 X Mr. Lowell pretends that this does not mean the property, generally, in Mr. J. 
 "Wright Boott's hands, including what belonged, in equity, to his father's estate; 
 but only the property of the iron foundiy. 
 
 § "Who were the otlter creditors 9 Mr. Lowell pretends that Mr. Boott was not 
 liable for debts contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston ; also, that he owed 
 nothing, either to his trast fund, or to the heirs of his father's estate. 
 
277 
 
 without a very gross dereliction of duty, leave home to-morrow — 
 having several appointments with workmen, who cannot proceed with- 
 out me. Besides, Mr. Colburn is from home, and I make it a point 
 never to suffer both to sleep away from the Works, on any account 
 whatever. I will use every exertion to see you on Friday. I am 
 decidedly of opinion that J. W. B. should not join in mortgaging the 
 M. D. F., unless he receives his full proportion of the sum raised 
 upon it, to he applied to lessen Ms debts to the heirs of F. B. 
 
 I have every confidence in R., but in his necessities he may be in- 
 duced to do what otherways he would not think of. I have no desire 
 that he should yield any thing improperly, but it does appear to me 
 that this debt of honor should be, if only for the sake of my mother, 
 taken care of. It is evident that a speedy decision is at hand. If I 
 can get away, however late to-morrow evening, I will. 
 
 Ever Yours, truly, 
 K. B. 
 
 Kirk JBoott to Edward Brooks, October 10, 1830. 
 
 Sunday, Oct. 10th, 1830. 
 Mt Dear Sir : 
 
 I learnt with surprise, last evening, from E., that nothing had yet 
 been determined upon. Immediately on the receipt of your last let- 
 ter, I wrote briefly to J. W. B., stating the reasons why it was expe- 
 dient he should join in the mortgage, and begged he would see you 
 on the subject directly. I have been very busy ever since then, and 
 having the house full into the bargain, must plead my excuse for not at 
 once answering your letter. Indeed, I expected J. W. B. would see 
 you at once, and thus render it unnecessary. Whatever course is 
 judged best, should, it appears to me, be taken directly, as delay can 
 do no possible good, and must be attended with danger. 
 
 Ralston judges favorably of the business on M. D., and I confess 
 it looks less desperate on paper than I expected. Still it is an up hill 
 business, with such a load of debt. Yet, with economy and persever- 
 ance, it may be surmounted. 
 
 I shall be in town on Thursday, till when, 
 
 I am truly yours, 
 K. B. 
 
 Kirk Boott to Edward Brooks, date uncertain. 
 
 Tuesday Evening. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 I was never more surprised than at the misunderstanding between 
 Mr. A. Ealston and myself, after a full explanation with Eob't. 
 [Robert Ealston, Jr.] He and Ash. [Mr. A. Ealston] took me 
 aside in the evening, and observed that, with $10,000, he thought 
 
278 
 
 they might get along ; and as the pressing debts were all in the fam- 
 ily* they might be postponed. In the morning, Ash. proposed to me 
 that L. & E. [Lyman & Ealston] should dissolve, and that J. W. B. 
 should take charge of the M. D. F., and Rob't, the business in town. 
 I left him to propose this to J. W. B., in whose presence I wrote you 
 my letter. I afterwards saw Ash., and told him only that J. W. B. 
 would be guided by the opinion of his friends. The S10,000 was to 
 be raised between this and the first of Dec. ; and it was thought it 
 might be subtracted from the stock of the M. D. F. No further 
 mention was made of a mortgage. The case is so full of difficulty 
 that it is very hard to decide. My own opinion is, that J. W. B. 
 should at once assign all his vrovv,b.ty first to secure F. B.'s heirs, 
 and next the estate and heirs o^ mt rATHER.f The endorse- 
 ments for E.. & L. are no debts of his,X and securing to them a just 
 proportion of what he may owe them as executor, is all, under the 
 circumstances, they can claim.§ With the disposition of the Ralstons 
 to ease themselves (however natural) of as much of the burthen as 
 possible, J. W. B cannot, in justice to mt mother, assist them; 
 and however desirable it may be to give time, in delay there is great 
 danger that he mag not have it in his power to do equal justice.\\ 
 Cannot an assignment be made and kept secret for the present, that 
 would bar attachment at all events, till we see the result of the accounts 
 of the M. D. F. ? If Matt E.1[ cannot lose the amount he has ad- 
 vanced without failing, may he not, in spite of Ash., immediately 
 attach ? And Ash. never said he had power to act for Matt. I 
 have no faith that L. & E. can possibly get along without material 
 assistance from the family ;** and I doubt much whether they will 
 think it prudent to afford it. He admits that the debts of L.Sf B. are 
 $80,000 ; and do you not think it probable that they will turn out 
 more ? How is it possible for them, with doubtful credit, to carry on 
 their business with such a load ? If the loan is made of $20,000, J. 
 
 * Meaning, as I understand, the Ealston family. 
 
 t Sucli was Mr. Kirk Boott's opinion. Mr. Lowell's opinion, as he now states 
 it, is, that the trust funds were all safe, and that the heirs had been already over-paid 
 by $3700 ! 
 
 i Not that he was not liable for them to the holders ; but that, as between him 
 and his partners, they were debts which L. & E. ought to take care of, provided he 
 should secure to them, rateably with the other heirs, as far as his means would go, 
 what he owed them from his father's estate. 
 
 § It is plain from this, that Mi-. J. "Wright Boott's condition was understood to 
 be one of insolvency ; that a rateable distribution would be necessary ; and the idea 
 appears to have been, that the loss should be apportioned upon Mrs. Boott's trust 
 fund, and upon the debts presently duo to the respective heirs. 
 
 II That is, that his creditors, for debts contracted in the name of Lyman & Eal- 
 ston, might, by attaching his property, prevent the rateable distribution, which was 
 proposed for the benefit of all his creditors, including the heirs of his father's es- 
 tate. 
 
 IT Mr. Mathew C. Ralston, one of the creditors of Lyman & Ealston. 
 
 ** Meaning tlio Ralston family. 
 
279 
 
 W. B. should insist, I do think, upon his proportion, to he invested 
 for the heirs of F. B. And if this is not assented io, 1 do not think 
 he ought to join in the mortgage. My mother and Ann, with Miss 
 K., are coming up here to-morrow. I feel that if left alone, hy any 
 chance, with my mother, that I shall hardly he able to contaiy, my feel- 
 ings. But until some course is decided upon, it would he highly im- 
 proper to make any partial disclosures, and I shall put a bridle upon 
 my feelings. 
 
 Do decide for us. If a secret assignment can be legally made, it 
 does appear to me it ought. Yours truly, 
 
 K. B. 
 
 This is a very disconnected epistle, but I am hurried and disturbed 
 beyond measure. 
 
 Kirk Boott to Edward Brooks, May 22, 1831. 
 
 Lowell, May 22d, 1831. 
 My Deae Sib : 
 
 Accompanying yours of yesterday, I had one from J. A. L.,* urg- 
 ing me to come down. Were it possible, I would have left home this 
 morning. But I have been literally in torture since Friday, from an 
 attack of acute rheumatism, which settled in my lame shoulder, aris- 
 ing from a severe cold taken on Thursday. This has confined me to 
 the house, and still does ; but as the pain is shifting to the arm, T am 
 in hopes to be able to see you on Thursday, on which day, if possible, 
 I will be in town. I have no copy of my letter to Wright ; it was 
 penned in great pain, and under an overwhelming impression derived 
 from a conversation with J.,t that L. ^ E.'s failure was at hand. It 
 was in consequence of a desire on the part of Mr. T.J to discount 
 L. & R.'s paper at the Bank, that R. urged an examination of their 
 affairs. Mr. J. was a party to it, and it resulted in a conviction that 
 they were not entitled to any credit, and such was Mr. J.'s report to 
 Mr. T. Now such an occurrence as this, in which R.'s statements 
 alone were taken, being immediately followed by J. W. B.'s resigna- 
 tion, for which no adequate motives could be openly assigned, did not, 
 in my mind, admit of a doubtful interpretation.§ Wm. A.|| had al- 
 ready made the application, and several others strongly suspected the 
 cause. J. A. L. also had observed to me, that he did not think that the 
 sacrifice of J. W. B. would be of any service to L. Sf R. 
 
 * Mr. John Amory Lowell. 
 
 t The late Mr. P. T. Jackson. 
 
 % Mr. Tflden, then President Of the Colnmbiati Bank. 
 
 § Mr. Lowell infers, from my having formerly printed this in Italics, that I sup- 
 posed the "resignation" to refer to Mr. J. W. Boott's executorship. Wliat 
 "resignation'' was alluded to, appears on the next page, namely, that of the 
 agency of the Suffolk Manufacturing Company. 
 
 II Mr. Wm. Appleton. 
 
280 
 
 With regard to making provision for the endorsements, I am clearly 
 of opinion, that however desirable it may be on all accounts, that it 
 should only be done with my mother' s full concurrence. That an esti- 
 mate, not over-stated, of her resources should be shown her, and that 
 her opinign should decide.* 
 
 If L. & E. fail, how is Anne and her children, and Mary, to sub- 
 sist, unless my mother can give them temporary shelter ? and without 
 SOME income, how is this to be done?t 
 
 The mortgage of the Mill Dam, I presume, is made entirely for L. 
 8f E.'s debts,X and if the property is worth only half what they esti- 
 mate it at, this will cover any demands they have upon J. W. B. as 
 executor. His reversion of the estate, which he says he will never 
 touch a cent of, might he pledged as security for his endorsements, and 
 in justice, perhaps, this is all that the R.'s [Ralstons] can claim. 
 
 But perhaps I may be in error. I do not, under all circumstances, 
 think it very important that J. W. B. should take the agency of the 
 Suff. Oo.% My wish would be to have him sent to England for the 
 Rail Road. This would take a year, and to procure the agency of the 
 new concernll for him on his return. The advantages of this course 
 are, that such a change would turn the whole current of his ideas, 
 throw him much upon the world, and afford him an opportunity of 
 procuring much information that is wanted, and which would give hinj 
 a consideration with those concerned with us. He is admirably quali- 
 fied for this purpose, and I do hope and believe it all might be effect- 
 ed. At all events, it could be speedily ascertained. The new con- 
 cern, too, would be a much better field for him. 
 
 If it is necessary to act, / should greatly prefer the assignment at 
 once ; but provided my mother is made acquainted with the state of 
 affairs, and acquiesces, in any course you will recommend, 1 hereby 
 pledge myself to you to consider myself a party, and to abide by and 
 acknowledge as my act, whatever deed you may conclude upon. 1 
 write in great pain, and in a very constrained posture, and cannot 
 take a copy of this ; yet do not destroy it. I am sensible fully as to 
 the trouble and delicacy of this business to you, and regret its neces- 
 sity ; but I cannot help it. Yours truly, 
 
 K. B. 
 
 * Why so ? Simply because it was certain that Mr. J. W. B. could not raise 
 $30,000 to take up the endorsed paper; and also pay his debt to the F. B. chil- 
 dren in full, without encroaching deeply on Mrs. Boott's trust fund. 
 
 t This shows, clearly enough, the extent, to which Mr. Kirk Boott apprehended 
 the ruin might go. 
 
 % See note } to the preceding letter, p. 278. 
 
 § The Suffolk Manufactming Company, then about going into operation. 
 
 II A new company then in contemplation; afterwards called the Lawrence 
 Manufacturing Company. 
 
281 
 
 Kirk Boott to Edward Brooks, date uncertain. 
 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 I saw R. R. [Mr. Robert Ralston, Jr.] yesterday afternoon,^ and 
 explained to him very fully that the plan he proposed for raising 
 money on the M. D. F. could not be assented to. That in any event, 
 /. W. B. felt it to be his duty to assign over his property for the 
 security of all his creditors ; and that in so doing, it seemed impos- 
 sible but the M. D. F. must be stopped. That however well his state- 
 ments looked on paper, it did appear to me there must be some fallacy 
 in them. And that as far as I could see, it was doubtful whether 
 any profit had yet been derived from carrying on their works. 
 
 He was evidently seriously alarmed. In the evening, Ash. and he 
 took me into the library. Ash. remarked that all the debts coming due 
 were to his family, and that they might be postponed ; and that if it 
 were possible to divide the stock there into shares, he thought it would 
 be possible to induce some of his creditors to take shares for their 
 debts ; and that he would himself. That J. W. B. should have his 
 proportion ; and that if this were accomplished, he might then hypoth- 
 ecate them without stopping the Works. This morning he proposed to 
 me the following : That Lyman should convey to R. R. all his in- 
 terest in the M. D. F., as well as any claim upon J. W. B. as execu- 
 tor, and his reversionary interest in the estate. That the partnership 
 should be dissolved. That the stock should be made a joint concern. 
 That J. W. B. should take charge of the Works, and R. R. manage 
 the business in town. That $10,000 should be withdrawn as soon as 
 practicable, to pay cash advances, made by Matt, and that he would 
 undertake that the other debts should lay for years, and be reducedi 
 out of the profits of the concern. 
 
 I replied that if this could be effected without rendering J. W. B.'s. 
 creditors* more insecure, I saw no objection to it. But that in the meaa 
 time, some competent person should make out a statement of the affairs, 
 of the M. D. F. If a profit could be shown adequate to their sup- 
 port, and to the gradual liquidation of the debts, it might be a judieious^ 
 course ; but if otherwise, I felt assured that J. W. B. would net con- 
 sent. To accomplish this, I am to send down Tufts, my Clerk, and 
 upon the result we could determine whether this course ought to be 
 adopted. 
 
 Suppose this course to be adopted, could not J. W. B. assign all Ms 
 property ? a course he is very anxious to take — as he fears in, their 
 distress, they {L. 8^ R.) may be driven to attach.^ 
 
 Pray let me hear from you. I am obliged to go home to-day, but 
 will return to town any time, at a day's notice. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Sunday morning. Kirk Boott. 
 
 * His wards, and the heirs of his father. I know of no others, who were not 
 creditors of Lyman & Ralston. 
 
 t What did he fear that L. & E. might attach for, except the debt dne to them 
 as heu-s, which Mr. J. Wright Boott riewed as borrowed money, for ■which he halt 
 made himself personally liable to them f 
 36 
 
282 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 MR. BOOTt's position IN MAT, 1831. CIRCUMSTANCES I,EADJKG 
 TO THE ARRANGEMENT OF THAT DATE WITH MR. LOWELL. 
 
 From the letters of Mr. Kirk Boott, now laid before the 
 reader, it is pretty clear, how extensive a ruin was appre- 
 hended by him. The last letter is without date. That, 
 which immediately precedes it, bears date May 22, 1831. 
 
 This brings us to a point of time extremely material, — the 
 time of the transaction, out of which, Mr. Lowell informs us, 
 grew the alleged "cash balance" of $25,000 " due to the 
 executor," according to the account of 1844. This transact 
 tion is another circumstance, deserYing careful consideration 
 in determining the reality of that account, and the truth of 
 its apparent cash balance. The transaction was, that the 
 shares of manufacturing stock, held by Mr. Lowell in pledge, 
 for a personal loan of $30,000, made by him as trustee under 
 the will of Jonathan Amory to Mr. Boott, in 1827, were, at this 
 time, transferred by Mr. Lowell to Mr. Boott, as executor , and 
 were irnmediately re-transferred by Mr. Boott, as executor, to 
 Mr. Lowell, trustee, for the security of the same debt. [B, App, 
 p. 30-33.] No part of the principal of the debt had been 
 paid, though interest had been kept down. 
 
 This tre^nsaction, as stated by me, and proved by the records 
 of transfers above referred to, is confirmed by Mr. Lowell ; 
 but we dilTer, materially, in our respective statements of what 
 passed between us at the time concerning it, as we do in our 
 respective constructions of the effect of the transaction. This 
 is the instance before referred to, (I believe the only one,) 
 in which Mr. Lowell has ventured to contradict, directly, my 
 statement of a conversation with him. It becomes important, 
 now, to determine, from the circumstances, which of us is 
 most likely to be accurate here, assuming that neither intends 
 a deliberate and direct falsehood. 
 
283 
 
 I will first stale what material facts had occurred, since Mr. 
 Boott's disclosui-e to me of his affairs, in August or September, 
 
 1830. Some eight or nine nionths had elapsed. The letters 
 of Mr. Kirk Boott, above printed; indicate the state of feeling 
 and apprehension existing during those eight or nine months, 
 and some of the measures proposed. The mortgage of the Mill 
 Dam Foundry to Mr. M. C. Ralston had been effected, in the 
 latter part of October, 1830, as appears by the recorded deed. 
 This had raised a loan of f 30,000, which went to diminish 
 the pressing character of the debt, contracted in the name of 
 Lyman & Ralston. I believe no part of the money had been 
 applied (though Mr. Kirk Boott had thought that ought to 
 have been insisted on,) to diminish the private debt of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott to his wards of the F. Boott family. A partic- 
 Tilar necessityj however, for some partial payment in that 
 quarter; had arisen, about this time, in consequence of the 
 marriage of one of his wards. Such a payment was made, 
 probably out of the proceeds of the sale of the store, which 
 occurred, as I find from the registry of deeds, February 22, 
 
 1831. And that sale, amounting to ^16,000, must have fur- 
 nished means to lighten Mr. Boott's position still fui-ther. 
 With these exceptions, his iadebtedness and his liabilities re- 
 mained unchanged, so far as I know, at the time of the writ* 
 ing of Mr. Kirk Boott's letter of May 22, 1831. Assignments 
 of property, either general to secure all his creditors, or to 
 secure his particular trust creditors, had also been suggested 
 by Mr. Kirk Boott, and by Mr. J. Wright Boott himself; but 
 none had been made. The endorsements of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, on the Lyman & Ralston paper, had not been extin- 
 guished, or they had been succeeded by new ones, as the 
 above-mentioned letter, which speaks of his then existing en- 
 dorsements, shows. The moneys raised, however, from the 
 sources above indicated, had procured temporary relief, and 
 postponed our anxiety. 
 
 In the mean time, some arrangement, for the withdrawal 
 of Mr. Boott from his connexion in business with Lyman 
 & Ralston, had been thought, by his friends, extremely 
 desirable, if practicable ; and, with that view, Mr. P. T. 
 
284 
 
 Jackson and other influential friends, had obtained for him 
 a new employment in the agency of the Suffolk Mills, 
 then about to be established at Lowell. He accepted the 
 appointment to that agency, as Mr. Lowell informs us, Jan. 
 12, 1831, but again resigned it, as Mr. Lowell also informs 
 us. May 15, 1831, [L. p. 85.] under circumstances, to which 
 I shall presently advert. The engagements of Lyman & 
 Ralston, involving Mr. J. Wright Boott, had begun to press 
 again, with renewed urgency. Their failure, notwithstand- 
 ing all that had been done, was supposed to be at hand. This 
 appears by the last mentioned letter of Mr. Kirk Boott. 
 Whether the failure of Mr. J. Wright Boott, who was not an 
 ostensible partner in their firms, though an endorser of some 
 of their paper, and implicated in all their engagements con- 
 nected with the business of the foundry, must necessarily 
 follow, or at what sacrifice of other interests in his hands it 
 might be prevented, were serious questions, which Mr. Kirk 
 Boott and myself were compelled to consider. Mr. Lowell 
 became a party, with us, to the consultations of that period. 
 Mr. P. T. Jackson, also, from the interest he took in Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, and in the Suffolk agency, was partially ad- 
 mitted to our counsel. At this juncture, Mr. Kirk Boott 
 wrote to me the letter of May 22, 1831, which the reader 
 has already read. It will be remembered, that instant failure 
 of Lyman & Ralston was therein apprehended ; that an as- 
 signment of all Mr, J, Wright Boott's property, had been 
 recommended, " first to secure F. B.'s heirs, and next the 
 estate and heirs of my father ;" and that the letter concludes 
 as follows : — 
 
 " If it is necessary to act, I should greatly prefer the assignment at 
 ■once ; but provided my mother is made acquainted with the state of 
 affairs, and acquiesces in any course you will recommend, / hereby 
 pledge myself to you to consider myself a party, and to abide by and 
 acknowledge as my act, whatever deed you may conclude upon. I 
 write in great pain, and in a very constrained posture, and cannot 
 take a copy of this ; yet do not destroy it. I am sensible fully as to 
 the trouble and delicacy of this business to you, and regret its neces- 
 sity ; but I cannot help it. Yours, truly, 
 
 K. B." 
 
285 
 
 Thus, it is seen, that, owing to Mr. Kirk Booti's confine- 
 ment at Lowell by illness, the delicate task was thrown 
 upon me, alone, of determining what should be done, in these 
 alarming circumstances, to preserve the family interests, and 
 to shield Mr. J. Wright Boott, as far as circumstances would 
 permit. 
 
 It should be borne in mind, that, during all this time, no 
 further disclosure had been made by Mr. J. Wright Boott to 
 me, since that of August or September, 1830, respecting the 
 condition of his father's estate, nor had any been made to 
 Mr. Kirk Boott, as I think I am authorized to say, from the 
 very confidential intercourse between us on these subjects. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, indeed, endeavours to throw some of my state- 
 ments on this head into doubt, when he protests against my 
 use of Mr. Kirk Boott's name, and says, " Mr. Brooks will 
 hardly claim a more intimate acquaintance with Mr. Kirk 
 Boott's views and feelings than I enjoyed." [L. p. 196.] On 
 most subjects, certainly not — ^particularly not in relation to 
 matters of business with strangers, and topics connected with 
 the kind of business, in which both Mr. Kirk Boott and Mr. 
 Lowell were engaged. But, in regard to mere family inter- 
 ests, and to the relations of Mr. J. Wright Boott to others of 
 his own family, and with regard to his general position and 
 conduct as the family trustee, circumstances of common con- 
 cern, added to long personal friendship, had established be- 
 tween me and that gentleman, an especial confidence and 
 freedom of communication, which it would have been very 
 strange, if he had imparted, with equal facility, to Mr. Lowell, 
 or to any other friend out of the family. 
 
 The letters, which I exhibit, sufficiently vouch for what I 
 now say. On all that class of subjects, I may safely claim 
 to know what Mr. Kirk Boott knew and thought, as far as 
 one man can ever claim such knowledge from great intimacy 
 with another, distinguished for his frank character and hon- 
 ourable dealing. And I imdertake to say, with perfect confi- 
 dence, that Mr. Kirk Boott was no more informed than my- 
 self, by any conmiunication of that period from Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, respecting the amount of his indebtedness to his 
 
286 
 
 father's estate and the condition of the family property. To 
 believe otherwise, considering what has passed between us, 
 wotild be a reflection on the memory of Mr. Kirk Boott. 
 
 It will not be pretended, that any heir, or member of the 
 family, except Mr. J. Wright Boott himself,- knew more than 
 we did. Such were his peculiarities, and the feelings of the 
 family towards him, that nobody attempted to penetrate his 
 reserve. It would not have become me, certainly, to approach 
 nearer than his own brother, who was an older man than my- 
 self and of more experience in business. We, all, habitually, 
 waited Mr. J. Wright Boott's voluntary movements respecting 
 family affairs. 
 
 What then was the extent of my knowledge of the amount 
 of the family property ? On the evening of my marriage, Mr. 
 Boott had volunteered to inform me, that I might shortly ex- 
 pect about $20,000 in my wife's right. He had, on several 
 occasions, given like information of a prospective dividend to 
 other heirs ; and all the unmarried members of the family had 
 been given to understand, that their personal allowance for 
 income was $1200 a year — -the interest of $20,000. They 
 lived, accordingly, in that belief. I had reason to believe, 
 though never informed of the fact by Mr. J. Wright Boott, , 
 that more than one of the heirs had, long before that period, 
 realized the full dividend of $20,000. To me, Mr. Boott had 
 paid, by note, and to Messrs. Lyman & Ralston in money/ 
 $10,000 each, expressly on account The provisions of the 
 will, appropriating, for the support of Mrs. Boott and of the 
 testator's sisters, $111,000, indivisible during their lives, were, 
 of course, matters of notoriety. 
 
 I knew, besides, from Mr. Eirk Boott, that heavy losses 
 had been sustained by the former house, in which he and Mr, 
 James Boott had formerly been partners with Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott. The amount of these losses I did not know, nor what 
 amount of private fortune, previously acquired, Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott might have had to draw upon against these losses. 
 But, from the disclosure made in 1830, it had become appa- 
 rent to me, and to Mr. Kirk Boott, that; after accoimting for 
 the unpaid residue of the paternal estate, as it had always 
 
287 
 
 been understood and represented in the family, there was not 
 only no private fortune left to Mr. J. Wright Boott, (unless in 
 reversion,) but that more or less of funds of the estate had gone 
 into the business of the Mill Dam Foundry, and that it was 
 impossible, that this business should be wound up, in any 
 way, without great loss to the family property. The fear, as 
 the letter^ above cited show, was, that the loss might extend 
 even to the destruction of the particular trust fund, on which 
 Mrs. Boott was dependent. 
 
 Most of the foregoing statements, lam aware, are impugned 
 by Mr. Lowell. I shall not omit to consider his comments 
 upon them. But at present, I allude to these matters of 
 fact, in anticipation, only for the purpose of showing, what 
 the knowledge, or understanding, on my part, was, of the 
 amount of property, for which Mr. Boott wa§ probably ac- 
 countable as executor, when I was called upon, in May, 
 1831, to act, as I did act, under Mr. Kirk Boott's last cited 
 letter. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, when taken into the family counsel respecting 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott's affairs, was, undoubtedly, informed, I 
 will not say of all the above particulars, but generally in- 
 formed, at least, of the belief entertained by Mr. Kirk Boott 
 and myself, that the estate was implicated to a dangerous 
 extent, and that the loss, to be met, must be greatly beyond 
 any private fortune of Mr. J. Wright Boott. This informa- 
 tion Mr. Lowell certainly had from us, in addition to any 
 knowledge of the family property, or of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 own property, which he may have derived from his former 
 connexion in business with that gentleman. And I must 
 say, that there was no pretence, at that time, on his part, 
 that our belief was not well founded. We heard nothing 
 then, of over-payment to the heirs, nor of the suiEciency of 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott's private property to stand all the sup- 
 posed, or anticipated loss. 
 
 In fear of a failure, the object I had to accomplish, plainly 
 was, to disentangle, as far as possible, the affairs of the estate 
 from the private affairs of Mr. J. Wright Boott, and to set 
 apart, specifically, for the estate, and for his wards, (to whom 
 
288 
 
 the estate stood surety,) such suitable portion, as the case 
 would permit, of the property in his hands, the whole of 
 which was thezi, equally, exposed to be taken by general 
 creditors, for want of any thing to mark any part of it as a 
 trust. Of all the items in Mr. Boott's memorandum, of 1830, 
 it has been seen, that, upon the question, what was Mr. 
 Boott's and what the estate's, one only could be distin- 
 guished, — the store, which was Mr. Boott's own. This had 
 now, in May, 1831, been sold, and its proceeds had been ap- 
 plied, as Mr. Boott had seen fit. 
 
 In respect to the foundry, if the whole, or any part, of the 
 $70,000 and more, which had, at that time, gone into it, 
 were considered to have come from the estate, still, it was 
 certain, that the employment of the estate's funds in that 
 trade, by an ex,ecutor, was wholly unauthorized. The adop- 
 tion of that act, in behalf of the estate, could not be thought 
 of for a moment, by Mr. Kirk Boott, or by me ; and the prop- 
 erty itself, (an undivided interest, subject to two mortgages, 
 and, equitably as well as legally, bound for all the debts and 
 liabilities of a partnership supposed to be insolvent,) was a 
 thing to be especially avoided for a trust investment. At 
 whatever loss to the estate, this investment of $70,000 must, 
 of necessity, as we thought, be set to the separate accouHt 
 of Mr. J. Wright Boott — making, with the $16,000 reahzed 
 from the sale of the store, a nominal property of $86,000 to 
 be treated as his. This is a considerably larger sum, than 
 Mr. Lowell pretends, that Mr. Boott was ever worth. It 
 followed, that all the remaining property, named in the 
 memorandum, must be set apart to represent his several 
 trusts, as executor of his father's will and guardian of the 
 F. Boott children ; and that, if it were all clear of any private 
 incumbrance, it would still be greatly insufficient to make 
 good the debt to his father's estate, according to the ideas of 
 the estate, which Mr. Boott had uniformly held out; and 
 since it was understood that the estate must answer, also, as 
 Mr. Boott's surety, for the debt due to his wards, it was plain, 
 that all this property, clear of incumbrance, would fail to pay 
 off that debt, and leave enough to reconstruct the particular 
 
289 
 
 trust funds, established in 1818, agreeably to his father's will, 
 but afterwards broken up. 
 
 This I propose to make clear — ^because it is a key to the 
 subsequent proceedings. "What was the property I speak of? 
 The manufacturing stock, Lilly's note, and the stable. What 
 was it all worth at the time, of which I speak ? 
 
 The market value of the manufacturing stock had risen 
 considerably since August^ 1830, as appears by the following 
 certificate. 
 
 CERTIFICATE. 
 
 " I certify the following market prices from actual sales, in May, 
 1831 :— 
 
 Merrimack Manufacturing Co. per share, 81160 00 
 Boston Manufacturing Co. " 700 00 
 
 The Merrimack sale was dividend on. That is, the dividend, then 
 declared, was sold with the shares. 
 
 CHAS. TORRET, 
 Boston, Aug. 13, 1849." 
 
 Lilly's note had, at this time, been reduced by a partial 
 payment of f966 61, (See Trust Deed, B. App. p. 23.) and 
 had also been strengthened by a new collateral security, 
 namely, a second mortgage made in October, 1830, of a 
 building near Boylston Market Place, in which the printing 
 office, formerly of -Wells & Lilly, had been kept, and a mort- 
 gage of certain articles of personal property appertaining to 
 that establishment. This appears by the recorded deed. 
 Notwithstanding this new security, the note was worth con- 
 siderably less than its face, as the event proved. 
 
 I formerly stated, that it was eventually paid in full ; 
 which I then supposed to be the fact. Mr. Lowell takes care 
 to follow my error, instead of correcting it, as he affects to 
 have done in so many, other cases of supposed errors com- 
 mitted by me. He states, positively, that it was paid in full. 
 [L. p. 86.] From the evidence, which has recently come to 
 my knowledge, it seems that this is another of Mr. Lowell's 
 mistakes. 
 
 I formerly showed that the note was held by me in trust 
 for several years, during which interest was kept down, and 
 
290 
 
 some partial payments were made on account of principal ; 
 and that, about the time of the settlement of Mr. Boott's guar- 
 dianship accounts, I restored the note to him. [B. p. 47-49. 
 App. 26-28.] Never having heard the contrary, I supposed 
 the balance had been paid to Mr. Boott, at or about the time 
 of the settlement of his guardianship accounts, early in 1835. 
 [B. p. 48.] But, I have recently discovered, that in October, 
 1835, Mr. Boott sold the note and mortgage, through a 
 broker, to Mr. John Welch. The deed of assignment is 
 recorded in the registry of deeds, and contains a special 
 warranty from Mr. Boott, " that the sum of eight thousand 
 dollars, or upwards, is legally due to me by virtue of the said 
 note." It happens, that a suit is now pending, in the State 
 of Maine, in which this transaction has become, incidentally, 
 involved, and Mr. Welch, in an answer to a bill in chancery, 
 states that, "some payments having been made on said 
 mortgage, it was. at the time of the negotiation with said 
 Abbott, [shortly after the sale to Mr. Welch] valued and cal- 
 culated to be worth the sum of $8500 " ; — meaning, as I 
 understand, that this was the amount due upon the mortgage. 
 On application to Mr. Welch, I have obtained from him the 
 following certificate, endorsed on an office copy of the deed 
 of assignment. 
 
 MR. WELCH'S CERTIFICATE. 
 
 " For the purpose of strengthening my title to the real estate re- 
 ferred to within, I purchased from Mr. J. W. Boott, this assignment 
 of Robert Lilly's note, and the mortgage to secure the same, and paid 
 him therefor the sum of $5500, October 6, 1885. 
 
 John Welch." 
 
 Boston, June 4, 1849." 
 
 This note Mr. Lowell represents, even before the mortgage 
 of the real estate had been made, to have been such a perfect 
 security, that he ridicules me for speaking of it as unavail- 
 able for an emergency, [L. p. 90.] though I supposed it to 
 have been, as Mr. Lowell affirms it was, [L. p. 86.] event- 
 ually, paid in full. It now appears that this same note was, 
 in fact, sold by Mr. Boott, with the mortgage, at a discount 
 of about $3000 from its face, after the debt had been reduced 
 
291 
 
 to about 18500. It cannot be taken, then, to have been 
 fairly worth, in May, 1831, more than it afterwards produced 
 to Mr. Boott. The note originally was for $14,000; the 
 partial payment, which had been endorsed before its assign- 
 ment to me, was $966 61, leaving due, according to the face 
 of the note, in May, 1831, $13,083 39 
 
 The discount made, upon its eventual sale to 
 
 Mr. Welch, appears to have been 3,000 00 
 
 I estimate it, therefore, in May, 1831, at 10,083 39 
 
 The stable remained as it was at the time of Mr. Boott's 
 
 memorandum, and cannot be set down for more than it 
 
 actually produced many years later. 
 
 It is now easy to get at the aggregate outside value of all 
 
 the property left in Mr. Boott's hands, except his interest in 
 
 the foundry, at the date of the transaction under discussion. 
 
 72 Shares of Merrimack Manufacturing Company 
 at their then market price, (dividend included,) 
 as certified above, $1160 00 per share, $83,520 00 
 
 39 Shares of Boston Manufacturing Company, 
 
 $700 per share, 27,300 00 
 
 Lilly's note, at what it eventually produced, 10,083 39 
 
 The stable, do. 1,500 00 
 
 Total, 122,403 39 
 
 Out of this property the estate was, first, to be relieved of 
 its suretyship to Mr. Boott's wards. That debt, in 1831, 
 after the partial payment to the ward then married, was still, 
 as the probate accounts show, according to Mr. Tyler's state- 
 ment from them, nearly 039,000. Deducting that from the 
 foregoing sum, it would leave, to cover all that Mr. Boott 
 may have owed to the estate, only about $83,000.* But the 
 particular trust funds, formed by the account of 1818, after- 
 wards broken up, and now to be replaced, supposing that 
 were all he owed to the estate, were $111,111 12. There 
 
 *122,000 00 
 39,000 00 
 
 83,000 00 
 
292 
 
 would be a plain deficiency then, if all this property were 
 so applied, upon the particular trust funds alone, of nearly 
 $28,000,* and even the $100,000, required to be set apart 
 for the support of Mrs. Boott, if all else were disregarded, 
 could not be made good by about f 17,000. f This is not all. 
 The foregoing statement supposes all this property clear of 
 incumbrance. But, unfortunately, the greater part of it was 
 pledged, for Mr. Boott's private loans from Messrs. Sturgis 
 and Lowell, for $51,000. Whether the stocks so pledged 
 had been originally purchased with the funds of the estate 
 or not, these gentlemen were supposed to know nothing of 
 that. They took the stocks, standing in Mr. Boott's name, 
 as Mr. Boott's ; and, if they had' no reason to think other- 
 wise, they could not be deprived of their security. It was 
 useless, then, to speculate, for the purpose of such a partial 
 adjustment of affairs, as circumstances would permit to be 
 made, upon the question, how much Mr. Boott might owe to 
 his father's estate and had never accounted for ; since, with 
 the pledges he had made of the property in his hands, and 
 after deducting the amount of debt to his wards, for which 
 he had bound the estate, (his father having been a co-obligor 
 in the guardianship bond,) even his mother's trust fund was 
 deficient by almost $70,000 ! J 
 
 In short, the foundry, with its embarrassments, being re- 
 jected for the estate, even if he could have succeeded, by a 
 sale of the foundry, in redeeming the stocks from his private 
 pledges, all the property left would not suffice, by a consid- 
 erable sum, to pay his wards, and m^ke good the sum of 
 ),000 for his mother. 
 
 tlOO,000 00 
 83,000 00 
 
 *11 1,000 00 
 83,000 00 
 
 28,000 00 
 
 17,000 00 
 
 t Property, - 122,000 00 
 
 Debts for which it was pledged, 51,000 00 
 
 Nett, 71,000 00 
 
 Deht to the wards, 39,000 00 
 
 Balance towai-ds Mrs. Boott's $100,000, 32,000 00 
 
 Deficiency, 68,000 00 
 
293 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE AGREEMENT OF MAY, 1831. MK. LOWELl's MISTAKE, WITH 
 A CIKCUMSTANCE. 
 
 The last chapter has disclosed the state of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott's affairs, at the time when the transaction occurred, 
 about which Mr. Lowell and I now differ. What I deter- 
 mined to advise, and, if possible, to effect, under the request 
 in Mr. Kirk Boott's letter, was, to have all the property above- 
 mentioned, except the foundry, turned over as trust property, 
 and ear-marked as such. To this Mr. J. Wright Boott, on my 
 representations of the necessity, readily assented. Pledged 
 or unpledged, redeemed in future or not, it was all so largely 
 deficient for the required purpose, that there was nothing to 
 discuss in the case. 
 
 What was done, in fact, appears as foUows : Mr. Kirk Boott's 
 letter, above cited, was received May 22. On the 23d and 
 24th of May, the transfer and retransfer, above-mentioned, by 
 and to Mr. Lowell, were made and recorded, whereby the 
 fifty shares of manufacturing stock held in pledge by him as 
 the individual property of Mr. Boott, were marked as the 
 property of Mr. Boott, Mi his capacity of executor. [See rec- 
 ords of transfers, B. App. pp. 31. 33.] On the 28th of May, 
 a similar arrangement haviag been effected with Mr. Sturgis, 
 the forty-two shares held by that gentleman were, by a like 
 transfer and retransfer, similarly marked. [See records as 
 above.] On the 26th of May, Mr. Boott executed a deed, 
 duly recorded, by which the stable was declared to be held 
 by him as executor. [B. App. p. 24.] On the 23d of May, 
 Lilly's note, and all the unpledged maniifactm'ing stock, were 
 conveyed to me in trust, first, to secure any balances that 
 might be found due from Mr. Boott to his wards on the final 
 settlement of his guardianship accoimts ; secondly, to hold 
 
294 
 
 the residue, subject to his order as executor, for the purpose 
 of discharging, so far as it might, the indebtedness to his 
 father's estate, which the instrument expressly declares. [B. 
 App. p. 23.] None of these facts are disputed by Mr. Low- 
 ell, though the last is one, which he takes care not to notice. 
 The dispositions above-mentioned, it will be perceived, take 
 up all the property described in Mr. Boott's memorandum, ex- 
 cept the foundry and the store, which last had been lately sold. 
 
 The reader will now be prepared to understand the precise 
 issue between Mr. Lowell and myself on this point, as it ap- 
 pears by the following extracts. 
 
 In my former pamphlet, after describing the transfer and 
 retransfer by and to Mr. Lowell, I remarked : — 
 
 " The object of this arrangement was, to prevent the attachment of 
 said shares, by any creditor of Mr. Wright Boott, for their value 
 above the debt to Mr. Lowell. It was made in consequence of a con- 
 versation between Mr. Lowell and myself, in which we agreed that 
 the shares pledged to him, although standing at the time in the name 
 of Mr. Wright Boott, were, in reality, a part of the assets of his 
 father's estate, and the above was the best expedient we could think 
 of to remedy the mischief, so far as to secure them against any other 
 creditor than Mr. Lowell himself." [B. p. 43.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell's account of the same matter is somewhat more 
 at large. 
 
 " I had had no personal dealings with Mr. Wright Boott, except 
 that I had lent to him a few years before, a large sum of money from 
 the trust funds in my hands, belonging to the estate of Jonathan 
 Amory, on a pledge of manufacturing stocks. These stocks stood at 
 the time of his making the loan, and had always stood, in his own in- 
 dividual name. In May, 1831, Mr. Brooks proposed to me that the 
 right of redemption of these shares should be conveyed to Mr. Boott 
 in his capacity of executor, subject to my debt ; and he suggested, as 
 the simplest mode of doing this, that I should convey the shares to 
 Mr. Boott in that capacity, receiving simultaneously a reconveyance 
 back. The legal effect of this he stated to be, to invest the equity of 
 redemption in the estate, and nothing more. 
 
 I answered, that if Mr. Boott acceded to it, I should not object, 
 provided it were understood that I was to reserve the amount of in- 
 terest due to my trust out of the dividends, and that I did not waive 
 my right to pay myself, whenever I should deem it necessary, by a 
 sale of a portion of the stock. 
 
 It is obvious, that I could not be actuated in this arrangement by 
 any motive, but that of doing a kindness to Mr. Brooks and the fam- 
 
295 
 
 ily. 1 had perfect security in my hands ; but, on the other hand, I 
 felt confident that I was dealing with men of honor, who would never 
 turn to my disadvantage a measure adopted exclusivelv for their bene- 
 fit and at their own urgent request. 
 
 Mr. Brooks is mistaken, when he says (page 43) that in our con- 
 versation in May, 1831, I agreed with him that the shares pledged to 
 me, though standing in the name of Mr. Wright Boott, were in reality 
 a part of the assets of his father's estate. This is impossible ; for it 
 was not until August, 1831, that is to say, three months later, that I 
 was consulted about the affairs of Mr. Wright Boott. I knew noth- 
 ing about them, except from Mr. Broolcs himself, and could not, of 
 course, either afiirm or deny any representation he might see fit to 
 make on the subject." [L. pp. 29-30.] 
 
 Again he remarks : — 
 
 " It will be observed, that I had no imaginable interest in the settle- 
 ment of the accounts, [in 1844] except that it should be done upon just 
 and equitable principles. Mr. Boott owed a debt, it is true, to the estate 
 of Jonathan Amory, of which I was the trustee ; but it was secured 
 by a pledge of stock in which the estate of Kirk Boott, senior, had no 
 interest, as I believed and had been assured, beyond a right of re- 
 demption. Even if the form in which I held those stocks was a 
 wrong one, it was a form adopted at Mr. Brooks's own suggestion, for 
 the benefit of the family ; and it had never occurred to me that Mr. 
 Brooks would have availed himself of an act, done at his own in- 
 stance, and for such a purpose, to my disadvantage. Nor do I now 
 believe that he ever would have done so to my pecuniary disadvan- 
 tage ; though he has not scrupled, in the excitement of controversy, 
 to use it as an argument against me." [L. pp. 35-36.] 
 
 When he undertakes to explain how the cash balance of 
 $25,000, claimed for the executor in the accovmt of 1844, 
 arose, he says : — 
 
 " It was simply, because, in virtue of an agreement made with me 
 by Mr. Edward Brooks, in 1831, certain shares, which had stood in 
 Mr. Boott's own name, and which I had every reason to suppose 
 were his own individual property, and which, while so standing, had 
 been pledged to me, four years before, for a loan, were, on the very 
 day of the presentment of the account, retransferred by me to Mr. 
 Boott as executor. The agreement with Mr. Brooks was based on 
 the distinct recognition of my debt, as a lien on the stock, and was, 
 virtually, that the estate should have the equity of redemption of 
 those shares, subject to that debt. It was not, at that time, intimated 
 by Mr. Brooks, that these shares, specifically, belonged to the estate, 
 of Mr. Boott, senior ; but the object was, as Mi-. Brooks has himself 
 stated it, (p. 43) to prevent their attachment by any creditor of Mr. 
 Wright Boott, for their value above the debt due to me, as trustee. 
 
296 
 
 Mr. Brooks also, very fairly, says (p. 117) that undoubtedly I sup- 
 posed these shares to be the property of Mr. Wright Boott at the 
 time I made the loan on that security ; it is therefore perfectly obvi- 
 ous, that all that he could have asked, or I could have consented to, 
 was that I should, in some form, give to the estate the right of re- 
 demption of those shares. By reconveying them, on the day of Mr. 
 Boott's presentation of the accounts, I, therefore, conveyed to the 
 estate, more than it was entitled to receive, by precisely $25,000, the 
 amount of my debt." [L. pp. 41-42.] 
 
 He adds : — 
 
 " A part of the agreement between Mr. Brooks and myself was, that 
 I should not be understood as waiving the right, whenever I saw fit, 
 to pay myself by a sale of so much of the stock, as might be neces- 
 sary for that purpose ; a right I clearly had at common law, as holder 
 of stock pledged as security for a note payable on demand." [L. p. 
 42.] 
 
 Now Mr. Lowell is right enough in the idea, that there Was 
 no intention, by this arrangement, to disturb his lien, or to 
 alter his rights over the property ; not that there was, to 
 my recollection, or in my belief, any express agreement 
 about it, on my part, as he states, for I had no authority to 
 bind any one of the heirs except Mr. Kirk Boott, who had 
 authorized me to act for him, and Mrs. Brooks, whom I rep- 
 resented by law. But, although there was no such express 
 agreement on this point, as Mr. Lowell pretends, the effect of 
 the transaction was supposed to be, to leave Mr. Lowell's lien, 
 his right to receive the dividends, and his right of sale, just 
 as they were before. So he understood at the time, no 
 doiibt, or he would not have consented to the arrangement ; and 
 so did I understand, supposing and believing, all the while, 
 that Mr. Lowell, when he originally made the loan and re. 
 ceived the shares in pledge, had no reason to suspect that they 
 had been purchased with funds of the estate, or that they 
 were not, in the eye of equity, the property of Mr. Boott. 
 
 Mr. Lowell is right, also, in his belief, that 1 should never 
 have availed myself of this act, done at my request, for the 
 benefit of others, with some interest of my own, to his pe- 
 cuniary disadvantage ; nor should I avail myself of it to his 
 disadvantage in any way, unless it be a disadvantage to him 
 that the truth should be made known, in reply to his state- 
 
297 
 
 ments. Indeed, I do not well perceive how I could take any 
 unfair advantage of it, were I so disposed. Mr. Lowell and 
 Mr. Sturgis stood, so far as I then knew, just alike, in the 
 transactions had with them respectively. It seemed to be, on 
 the part of both of those gentlemen, an act of kindness and 
 accommodation, to Mr. J. Wright Boott and his family, to 
 allow the legal title of the shares to be thus shifted, without 
 impairing, as was supposed, or intended, their own security. 
 They might well have confided, that, under the influence of 
 Messrs J. Wright Boott and Kirk Boott, and myself, every 
 other heir would confirm a transaction, entered into by us 
 for the benefit of the estate. 
 
 Perhaps there was no great occasion, however, to rely 
 upon our influence. To be sure, a pledge by an executor, for 
 his personal debt, of shares, which had just been conveyed 
 to him in that official capacity, was, by itself, illegal. But, 
 when all the circumstances, of which there were so many 
 witnesses, should come to be explained, it may be doubted 
 whether any heir would have been allowed to impeach the 
 transaction on that ground, to the disadvantage of the pledgee, 
 while he was claiming, at the same time, the benefit of the 
 executor's title to the shares, which the transaction, as a 
 whole, had created. The case might be difierent, if he could 
 show some prior, or subsequent, conduct of the pledgee, 
 which, when connected with this transaction, made it operate 
 unfairly upon the heirs. 
 
 There is not, therefore, and never was, the least complaint, 
 on my part, respecting the '■'■form," in which Mr. Lowell 
 held these stocks, nor respecting the substantial fact, so far 
 as it depended on this agreement, as a thing by itself. Even 
 "in the excitement of controversy," I do not claim, and 
 never have claimed, to use that as an argument against him. 
 But when he uses the nominal balance of this account as 
 proof of m,y error and misconduct in imputing m,ism,anage- 
 ment to Mr. Boott, and founds his argufnemt for the reality 
 of that balance on this transaction of May, 1831, I claim to 
 expose the actual facts, in answer to a very puerile piece of 
 sophistry. And when he undertakes to say, that he did not 
 
298 
 
 agree, in May, 1831, as the basis of that transaction, that the 
 shares, previously pledged to him hy Mr. Boott, though stand- 
 ing at the time in Mr. Boott's private name, were, in an equit- 
 able view, a part of the assets of his father's estate, — or when 
 he says that the legal effect of the transaction was stated hy 
 me, as an inducement to his consent, to be, to vest in the 
 estate the equity of redemption of those shares, and nothing 
 more, and that he had been assured by me, that the estate 
 had no interest in the shares beyond that right of redemption, 
 — I claim the further privilege of showing, that these asser- 
 tions are not made with that " usual accuracy," for which Mr. 
 Lowell has so distinguished himself in his " Reply." 
 
 I have stated, that, shortly before this time, Mr. Lowell 
 was brought into the counsel concerning Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott's affairs, and that he knew, generally, the views and 
 opinions of Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, and to all appearance 
 concurred in them. He knew, generally, if not in the mi- 
 nutest detail, the actual position of all the property. How- 
 much more he knew, on some points, than I did, will appear 
 as we proceed. He knew and concurred in the opinion, how 
 undesirable and impossible it was, to permit the estate to 
 touch the iron foundry, implicated as that was in the affairs 
 of Lyman & Ralston, and the just claims of their creditors. 
 He knew, that, after abandoning that, with the proceeds of 
 the store, to Mr. Boott's separate account, all the remaining 
 property was grossly inadequate to discharge the estate from 
 its suretyship to the wards, and to preserve the unquestionable 
 trust funds ; and he therefore knew, that these shares cmU 
 not, under that arrangement, be considered otherwise than 
 as representing, to their full unpledged value, funds of the 
 estate. For its funds, previous to that arrangement, were 
 specifically invested no where ; and if they did not lie in the 
 store, (then sold,) nor in the foundry, they could exist only 
 in the manufacturing stock and other items mentioned as 
 virtual assets of the estate, which Mr. Boott was desirous, 
 now, to acknowledge and mark as such. 
 
 Now what is the character of the transaction ? Mr. Boott, 
 in effect, says, to Mr. Lowell, " These are the estate's shares; 
 
299 
 
 I bought them, it is true, as my own, but with funds bor- 
 rowed from the estate, which I am now unable to repay. In 
 the mean time, I have, unhappily, considering them my own, 
 pledged them to you for a private debt ; and that debt, also, 
 I am, at present, unable to repay out of any means of my 
 own. I ought, in truth, never to have regarded these shares 
 as my private property. They should have been marked for 
 the estate from the beginning, since the moneys, which paid 
 for them, were borrowed from the estate. But that cannot 
 now be remedied. I shall pay my debt to you, from my 
 own resources, if I am ever able. In the mean time. I can- 
 not take the shares out of your hands, and by holding them, 
 for some length of time, you may enable me, gradually, to 
 wipe off the incumbrance. The best justice I can do, there- 
 fore, under the circumstances, is to request you, without 
 yielding your own security, to acknowledge them, as I do, to 
 be the estate's property, and for that purpose to transfer them 
 to me, as executor, and to receive them back from me, as 
 executor, in renewed pledge for your debt, leaving me to 
 rectify the irregularity with the estate, hereafter, as well as I 
 may." 
 
 This is the plain literal meaning of the transaction, and is 
 that, to which Mr. Lowell, from its nature, must have 
 assented when he made the transfer, whether any thing were 
 said about it or not. It was the acknowledgement of both 
 parties, pledgor and pledgee, that the shares, though suffered 
 to remain pledged for Mr. Boott's individual debt, were really 
 the property of the estate. One proof of it is, that, upon the 
 retransfer, a new note was made, and that note made by the 
 executor and under that name, as if the debt itself had been 
 a debt of the estate ; which Mr. Lowell does not pretend it 
 to have been. This, formerly stated by me, [B. p. 43.] Mr. 
 Lowell does not deny. Was this debt then, admitted by the 
 executor, with my assent, to be, in form, a debt of the estate, 
 and yet the shares, which covered it, not admitted by Mr. 
 Lowell, to be in truth i\ie property of the estate ? 
 
 But Mr. Lowell says, that I proposed, that the right of 
 redemption, only, of these sha'-»,s should be conveyed to Mr. 
 
300 
 
 Boott as executor, subject to his debt ; and that I suggested, 
 as the simplest mode of doing this, that he, Mr. Lowell, 
 should convey the shares to Mr. Boott in that capacity, re- 
 ceiving simultaneously a reconveyance back. That would, 
 certainly, have been a degree of simplicity, in both of us, of 
 which, 1 think, we should hardly be suspected. If the whole 
 'object had been to vest in the estate the surplus value 
 beyond the debt, and not the shares themselves, I should 
 think the simplest mode of effecting it would have been the 
 common arrangement of taking an acceptance, from Mr. 
 Lowell, of an order from Mr. Boott, to pay over the surplm 
 to him as executor, whenever the shares should be sold ; or 
 else a promise to convey the shares to the executor, when- 
 ever the executor, as such, should 'pay the debt out of other 
 funds of the estate. 
 
 Again, Mr. Lowell says, that the shares being Mr. Bootts, 
 the whole object was to prevent Mr. Boott' s creditors from 
 attaching them, ; and he has the assurance to quote me for 
 it, referring to my pamphlet at p. 43. Mr. Lowell may make 
 himself a party to such an agreement, if he will ; but! pray 
 him to excuse me. If the shares were admitted to be Mr. 
 Bootfs, really, as well as nominally, and this arrangement 
 was only to cover them from attachment, what was it but 
 a fraud on Mr. Boott's other creditors ? And as to quot- 
 ing me for that, I have already cited the language I used, 
 by which the reader will see, that, when it states the 
 object of the arrangement to have been to prevent an at- 
 tachment, it also states this to have been because of a 
 conversation with Mr. Lowell, in which we agreed, that 
 the shares formerly pledged to him, "though standing, at 
 the time, in the name of Mr. J. Wright Boott individually, 
 were, in reality, a part of the assets of his father's estate;" 
 and that this transaction " was the best expedient we could 
 think of to remedy the mischief, so far as to secure them 
 against any other creditor than Mr. Lowell himself." On that 
 basis, considering the shares to be actual trust property, pledged 
 for the private debt of the trustee, the transaction was per- 
 fectly right in itself, and fair towards general creditors, who 
 
301 
 
 had no right to look for the payment of their debts out of 
 trust funds held by Mr. Boott for the benefit of other persons. 
 On Mr. Lowell's principle, the transaction would have been 
 one, which creditors might have justly characterized by very 
 harsh epithets. 
 
 I have endeavoured to show, that my explanation of the 
 arrangement is no more than the transaction itself, under the 
 known circumstances of the estate, did, of its own nature, 
 imply. But, that it was, also, expressly agreed by Mr. Low- 
 ell, as the basis of our arrangement, that these shares did in 
 equity belong to the estate, I now reiterate ; and I regret to 
 find his memory so "signally treacherous" on that point. 
 He denies it, however, positively ; but he, unfortunately, de- 
 nies it with a circumstance. To that circumstance I now 
 call attention. He says : — 
 
 " This is impossible ; for it was not until August, 1831, that is to 
 say, three months later, that I was consulted about the afi'airs of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott. J knew nothing about them except from Mr. Brooks 
 himself, and could not, of course either affirm or deny any repre- 
 sentation he might see fit to make on this subject," [L. p. 30.] 
 
 A part of this is repeated : — 
 
 "In the summer of 1831, a new alarm as to their responsibility 
 occurred, and Mr. Kirk Boott applied to me to undertake the bring- 
 ing about of some settlement, stating, that he and Mr. Brooks had 
 tried their hand at it and failed. This was the frst knowledge I had of 
 the nature and extent of these embarrassments, though rumors had 
 reached me of Lyman & Ralston's troubles, and I had entertained 
 an apprehension, that Mr. Wright Boott might be involved in them." 
 [L. p. 77.] 
 
 A similar statement is made at p. 28 : — 
 
 " Our partnership [Boott & Lowell] was dissolved in 1824; and 
 from that time I had na knowledge of Mr. Wright Boott's affairs, 
 until the month of August, 1831, when I was consulted by my friend 
 Mr. Kirk Boott, upon some embarrassments, that had grown out of 
 the connection of his brother in the business of the Mill Dam Foundery 
 with Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, whose bankruptcy was then, and had 
 been for some time, apprehended." 
 
 This is a very strange instance of oversigbt. If the reader 
 will turn to my last cited letter from Mr. Kirk Boot dated 
 
:302 
 
 May 22, 1831, and ■which was printed in the pamphlet, 
 
 which Mr. Lowell pretends to answer, he will find it begins 
 
 thus : — 
 
 « 
 
 "Mt Dear Sie, 
 
 Accompanying youn of yesterday I had one from J. A. L,, [Mr. 
 John A. Lowell,] urging me to come down." 
 
 About what business ? The letter g&es on to say, 
 
 " I have no copy of my letter to Wright ; it was penned in great 
 pain, and under an overwhelming impression derived from a con- 
 versation with J. [Mr. P. T. Jackson] that L. 8f R.'s failure was at 
 hand." 
 
 It then speaks of an examination of their affairs, to which 
 Mr. Jackson was a party, upon the occasion of an appUcation 
 for a certain discount, resulting in a report from him that 
 they were not entitled to any credit. It adverts to Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott's resignation of the Suffolk agency, for which 
 it is said, " no adequate motives could be openly assigned;" 
 but the cause, it is thought, must have been suspected by Mr. 
 William Appleton and others, and it is added, "/. A. L. also, 
 had observed to me that he did not think the sacrifice of J. 
 W. B. would be of any service to L. & R." 
 
 Had not Mr. Lowell, then, in May, 1831, (the date of this 
 letter,) already been consulted about Mr. Boott's affairs? 
 Will he say, that, so late as in August of that year, nothing 
 hut " rumors " had reached him of Lyman & Ralston's 
 troubles, and that he entertained only an " apprehension that 
 Mr. Boott might be involved in them," when he had been 
 giving his opinion to Mr. Kirk Boott, before the 22d of May, 
 that, permitting Mr. Wright Boott to fail, too, would not help 
 the case of Lyman & Ralston, and when he had, after that, 
 but still before the 22d of May, been writing to Mr. Kirk 
 Boott, urging him to come to Boston with reference to those 
 affairs ? 
 
 But this is not all. Mr. Lowell himself finds occasion to 
 use, in another connexion, and for a different purpose, a letter 
 from Mr. P. T, Jackson to Mr. Kirk Boott, dated May 30, 
 
803 
 
 1831, relating to Mr. J. Wright Boott's resignation of his 
 agency. The letter is printed at large, [L. p. 102.] and the 
 following sentences are extracts : — 
 
 " /. A. L. and I agree, that he cannot well confirm his resignation 
 there, and immediately take another business ; besides which we thinh 
 now is the time, if ever, when he should settle every thing, and free 
 himself from all engagements and responsiUlity on old concerns." 
 **«»**» »»» 
 
 " If I don't see you, John " [i. e. Mr. John A. Lowell] " will ex- 
 plain this more at large." 
 
 Had not Mr. Lowell, then, heen made acquainted, in May, 
 1831, with the fact, that Mr. Boott had engagements and 
 responsibilities on his " old concerns" to settle ? What were 
 these OLD concerns, referred to by Mr. Jackson ? The en- 
 gagements for Lyman & Ralston only ? or the general fam- 
 ily accounts? An earlier letter from Mr, Jackson, printed 
 by Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 100.] answers that question. It is 
 dated May 8, 1831, addressed to Mr. J. Wright Boott, and 
 contains these words: "Will you allow me to urge you to 
 overcome this reluctance, and to proceed, immediately, to 
 the settlement of your affairs, more particularly those of your 
 own family ?" 
 
 But this is not all. Mr. Lowell prints at large, a note dated 
 " Wednesday morning," from Mr. Kirk Boott, " to his 
 brother, inclosing the foregoing letter from, Mr. Jackson ;" 
 [L. p. 103.] meaning the letter of May 30. The note begins 
 thus : — 
 
 " My Dear Wright : 
 
 I should have conversed with you last evening on the subject of the 
 enclosed,\>at was inclined to first sleep upon it." 
 
 This and the almanac fix its date at May 31, the day next 
 after the date of Mr. Jackson's letter, which was May 30. 
 It contains these sentences : — 
 
 " J. A. L. offered and offers, to go on to Philadelphia for the pur- 
 pose of arranging with the Ralstons as to your endorsements and the 
 mortgage; and 1 believe he would find little difficulty in settling 
 them." " This is due to you from J. A. L. He feels it to be so ; and 
 it will give him great satisfaction, if he can bring this affair to a suc- 
 cessful termination." 
 
304 
 
 These are more "contemporaneous expositions." It is 
 plain, at p. 103 of the "Reply," that Mr. Lowell was mis- 
 taken at p. 77, when he said, Mr. Kirk Boott applied to him 
 to undertake this agency ; since Mr. Kirk Boott says, Mr. 
 Lowell made the offer ; and also, that he was mistaken at pp. 
 28, 30, when he says, it was not till August, 1831, that he 
 was consulted about Mr. J. Wright Boott's affairs, since it 
 appears from all these letters, that he was consulted about 
 them, and conferred with Mr. Kirk Boott and with Mr. 
 Jackson about them, in May 1831, and as early as the 8th 
 of that month. 
 
 More than this : when Mr. Lowell introduces Mr. Jackson's 
 letter of May 8, 1831, he speaks of Mr. Jackson as " knowing 
 all the facts of these embarrassments on which Mr. Brooks 
 has laid such stress." [L. p. 99.J Will Mr. Lowell pretend, 
 that Mr. Jackson, at that date, knew more about them than he 
 did ? Mr. Jackson, in the letter of May 30th, referring to 
 the necessity of settling up the old concerns, says, "John 
 [meaning Mr. John A. Lowell,] will explain this moke at 
 
 LARGE." 
 
 I have not, even yet, exhibited all the evidence, which Mr. 
 Lowell furnishes against himself. He gives an account, as of 
 his own personal knowledge, of the long negotiation, " which 
 ended in Mr. Boott's joining in a mortgage of the foundery, 
 to the amount of $30,000." [L. p. 77.] Now the date of 
 that mortgage is October 29, 1830, as its record in the Norfolk 
 Registry of Deeds shows. Yet, says Mr. Lowell, "It was 
 not until August, 1831, that I was consulted about the affairs 
 of Mr. Wright Boott ; " and, referring to the latter part of May 
 of that year, he says, " / knew nothing about them except 
 from, Mr. Brooks himself, and could not, of course, either 
 affirm or deny any representation he might see fit to make 
 on this subject." I think the reader will find, presently, that 
 he knew a vast deal more about them than I did. 
 
 The circumstance, therefore, on which Mr. Lowell relies, 
 in proof of the impossibility of his having agreed, on the 
 23d of May, 1831, as I affirm he did agree, namely, that the 
 shares, which had been pledged to him by Mr. Boott, were in 
 
305 
 
 reality a part of the estate of Mr, Boott, senior, turns out, 
 upon his own showing, to be a most remarkable misrecol- 
 lection. I leave it, then, to the reader to determine, which 
 of us is most likely to misrecoUect the main fact, appealing, 
 for confirmation of my own memory, to the nature of the 
 transaction on the face of the papers, conhected with the ad- 
 mitted description and prdved value of Mr. Boott's assets, 
 placed by the side of the proved debts and the admitted 
 amount of the trust fmid then to be reconstructed and se- 
 cured. To this I may fairly add the responsibility of the 
 position, in which Mr. Kirk Boott's letter had placed me, 
 when compelled to act, without him, for the common inter- 
 est of the whole family on a great emergency. If my memory 
 is good for any thing, upon any occasion, it could hardly fail 
 to retain the remarkable particulars of an unusual transaction 
 of such magnitude, managed by myself, and one, in which I 
 had a much deeper interest at stake than if it had been a 
 merely pecuniary interest of my own, though that, also, was 
 not wanting. Mr. Lowell, since his lien was not to be dis- 
 turbed, had, as he professes, no interest in the matter, except 
 to oblige hig friends. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 MR. Lowell's ahgtjment, from the agheemekt or mat, 1831, 
 
 ON THE REALITY OF THE CASH BALANCE CLAIMED FOR MR. 
 BOOTT. 
 
 Leaving the direct contradiction shown in the last chapter 
 between Mr. Lowell and myself, on a matter of fact, to be 
 settled by the reader, let us now look to the argument. 
 
 "Whether Mi: Lowell agreed, in terms, that these shares 
 were part of the assets of the estate or not, if Mr. Boott as- 
 sented to it, his act, in taking a transfer to himself as exec- 
 
306 
 
 utor, made them so, as against him. This settles the ques- 
 tion of the account. That is to say, these shares were then, 
 with other property, turned over to the estate, by Mr. Boott, 
 for the double purpose of securing the estate against the claim 
 of bis wards, and of replacing the trust fund, formed in 1818, 
 but afterwards broken up ; and, if all the property so turned 
 over, when cleared of Mr. Boott 's private incumbrances upon 
 it, was, at its then value, insufficient, as I have shown, for 
 these purposes, it is certain that the transaction of May, 1831, 
 did not leave Mr. Boott the owner, at that time, of a present 
 interest of $25,000, nor of a single dollar, in that property, 
 subject to the incumbrances. If it were true then. — as the 
 probate account, with Mr. Lowell's explanation of it, pretends, 
 — that Mr. Boott had, in 1844, a private interest, mingled with 
 the property of the estate, in the shares held by Mr. Lowell, 
 it would be clear that this private interest must have been 
 created by some cause, which Mr. Lowell is bound to show, 
 subsequent to the transaction of 1831, and by sofne cause 
 other than a mere restoration of these shares to the executor, 
 in 1844, which Mr. Lowell insists is the true and sole cause. 
 To place this beyond all possibility of doubt, let me restate 
 the case in figures. The whole property, that is, Lilly's note, 
 the stable, and the manufacturing stock, valued, clear of in- 
 cumbrance, has been shown to have been worth, when put 
 in trust, in 1831, [Ante, p. 291,] only about $122,000 
 
 But there were three special claims upon it : 
 
 1. That of the debt to Mr. Boott's wards, 
 for which the whole estate of Mr. Boott 
 the father was bound, then, according to 
 
 Mr. Tyler, about |39,000 
 
 2. The debt to Mr. Lowell, for which fifty 
 shares of the manufacturing stock were 
 pledged, then 30,000 
 
 3. The debt to Mr. Sturgis, for which for- 
 ty-two shares were pledged, 21,000 
 
 90,000 
 
 Leaving a clear surplus for the estate of only 32,000 
 
307 
 
 Now admitting, for the sake of the argument, that Mr. 
 Boott was not bound, in 1831, to keep on hand the fimd of 
 |11,000 for his aunts (in consequence of their deaths, which 
 Mr. Lowell must assume to have happened,) and admitting 
 that this sum had been duly distributed among the heirs, 
 together with whatever else they had been entitled to from 
 the estate, (which Mr. LoweU also assumes,) so that all the 
 executor remained accountable for, on his trust, in 1844, was 
 that, which Mr. Lowell admits, namely, the fimd for his 
 mother of $100,000, how was it possible for Mr. Boott, with 
 the means he possessed in 1831, to have got the $100,000 
 fund, whole, out of that property, and to make $25,000 of 
 the property his own ? 
 
 The income of the fund he was bound to apply to the 
 purposes of the trust. He could not lawfully use that, any 
 more than the principal, to pay his own debts with ; and Mr. 
 Lowell indignantly repels the idea of his having done so. 
 [L. p. 92.] This will presently be considered. Any rise in 
 value of the stocks, after they had been conveyed to the 
 estate, would be the gain of the estate, not Mr. Boott's. 
 What this may at any time have amounted to I will presently 
 consider, as well as the effect of charging the stocks to the 
 trust at their alleged cost, instead of their market value, at 
 the time of their conversion into trust property — a principle, 
 which Mr. Lowell, with singular inconsistency, contends for, 
 while he contends, in the same breath, that the shares held 
 by him in pledge were not considered the estate's property, 
 and that the estate acquired no interest in them, by the 
 transaction of May, 1831, except their value in redemption 
 beyond his debt. 
 
 How then, I repeat, were the $90,000 of incumbrances to 
 be paid off, out of a property of $122,000, and $25,000 to be 
 left from it belonging to Mr. Boott, after making good, and 
 keeping good, the entire trust fund of $100,000 ? Or, smce, 
 after taking the incumbrances out of this property, there was 
 a deficiency in Mrs. Boott's trust fund of near $70,000, how 
 was Mr. Boott, with this same property, and such other means 
 
308 
 
 as he had, to iriake up that deficiency, and also to acquire, 
 or reserve, $25,000 for himself? 
 
 The only other property possessed hy Mr. Boott, in May, 
 1831, it has been seen, was his interest in the foundry, sub- 
 ject to its debts, and the surplus remaining from the sale of 
 the store, after the partial payment made out of it, to one of 
 his wards. These were no great sums ; not, both together, 
 much exceeding $16,000 of present assets.* They could go 
 but a little way to\vards the payment of so large a debt. Unless, 
 therefore, Mr. Lowell can show some other resources of Mr. 
 Boott, either omitted in his memorandum of 1830, or sub- 
 sequently acquired, and acquired otherwise than out of the 
 trust property itself, and that these new resources, added to 
 those abovc'-mentioned, were adequate to the extinguishment 
 of so large an amount of incumbrance, as it was needful to 
 extinguish, before the $100j000 fund could be extracted, 
 whole, from the $122,000 of property, which was transferred 
 subject to the incumbrances ; he cannot begin to establish, for 
 Mr. Boott, a private interest of one dollar in that property. 
 No such omissions, or subsequent acquisitions, are pretended ; 
 and, without them, all the figures and sophistry in the world 
 cannot overcome the plain fact, which has now been made 
 manifest. 
 
 But it is worth while briefly to look, in connexion with 
 undisputed or indisputable facts, at Mr. Lowell's arguments 
 on this point ; and, to do him full justice, I shall report them 
 in his own language. 
 
 Speaking of the account of 1844, (which, after stating the 
 property held by the executor, adds the words, " less cash 
 balance due to the executor, $25,215 45,") " What," asks 
 Mr. Lowell, " does this cash balance mean ?" " It means 
 
 * The proceeds of the store were - - - $16,000 
 
 The reduction of the guardianship deht in 1831, according to 
 Mr. Tyler, was about - ^ - - 7,500 
 
 Surplus, 8,500 
 Cash proceeds of Mr. Boott's interest in the foundiy, by the 
 settlement witli Lyman & Ealston, according to Mr. Low- 
 ell, about 7,600 
 
 16,100 
 
809 
 
 that he had stocks, and other property standing in his name, 
 as executor, more than belonged to the estate, to that 
 amount." [L. p. 41. J 
 
 The "stocks" here spoken of, it will be observed, are the 
 same thiity-nine shares of Boston Manufacturing Company, 
 and the same seventy-two shares of Merrimack Manufacturing 
 Company, (less One, which had disappeared,) and the " other 
 property" is the same stable, which received the executor's 
 mark, and were put to the trust account, by the transactions 
 of May, 1831. [See the accoimt, L. p. 39.] These, the 
 "Reply" says, were property standing in the name of the 
 executor, more than belonged to the estate, by $25,000. 
 
 " How came this to be the case ?" asks Mr. Lowell, and 
 he answers his own question thus : — 
 
 "It was simply because, in virtue of an agreement made with me 
 hy Mr. Edward Brooks, in 1831, certain shares, which had stood in 
 Mr. Boott's own name, and which I had every reason to suppose were 
 his individual property, and which, while so standing, had been 
 pledged to me, four years before, for a loan, were, on the very day of 
 the presentment of the account, retransferred by me to Mr. Boott as 
 EXECUTOR." [L. p. 41] 
 
 The shares so retransferred, on that day, were seventy-one 
 in number, namely, the fifty shares originally pledged by Mr. 
 Boott, as his own, to Mr. Lowell, but which Mr. Boott re- 
 ceiving back, as executor, in May, 1831, had thereupon trans- 
 ferred, as executor, in renewed pledge to Mr. Lowell, and 
 twenty-one of the forty-two shares, which Mr. Boott received 
 and transferred in like manner, as executor, about the same 
 time, in the arrangement with Mr. Sturgis, but which twenty- 
 one shares Mr. Sturgis, afterwards, assigned to Mr. Lowell. 
 Thus, holding seventy-one shares, on the day of the account, 
 Mr. Lowell transferred them all, absolutely, to Mr. Boott, as 
 executor. [See records of transfers.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell, it will be observed, in his foregoing statement, 
 shuts out of sight the fact of the transfer and retransfer to 
 and by Mr. Boott, as executor, in 1831. Leaving the case 
 divested, in this immediate connexion, of that important fea- 
 
310 
 
 ture, (though the fact is elsewhere admitted,) the "Reply" 
 proceeds thus : — 
 
 " The agreement with Mr, Brooks was hased on the distinct recog- 
 nition of mj debt as a lien on the stock, and was, virtually, that the 
 estate should have the equity of redemption of those shares, sulgect to 
 that debt." [L. p. 41.] 
 
 " Mr. Brooks also very fairly says, [p. 117.] that, undoubtedly, I 
 supposed these shares to be the property of Mr. Wright Boott at the 
 time I made the loan on that secwrity.* It is, therefore, perfectly 
 obvious, that all he could have asked, or I coidd have consented to, 
 was that I should, in some form, give to the estate the right of redemp- 
 tion of those shares. By reconveying them, on the day of Mr. Boott's 
 presentation of the accounts, / therefore conveyed to the estate more 
 than it was entitled to receive, by precisely $25,000, the amount of my 
 debt." [L. p. 42.] 
 
 Now, on looking at the context, the reader will observe that 
 this is an argument to prove that Mr. Boott had a right to 
 charge against the property of the estate, as he does in this 
 account of 1844, f 25,000, as a cash balance due to him from 
 the estate, and that this is a real cash balance. That is, Mr. 
 Lowell claims to identify himself with Mr. Boott. His argu- 
 ment comes to this : " I had a lien of $25,000^ on these 
 shares, because Mr. Boott personally owed me that money, for 
 w^hich these shares were pledged. By my agreement with 
 Mr. Brooks, in 1831, I gave the estate a right to redeem 
 them from that debt. The estate, in 1844, had never exer- 
 cised that right ; but, on the day of the account, I neverthe- 
 less, conveyed the shares to the estate, clear of the debt. 
 Therefore, the estate, having received, yrorn me, more than 
 it was entitled to, from me, by precisely ^25,000, it owes that 
 money, not to me, but to Mr. Boott, — and not to him as my 
 assignee, but as executor of his father's estate. His debt to 
 me is the estate's debt. My claim on the property is his 
 claim. He and I are one." 
 
 * That, the reader will remember, was in 1827. I did not say that Mr. I/pwell 
 supposed them to be Mr. Boott's, in 1831. On the contrary, the passage referred 
 to, of my former pamphlet, expressly declares, that Mr. ioweU"4BeM' in 1831, 
 that the shares pledged to him, as trustee, could not in equity he regarded as 
 the property of Mr. Wright Boott." The reader will see, presently, what Mr. 
 Lowell's means of knowledge wer«, at the time of the original loan, in 1827. 
 
311 
 
 This absurdity seems to be the necessary consequence of 
 Mr. Lowell's premises. The whole force of his argument, 
 such as it is, lies in the naked assertion, that, by the trans- 
 action of 1831, the estate got no title to the shares, but got 
 a right to acquire one, by paying $25,000 for them ; which 
 may be perfectly true as between the estate and Mr. Lowell, 
 but is perfectly untrue as between the estate and Mr. Boott. 
 For the shares were first transferred to Mr. Boott as executor, 
 in 1831, and were thereby made property, for which he, in 
 that capacity, became accountable to th« estate ; they were 
 then transferred by him, as executor, to Mr. Lowell, for the 
 purpose of restoring to Mr. Lowell a lien, which, if it had 
 not previously existed, the executor, acting in that capacity, 
 would have had no right or power to create. 
 
 The intention plainly was, to make Mr. Boott accountable 
 to the estate for the shares, and to make Mr. Lowell ac- 
 countable to it only for their surplus value beyond his debt. 
 And this was effectually done ; for it seems, that Mr. Loring, 
 when consulted, was of opinion, that, since the shares stood 
 in Mr. Boott's name as executor, when they were last con- 
 veyed by him to Mr. Lowell, " it was proper and necessary 
 that they should be introduced into the account." This was 
 Mr. Loring's opinion, notwithstanding he supposed, — ^upon 
 the misinformation of his clients as to the cause why the 
 shares so stood, — that, to the extent of $25,000, they were 
 the private property of Mr. Boott ; and, upon that hypothesis, 
 depending on the state of facts in 1831, which the account 
 did not show, and of which he had no personal knowledge, 
 he is said to have advised that Mr. Boott should claim this 
 difference of ^25,000 as a balance due to him from the es- 
 tate. [L. p. 42.] 
 
 But the argument for this difference in Mr. Boott's favour, 
 unfortunately, proves too much, as is apt to be the case with 
 sophistical arguments. The debt to Mr. Lowell, at the time 
 of the transaction of May, 1831, was not $25,000, as the argu- 
 ment assumes, but $30,000. That was the sum lent in 
 1827, [L. p. 87.] and the payment of $5000, which reduced 
 the debt to $25,000, was not made, till November, 183 1 ; 
 
312 
 
 [B. App. p. 26.] that is, six months after the agreement with 
 me in May of that year, which Mr. Lowell now says was the 
 cause of Mr. Boott's having a private interest of $25,000 
 in shares, held, nominally, as executor. If, then, by that 
 transaction, the estate acquired, as against Mr. Boott, only 
 the value of the shares beyond Mr. Boott's debt to Mr. Low- 
 ell, and a right to get a title and a further interest by paying 
 that debt for him, (which is Mr. Lowell's argument,) why 
 does not the account show a cash balance of $30,000 due 
 to Mr. Boott, instead of one for $25,000 ? The estate cer- 
 tainly, never paid the $5000, which reduced the debt ; — it 
 was paid by Mr. Boott, himself, from a source, which will 
 presently appear. 
 
 Besides, whatever the bargain was, which I made with Mr. 
 Lowell, I, afterwards, made a precisely similar bargain with 
 Mr. Sturgis. The two transactions were, in principle, and in 
 form, exactly alike. It follows, then, according to Mr. Low- 
 ell's argument, that the estate must have got, by that trans- 
 axition, also, only an interest in the surplus value of forty-two 
 shares of Merrimack stock beyond $21,000 of debt due from 
 Mr. Boott, for which they were then pledged to Mr. Sturgis. 
 But the estate, according to Mr. Lowell, never paid a dollar 
 of that money. So the account of 1844 tacitly affirms, since 
 it contains no such charge ; and Mr. Lowell positively de- 
 clares that he paid that debt, for Mr. Boott. [L. p. 96.] How 
 comes it then, that, in November, 1831, twenty-one of those 
 shares were conveyed by Mr. Sturgis to the executor, as such, 
 clear of all incumbrance, and that in November, 1844, the other 
 twenty-one, which had in the mean time passed into Mr. Low- 
 ell's hands, were also transferred by Mr. Lowell (in addition 
 to the fifty shares before mentioned,) to the executor, as such, 
 clear of all incumbrance ? And how is it that the executor, 
 charging himself in his account, with the whole ninety-two 
 shares, which he had received from Messrs. Lowell and Stur- 
 gis, as property of the estate, does not claim, for that cause, 
 a cash balance of $51,000, (the amount of the debts, for 
 which they had been pledged,) as due to him, upon them, 
 instead of one of $25,000 only ? How happens this, when, 
 
313 
 
 in 1831, according to the " Reply," Mr. Boott had only trans- 
 ferred to the estate, what value there might be in the ninety- 
 two shares beyond the |51,000 of debt, for which they were 
 then pledged ; and when, according to the " Reply," he had 
 afterwards paid $26,000 of that debt, not out of the estate's 
 money, but, as Mr. Lowell represents, out of his own pocket, 
 [L. pp. 92, 97.] thus making the $26,000 go to the benefit of 
 the estate as a pure gratuity, and not because the shares 
 themselves were, in 1831, declared and made to be the es- 
 tate's property. 
 
 If it be said, the executor claims no more than $25,000, in- 
 stead of $51,000, as his due, because the former sum is the 
 result of all the debits and credits contained in the account, 
 and makes an exact balatice, that is only begging the question 
 of the correctness of the account, — which is the very matter in 
 issue. Mr. Lowell has undertaken to show that this alleged 
 cash balance of $25,000 must be correct, — not because it 
 results from the other entries in the account, the truth and 
 completeness of which are the very questions, but — because 
 of a particular agreement, made with me in 1831, whereby 
 the estate acquired an interest in certain shares held by him 
 in pledge, subject to his lien upon them for that precise sum. 
 The reductio ad absurdum is complete, when it is shown that 
 the same reasoning would lead to an inevitable balance of 
 $51,000 due to the executor, notwithstanding that the fig- 
 ures in the account prove, incontestibly, if they are to be 
 relied on, that this same balance is only $25,000. 
 
 On the other hand, when we come to the plain matter of 
 fact, if the entire property appropriated to the trust, in May, 
 1831, deducting the incumbrances upon it, was $68,000 short 
 of that, which, by Mr. Lowell's own admissions, it should 
 have been, and if Mr. Boott had not then, nor ever afterwards, 
 more than $15,000, or $20,000 at most, of his own property 
 in hand, (which will presently appear,) let Mr. Lowell show, 
 if he can, by any arithmetic, or any system of logic, within 
 the compass of his ingenuity, how those incumbrances, to the 
 
 40 
 
314 
 
 amount of |90,000 * were paid off, without using the trust 
 property itself, its income, gains, or rise in value, to do it 
 with, so as to make, in 1844, an apparent property of $100,000, 
 or near it, for the trust, and $25,000 for Mr. Boott himself. 
 Until that can be shown, the alleged "cash balance due to 
 the executor," must stand exposed as an unreal statement ; 
 and if it results, as it appears to result, from the cash debits 
 and credits of the account, it only follows that something is 
 not debited, which should be, or that something is credited, 
 which should not be. In other words, the indisputable facts, 
 of 1831, prove the account, of 1844, to be essentially erroneous. 
 After showing that, the burden is not on me, surely, if I were 
 imder any burden in the outset, to explain the error, or to 
 show in what wrong entry, or omission of entry, precisely, it 
 consists. To some extent, however, I think, I shall show 
 that. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 TJFACTUEING COMPANY. THE CHARGE AGAINST ME, OF MISBEP- 
 KESENTATION, BY ITALICIZING, TURNED UPON MB. LOWELL. 
 
 Before quitting this momentous month of May, 1831, it 
 may be proper for me to advert, more particularly, to the cir- 
 cumstances attending Mr. Boott's resignation, at that time, of 
 the agency of the Suffolk Manufacturing Company, which 
 he had previously agreed to accept. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, evidently, wishes his readers to suppose that I 
 " either never knew, or had completely forgotten," this occur- 
 
 * Balance of guardianship debt, - $39,000 
 
 Pledges to Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, for - 51,000 
 
 90,000 
 
315 
 
 rence also, with its attendant circumstances, some of which 
 he communicates as new information. [L. pp. 55, 100.] And 
 it is true that these facts, like many others, which had hut a 
 remote bearing on the matters in dispute, were not mentioned 
 in my former pamphlet. But he intimates a purposed misrep- 
 resentation, by me, of a passage in one of Mr. Kirk Boott's 
 letters, alluding to this same event. These two suggestions, 
 — ignorance of a fact, and intentional misrepresentation of it, 
 — ^hardly stand well together ; but there is as much truth in 
 the one, as there is in the other. 
 
 It is strange: from what slight premises Mr. Lowell, some- 
 times, ventures to draw hasty inferences, which he imme- 
 diately builds upon as undoubted facts, justifying the gravest 
 charges. Will the reader believe that his sole ground, for in- 
 ferring and ch^ging an intended misrepresentation of the 
 passage, above referred to, in one of Mr. Kirk Boott's letters, 
 is, that, like many other passages of those letters, upon which 
 I desired, for one reason or another, to fix attention, it was 
 printed, in my appendix, in Italic types ? 
 
 He charges me, indeed, with a general "practice of convey- 
 ing a false impression by Italicizing certain words and pas- 
 sages." [L. p. 84] 
 
 The reader will judge whether I am justly chargeable with 
 that species of unfairness ; and whether these Italicisms, 
 which I often use, are employed by me for the purpose of 
 conveying a falsehood, or simply to mark, more distinctly, 
 that, which I desire to have marked. 
 
 The " Reply " points out two particular instances, only, in 
 support of this charge ; but, it is said, " These instances show 
 the spirit, in which this book is written. It would be easy to 
 follow out these misrepresentations step by step ; but more 
 important matters claim our attention." [L. p. 85.] 
 
 Now as to this sweeping suggestion of misrepresentations, 
 not specified, because the accusing party can not condescend 
 to the task of following them out, step by step, although, he 
 says, "it would be easy" to do so, a charge in that vague form 
 is, of course, easily made, and impossible to be answered other- 
 wise than by an equally general denial. I must, of necessity, 
 
316 
 
 leave it to answer itself. But, since two particular instances 
 are speciiied as the great examples of my offence, the question 
 must turn upon them, and the reader shall judge how far th&g 
 bear out the allegation of unfair and deceitful practice. 
 
 The first of them is this : — I mentioned, in the course of 
 my text, a fact within my own knowledge ; namely, that, 
 during the height of Mr. Boott's embarrassments, a resig- 
 nation of his executorship was sometimes suggested. The 
 trust deed of May 33, 1831, (drawn by myself,) proTided, 
 that I was to hold any surplus, left in my hands after the 
 guardianship accounts should be settled, " subject to the 
 order of said Boott in his said capacity as executor; and in 
 case the said Boott should decease, or resign his said trust 
 as executor, then to hold the said balance subject to the order 
 of whomsoever may be appointed administrator on said es- 
 tate in his stead." [B. App. p. 23.] In speaking of this, I 
 did not quote the words of the instrument ; but stated their 
 effect thus : — "In case of his death, or resignation, {then 
 contemplated as a contingency not improbable,) the said sur- 
 plus was to be held," S&c. [B. p. 42.] 
 
 The Italicizing of this word " resignation " is the matter 
 complained of. That the event itself was then contemplat- 
 ed as not improbable, I stated of my own knowledge. By 
 Italicizing, I simply invited the reader to notice the fact, that 
 express provision for that contingency was made, in a con- 
 temporaneous paper. I did so, certainly, considering it con- 
 firmatory of my recollection ; whether it is or not, the read- 
 er was left fairly to judge. 
 
 I thought I might, at least, be allowed to know, whether 
 the contingent events, which I was making provision for, 
 were, at this time, considered, by myself, who drew the 
 instrument, likely or unlikely to happen. But Mr. Lowell 
 thinks he has the faculty of knowing, even what is in the 
 mind of another, better than the party himself; and his re- 
 mark is, that " he, [Brooks,] might as well have Italicized 
 the word ' death,' to show that he [Boott,] even then con- 
 templated suicide." [L. p. 85.] 
 
317 
 
 The reader -will assign to this misplaced witticisia such 
 value as he pleases. But does it tend to the establishing of 
 any truth ? Does the reader find any real analogy between 
 the two cases, which Mr. Lowell thus ironically compares ? 
 Or, does he perceive the slightest unfairness, in my having 
 thus drawn attention to the fact, that a voluntary resigna- 
 tion, no less than the necessary termination of an office by 
 death, was one of the contingencies expressly provided for, 
 in an instrument drawn at a time when I assert, independ- 
 ently of that evidence, that such an event was thought by 
 no means improbable ? Did the Italicizing alter the sense of 
 the instrument to the smallest extent ? Did it convey any 
 species, or degree, of false impression ? 
 
 In what does Mr. Lowell himself pretend to suppose the 
 falsehood consists ? He travels far to find it, and endeavours 
 to make it out thus. It appears, by one of the letters of Mr. 
 Kirk Boott above printed, [Ante, p. 276,] that Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, in Sept. 1830, wrote as follows : — "I do wish now 
 that the property was taken out of my hands, to be appro- 
 priated as I first pointed out." Mr. Lowell refers to this 
 single sentence, (not quoting its language correctly, by the 
 way,) and says, "Mr. Brooks however, endeavours to create 
 the impression that^the trust funds were intended, by Italiciz- 
 ing the word ' resignation ' in two very curious instances." 
 [L. p. 84] 
 
 That, which I have above cited, is one of them ; and I 
 shall presently cite the other. 
 
 The supposed falsehood, then, consists in this : that I have 
 endeavoured to create the impression, that the property, above 
 referred to by Mr. J. Wright Boott, was the trust property ; 
 whereas, Mr. Lowell insists that " the pfoperty spoken of is 
 the Foundery." [L. p. 84.] 
 
 How does he arrive at that construction ? The only reason 
 given for it is, that " no action would be necessary to take 
 that [the trust fund] out of his hands, if he wished to get 
 rid of it ; " but the foundry was a property " of which an 
 assignment could, not be made without the cooperation of 
 Messrs. Lyman & Ralston." [L. p. 84.] 
 
318 
 
 This reason is insignificant enough. How could the trust 
 funds, any more than the foundry, be taken out of the 
 hands of Mr. Boott, without " action," and the " coopera- 
 tion " of somebody ? Must there not be a new trustee to 
 receive them? Must not the judge of probate accept a 
 resignation, and make an appointment ? Must not all parties 
 interested in the trust have notice and be consulted ? The 
 very object of Mr. J. Wright Boott's letter, from which these 
 words are extracted, was, to obtain advice and assistance 
 from his brother Kirk. 
 
 But there is another more important consideration. The 
 reader has already seen, what Mr. Lowell finds it extremely 
 convenient to overlook, namely, that, when Mr. Boott ex- 
 pressed that wish, in September, 1830, there was no such 
 thing as a specific trust fund existing. Nothing was invest- 
 ed, visibly, m <rMs^; but all the property, out of which a 
 trust fund was afterwards constructed, by the arrangement 
 of May, 1831, stood, in September, 1830, — just as Mr. Boott's 
 share of the foundry did, — in his individual name, as his 
 private property. In that state of things, he expresses a 
 wish that " the property was taken out of my hands, to be 
 appropriated as I first pointed out ; " and the question is, 
 what property he meant. 
 
 Did he mean " thefoundery" particularly and exclusitely, 
 as Mr. Lowell assures his readers ? Or did he, as I maintain, 
 mean " the property" generally, which he then held, and 
 some indefinite part of which Mr. Lowell chooses to call 
 ''the trust funds?" Did I endeavour to convey "^ false 
 impression," when the latter was the impression, which I, 
 certainly, did intend to convey ? 
 
 Now I am quite willing to join issue here. The reader 
 shall judge who makes the misrepresentation. I have shown, 
 above, the only reason assigned for Mr. Lowell's strained 
 construction ; and that, I submit to the reader, is no reason 
 at all. Let us see if 1 cannot find a better reason for mine, 
 in addition to the obvious one, that it best accords with 
 the natural force of the words used. I propose to look to 
 the context, which Mr. Lowell carefully avoids. What did 
 
319 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott say in the same immediate connexion ? 
 What preceded and led to his remark respecting " the prop- 
 erty ?" The passage runs thus : — 
 
 " And besides, if the children [his wards] are paid in full, and 
 this claim of theirs also, [a claim of Lyman & Ealston,] fhe whole 
 burthen will fall upon my poor mother, who will have means so dimin- 
 ished, that her comfort and happiness will be destroyed, and if her 
 mind should dwell much on her situation you will see her health de- 
 cline, perhaps destroyed. I do wish now that the property was taken 
 out of my hands, to be appropriated as I first pointed out." [Ante, 
 p. 275-6,] 
 
 The appropriation of " the property " then, was to be with 
 reference to "means" of "my poor mother." Now the foun- 
 dry, it will be remembered, was the property, not of Mr. 
 Boott alone, but of Messrs. Boott, Lyman and Ralston, sub- 
 ject, at this time, to the claims of creditors, to an amount, 
 which rendered it of little or no value. Will Mr. Lowell, 
 then, condescend to inform us, how the taking of the foundry, 
 only, out of Mr. Boott's hands, and appropriating his interest 
 in that, (for he could not appropriate that of his partners, ) in 
 any manner he may have pointed out, could be an object of 
 such great desire, on account of Mrs. Boott ? Mr. Lowell 
 assures us, that Mr. Boott had, intentionally, used no part 
 of his father's estate in that investment. [L. p. 87.] Why 
 then, if the foundry was the only property at hazard, and he 
 was thinking only of that, as a thing to be in some way dis- 
 posed of, why did he apprehend that his poor mother^ means 
 would be so diminished as to destroy her comfort and hap- 
 piness, and cause her, perhaps, to sink under the blow ? 
 
 What had the foundry, on Mr. Lowell's theory, to do with 
 Mrs. Boott ? And when, in express and direct reference to 
 her trust fund and her means, Mr. J. Wright Boott wishes 
 that ^'■the property" were in other hands, to be appropriated 
 as he had pointed out, what property can he possibly intend, 
 but that, on which his mother was dependent ? And what 
 was the property, on which she was, at that time, dependent ? 
 According to my theory, it was all the property Mr. Boott 
 held, subject to his other debts, — for none of it was distin- 
 
320 
 
 guishable from the rest as her trust fund. But, at any 
 rate, even according to Mr. Lowell's theory, it was not the 
 foundry, — for in that, he assures us, no trust money had been 
 intentionally put, and that Mrs. Boott's trust fund was com- 
 plete without that investment. [L. p. 87.] Yet, for the 
 sake of his argument, Mr. Lowell does not scruple to assert, 
 that the foundry, alone, was here spoken of by Mr. Boott ! 
 
 We have seen what goes before, let us see what follows 
 the sentence in question. Mr. J. Wright Boott adds, " I am 
 bound hand and foot, and can do nothing of myself." Why 
 does Mr. Boott say this ? His idea was, plainly enough, (when 
 we see what his real position was, ) that the claims upon him 
 were so many, and so large, in proportion to his means, and so 
 conflicting, that he could do nothing, unless some arrangement 
 of compromise could be made, whereby, either some of the 
 claimants should yield a preference to others, or all consent to 
 relinquish a portion of their claims upon an insufficient fund. 
 That, which he feared, was, that not an iota would be yielded, 
 except by certain members of his own family; that any 
 yielding, by themy would be at the expense of the common 
 family trust fund ; and, consequently, that his mother's means 
 would be more diminished than they would be by an equal 
 distribution of all his assets among all his creditors, including 
 his father's estate. For, says he, " if the children are paid in 
 full, and this claim of theirs [Lyman & Ralston's] alsOf the 
 whole burthen will fall upon my poor mother." It must all 
 come out of her $100,000. His wish was that Lyman & 
 Ralston might be induced to yield their claim, in order to 
 save for his mother as much of that sum as possible, by 
 giving her a preference ; and, by way of an argument to be 
 addressed to them, through their wives, as heirs of his father, 
 he concludes thus : — " It is certainly for the interest of the 
 heirs, that the fund left to my mother should be made good ; 
 it will come to them eventually." 
 
 I believe no reader, who has attended to the evidence of 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott's pecuniary position, and the position of 
 the family property Ih his hands, at this period, will fail to 
 perceive, from Mr. J. Wright Boott's own language alone, 
 
321 
 
 that his meaning has now been truly expounded. But this is 
 not all we have to go by. We get this language of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, only as it is quoted by Mr. Kirk Boott, in his 
 letter to me. Now how did Mr. Kirk Boott understand it ? 
 Does he say, — or does he leave room for any man of common 
 intelligence, and common fairness of mind, to infer, — that the 
 foundry, only, was the thing to be assigned ? On the con* 
 trary,— bearing in mind the fact, which has been placed be- 
 yond dispute, and is not denied by Mr. Lowell, that there was 
 no property then held by Mr. J. Wright Boott as executor, or 
 as trustee, but that the shares, the store, the stable, Lilly's 
 note, and an undivided portion of the foundry, were all, in 
 point of legal title, equally his own, — the language of Mr. Kirk 
 Boott, immediately following the citation from his brother's 
 note, cannot admit of two constructions, on the point in 
 question. It is : — 
 
 " I have written to him a few lines, to say that I will be in town 
 on Saturday; but how to advise or assist him, is more than I can 
 tell. But for L. & R.'s affairs, I have no doubt that an assignment 
 of all his property, out of which F. B.'s heirs' claim should be first 
 paid, and the residue divided among the other creditors, would be the 
 most advisable course." [Ante, p. 276.] 
 
 And who, we may ask, by the way, were the " other cred- 
 itors," if " L. & R.'s affairs " were out of the way ? Mr. Kirk 
 Boott does not leave that doubtful ; for, in another letter, 
 written a few days later, he says, " My own opinion is, that 
 J. W. B. should at once assign all his property, first, to secure 
 F. B.'s heirs, and next the estate and heirs of my father." 
 Ante, p. 278.] 
 
 This, it will be observed, is very material for its bearing 
 on a more comprehensive question than we are now discuss- 
 ing. But, to adhere to the precise point in present dispute, 
 was it, as Mr. Lowell pretends, an assignment of the foundry, 
 alone, that Mr. J. Wright Boott had been consulted about ? — 
 or was it, as Mr. Kirk Boott assumes, an assignment of " all 
 his property " ? 
 
 The reader now has, I believe, the materials for judges 
 ment before him. I ask him to judge, since fairness is in 
 
322 
 
 question, who makes the misrepresentation ?— I, who have 
 represented that an assignment of all the property, held by 
 Mr. Boott, was the thing under consideration ? — or Mr. Low- 
 ell, who represents that no assignment was ever dreamed of 
 except of the foundry ? I, who show to the reader, connect- 
 edly, all that Mr. J. Wright Boott wrote, and all that Mr. 
 Kirk Boott wrote, on that subject ? or Mr. Lowell, who 
 picks out tiDO lines, and shows them, to the reader, without 
 their context, as if they were all that bore upon the question ? 
 Or, to draw the matter more closely to the very point, at which 
 we started, who gives the ^^ false impression " ? — I, who, by 
 Italicizing the word " resignation," endeavour, as Mr. Lowell 
 says, " to create the impression " that -W-hat he calls " the trust 
 funds ^'' (meaning, I presume, the shares of manufacturing 
 stock, then held by Mr. J. Wright Boott as his own, but 
 afterwards put in trust,) were intended by him as part of 
 "the property," which he wished were out of his hands? — 
 or Mr. Lowell, who endeavours to persuade his reader, that 
 Mr. Boott intended nothing but the foundry? and who, to 
 promote that false belief, specifies my emphasis on the word 
 " resignation," as an instance of " m,isrepresentation" adapted 
 to support his general charge of " a practice of conveying a 
 false impression by Italicizing certain words or passages," be- 
 cause its tendency was " to create the impression " that Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott wished " all the property," in which others 
 were interested, out of his hands ? 
 
 The other instance, specified, of supposed false Italicizing 
 is in the sentence, from Mr. Kirk Boott's letter, alluding to 
 the resignation of the Suffolk agency. It stood printed thus, 
 in the appendix of my former pamphlet : — 
 
 " Now such an occurrence as this, in which R.'s statements alone 
 were taken, being immediately fallowed by J. W. B.'s redgnadm, for 
 which no adequate motives could he openly assigned, did not, in my 
 mind, admit of a doubtful interpretation." [B. App. p. 20.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell comments upon this, as if, like the former in- 
 stance, the word ^^resignation" had been Italicized singly 
 and particularly ; and as if it had been so Italicized for the 
 
323 
 
 purpose of inducing the reader to believe that a resignation of 
 the executorship was the thing, here also, alluded to, instead 
 of the resignation of the Suffolk agency ; and the object of 
 inducing that belief in the reader is supposed to have been to 
 strengthen the false impression, as Mr. Lowell represents it, 
 that an assignment of all Mf. J. Wright Boott's property was 
 contemplated, instead of an assignment of the foundry alone. 
 The misrepresentation on that point, I think, I have fixed on 
 Mr. Lowell. 
 
 But whence does he infer that I intended to induce the 
 reader to believe, that a resignation of the executorship was 
 alluded to in this letter? From nothing but the fact that 
 the word resignation is one of the words contained in the 
 two lines, which, as above shown, were printed in Italics, in 
 my appendix. Now, as before remarked, many sentences of 
 Mr. Kirk Boott's letters, which I wished the reader to note 
 as illustrating something, which had been said by me, were so 
 printed, in that appendix, without comment, or reference to 
 any particular part of my text. In the course of my text, I 
 had, among other things, repeatedly mentioned the privacy, 
 which the late Mr. Kirk Boott and myself judged it necessary 
 to observe, concerning Mr. J. Wright Boott's true position, — 
 a degree of privacy leading us even to take the responsibility of 
 withholding that information from the other heirs, for reasons, 
 which will presently be more apparent. One example reads 
 thus : — " This state of affairs, confidentially known to Mr. 
 Kirk Boott and myself, as appears by his letters in the ap- 
 pendix, was, of course, carefully kept, as far as possible, from 
 the knowledge of others." [B. p. 40.] I also spoke of the 
 " entire confidence and union of views," which had formerly 
 subsisted between the late Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, con- 
 cerning the family affairs imder Mr. J. Wright Boott's admin- 
 istration. I spoke of them as shown by Mr. Kirk Boott's 
 letters; and I expressed my belief, that, under the altered 
 circumstances, which led to Mr. J. Wright Boott's resignation 
 of his trust, in 1844, Mr. Kirk Boott, if living, would have 
 deemed it necessary, as I did, and as Mr. William Boott did, 
 that such a resignation should be made. In that connexion, 
 
324 
 
 speaking of the letters, I incidentally remarked, " They show, 
 besides, that even a resignation of the executorship, at a 
 proper time, was an event he [Mr. Kirk Boott] looked forward 
 to as long ago as 1831 ; and which, as I know, he thought 
 very desirable." [B. p. 94.] 
 
 In none of these remarks did I point to any particular pas- 
 sage of the letters ; but I referred to the letters, generally, as 
 to be found in an appendix ; leaving the reader to make the 
 particular application. It is obvious that the passage in Ital- 
 ics, particularized by Mr. Lowell, is, as it stands in the ap- 
 pendix, literally capable of being referred to either of the 
 two sentences of my text, which are above extracted. Mr. 
 Lowell chooses to refer it to the last, by fixing on a single 
 word, instead of the general idea expressed by the whole 
 Italicized passage, which is, that the motive, for some resig- 
 nation by Mr. J. W. Boott, there alluded to, could not be 
 openly assigned. In that way, only, does he make out the 
 supposed intentional misrepresentation. This seems far- 
 fetched enough. The supposed intention of falsehood rests, 
 entirely, on his own misapplication of my reference. That, 
 which I had in my own mind, when I spoke of the letters 
 as indicating that Mr. Kirk Boott looked to a surrender of the 
 trust as a desirable thing, at a proper time and under proper 
 circumstances, was, — -not the particular passage, which Mr. 
 Lowell selects for it, but — the idea, repeatedly thrown out 
 and enforced in different passages of those letters, that there 
 ought to be an assignment of all the property, " first, to 
 secure P. B.'s heirs, and next, the estate and heirs of my 
 father ;" [Ante, p. 278.] which plainly implied the appoint- 
 ment of a new trustee for the estate, and would, of course^ 
 involve a resignation by Mr. J. Wright Boott. 
 
 I have already pointed out the false gloss, which Mr. 
 Lowell endeavours to put on these letters of Mr. Kirk Boott. 
 [Ante, pp. 215, 274] He does it, in the present instance, 
 by selecting for his commentary an isolated sentence, quoted 
 by Mr. Kirk Boott from his brother's note to him, and by 
 misinterpreting that sentence, without giving his readers the 
 means of perceiving, by the context, that there is a misin- 
 
325 
 
 terpretation. A particular construction of that passage in 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott's note is the point, which Mr. Lowell 
 supposes me to have remotely aimed at, by Italicizing the 
 word resignation in each of the " two very curious in- 
 stances," which he selects for his animadversion. If I have 
 succeeded in satisfying the reader that the language of Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott is not Tm'sinterpreted by me, and that it is 
 by Mr. Lowell, I must, of course, stand acquitted of any in- 
 tention to mislead, or object in misleading, upon the subor- 
 dinate question, what resignation Mr. Kirk Boott alluded 
 to in the sentence now under consideration, which is the 
 second instance of false Italicizing specified. 
 
 If, therefore, any body has been in fact misled on this lat- 
 ter point, as Mr. Lowell affects to believe, it has happened 
 through an inadvertence, at most, and not by design. Even 
 this I should regret, exceedingly, notwithstanding that the 
 general idea, which, according to Mr. Lowell, the Italicizing 
 was intended to convey, is in perfect accordance with the 
 truth, and that the question, what resignation Mr. Kirk Boott 
 was speaking of, is, of itself, quite immaterial. I, certainly, 
 cannot claim to have misunderstood, myself, the allusion to 
 the agency of the Suffolk Manufacturing Co. Indeed, it is 
 referred to, by name, in the same letter ; for Mr. Kirk Boott 
 says, " I do not, under all circumstances, think it very im- 
 portant that J. W. B. should take the agency of the Suffolk 
 Co." [Ante, p. 280.] But an ambiguity has now been point- 
 ed out by Mr. liOwell, arising from the want of distinct ref- 
 erences in the appendix of my former pamphlet ; and I was, 
 perhaps, faulty in not having explained this passage to the 
 reader. The acceptance, and the subsequent resignation, of 
 that agency, were among the facts, of which I had made a 
 memorandum, with a view to the preparation of my former 
 statement ; but I, finally, omitted to mention them, in that 
 statement, because I found they would lead to remarks some- 
 what more extended than their significance, then, seemed 
 to justify. The use made of them by Mr. Lowell, in con- 
 nexion with certain letters printed by him, gives them a 
 new importance ; and after this digression, concerning my 
 
326 
 
 supposed practice of misrepresenting, by using a particular 
 form of type, I shall, now, return to the matter, which led 
 to it, and consider the true bearing of certain letters, which 
 are published by Mr. Lowell. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 MR. Jackson's letter of mat 8, 1831. 
 
 -') 
 
 The letters mentioned in the last chapter, as published by 
 Mr. Lowell, are from the late Mr. P. T. Jackson, and the 
 late Mr. Kirk Boott. They relate to Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 resignation of the agency of the Suifolk Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, and to a proposal, soon after, for the employment of 
 that gentleman upon a mission to England, for the purchase 
 of railroad iron. 
 
 It is hardly necessary for me to say, that no man, not a 
 near relative, has a higher respect, or warmer regard, for the 
 memory of the late Patrick T. Jackson, and for that of the 
 late Kirk Boott, of Lowell, than I have. These distin- 
 guished names, as I may justly call them, carrying, as they 
 deserve, no small influence in this community, Mr. Lowell 
 has seen fit to invoke to his aid, for supposed opinions, totally 
 inconsistent, as he represents, with my former statements 
 concerning Mr. J. Wright Boott's conduct, and concerning 
 Mr. Kirk Boott's sentiments. He hopes, apparently, to over- 
 whelm, in public opinion, so inconsiderable a person as I am, 
 with the weight of " the highest authority," [L. p. 101.] 
 added to his own, and at the same time to effect, for him- 
 self, an escape from the pressure of facts and evidence, which 
 he could not otherwise answer. But he entirely mistook 
 his man, if he supposed that I should succumb to any false- 
 hood, promulgated under a parade of great names to give it 
 
327 
 
 countenance ; and I flatter myself that he has mistaken, also^ 
 the understanding of his readers, when they shall see the evi- 
 dence arrayed, and perceive, as they will, after the facts are 
 before them, that there is no such inconsistency, between 
 the cited opinions and my statements, as a first imperfect 
 vision, through Mr. Lowell's atmosphere, may have led them 
 to imagine. 
 
 Under the general proposition, " that Mr. Boott was, in 
 substance, whatever he might be, in form, a remarkably good 
 manager of trust property," [L. p. 97.] Mr. Lowell intro- 
 duces, first, Mr. Boott's account with his ward, which I have 
 already commented on, [Ante, Ch. 16.] and then says, "I 
 shall now cite the testimony of a person, whose competency 
 to judge Mr. Brooks will hardly dispute, and who, knowing 
 all the facts of those embarrassments, on which Mr. Brooks 
 has laid such stress, expressed, concerning Mr. Boott, the 
 opinions I shall quote." [L. p. 99.] This is the prelude to 
 Mr. Jackson's letter of May 8, 1831. 
 
 I am obliged to Mr. Lowell for producing that letter. It 
 is not only a "contemporaneous exposition," valuable in it- 
 self, but it brings up another "reminiscence." The letter was 
 written at my own suggestion, upon consultation with Mr. 
 Kirk Boott, after conferences with Mr. Jackson and Mr> 
 Lowell. 
 
 To show how this arose, I must explain the circumstan- 
 ces. I have already stated that Mr. Kirk Boott and myself 
 knew that Mr. J. Wright Boott must be largely indebted 
 to his father's estate ; how largely we did not know. I, 
 at least, had no means of forming an opinion, except such 
 as I have before mentioned. I knew, besides, from Mr. 
 Kirk Boott, that he had been called upon by his brother, 
 several years before, to refund a large sum on account of 
 losses formerly sustained by the mercantile house, in which 
 they had once been partners ; and that the occasion of 
 the call was, as Mr. Kirk Boott understood, a settlement 
 proposed to be made by Mr. J. Wright Boott, as executor, 
 with the other heirs of his father's estate. The evidence 
 of this I formerly exhibited, and shall presently advert to 
 
328 
 
 again. No such settlement, however, was in fact made by 
 the executor, although the partnership account was adjusted 
 between him and Mr, Kirk Boott. I had no doubt, — and I 
 think I derived that impression, also, from Mr. Kirk Boott, — 
 that other refunding was due from some other heirs, if dis- 
 tributions of the estate among all the heirs were to be equal- 
 ized. In confirmation of this idea, I may add, that Mr, 
 Lowell has repeatedly declared, (though he takes no notice 
 of it now,) that one reason, why Mr. J. Wright Boott had 
 delayed a settlement of the accounts of the estate, was, that 
 he could not have settled them without making his brothers 
 bankrupt. 
 
 However this may have been, a subject frequently con- 
 versed about, between Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, and in 
 which we concurred, was the great importance of getting 
 from Mr. J. Wright Boott a statement and settlement of his 
 family accounts. Until the disclosure of 1830, I never sup- 
 posed he would find the least difficulty, in settling them, 
 from a want of sufficient pecuniary means to pay to every 
 heir the full amount that might be due. But, after that dis- 
 closure, it had become apparent, that any settlement of the 
 executor's accounts must result in a balance of large in- 
 debtedness by Mr. J. Wright Boott to the estate, or to some 
 of its heirs, beyond his ability to pay. 
 
 There never was, perhaps, a family, composed of so many 
 individuals, less actuated than this family, (I do not, of 
 course, speak of myself,) by mere selfish considerations of 
 pecuniary interests. The fault, if there were any, in money 
 matters, was rather in too little, than too much, regard for 
 them. This was especially true of Mr. J. Wright Boott; 
 and perhaps, might be justly said of all. If Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott and the other members of the family had been but 
 ordinarily attentive to proper settlements, the duty of which 
 devolved, in an especial manner, upon him, probably no great 
 loss of property would ever have happened ; — certainly not 
 the miserable confusion and doubtfulness, respecting the true 
 state of the family affairs, which arose. But it was evident in 
 1830-1, that a great mischief had already happened, and that 
 
329 
 
 it could not be helped. There was but so much property re- 
 maining, in Mr. J. Wright Boott's hands, to meet all the calls 
 upon it ; and the only thing to be done was to make the best 
 of that, and to save, what could then be saved, from the wreck. 
 As to reclamations for the past, by one heir upon another, or 
 by any of them upon the executor, there was a perfect willing- 
 ness, all round, so far as I know or believe, (that is, there was, 
 I know, on the part of those, who were acquainted with the 
 true posture of affairs, and I have no doubt there would have 
 been on the part of every other heir, when informed of it,) to 
 settle upon the basis of the " uti possidetis " (as Mr. Lowell 
 has it,) leaving every one to keep what he had formerly got 
 under the belief that he was well entitled to it, and securing 
 only what remained in the hands of Mr. J. Wright Boott, for 
 the benefit of Mrs. Boott during her life, and the advantage of 
 the heirs afterwards. 
 
 The probability is, that, if we had ever come, through Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott, to a general family settlement, every one, 
 who had received more than an equal share, — estimating 
 that, which had been distributed, together with that, which 
 Mr. Boott still possessed, after providing for indispensable 
 debts out of the family, — instead of waiting to be urged, 
 would have been forward to insist, on restoring his excess, 
 to the best of his ability. There would have been, in my 
 belief, a contest of liberality, and not of extortion. At least, 
 without affecting any "lofty indifference," as Mr. Lowell 
 says I do, " to pecuniary considerations," [L. p. 105.] I may 
 say, for myself, that I was disposed to do full justice, to say 
 no more, when I saw the actual condition of the estate ; and 
 knowing that Mrs. Brooks had received, in the furnishing of 
 our house, a sum, which did not appear to have been allowed 
 to some, or to one, at least, of the other heirs, who seemed 
 equally entitled to it, I was apprehensive that it might be 
 proper for me to refund something, and in that case I was 
 anxious to do so, if I could only find out how others stood, 
 60 as to know what was the proper thing to be done. 
 
 With respect to Mr. J. Wright Boott's indebtedness to the 
 estate, whether more or less, such was the kindness and gen- 
 
330 
 
 erosity towards him, in the family, that there would have 
 been not a moment's hesitation in relieving him from any 
 claim of the heirs for the past, if the property left from the 
 ruin could be preserved. This is not mere speculation ; the 
 release, afterwards given, in 1833, proves it. But the diffi- 
 culty was to get at the accounts, and to know how matters 
 really stood. 
 
 With few exceptions, no heir knew what any other had 
 received ; and, without any exception, no heir knew, but 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, — and I doubt whether he did himself, 
 from the manner, in which the business appears to have been 
 managed, — what the whole estate had amounted to, or how 
 much he was justly accountable for. Yet the family, general- 
 ly, had the utmost confidence that every thing in his hands 
 would, eventually, turn out right ; and I believe none of them, 
 except Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, had any idea, in 1831, 
 how small a property was remaining in the executor's hands, 
 or to what extent it was encumbered by his private engage- 
 ments. My statement, above, respecting the desirableness of 
 an exhibition of the accounts in my opinion, and in that of 
 Mr. Kirk Boott, is confirmed by his letter to me, above 
 quoted, — written seven or eight months before this month of 
 May, 1831, — which begins, "If such a statement as you 
 have recommended can be made up, which I fear J. W. will 
 find almost impossible, it certainly would greatly facilitate 
 the settlement. The truth may be approximated, if not cor- 
 rectly ascertained." [Ante, p. 275.] Without pretending to 
 recollect the terms, or the precise tenor, of the particular rec- 
 ommendation here referred to, I think it probable that its 
 substance was, the making of such a statement as would 
 show the sums, which Lyman & Ralston were then entitled 
 to receive from Mr. J. Wright Boott, as executor. This 
 would involve, of course, all his accounts with the estate. 
 
 What I have said as to the ignorance of any one heir, 
 attended with some natural curiosity, respecting the receipts 
 of others, may be illustrated by the following passage from a 
 letter of Mr. Ralston to me, dated, " Philadelphia, Nov. 19, 
 
331 
 
 1830," referring to certain stocks, held by some of the heirs, 
 who had received them through Mr. J. Wright Boott : — 
 
 EXTRACT FROM A Letter of Mr. ROBERT RALSTON, Jr. 
 
 " Tou may remember a list of the Stockholders of certaia Compa- 
 nies, which I once showed to you. . Upon lookiog over my papers, I 
 have found it. I find that our friend W. W. [Mr. \Vm. Wells] has 
 standing in his name six Merrimacks, three Walthams, and six Locks 
 and Canals, — Jas. B. [Mr. James Boott] five Merrimacks and five 
 Walthams. You were under the impression, I believe, that the former 
 had none of the Locks and Canals. The dates of the list are, for the 
 Me. [Merrimack] Dec. 1827 ; B. M. C. [Boston Manufacturing Com- 
 pany] April, 1828 ; L. and C. [Locks and Canals] Oct. 1827. The 
 list I shall bring on with me." 
 
 Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, with the knowledge we had, 
 in May, 1831, from the disclosure made to us by Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott in 1830, could not but perceive that there had 
 been most unfortunate management, and that the strict 
 duties of a trustee had been quite disregarded. But we con- 
 sidered that Mr. J. Wright Boott had been placed in a very 
 difficult position, as sole surviving partner of his father, 
 sole executor of his will, sole trustee under it, sole guardian 
 of the minor children, and leading partner of the new house 
 formed by the sons ; that he had entered into engagements, 
 which had proved losing ones, confident of success, and 
 with the desire and expectation of helping others of the 
 family, more than himself; that his use of the family funds, 
 in speculation and trade, though improper, had been in- 
 tended for the common benefit, and not for his own separ- 
 ate advantage ; that he had been drawn in, by degrees, deep- 
 er than he had contemplated ; that great embarrassment 
 and loss had consequently happened to the funds of the es- 
 tate ; that this evil had resulted, very much, from his own 
 mistaken notions and peculiar views of his rights and au- 
 thority over the family property, which led him to look upon 
 himself as standing in his father's place, with full power to 
 dispose of it as he thought best for the common good, just 
 as if the property had been his own ; — and that these pe- 
 culiarities had been fostered and enlarged by the manner, in 
 
332 
 
 which all the nieiilbers of the family had deferentially submit- 
 ted to his management from the beginning, without account 
 or question ; — and, fully appreciating many admirable traits 
 of character, for which I have heretofore given him credit, 
 we believed that there was nothing in the case, under all 
 its circumstances, so far as known to us, which touched his 
 integrity, or which ought to impair the general good opin- 
 ion, in which he was held. Yet, we could not but be sensi- 
 ble, that, a knowledge^ among strangers, of any deficiency 
 in his trust accounts, without a knowledge of all the cir- 
 cumstances, which had led to it, must tend to injure him 
 in general estimation. His own overwhelming sense of his 
 misfortune, apprehension of its publicity, and sensitiveness 
 upon such subjects, are illustrated in his language, quoted by 
 Mr. Kirk Boott. [Ante, pp. 275^6.] These feelings made 
 it impossible for his own brother, — still more for me, while 
 that brother Was holding back, — to go to him, under such 
 circumstances, and peremptorily to insist that his accounts 
 should be stated and settled, though we never doubted that 
 a statement of them would end in his discharge, by the 
 heirs, from all liability beyond the property he then held. 
 
 In respect to his entanglement with Lyman & Ralston, so 
 far as a settlement between the parties themselves was con- 
 cerned, it appeared to us that its most serious impediment 
 was the want of the family accounts, — Messrs. Lyman and 
 Ralston believing, not unreasonably, that large sums were due 
 to them, respectively, as heirs, beyond what they had re- 
 ceived, and which ought to be included in the partnership 
 settlement, as an offset to Mr. J. Wright Boott's alleged over- 
 advances to the foundry. And if they, (Messrs. Boott, Ly- 
 man and Ralston,) could only be brought to an agreement, 
 among themselves, as to proper terms, on which Mr. Boott 
 might be permitted to retire from the obligations of the 
 partnership, we had strong hopes that the desire and ability 
 of Mr. Ralston's family and friends to sustain him, would 
 lead to some arrangement for the satisfaction of the joint 
 creditors, so as to prevent their coming upon Mr. Boott, and 
 to leave the property, exclusive of the foundry, to be applied, 
 
333 
 
 first, to the payment of his wards, and then to secure the 
 trust funds, and the heirs, of his father's estate, so far as 
 the means would allow. But the very first step seemed to 
 be to get Mr. J. Wright Boott to investigate and state, as 
 well as he could, his family accounts ;— and this included 
 his accounts as guardian to the children of Mr. F. Boott, the 
 estate being bound for the deficiency there, estimated round- 
 ly at $20,000, but of which the exact truth was quite un- 
 known to us, for want of the accounts. It now appears that 
 the debt was much larger than we then supposed. In the 
 mean time, regard to Mr. J. Wright Boott's reputation and 
 credit imposed on us, of course, the utmost caution, in keep- 
 ing what we knew to ourselves, except when some useful 
 object was to be gained by a confidential communication. 
 
 So much for the position and views of Mr. Kirk Boott 
 and myself. 
 
 In regard to Mr. Lowell, he stood peculiarly. He had 
 been an apprentice, or clerk, in the counting-room of Kirk 
 Boott & Sons, and afterwards a partner, in the same business, 
 with Mr. J. Wright Boott, under the firm of Boott & Lowell. 
 He was considerably acquainted, from these circumstances, 
 with the family afiairs. He was looked upon as the most 
 confidential friend of Mr. J. Wright Boott, out of the family, 
 and was supposed to be a common friend to all of us. He 
 was, besides, Mr. J. Wright Boott's largest creditor ; and, 
 being himself amply secured, it was thought he might ren- 
 der efficient aid, in bringing affairs to a settlement with oth- 
 ers. He was therefore, pretty early, taken into our counsel. 
 
 Mr. Jackson was not only intimate with Mr. Kirk Boott 
 and with Mr. Lowell, and on the most friendly terms with 
 myself, but he had been associated with Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, as well as with Mr. Kirk Boott, in the Chelmsford 
 speculation, the origin of the city of Lowell. He had the 
 highest opinion of Mr. Kirk Boott, whom he and Mr. Nathan 
 Appleton had early selected for the agency of that important 
 concern. The wisdom of their choice had been proved by 
 the event. For that reason, perhaps, Mr. Jackson may have 
 been the more inclined to select Mr. J. Wright Boott, also, 
 
334 
 
 for an agency at Lowell, having formed, no doubt, a favour- 
 able opinion of his general character, intelligence, and capa- 
 city. At any rate, Mr. Jackson had interested himself, warm- 
 ly, in causing the selection of Mr. J. Wright Boott for the 
 agency of the Suffolk Manufacturing Company. 
 
 This appointment, and Mr. J. Wright Boott's acceptance 
 of it, were subjects of great gratification to all the members 
 of the family ; particularly to those of us, who knew most 
 of his embarrassments, and just in proportion to our knowl- 
 edge of them. It seemed to open a way, for him, to get out 
 of a bad business into a good one, as Mr. Kirk Boott had 
 done before him, with great success. Such a new career, 
 once entered upon, it was hoped might, gradually, lead to the 
 retrievement of the family affairs in his hands, and of his 
 own. Even Mr. Ralston, though still an unbeliever in the 
 fact that the business of the foundry was a bad one, appears 
 to have seen that some advantage would be derived from 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott's removal to this new sphere. I refer, 
 for this, to a letter from Mr. Ralston to me, dated at Phila- 
 delphia, in Nov. 1830. He had been informed, it seems, that 
 this agency would be offered to Mr. J. Wright Boott, but 
 that he would probably refuse it. In reference to that he 
 writes : — " I hope, sincerely, that such may not be the result, 
 as I should hope for better things if he were to accept the 
 agency." 
 
 But although he did agree to accept it, in January, 1831, 
 still, before entering upon the duties of the ofiice, it was 
 indispensable that he should close his engagements with 
 Lyman & Ralston, and get rid of his responsibilities to the 
 joint creditors. If that were done, it was thought that his 
 liabilities to his wards, and to the members of his own family, 
 and to his only other creditors, Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, 
 might be quietly arranged, among ourselves, so as to make 
 the best of the remaining means, and leave to time and 
 prudence, such restoration of that, which had been lost, as 
 future success might permit. But all this, as before remarked, 
 required a statement and adjustment of accounts ; and how to 
 approach Mr. J. Wright Boott on that subject, without 
 
335 
 
 wounding his feelings, and, indeed, without giving mortal 
 offence to his peculiar temper, was the problem. The pe- 
 culiarity I speak of, and the reserve it created, is well illus- 
 trated by a letter from Mr. Kirk Boott to me, of a little later 
 date, (May 10, 1833,) in which he says, "1 have some mis- 
 givings, that, if I meddle at all, I may do more harm than 
 good." "If I can put into shape what I feel, so as to incur 
 little risk of giving offence, I think I shall write to J. W. B. ; 
 but I am very sensible how ticklish an affair this is." [B. 
 App. p. 29.] 
 
 Mr. Jackson, upon tendering to Mr. J. Wright Boott the 
 of&ce of the Suffolk agency, became partially informed of 
 the difficulties under which he laboured. Mr. Lowell affects 
 to believe, that, upon that occasion Mr. J. Wright Boott must 
 have gone into a. full disclosure of the extent of his embarrass- 
 ments and of all his family affairs ; — such a disclosure, at 
 least, as, in Mr. Lowell's opinion, rendered Mr. Jackson a 
 competent judge upon the question, whether, or not, he was 
 " a remarkably good manager of trust property," — the point 
 to which he pretends to cite that gentleman. [L. p. 97-99. 
 101.] This is very unlikely. The occasion did not call 
 for it. A general declaration that he had been unfortunate, 
 and had lost his property, and was under embarrassments and 
 responsibilities, which he could not immediately get rid of, 
 was all that the highest honour demanded in answer to such 
 an invitation. It was not necessary to declare himself " a 
 defaulter," (to use the strong expression of Mr. Lowell,) if 
 he were so ; and as to his having disclosed to Mr. Jackson 
 the true state of his accounts with his father's estate, and 
 the whole position of the family property, if he did that, it 
 is more than he ever disclosed to those, who were concerned 
 to know these matters, and the reader may judge of its like- 
 lihood- Indeed, it is scarcely possible that he should have 
 made to Mr. Jackson a disclosure of his inability to make 
 good the actual trust funds. I should certainly have heard 
 of that, at the time, from Mr. Jackson, since I had repeated 
 conversations with that gentleman on the subject of Mr. 
 
336 
 
 Boott's acceptance of this agency, and the reasons he had 
 assigned for doubting whether he should accept it. 
 
 Mr. Jackson, it may be presumed, got such information, 
 only, from Mr. J. Wright Boott, as the object of the visit, in 
 Mr. Boott's opinion, entitled him to receive ; and he after- 
 wards had, from Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, and, I may add, 
 from Mr. Lowell, such further partial; information as we 
 thought proper for us to give, and no more. He never, to 
 my knowledge, or in my belief, had the least idea of the 
 very low and precarious condition, to which the family prop- 
 erty was at that time reduced. Circumstances, however, 
 now detailed, had established, after the appointment to the 
 Suffolk agency, a certain degree of confidence between Mr. 
 Jackson and myself and Mr. Kirk Boott, as well as Mr. Low- 
 ell, concerning Mr. J. Wright Boott's affairs ; and Mr. Jack- 
 son was informed, among other things, that the real difficulty 
 was to get Mr. J. Wright Boott to settle up long standing 
 family accounts, which, with the desire of the family to aid 
 him, might easily be done, if he would only set himself 
 earnestly about it. 
 
 Upon a suggestion first coming from me, it was agreed, 
 "between Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, that this was an oppor- 
 tunity not to be lost ; that Mr. Jackson was, of all men, the 
 fittest, after what had passed between him and Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, to bring about a statement of the executor's accounts, 
 and that he could do it, without officiousness and without 
 offence, when nobody else could, upon the occasion of 
 arranging with Mr. J. Wright Boott for a treasurer's bond, 
 which his agency required. We, accordingly, at a subse- 
 quent conference, urged our views upon Mr. Jackson, who 
 approved them, and to oblige us, as well as to render a 
 real service to Mr. J. Wright Boott, readily undertook a 
 somewhat disagreeable task. He discharged it, with a. deli- 
 cacy, kindness, and directness, quite characteristic of hira^ 
 by the following letter, which I now reprint from the 
 "Reply." [L. p. 100.] 
 
337 
 
 LETTER FROM Mb. P. T. JACKSON. 
 
 "Waltham, 8th May, 1831. 
 Mt Deak Sir, 
 
 The confidence and candor with which you explained to me your 
 situation, when we conversed on the subject of your taking charge of 
 the business of the Suffolk Manufacturing Company, leads me to hope 
 you will not be displeased, if I take the liberty of giving my opinion 
 as to the course necessary for you to pursue. 
 
 The time has arrived when you should give bond as treasurer, 
 and enter upon the duties of your office. That this has not been 
 done, I believe arises from a reluctance on your part to settle up 
 your accounts, which I suppose must be done, before you can give the 
 necessary bond ; if I am right in my conjecture as to the cause of the 
 delay, will you allow me to urge you to overcome this reluctance, and 
 to proceed immediately to the settlement of your affairs, more particu- 
 larly those of your own family, so as to commence your new business 
 with that energy, which I know you will exert as soon as you have 
 freed yourself from the weight which now oppresses you. 
 
 When I engaged your services for the Suffolk Company, I felt 
 assured that I had rendered them a service in obtaining a man well 
 qualified to manage their affairs. The frank and candid manner, in 
 which you explained your situation to me, produced no other alter- 
 ation in my mind, than as it confirmed the opinion I had previously 
 entertained of your perfect uprightness and integrity, and made me, 
 if possible, better satisfied with my selection. 
 
 That you were poorer than 1 had supposed, I regretted for your 
 sake ; but I did not think this disqualified you for the office ; nor do 
 I now think so. If, however, you are under any engagements or 
 embarrassments, which you cannot get rid of, and which will occupy 
 your time and thoughts, this may be a reason why you should decline 
 taking charge of business for others. From your statements, I feel 
 certain, that, with some exertion, you can free yourself from what 
 now appears to you a heavy burden, to be borne for ever. 
 
 If you think my remarks are too free, believe that I have made 
 them from a sincere desire to serve you, and that I am very truly, 
 and with much esteem and regard, 
 
 Tour friend, 
 
 P. T. JACKSON. 
 
 J. W. BooTT, Esq." 
 
 It is much to be regretted that this letter had not appeared 
 in Mr. Jackson's life-time. It would have been, at least, 
 more agreeable to me, to have had his confirmation of the 
 circumstances, in which it originated. But it is only neces- 
 sary to read the letter itself, to see that something must have 
 led to the writing of it, as it is written, besides the mere 
 
338 
 
 calling for a treasurer's bond. That call required nothing 
 more than a polite and friendly note, explaining its necessity. 
 The letter goes far beyond this ; and I invite the reader's 
 attention especially to the words, " more particularl-^ those of 
 your own family ;" — which, although introduced in a way 
 not to appear forced, really had nothing to do with the busi- 
 iiess, which forms the ostensible excuse for writing the letter. 
 There was no imaginable reason, in respect to fitness for 
 the agency, why Mr. Boott should settle his accounts with 
 his own family, " more particularly " than with other people. 
 It may be noted, also, that Mr. Jackson speaks of the sup^ 
 posed necessity for settling up these accounts, and of Mr. 
 Boott's reluctance to do so, as matters of "conjecture." 
 Would he have used that language, if he had been so fully 
 informed of these matters by Mr. J. Wright Boott, as Mr. 
 Lowell supposes, instead of having had the real difficulty sug- 
 gested to him by Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, as I aver to have 
 been the fact ? Is the -rtrhole letter consistent with the idea of 
 a direct disclosure from Mr. J. Wright Boott of any thing more 
 than general embarrassment, and inability to get rid of all 
 his responsibilities ? Mr. Lowell's call of attention to the 
 expression, used by Mr. Jackson, "poorer than I had sup- 
 posed," instead of " bankrupt " or " defaulter," — by way of 
 argument to show that Mr. Boott could not, before that time, 
 have lost all his own property, with much that belonged to 
 others, — ^requires no answer. It proves only; as the rest of 
 the letter does, that Mr. Boott had not disclosed the whole 
 state of his case to Mr. Jackson, and that so much as he did 
 disclose, Mr. Jackson desired to allude to in the most deli^^ 
 cate way. 
 
339 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 EFFECT OF MB. JACKSOn's LETTER. FURTHER LETTERS URGING AM 
 ACCOUNT, IN VAIN. OPINIONS ENTERTAINED OF MR. BOOTT. 
 MOTIVES TO LONG FORBEARANCE AND ACQUIESCENCE. 
 
 The effect of the letter from Mr. Jackson, mentioned in the 
 last chapter, was, unfortunately, not such as we had hoped. 
 There would have been no difficulty about furnishing the 
 required bond. Friends enough stood ready to sign it, as 
 Mr. Boott well knew. But nobody had the opportunity. 
 Eather than make a statement of his family accounts, which, 
 according to the letter, seemed to be an implied condition of 
 the office, Mr. Boott, within three days after the receipt of 
 this letter, sent in his resignation! [L. p. 85.] Why was 
 this ? — except that he could not bear the disclosure of so bad 
 an account as he must disclose ? — or that he was not able to 
 make up his accounts in a manner satisfactory to himself? — 
 or that he feared to involve others, with himself, in some 
 loss of the common property, which could not be made good 
 to those of the heirs, who had had no share in causing the 
 loss ? This is not for me to explain ;■. — but there is the fact, 
 proved by Mr. Lowell himself ; and Mr. Lowell must Choose 
 among the alternatives to account for it. 
 
 The conjecture among us, at the time, was, that Mr. Boott, 
 in addition to his general reluctance to settle accounts, might 
 have been startled at the idea of the bond, because of its re- 
 quiring him to be obliged to somebody for suretyship. This 
 led to a new suggestion from Mr. Kirk Boott. He thought 
 of another advantageous employment for his brother, which 
 would avoid that difficulty ; namely, the sending him to Eng- 
 land to purchase iron for the Lowell Railroad, then about to be 
 built under the direction of Mr. Jackson. This, being an or- 
 dinary mercantile agency, would require no bond ; and it was 
 a kind of commission, which Mr. J. Wright Boott was thought 
 
340 
 
 well qualified to execute, since he had been devoting himself, 
 for the last five years, to the study of the iron manufacture, 
 and to its practice, in some branches, at the foundry, and had, 
 also, the facility of established connexions in England. Mr- 
 Kirk Boott first suggested it, I believe, to me, in the letter, 
 heretofore quoted, of May 22, 1831. [Ante, pp. 279, 280.] It 
 was coupled with the idea, that such an appointment "would 
 give him [Mr. J. Wright Boott,] a consideration with those con- 
 cerned with us," (that is, the gentlemen concerned at Lowell ;) 
 ' ' would turn the whole current of his ideas ;" and that he might, 
 afterwards, get the agency of the Lawrence Company, then in 
 contemplation, if he could be induced to accept it. [Ante, p. 
 280.] I thought very well of the plan, after the transfers of 
 property had been made, which, in acting under Mr. Kirk 
 Boott's letter, seemed to me the pressing matter most iname- 
 diately called for. 
 
 Mr. Kirk Boott seems, shortly after, to have made a direct 
 application on the subject to Mr. Jackson, as head of the Low- 
 ell Railroad Co. ; and that gentleman answers in the letter 
 of May 30, 1831, printed by Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 102.] and 
 to which I refer. It contains nothing very material to the 
 present purpose, except what has been already mentioned, 
 — namely, the fact of Mr. Lowell's having agreed with Mr. 
 Jackson that " now is the time, if ever, when he [Mr. Boott,] 
 should settle up every thing and free himself from all engage- 
 ments and responsibilities on old concerns." If he should " 
 do that, the further opinion of those gentlemen, as expressed 
 in the letter, was, that he ought to take the charge of the 
 Suffolk Company, unless some good person should be found 
 to take his place ; — to which Mr. Jackson adds, — " If this can 
 be settled satisfactorily, I am sure he is the best man we can 
 send to England." 
 
 This letter of Mr. Jackson to Mr. Kirk Boott, was trans- 
 mitted by Mr. Kirk Boott, in a letter from himself to his 
 brother, [L. pp. 102-3.] which communicates the offer of 
 Mr. Lowell to go to Philadelphia for the purpose of endeav- 
 ouring to effect a settlement with the Ralstons. There are 
 some passages in this last mentioned letter, which I may 
 
341 
 
 have occasion to refer to in another connexion ; but none 
 material at present, except the following sentence, on which 
 Mr. Lowell founds some comments " However little you 
 are inclined to think of yourself at this moment, I do con- 
 sider it of the utmost importance, to your future happiness 
 and usefulness, that you should be relieved from, your em- 
 barrassments." The letter then very earnestly urges upon 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott to give to the subject " a calm and 
 dispassionate consideration," and it expresses a fervent hope 
 that he might arrive at the conclusion, formed by Mr. Kirk 
 Boott himself, which, manifestly, was, that his brother should 
 come to a complete settlement of accounts, and then ac- 
 cept one or the other of the agencies proposed. 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott had, then, before him, in these sev- 
 eral letters, the concurrent opinion of Mr. Jackson, Mr. Low- 
 ell, and his own brother, pressed with as much urgency 
 as was likely to be tolerable even from them, that he must 
 Settle Ms accounts, as a first step to any useful employment, 
 or lucrative pursuit. As for myself, he had told me, upon 
 a former occasion, when I had called, by his own invita- 
 tion, to advise and aid him, — the morning after his giv- 
 ing me the memorandum of 1830, — "that he considered 
 himself quite competent to manage his own afiairs, and that 
 when he should have any doubt of it, and should require my 
 interference, or advice, he would take care to let me know it." 
 [B. p. 38.] Since that, I had, within a few days, been unhap- 
 pily compelled, in the manner before shown, to obtain from 
 him the transfers, just made, to secure the estate ; — which, 
 though very readily given, to all appearance, left me I knew, 
 at the moment, in no especial favour ; — and it was manifest 
 that any further interference from me, about a family settle- 
 ment, would only lead to a rupture. But I knew of Mr. Kirk 
 Boott's letter at the time of his writing it, and it was plain, 
 that, if that were not effectual, nothing else could be done to 
 obtain the accounts, short of coercion, attended by a family 
 feud, and, worse than all, by inevitable publicity and ruin to 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, which would have defeated all our 
 hopes and objects in attempting to rescue him from his un" 
 
342 
 
 fortunate positioij. Yet these accounts, so urged, never came, 
 Can Mr. Lowell tell us why ? 
 
 His only suggestion is, that Mr. Boott delayed the settle- 
 ment, because he could not bear to bring in an account that 
 would have made his brothers and sisters debtor's to him! 
 [L. pp. 34, 58.] It would be a curiosity to see how Mr, 
 Lowell would have made up that account, upon the state of 
 affairs in May, 1831. He has, perhaps, shown ingenuity 
 enough for it, in the account of 1844. 
 
 The comment upon Mr- Jackson's letter to Mr. Eirk Boptt, 
 " on the subject of employing his brother in a business [the 
 purchasing of the iron] in which large sums of money must 
 necessarily be intrusted to him, and where great accuracy 
 and fidelity were required in the management," lies in the 
 following query : — " Now is it to be believed, unless Mr, 
 Brooks means to impeach the character of Mr. Kirk Boott 
 also, that that gentleman would have recommended, or 
 allowed to be selected, a person who had been guilty of the 
 inoral delinquencies attributed by Mr. Brooks to Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott?" [L. p. 103.] 
 
 The letter of Mr. Kirk Boott to his brother, which en* 
 closed the letter from Mr. Jackson, is, in the first place, used 
 by Mr. Lowell, as evidence that this plan of sending Mr, 
 Boott to England, on business of the railroad, " originated 
 with Mr. Kirk Boott," which I also state to have been the 
 fact ; and, in the next place, a comment of admiration is 
 made upon the " spontaneous tribute " paid to " his broth- 
 er's disinterestedness," — a quality, which I also expressly 
 conceded to him in an eminent degree. But the occasion 
 of this "spontaneous tribute," doubtless, was some language 
 of his brother, similar to that used in a cited letter, [Ante, p. 
 275.] expressing his indifierence, about himself, as to the 
 means of subsistence, if his mother's comfort and happi* 
 ness could be saved from destruction. It was, no doubt, 
 thought, by Mr. Kirk Boott, to be the best mode of ap- 
 proaching his brother on a delicate subject. A succeeding 
 comment by Mr. Lowell relates to a different point ; and I 
 reserve that for another connexion. 
 
343 
 
 The " Reply" next introduces a passage from Mr. Kirk 
 Boolt's letter to me, of May 22, 1831, (which I have above 
 printed entire,) expressing the opinion that his brother is 
 " admirably qualified" for this business of purchasing iron in 
 England, and that "the new concern," (rightly interpreted 
 by Mr. Lowell to mean "the Lawrence Manufacturing 
 Company at Lowell, then just starting with the object 
 of making and printing ccdicoes,") would be, on his retiu-n, 
 "a much better field for him" than the Suffolk agency, 
 which he had just resigned. The comment upon this 
 is, that, "to suppose Mr. Kirk Boott entertained the views 
 of Mr. Wright Boott's administration of the trust funds 
 now attributed to him by Mr. Brooks, at the moment he 
 was urging his claims to be appointed treasurer and agent 
 of the Lawrence Manufacturing Company, with a capital of 
 a million of dollars, is as much a libel on Mr. Kirk Boott's 
 memory as on that of his brother." It is asked, too, wheth- 
 er the inference is not very reasonable that /, myself, could 
 not have entertained such views at that time ; — whether 
 it is credible that Mr. Kirk Boott, " then far from being rich, 
 would have allowed the trust funds, under his father's will, 
 to remain in the charge of a person, who had administered 
 them as is represented by Mr. Brooks ;" — whether Mr. Brooks 
 himself would have done so ; — whether, notwithstanding his 
 affectation of " lofty indifference to mere pecuniary considera- 
 tions," he extended " the same indifference to the interests of 
 all the rest of the family ;" — ^and, being a trustee under Mr. 
 Kirk Boott's will, since 1838, and affecting to be " peculiar- 
 ly sensitive" on that subject, how happened it, it is further 
 asked, " that he [Brooks] remained quiescent for six years ?" 
 and " why was his conscience dormant, during that long pe- 
 riod, to awaken only when, as I shall presently show, he 
 had come to be on terms of personal hostility with Mr. 
 Boott?" The conclusion on this head is, that "it is a little 
 too much to ask the public to believe, that he [Brooks] ever 
 seriously thought Mr. Boott to be the man this pamphlet 
 would represent him, till he had become blinded by his own 
 excited feelings of animosity;" and that "it is very evident 
 
344 
 
 that he did not believe, at that time, in any such default and 
 insolvency as he now attempts to make out." [L. pp. 10.4 — 6i] 
 
 Now I request the reader, who is blinded by no feeling 
 in the case, to believe nothing but the inevitable deduction 
 of his own faculties from the evidence given to him. If the 
 above cited comments were ever so well warranted, and all 
 the flourishes in them were nothing but literal truths, they 
 would not alter a single fact in the case ; and proved facts 
 are the things, which, after all, are to settle the merits of this 
 controversy. » 
 
 But my answer to this whole course of commentary must 
 have already suggested itself, mainly, to every intelligent 
 reader. 
 
 In the first place, it is utterly untrue that I had charg- 
 ed Mr. Boott with any " moral delinquencies," unless neg- 
 lecting to settle his accounts, and allowing trust funds to 
 stand uninvested, and mingled with his own property, undis- 
 tinguishably, deserve to be thus harshly designated. These 
 are facts, which Mr. Lowell admits ; and, in respect to that 
 species of delinquency, he says, himself, " the utmost that 
 can be made of it is, that it was an irregularity ; and that 
 after all, carelessness is not a crime." [L. p. 89.] In truth, 
 I had gone much further than Mr. Lowell goes, in suggest- 
 ing charitable defences for Mr. Boott; since I had stated 
 all sorts of excuses, and palliations, from circumstances, 
 which the " Reply" either takes no notice of, or attempts to 
 discredit. I am aware, that Mr. Lowell affects to regard my 
 remarks, on the passing of the account of 1844 at the pro- 
 bate oiRce, as imputations of fraud and perjury. I shall 
 present my view of that, when I reach that subject. At 
 present, it is enough to say, that all such gross imputations 
 are of Mr. Lowell's coinage, not mine. They are the infer- 
 ences, which he pleases to draw, or to pretend, and which I 
 do not draw. Comments of this sort, as before remarked, 
 do not alter the facts ; from them every unprejudiced reader 
 will draw proper inferences for himself, so far as it is need- 
 ful to draw any, respecting the character of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott. 
 
345 
 
 In the next place, as to the recommendation of that gen- 
 tleman, by Mr. Kirk Boott, his brother, for these several offi- 
 ces and agencies, I have already stated that no impeach- 
 ment of Mr. J. Wright Boott's honour, integrity, honest in- 
 tentions, and good motives, had arisen, either in my mind, or, 
 as I believe, in that of Mr. Kirk Boott, from his mismanage- 
 ment of the trust funds, under all the known circumstances 
 of the case, including his peculiar and most extraordinary 
 ideas of his own supremacy over the family property. They 
 went so far that he once stated to me, that his father intend- 
 ed, by his will, " to give him all he left over $100,000 !" [B. 
 p. 59.] 
 
 So, in respect to his competency, at that time, for the situa- 
 tions proposed, though that was, necessarily, in a degree, ex- 
 perimental, nobody doubted his general intelligence, and 
 power of application, even to details of business, if he 
 pleased to exert it. It was notorious, too, that he had been, 
 for many years, bestowing his whole mind upon studies 
 and pursuits congenial to the kinds of business proposed for 
 him ; and it was believed that he must, thereby, have acquired 
 considerable experience, and much valuable information. 
 What reason was there, then, to distrust, beforehand, his suit- 
 ableness for the limited duties proposed ? 
 
 Nobody imagined, that Mr. J. Wright Boott, if sent abroad, 
 with a credit upon London, to purchase iron, would put the 
 money in his own pocket, and run away with it. Nobody 
 feared, because he had mismanaged family funds, over which 
 he had been permitted, for years, to exercise an unlimited 
 discretionary control, without accounting to any one, that he 
 would divert, to speculative uses of his own, money intrusted 
 to him by persons, with whom he stood in no familiar rela^ 
 tion, and to whom he must, in the course of that business, 
 be constantly and statedly accountable. Nor was there any 
 reason to doubt, that, with the usual aid of competent clerks, 
 he would be able to keep, tmder the eye of intelligent di- 
 rectors of a great manufacturing corporation, suitable ac- 
 counts, to inform them, from time to time, of its affairs. 
 There was no great reason to apprehend, that he would 
 
346 
 
 imagine, under these necessary checks and restraints, as he 
 did, in the case of his father's estate, from the utter want of 
 them, and from long habit of absolute dominion, that the 
 property was pretty much his own, to do with as he pleased, 
 or that a body of manufacturers, with a capital of a million 
 of dollars, intended, by making him their treasurer, " to give 
 him all over j^lOO,000." 
 
 But, beyond all this, it is not to be forgotten, that both his 
 failings and his qualifications were judged of by the friendly 
 eye of a brother, directed to a turning point in a brother's 
 life, — a point, which presented the serious issue, whether a 
 man, who is now described by Mr. Lowell as so richly gifted, 
 and who, all agree, had many interesting and valuable traits, 
 should be raised from the depths of his embarrassments to a 
 probability of future usefulness, acquisition and honour, or 
 should be allowed to sink, forever, into a certainty of hopeless 
 poverty, insolvency, and despondence, Vith danger of public 
 disgrace. Such was the question for Mr. Kirk Boott to act 
 upon. Is it not, then, a libel, indeed, on Mr. Kirk Boott's 
 memory, to suggest, as Mr. Lowell does, that if he knew that 
 this brother, though acting with honest intentions and gener- 
 ous motives, had injudiciously managed and lost much famUy 
 property, in the manner and imder the circumstances stated, 
 he himself would, or should, on that account, have utterly 
 abstained from ordinary fraternal recommendation and influ- 
 ence, to procure him an agency or ofiice, for which he was 
 believed to be otherwise well qualified, and in which he 
 would not be exposed to the temptation, or to the possibility, 
 of committing similar errors ? Is Mr. Lowell so stern an 
 advocate for truth, and the whole truth, under all circum- 
 stances, as to hold, that it was rather the duty of Mr. Kirk 
 Boott, in these circumstances, not even to have " allowed to 
 be selected " such a brother for such an agency ? — ^but rather 
 to have interfered to prevent it, by volunteering a discovery 
 of all that had happened, and publishing him as a "bank- 
 rupt " and a " defaulter " ? — for those are the gentle terms, ^ 
 which Mr. Lowell chooses to apply to the exact case. Most 
 
347 
 
 readers, I apprehend, will be slow to arrive at such harsh 
 judgements. 
 
 In respect to Mr. Kirk Boott's acquiescence, during the 
 residue of his life, and my own acquiescence, then, and long 
 after that gentleman's decease, in a position of the family- 
 property so extremely unsatisfactory, what was the alterna- 
 tive ? Communication of the fact to all the family, and 
 application to the Judge of Probate to compel the account, 
 which Mr. J. Wright Boott, though much urged, would not 
 voluntarily render. In other words, the sole alternative was, 
 destruction of the family peace ; domestic parties and feuds ; 
 publication of a brother's default, who was not believed to 
 have been a defaulter by design, or for a selfish end ; and all 
 this while he was doing nothing, and threatening nothing, to 
 aggravate the mischief, which had already happened, and 
 which could not be thereby remedied ; and when he had, 
 already, deprived himself, to some extent, of the power to 
 commit further accidental waste, by having marked, as trust 
 property, all the property there was left ; and while there was, 
 for a long time at least, a faint hope that he might yet turn 
 himself to some new and useful employment, tending to im- 
 prove the condition of afiairs. 
 
 In 1844, it will be seen, in due time, that an entirely dif- 
 ferent state of facts existed. The family peace was already 
 broken ; the parties were formed ; the feuds had grown up ; 
 all hope of improvement was passed ; further waste, though 
 not yet extensive, had become visible ; the symptoms of 
 incompetency for such a trust had become aggravated into 
 partial insanity, believed by some, disputed by others ; and 
 above all, there was an act to be done, or refused, according 
 to which more trust property would, or would not, be put 
 into his hands, without security, and with almost a promise 
 beforehand that it was to be applied to a particular use, 
 destructive to the interests of those, to whom it belonged. 
 By whose fault, or what misfortune, all this happened, the 
 sequel will show. But, in regard to my own supposed " hos- 
 tility," and " animosity," towards ]Mr. J. Wright Boott, I have, 
 for the present, only to repeat my former statement, that, so far 
 
348 
 
 as I am capable of judging myself, I was actuated by no sticb 
 feelings, at the time, to which Mr. Lowell alludes ; and, in- 
 deed, that none such had ever existed, unless during a pre- 
 vious short period of well-merited indignation, before I had 
 come to the settled belief of Mr. J, Wright Boott's insanity. 
 But all this branch of the subject is for future consideration^ 
 At this moment, I desire to confine attention to the question 
 of the truth and sufficiency of the account of 1844. To that 
 end, I have exhibited the state of aifairs in May, 1831, and 
 the transactions of that period ; I have accounted for the 
 acquiescence of Mr. Kirk Boott and myself,, in what could 
 not be helped but by encountering worse evils ; I have sho^Jra 
 that Mr. Jackson had not that knowledge of the facts, which 
 could have made his opinion valuable, if he ever gave one, on 
 the question of Mr. Boott's management as a trustee ; and I 
 have shown that no argument, against the facts, can fairly be 
 derived from their supposed inconsistency with the concur- 
 rent efforts, which I admit, of Mr. Jackson, Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 and Mr. Lowell, to procure, for Mr. J. Wright Boott, an im- 
 portant and profitable employment. In regard to Mr. Jack- 
 son's later opinions, which Mr. Lowell does not allude to, but 
 which I have heard quoted, and which, if rightly quoted, 
 must have produced a wide influence in this community, (I 
 refer to general expressions of opinion, attributed to him, 
 concerning Mr. J. Wright Boott's vindication by the account 
 of 1844,) I may further say, in this connexion, that all such 
 opinions, if pronounced, were merely the reflection of Mr. 
 Lowell's opinions, and not founded on any personal knowl- 
 edge, or examination, by Mr. Jackson himself. They prove 
 nothing but Mr. Jackson's confidence in Mr. Lowell's state- 
 ments, and, through them, in the sufficiency of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott's account. Opinions, so formed, however high the au- 
 thority, from which they may seem to flow, add nothing to 
 the weight of Mr. Lowell's opinion, whether real or pretend- 
 ed. And, I repeat, no man's opinion can alter stubborniacts, 
 from which I ask the intelligent reader to form his own 
 opinion. 
 
349 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 STATE OF THE TRUST FUND AFTER THE LYMAN & RALSTON SET- 
 TLEMENT, IN SEPTEMBER, 1831. ITS REAL DEFICIENCY PARTLY 
 COVERED UP, IN THE ACCOUNT OF 1844, BY A NEW TALU- 
 ATION. 
 
 Having now disposed of the occurrences in the month of 
 May, 1831, I may proceed to the next event, which material- 
 ly affected Mr. Boott's pecuniary position ; namely, a settle- 
 ment with Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, made by Mr. Lowell, 
 for Mr. Boott, as he tells us, [L. p. 109.] in the month of 
 September, 1831. [L. p. 107.] At the time of his imdertak- 
 ing that business, whenever it was, he admits that he re- 
 ceived, from Mr. J. Wright Boott, what he supposed to be 
 " a full exposition of his affairs ;" [L. p. 78.] and the date 
 of Mr. Jackson's letter of May 30, inclosed in the letter 
 of Mr. Kirk Boott communicating Mr. Lowell's offer to un- 
 dertake the agency, fixes, very nearly, the probable time of 
 that exposition, which Mr. Lowell, as we have seen, is so 
 unlucky as to fix, with great positiveness, in the month of 
 August, for the purpose of proving, that, in May, he could 
 not, possibly, have known any thing of Mr. Boott's affairs, 
 except from my representations. [Ante, p. 301.] " It was 
 some weeks," he informs us, and he probably might have 
 said months, "before I succeeded in bringing it to a suc- 
 cessful issue." [L. p. 79.] He also tells us, that all the 
 original papers, relating to that settlement, are still in his 
 possession. [L. p. 109.] He produces none of them; but 
 he gives his own account of the settlement as follows : — 
 
 " The terms were briefly these. The whole property in the Mill- 
 dam Foundery was to be sold to a joint stock company, to be created 
 for that purpose, who were to take upon themselves the debt of 
 82500 to Colonel Thorndike ; the mortgage made the preceding year 
 was to be discharged ; Messrs. Lyman & Ralston were to pay at once 
 
350 
 
 $16,000 of the indorsed paper, and Mr. Boott was to continue hia 
 indorsement for $14,000 for the term of one year; they were to 
 assign to Mr. Boott their reversionary interest in the real and per- 
 sonal estate of Mr. Boott, senior, and to pay him $7,624, by their 
 note, with collateral security, payable in two years, with interest; 
 they were also to give security for the outstanding indorsements. 
 All these stipulations were fulfilled ; and the collateral security re- 
 mained in my hands, until the indorsed notes and their note for 
 $7,624 had been paid in full." [L. p. 79.] 
 
 I shall presently give my reasons for suspecting that this 
 statement, by Mr. Lowell, omits some terms in the settlement 
 quite material to our controversy. At present I take it to be 
 complete and accurate. 
 
 I have, heretofore, admitted my errors in recollection of 
 some of the details of these old transactions, and have shown 
 that Mr. Lowell's account of the final settlement, as derived 
 from the papers, differs, after all, from that previously given 
 by me, from memory, in nothing material, except the pay- 
 ment, by a secured note, of $7624, which was so much 
 addition to Mr. Boott's present resources. [Ante, Ch. 5.] 
 
 I have, also, heretofore remarked, on the assignment to Mr. 
 Boott of the reversionary interests of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. 
 Ralston in their father's estate, that this added nothing to his 
 resources for the payment of debts, or for the making good of 
 the trust funds required by the will. Their reversions in two 
 undivided ninth parts of the mansion-house, subject to the 
 life-estate of Mrs. Boott, were property, to be sure ; but their 
 full present value, in 1831, supposing the estate to have been 
 then worth about $30,000, was shown, upon the principle of 
 the annuity table, to be little more than about $3300 ; [Ante, 
 p. 254.] and this value, whether more or less, was never 
 realized by Mr. Boott, by sale or otherwise, for the purpose of 
 applying it to his debts, or his trust funds. As to their re- 
 versions in the trust funds themselves, these, of course, as 
 was formerly remarked, added nothing to the funds, and are 
 not to be esteemed property for that purpose. I now add, 
 that the assignment of them to Mr. Boott could, in no event, 
 be valuable to him, as property, unless the whole property of 
 the estate (besides the mansion-house) left to be accounted for 
 
351 
 
 by him, at the death of Mrs. Boott, should more than suffice to 
 pay all he might owe, as executor, to all the other heirs. 
 When they should all be paid, but not otherwise, these shares 
 would become available to him, out of the surplus, if there 
 were any ; and this might constitute a species of vested inter- 
 est, which he could dispose of as he pleased. But, if the 
 fund were defective, and all could not be paid in full, an 
 assignment, to the executor, of the reversionary interest in it 
 of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston, could operate only as an 
 extinguishment of all future accountability, by him to them, 
 for their shares of the fund. In poiat of fact, the terms 
 of the instrument were such as to release him, also, from 
 anj present debt he might owe them, as executor, on ac- 
 count of moneys of the estate, which had come to his 
 hands, not belonging to the particular trust funds. [See 
 Deed, B. App. p. 24.] Hence, according to my view of 
 the case, the real value to Mr. Boott, of the assignment from 
 those ladies and their husbands, lay in nothing but his dis- 
 charge from two ninths of his whole accountability, as ex- 
 ecutor and trustee, and in the transfer to him of a rever- 
 sionary interest in the mansion-house, then worth about $3300 ; 
 whUe the chief value to him of the entire settleinent with 
 Lyman & Ralston, consisted in that discharge, added to his 
 exemption from liability for the debts of the foundry. 
 
 Here, then, is another resting-place, from which we may 
 look back on Mr. Boott's pecuniary position, at the time of 
 the reconstruction of the trust fund, in May, 1831. The 
 largest item of property, in his memorandum of 1830, the 
 Mill Dam Foundry, then valued at ^70,000, is now gone. 
 He has, in its place, these reversions, whatever they may be 
 worth, and 07624 in a note, which was eventually paid, and 
 may therefore be treated as equivalent to cash. But he is, 
 also, relieved from his liability for debts contracted in the 
 name of Lyman & Ralston. That is to say, the $30,000 
 mortgage is discharged by the holder, in consideration of a 
 certain number of shares in the stock of the new corporation 
 organized by Messrs. Lyman & Ralston. Of the indorsed 
 paper, on which he was liable to the amount of 030,000, 
 
352 
 
 f 16,000 is to be paid, at once, by Lyman & Ralston, and 
 f 14,000 in one year; for this he has security, and since it 
 was all eventually paid according to the agreement, or some 
 extension of it, we may put it aside, as if paid already. So, 
 his note of $2500 to Mr. Thorndike, and all the other debts 
 of the foundry, contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston, 
 or otherwise, are assumed by the new corporation ; and since 
 he was never called upon to pay them, they may be regarded, 
 for our present purpose, as already extinguished. It will thus 
 be seen, that, whether he was, at one time, liable for $80,000, 
 or $30,000 only, by reason of his connexion with Lyman & 
 Ralston, a question, which has cost so much discussion, in 
 consequence of Mr. Lowell's songs of triumph, over my sup- 
 posed mistakes and misrecollections, the point turns out to be 
 entirely immaterial to the real issue, as will appear by the 
 view I am now about to take. 
 
 The store had, at this time, (September, 1831,) been sold 
 for $16,000. Apart of the proceeds had been applied, as I 
 infer, to the reduction of the gueirdianship debt. The resi- 
 due had, very probably, gone into the Mill Dam Foundry, the 
 settlement with Lyman & Ralston being six or seven months 
 later than the sale of the store. But, since there is no posi- 
 tive evidence of that, I shall take the guardianship debt as 
 it stood before the reduction, and credit, against it, the whole 
 $16,000 proceeding from the store, and all that was received 
 in cash, or its equivalent, from the sale of the foundry; and 
 then let us see how the trust account comes out, taken on 
 the day of the transfers intended to secure it, and valuing the 
 properties sold, at what they produced : — 
 
 LIABILITIES. 
 
 Eequired amount of the trust funds, $111,111 1,2 
 
 The guardianship debt, Sept. 30, 1830, as per Tyler's 
 
 statement, from the prohate accounts, [Ante, p. 235.] 46,000 00 
 Debt to Mr. Lowell, 30,000 00 
 
 Debt to Mr. Sturgis, 21,000 00 
 
 208,111 12 
 

 $208,111 12 
 
 $83,520 00 
 
 
 27,300 00 
 16,000 00 
 
 
 7,624 00 
 1,500 00 
 
 
 10,033 39 
 
 145,977 39 
 
 
 353 
 
 Lidbiliiies, brought over, 
 
 ASSETS. 
 
 72 shares of Merrimack Manufacturing 
 
 Company, at $1160, [Ante, p. 289.] 
 39 shares of Boston Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, at $700, [Ante, p. 289.] 
 Store, at what it sold for, in Feb. 1831, 
 Foundry, at what it sold for, in Sept. 
 
 1831, (exclusive of reversions,) 
 The stable, at what it sold for, in 1844, 
 Lilly's note, at what it eventually produc- 
 ed, by the gradual collections, and the 
 final sale in Oct. 1836, [Ante, p. 291.] 
 
 Deficiency, 62,133 73 
 
 Or, taking Mrs. Boott's ^ 100,000 fund, alone, and disregard- 
 ing the fund for the aunts, the deficiency was, still, more 
 than ^50,000. 
 
 There is no ground, therefore, for a pretence that the two 
 ninths, in reversion, of that trust fund, assigned to Mr. Boott 
 in the settlement with Lyman &> Ralston, were, at the time, 
 worth any thing. They, with Mr. Boott's own share in it, 
 would have amounted, if Mrs. Boott had died at that time, 
 nominally, to about f 33,000 only ; and the deficiency in the 
 fund was over 50,000. In other words, each heir would have 
 been entitled, had the life-estate expired, to a little more 
 than $11,000 in present possession, that being one ninth of 
 $100,000 ; Mr. Boott, representing the shares of Mrs. Lyman 
 and Mrs. Ralston, together with his own original share, would 
 have been entitled to one third of the fund himself, and 
 woiild have been bound to pay over ^11,000 to each of the 
 other six heirs ; but the whole property in his possession, to 
 represent that fund, after paying the debts, for which it was 
 bound, would have been less than $50,000 ;* which, divided 
 
 * Property, as above, 
 
 Debts, as above, .... 
 
 
 S145,977 
 
 39 
 
 $46,000 
 
 
 
 30,000 
 
 
 
 21,000 
 
 97,000 
 
 00 
 
 
 Left for the trust fund, 48,977 39 
 
 43 
 
354 
 
 among th6 six persons, would have given them only about 
 $8000 each, instead of $11,000. So that he would have 
 been unable to pay them in full, even supposing him to have 
 owed his father's estate nothing but the amount of the trust 
 fund for his mother. So long as the life-estate continued, the 
 whole income, whether more or less, from $100,000, invested 
 in the manufacturing stock, was due to Mrs. Boott ; and, if 
 the principal of that sum was deficient by $50,000, her just 
 income must, necessarily, be so much abridged, even if none 
 of it were taken to pay oflf the principal of Mr. Boott's private 
 debts. There is no pretence of any other assets of Mr. Boott, 
 capable of being applied to this deficiency, except the then 
 value of three ninths of the mansion-house, which, subject to 
 the life-estate, must be set down at less than $5000. This 
 was never in fact so applied, and, if it had been, would have 
 still left the fund deficient, by more than ^45,000. 
 
 To simplify the view still further, all the property, except 
 that, which reappears under a new valuation in the account 
 of 1844, may be taken in offset to the guardianship debt. 
 Thus:— 
 
 The debt to the wards, before the partial 
 
 paymentfromtheproceedsof the store, was $46,000 00 
 
 Against it put, proceeds of store, $16,000 00 
 
 Cash proceeds of foundry, 7,624 00 
 
 Proceeds of Lilly's note 10,033 39 
 
 One share of Merrimack Manufacturing 
 
 Company,* 1,160 00 
 
 _! 34,817 39 
 
 Balance of this debt, to be provided for, 11,182 61 
 
 The rest of the property, which was kept till 1844, was, 
 at its value in 1831, as follows : — 
 
 71 shares of Merrimack Manufacturing Company, 
 
 at S 11 60, $82,360 00 
 
 39 shares of Boston Manufacturing Company, at $700, 27,300 00 
 
 Stable, at its price of sale in 1844, ' 1,500 00 
 
 111,160 00 
 
 * Seventy-one, out of the seventy-two, remained to the period of the account in 
 1844 ;— one had been parted with. 
 
355 
 
 BrmgU over, $111,160 00 
 
 Deduct the balance of the guardianship debt, as above, 11,182 61 
 
 99,977 39 
 Deduct the debts of Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, for 
 which the shares then stood pledged, 51,000 00 
 
 Net value of the fund, in May, 1831, 48,977 39 
 
 Deficiency, 51,022 61 
 
 Nominal fund, 100,000 00 
 
 By comparing this with the account of 1844, it is now easy 
 to see how the means were provided for paying off the alleged 
 cash balance of |25,000 in Mr. Boott's favour, and yet leav- 
 ing something near $100,000, apparently, for the trust. In 
 the first place, the debt to Mr. Sturgis had then (in 1844,) 
 been paid off, and also $5000 of Mr. Lowell's debt, in all 
 $26,000 ; which, with many years of iaterest, could have 
 been paid, as I shall show, out of nothing but the income of 
 the trust fund, provided the guardianship debt is assumed to 
 have been paid out of the other funds above assigned to it. 
 If not, so much of those other funds as went to pay, in part, 
 the $26,000 to Messrs. Lowell and Sturgis, was replaced by 
 an equal amount of the income of the trust property applied 
 to the guardianship debt. It is mere substitution, in the ap- 
 plication of the income, to one debt or another, and makes 
 no difference in the result. This subject, — the application of 
 income, — I shall return to. At present I only mark the fact, 
 that the incumbrance on the trust property, in May, 1831, 
 had been reduced, in 1844, by some means, from about 
 62,000* to $25,000, the then balance of Mr. Lowell's debt. 
 Thereby, the deficiency in the principal of the trust fund, 
 
 * Debt to Mr. Sturgis, $21,000, to Mr. LoweU, $30,000, $51,000 
 
 Balance of the guardianship debt, after applying all other means, 11,000 
 
 62,000 
 
356 
 
 upon the valuation of 1831, was reduced from $51,000 to 
 about $14,000.* 
 
 In the next place, the account, instead of exhibiting that 
 amount of deficiency, exhibits, when strictly analyzed, a de- 
 ficiency of less than $4000, with an alleged " cash balance, 
 due to the executor," sufiicient to cover Mr. Lowell's debt. 
 How is this seemingly favourable change produced ? Simply 
 hy charging the property at a different valuation, founded 
 upon its alleged cost to Mr. Boott, thus : — 
 
 The 71 shares of the Merrimack Manufac- 
 turing Company, instead of being put at 
 their value when first put in trust, viz. 
 S1160 per share, are, with great apparent 
 liberality, put at only the par of $1000 
 per share, $71,000 
 
 This takes ofi" $11,360 of the value, at which 
 I place them to the trust account. But the 
 39 shares of Boston Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, instead of being put at $700 a 
 share, (which is what I rate them at, and 
 all they were worth when first put in 
 trust,) are charged, 18 of them, at $1150 
 each, and 21 of them at $1300 each, mak- 
 ing in all, for that item, instead of $27,300, 
 no less than 48,000 
 
 Being an addition of $20,700. And the 
 stable, instead of $1500, which was more 
 than it was worth in 1831, is charged at 2,500 
 
 $121,500 00' 
 
 Deduct the alleged cash balance, resulting from the 
 admitted receipts, and alleged payments of the ac- 
 count, — being just the amount of Mr. Lowell's debt 
 and a fraction over, 25,215 45 
 
 and it leaves, at that valuation, to represent the trust 
 
 fund, 96,284 55 
 
 *PaidofF, Sturgis, .... $21,000 
 
 " Lowell, on account, - 5,000 
 
 Balance of guardianship debt, as abore, also paid ofif, 11,000 
 
 Total, - - - 37,000 
 
 Deficiency of the trust fund, in 1831, 51,000 
 
 Incumbrances paid off, as above, - 37,000 
 
 Deficiency (on the same valuation,) in 1844, 14,000 
 
357 
 
 Brought over, $96,284 55 
 
 In other words, the account, in providing for a cash 
 balance sufficient to cover Mr. Lowell's debt, ex- 
 hibits a deficiency, after all, in the trust fund, of 3,715 45 
 
 Nominal trust fund, 100,000 00 
 
 In short, the property placed in trust in May, 1831, is 
 
 charged in 1844, at $121,500 00 
 
 The same property, (clear of debts,) when put in trust, 
 in 1831, has been shown [Ante, p. 354] to have 
 been worth only 111,000 00 
 
 Diflference, 10,500 00 
 
 The deficiency in Mrs. Boott's trust fund, according 
 to the account of 1844, is, still, over 3,700 00 
 
 14,200 00 
 
 So that the greater part of Mr. Lowell's debt appears, at 
 last, to have been provided for out of these two sources : — 
 That is, by taking $3700 from the fund, which the " Re- 
 ply" admits Mr. Boott was bound to have had on hand, and 
 to have paid over in full to his successor in the trust ; and by 
 charging the property, standing in the executor's name, at 
 $10,500 more than it was worth when it became the prop- 
 erty of the trust. If, on the other hand, he had charged it 
 at its value in May, 1831, (the alleged receipts and payments 
 in the account being as they now are,) the taking out of the 
 alleged cash balance, for the payment of the debt to Mr. 
 Lowell, would have left the capital of the trust fund deficient, 
 in 1844, by more than $14,000,* even if no part of its income 
 had been previously applied to the payment or reduction of 
 Mr. Boott's other debts, which is a separate question. The 
 'propriety of this valuation of the property, tinder the circum- 
 stances, I shall presently consider. Just now, I oidy point 
 out the fact, that it was essential to the means of providing 
 for payment in full to Mr. Lowell, without a more glaring 
 subtraction from Mrs. Boott's trust fund, than can now be 
 detected from the figures on the face of the account. 
 
 * Value in 1831, as shown, [Ante, p. 354.] $111,000 
 
 Balance of the account of 1844, - - 25,000 
 
 Left for the trust fund, - - - 86,000 
 
 L L 
 
358 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 ANOTHER CHARGE AGAINST ME OF MISREPBESENTATION TURNED 
 UPON MR. LOWELL. A QUERY RESPECTING HIS ALLEGED LIEN 
 ON THE STOCKS IN 1844. 
 
 I will now ask the reader's attention to another grave 
 charge brought against me in the "Reply," — a charge of a 
 misrepresentation, either by design, or by criminal negligence 
 and false assumptions, injurious to Mr. Boott, respecting pay- 
 ments on account of his debt to Mr. Lowell. I wish the 
 reader to see who makes the substantial misrepresentation 
 here. 
 
 In the foregoing chapter, for the sake of presenting, more 
 clearly, the actual condition of Mrs. Boott's trust fund, in 
 October, 1831, I assumed the application of all the cash 
 received by Mr. Boott, (whether before or after that date,) 
 from the sale of the store, and of Lilly's note, and of his 
 interest in the foundry, to the reduction of his guardianship 
 debt as it had stood in 1830. I do not mean to be under- 
 stood that those moneys were all, in fact, so applied; I be- 
 lieve otherwise; and the reader shall see such evidence as 
 I have, tending to show the time and manner, in which, and 
 to determine out of what fund, Mr. Boott's debts, remaining 
 after the settlement with Lyman & Ralston, were severally 
 discharged. 
 
 In respect to the debts due to Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell 
 in May, 1831, (when the property was put in trust,) the time 
 and manner of the only payment for the reduction of either 
 of them made by Mr. Boott, so far as I am informed, out 
 of any means not proceeding from the property itself, so 
 placed in trust, appears by the following letter from Mr. 
 Boott to me. If I am not right in this, let Mr. Lowell 
 show whence any other payments did come. 
 
359 
 
 LETTEE PKOit J. "W. BOOTT to E. BKOOKS. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 As you consented, yesterday, to apply the dividends and interest on 
 the stocks and note in your hands, towards the payment of my note 
 to Mr. Lowell, I have this day anticipated the receipt from you of 
 them, and have paid to Mr. Lowell S5,000. Therefore, at your con- 
 venience, I request you will be good enough to send me a check for 
 such sums as you have received, and to hand over to me the interest 
 on Mr. Lilly's note, when it shall be paid. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Jno. W. Boott. 
 Ed. Brooks, Esq. 
 Nov. 22, 1831. 
 
 In my former pamphlet, I was unable to point out the 
 source from which this |5000 was probably derived. [B. p. 
 47.] I now infer, from the proximity of time, and the want 
 of other cash means, that it was part of the $7624 received, 
 according to Mr. Lowell, out of the settlement effected with 
 Lyman & Ralston about two months before. The note, 
 taken for that sum, must have passed into Mr. Lowell's 
 hands, as the agent of Mr. Boott in that transaction, and, 
 probably some assignment was made, by which $5000 of it 
 was applied to the reduction of the debt due to Mr. Lowell ; 
 which may well have happened unknown to me. 
 
 From the foregoing letter of Mr. Boott, it further appears, 
 that I had consented, at his request, to apply the dividends 
 and interest, accruing on the stocks and on Lilly's note, held 
 by me in trust under the agreement of May 23, 1831, to- 
 wards the payment of his "note to Mr. Lowell." And as 
 Mr. Boott, it seems, had himself paid $5000, on the 22d of 
 November, 1831, in anticipation of those receipts, I paid to 
 him, towards his reimbursement, as he requests, on the fol- 
 lowing day, the amouht of cash then in my hands, being 
 $1440, as appears by his receipt. [B. App. p. 26.] By a 
 subsequent agreement, all my further collections from that 
 trust property, while it remained in my hands, amounting to 
 more than $10,000, were handed to Mr. Boott, from time 
 to time, to be applied by him towards further payment of his 
 "note to Mr. Lowell," except f 2000 of it, which I handed 
 
360 
 
 to Mr. Lowell, for that purpose, myself. These payments 
 were made under the idea that the property in my hands 
 was ample to secure the guardianship debt, and that the re- 
 duction of the debt due to Mr. Lowell, for which stocks 
 belonging to the estate were pledged, out of any surplus in 
 my hands, was entirely consistent with the objects of my 
 trust. The receipts of Mr. Boott, which I formerly printed, 
 [B. App. pp. 26 — 8,] generally express his agreement to make 
 this special application of the money ; and the fact, formerly 
 stated, [B. p. 48.] of the payment of the $2000 by me to Mr. 
 Lowell, is not disputed by him. 
 
 The eifect of all these payments, by Mr. Boott and my- 
 self, should hare been, as I formerly remarked, [B. p. 48,] to 
 have reduced his debt to Mr. Lowell, " unless new loans were 
 made," from $30,000 to $15,000 at most ; for the dividends, 
 on the stocks, which Mr. Lowell held as security, must have 
 more than kept down interest. I then remarked as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 "Yet it is certain, that at the time of the settlement of accounts in 
 December, 1844, which will presently be spoken of, the balance of 
 principal claimed bj Mr. Lowell as still due, remained at 825,000, 
 precisely as it was after the payment [by Mr. Boott] of the S.5000, in 
 November, 1831. That is to say, presuming that to have been the 
 true balance of debt, Mr. Wright Boott had not so managed his 
 affairs, during those thirteen years, as to have been able to reduce 
 the debt one dollar, notwithstanding that he had received from me, 
 within tha first three years of the series, by payment either to himself 
 or to Mr. Lowell, upwards of $10,000 for that specific object; and 
 notwithstanding that the aggregate income, from all his manufacturing 
 stocks, had averaged, during the entire period, between $12,000 and 
 $13,01)0 a year, and was in one year little short of $30,000. How 
 this should have happened, Mr. Lowell, perhaps, can explain. For 
 myself, I know nothing of the arrangements between him and Mr. 
 Wright Boott." [B. p. 48.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell's remark on this is : — 
 
 " How cruel this imputation appears, when the truth comes to be 
 told, that Mr. Boott reduced his debt to me twentt-six thousand 
 DOLLARS during those very thirteen years !" [L. p. 97.] 
 
 ' The capitals are Mr. Lowell's, — that being a form of type, 
 
361 
 
 to which he has no objection, it would seem, though Ital- 
 ics he considers rather unfair. [L. p. 83.] 
 
 As the steps, by which Mr. Lowell arrives at this com- 
 ment, and a further one, which I shall presently quote, afford 
 a remarkable specimen of his keen perception of truth, and 
 high estimate of its value, in an argument, I must ask the 
 reader to consider them well. 
 
 In the first place, he must be informed that, just before 
 the remark, which calls forth Mr. Lowell's animadversion, I 
 had stated, that, not long after April, 1833, (a point of time 
 not yet arrived at, but which I now anticipate for this pur- 
 pose,) there was a general improvement in affairs ; that the 
 business of the Mill Dam Foundry, '•' so far as Mr. Wright 
 Boott's concern in it extended," had been wound up ; that 
 property, generally, had been restored to its usual value ; 
 that the manufacturing companies made good dividends; 
 that the store, in State-street, had been sold for f 1000 more 
 than it had been estimated at, in Mr. Boott's memorandum 
 of 1830 ; to which I added as follows : — 
 
 " The proceeds, (SI 6,000,) and receipts from dividends on the man- 
 ufacturing stock, had enabled him to pay off his debt of $21,000 to 
 Mr. Sturgis, and to relieve the forty-two shares of the Merrimack 
 stock, which had been pledged in that quarter. JBitt, in the mean 
 time, he had been obliged to rely on Mr. Lowell, I presume, for some 
 further aid; for, in the course of these transactions, twenty-one of 
 those shares appear to have been transferred to Mr. Lowell, who al- 
 ready held ample security for his former loan of $30,000." [B. 
 p. 46.] 
 
 Immediately following this, I narrated the payment, above- 
 mentioned, of $5000, by Mr. Boott to Mr. Lowell, in Novem- 
 ber, 1831, and the subsequent payments, which were, or 
 should have been, made out of funds coming from me ; and 
 I concluded my remarks on this subject with the passage, 
 (above extracted,) which leads Mr. Lowell to sport with cap- 
 itals, in the manner before shown. 
 
 Now I was mistaken, as I have since foimd, in supposing 
 that the proceeds of the store were specifically applied to the 
 payment of the Sturgis loan. Bat it was of no manner of 
 consequence, to the view I was then taking, whether that 
 
 L L 
 
362 
 
 particular debt was paid,' in part, by that particular piece of 
 property, or from the proceeds of any other property includ- 
 ed in the memorandum of 1830. I gave credit for the store 
 as applied to the payment of debt ; I mentioned the fact that 
 the Sturgis debt was paid ; and I pointed to the fact that the 
 transfer, by Mr. Sturgis, of one half of the shares he held, 
 to Mr. Lowell, indicated some new advance by Mr. Lowell to 
 Mr. Boott, requiring that additional security ; and I then pro- 
 ceeded to show, that, unless that were the case, Mr. Lowell's 
 debt ought to have been reduced, by particular sums of 
 money agreed to be so appropriated, to $15,000, instead of 
 standing, as it did in 1844, at $25,000. The point of the 
 whole course of remark was, to show a degree of misman- 
 agement in this, — that, notwithstanding the large income 
 from the stocks, and the $10,000 furnished, through me, ex- 
 pressly for the further payment of the $25,000 remaining due 
 on Mr. Lowell's $30,000 note, that debt did not appear to 
 have been reduced at all in thirteen yesirs, although Mr. Stur- 
 gis's debt of $21,000 was, as I stated, at some time, and by 
 some means, wholly paid off. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, finding in this statement an immaterial mis- 
 take, (as to the source whence I supposed the money to have 
 come, which went to Mr. Sturgis,) seizes upon that, and ex- 
 hibits it to his reader, as if it were a fact vastly material, and 
 leading to an important consequence, most injurious to Mr. 
 Boott. I give his own language : — 
 
 " Mr. Brooks here undertakes to state, as from his own knowledge, 
 not only that Mr. Boott paid the debt to Mr. Sturgis, but also from 
 what sources he derived the money for such payment. 
 
 " It is a very important question, what degree of reliance is to be 
 placed upon a statement so deliberately made and so circumstantial in ' 
 its details. The question is easily resolved. 
 
 " Mr. Boott did not pay the debt to Mr. Sturgis at the time and 
 from the sources specified. I paid the 821,000 to Mr. Sturgis, and 
 took the debt to my account, as trustee, at the request of Mr. Boott, 
 who preferred to be indebted to me alone. The effect of the transac- 
 tion was to relieve one half of the stock which had been pledged to 
 Mr. Sturgis; as the shares which I already held, with the twenty-one 
 shares transferred to me by him, amply secured me for the whole of 
 my advances." [L. p. 95, 96.] 
 
363 
 
 Now this fact of Mr. Lowell's having advanced the |21,000 
 to Mr. Sturgis, and having taken that debt, also, to his own 
 account, by purchase and assignment, is one, which had never 
 been communicated to me, by either Mr. Lowell or Mr. Boott, 
 (although my position was such, in relation to the whole 
 business, that it manifestly should have been,) and I had un- 
 derstood, generally, from Mr. Lowell, that the debt to Mr. 
 Sturgis had been paid. But, though ignorant of the manner 
 of its payment, I was not guilty of any negligence on the 
 subject, when preparing my former statement. 
 
 I had obtained, in the first place, from the treasurer of the 
 Merrimack Manufacturing Company, the account, as it stands 
 in the books of that company, of all shares transferred to and 
 by Mr. Boott, as executor. Thence it appeared, that Mr. 
 Gushing, for whom, and in whose name, Mr. Sturgis acted, 
 had transferred, as I already knew, in May, 1831, to Mr. 
 Boott, as executor, the forty-two shares, which, in January, 
 
 1830, Mr. Boott, then holding them in his own private name, 
 had pledged to him on his individual account ; and I knew, 
 also, that the same shares were immediately retransferred, 
 by Mr. Boott, as executor, in pledge for the same debt. But 
 this retransfer did not appear to have been put on record till 
 November 24, 1831 ; and on the same day, the record showed 
 a final surrender, to Mr. Boott, as executor, from Mr. Gushing, 
 of twenty-one, only, of these shares. [See Record of transfers, 
 B. App. p. 31.] What became of the other twenty-one, did 
 not appear by the transcript from the record, with which I 
 had been furnished. 
 
 Hence, being in doubt, whether there might not have been 
 a partial payment of the debt to Mr. Gushing, in November, 
 
 1831, and a renewal of the residue for some further time, and 
 being in doubt, also, of what finally became of the twenty- 
 one missing shares, I next applied to my friend Mr. Sturgis 
 for information ; and learnt from him, after he had consulted 
 his books, (from which he furnished me with a memorandum,) 
 that the note was paid in full in November, 1831, and that 
 all the collateral security was then given up. His books, of 
 course, contained no entry of the manner, in which the pay- 
 
364 
 
 ment was made, whether by Mr. Boott in person, or by Mr. 
 Lowell for Mr. Boott, or otherwise; nor of the particular 
 transfers of the collateral security, which were made, of 
 course, according to Mr. Boott's orders at the time. The 
 transaction was, so far as he knew or remembered, a simple 
 payment of the debt, and surrender of the collateral. 
 
 I afterwards found, at the office of the Merrimack Company, 
 that the twenty-one shares, unaccounted for, had been trans- 
 ferred to Mr. Lowell ; and thence, I inferred, correctly, as it 
 now appears, that Mr. Lowell must have made some new ad- 
 vance for Mr. Boott ; but I also inferred, incorrectly, as now 
 appears, that Mr. Sturgis must have been paid, partly, from 
 the proceeds of the store, sold a few months before. Mr. 
 Lowell was the only other person in the world, who knew 
 the facts ; and he was the last person in the world for me to 
 seek correct information from, on any point aflfecting this 
 case. 
 
 The " Reply," however, proceeds to remark, '• that these 
 things are stated as facts, and within the writer's knowledge; 
 and that one of the points stated is, that Mr. Boott derived 
 from the dividends on the manufacturing stock, in part, the 
 means of paying his debt to Mr. Sturgis." [L. p. 96.] 
 
 That statement I shall show, notwithstanding Mr. Lowell's 
 denial, by implication, to be perfectly true in substantial 
 effect, if not to the letter ; and true even to a greater extent 
 than I had stated it. It is true to the letter, with this 
 exception, only, viz. that Mr. Boott paid the dividends to 
 Mr. Lowell, standing in Mr. Sturgis's shoes, as his assignee 
 of the debt, instead of paying them directly to Mr. Sturgis ; — 
 a distinction without a difference, except in name. Perhaps, 
 as we are bound to sail by the card in this matter, I ought 
 not to say, now, that Mr. Boott paid the dividends to Mr. 
 Lowell ; but, to avoid another philippic, against such heinous 
 inaccuracies, and to meet Mr. Lowell's high notions of exact- 
 ness in the statement of literal truth, I ought rather to say, 
 that Mr. Lowell, holding the shares in pledge, took the divi- 
 dends, and paid himself. At any rate, for the fact that the 
 dividends were the means of paying Mr. Lowell, besides 
 
365 
 
 other reasons, which will presently demonstrate it, I may 
 cite the authority of Mr. Lowell himself, — who contends, 
 (and the truth of that we shall see in due time,) that one 
 sixth part of the income from all the manufacturing stocks, 
 which appear in the prohate account, belonged to Mr. Boott ; 
 and that he had a right to appropriate $2000 a year from it 
 to his own use ; to which the " Reply" adds, — " It was for 
 this very purpose, that the debt to me [Lowell] was permitted 
 to continue, instead of being paid off by a sale of a portion 
 of the stock in 183L" [L. p. 92.] Yet, while making this 
 admission, he tells his reader, almost in the same breath, that 
 my allegation, that these dividends formed part of the means 
 of paying the Sturgis debt, (which had become a part of the 
 debt to Mr. Lowell,) was an error, no less than my allega- 
 tion that the proceeds of the store were applied to that debt ; 
 and he declares that " such an error as the above, however 
 innocent in its inception, is very apt to lead to the most 
 unjust conclusions ;" and that " this is eminently the case in 
 the present instance." [L. p. 96.] In proof of which, he 
 refers to my above cited statement, concerning the $10,000 
 paid by me to Mr. Boott, for the reduction of his debt, to 
 Mr. Lowell, and proceeds as follows : — 
 
 " Laboring, however, under the preconceived opinion that the Stur- 
 gis debt had been paid, and that my debt was only $30,000, and find- 
 ing my debt to be still »25,000, he [Brooks] draws the inference, or 
 endeavours to make his readers draw it, that Mr. Boott had deceived 
 him in this matter, and had not applied the money as he agreed to do." 
 [L. p. 96.] 
 
 Now I appeal to every candid reader of my former remarks 
 that I neither drew, nor desired others to draw, the inference, 
 that there was any intention of deception in the case. On 
 the contrary, I expressly excluded it, [B. p. 47.] and only 
 stated the necessary alternative, resulting from the state of 
 the debt, that either Mr. Boott could not have paid the money 
 to Mr. Lowell, or that the effect of the payments' had been 
 counteracted by new loans, not communicated to me, leav- 
 ing it to Mr. Lowell to explain how the fact was, and sug- 
 gesting, meanwhile, my own inference, from the transfer of 
 
366 
 
 twenty-one shares by Mr. Sturgis to Mr. Lowell, that new 
 advances must have been made. 
 Mr. Lowell next says : — 
 
 " Had Mr. Brooks known or remembered (as the case may be,) 
 that Mr. Boott's debt to me, after January, 1834, was $46,000, and 
 not S25,000, as he alleges, he would have spared me the pain of re- 
 futing the following imputation on the memory of Mr. Boott." [L. p. 
 
 97.] 
 
 He then cites, from my pamphlet, a portion of the passage, 
 which I have cited above, as containing the imputation. 
 
 Having, thus, led his readers to believe that I had charged 
 Mr. Boott with a wilful deception, which I never did, and 
 having artfully connected that assumed charge with my mis- 
 take in supposing that the proceeds of the store had gone 
 towards the payment of the Sturgis debt, and having magni- 
 fied that mistake, which was wholly immaterial to the point 
 I was aiming at, into a matter of grave importance, and having 
 suggested, as part of the same mistake, that, which was no 
 mistake at all, concerning the application of dividends, he 
 remarks, in the language before cited, duly emphasized with 
 capitals, and a note of admiration, upon the cruelty of my 
 imputation, " when the truth comes to be told," which is, 
 (according to the "Reply,") that Mr. Boott had reduced the 
 debt due to him, Mr. Lowell, $26,000 during the thirteen 
 years spoken of. Having announced this remarkable truth 
 as something entirely repugnant to my statements, he winds 
 up as follows : — 
 
 " On such unsubstantial speculations is this whole matter of impeach- 
 ment based ; carefully investigated they all vanish, 
 
 ' And like the baseless fabric of a rision, 
 Leave not a rack behind.' " [L. p. 97.] 
 
 Thus the matter is left, in the " Reply," as if there had 
 been some great misrepresentation, of cruel import, all grow- 
 ing out of my "unsubstantial speculation" as to the source, 
 from which the money came, that paid Mr. Sturgis. Every one 
 of Mr. Lowell's readers probably believed, on reading those 
 pages, that I had misrepresented, either purposely, or by 
 
367 
 
 a careless mistake, the amount of Mr. Boott's payments, 
 to the extent of more than $20,000 ! Whereas I neither mis- 
 took, nor misrepresented, the amount, by a single dollar. 
 
 Poetry and fiction are apt to go hand in hand ; and so they 
 may be found, occasionally, paired, in Mr. Lowell's pages. 
 The matter, which I pointed out as one evidence of misman- 
 agement, was, that, of the $51,000 of debts, for which the 
 shares were pledged by the executor in May, 1831, f 26,000, 
 only, had been paid off, prior to the account of 1844; namely, 
 the whole |21,000 due to Mr. Sturgis, and $5000 only of 
 the debt to Mr. Lowell, and that the balance of the debt to 
 Mr. Lowell, was, at the date of that account, left still unpaid ; 
 notwithstanding that, during those thirteen years, there had 
 been an average income, from the property held by or under 
 Mr. Boott, of between $12,000 and $13,000 a year ; and not- 
 withstanding a payment, through me, to Mr. Boott, within 
 the first three years of that series, of over $10,000, expressly 
 to be applied to the " note to Mr. Lowell." Now Mr. Lowell 
 confirms this statement of facts in every material particular ; 
 and yet he says the truth is, that Mr. Boott, in that time, 
 "reduced his debt to me [Mr. Lowell] $26,000." 
 
 But what is, here, meant by "his debt to me ?" The debt, 
 / was speaking of, as not paid or reduced beyond $5000, was 
 the original |30,000 note, for which the pledge by Mr. Boott, 
 as executor, was made to Mr. Lowell, under the agreement 
 with me of May, 1831. But, says Mr. Lowell, in eifect, 
 "About the time of the payment of the $5000, which re- 
 duced the principal of that note to $25,000, 1 purcheised, by a 
 new advance, unknown to you, Mr. Boott's debt to Mr. Stur- 
 gis, and thereby the whole debt due to me, notwithstanding 
 the 5115000 payment, became $46,000 ; and it so stood till 
 after January, 1834." Indeed ! How does that alter the 
 case? — "Why," says Mr. Lowell, "it shows, contrary to 
 your false and cruel imputation, that Mr. Boott, during those 
 thirteen years, had paid on account of my debt, in the whole, 
 $26,000, instead of only $5000, as you pretend." — "But," I, 
 ask, "did I not say, that he had paid the Sturgis debt of 
 $21,000 in full, as well as $5000 of the original debt to 
 
368 
 
 you ? Is not that the whole $26,000 you speak off' — " Yes, 
 but you did not say that he had paid that $26,000 to me; — 
 and this was a false and cruel imputation !" 
 
 Now what is all this but a small prevarication, designed 
 to mislead easy readers, and to make a false show of mis- 
 representation and injustice on my part ? Neither Mr. Low- 
 ell, nor Mr. Boott, having ever told me of Mr. Lowell's be- 
 ing the owner of a new debt, I paid money to Mr. Boott, 
 from time to time, and took his receipts, on the faith that 
 they should be applied to the reduction, — ^not of any debt 
 he might owe to Mr. Lowell, but — of the debt, for which 
 certain shares, belonging to his father's estate, had been 
 pledged to Mr. Lowell, under an agreement with me. This 
 does not rest on my memory alone. Mr. Boott's written 
 receipts prove it ; for, although they do, in two instances, 
 speak, generally J of " my debt to John A. Lowell," in eight 
 instances they describe it, definitely, as " my note to John 
 A. Lowell," (meaning the $30,000 note, which was the 
 only note, and the only debt, to him, that I knew of,) and 
 in one instance, when a small sum in my hands appears 
 to have been needed to keep down interest, the distinction 
 is taken, between the note to Mr. Lowell and the note to 
 Mr. Gushing, the receipt being, expressly, " towards pay- 
 ing the interest, on my notes to J. P. Cushiug and J. A. Low- 
 ell,"' — as if they were still distinct debts, and held by dis- 
 tinct parties; although it now appears, by the "Reply," that 
 both were, in fact, held by Mr. Lowell, unknown to me. 
 [See the Receipts, B. App. 26-8.] 
 
 If I had been misled, then, into an erroneous statement 
 on this point, whose would be the fault ? But the substance 
 of my statement was absolutely correct ; the moneys did 
 not reduce that debt, which I was given to understand they 
 should reduce, and of which I was speaking, namely, the 
 " note to John A. Lowell." They did not reduce that debt, 
 not because Mr. Boott was guilty of any dereliction of duty 
 in omitting to pay over the moneys to Mr. Lowell, but he- 
 cause Mr. Lowell chose to apply them to a different debt, 
 namely, the " note to J. P. Gushing," then held by Mr. 
 
369 
 
 Lowell, as assignee, without my knowledge. He chose to 
 apply them to a new loan, which he had made to Mr. Boott, 
 instead of the old loan, which I meant should be paid off; 
 and although I suggested that new loans must have been 
 made, to account for the non-reduction of the old one, Mr. 
 .Lowell, availing himself of his own misapplication of the 
 money, and concealment of the fact, now turns round upon 
 me, and declares, that, "when the truth comes to be told," 
 it differs from my statement by $21,000 ; and, although the 
 $21,000, which he refers to, is exactly the same $21,000, 
 which I had said was paid by Mr. Boott to Mr. Sturgis 
 himself, as I supposed, instead of his unknown assignee, Mr. 
 Lowell, that gentleman does not hesitate to charge me, on 
 this state of facts, with a false imputation, entirely of his 
 own making. 
 
 Thus much for scrupulous adhesion to the absolute truth ! 
 
 I would add, that all the payments made, out of the trust 
 moneys in my hands, either to Mr. Boott, or to Mr. Lowell, 
 for the redaction of the debt to the latter, were founded 
 upon the supposition, (Mr. Boott's, as well as mine,) that he 
 owed only $20,000 to his wards. Had I kiiown that the 
 debt to them, in 1830, was, as now appears, $46,000, 1 should 
 never have consented to the diversion of a dollar for the 
 payment of Mr. Lowell ; since all the property put into my 
 hands was upon the trust, first to secure the guardianship 
 debt, and, secondly, to deliver the property to the order of 
 the executor, as such, for the security of his father's estate. 
 [See Dec. of Trust, B. App. p. 23.] The payments made to 
 Mr. Lowell, since they were intended to relieve the estate's 
 shares from the incumbrance of the debt due to him, were 
 consistent with the second object of my trust, and still left 
 an ample fund to meet a debt, on the guardianship accounts, 
 of $20,000, which was understood to satisfy the first object 
 of my trust ; but the whole trust property in my hands was 
 insufficient to pay a debt of $46,000. 
 
 It may be worth while to inquire, in this connexion, how 
 Mr. Lowell's lien stood in 1844, since its existence, at the 
 time of the final transfer, in that year, of the seventy-one 
 
370 
 
 shares by Mr. Lowell to Mr. Boott, as executor, is said to 
 have made that transfer, in effect, a conveyance to the es- 
 tate, of precisely $25,000 more of property than it was en- 
 titled to receive ; and so (according to the argument,) justi- 
 fied Mr. Boott in claiming thus much of the property as 
 his own, in consequence, and by the operation, of my agree- 
 ment with Mr. Lowell, in May, 1831. 
 
 Now Mr. Lowell's lien, under that agreement, related only 
 to the fifty shares then pledged to him by Mr. Boott, as ex- 
 ecutor, for $30,000 ; and Mr. Boott was permitted to create 
 such a lien, as executor, only because Mr. Lowell had made 
 the loan, four years before, on a pledge of those same shares 
 as Mr. Boott's private property, and, as I supposed in 1831, 
 without cause of suspicion that they justly belonged to the 
 estate of Mr. Boott, senior. 
 
 Had it been supposed, in 1831, that Mr. Lowell, when he 
 made the loan, in 1827, knew, or had probable cause to be- 
 lieve, that the shares were not Mr. J. Wright Boott's own 
 private property, his lien would have been esteemed of no 
 validity, and he would have been compelled to surrender the 
 shares to the estate. On the same principle, the true state 
 of the case having been disclosed to Mr. Lowell, in May, 
 1831, no new loan could, afterwards, be tacked on to that 
 debt, so as to bind the estate by a further incumbrance of 
 the estate's shares, without the consent of all parties inter- 
 ested. 
 
 It now appears, however, that Mr. Lowell did, afterwards, 
 make a new advance, for Mr. Boott, of $21,000, and that he 
 received a further pledge of twenty-one other shares, by a 
 transfer at that time from Mr. Sturgis, on Mr. Boott's order; 
 that his claim, from the beginning, on Mr. Boott was thereby 
 raised to |51,000 ; that prior to 1844, |26,000, in the whole, 
 had been paid to him, and that he then claimed to hold the 
 lohole seventy-one shares, which were in his hands, as secur- 
 ity for the balance of his debt, being $25,000 ; and he now 
 claims to have had, in 1844, in consequence of his agreement 
 with me, in 1831, a. lien to that extent, on these shares, when 
 
371 
 
 he transferred them to the estate, at the time of the present- 
 ation of the probate account. 
 
 Let us look into this. Had he any such lien, as against 
 the estate, on the twenty-one shares transferred to him hy 
 Mr. Sturgis? Mr. Sturgis had such a lien upon them, at 
 least as against me, because it was agreed by me, acting for 
 all concerned, that he should have, — ^he consenting, and 
 Mr. Boott consenting, that the shares should be, neverthe- 
 less, marked as property of the estate. Could Mr. Lowell, 
 knowing this, (for he helped to make the arrangement with 
 Mr. Sturgis,) afterwards take those shares from Mr. Sturgis, 
 divested of that mark, without the consent of any party in- 
 terested, except Mr. Boott, and then claim a lien upon them, 
 against the estate, in consequence of his own voluntary ad- 
 vance for Mr. Boott ? Would he not have been compellable, 
 by a new administrator, to relinquish the shares, and to look 
 to Mr. Boott for his money, when he knew, at the time he 
 made that advance, that it was to meet a private debt of Mr. 
 Boott to Mr. Sturgis, and that the shares pledged for it were 
 the property of the estate ? 
 
 Certainly he could not claim, on account of this $21,000 
 so advanced, a lien upon the fifty shares, which he pre- 
 viously held ; for, in respect to them, this was an entire new 
 loan, made with full knowledge that the shares were not Mr. 
 Boott's property, and so made without the consent, or knowl- 
 edge, of the heirs. Neither could he rightfully apply, to 
 the repayment of that $21,000, moneys, which, by contract 
 between Mr. Boott and me, were specifically appropriated 
 towards the payment of the $30,000 note. This appropria- 
 tion Mr. Lowell could not have been ignorant of, since he 
 knew that he had never disclosed to me the fact that he was 
 the holder of any other claim against Mr. Boott. It is pos- 
 sible that the estate may have been no loser, by these 
 transactions ; but, whether it was or not, if we come to the 
 strict right of lien, as against the estate, (on which Mr. Low- 
 ell professes to stand,) it would seem that he was bound to 
 apply the moneys, strictly, according to the specific appro- 
 
372 
 
 priation, and that his lien must have been thereby reduced, 
 to $15,000, at most, instead of $25,000, as he claims. 
 
 If there were, besides the advance of this $21,000 to Mr, 
 Sturgis, other accommodations from Mr. Lowell to Mr. Boott, 
 during the thirteen years, as I believe would appear by his 
 accounts, it may be questionable whether the effect of all 
 the current transactions between those parties, unknown to 
 any body but themselves, was not to discharge the whole 
 asserted lien as against the estate. Such would seem to be 
 the just and legal effect, if moneys were applied to the repay- 
 ment of these new loans, which might, otherwise, have gone 
 to the extinction of the particular debt, for which the fifty 
 shares of the estate's property were specifically pledged to 
 Mr. Lowell, under the agreement of 1831. 
 
 Whether these secret transactions, between Mr. Boott and 
 Mr. Lowell, were beneficial, or injurious, to the interests of 
 the heirs, can not be judged of, until we are made fully ac- 
 quainted with them ; but, at any rate, it would seem that 
 parties interested in the property had a right to judge of that 
 for themselves, and a right to be informed, in order that they 
 might judge, instead of being told, as they are, in effect, by 
 Mr. Lowell, — " Here is the account ; you see it makes a bal- 
 ance of $25,000, in favour of Mr. Boott ; I had a lien oa the 
 shares for that amount, by your agreement ; and, since I 
 transfer them all to the estate, Mr. Boott has a right to pay 
 me my debt out of other property of the estate ;* and it is 
 none of your business to know what further loans I may 
 have made to Mr. Boott on the strength of these shares, or 
 what moneys I received from time to time, or how I chose 
 to apply them." 
 
 It was, doubtless, convenient to Mr. Lowell to apply the 
 moneys, first, to those advances, for which he had the least, 
 or the most doubtful, security ; but whether he had a right 
 to look to the estate, or was bound to look only to Mr. 
 Boott, for the payment of his final balance, to the extent 
 claimed, or any part of it, may depend upon transactions, 
 
 *It was in fact paid, it will be remembered, out of the proceeds of the mansion- 
 house. 
 
373 
 
 •which he has not yet fully disclosed ; and which, so far as 
 disclosed, indicate that he had no right to look to the estate's 
 property for more than f 15,000, at most ; since his' original 
 $30,000 debt would have been reduced to that sum, had he 
 applied the moneys, which came from me, according to their 
 specific appropriation. 
 
 Had the whole $26,000, of Avhich he admits the receipt, 
 been applied to the original debt, it would have been reduced 
 to $4000 ; and that would have been the utmost extent of his 
 lien, by virtue of thfe agreement with me, on any property of 
 the estate. For the additional $31,000, which was due to 
 him in 1844, to what could he have looked, except to the 
 personal responsibility of Mr. Boott ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 PRETENDED IMPREGNABILITY OF MB. BOOTt's POSITION UNDEB, 
 THE RELEASE OF 1833. 
 
 I now return to the narative. The next event, which 
 materially aflFected Mr. Boott's position, was the release of 
 April 14, 1833, signed by all the heirs except Dr. Boott, who 
 was in London, and Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, who, in the 
 settlement of 1831, had already released and assigned to Mr. 
 Boott all claimS) present and reversionary. 
 
 The release was in these words : — 
 
 " The undersigned, heirs at law of the late Kirk Boott, of Boston, 
 Esquire, do hereby exonerate and discharge John W. Boott, executor 
 of the last will and testament of Kirk Boott, from all claims and de- 
 mands in his capacity of executor as aforesaid." [B. App. p. 28.] 
 
 This paper, I formerly mentioned, was drawn up by me. It 
 released Mr. Boott, undoubtedly, from all his indebtedness to 
 
374 
 
 the heirs who signed it, for moneys, whatever they wercj 
 then due and payable by him as executor. The probable 
 amount of that indebtedness will presently be considered. 
 In my view it was a considerable sum ; and, for that reason, 
 I speak of the paper as materially affecting Mr. Boott's posi- 
 tion. But, however important it may have been to Mr. 
 Boott, it is quite unimportant to the present discussion, since 
 the "Reply" insists, as before shown, that the account of 
 1844 was intended to be, and is, a complete account of all 
 moneys received and paid by Mr. Boott,' in the management 
 of his father's estate, and of all that he was in any way ac- 
 coimtable for, without regard to the release. I should take 
 no other notice, therefore, of the release than to remind my 
 readers of the circumstances, under which it was given, were 
 I not called upon to answer some of Mr. Lowell's comments 
 concerning it. 
 
 " The intention," he admits, " certainly was to discharge 
 him [Mr. Boott] only so far as the property beyond the amount 
 of the trust fund was concerned." But he thinks it doubtful, at 
 least, whether the language is not broad enough to have dis- 
 charged him in law, from all liability for the property of the 
 trust fund itself, meaning the fund for Mrs. Boott. '-This," 
 he remarks, " was, to say the least, exceedingly careless ; with 
 a man of honor, like Mr. Boott, no risk was incurred by this 
 phraseology ; it hardly behoves Mr. Brooks, however, to be 
 too severe on mere errors of form." [L. p. 83-4.] ■ 
 
 The foundation of this imputation of exceeding careless- 
 ness seems to be an idea, that I had supposed Mr. Boott not to 
 be discharged from his liability for the trust fund, merely be- 
 cause the paper speaks of claims and demands upon him as ex- 
 ecutor, and does not speak of claims and demands upon him 
 as trustee. Mr. Lowell appears to have formed that idea from 
 this expression of mine : '■' His present liability, as executor, 
 was discharged ; his responsibilities, jwesent or future, as trus- 
 tee, were untouched ; " [B. p. 46.] and he thereupon suggests, 
 truly enough, that, although Mr. Boott might, if he had pleased, 
 have filed a trustee's bond, and, under that, might have opened 
 a new account at the probate office for this fund, distinctly, 
 
375 
 
 under the name of trustee, yet, that he had, in fact, never 
 done so, and therefore still held the fund in his capacity of 
 executor, and under his executor's bond, though acting in the 
 character of a special trustee. It is for this reason that Mr. 
 Lowell appears to consider a release of all claims and demands 
 against Mr. Bootl, as executor, adequate to have discharged 
 him from all liability for account of the trust fund. This is 
 another of Mr. Lowell's mistakes. There was none on my 
 part, I believe, either in the form or the effect of the paper ; 
 although my remark upon it, above cited, may have been 
 liable to the misconstruction Mr. Lowell has put upon it. 
 
 The true reason, why I considered this release to be no 
 discharge from liability for the particular $100,000 trust fund, 
 (which I had chiefly in mind,) was, — ^not because I supposed 
 it to be held by Mr. Boott in his capacity of trustee, as some- 
 thing legally distinct from his capacity of executor, but — simply 
 because there were no claims or demands of the heirs, upon 
 that fund, then existing. If Mr. Lowell consults his counsel, 
 they will tell him, that a mere general release cannot operate, 
 prospectively, on future rights and claims. It discharges 
 nothing but the immediate existing liability. The heirs could 
 not have any claim, or demand, against Mr. Boott, either as 
 executor, or as trustee, for the $100,000 trust fund, until the 
 death of Mrs. Boott. There is not the least room, therefore, 
 for the doubt suggested by Mr. Lowell, for the purpose of 
 imputing carelessness to me. If the object had been to ex- 
 tinguish Mr. Boott's future liability to the heirs, for their 
 respective portions of the trust fund, loords of assignment, 
 to him, would have been necessary, (like those in the deed 
 from Messrs. Lyman & Ralston,) which this paper does not 
 contain. He remained, after its execution, just as he did 
 before, subject to account, at the death of Mrs. Boott, to the 
 legal owners of the reversion, whoever they might then be. 
 
 And so, in respect to the two other particular funds, of 
 which the income was to go to his aimts, during their lives ; 
 if they were living, at the date of the release, he was not dis- 
 charged of the liability, which would arise at their respect- 
 ive deaths, to account with the heirs for those sums. I have 
 
376 
 
 ascertained, however, since my former pamphlet, that one of 
 them was then dead ; the other not ; so that the release 
 might have operated in respect to one of those funds, but 
 not in respect to the other ; and, thus far, there may have 
 been a degree of inaccuracy in my former remark, but none 
 that I perceive, in the form of the paper. 
 
 Mr. Boott's exact position, as to accountability, all round 
 after the release of 1833, was this : — Dr. Francis Boott had 
 given him no discharge, general or particular, to my knowl- 
 edge, although he had received a sum, which may have 
 been his full portion of the estate distributable in the life- 
 time of the annuitants. Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, and 
 their wives, had, by their assignment of September, 1831, 
 discharged him from all accountability to them, present or 
 future, for any thing beyond what they had previously re- 
 ceived, and beyond what was virtually paid to them by the 
 terms of that settlement. The other parties, who signed the 
 release of 1833, discharged him from all that was then due 
 and payable, beyond the sums they had already respectively 
 received, — some more, and some less, as I supposed, at the 
 time, and still do, — ^but they held him accountable, at a future 
 day, for the amount of such trust funds as were not presently 
 distributable ; and he was bound, of course, to clear off from 
 those trust funds, all the private incumbrances, which he had 
 laid upon them, so as to be able to pay to the heirs, in full, 
 their respective shares, when they should become due. 
 Mr, Lowell afterwards remarks : — 
 
 " He [Mr. Boott] had nothing therefore to do, when summoned 
 to render his accounts, but to exhibit this discharge, and show his in- 
 vestment of the trust funds, and his mother's acknowledgement that 
 she had received or authorized the expenditure of the income. His 
 position would have been thus perfectly impregnable." [L. p. 206.] 
 
 Now waiving, for the present, all question about the appli- 
 cation of the income, I desire to inquire how it would have 
 been possible, if Mr. Boott had stated an account on this prin- 
 ciple, and had made good the trust fund, for Mr. Lowell to 
 have got his $25,000 ? Mr. Boott's position, if the trust fund 
 had been made whole, might have been impregnable, if you 
 
377 
 
 please ; but what would have been Mr. LowelVs position, in 
 respect to the payment of his debt ? 
 
 The reader must have observed that the great ingenuity 
 of the present account consists in this : that it provides, by an 
 apparent cash balance of |25,000 due to the executor, for 
 the payment of the debt to Mr. Lowell, in full, while it leaves 
 property enough, at the valuation assumed, to make Rlrs. 
 Boott's trust fund pretty nearly whole, and at the same time 
 conceals, from casual observers, the fact, that there is, after 
 all, a deficiency in that. But how could Mr. Lowell, after 
 providing for his own payment in full, have prepared, in 1844, 
 an account for Mr. Boott, founded on this release of 1833, 
 that would have been one whit better for Mr. Boott, or rather 
 that would not have been infinitely worse for him, than the 
 account, which Mr. Lowell did prepare, in 1844? — an account, 
 by the way, which never could have been passed, in the pro- 
 bate court, but by the consent of the heirs, under the compro- 
 mise that was made. 
 
 The account, supposed to be so impregnable, is to begin in 
 1833, and must begin, as Mr. Lowell admits, with the amount 
 of the then undistributable trust funds, invested, as trustee, or 
 as executor, in something. That amount, — one of the aunts 
 being then alive, — was $105,555 56. When, how, and in 
 what this sum had been invested, was the very iirst matter to 
 be proved. It must have appeared upon inquiry, at a probate 
 hearing, that the original distinct investment as executor, 
 stated by the probate account of 1818, had been broken up ; 
 that the funds proceeding from it had gone, partly at least, 
 into the hands of Boott & Lowell, and had, wholly, been 
 mixed and amalgamated with Mr. Boott's own funds, imdis- 
 tinguishably, until the reconstruction of a trust fund by the 
 transactions of May, 1831. The investment of the requisite 
 sum at that time, and according to the prices of that time, 
 must then have been shown ; because the heirs had a right, 
 and not Mr. Boott, to any gain from rise in value of the in- 
 vestment ; just as they, and not he, must have borne any loss 
 from its fall in value. Such gain, if there were any, would 
 have become a part of the trust fund ; and the release of 1833 
 
378 
 
 would not have affected that. Being thus, necessarily, re- 
 ferred to the value, which the property, marked for the estate, 
 had in May, 1831, how was Mr. Boott to show a clear trust 
 investment, subsisting, in 1833, and thence to 1844, of 
 $105,555 56, or even of Mrs. Boott's $100,000? 
 
 He had not, in 1833, a single piece of property standing in 
 his name as executor, except twenty-one shares of Merrimack 
 stock, which had been released to him by Mr. Sturgis, in 
 November, 1831, and the stable. All the rest was held, 
 either by Mr. Lowell, in pledge for a debt of at least $46,000, 
 or by me in trust for the debt on the guardianship account. 
 It is true, that, in 1844, when it is supposed that the impreg- 
 nable accoimt might have been made up, both the guardian- 
 ship debt, and $21,000 of the debt to Mr. Lowell, had been 
 paid off, — out of what means we shall presently see ; but, 
 still, it was impossible for Mr. Boott to show a clear invest- 
 ment of $105,000 and upwards, made previous to 1833, and 
 remaining clear in 1844. All he could show of remaining 
 property, in 1844, wa^ the stable, the seventy-one shares of 
 Merrimack, and the thirty-nine shares of Boston Manufac- 
 turing Company, which are mentioned in the account actually 
 rendered. These he was bound to charge at their value in 
 1831, when they first became a specific investment for the 
 estate ; and he could not even produce the certificates of those 
 shares, except upon paying the balance due to Mr. Ijowell, 
 unless M^r. Lowell were willing to give them up, voluntarily, 
 and gratuitously. Having no other means to pay that debt, 
 he must either have credited the estate with the equity of 
 redemption, only, in the shares, which were pledged to Mr. 
 Lowell, (or, in other words, must have charged his debt to 
 Mr. Lowell directly and openly upon the estate,) or else, if 
 Mr. Lowell were willing to waive his lien, and surrender the 
 shares to Mr. Boott, as executor, so that he might produce 
 the proper evidence of his investment, the debt to Mr. Lowell 
 uiust have been left unpaid, and without any security for it, 
 except the security of Mr. Boott's reversionary interest, which 
 would be unavailable until his mother's death. 
 
 This is easily seen by appealing once more to figures : — 
 
379 
 
 71 shares of Merrimack, at $1160, (the market price 
 
 of 1831,) are 882,360 00 
 
 39 shares of Boston, at $700, (the market price of 
 
 1831,) are 27,300 GO 
 
 109,660 00 
 
 Stable, if valued at what it produced in 1844, 1,500 00 
 
 Total property, at the value of 1831, if clear of incum- 
 brance, 111,160 00 
 
 Balance of debt, due to Mr. Lowell, $25,000, but which, 
 by the rise of stock in 1844, might have been paid off 
 
 by shares, worth, in 1831, about 23,000 00 
 
 Balance of property left for the trust funds, 88,1 60 00 
 
 Deficiency, 17,395 56 
 
 Beqaired amount of trust funds, 105,555 56 
 
 Or, total property as above, at the valuation of 1831, 111,160 00 
 
 Take out the required trust funds, 105,555 56 
 
 Left, to go towards Mr. Lowell's debt, property worth, 
 
 in 1831, only 5,604 44 
 
 And worth, by the advance of 1844, less than €,200 00 
 
 In short, upon that principle, and that valuation, either the 
 trust fund, or the fund to pay Mr. Lowell, must have been 
 deficient, by from $17,000 to $19,000. 
 
 But the fact of a deficiency does not depend on that valu- 
 ation. A different one might have reduced it ; but no valu- 
 ation, that could plausibly have been contended for, would 
 have been adequate to cover and extinguish it. 
 
 Shall we choose the fair average market value of these two 
 stocks, taken together ? That, for a series of years, is not 
 above their original par of $1000 per share. From 1831 
 to the present time, the Merrimack stock has seldom been 
 more than thirty per cent, above par ; it has sometimes been 
 very much below par; the stock of the Boston Manufac- 
 turing Company has seldom been at a less discount than 
 thirty per cent, from the original par, and has often been 
 considerably lower. The average market value of the sev- 
 enty-one shares of Merrimack, probably, would not exceed 
 i,000, which is more than fifteen per cent, advance ; that 
 
380 
 
 of the thirty-nine shares of Boston certainly would not reach 
 $29,300, which is $700 a share ; and these prices would 
 place the average of the two together at less than $ 1000 per 
 share. Taking them, however at $1000, as a full average, 
 the stocks, with the stable added, at $1500, amount to 
 $111,500.* But the debt to the trust fund ($105,555 56) 
 and the balance of Mr. Lowell's debt ($25,000) amount, to- 
 gether, to $130,555 56 ; that is, they exceed the property, tak- 
 ing the stocks at par, by nearly $20,000. 
 
 Shall we, then take the stocks at the actual market val- 
 ue of April, 1833 ? the date, at which the impregnable ac- 
 count is supposed to begin. That would proceed upon the 
 theory that the executor was, then, to turn out $100,000, 
 in cash, or its equivalent at that day. But, upon that valua- 
 tion, we shall find the whole property (stable included) 
 amounts to less than ^100,000, and the deficiency, of course, 
 mounts up to more than $30,000. f 
 
 Shall we come, then, to the market value of November, 
 1844 ? when the supposed account was to be rendered, and 
 when manufacturing stocks ruled high. If so, we find these 
 shares, then, actually appraised at twenty-eight per cent, ad- 
 vance for Merrimacks, and $725 per share for the Boston 
 Manufacturing Company. [See the inventory returned by 
 C. G. Loring, trustee, B. App. p. 55.] This high valuation 
 brings the whole property, (stable included,) up to $120,655, 
 — a great improvement, but still about $10,000 short of the 
 required amount. 
 
 There have been times, within the period from 1831 to 
 1844, when the property, at its market price, would have been 
 
 * 71 shares, - - - $71,000 
 
 39 " - 39,000 
 
 Stable, - - - 1,500 
 
 111,500 
 
 1 1 have found no record of sales in the month of April, 1 833 ; but in the month 
 of Match, Merrimack shares were sold at less than 95 per Cent. ; and, in the month 
 of June, Boston shares were sold at $700. In April, the latter were probably no- 
 ■vvorth more than $650. Taking the Merrimacks, however, at pai-, and the Best 
 ton at $700, and the stable at $1500, (all excessive valuations for April, 1831,) the 
 total is $!>9j800. 
 
381 
 
 greatly below either of the above valuations ; none, I believe, 
 ■when the two stocks, together, would have risen above the 
 highest of them. At the very time of my writing, the whole 
 property is not saleable for more than $110,000. Of course, 
 if Mr. Lowell's debt were now to be taken out of it, the bal- 
 ance would fail, by |20,000, to make good the required 
 amount of the trust funds in 1833. 
 
 But the price, at which a trustee has a right, and is bound, 
 to charge trust property in his account, cannot depend upon 
 these market fluctuations ; still less upon the price of the day 
 of his own choosing, at which he may please to render and 
 settle a probate account. That would be accounting upon 
 no principle at all. There can be- but one alternative. We 
 must either take the fair market value of the property, at the 
 time it was first turned over to the trust account, (and this I 
 submit is the only sound principle,) or we must assume, with 
 Mr. Lowell, the right of a trustee to charge the property to 
 his trust at its actual cost to him, as an individual, when he 
 first purchased it, though in his own name, and, apparently, 
 for his own use. 
 
 The latter is the principle adopted in the actual account 
 of 1841; and it so happens, that this valuation, selected by 
 Mr. Lowell, makes a nearer approximation to the requisite 
 amount than even the high market prices of that day. They, 
 as we have seen, produced an aggregate value of $120,655. 
 The alleged cost to Mr. Boott, though it puts Merrimack at par, 
 brings up the shares of the Boston Manufacturing Company 
 in part to f 1150, and in part to $1300, per share, and the 
 stable to ^2500, making an aggregate of $121,500. [See the 
 account, B. App. p. 44. and L. p. 39.] But the trust fund and 
 Mr. Lowell's debt require $130,555 56. There is still a de- 
 ficiency of more than $9000. 
 
 How was this to be got rid of, upon an account starting 
 in 1833 ? Why, in no other manner, nor to any greater ex- 
 tent, than it is got rid of by the actual account of 1844. 
 That is, only by sinking the $5555 56, which formed part 
 of the required trust fund in 1833, (although it is not pre- 
 tended that any thing had ever been divided among the heirs 
 
382 
 
 after that date,) and calling the whole Must fund $100,000 
 only, being that, which was still requisite, in 1844, for the 
 support of Mrs. Boott. The effect is, to diminish the appa- 
 rent deficiency to about $3500,-^below which it could by 
 no possibility be reduced, even granting Mr. Lowell's tacit 
 assumption that both the aunts had died before the release 
 of 1833, and his avowed assumption that Mr. Boott had 
 a right to charge these properties at their original cost to 
 him. 
 
 Instead of Mr. Boott's position being more impregnable, 
 then, with an account founded upon the release, than with 
 the account actually exhibited, there would have been, if Mr. 
 Lowell's debt is to be provided for in full, (admitting the trust 
 funds for the aunts to be wholly sunk and shut out of sight, 
 and admitting the most favourable valuation possible of the 
 property,) just about the same deficiency, in Mrs. Boott's 
 f 100,000 trust fund, as exists in the account of 1844.* But 
 there would also have been this very unpleasant difference. 
 The deficiency must have been perfectly plain and palpable 
 on the face of the suppositious account, and there Would not 
 have been the same shadow of an excuse for it as is created 
 by the account of 1844. 
 
 No man, who looks at that account, would ever guess, un- 
 less after a most careful and analytical investigation, that 
 there was any deficiency in the $100,000 fund. Mr. Low- 
 ell taunts me for not having better understood its myste- 
 rious and tacit annunciations, " after passing," as he says, 
 " months in their analysis, aided by Mr. William Boott, and by 
 two of the ablest lawyers in Boston." [L. p. 37.] He seems 
 to think it rather an act of cleverness in accounts, to have stat- 
 ed one, which was to be the foundation of a family settle- 
 ment, in such form, that nobody would be likely to perceive, 
 upon an ordinary examination, what it really meant. And 
 when he finds me misled, by my reliance on its first apparent 
 meaning, into a mistake, which he admits was "an inno- 
 cent and not very unnatural one," [L. p. 43.] he appears 
 
 * In that it is $3715 45. [L. p. 40.] 
 
383 
 
 to rejoice in the opportunity of exhibiting (by an analysis, 
 ■which I admit to be entirely correct, though far from obvious,) 
 a demonstration of the fact, that, in consequence of over-pay- 
 ment to the heirs, if the cash entries on each side are admitted 
 to be true and complete, there was, after all, a deficiency in 
 Mrs. Boott's trust fund, (Mr. Lowell's, own debt being first pro- 
 vided for,) of $3715 45. [L. pp. 40, 41.) Yet, the curiosity 
 of the thing is, that neither the fact that there is such a defi- 
 ciency, nor the fact that Mr. Lowell's debt is to be paid out of 
 the property of the estate, is suggested by any obvious state- 
 ment on the /ace of that account. I ask the reader to look at 
 it, and he cannot fail to look with admiration at a most in- 
 genious contrivance. A certain inventory is charged, certain 
 alleged receipts of money are charged, and certain payments 
 of money and deliveries of specific property, mentioned in the 
 inventory, are credited, all prior to the release of 1833. They 
 result in leaving an apparent balance, to be accounted for, 
 (including the mansion-house,) of $120,284 55 
 
 and then property (including the 
 mansion-house,) is stated, as held 
 by the executor, to the amount of 145,500 00 
 " less cash balance due to the exec- 
 utor" 25,215 45 
 
 120,284 55 
 
 Thus, without saying one word about the amount supposed 
 to be on hand for the trust fund, or about any debt to Mr. 
 Lowell, which is to be paid out of the property, the account 
 stands exactly balanced by a certain sum, apparently, due to 
 the executor. This sum we find to be just a fraction more 
 than sufficient to pay Mr. Lowell ; and, when deducted from 
 the aggregate of the property, at the valuation assumed, (the 
 mansion-hoixse, which had nothing to do with the executor's 
 account, being also deducted,) the subtraction is found to 
 leave a second sum, which, when compared with other sums, 
 debited and credited in the account, and also with the $100,000 
 of undisputed trust fund, leads, remotely, to the discovery of a 
 
384 
 
 deficiency of $3700 in that fund.* A more ingenious mode 
 of hiding the whole truth, under a mass of figures, plausible 
 upon their face, could hardly have been devised, if that had 
 been the very object aimed at. Now I am far from saying 
 that such was Mr. Lowell's intention. I say nothing about 
 his intentions or motives. But I do say, that such is the fact, 
 SiS every one may see for himself, who consults that account, 
 and reads Mr. Lowell's explanations of it. 
 
 But how would it have been, if the account had begun, (as 
 Mr. Lowell intimates that he himself recommended to Mr. 
 Boott,) [L. p. 31.] "from the date of the discharge ?" Even 
 admitting his erroneous assumption that both the aunts were 
 dead in 1833, and admitting his erroneous assumption that 
 the property held by the executor was rightfully charged at 
 its original cost to Mr. Boott, how would the case then have 
 stood, on the face of the account ? All matters, which appear 
 in the present account, of a date prior to 1833, it will be ob- 
 served, are now to be discarded. The account is to begin 
 with $100,000 of trust fund, invested — in what? Some of 
 the same property, of course, which the accoimt now exhibits, 
 (excepting the mansion-house,) charged at its original cost to 
 Mr. Boott. 
 
 But the total of that property, (excepting the 
 mansion-house,) so charged, was only f 121,500 
 
 and the greater part of it was subject to Mr. 
 Lowell's alleged lien of 25,000 
 
 This would leave for the trust property, 96,500 
 
 and, if that simple form of statement were adopt- 
 ed, it would exhibit, boldly and palpably, the fact 
 of the pledge to Mr. Lowell, and the fact of a 
 deficiency in the trust fund to the amount of 3,500 
 
 100,000 
 
 In other words, it would openly declare that so much of 
 the trust fund had been taken to pay Mr. Lowell. 
 
 * See Mr. Lowell's own demonstration. [L. p. 40.] 
 
385 
 
 A like amount of deficiency, it is true, is Reducible ftom the 
 present account ; but it is not obvious ; and when deduced, 
 ■with some difficulty, the fact stands coupled with the excuse 
 of an apparent overpayment to the heirs of a corresponding 
 amount. But that excuse is derived, solely, from those en- 
 tries, in the present account, which relate to transactions 
 prior to the date of the release, and which, therefore, could 
 not be made to appear in an account beginning at that date. 
 
 Perhaps, after stating the property, which had been trans- 
 ferred of record to the executor, and charging it at $121 ,500 
 Mr. Lowell would have claimed for Mr. Boott,upon 
 the principle he now contends for, a portion of the 
 property, as belonging to Mr. Boott, viz. 21,500 
 
 $100,000 
 This would leave the trust fund, apparently, whole, if we 
 agree to the valuation of the property at $121,500 ; but, in 
 that case, if he could make out the fact that so much of the 
 property belonged to Mr. Boott, only $21,500 would have 
 been taken out for the pa3mient of Mr. Lowell's debt, and he 
 could not have been paid in full. 
 
 The only other mode he could have adopted, so far as I can 
 discern, would have been to select, first, for the trust fond, that 
 portion of the manufacturing stock, which had cost him high- 
 est, compared with its real value in 1844. Thus, he might, 
 perhaps, have taken the thirty-nine shares of Boston Manufac- 
 turing Company, which originally cost him, as the present 
 account states, $48,000, and might have added to that fifty- 
 two shares of Merrimack, which had cost him only par, 
 being $52,000. This would have made the trust fund, nom- 
 inally, whole, and would have left for Mr. Boott, besides the 
 stable, nineteen shares of Merrimack ; and these items of 
 property, according to their market value at the date of the 
 account, would have sufficed to pay Mr. Lowell. But the 
 shares of Boston Manufacturing Company were, then, actually 
 worth about twenty thousand dollars less than their original 
 cost to Mr. Boott. The fifty-two shares of Merrimack were 
 worth only about $14,000 more than their cost to Mr. Boott. 
 
386 
 
 The difference would have made a positive loss to the trust 
 fund of ^6000. So that, although Mr. Lowell might, possi- 
 bly, in that mode, have contrived to pay himself in full, and 
 yet to return into the probate ofBce an account for Mr. Boott, 
 fair upon its face, what would that have been but an actual 
 and direct fraud upon the mother, brothers and sisters of the 
 nominal accounting party ? They would have been, thereby, 
 provided with a selection of property, charged at $100,000, 
 which was really worth only about $94,000 ; and they 
 would have been thus deprived of $6000, for the mere sake 
 of paying Mr. Lowell in full, rather than paying them in 
 full. Would Mr. Lowell have ventured to advise to this 
 course ? Would Mr. Boott have eidopted it ? And had it 
 been attempted, the question would, at once, have arisen of 
 Mr. Boott's right to make so unfair a selection, and of his 
 right to charge these high priced shares to his trust account, 
 at the cost, to himself, of an original purchase in his own pri- 
 vate name, — ^without which, in no form of stating the account, 
 could a tolerable approximation be made to an apparent ac- 
 counting for the whole trust fund, after deducting, out of the 
 aggregate property, enough to pay Mr. Lowell in full. 
 
 IXow I do not mean to assert, that all these considerations 
 actually entered into Mr. Lowell's mind, when preparing 
 the account in the form, which he adopted. It may be a 
 mere coincidence, that that form happens to be the best, that 
 could possibly have been devised, for the threefold purpose 
 of paying Mr. Lowell in full, encroaching as little as possi- 
 ble, (consistently with his payment in full,) on the trust fund, 
 and hiding the fact, from all common observation, that there 
 is such an encroachment. 
 
 Had the account begun, as Mr. Lowell says he at first 
 suggested, with the discharge of 1833, and a statement of 
 the condition of the trust fund at that date, this would, un- 
 doubtedly, have been the fair and correct mode of stating 
 and settling the executor's accounts ; and, supposing Mr. 
 Lowell's alleged lien upon the stocks to have been unim- 
 peachable, such an account, disclosing that lien, would have 
 been perfectly unexceptionable to the liejrs. It would ha,ve 
 
387 
 
 shown, after paying Mr. Lowell, a large deficiency in the 
 trust fund, it is true ; but no heir would have hesitated, in 
 my belief, upon our then state of information, either to have 
 sanctioned the payment of Mr. Lowell's debt out of the prop- 
 erty, or to have given to Mr. Boott a full discharge from all 
 his liability to the heirs, on account of that deficiency. If 
 Mr. Lowell advised, as he now intimates, to the statement of 
 an account upon that principle, which was the true one, it is 
 difficult to imagine why Mr. Boott, with all the uprightness 
 of intention that I attribute to him, should have been unwill- 
 ing to adopt it. I find it difficult to reconcile the fact, as 
 stated by Mr. Lowell, with his hypothesis that Mr. Boott was 
 at that time perfectly in his right mind, and possessed of 
 a clear and discriminating judgement, unless I abandon my 
 own idea, that it was not his wish and intention to state 
 any other than a true account, according to the views, which 
 he then took, clouded, as they were, by an unfortunate hallu- 
 cination. And if Mr. Boott refused, as Mr. Lowell says he 
 did, to adopt that form of account, and insisted upon taking 
 up the accounts from the beginning of his executorship, not- 
 withstanding the discharge of 1833, how could Mr. Lowell 
 himself have consented to go on, against his own judgement, 
 in making up an account upon the false principle, which, it 
 seems, was finally adopted ? How could he have persuaded 
 himself to take the money of the estate, ($3700 at least, of 
 the trust fund, upon his own admissions,) which a statement 
 of the account upon that false principle gives him, without 
 insisting that the fact should appear, plainly, on the face of 
 the account, or without at least insisting that it should, in 
 some form, be communicated to the heirs ? Above all, how 
 can he persist, now, in assuring the public, that the account, 
 so stated, is perfectly correct, that the balance claimed for 
 Mr. Boott is a real one, and that nothing but Mr. Boott's pri- 
 vate property was ever appropriated to the pa5rment of his 
 debts? 
 
388 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 FAILUHE OF THE " REPLY " TO ESTABLISH MR. BOOTT's RIGHT 
 TO CHARGE STOCKS AT PRICES CLAIMED IN THE ACCOtrNT. 
 
 This asserted right, of charging the thirty-nine shares of 
 Boston Manufacturing Company at their original cost to Mr. 
 Boott, depends, entirely, upon due proof of antecedent facts ; 
 namely, that when bought at that price, they were bought 
 specifically for the trust, and that they were not afterwards 
 alienated by the trustee, nor taken to his own account as an 
 individual, but were constantly kept and held for the trust. 
 
 Now how does the question stand, between Mr. Lowell and 
 myself, on this point ? Having ascertained from the records 
 of the Boston Manufacturing Company, [B. App. p. 32.] that 
 Mr. Boott was, in 1820, an original subscriber, in his own 
 name, for thirty shares of that stock, issued at f 1150; that in 
 1822 he had purchased six more shares from Dr. Jackson ; and 
 that in 1826 he had again purchased twenty-one shares from 
 Mr. Kirk Boott, and finding that, in the account of 1844, 
 eighteen shares, only, were charged at the original subscrip- 
 tion price, and twenty-one at $1300, 1 ventured to put the 
 following inquiries :-^ 
 
 "With whose funds were the thirty originally bought in 1820, and 
 the six in 1822 ? Why should the whole twenty-one, which were 
 purchased in 1826, be placed to the account of the eslate at S1300, 
 and the remaining eighteen, only, be placed there at the cost of the 
 original subscription, when thirty shares were purchased at their 
 cost?" [B. p. 119.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell's answer is characteristic enough. 
 
 " The audacity of this passage defies all competition. Does Mr. 
 Brooks know for whom the thirty shares were subscribed for in 1820? 
 or the price paid for the six shares in 1822 ? or how the twenty-one 
 shares in 1826 were procured?" [L. p. 69.] 
 
389 
 
 Certainly not. If I had known, I should not have asked. 
 How should I know, when all the stocks, whether purchased 
 with trust funds or otherwise, were subscribed for, bought, 
 and held for years, in Mr. Boott's private name ? Yet when 
 shares, so bought, held, and dealt with as these were, come to 
 be charged in a trust account, some twenty years after, at 
 two prices, both greatly above, and one nearly double, the 
 then market value, and when they are so charged in an ac- 
 count, which does not show when, or how, or with what 
 funds, they .were originally purchased, Mr. Lowell considers it 
 an " audacity," which " defies all competition," for one of 
 the reversionary owners of the property, simply to inquire, 
 why they are so charged. 
 
 No, says Mr. Lowell : — 
 
 " He knows no one of these points, vital to the issue he has raised. 
 Nor did I, when I put the accounts in form for Mr. Boott from the 
 data furnished by him. But I have since thoroughly investigated the 
 matler, and I will enlighten Mr. Brooks." [L. p. 69.] 
 
 Light is precisely what I wanted ; but the information, I 
 get, is this : — 
 
 " 1. The thirty shares subscribed for by Mr. Boott, in 1820, were 
 appropriated by him at the time as follows : eighteen to his trust fund, 
 four to Mrs. F. Boott, and two to each of his four wards." [L. p. 69.] 
 
 In proof of this, an entry is produced from the cash book 
 of Boott & Lowell, under the date of April 1, 1822, by which 
 it appears that a dividend, received on the thirty shares, was 
 distributed in those proportions, between Mr. Boott's mother 
 and the members of the F. Boott family. « There never 
 were, then," concludes Mr. Lowell, " but eighteen shares of 
 the original subscription, that belonged to, or had been pur- 
 chased with, the funds of his father's estate." [L. p. 70.] 
 
 So far all runs smooth and clear. As to the thirty shares 
 of original subscription in 1820, 1 admit myself answered, at 
 least to a certain extent. It appears, from the manner' in 
 which Mr. Boott treated the dividend, in 1822, that twelvJ of 
 those shares were then regarded by Mr. Boott as belonging to 
 the F. Boott family, and eighteen as belonging to his mother's 
 
390 
 
 trust fund, — ^none as belonging to himself. But ho-w does 
 this account for his having pledged to Mr. Lowell, in 1827-30, 
 a part at least of these same eighteen shares for his private 
 debt? Did he then regard them as belonging to his trust 
 fund ? Or had he, in the mean time, taken them to his own 
 account ? 
 
 2. As to the six shares, bought in 1822, they are shown, 
 by referring to Dr. Jackson's books, to have been bought, 
 from him, at ^1500. " Yet," says Mr. Lowell, — as if it were a 
 merit, — " he does not charge these to the estate. 'i [L. p. 70.] 
 With good reason ; for we are informed, on the very next 
 page, that Mr. Boott, in 1827, sold these same shares, with 
 others belonging to his wards, at the same price ; for which, 
 reference is made to the books of Boott & Lowell, and also 
 to the books of Mr. John Lowell, Jr., as proofs in Mr. John 
 A. Lowell's possession. That is, by omitting these transac- 
 tions in his probate account, Mr. Boott treats them as his 
 own. To be sure, this does not prove what/wwrfs were used 
 in the purchase ; and whether dividends on these six shares 
 are, or are not, included in the gross sum of $274,000 and 
 upwards, charged in the account as income, nobody bul Mr. 
 Lowell can tell. But, since the shares were bought and 
 sold at the same price, there was, as Mr. Lowell justly re- 
 marks, neither gain nor loss on the transaction, and so far I 
 am answered. 
 
 3. In respect to the twenty-one shares, derived from Mr. 
 Kirk Boott in 1826, and charged to the trust, in 1844, at 
 $1300, the account given is, that Mr. J. Wright Boott became 
 entitled to them " in virtue of an arrangement between the 
 Boston and Merrimack Companies, in August, 1823," de- 
 scribed as follows : — 
 
 " In order to effect a sale of the patent rights of the Boston Man- 
 ufacturing Company to the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, and 
 ' a transfer of the machine-shop and of Mr. Moody's services from 
 Waltham to Chelmsford, without any possibility of injury to any one, 
 jt was arranged, that every proprietor should buy, or sell, a sufficient 
 number of shares to make him a holder of the same number of shares 
 in each company ; and that these exchanges should be effected with a 
 difference of price in favor of the Boston Manufacturing Company 
 
391 
 
 of thirty per cent. This made the shares in the Boston Company, sq 
 obtained, cost to the Merrimack proprietors, $1300 each." [L. p. 70. J 
 
 Mr. Lowell adds, in further explanation : — 
 
 " This arrangement was made in August, 1823, during Mr. Wright 
 Boott's absence in Europe. Mr. Kirk Boott, having no power to 
 transfer his brother's Merrimack shares, supplied their place by his 
 own, and took the Boston shares in his own name. On settlement 
 with his brother in 1826, he conveyed to him the Boston shares, 
 which had always belonged to liim ; but took the transfer of Merri- 
 mack shares as a sale on his own account, at par." [L. p. 71.] 
 
 Now, here, Mr. Lowell's perspicuity, if he means to be per- 
 spicuous, fails remarkably. It is impossible to see, from this, 
 that these shares, transferred to Mr. J. Wright Boott, individu- 
 ally, in 1826, and which " had always belonged to him," as 
 Mr. Lowell says, since 1823, were intended by him, at the 
 time, to be taken as a specific investment for his trust fund, 
 or that they were ever treated as such before the arrangements 
 of May, 1831. 
 
 In the first place, Mr. J. Wright Boott, in August, 1823, 
 when it is said these shares were purchased for him by his 
 brother Kirk, held, in his own name, for whatever private 
 accounts, thirty-six shares of the Boston Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, and fifty-six of the Merrimack Manufacturing Compa- 
 ny. This appears by the records of those companies. [B. 
 App. pp. 30, 32.] He wanted therefore twenty, only, of the 
 Boston shares, and not twenty-one, to equalize his interest. 
 And whose interest was his interest ? For whom did he hold 
 the fifty-six shares of Merrimack, which were to be offset by 
 as many shares of the Boston ? No mortal, unless it be Mr. 
 Lowell, can tell, — and he does not tell. Were they aZHooked 
 upon as a specific investment for his trust fund ? The Mer- 
 rimack stock, Mr. Lowell informs us, was doubled in 1824 ; 
 [L. p. 72.] but Mr. Boott's subscription to that new stock 
 was fox forty shares, not fifty-six. So says the record. [B. 
 App. p. 30.] His right of subscription, for sixteen, must have 
 been transferred, it would seem, to somebody, the stock being 
 then worth more than par. For whose benefit? Not the es- 
 tate's surely, or the profit, not being incom,e, would, or at least 
 
392 
 
 should, appear distinctly in the probate account. Did the 
 forty new shares, then, which he in fact took, and took in his 
 own name, belong to his trust ? They certainly would, if 
 forty of the old shares did, since the right to the new stock 
 was merely an incident to the ownership of the old, share 
 for share ; and if the trust fund was unable to pay for the 
 new shares, the premium on the right to take them should 
 have come as profit to the estate, and should appear in the 
 probate account. He thus held, in January, 1824, ninety-six 
 Merrimack shares, new and old, all in his own private name. 
 The stock record shows this. He sold, in the same year, 
 sixteen of these shares, as the record shows, [B. App. p. 30.J 
 having previously sold, or transferred, as it seems, his right 
 of subscription to an equal number of the then contemplated 
 new stock. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, in order to account for the fact that no profit 
 on such a sale appears in the executor's account, undertakes to 
 tell us for whose account the sixteen shares were sold. He 
 says :— 
 
 " Four belonged jointly to himself, Mr. Kirk Boott, and Mr. James 
 Boott, being the residue of their interest as owners of one fourth of 
 the original speculation ; the other twelve belonged to Mrs. F. Boott 
 and his wards, and were sold, on the occasioa of the stock being 
 doubled, in October, 1824." (L. p. 72.) 
 
 It would seem, according to this, that the fifty-six shares of 
 original subscription to the Merrimack stock, in 1822, must 
 have been regarded by Mr. Boott, though standing in his own 
 name, as a mixed interest, belonging partly to his father's es- 
 tate, partly to Mrs. F. Boott and her children, and partly to a 
 joint private interest of himself and his two brothers. If it 
 became necessary, then, in 1823, to buy twenty shares in 
 the Boston Company at a high price, for the purpose of 
 equalizing interests, represented by him in the two compa* 
 nies, " without any possibility of injury to any one," [L. p. 70.] 
 how happens it, that all those twenty shares, and one in addi- 
 tion, should have been taken to the account of his father's es- 
 tate in 1826, when then- market value Was only about 
 
393 
 
 instead of $1300, a share,* and that they should be charged, 
 in 1844, as a specific investment for the estate, at |J1300, (the 
 price of 1823,) although there is nothing to show that they 
 were ever put to the trust account until 1844, when the mar- 
 ket value was only $725, being little more than one half 
 their cost ? How happens this, when the interests, to be 
 equalized by the purchase, are now stated not to have belong- 
 ed, exclusively, to the estate, but to have been the mixed 
 property of several parties ? 
 
 Another difficulty, which presents itself, is this : — A part 
 of Mr. Lowell's explanation is, that twelve of the Merrimack 
 shares, sold in 1824, belonged to his wards and Mrs. F. Boott. 
 [L. p. 72.] Yet no such transaction appears by Mr. Boott's 
 probate accounts with those wards. Each of these guardian- 
 ship accounts shows a purchase of two shares of Merrimack 
 about that time, but no sale of the stock at any time. 
 
 Again, it appears, not only that the twenty Boston shares, 
 which Mr. J. Wright Boott was bound to purchase in 1823, 
 unless he should prefer to sell twenty of his Merrimack shares, 
 were changed into twenty-owe shares, but that the twenty-one 
 were bought and paid for by his brother Kirk, who transfer- 
 red in payment, or part payment, for them, it is said, twenty- 
 one of his own shares of Merrimack; [L. p. 71.J that, in 
 1826, (Mr. Kirk Boott having in the mean time held the Bos- 
 ton shares in his own name for the benefit of his brother,) 
 there was a settlement between the two brothers ; that, in and 
 by that settlement, Mr. Kirk Boott's transfer of his own 
 Merrimack shares, made, originally, as an accommodation 
 to his brother, became converted into an actual sale for 
 his own account ; and that he transferred to Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, individually, the twenty-one shares of Boston at their 
 original cost of $1300 a share. That is to say, Mr. Kirk 
 Boott, as the affair was finally settled, sold twenty-one shares 
 of Merrimack, /or himself, in 1823, at par ; and, at the same 
 time, bought twenty-one shares of Boston, for his brother 
 Wright, at $1300 a share; and Mr. J. Wright Boott, three 
 
 * October 14, 1826, ten shares of this stock were sold at 90^ per cent. 
 50 
 
394 
 
 years after, took those Bbstoii shares to his own private ac- 
 count, (apparently,) at that price, though it was about $400 
 a share more than they were then worth, and paid his brother 
 Kirk for them, of course, in some form. There is nothing, 
 in this, that tends to show a transaction for the specific 
 account of the estate. 
 
 The case is still further complicated by the fact, that, the 
 settlement between the brothers at that period', (Marchj 1826,) 
 was not confined to this particular dealing in stocks, but em- 
 braced a general settlement of their old partnership accounts, 
 with which this transfer of stock appears to have been, in 
 some way, connected. I refer, for this, to Mr. Kirk Boott's 
 letter of Feb. 8, 1826, written in contemplation of the apt- 
 proaching partnership settlement ; [B: App. p. 15.] a settle- 
 ment, in which the estate had, legally, no interest. 
 
 Now I am far from saying that all this may not be suscept- 
 ible of some explanation, consistent with the assumption that 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott intended these twenty-one shares, at the 
 time, specifically for the trust, and that he paid for them out 
 of the trust funds at $1300 per share, though they were 
 then worth only $900. All I say is, that no such explana- 
 tion is yet given ; and that, on this point, Mr. Lowell, if he 
 himself sees what he assumes, has at least failed to " enlighten 
 Mr. Brooks." [L. p. 69.] 
 
 " Is it not deplorable," he asks, " to see a gentleman in Mr. 
 Brooks's position, groping about in utter darkness and igno- 
 rance, endeavouring to find some excuse for attacking the 
 honor of the living and the dead ?" [L. p. 72.] It is, indeed. 
 Whether Mr. Brooks is groping for an "excuse to attack 
 the honor of the living and the dead," or only for means to 
 vindicate his own, is one question, upon which Mr. Lowell 
 and I may diifer ; but, I think, all men will agree, that it is, 
 in any case, truly deplorable, to find a person, in my position, 
 obliged to grope in " utter darkness and ignorance " concern- 
 ing facts, of which I have a right to be informed, and, which 
 ought to stand in plain day-light on the probate records. 
 
 What is my position ? That of a party interested in the 
 settlement of an estate. What was Mt. J. Wright Boott's 
 
395 
 
 position ? That of an executor, who had it all in his hands, and 
 was bound to account for it, distinctly and intelligibly. What 
 is the fact ? He renders no account of any sort for six and 
 twenty years. And what sort of an account does he render 
 at the end of that time ? One, which shows an old and ex- 
 cellent trust investment broken up, and all the stocks com- 
 prised in it sold ; but does not show what was done with the 
 money, nor establish the slightest visible connexion between 
 the property m^entioned as on hand, (the whole of which he 
 holds, in ISii, nominalli/ as executor, but really, in part, as 
 the " Reply" tells us, for his own private account,) and that 
 old trust investment, which, in 1818, he certainly held, en- 
 tirely, in the single capacity of executor. The probate 
 account discloses nothing of his intermediate transactions for 
 the estate ; but claims, nevertheless, to charge certain stocks, 
 which had stood for years in his private name, and which had 
 been freely pledged for his own debts, at nearly double what 
 they aie worth, without showing when they were bought, 
 or for what account, or with whose funds paid for. Without 
 condescending to state the executor's investments, and changes 
 of investment, his account further claims a cash balance of 
 $25,000 for himself, as constituting a charge upon the prop- 
 erty ; and this, notwithstanding his former admission of in- 
 debtedness to the estate beyond his ability to pay, and not- 
 withstanding the certainty that he neither earned, nor inherited, 
 nor paid to the heirs, one dollar afterwards, by which he 
 could have altered the balance of account. 
 
 And what is Mr. Lowell's position in the matter ? He rep- 
 resents Mr. Boott ; he prepared this account ; he maintains 
 that it is correct ; he has in his own possessiDn^ from various 
 sources, nearly all the evidence, which might throw light on 
 these mysteries ; he does not produce it ; he drew up the 
 account, whether purposely or carelessly, in its present form 
 of obscurity ; he imputes to me the death of Mr. Boott, as 
 occasioned by my unfounded charges of mismanagement in a 
 trust ; and he appeals to his own unintelligible account in proof 
 Jhat the charges were unfounded, because of its purporting; to 
 show a cash balance due to Mr. Boott. As one answer to this, 
 
396 
 
 I make it apparent, that the account, admitting all its direct 
 statements to be true, does not exhibit facts enough, concern- 
 ing the executor's transactions, to enable us to see whether 
 such a balance is really due to him or not ; and when I call for 
 information, which the account ought to give, but does not, 
 concerning certain stocks, charged at a high price as a specific 
 investment for the estate, Mr. Lowell explains in part, and 
 mystifies in part, produces certain proofs, and withholds others, 
 equally under his control, and then, having left the question, 
 concerning the most objectionable parcel of the stocks, just 
 as unintelligible as it was at the beginning, he winds up, at 
 last, by entreating his readers to deplore that "utter dark- 
 ness and ignorance," which he himself has contributed to 
 cause, and which he only has power to dispel ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 MORE OF MR. LOWELL' S LIEN. HIS MEANS OF KNOWING THE THUE 
 OWNERSHIP OF THE STOCKS. STRANGE MISTAKES, OR MISHEFKE- 
 SENTATIONS. 
 
 The question, whether these twenty-one Boston shares, of 
 which we have been treating, were specifically purchased for 
 the estate, or not, at the price charged, now appears, from the 
 " Reply," to depend, partly at least, on two unknown facts: 
 1. Whether, in 1823, the corresponding number of Merrimack 
 shares belonged, specifically, and exclusively, to the estate, 
 after all other interests, represented by Mr. Boott in the two 
 companies, had been equalized and satisfied: 3. Whether, 
 in the settlement between Messrs. J. Wright Boott and Kirk 
 Boott, in 1826, the said twenty-one Boston shares, though 
 transferred to Mr. J. Wright Boott individually, and not by 
 
397 
 
 the name of executor, or trastee, were, in fact, paid for out 
 of the specific mojieys of the estate. 
 
 Both these facts, if they be facts, it is in Mr. Lowell's 
 power to show. Mr. Boott's subscriptions, in 1822 and 
 1824, to the Merrimack stock, both old and new, fall within 
 the period of the firm of Boott & Lowell, which lasted from 
 Jan. 1, 1822, to July 1, 1824. [L. pp. 28-9.— B. App. p. 59.] 
 During about one year of this period, Mr. Boott was in 
 Europe, and the management of his private aflFairs, we are 
 told, was left with Mr. Lowell. [L. p. 28.] The books 
 of that firm are appealed to by him, to prove the true 
 distributive ownership of the thirty shares of Boston stock, 
 purchased in 1820, by proving the distribution of the divi- 
 dends upon them in April, 1822. [L. p. 69.] Will not the 
 same books show, for whose account, and with whose 
 moneys, the fifty-six shares of Merrimack were originally 
 bought and paid for in April, 1822, and how the subsequent 
 dividends on them were distributed ? Will not the same 
 books tell us how that stock was privately held in August, 
 1823, when the arrangement was made between the two 
 companies, which, as is said, led to the purchase of the 
 twenty-one shares of Boston, to equalize the interests ? If 
 we knew that, we should most readily see, to whose account, 
 or to what several accounts, the twenty-one shares ought, 
 properly, to have been put at $1300 a share. 
 
 In the next place, Mr. Lowell, as the executor of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, must have in his possession the evidence of 
 the settlement, he speaks of, between Messrs. Ku'k and J. 
 Wright Boott, in March, 1826. [L. p. 71.] If we had the 
 whole of that settlement before us, we should probably see, 
 at once, out of what fund Mr. Kirk Boott was in fact paid for 
 the twenty-one shares ; and we should probably see other 
 matters, also, quite material to another branch of this inquiry. 
 But none of these things are we given to see, notwithstand- 
 ing Mr. Lowell's profession is to "enlighten," not only Mr. 
 Brooks, but the public. 
 
 As the case stands, the " Reply" has entirely failed to make 
 out the point, that these twenty-one shares were actually 
 
.3,98 
 
 bought as a specific investment for the trust fund, or that the 
 estate was bound to take them, in 1836, at the price of 1823. 
 If not, there was no right to put them to the account of the 
 estate at that price in 1844 ; but we are necessarily referred, 
 for the price, at which they should have been charged, either 
 to the market value of May, 1831, when they were first visibly 
 transferred to the executor, or to the market value of 1844, 
 when they are first charged to the estate, so far as yet ap- 
 pears, in the probate account. 
 
 And here, let us inquire, once more, concerning Mr. Low- 
 ell's lien on the shares he held in pledge. The foundation 
 of that lien, as he avers, was, that he took them, originally, 
 -supposing them to be the private property of Mr. Boott. [L. 
 p. 29.] My agreement with Mr. Lowell, va. May, 1831, by 
 which the shares, w'hen transferred to the executor, were re- 
 pledged by Mr. Boott in that capacity, was founded distinctly 
 on that basis, as Mr. Lowell admits. [L. p. 41.J He says he 
 had not only every reason to suppose them Mr. Boott's at the 
 time of the original loan, but that it was not even intimated 
 by me, in the arrangement of May, 1831, that those shares 
 belonged to the estate. [L. pp. 41-2.] This loan was made 
 in 1827. The pledge covered, originally, eighteen shares of 
 the Boston, and eighteen of the Merrimack stock ; seven more 
 ■shares of each stock were added in 1830, making twentyffive 
 of each stock then under pledge to Mr. Lowell. [B. App. pp. 
 30 — 33.] They remained so in May, 1831. Now let us 
 look at Mr. Lowell's means oi knowledge of the equitable 
 •ownership of these shares, at the time they were thus pledged 
 to him. The inquiry has a material bearing on the question 
 of his interest in the settlement of the account of 1844 ; and, 
 if the truth was, that his loan to Mr. Boott did not stand on 
 the most unquestionable security, that will be found, -when 
 the reader comes to see the whole course of Mr. Lowell's 
 conduct in this business, to be a fact, which tends strongly 
 to " elucidate the matters in controversy." 
 
 To begin with the Boston shares. In respect to them, we 
 are told, on the authority of the books of Boott & Lowell, in 
 which, it seems, Mr. Boott's private cash account was kept. 
 
3.99 
 
 and kept by Mr. Lowell himself, at least during the year of 
 Mr. Boott's absence in Europe, that thirty shares, originally, 
 subscribed for by Mr. Boott, in his own name, belonged, eigh- 
 teen of them, to his mother's trust fund, and twelve to his 
 wards and to Mrs. F. Boott, their mother. [L. p. 69.] We 
 are also told that six other shares were bought, in 1822, from. 
 Dr. Jackson, and that these, together with six of the twelve 
 belonging to the wards, and to Mrs. F. Boott, their mother, 
 were sold in Oct. 1827, as it is printed, — ^but, as I take it, by 
 mistake, for Oct. 1824. [L. p. 71. and see transfers, B. App. p. 
 32.] Two, of those, which belonged to Mrs. F. Boott, were 
 transferred to her, in 1825, by the name of Mrs. Mary Lee, 
 who was the same person. [L. p. 71.]. Mr. Boott, then, after 
 these sales and transfers, had left in his hands only twenty- 
 two shares of this stock, namely, eighteen belonging to the 
 trust fund, and four belonging to his wards, — none belonging 
 to himself, — according to Mr. Lowell's own statement and 
 proof, from his own books. In 1826, Mr. Boott acquired the 
 twenty-one shares from Mr. Kirk Boott, which Mr. Lowell 
 has so laboured to prove were a specific investment for his 
 trust. Thus forty-three shares, in all, stood in his name, 
 every one of them belonging, according to Mr. Lowell, either 
 to the trust fund of his father' s estate, or to the trust funds 
 of his wards. Mr. Lowell, when the pledges were made toi 
 him, in 1827 and 1830, was, moreover, himself, the treasurer 
 of the Boston Manufacturing Company. He therefore knew 
 that there were, as its records show, [B. App. p. 32.] no other 
 shares of that stock standing in Mr. Boott's name ; and he 
 knew, (since he now tells us,) /or whom, Mr. Boott held these. 
 He may not have positively known indeed, at that time, what 
 he must otherwise claim to have since discovered, namely, 
 that the twenty-one shares, coming from Mr. Kirk Boott in 
 1826, were bought specifically for the trust fund, since that 
 date was after the dissolution of the firm of Boott & Lowell ; 
 but he knew, at least, that those twenty-one were all the 
 shares, which could, by possibility, be the private property of 
 Mr. Boott, if the facts are as Mr. Lowell now states, from the 
 books of Boott & Lowell, concerning the other twenty-two. 
 
400 
 
 How is it possible, then, that Mr. Lowell should have sup- 
 posed twenty-five of those shares to be Mr. Boott's private 
 property ? Or how could he, with his sentiments of the 
 manifest impropriety of mingling trust funds with the private 
 property of a trustee, and after his earnest remonstrances 
 with Mr. J. Wright Boott on that subject, [L. p. B8.] have 
 consented to take twenty-five of those shares in pledge for a 
 private loan to Mr. Boott, perceiving, as he must, if he looked 
 to the matter, that some of them, at least, if not all, were the 
 property either of his mother's trust fund, or of his wards. 
 
 Next let us look at the Merrimack. All Mr. Boott's shares 
 in that stock, except five, which came from Mr. James Boott 
 in 1826, [B. App. p. 36.J were bought and paid for in the 
 days of Boott & Lowell. Ninety-six Merrimack shares, in 
 all were purchased by Mr. Boott as an original subscriber, 
 in 1822 and 1824 ; sixteen of them were sold, during the 
 same period, in which Mr. Lowell refers to the books of 
 his firm to prove the sale of the twelve Boston shares; 
 [B. App. p. 30.] and from those books it is, no doubt, that 
 he also undertakes to tell us how twelve of the Merrimack 
 shares were actually owned. [L. p. 72.] Four more of the 
 Merrimack shares were, soon after, transferred to Mrs. Mary 
 Lee, [B. App. p. 30.] making, in all, twenty, which passed 
 out of Mr. Boott's hands. This left seventy-six shares still 
 standing in his name, the ownership of which must have 
 been recorded, it would seem in the books of Boott & 
 Lowell. Five more came from Mr. James Boott in 1826. 
 Respecting the true ownership of these, (the firm of Boott &■ 
 Lowell being at that time dissolved,) Mr. Lowell may, or may 
 not have had means of knowledge. There were then eighty- 
 one, in all, held by Mr. Boott in 1826. Mr. Lowell has not 
 told us what the books of Boott & Lowell may show as to 
 the original ownership of the seventy-six, which remained 
 from the original subscriptions. But of the whole eighty- 
 one shares, eight were, afterwards, treated by Mr. Boott as 
 belonging to his guardianship accounts ; and the remaining, 
 seventy-three were all either marked,, in May, 1831, as prop- 
 erty of his father's estate, or transferred by him, in trust, to 
 
401 
 
 secure his father's estate, including its liability for the guard- 
 ianship debt ; and of these seventy- three, seventy-one re-ap- 
 pear in the account of 1844, charged at their original par, 
 instead of their higher value in 1831, when they were first 
 visibly transferred to the estate. This seems to involve an 
 admission that they were all regarded, /rojw the beginning, 
 as a specific investment for the estate. If so, would not the 
 books of Boott & Lowell show it ? Must not Mr. Lowell, 
 the accountant of that house, have known the fact ? Or, if 
 those books prove the fact to be otherwise, would not Mr. 
 Lowell have shown us that ? Had he, then, reason to be- 
 lieve, at the time of the loan and pledge in 1827-30, that Mr. 
 Boott was the clear owner in his own right of twenty-jive of 
 these shares ? Did he not, at least, know enough to the con- 
 trary, respecting both the Merrimack and the Boston stocks, 
 to have put him on inquiry ? 
 
 But, some one will ask, how is it possible that Mr. Lowell, 
 if he had cause of doubt on this point, could, as a prudent 
 money lender, have consented to take the risk of lending 
 trust money on this security, and, in efiect, of guaranteeing 
 the loan ? 
 
 It is not for me to answer this question. It relates entirely 
 to motive. My business is with facts. It is somewhat pre- 
 mature even for the reader to indulge his curiosity in specu- 
 lating upon motives, until he has seen all the facts, which 
 the case may bring before him. I do not even mean to assert 
 that it is a fact, that Mr. Lowell, at the moment of taking 
 these shares, positively knew, or remembered, that they must, 
 in whole or in part, be trust property; — especially when, re- 
 specting Mr. Boott's affairs, he declares, that, in May, 1831, 
 he " knew nothing about them, except from Mr. Brooks him- 
 self, and could not, of course, either affirm or deny any rep- 
 resentation he [Brooks] might see fit to make on the subject." 
 [L. p. 30.] But all these are things for Mr. Lowell to explain. 
 The main evidence lies in his own keeping. Certain evi- 
 dence, only, has come to my knowledge. That I exhibit. 
 It tends, if unexplained, to show that Mr. Lowell^ when he 
 took the stocks in pledge, ought to have known how Mr. 
 
402 
 
 Boott stood in relation to them. If he has any evidence to 
 the contrary, I shall be glad to judge it fairly. But, at pres- 
 ent, upon such evidence as I see and have shown, I mean 
 only to say, that the taking of so many shares of these two 
 stocks, as the private property of Mr. Boott, with Mr. Lowell's 
 means of knowledge respecting their true ownership, seems 
 to me to have been a remarkable indiscretion. To borrow 
 his own language, " This was, to say the least, exceedingly 
 careless." [L. p. 84.] And I must say, that, if these circum- 
 stances had been known to me in May, 1831, 1 should never, 
 without some satisfactory explanation, have consented to the 
 preservation, or renewal, of Mr. Lowell's supposed lien, by a 
 transfer from Mr. Boott, as executor, which I assented to only 
 from the supposed necessity of the case, and in consequence of 
 my belief that Mr. Lowell had previously taken those shares in 
 pledge, without suspicion, or cause of suspicion, that they were 
 not Mr. Boott's, in equity and law. Neither should I have as- 
 sented to the compromise, which allowed the account of 1844, 
 whereby I well understood that the estate's property went to 
 pay Mr. Lowell's debt, had I not remained under the same im- 
 pression as to the origin of the pledge, and had I not, conse- 
 quently, believed that the estate, receiving the shares, ought 
 to pay the debt. 
 
 Whatever may be thought on this point, we are now, neces- 
 sarily, brought to the conclusion, from Mr. Lowell's own 
 showing, connected with the account of 1844, that the seven- 
 ty-one shares of Merrimack therein charged at par, and the 
 eighteen shares of Boston charged at their subscription price 
 of $1150 per share, were regarded by Mr. Boott, originally, 
 as purchased for the estate. Mr. Lowell labours to satisfy us 
 that the twenty-one shares of Boston, purchased in 1826, at 
 $1300, were also purchased for the estate ; although the evi- 
 dence leaves us in doubt on that point. The stable, which 
 the account says cost f 2500, we are told distinctly, was bought 
 for the benefit of the estate. [L. p. 86.] But how is this? 
 The whole property, now named, amounts, at these prices, to 
 $121,500, all of which, according to that statement, was, at 
 the time of the purchases, the estate's money ; — ^and yet we 
 
403 
 
 are told, by the account of 1844, that #25,000 of that prop- 
 erty was then Mr. Boott's own ; and that this did not arise 
 from the fact of his having paid out more than he had re- 
 ceived, except to the amount of about $3700 ! 
 
 Leaving these contradictions to be reconciled as well as 
 they may, it is now made certain, that sixty-seven of the 
 Merrimack shares* and twenty-five of the Boston, if pur- 
 chased originally for the estate, were, afterwards, taken to 
 Mr. Boott's private account, and pledged to Messrs. Sturgis 
 and Lowell for f 51,000 of personal loans to him. The ques- 
 tion then recurs, at what price could Mr. Boott, rightfully, 
 have charged those shares, in an account beginning from the 
 discharge of 1833 ? — at which date the shares stood subject 
 to those pledges. The Merrimack shares were, then, at about 
 par ; the Boston at a great depreciation. At the market prices 
 of that day, it has been shown [Ante, p. 380.] that scarcely 
 j|S75,000 of property could have been turned out, clear of Mr. 
 Lowell's debt, which was then $46,000. In 1844, though 
 the Boston shares continued greatly below their original par, 
 the Merrimack shares had attained a considerable advance ; 
 but not a sufficient advance to counteract the loss upon the 
 Boston shares, compared with their original cost to Mr. Boott. 
 Can he claim to charge them all, Boston and Merrimack, at 
 that cost ? 
 
 Now I believe the rule to be, that, since Mr. Boott had 
 chosen to take both these stocks from the estate, and to treat 
 them as his own, the heirs would have their election, in re- 
 spect to each parcel of stock, when afterwards offered to be 
 returned to the estate, to reclaim such parcels as they pleased 
 at their original cost, and to take the residue at their market 
 value at the time of the restoration. I think I formerly 
 stated the principle correctly, though Mr. Lowell seems to 
 doubt it, [L. p. 68.] that, when a trustee converts distinct 
 parcels of the trust property to his own use, whatever is 
 gained by rise in value of any one distinct parcel of the prop- 
 
 * To Mr. Sturgis, ... - 42 
 
 To Mr. Lowell, ... 25 
 
 67 
 
404 
 
 erty, while so conyerted, is gained for the trust, and what- 
 ever is lost, by the fall of any other distinct parcel of the 
 property, is the private loss of the trustee, if the parties, to be 
 accounted with, so elect. The gain on the Merrimack stock, 
 on this principle, was a gain for the estate, and the loss, by 
 the depreciation of the Boston stock, Mr. Boott lost for him- 
 self, and had no right, unless by consent, to charge upon the 
 estate, by placing the stock there, again, at its original cost. 
 The application of this principle to an account, beginning in 
 1833, would have been to put the Merrimack shares at par, 
 that being their original cost, and the Boston shares at j|735 
 each, that being their market value at the time of the making 
 of the account, in 1844. But where would Mr. Boott's 
 " cash balance," and where would Mr. Lowell's debt, have 
 been by that rule? Either Mr. Lowell must have gone 
 wholly unpaid, or the f 100,000 trust fund must have been 
 minus by nearly $25,000.* It would have operated far more 
 unfavourably for Mr. Boott tlian charging all the stocks, as I 
 have done, at their market value in May, 1831 ; which left a 
 deficiency of about $17,000 only. [Ante, p. 379.] That went 
 upon the principle of considering them, though purchased 
 with funds borrowed from the estate, to have been Mr. Boott's 
 own property, so long as they stood, undistinguished, in his 
 own name, and of considering that they became the estate's 
 specific property, when they were first marked as such. 
 
 So much for Mr. Lowell's impregnability, with an account 
 dating from the discharge ! 
 
 Mr. Lowell, however, affects to consider that I formerly 
 contended for the principle of charging these stocks to Mr. 
 Boott at their market value, not of 1831, but of 1844; and 
 he professes to proceed, himself, on the principle of dzscharg- 
 
 * 71 shares of Mettimack at pa* - - - - 71,000 
 
 39 « " Boston at $725 .... 28,725 
 
 Stable ... - - - 1,500 
 
 101,225 
 
 Mrs. Boott's trust fiind - ... 100,000 
 
 Debt to Mr. Lowell .... ... 25,000 
 
 125,000 
 
405 
 
 ing the executor by crediting the stock, purchased at its ac- 
 tual cost. In that view he makes the following statement : — 
 
 "Had the opposite principle been adopted, [i. e. crediting the stocks 
 at the market value of 1844,] the result would have been as follows : — 
 The manufacturing stock, as shown by Mr. Boott's account, 
 
 had cost him $118,000 
 
 The market value of the same shares, as shown by Mr. 
 
 Loring's inventory, was 119,155 
 
 1,155 
 
 That is to say, if Mr. Boott had credited himself with the stock 
 
 on the principle Mr. Brooks seems to indicate, that is, the market 
 
 value, the result would have been more favorable to him than it 
 
 was by $1,155 
 
 As however the stable, which cost him S2500 
 
 was appraised to Mr. Loring at only 1600 
 
 there would have been a deduction of 1000 
 
 155 
 So that Mr. Brooks's complaint resolves itself into this, that Mr. 
 Boott has credited the estate with $155 more than he ought to have 
 done!" (L. p. 67, 68.) 
 
 This is another strange instance of misstatement and mis- 
 calculation, for a man of immaculate accuracy in such 
 matters. 
 
 It is true that the market value of the stocks, in 1844, " as 
 shown by Mr. Loring's inventory," was as Mr. Lowell 
 states it, |119,155* 
 
 But the cost of the same stocks to Mr. Boott, " as 
 shown by Mr. Boott's account," (meaning the 
 probate account of Mr. Lowell's own making,) 
 instead of being $118,000, as he above states, 
 was $119,000, which appears as follows : — 
 "39 shares in the Boston Manufac- 
 turing Company ; 
 
 * The statement of the inventory [B. App. p. 55.] is as follows : — 
 "Thirty-nine shares in the Boston Mannfactnring Company, at $725 each, $28,275 
 Seventy-one shares in the Merrimack Manufacturing Company at $1280 
 
 each, - - - ... . 90,880" 
 
 These sums, added, amount to - ..... 119,155 
 
406 
 
 Brought over, market value, f 119,155 
 
 Of 18 shares, cost |1]50 each |20,700 
 
 21 shares cost $1300 each 27,300 
 
 48,000 
 71 shares in the Merrimack Manufac- 
 turing Company cost 71,000 
 
 119,000 
 
 [See account, L. p. 39. Also, B. App. p. 44] 
 
 Difference, (instead of 1155,) 155 
 
 Hence, if Mr. Boott had credited himself with the property 
 at its market value in 1844, instead of its cost, it would have 
 made a difference in his favour, so far as regards the stock, 
 alone, of only $155, instead of f 1155, as Mr. Lowell so tri- 
 umphantly proclaims. But, unfortunately, this little differ- 
 ence is quite enough to turn the argument the other way ; 
 for Mr. Lowell admits, above, that on the principle of market 
 value in 1844, a deduction of f 1000, from the cost of the 
 stable, compared with its saleable price, must be offset against 
 the supposed gain of f 1155 in the market value of the stocks, 
 compared with their original cost. His statement is : gain 
 to the estate, by charging the stocks at less than their market 
 value, $1155 
 
 less loss, by charging the stable at more than its 
 
 market value, 1000 
 
 Net gain to the estate, 155 
 
 But the true statement is ; loss to the estate, by 
 charging the stable at more than its market 
 value, 1000 
 
 less gain to the estate, by charging the stocks at 
 
 less than their market value, 165 
 
 Net loss to the estate, 845 
 
 So that, had my complaint in truth been that, which Mr. 
 Lowell falsely assumes, instead of resolving itself " into this, 
 that Mr. Boott has credited the estate with f 155 more than he 
 ought to have done," it would resolve itself, on Mr. Lowell's 
 
407 
 
 showing, (correcting his misstatement,) into this, that Mr. 
 Boott has credited the estate with $845 less than he ought 
 to have done ! * 
 
 The misfortune, here, is, that Mr. Lowell, in adding up the 
 costs of the stocks, has missed, (or rather made,) a figure : — 
 which, though it be but a unit, happens, by position, to 
 amount to |1000. Or, to put the case more in his own 
 striking way, he has magnified a little result of $155 by 
 about 750 per cent ! A degree of inaccuracy, scarcely worth 
 noticing, perhaps, but for the curiosity of comparing the fact 
 with some of the same gentleman's remarks, when, by anoth- 
 er and more extraordinary blunder of his own, he supposed 
 that a sum of $2500 had grown into one of $10,000, by be- 
 ing " refracted through the prism of Mr. Brooks's memory ! " 
 [Ante, Ch. 6.] 
 
 Now is it not truly wonderful, — would it not be absolutely 
 incredible, if it were not all in plain black and white before 
 us, — that a gentleman, occupying Mr. Lowell's position, 
 should have had the effrontery to publish a book, so arrogant, 
 so self-assuming, so denunciatory, so contemptuous, as this 
 " Reply " is, in temper and tone, pretending to hold me up to 
 absolute ridicule for alleged inaccuracies and errors, which are 
 mostly of its author's own manufacture, while he himself has 
 been guilty of so many, and such, oversights and mistakes as 
 have now been pointed out, descending even to the simplest 
 processes of simple arithmetic ? Or, can it be, that he has, 
 really, presumed upon the belief, (a belief, which, I am sorry to 
 say, the event proves to have been tolerably well founded,) that 
 most of his readers would throw themselves, with a confidence 
 amounting to absolute self-abandonment, upon statements of 
 this nature, coming from such authority, provided they were 
 only promulgated with a degree of " audacity," which " defies 
 
 * Cost of stocks, by the account, as above - - $119,000 
 
 " " stable, by do. ... 2,500 
 
 Total cost, with which the estate is charged, 121,500 
 
 Market value of stocks, as by inventory, . $119,155 
 
 " " " stable, by do. - . - 1,500 120,655 
 
 Excess of cost above market value, 845 
 
408 
 
 all competition ?" Did he, really, trust to the chance, that 
 readers, suspecting nothing, would never, of themselves, detect 
 falsehoods so gross and palpable ; and that I should never 
 have the courage " to follow out these misrepresentations, step 
 by step," [L. p. 85.] in the pains-taking method, which their 
 nature requires, for the purpose of exposing them to the ap- 
 prehension of those, who would not look for themselves ? 
 Will the reader be charitable enough to believe, that the 
 author of the "Reply" has, always, erred through accident 
 and heedlessness ? Or will he suspect that he has ventured 
 to play the desperate game above suggested ? Those, who 
 have the patience to read my volume through, will at least 
 have the means of forming an opinion. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 A CHARGE AGAINST ME OF MISREPRESENTATION, OR MISTAKE, IN 
 MATTERS SAID TO HAVE BEEN DECIDED BY THE SUPREME JUDI- 
 CIAL COURT. 
 
 In connexion with the subject of the last chapter, I may 
 properly notice certain comments on a sentence or two in my 
 former pamphlet, deserving, in Mr. Lowell's opinion of " serious 
 animadversion." [L. p. 73.] The passage was this : — 
 
 " Among the causes, it should be remembered, which went to bring 
 down the saleable value of shares in the Boston Manufacturing Com- 
 pany from $1300, in 1826, to »725, at the date of the rendition of this 
 account, was the fact, that the company had sold ofi" a part of its fixed 
 property, and divided the proceeds, which was a real reduction of 
 capital. Yet this dividend, which really represented capital, stands 
 nowhere in the account, unless it was treated as income, and included 
 in the credit of near $275,000 paid ' to, or for account and by order 
 of, the widow.'" (B. p. 120.) 
 
 Mr. Lowell begins : — 
 
409 
 
 " Here Mr. Brooks is wrong, as usual, both in his facts 
 and his law ;" and he, thereupon, proceeds to state, that the 
 extra dividend in question was declared "from the profits 
 arising from making the machinery for the first Merrimack 
 mill, and from a sum of $75,000, paid to the Boston Com- 
 pany by the Merrimack Company, for the transfer of their 
 patent rights and of Mr. Moody's services." [L. p. 73.] 
 
 This transfer is the same, which is said to have been the 
 occasion of the arrangement before mentioned, [Ante, p. 391.] 
 whereby the proprietors in the two companies, with the view 
 of equalizing their interests, exchanged shares at a difference 
 of thirty per cent, in favour of the Boston Manufacturing Com- 
 pany. Reference is then made to the opinion of the Supreme 
 Judicial Court, in the case of Mr. McLean's will, as a decision 
 directly in point. And thereupon Mr. Lowell remarks : — 
 
 " This ignorance of a prominent decision of our Supreme Court, as 
 well as the numerous instances of disingenuousness and unfair inferen- 
 ces with which this pamphlet abounds, convince me that its authorship 
 should not be attributed, as is popularly done, to one of the counsel of 
 Mr. Brooks, a gentleman who enjoys the reputation alike of manly 
 fair dealing, and of acuteness and learning in his profession." [L. p. 
 74.] 
 
 This compliment seems not to be intended for me. I 
 might well let it pass, therefore, with an expression of sru- 
 prise, that Mi-. Lowell should commit so vulgar an error as to 
 confound counsel and client, were it not for the illustration, 
 it affords, of his singular tendency to mistake his own assump- 
 tions for indisputable facts, even while he is correcting others 
 for alleged errors of the same kind. 
 
 In the first place, (though the authorship of a pamphlet has 
 not much to do with its merits.) the truth is, that the original 
 statement of my case was not only wholly written by myself, 
 but actually printed, in proof copies, for the purpose of sub- 
 mittiQg it to two or three friends for consideration and advice, 
 before a word of it was seen by either of my counsel. With 
 the aid of counsel, it was, afterwards, modified, enlarged, and 
 re-arranged, for the purpose of making my view of the case, 
 more plain and intelligible to persons less familial- with the 
 
410 
 
 facts than Mr. Lowell and myself. But, whatever obligations 
 I may owe to counsel, for amending the imperfections of my 
 original draft, the facts, which I assert, and the inferences, 
 whether fair or unfair, which are unfavourable to Mr. Lowell, 
 and all the " petty insinuations," which he elsewhere com- 
 plains of, [L. p. 20.] I may safely be permitted to claim as 
 my own. 
 
 In the next place, it so happens, that in one of my conferen- 
 ces with counsel, the very decision, mentioned by Mr. Lowell, 
 was particularly cited and referred to. I was, as it happen- 
 ed, not ignorant of that case myself. Being then a member 
 of the bar, I happened to be present when the opinion was 
 delivered, and recollect the considerable sensation, that it oc- 
 casioned at the time. So much for the assumptions. 
 
 Now as to the mistakes. Concerning the details of the ac- 
 tual arrangements between the two companies, in 1823, Mr. 
 Lowell, who was at that time the treasurer of one of them, 
 and a director, I believe, in both, is likely to be better inform- 
 ed than I am. I may have been in error myself, and may 
 have misled my counsel, in stating so broadly, as I did, that 
 the Boston Manufacturing Company " had sold off a part of 
 its fixed property , and divided the proceeds ; " though, but for 
 an expression of the court, in the course of the opinion refer- 
 red to, which might seem to intimate otherwise, I should con- 
 fess myself unable to see, now, why the ownership of patent 
 rights, affixed to machinery used in manufacturing, is not as 
 much a part of the capital, employed in the business, as the 
 machinery itself. 
 
 When the case was referred to, my counsel were not in- 
 formed of the fact, if it be a fact, that the particular dividend, 
 which I spoke of as a dividend of " fixed property," was the 
 same, or one arising from the same source, with a dividend, 
 which is mentioned, among many other things, in the discus- 
 sions of that case. The case was looked at, of course, for its 
 legal principles, and not for mere evidence of a particular ex- 
 trinsic fact, which I stated to be a fact. If I was really mis- 
 taken in that, as Mr. Lowell asserts, the reader will presently 
 see that a majority of the stockholders in the Boston Manu- 
 
411 
 
 facturing Company, laboured under the same mistake of sup- 
 posing their capital reduced, and passed a vote founded upon 
 it, which, I'believe Mr. Lowell himself recommended. 
 
 But, from the manner, in which Mr. Lowell points to the 
 decision of the court, one would think it settled the identical 
 matter, in issue between us. Every lawyer, who examines the 
 case, will see that it does no such thing. One question, 
 among many, it is true, was, whether a certain dividend of the 
 Boston Manufacturing Company, (which Mr. Lowell says is 
 the same I referred to,) was to go to a widow, who had a cer- 
 tain interest in the property, during life, or to a residuary fund, 
 given to Harvard College and the Massachusetts General Hos- 
 pital, after her decease. That question turned, of course, 
 upon the intention of Mr. McLean, as it was to be gathered 
 from the circumstances, under the language of his will, which, 
 as the court say, speaks of "profits, income, dividends," with- 
 out exception, as payable to the widow ;* and, accordingly, it 
 is decided, that a special dividend, arising, in part, from the 
 proceeds of a sale of " patent rights and patterns for castings," 
 and " placed to the account of profit and loss" by the compa- 
 ny,! was rightfully paid to the widow, according to the inten- 
 tion of that will, instead of being kept as an accumulation, for 
 the benefit of the strangers, who were to come after her. But 
 the case, it will be seen, settles no general principle, applica- 
 ble to all wills and all extra dividends ; and it settles nothing 
 applicable to the case imder the will of Mr. Boott, which was 
 all I had to deal with. 
 
 The will of Mr. Boott, at first, provided, simply, that 
 |100,000 should be '^placed out at interest ;" "the interest 
 money on which, as it shall arise, I give to my said wife ;" 
 and (after other provisions, not material to the present point,) 
 " the residue of the above mentioned property I give to m,y 
 children.'" [B. App. p. 3.] Afterwards, by a codicil, the ex- 
 ecutors were authorized to invest the $100,000 "in such 
 stocks, or mortgages, as shall appear best to them ;" and, in 
 that connexion, " the interest money, as it accrues," is again 
 
 * 9 Pickering's Keports, p. 458. 
 t Id. p. 463. 
 
412 
 
 spoken of. [B. App. p. 8.] Not one word, either of the -will, 
 or of the codicil, can be deemed to enlarge, or modify, the 
 effect of the language, first used, respecting the distribution 
 of principal and interest between the widow and the children, 
 or to alter their relative rights, further than such alteration of 
 rights must, necessarily, flow from the simple permission, thus 
 given by the codicil, to invest in stocks. The question, then, 
 for the lawyers to determine, is, whether, under this will, a 
 dividend, not of ordinary income, but proceeding from a sale 
 of property used for the business, out of which the ordinarf 
 income had previously , in part, accrued, was intended by the 
 testator to be classed as " interest money," and to be paid, as 
 such, to the widow. I hold not, with all deference to better 
 judgement, when it shall be cited. As yet, nothing has been 
 cited, which touches that question. 
 
 It was not my intention, however, in the paragraph, which 
 calls forth Mr. Lowell's " serious animadversion," to give an 
 opinion, or provoke a discussion, on an abstract question of 
 law. When I called such a dividend, as I supposed to have 
 been made, " a real reduction of capital," I was looking at 
 the matter, as one of common justice and right accounting, 
 with reference to this particular will, and to facts, which, cer- 
 tainly, were not before the court, in the case Mr. Lowell al- 
 ludes to. Mr. Boott's account does not even show whether 
 the dividend in question has been paid, or credited, to any 
 body. It cannot even be inferred that it has, except on the 
 hypothesis that it may have been included in the lumping 
 credit of near ^275,000, for "income paid to, or for account 
 and by order of, the widow ;" and if so, it seemed to me, 
 that, under the provisions of Mr. Boott's will, such a divi- 
 dend, not being in any sense "interest money," nor repre- 
 senting ordinary income, properly belonged to the children, 
 and not to the widow, even on the most liberal construction 
 of Mr. Boott's intention towards his widow. But, besides the 
 marked difference in the two wills, several other important 
 facts, not before the court in the case cited, now appear, which 
 go to show, that the payment of such a dividend to Mrs. 
 
413 
 
 Boott, if it ever was paid to her, caused a substantial reduc- 
 tion of the capital of the trust fund. 
 
 The arrangements and transfers of property between the 
 two companies, which consisted mainly of the same individ- 
 uals, were such, as Mr. Lowell tells us, [L. p. 70.] that, to do 
 complete justice, it was thought necessary, not only that a 
 sum of money should be paid by one corporation to the other, 
 but that shares should be exchanged, by the individual cor- 
 porators, so as to give to each individual an equal number of 
 shares in each company ; and the stockholder of the Boston 
 Company, who parted with a share of that stock, and received 
 in exchange a share of the Merrimack stock, received with it, 
 in money, thirty per cent, of the par, for difference of value. 
 That thirty per cent., it would seem, was to indemnify the 
 individual, more completely, for the permanent loss he was 
 expected to sustain, as a stockholder of the Boston Manufac- 
 turing Company, by the transfer of a profitable branch of its 
 business, together with the property used in that business, to 
 the Merrimack Manufacturing Company. The direct money 
 payment, by one corporation to the other, was but a small 
 part of the consideration for that, which was transferred. 
 
 2. The shares of the Boston Manufacturing Company, 
 which had, before, been freely bought and sold at $ 1500 a 
 share, [L. pp. 70, 71.] became, thereby, in conjunction with 
 other causes, permanently reduced in value more than fifty 
 per cent. These shares fell, immediately after the arrange- 
 ment, and continued to fall, until, instead of j^lSOO, the mar- 
 ket price has sometimes been as low as five or six hundred 
 dollars a share. A certificate, printed above, [Ante. p. 248.] 
 fixes the price in August, 1830, at $666 67 ; and in Novem- 
 ber, 1844, when manufacturing stocks were unusually high, 
 we find them appraised at $725. [B. App. 55.] Merrimack 
 shares, at the same time, were appraised at ^ 1280 ; though 
 the original par of each was the same, namely, $1000. 
 
 3. Not only has this permanent change occurred in the 
 market value, but, in order to conform to a stubborn fact, the 
 nominal capital of the Boston Manufacturing Company was 
 at length, (long after the decision upon Mr. McLean's will,) 
 
414 
 
 cut down, by a formal vote, from f 600,000 to |450,000; 
 whereby, without any new division of capital, the nominal 
 par of a share was reduced from $1000 to $750. This fact, 
 which is very notorious, happened while I was myself presi- 
 dent of that corporation ; and, although I had no such con- 
 nexion with its affairs, in 1823, as to know, of my own 
 knowledge, precisely, what the arrangements with the Mer- 
 rimack Manufacturing Company then were, I do know, that, 
 when the above-mentioned reduction of capital was under 
 consideration, several years after, the propriety of such a 
 measure was urged, at the time, by those who knew more 
 than I did of the former transactions, upon the ground of this 
 very transfer of the machine shop, with its properties and 
 business, to the Merrimack Company, which had taken place 
 in 1823, and which is the arrangement spoken of by Mr. 
 Lowell. It can no longer be said, therefore, as was said 
 in the cotnse of the opinion of the Supreme Court, cited by 
 Mr. Lowell, that the properties, sold by the Boston Manufac- 
 turing Company, could not be considered to have been a part 
 of its capital stock, for the reason that " we have seen no 
 evidence that they were ever treated as such by the proprie- 
 tors." * 
 
 The question then recurs, with these new facts before us, 
 (perfectly well known to Mr. Lowell, but carefully unnoticed 
 by him,) whether the whole of the money dividend, which 
 arose out of those unusual transactions, (and which was a 
 part of the consideration of a transfer so vitally affecting the 
 intrinsic value of the stock, that it led, at last, to a formal 
 reduction of the nominal capital by twenty-five per cent.) 
 ought to have been paid, by a trustee under the will of Mr. 
 Boott, senior, to his widow, as "interest money," (according 
 to the language of the will,) or, "income," (according to the 
 language of the account,) or, whether it ought net, rather, to 
 have been charged in the executor's account, (which claimed 
 allowances of $1150 and $1300 for the cost of these shares, 
 then worth only ^§725,) as a partial restoration of so much 
 
 * 9 Pickering's Eeports, p. 463. 
 
415 
 
 of the original capital, so invested, and so diminished by the 
 effect of that transfer ? What has the decision in the case of 
 Mr. McLean's will, under a different state of facts, to do with 
 this question ? Why does Mr. Lowell cite it, as a case in 
 point, without disclosing the altered state of facts, with 
 which he is perfectly familiar ? And what becomes of the 
 value, or safety, of a reversionary interest, under a will, 
 which intends to provide nothing but a fair and ordinary in- 
 come for the annuitant, and to preserve and secure the capi- 
 tal, unimpaired, for the reversioner, if the trust fund may be 
 thus invested, and dividends, from such sources, destroying 
 the intrinsic value of the stock, may be paid away under the 
 name of "interest money?" 
 
 I cannot perceive, therefore, that I have any material error 
 to correct in my former statement on this subject. But 
 whether I have, or not, and whether I am usually right or 
 wrong, either in facts or law, I believe my readers will agree 
 with me in this; — that Mr. Boott's account, as drawn up by 
 Mr. Lowell, ought to have stated and shown what he did 
 with that extra dividend, accruing on the eighteen shares, 
 which he held at the time it was made ; — that it ought, also, 
 to have shown, whether, in the individual transactions be- 
 tween himself and Mr. Kirk Boott, whereby Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott became the owner of twenty-one shares, in 1826, the 
 estate got its equivalent for the purchase, at that date, of those 
 shares at $1300 each, when they were worth only |900 ; — 
 and that it ought, also, to show, to whom the dividends on 
 those twenty-one shares, including all extra dividends in 
 question, went, from 1823 to 1826, during which time the 
 shares were held by Mr. Kirk Boott. About all these mat- 
 ters, we are left just as much in the dark, after Mr. Lowell's 
 explanations, as we were on the face of the account. 
 
416 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 MK. KIKK BOOTt's LETTER OF MAT 10, 1833. POSITION OF THE 
 TBUST FUND AT THAT TIME. 
 
 Having, in the last chapter, disposed of another false issue, 
 thrown in the way by Mr. Lowell, I may now return to the 
 state of affairs, at the time of the release, given by most of 
 the heirs to Mr. Boott, in April, 1833., 
 
 We left him, in May, 1831, urged, in the strongest possible 
 manner, to state and settle his family accounts ; but preferring 
 to throw up his Suffolk agency, and the proposed mission to 
 England. [Ante, Ch. 33, Ch. 34.] We left his friends, Mr. 
 Khk Boott, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Lowell, and myself, solicitous 
 to bring about a general settlement of all subjects of embar- 
 rassment, and to help him into some new and profitable line 
 of business. [Ante, Ch. 34] So far as his difficulties in 
 connexion with Lyman & Ralston stood in the way, I have 
 shown that they were removed by the settlement, effected, 
 through Mr. Lowell, in September, 1831. [Ante, Ch. 35.] 
 So far as he may have felt hampered by debts to his own fami- 
 ly, which he could never hope to pay, I have shown that he 
 was discharged in April, 1833, by every heir in this country, 
 who had an interest in the question, from all liability for any 
 thing beyond the particular trust funds, in which others, be- 
 sides the general heirs, had an interest. [Ante, p. 373.] So 
 much of his father's estate as those trust funds amounted to, 
 it was hoped that he might, eventually, make good, by en- 
 gaging in some new pursuit, and earning the means of pay- 
 ing off, gradually, his private incumbances upon them. 
 
 Respecting the release, Mr. Lowell says : — 
 
 " This was equivalent to an act of amnesty for the past, so far as there 
 was any thing to forgive, and a pledge of confidence for the future. If 
 any movement was to be made to inquire into the past, it should have 
 been made then ; if any action was meditated for a change of trustee, 
 then was the moment to make it." [L. p. 195.] 
 
417 
 
 I have already explained the motives which led Mr. Kirk 
 Boott and myself to acquiesce, reluctantly, in a state of things, 
 which could not be helped, nor moved in without mischief 
 to all concerned ; and I have alluded to the altered position 
 of affairs, when a removal from the trust was effected under 
 the compromise of 1844, — a subject, to which I shall have 
 occasion to return. That the position of the trust fund, after 
 the release of April, 1833, was viewed by Mr. Kirk Boott as 
 it was by myself, and that there was the most entire har- 
 mony of action and feeling between us, on this painful sub- 
 ject, appears by his letter, printed below. 
 
 LETTER FEOM Mk. KIKK BOOTT to E. BROOKS. 
 
 "Lowell, May 10, 1833. 
 " Mt Deak Sik : 
 
 "After I saw you on 'Change, this morning, my mother requested 
 me not to mention, to any one, the interview I Jiad with her on Wed- 
 nesday evening, and I will therefore thank you to forget what I com- 
 municated. 
 
 I have some misgivings that if I meddle at all, I may do more 
 harm than good; and I am not sure that any of the parties exactly 
 know what they would be at. If I can put into shape what I feel, so 
 as to incur little risk o? giving offence, 1 think I shall W7-ite to J. W. B. ; 
 but 1 am very sensible liow ticklish an affair this is. If you can give 
 me the benefit of your advice, you may depend upon it, I can keep it 
 to myself. I still think the best thing mother can do, is to leave the 
 house in the Square, and take a smaller one. And I am satisfied, if 
 it should be so considered by others, she would consent. I have some 
 thoughts of going down on Sunday ; in which case, I hope to be able 
 to see you in the evening. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 KIRK BOOTT." 
 
 This "contemporaneous exposition" shows two things, 
 ■conclusively, let Mr. Lowell say what he will to the con- 
 trary: — 1. That Mr. Kirk Boott thought his mother's pecun- 
 iary condition so reduced, that she ought " to leave the 
 house in the square, and take a smaller one." This alludes 
 to a particular provision of his father's will, which empow- 
 ered the executor, with the consent of the widow, to raise a 
 new fund for her benefit, by selling the family mansion in 
 
418 
 
 Bowdoin-Square, buying a smaller house with part of the 
 proceeds, and investing the surplus, arising from the sale, so 
 that she might receive an income from it. This was to be 
 done, (in the language of the will,) " if, from any accident, 
 the money, which is to be laid out and held in trust to pro- 
 cure her an income for her support, should suffer loss so as 
 not to be sufficient for her comfortable siipport." [B. App. 
 p. 9.] Mr. Kirk Boott thought, in 1833, that this case had 
 occurred, and ought to be acted upon, — ^as the letter shows. 
 
 2. It shows, besides, the peculiarities, I speak of, in Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott's character, which made him totally impracti- 
 cable, and unapproachable, even by such a brother, touching 
 his administration of the family property. Mr. Kirk Boott 
 feared, that, if he meddled at all, in a delicate matter then 
 causing uneasiness, and connected with Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 affairs, it might " do more harm than good." He dared not 
 enter into a free conversation on the subject with his brother, 
 knowing that such interference would be taken as an offence. 
 He was sensible " how ticklish an affair " it was, even to 
 write to him about it, in the most guarded manner ; especially, 
 after what he had previously written, as we have seen, with- 
 out effect. 
 
 This letter, alone, completely puts to the rout a host of 
 Mr. Lowell's statements, arguments and suggestions. Was 
 Mrs. Boott's trust fund, really,- whole and safe, as he pretends, 
 when Mr. Kirk Boott thought the time had come for the ex- 
 ecutor, (who had just been released from all present claims of 
 his brothers and sisters,) to carry into effect the clause of the 
 will, above cited, in order to make a new provision for his 
 mother's " comfortable support " ? Did he doubt such mal- 
 administration of these trust funds, without dishonesty of in- 
 tention, as I have described, even while he thought his 
 brother a safe and competent person to be employed in a dif- 
 ferent kind of agency ? Does he not bear direct testimony to 
 some of the circumstances, which made it impossible, without 
 a rupture, to get a settlement of accounts? Does he not 
 show, distinctly, that singularity of character, in Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, which caused his attached and confiding relatives to 
 
419 
 
 permit him to keep their interests wrapped up, unaccounted 
 for, ill his own impenetrable reserve and mystery? Was Mr. 
 Kirk Boott, let me ask, « blinded by excited feelings of ani- 
 mosity," as Mr. Lowell says I am, [L. p. 106.] when he took 
 this view of affairs ? Can it be true, as Mr. Lowell pretends, 
 that, at the time of the release, the heirs were indebted to 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, for a small over-advance of three or 
 four thousand dollars, instead of his being indebted to them 
 in a much larger sum? Was it " that they might not even 
 know the sacrifice he had thus made on their behalf," that 
 "he put otF the settlement of his accounts"? [L. p. 58.] 
 For so Mr. Lowell pretends to explain the fact, — suggesting, 
 that, " when, in 1833, the heirs came forward and tendered 
 to him a discharge in full, he was touched by this mark of 
 their affection and confidence " ; and " accepted the dis- 
 charge, mentally resolving" (for Mr. Lowell assumes to 
 know even Mr. Boott's secret thoughts, when occasion re- 
 quires it,) " never to demand of them any restitution." [L. 
 p. 58.] 
 
 Against all this, the facts, which have now been shown, 
 speak, with sufficient distinctness. The trust fund, for the 
 support of Mrs. Boott, was lamentably deficient ; and could 
 only be restored through the large income from the manufac- 
 turing stocks, in which it was invested, (if they could be 
 preserved,) combined with prudent management, economy of 
 expenditure, and the acquisition, by Mr. J. Wright Boott, of 
 new means to pay off his private debts, through some profit- 
 able employment. The heirs believed, at least, (so much, 
 Mr. Lowell is obliged tacitly to admit, in accounting for the 
 discharge,) that more was due to them than they had yet 
 received. Notwithstanding the caution of Mr. Kirk Boott 
 and myself to make no unnecessary disclosures, that might 
 harm Mr. Boott, it was found that — 
 
 " The disastrous result of the business at the Mill Dam had at last 
 hecome matter of notoriety.- It had come to be understood in the 
 family, that he had been a great loser, and that property had been 
 lost, in which the heirs of his father's estate had an interest, though 
 the extent of the calamity was known only to Mr. Kirk Boott and 
 
420 
 
 myself. It was apparent, or at least it was believed, that the fact of 
 his indebtedness to the heirs, among other things, preyed heavily 
 upon him. Every member of the family felt great sympathy for him 
 under the misfortune. He was himself most solicitous to get relieved 
 from some part of his burden." [B. p. 45.] 
 
 Those were the circumstances, as I formerly stated them, 
 under which Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, hoping to place Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott in a position to retrieve his affairs, proposed 
 to, and obtained from, the other heirs, the release, of April, 
 1833, — every heir understanding that he freely gave up all 
 that was then due to him, and Mr. William Boott, in particu- 
 lar, understanding, (because his brother Wright had told him 
 so,) that the right, he gave up, represented $20,000. The 
 reader may now compare the probability of Mr. Lowell's 
 statement, and of mine, in this part of the history. He may 
 judge, for himself, whether I have been guilty of any exag- 
 geration, and whether it is I, or Mr. Lowell, who misrepre- 
 sents the realities of the case. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 POSITION OF MR. BOOTT, AND OF THE TRUST FUND, AND OF THE 
 DEBT TO MR. LOWELL, AFTER THE SETTLEMENT OF THE 
 GUARDIANSHIP ACCOUNTS, IN 1835. 
 
 The only other important event, which occurred, to alter 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott's pecuniary condition, was a settlement 
 with his wards, in January, 1835. 
 
 This makes another convenient resting place, from which 
 we may see, with considerable exactness, how he, and the 
 family trust fund, stood. 
 
 I have heretofore shown, that all the property, put in trust 
 
421 
 
 in May, 1831, for the purpose of securing the guardianship 
 debts and the principal annuity fund, was, at its then value, 
 insufficient to pay those debts, and form that fund, by more 
 than $50,000. [Ante, p. 353.] In the mean time, there had 
 accrued, upon the manufacturing stocks, (one hundred and 
 twelve shares of Merrimack and Boston together,*) nearly 
 four years income. This may be set down at an average of 
 at least ten per cent, per annum, making an aggregate, for the 
 period from May, 1831, to January, 1835, of about |40,000.-t- 
 Of this sum, not more than one half was, probably, taken up 
 by Mrs. Boott, in the support of her establishment ; for she 
 lived, at that time, with rigid economy. The other half, say 
 $20,000, was left free, and capable of being applied by Mr. 
 Boott to the payment of interest, and the extinguishment of 
 some part of the principal of his debts. Whether it was so 
 applied, or not, we shall presently see. 
 
 I have shown, that, in November, 1831, Mr. Boott reduced 
 his debt to Mr. Lowell, from $30,000 to $25,000, by a partial 
 payment, probably from the cash received out of the sale to 
 Lyman & Ralston, [Ante, p. 359.] Mr. Lowell has shown, 
 that the debt to Mr. Sturgis, of $21,000, was, soon after, 
 assigned to him, Mr. Lowell. [L. p. 96.] Thus the total 
 debt to Mr. Lowell became $46,000 ; at, which, he says, it 
 
 * There is a slight seeming confusion as to the exact number of these shares, 
 when spolten of at different dates, arising thus : Mr. Boott's memorandum of 
 1830, which intended to embrace all the property, except that which he held for 
 the r. Boott family, enumerates one hundred and eleven. In 1831, ninety-two 
 shares received the executor's mark, and twenty more, instead of nineteen, were 
 transferred to me in trust ; and these twenty were transferred by me, after the 
 settlement of the guardianship accounts, to Mr. "Boott, as executor, agreeably to 
 the provisions of the trust. This made one hundred and twdve which he admitted 
 to have come to him, as executor, ftto of these he sold, in 1837; [B. App. p. 31.1 
 and one hundred and ten appear in the probate accounts, of 1844. 
 
 t The actual dividends, between May 22, 1831, and Jan. 1, 1835, were I 
 find, $450 upon each share of Memmack, and $230 upon each share of Boston. 
 The whole number of the former was seventy-three ; namely, forty-two pledged 
 to Mr. Sturgis, twenty-five pledged to Mr. Lowell, and six conveyed in trust to 
 me. Of the latter, there were twenty-five pledged to Mr. Lowell, and fourteen 
 conveyed in trust to me ; in all, thirty-nine. Hence, the reader will perceive, that 
 the exact amount of the dividends, in that period, was $41,820. 
 
422 
 
 stood " after January, 1834 ;" [L. p. 97.] how long after, he 
 does not tell us. Now it may have been increased, after 
 January, 1834, and I believe was ; but I think it certain, 
 that the debt could not have been diminished, until after the 
 settlement of the guardianship accounts, early in 1835 ; for 
 that settlement demanded all Mr. Boott's cash resources. 
 
 The interest on the debts of $30,000 and $21,000 to Messrs. 
 Lowell and Sturgis, from May to November, 1831, and on 
 the debt of $46,000 to Mr. Lowell from November, 1831, to 
 the early part of 1835, must have ainounted to near $10,000. 
 This, being paid out of the dividends on the pledged stocks, 
 would have left, after allowing $20,000 for Mrs. Boott's 
 expenditure, about $10,000 of the imexpended income from 
 all the stocks, capable of being applied to the guardian- 
 ship debt. The collections, made by me, from the property 
 I held in trust under the assignment to me of May 23, 1S31, 
 (exclusive of the dividends from manufacturing stock, already 
 allowed for above,) were, for principal and interest on Lilly's 
 note, about $5200, as the receipts show. [B. App. 26-8.] 
 From these two sources, then, (my collections, and the unex- 
 pended income of the manufacturing stocks,) there was a 
 fimd of about $15,000, applicable to the gradual reduction of 
 the guardianship debt. 
 
 The probate accoimts show, that Mr. Boott had subscribed, 
 for account of his wards, to the Lowell Railroad, and the 
 Lawrence Manufacturing Company; and that the assess- 
 ments, paid by him upon these shares, prior to the settlement 
 of the accoixnts, had amounted, in the three last years, to 
 about $11,000.* On two of the accounts there was, also, 
 during the same period, an investment of $10,000 in stock of 
 the National Insurance Company ; and the cash paid over, at 
 the final settlement, on all the accounts, appears to have ex- 
 ceeded ^15,000. 
 
 * Assessments paid on nine shares of Lawrence Manufactaring 
 
 Company, were $900 per share, $8100 
 
 Assessments paid on eight shares of Boston and Lowell Eailroad, 
 
 were $400 per share, - - - 3200 
 
 11,300 
 
423 
 
 To eflfect so large a payment to the wards, in January, or 
 February, 1835, it is plain that moneys must have been bor- 
 rowed. This we shall see by looking back to the state of 
 the debt in 1831, and to the means applicable to its reduction. 
 
 The whole guardianship debt, principal and interest, had 
 stood, in 1831, (immediately before the partial payment 
 to one of the wards, who was married in that year,) at 
 about, [Ante, p. 235.] 646,500 
 
 The principal assets applicable to its reduc- 
 tion, before the final settlement in 1835, 
 are shown to have been, 1. The proceeds 
 of the store, |16,000 
 
 2. The cash proceeds from the sale of the 
 
 foundry, less $5000 paid to Mr. Lowell, 2,600 
 
 We may now add, 1. Dividends from manufac- 
 turing stock, beyond Mrs. Boott's estimated 
 expenditure, and deducting interest paid to 
 Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, say 10,000 
 
 2. Collections made by me from Lilly, 5,200 
 
 33,800 
 
 This leaves, still to be raised, in January, 
 
 1835, about 12,700 
 
 And to this must be added the further bal- 
 ance of interest, which had meanwhile 
 accrued, (between 1831 and 1835,) on the 
 guardianship accounts, amounting, accord- 
 ing to Mr. Tyler, to about 1,100 
 
 13,800 
 
 Now how could this money have been raised ? None of 
 the manufacturing stock appears to have been sold, at any 
 time, after 1831, except two shares of Merrimack; and they 
 were not sold till 1837. [B. App. p. 31.] Lilly's note and 
 mortgage, which I surrendered to Mr. Boott at or about the 
 time of the settlement, was not sold to Mr. Welch, until 
 October, 1835, — that is, nine months after the settlement. 
 [Ante, p. 290.] 
 
 The necessary inference is, that, to eifect the settlement 
 with the wards, some new temporary loan must have been 
 made, the amount of which can only he guessed by a tolera- 
 ble approximation. How and with whom, and on what se- 
 
424 
 
 curity. this was effected, Mr. Lowell's accounts with Mr. Boott 
 might probably explain ; and the fact, if explained, might have 
 some further bearing on the question of Mr. Lowell's lien on 
 the manafacturing stocks, in 1844, as against the estate. With 
 seventy-one shares of these manufacturing stocks in his hands, 
 estimated at the prices of 1835, Mr. Lowell, if he chose to 
 treat them as the property of Mr. Boott, might very well 
 have made all the further advance that was required. But, on 
 these matters, the " Reply" still leaves us " groping about in 
 utter darkness and ignorance." [L. p. 72.] 
 
 A large part of Lilly's note, however, appears to have been 
 eventually realized, as well as the value of the two shares of 
 Merrimack, sold by Mr. Boott, as executor, in 1837, [B. App. 
 p. 31.] although no such transaction appears in that probate 
 account of 1844, which Mr. Lowell says is a complete account 
 of all the executor's dealings.* If a temporary loan was made, 
 as I conjecture, in 1835, to enable Mr. Boott to settle with his 
 wards, the above mentioned means, when they accrued, con- 
 tributed to pay it off. We may, therefore, well enough view 
 the collections from these sources as if they had gone, at once, 
 and directly, towards the payment of the guardianship debt, 
 instead of reaching it through the medium of a temporary loan. 
 This view is taken for the single purpose of estimating Mr. 
 Boott's position, and that of the trust fund, after the guard- 
 ianship debt was finally paid. And the case was simply this. 
 There remained, in 1835, wo property of Mr. Boott standing 
 in his own private name. There did remaiu standing in his 
 name as executor, and in the name of Mr. Lowell, his pledgee, 
 the same property, which appears in the probate account of 
 1844. This property stood subject to the pledge to Mr. 
 Lowell, for a debt, which was then, by his own admission, 
 at least $46,000 ; and, I believe, was in fact considerably 
 
 * I do not count, as a sale of stock, the twenty-three shares xif new stock, issued 
 to Mr. Boott as executor, in November, 1838, and immediately sold by him; [B, 
 App. p. 31.] because this was a species of dividend, and might, perhaps, have 
 been reckoned as income. If so, it may have been included in the lumping debit 
 and credit of $274,686 36. And it may not. Who knows ? — except Mr. Lowell. 
 It certainly does not appear in the account in any other way. Yet this is an item 
 of $23,000, or more ; and I, an heir, am, to this day in doubt about it ! 
 
425 
 
 larger, in consequence of some further temporary advance. 
 But, to avoid conjectural statements, as far as possible, I take 
 the debt as he himself has admitted it to have been, "after 
 January, 1834." [L. p. 97.] 
 This whole property, at its value in May, 1831, has 
 
 been shown [Ante, p. 379.] to have been about .fill, 000 
 If Mr. Lowell's debt is to be paid by the property, 
 
 taken at that valuation, it subtracts 46,000 
 
 The clear balance left for the trust fund, was, 
 
 in that case, only 65,000 
 
 If, on the other hand, the manufacturing shares and 
 the stable, be taken, as Mr. Lowell contends they 
 should be, at their cost to Mr. Boott, the whole 
 property was, still, only [Ante, p. 356.] $121,500 
 
 and deducting Mr. Lowell's debt of 46,000 
 
 There remained but 75,500 
 
 On either principle of valuation, the deficiency in Mrs. 
 Boott 's trust fund, was, early in 1835, from near 25,000 to near 
 $35,000 ; and if we admit the fact, deduced from the figures 
 of the probate account, that there had been an over-pajrment 
 to the heirs of about $3700, which had encroached upon the 
 trust fund, and further admit that this ought to be allowed to 
 the executor, notwithstanding that he had no right to make 
 such an encroachment, the deficiency must still stand at from 
 $21,000 to $31,000. The actual market value of the stocks, 
 in 1835, had they been then used to pay Mr. Lowell's debt, 
 might vary this deficiency somewhat ; but, taking them at 
 their average value, the variation would not be a favourable 
 one for the fund, the Merrimack never being enough above 
 par, (which was its cost to Mr. Boott,) to overcome the loss 
 upon the Boston, compared with its alleged cost of $1150 
 and $1300 per share. The deficiency could rarely, if ever, 
 have been reduced in that way below $20,000. 
 
 Now is it not justly amazing, that in the face of this in- 
 disputable fact, existing as late as 1835, Mr. Lowell without 
 
426 
 
 pretending that there was any other property than I have 
 above accounted for, or that Mr. Boott was, afterwards, in any 
 business, by which either property or income was acquired, 
 should have ventured to draw up an account, in 1844, claim- 
 ing a balance of $25,000, as due from the estate to Mr. Boott, 
 and should have the assurance to insist, up to the present mo- 
 ment that it is a true and complete account, and further to 
 insist, that no part of the income from the trust property was 
 ever applied to the payment of Mr. Boott's debts ? 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 appropriation of trust funds to the payment op mb. 
 boott's debts. 
 
 The suggestion, at the close of the last chapter, brings us, 
 fairly, to the consideration of the largest item in the account, 
 which has not yet been touched, — the sum of $274,686 36, 
 charged in a lump, for " income received on the trust fund 
 for the widow, from March, 1818, to November, 1844;" and, 
 also, credited in a lump, by a precisely corresponding sum, 
 under the head of " Income paid to, or for account, and by 
 order of, the widow." 
 
 This credit I formerly spoke of as " fictitious ;" [B. p. 
 116.] to which Mr. Lowell excepts. [L. p. 94.] I also said, 
 that " he [Mr. J. Wright Boott] was enabled, by the aid of 
 the large dividends, which accrued upon that stock, [the 
 manufacturing stock] to discharge all his personal debts, ex- 
 cept the debt to Mr. Lowell," [B. p. 57.] meaning, by that 
 exception, the $25,000, remaining due at the time of the 
 making up of the probate account, which, from Mr. Lowell's 
 
427 
 
 concealment of the subsequent advance to Mr. Sturgis, and 
 other probable advances, I supposed to be the balance of the 
 old $30,000 loan, reduced by the payment of $5,000 in 
 November 1831, instead of the balance of a series of loans 
 and advances, as it now seems to have been. The amount 
 of the debts, so paid out of the income of the trust property, 
 I speciiied as not less, towards the end of 1843, than " about 
 ^60,000." [B. p. 142.] 
 
 These passages Mr. Lowell selects for his answer, which 
 is as follows : — 
 
 " Let us look at this a little more narrowly. Mrs. Boott's income, 
 as shown by the accounts, had been for twenty-seven years 8275,000, 
 or a little more than 810,000 a year. For the thirteen years from 
 1831 to 184-1, the gross income of all the manufacturing stock did not 
 exceed $12,000 a year. It should be remembered, that Mr. Bootfc 
 held, through all this period, stocks which had cost him $120,000, 
 while the trust fund for his mother was precisely 3100,000. He had, 
 therefore, a perfect right to retain one sixth part of the income of 
 those stocks, amounting, as I have said, to SI 2,000 ; that is, he had a 
 right to retain $2000 a year to be appropriated, to his own use, or to 
 the payment of the principal and interest of his debts. It was for 
 ^Ai'i very j0!(rj50S8, that the debt to me was permitted to continue, in- 
 stead of being paid off by a sale of a portion of the stock in 1831." 
 [L. p. 92.] 
 
 The substance of the answer, therefore, is : — 
 
 1. A distinct admission of the fact, that, for the thirteen 
 years from 1831 to 1844, Mr. Boott did retain and appropriate 
 to his own use, in the payment of the principal and interest 
 of his debts, $2000 a year, out of the gross income of the 
 manufacturing stocks, under-estimated by Mr. Lowell at 
 $ 12,000 a year. This $2000, annually subtracted for thir- 
 teen years, amounts, without interest, to $26,000. 
 
 2. A justification of the fact, upon the ground that he had 
 a right so to retain and appropriate one sixth of the income, 
 because the stocks had cost him $120,000, while the trust 
 fund for his mother was precisely $100,000. 
 
 My reply is, in the first place, that the admission is very 
 far short of the truth, and that the amount, so appropriated, 
 considerably exceeds my former statement. In the next, that 
 the justification is nothing but a puerile evasion, depending. 
 
428 
 
 not only upon the assumed right of Mr. Boott to charge the 
 stocks to the trust fund at their original cost to him, instead 
 of their fair value in 1831, hut, also, upon the application of 
 that assumed right to the state of the accounts in 1844, after 
 his private debts, out of the family, had all heen paid off, ex- 
 cept the $25,000 due to Mr. Lowell, instead of applying it to 
 the state of the accounts before these debts had been paid, 
 although the very question is how, and out of what fund, 
 the payments were made. 
 
 We have just seen, that, as late as 1835, Mr. Boott owed to 
 Mr. Lowell at least $46,000, probably more ; that he had no 
 property left, to pay it with, except that, which he held as 
 executor, or which he had transferred, as executor, to his 
 private pledgees ; and that, taking the whole of this property 
 at the rate, which Mr. Lowell contends for, and at which it 
 is charged in the account, that is, $121,500, there was, at 
 that time, (1S35,) after deducting the incumbrance, (esti- 
 mated at $46,000 only,) but $75,500, instead of $100,000, 
 left for Mrs. Boott's trust fund. [Ante, p. 425.] The change, 
 that had occurred in 1844, was, that $21,000, out of the 
 $46,000 of debt, had been paid off, — reducing the incum- 
 brance to $25,000. Hence, the state of the fund, at the 
 moment of making the account in 1844, was, that the execu- 
 tor held property, said to have cost him $121,500 
 
 subject to a pledge to Mr. Lowell of 25,000 
 
 and leaving clear for the trust fund, valuing 
 
 the stocks at their cost, 96,500 
 
 Mr. Lowell, instead of first paying himself out of the 
 pledged property, as he had a right to do if he still retained a 
 lawful lien upon it, chose to part with his lien, and to sur- 
 render the whole property to the executor, after having, first, 
 made up an account for the executor, which exhibited an 
 apparent accountability (leaving out the mansion-house,) for 
 the sum of $96,284 55 only, and exhibited property, by 
 charging it at its original cost to Mr. Boott, to the amount 
 (without the mansion-house,) of $121,500. The difference 
 between these two sums, being $25,215 45, is that, which is 
 
429 
 
 claimed as the private property of Mr. Boott, in the shape of 
 an alleged " cash balance due to the executor." [L. p. 39.] 
 This, supposing both parts of the account perfectly true, fur- 
 nished a fund just sufficient to pay Mr. Lowell. 
 
 But, granting all this to have been true, in 1844, the ques- 
 tion recurs, out of what fund had the principal of the $21,000 
 debt been extinguished, since 1835 ? and out of what fund 
 had the interest, since 1831, on the whole $46,000 been kept 
 down ? Why, says Mr. Lowell, since " Mr. Boott held, 
 through all this period, stocks, which had cost him $120,000, 
 while the trust fund for his mother was precisely $100,000," 
 the account proves that one sixth of the stocks, (about $20,000 
 in cost,) belonged to Mr. Boott, and, consequently, one sixth 
 of the income, or $2000 per armum, was his own. 
 
 Very well. Granting that, also, for the present, what was 
 the debt in 1835 ? At least $46,000. [Ante, Ch. 42.] And 
 what was the interest upon it ? At least $2760 per annum. 
 But, in 1844, the whole of this interest had been kept down, 
 and $21,000 of the principal paid off. Now will Mr. Lowell 
 have the goodness to tell us how this was done, out of an in- 
 come of $2000 a year? Certainly |1500 a year was needed 
 to keep down the annual interest on the $25,000 of debt to 
 Mr. Lowell, which, in 1844, still remained impaid. There 
 was, then, but $500 a year, out of the $2000, applicable an- 
 nually, from 1835 to 1844, to the reduction of the $21,000 
 debt ; and the mere interest upon that debt amounted to $1260 
 a year, so long as the principal was unreduced. Instead, 
 therefore, of Mr. Boott's being enabled to pay off the $21,000 
 debt, and its interest, out of the $2000 a year, while interest 
 was kept down on the $25,000 debt besides, it follows, as 
 clearly as that two and two make four, that the $21,000 debt 
 ought to have accumulated, at the rate of $760 a year, unless 
 something else than the income from one sixth of the stocks 
 were taken to pay it with. Present property of Mr. Boott 
 there was none, except his interest, if he had any, as Mr. 
 Lowell pretends, in these stocks. The "Reply" does not 
 even suggest that Mr; Boott owned any other species of 
 property, except his reversionary interests in the trust fund 
 
430 
 
 and the mansion-house ; and these he never disposed of, for 
 the payment of debt. We have already seen that every thing 
 else, formerly owned by Mr. Boott, had proved insufficient to 
 pay off his guardianship debt, to which it has been above 
 appropriated. [Ante, Ch. 42.] It follows, then, from Mr. 
 Lowell's own premises, that $760 a year of interest, from 
 1835 to 1844, amounting in those nine years to upwards of 
 $6800, together with $21,000 of principal, in all $27,800, 
 must have been paid out of the income of those Jive sixths 
 of the stocks, which Mr. Lowell admits Mr. Boott did not 
 own ; in other words, that so much, at least, of his private 
 debt must have been paid out of the admitted income of the 
 admitted trust fund. 
 
 But, further, this supposed private interest of one sixth, in 
 the stocks held by Mr. Boott nominally as executor, (admit- 
 ting the right to charge them at cost,) is an interest first 
 created contemporaneously with the making of the account. 
 It is created by Mr. Lowell's own act, in then transferring 
 all the stocks, held by him in pledge, to Mr. Boott, as execu- 
 tor, instead of first paying himself out of them. Before that 
 transfer, the equitable interest of one sixth and more, in the 
 stocks, justly belonged, not to Mr. Boott, but to Mr. Lowell, 
 the pledgee, unless he had lost his lien by his private deal- 
 ings with Mr. Boott ; for the stocks had been pledged as se- 
 curity for a debt, on which $25,000 was, in 1844, still due, 
 and due from a man, who had no other means to pay with, 
 unless Mr. Lowell had been content to exchange his right to 
 present payment for a mere reversionary interest ; and that 
 was never done. Mr. Boott, certainly, could not have, or 
 acquire, a personal interest, by any right or act of his own, in 
 these pledged stocks, until he had first redeemed them from 
 the pledge by some means of his own. Their value, beyond 
 the pledge, Mr. Lowell admits, belonged to the estate. Mr. 
 Lowell, then, confers the interest on him, if he gets it at all, 
 by transferring the stocks clear of that debt. Just look, then, 
 at the curiosity of the argument. 
 
 My allegation is, that Mr. Boott had been, for years back, 
 paying his own debts, to a very large amount, out of the in^ 
 
431 
 
 come of his trust funds, which were invested in certain 
 stocks. Mr. Lowell, on the 18th of November, 1844, does 
 an act, which on that day, for the first time, vests in Mr. 
 Boott, personally, as he contends, a certain limited interest, 
 equal, as he says, to one sixth, in those same stocks ; which 
 interest, up to that time, had, for many years, belonged to 
 Mr. Lowell. And he then says, in effect, " Mr. Boott could 
 not, in former years, have been paying off his debts out of 
 the income of the stocks held in trust, because, you perceive, 
 he himself, now, owns one sixth of these stocks, and conse- 
 quently one sixth of the income must always have been his, 
 and might well have been applied to the payment of his own 
 debts." This looks very much like the " attributing of an 
 antecedent event to a subsequent cause," — which Mr. Lowell 
 says, " requires a peculiar constitution of mind," and to him 
 " would have been impossible." [L. p. 12.] 
 
 But, although Mr. Lowell's admission, as above shown, es- 
 tablishes the fact, beyond dispute, that Mr. Boott had thus 
 applied near $28,000 of the income from his trust funds, in 
 the years from 1835 to 1844, this, I have said, is far short of 
 the truth. I now propose to show the extent, to which this 
 was done, from the time of the reconstruction of a trust fund, 
 in May, 1831, to the date of the probate account in Novem- 
 ber, 1844. And, for this, it is only necessary to look back 
 to the state of affairs just before May, 1831, and to see, once 
 more, what the debts were, and what the means. 
 
 For this purpose I begin at the time of the sale of the store, 
 in February, 1831. I exclude the debts of the foundry, and 
 of Lyman & Ralston, whether more or less, because they were 
 all wiped off, so far as Mr. Boott is concerned, by the settle- 
 ment of September, 1831 ; and I count the cash, which Mr. 
 Lowell says came from that settlement, as means for the pay- 
 ment of other debts. I exclude all question about the partic- 
 ular trust fund, for the aunts, of |11,111 12, and about in- 
 debtedness beyond the trust funds, and I count the liability 
 to the estate at $100,000 only, — the amount of the required 
 fund for Mrs. Boott. I take the property, too, standing in the 
 name of the executor, at its alleged cost to Mr. Boott, as Mr. 
 
432 
 
 Lowell requires. I take all other assets, which Mr. Boott 
 then had, at what they actually produced, and charge against 
 him none but the unquestionable debts. That is, I take, 
 throughout, Mr. Lowell's own premises, except for the amount 
 of the guardianship debt, which I take as it now stands cor- 
 rected by Mr. Boott's own guardianship accounts : — 
 
 The amount of that debt, before the partial payment from 
 the proceeds of the store, was, as Mr. Tyler shows from 
 those accounts, interest included, [Ante. p. 235.] about S46,500 
 
 The further balance of interest, which accrued before the 
 final payment to the wards, in 1835, according to the high- 
 ly favorable principle for computing an interest account 
 adopted by Mr. Tyler, was about 
 
 Total guardianship debt paid oif, after the sale of the store, 
 in 1831, 
 
 To this debt I now propose to apply all the means Mr. Boott 
 had, except the property, which stands in his executor's 
 account, and its income, and except the sum of S5000, 
 which he paid to Mr. Lowell, in November, 1831, viz. 
 
 Proceeds of store, [L. p. 86.] $16,000 
 
 Cash proceeds of foundry, less the $5000 payment 
 to Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 79.] 
 
 Collected by me, on Lilly's note, principal and in- 
 terest, [B. App. pp. 26-28.] 
 
 Amount realized from the final sale of that note to 
 Mr. "Welch, in October, 1835, which I apply, by 
 anticipation, in January, 1835, [Ante. p. 290.] 
 
 Two shares of Merrimack, sold by the executor, 
 in March, 1837, [B. App. p. 31.] which I also 
 apply by anticipation, and assume to have pro- 
 duced 33 per cent, advance,* 
 
 Dividends on same, from May, 1831, to January, 
 1835, t 
 
 2,624 
 
 5,212 
 
 5,500 
 
 2,660 
 
 1,060 
 
 1,100 
 
 47,600 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 UUjVl/U 
 
 
 14,544 
 
 * This, I believe, was about the market 
 
 price 
 
 at that time. 
 
 
 
 t They were : 1831, May, 
 
 per share, 
 
 
 
 
 $80 
 
 
 " Nov. 
 
 (C 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 
 1832, May 
 
 " 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 
 " Nov. 
 
 C( 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 1833, May 
 
 C( 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 
 " Nov. 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 
 70 
 
 
 1834, May 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 
 " Nov. 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 
 $530 
 
433 
 
 It is plain, since we have exhausted all other means, that 
 this balance of $14,544 could have been paid from nothing 
 but the income of the stocks comprised in the account. It 
 may have been paid, for the moment, it is true, in 1835, by- 
 some new temporary loan; but, if so, that loan, with the in- 
 terest upon it, must finally have been paid out of the income 
 from those stocks, for the reason above stated, namely, that 
 we have exhausted all the other means, by appropriating them, 
 directly, to the guardianship debt ; and it is most favourable 
 for Mr. Boott, on the score of interest, to take no account of 
 such new loan. This settles one item. 
 
 Then comes the original debt to Mr. Lowell. That debt, 
 in May, 1831, was $30,000; in November, 1831, it was re- 
 duced, by a payment, which I have above taken from the 
 cash proceeds of the foundry, to $25,000. It remained at 
 that, in November, 1844. Consequently, there was paid upon 
 it, six months interest on 30,000, and thirteen years interest 
 on $25,000, (amounting to $20,400,) which, for the same 
 reason, could only have been paid out of this income. This 
 is another item. 
 
 Next comes the debt to Mr. Sturgis, which, in May, 1831, 
 was $21,000. It was transferred to Mr. Lowell in November, 
 1831, but remained unreduced till "after January, 1834," as 
 the " Reply" tells us, [L. p. 97.] and, as I have above inferred, 
 till after the settlement of the guardianship accounts, in 1835. 
 When, and by what instalments, it was in fact paid off, we are 
 not informed, but may safely infer that it was only gradually 
 reduced. Indeed this seems to be the effect of Mr. Lowell's 
 statement, [L. p. 97.] " that Mr. Boott reduced his debt to me 
 $26,000, (ZMnwg- these very thirteen years ;"— the $26,000 be- 
 ing composed of the $5000 paid in November, 1831, on account 
 of his old $30,000 loan, and the $21,000 debt purchased from 
 Mr. Sturgis, which is now in question. Considering the amount 
 of income necessary for Mrs. Boott, and the amount of inter- 
 est to be paid, annually, on this $21,000 debt, and on the 
 $25,000 also due to Mr. Lowell, and that, up to 1844, nothing 
 had been found applicable to the further reduction of the 
 $25,000 debt, we may not unreasonably allow the whole eight 
 
434 
 
 years, between 1835 and 1844, for the final extinction of the 
 $21,000. Interest was paid, of course, upon the whole sum 
 for the four years from 1831 to 1835 ; and if eight years, af- 
 ter that, were required for the gradual payment of the priiici- 
 pal, we may fairly reckon that the interest upon the decreas- 
 ing capital during those eight years, was equal to about four 
 years more of interest on the whole sum. This gives for in- 
 terest, in all, about $10,000, which, together with the princi- 
 pal of $21,000, must have been paid, wholly, from the income 
 of the stocks. 
 
 Let us now put these sums together : — 
 
 Balance of the guardianship debt, after applying to it all 
 
 other means, except income from the stocks, $14,544 
 
 Interest on the old debt to Mr. Lowell, from May, 1831, to 
 
 November, 1844, 20,400 
 
 Interest on the Sturgis debt, purchased by him, from 1831 
 
 to 1843, 10,000 
 
 Principal of that debt, 21,000 
 
 Total, $65,944 
 
 These are sums, which, we see and know, must haVe been 
 paid from the income of the stocks held by the executor, ac- 
 cording to the account of 1844, simply for the reason that 
 there was nothing else to pay them with ; — for we have pre- 
 viously applied to the guardianship debt all the other proper- 
 ty there was in Mr. Boott's hands, and all the income upon it ; 
 and Mr. Lowell himself tells us, that " Mr. Boott entered into 
 no mercantile business, or speculations" after 1831; [L. ji. 
 91.] and we have seen that he refused the agencies and em- 
 ployments offered to him, from which he might have derived 
 income ; and it is not pretended that he in fact earned any 
 thing, thenceforward, to the day of his death. 
 
 This $65,944 was a sum subtracted from the income, mere- 
 ly, of funds belonging to the executor, in the course of thir- 
 teen years, being at the rate of more than $5000 a year. 
 Either the estate, therefore, or Mrs. Boott was the loser, by 
 appropriation during that period, to Mr. Boott's debts, of 
 more than $5000 a year, for each year of the series, and of 
 course was the loser of the interest upon each sum of 
 
435 
 
 from the time it was taken. Simple interest upon $5000, an- 
 nually subtracted, will be found to amount, at the end of the 
 thirteen years, to something like |25,000 more.* In all, 
 principal and interest, over $90,000 ! And this is only one 
 particular loss, occasioned by the mismanagement of Mr. Boott, 
 as shown from premises, which Mr. Lowell has admitted, ex- 
 cept so far as they depend on simple arithmetic, and on the 
 correction in the amount of Mr. Boott's debt to his wards. 
 
 Who represents truly, then ? I, who said that at least 
 ^60,000 of Mr. Boott's debts, in principal and interest, was 
 paid out of the income of his trust funds? Or Mr. Lowell, 
 who comments upon that statement as if it were an utter false- 
 hood, and declares that nothing had ever been so applied, ex- 
 cept Mr. Boott's own property and income? Even if the 
 $2000 a year, which the " Reply" claims to have been Mr. 
 Boott's private income, were made out to be his, this would 
 fall short of the amount subtracted from the income of these 
 funds, by an aggregate of about $40,000. 
 
 But did Mr. Lowell, in making up the account for Mr. 
 Boott in fact subtract one sixth of the income from all the 
 stocks as Mr. Boott's ? Or did he treat it all as Mrs. Boott's ? 
 
 Since the account gives us nothing but a result, purporting 
 to be the aggregate of all the income " on the trust fund for 
 the widow" during the whole period of the executorship, it 
 is impossible to see, from the account, how this aggregate 
 was arrived at ; and the "Reply" does not tell us. But let 
 us see how near an approacli to it we can make by evidence 
 aliunde. 
 
 We know, precisely, what stocks originally constituted the 
 trust fund, as formed April 1, 1818. We know this from the 
 executor's probate account of that period. [B. App. p. 14] I 
 have already stated its contents, and I have ascertained and 
 shown the dates, at which the executor parted with each par- 
 cel of the stocks, named in that account, except a portion of 
 the D. S. 6 per cents., of which the record of transfer is miss- 
 
 *If the $5000 were taken out at the heginning of each year, the interest, at the 
 end of the thirteen years, would amount to $27,300. If taken out at the end of 
 each year, the interest would be #24,000. 
 
436 
 
 ing. [Ante. pp. 268-271.] That portion, (since we know 
 it was sold at some time,) may fairly be presumed, in the 
 absence of any evidence to the contrary, to have been sold at 
 or near the same time with the other stock of the same de- 
 scription. With that assumption only, I have ascertained, 
 and state in a subjoined note, the income upon all the stocks, 
 composing the trust fund of 1818, during the times they were 
 respectively held by the executor.* 
 
 So of the manufacturing stock, afterwards purchased by 
 Mr. Boott : we are informed by the account, and thC; " Re- 
 ply," and by certified transcripts from the stock records of 
 the companies, which I formerly printed, [B. App. pp. BO- 
 SS.] exactly how many shares of each kind of stock were 
 considered and treated by Mr. Boott as representing his trust 
 funds. After ascertaining the number of shares in each com- 
 pany held for the trust, at different periods, there is no diffi- 
 culty in ascertaining the amount of the dividends received 
 upon them ; since the dividends paid, from time to time, by 
 those companies, are matters of notoriety, and are recorded 
 in their books, and in the books of the individuals who re- 
 ceived them, and in other priyate records. I have ascertain- 
 ed these, also, during the entire period, and state them in a 
 subjoined note.* And what is the result ? The aggregate 
 of the income thus ascertained, from 1818 to 1844, is 
 f 274,982 S6 ; and the sum, with which the executor is char- 
 ged, for income, in the probate account, is ^274,686 36. 
 That is to say, there is a difference of only $396. 
 
 How happens this very close approximation of an estimate, 
 made in that manner, from unquestionable data, to the state- 
 
 * Statement op Dividends, 
 Received on stocks held by the executor, during the time he held them. 
 
 Suffolk Inbueance Company. 510 shares, par $17,000. 
 
 Bought, April 1, 1818. [See executor's account, B. App. p. U.] 
 
 Sold, April 15, 1824, [Ante. p. 268.] 
 
 Dividends, ascertained from books of the company. In 1818, none. In 1819, 
 April, 10 per cent. ; October, 6 per cent. In 18?p, 1821, 1822, 1823, and April, 
 1824, each six months, 6 per cent. 
 
 Total, 70 per cent, on $17,000, is -,.... $11,900 
 
437 
 
 ment of the account ? Is it mere accident ? Or, does it indi- ■ 
 cate that the statement of the account was arrived at by some 
 similar process ? Is the difference greater than may be rea^ 
 sonably accounted for by some arithmetical error, or some 
 trifling discrepancy in the estimate of some one of the divi- 
 dends? Unless Mr. Lowell shall disclose, therefore, some 
 additional subject of income, taken into consideration by 
 
 Suffolk Bank. 200 shares, par $20,000. 
 Bonght, April 1, 1818. [See executor's account, B. App. 14.] 
 Transferred to Boott & Lowell, October 2, 1822. [Ante. p. 271.] 
 Dividends, ascertained fromlbooks of the bank. 1818, April, none; October, 
 1 1-2 per cent.; 1819, 1820, April and October, 3 1-2 per cent, each; 1821, April, 
 S 1-2 per cent.; October, 3 percent.; 1822, April and October, 2 1-2 percent, each. 
 Total, 26 per cent, on $20,000, - - - - $5,200 
 
 TJ. S. 7 PEE CENT. STOCK. Par, $31,111 11. 
 Bought, April 1, 1818. [B. App. p. 14,] 
 
 Transferred to Boott & Lowell, October 1, 1822. [Ante. p. 268.] 
 Jlojir annual dividends, of 7 per cent, each, on $31,111 11, are - $8,711 li 
 
 TT. S. 6 PEB CENT. STOCK. Par, $43,000. 
 Bought, April 1, 1818. [B. App. p. 14.] 
 Sold, $21,000, in July and August, 1819. [Ante. p. 269.] 
 
 Bemaining $23,000, of which the record of transfer is missing, supposed to have 
 been sold about the same time. 
 
 One annual dividend of 6 per cent, on $43,000, is - $2,580 
 
 Boston Manufactuking Company. 
 
 Mr. Boott subscribed, March 1,1820, for thirty shares, [B. App. p. 32.] of which 
 «ighteen are stated in the " Reply " to have been for the account of Mrs. Bpott's 
 trust fund. [L. p. 69.] 
 
 In March, 1826, the number of shares was increased to thirty-nine, by transfer 
 of twenty-one from Mr. Kirk Boott, [B. App. p. 32.] which are stated in the 
 •" Reply " to have been for the account of the trust fund. [L. p. 70.] 
 
 Dividends, ascertained from Mr. Boott's guardianship accounts, and other 
 private records, on each share, as follows : — 
 
 1820, April 
 
 md October, 
 
 $50 00 
 
 1826, 
 
 April and October, 
 
 $80 00 
 
 1821, 
 
 (1 
 
 200 00 
 
 1827 
 
 u 
 
 
 90 00 
 
 1822, " 
 
 (C 
 
 225 00 
 
 1828 
 
 (( 
 
 c 
 
 120 00 
 
 1823, 
 
 (I 
 
 188 12 1-2 
 
 1829 
 
 Ci 
 
 ' 
 
 75 00 
 
 1824, " 
 
 " 
 
 250 00 
 
 1830 
 
 C( 
 
 ( 
 
 70 OQ 
 
 1825, " 
 
 '■ 
 
 290 00 
 
 1831 
 1832 
 
 (( 
 
 ( 
 c 
 
 110 00 
 
 
 
 100 00 
 
 Total received on one share. 
 
 1,203 12 1-2 
 
 1833 
 
 u 
 
 ( 
 
 IfiO 00 
 
 Multiply by 
 
 No. of shares, 
 
 18 
 
 1834 
 1835 
 
 u 
 
 ( 
 
 70 00 
 80 QP 
 
 Aggregate, $21,656 25 $895 OQ 
 
438 
 
 him in preparing the account, I think the reader, when he sees 
 that the only stocks, ever held by the executor, yielded, during 
 the time he held them, an aggregate of income, which is only 
 
 Brought over, 
 
 $895 00 
 
 1836, April and O'ctobfci', 
 
 70 00 
 
 1837, April, 
 
 30 00 
 
 1838, October, 
 
 30 00 
 
 1839, April and October, 
 
 60 00 
 
 1840, October, 
 
 30 00 
 
 1841, April and October, 
 
 60 00 
 
 1842, 
 
 00 00 
 
 1843, October, 
 
 30 00 
 
 1844, April and October, 
 
 80 00 
 
 Total on one share, $1,285 00 
 
 Multiply by No. of stares, 39 
 
 Aggregate, $50,115 00 
 
 Meksimack Manufactueing Compant. 
 
 Mr. Boott's subscriptions to tbe first and second issues of stock were for 96 
 shares, of which 20 were sold, or transferred, before the first dividend, in June, 1825, 
 leaving sev^ewty-six shares, of which eight were, afterwards, put to the guardianship 
 accounts. {B. App. p. 30.] This left sixty-eight shares for the executor's acconnt. 
 
 In February, 1826, the number was increased to seventy-three, by a transfer of 
 five shares from Mr. James Boott. [B. App. p. 30.] These seventy-three shares 
 were all marked as belonging to the estate, by the arrangements of May, 1831 ; 
 -viz. forty -two shares under pledge to Mr. Sturgis, twenty-five under pledge to Mr. 
 Lowell, and six transferred in trust to me. [Ante. p. 198, 293, and B. App. p. 23.] 
 
 In February, 1837, two of these shares, which had been restored to the execntor, 
 were sold by him, [B. App. p. 31.] leaving, from that time, seventy-one, the num- 
 ber stated to be on hand by the account of 1844. [L. p. 39.] 
 
 The dividends, received on these shares, up to the date of the probate account, 
 i(Nov. 18, 1844,) were, for each share, as follows : — 
 
 1825, June and Dec. $17,5 
 No. of shares, 
 
 Aggregate, 
 
 68 1826, 
 
 June and Dec. $80 
 
 1838, Nov. 
 
 370 
 
 1827, 
 
 (C 
 
 90 
 
 1839, May and Nov. 110 
 
 Jn,900 1828, 
 
 June, or 
 
 July, 60 
 
 1840, " 
 
 " 90 
 
 1829, Jan. 
 
 60 
 
 1841, " 
 
 " 120 
 
 1830, 
 
 May and 
 
 Nov. 80 
 
 1842, 
 
 " 80 
 
 1831, 
 
 (1 
 
 " 180 
 
 1843, " 
 
 « 160 
 
 1832, 
 
 " 
 
 " 100 
 
 1844, 
 
 « 100 
 
 1833, 
 
 t( 
 
 130 
 
 
 
 1§34, 
 
 tc 
 
 " 120 
 
 
 li030 
 
 1,835, 
 
 (C 
 
 « 180 
 
 No. of shares. 
 
 71 
 
 1836, 
 
 1( 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 
 shares 
 
 
 Aggregate, 
 
 $73,130 
 
 No. of 
 
 $1,?30 
 73 
 
 Aggregate, 889,790, 
 
439 
 
 a fraction short of $275,000, and that the sum, spoken of as 
 income in the account, is, also, only a fraction short of 
 |275,000, will be apt to infer, that sums, so nearly coinci- 
 dent, represent, in truth, and are intended to represen,t, the 
 same substantial thing. In other words, I think the reader 
 must infer, that Mr. Lowell, when he made up that item of 
 the account, intended to state the amount of all the income, 
 which the executor had actually received from these stocks, 
 •during the time that he held them, from the date of the form- 
 ation of the original trust fund, to the date of the rendition 
 of the probate account of 1844. 
 
 For the purpose of the account, it is true, that, in one 
 view, it was very immaterial whether the executor was de- 
 bited with one sum or another sum, for income received ; 
 since the debit, whatever it might be, was about to be im- 
 mediately counter-entered, (as it in fact is,) by the credit of 
 a precisely corresponding sum, as "paid to, or for account 
 and by order of, the widow." It was only desirable to state 
 a sum, that would look creditable, and also probable, with 
 reference to the stocks mentioned as held by the executor ; 
 and the surest guarantee for the probability of the statement 
 would, of course, be, to make a pretty close estimate of the 
 actual dividends, which those stocks had paid. But however 
 immaterial the sum may have been, then, it is very material. 
 
 Kecapitulation. 
 
 Suffolk Insurance Company, amount of Dividends, 
 
 Suffolk Bank, ■■ .■ . . 
 
 TJ. S. 7 per cents, ii « . . 
 
 TJ. S. 6 per cents, " " 
 
 Boston Manufacturing Company, 1820 to 1825, on 18 shares, 
 
 " " 1826 to 1844, on 39 " 
 
 Merrimack Manufacturing Company, 1825, on 68 " 
 
 " " 1826 to 1836, on 73 shares, 
 
 " " 1837 to 1844, on 71 " 
 
 Total amount of income by the foregoing estimate. 
 Amount of income according to the account of 1844, 
 
 Difference, - - - - - 296 00 
 
 $11,900 00 
 
 5,200 00 
 
 8,711 11 
 
 2,580 00 
 
 21,656 25 
 
 50,115 00 
 
 11,900 00 
 
 89,790 00 
 
 73,130 GO 
 
 $274,982 36 
 
 $274,686 36 
 
440 
 
 now, in testing the reality of the account, and the truth of 
 the "Reply," to know how that statement of income was 
 arrived at. I show one mode, in which it may, easily, and 
 naturally, have been reached. My statement, made up in 
 that mode, embraces all the income, which was, in fact, de- 
 rived from all the stocks known to have been held by Mr. 
 Boott, (except as guardian or trustee for the F. Boott family,) 
 within the times, for which he is known to have held them, 
 and during the entire period of the executorship. The sum, 
 so ascertained, is found to correspond almost exactly, with 
 the sum stated in the account under the head of income. 
 Now, if there was any other incohie, intended to be included 
 in that statement, it is iacumbent on Mr. Lowell to show 
 what it was, whence it could have proceeded, and how it 
 was Computed. Should he fail to do that, — and, thUs far he 
 has shown no such thing, — the truth, both of the account 
 and of the " Reply," may safely be tested by the presump- 
 tion, on which I now proceed, that his statement, and my 
 statement, of the sources of income, and the amount of in- 
 come, so far as our respective statements go, are substantially 
 the same. If this be so, I ask. How can Mr. Lowell venture 
 to intimate, in his " Reply," and lead his readers to infer, 
 that one sixth of " the gross income of all the manufacturing 
 stock" belonged to Mr. J. Wright Boott, personally, when 
 the whole of that income is needful to make up the sum, 
 which the account declares to have been " Income received 
 on the trust fund for the widow, from March, 1818, to Nov- 
 ember, 1844," and to have been "paid," accordingly, "to, or 
 for account and by order of, the widow ?" 
 
 If Mr. Lowell, in preparing this part of the account, 
 really allowed for one sixth of "the groSs income of all the 
 manufacturing stock" as belonging to Mr. Boott, he must be 
 ready, now, to show " gross income" received, to the amount 
 of $330,000, instead of $275,000,— which latter sum would 
 be the five sixths belonging, on that hypothesis, to " the trust 
 fund for the widow." If he fails to show income received to 
 the amount of $330,000, from property, which I cannot make 
 out to have yielded more than $275,000, he must at least 
 
441 
 
 admit, that Mrs. Boott's income, \vheti rated, in the accomit, 
 at $275,000, is there set down at one sixth more than it 
 ought to have heen, and that the credit of the account, for 
 near $275,000 paid " to, or for account and by order of, the 
 widow," is not only " fictitious," but positively false, to the 
 extent of more than $45,000 ; or else he must admit, that 
 the suggestion of the " Reply," that one sixth of the 
 $275,000 belonged to Mr. Boott, was merely thrown out for 
 effect, without the slightest foundation in fact. He shall 
 choose, as he pleases, among these alternatives. 
 
 Besides, if $275,000 really represents the total income 
 from the stocks constituting the trust fund, (which, when we 
 look to the stocks, and to the actual dividends upon them, 
 seems to be an unquestionable fact,) we cannot help asking, 
 with reference to the truth of the account, what became of 
 the aunts and their income ? It is admitted, by the " Reply," 
 that the original trust fund of 1818, amounting, exclusive of 
 premiums paid for the stocks, to exactly $111,111 11, was 
 intended to cover their annuities, as well as Mrs. Boott's. 
 [L. pp. 24, 52.] They both lived a number of years. If I am 
 right as to the dates of their respective deaths, they should 
 have received from their annuities, in the aggregate, some 
 where about $8000. Now there is not a word of any such 
 payment in the account. Are we to understand, then, that 
 Mr. Boott wholly omitted to pay those annuities to any body? 
 or must we understand, according to the literal statement of 
 the account, that he paid them to Mrs. Boott, instead of the 
 aunts? Is this entry of the account, " fictitious"? or is it 
 a solemn reality ? Did Mr. Boott pay any thing to the 
 aunts ? or did he not ? Did he first subtract, as the " Re^ 
 ply " suggests, one sixth of the gross income, a& his own, 
 before he stated $275,000 to be the " income received 
 on the trust fund for the widow " ? Or was $275,000, or 
 thereabouts, the actual gross income of his whole stock in- 
 vestment, as I suggest, — all, necessarily, representing his trust 
 funds, as I have abundantly shown, — and was, he, neverthe.. 
 
442 
 
 less, unfortunately compelled to use near $66,000 of that in- 
 come for the payment of his own debts ? 
 
 One or two other statements of the " Reply," in this con- 
 nexion, deserve a passing notice. 
 
 Having asserted that " the gross income of all the manu- 
 facturing stock did not exceed $12,000 a year," and that Mr. 
 Boott had a " perfect right to retain one sixth part of the in- 
 come of those stocks," on the ground that it was his own, 
 the " Reply " goes on to say : — 
 
 " Mrs. Boott's income, therefore, during the thirteen years in ques- 
 tion, [from 1831 to 1844,] did not exceed $10,000 a year. A rea- 
 sonably large income, too, from a fund of $ 1 00,000. 
 
 " From this income Mr. Hoott remitted to his mother about S6000 
 a year ; not $5,000, as Mr. Brooks, with his usual accuracy, a8serts. 
 I have before me a precise statement of those remittances, and the 
 average is between $5,900 and $6,000 a year. In addition to this, 
 Mrs. Boott's establishment in Bovvdoin Square was to be kept up." 
 [L.p.93.] _ 
 
 '' To do this, as well as pay Mrs. Boott's taxes, and such sums as 
 she might order to be expended here from time to time, sums, to my 
 knowledge, often considerable, there was left but $4,000 a year." 
 [L. p. 93.] 
 
 Reference is then made to an estimate of Mr. William 
 Boott, which, it is said, " supposes the expense of the estab- 
 lishment and the taxes to amount to about $4300 a year." 
 [L. p. 99.] 
 
 And the conclusion is : — 
 
 " At all events, it is perfectly obvious that Mr. Boott could have de- 
 rived nothing from this source [Mrs. Boott's income,] to enable him 
 to pay the $167,000 of debt, and Mr. Brooks's fancied deficit of 
 $63,000 into the bargain." [L. p. 94.] 
 
 How Mr. Lowell disposes of the debt and the deficit I have 
 - already shown. [Ante, Ch. 25, Ch. 26.] The argument, now 
 to be dealt with, is, that there was no opportunity to apply any 
 part of the income from the trust funds to Mr. Boott's debts, 
 whether more or less, for the reason that it was all, necessarily, 
 absorbed in other expenditures, for Mrs. Boott's own purposes. 
 I shall answer the argument by showing, partly from the 
 
443 
 
 "Reply" itself, and partly from other evidence, which Mr. 
 Lowell can ndt question, that, after satisfying every other re- 
 quisition upon, Mrs. Boott's income, suggested in the " Reply," 
 there is no way left, to account for the whole expenditure, ex- 
 cept by appi'opriating to Mr. Boott's debts, "durirg the 
 thirteen years in question," just about so much of his trust 
 funds, as I have already shown, in another way, must have 
 been so appropriated. 
 
 The thirteen years, spoken of, are, in truth, a little more. 
 They run from the end of May, 1831, to the middle of No- 
 vember, 1844. 
 
 Mr. Lowell gives his readers to understand, by the passages 
 above extracted, that, during that period, about $6000 a year 
 was remitted to Mrs. Boott, and that the expense of an es- 
 tablishment in Bowdoin square was kept up at the same time, 
 which, with taxes, and other expenses for Mrs. Boott, alluded 
 to in general terms, but not specified, is said to have taken up 
 $4000, or, according to the largest estimate, $4300, a year, 
 This is stated as a payment for Mrs. Boott, in addition to the 
 ^6000 a year, which was remitted to her in England. With 
 reference to the whole thirteen years, the " Reply" says : — 
 
 " In the face of this notorious fact, that Mrs. Boott was keeping-up 
 a double estailishment, in England and in this country, on an income 
 of $10,000 a year, Mr. Brooks does not hesitate to style the charge -of 
 $275,000 paid to, or for account and by order of, the widow, during 
 twenty-seven years, "fictitious." [L. p. 94.] 
 
 Now, Mrs. Boott was, herself, living in this country, during 
 \he first five years and more of this jieriod. She went to 
 England in September, 1836. So says the " Reply." [L. p. 56.] 
 There was no expense, then, of a double establishment dur- 
 ing those _^i;e years of the period, and the statement of the 
 "Reply" is, so far, positively iwitrue. I have already had oc- 
 casion to state, that Mrs. Boott, after the embarrassments of 
 the trust fund were discovered in 1830-1, was advised, by 
 Mr. Kirk Boott and by myself, of the necessity of curtailing 
 her expenses, and that she in fact practised, from that time till 
 she went to England, a rigid economy, considering the nature 
 
444 
 
 of her establishment. I have heretofore estimated her ex- 
 penditure, during this time, and I think, liberally, at |5000 a 
 year. [Ante, p. 421.] This would amount, for the five years 
 and three or four months, from May, 1831, to September, 
 1836, to 126,600. 
 
 In the next place, the amount remitted to Mrs. Boott, after 
 she went to England, is stated above, roundly, at about |6000 
 a year, and " a precise statement" is said to show it to have 
 been " between $5900 and $6000 a year." I shall have occa- 
 sion to advert to this again. At present, I will only refer the 
 reader to another part of the " Reply," in which is given the 
 " precise statement" of the aggregate anaount remitted to. Mrs. 
 Boott, viz. $43,037 02. [L. p. 56.] It is true, that this is 
 said to haye been frorn September, 1836, to December, 1843 ; 
 and the date of the probate account, which terminates the se- 
 ries of thirteen years, is November 18, 1844. But, after De- 
 cember, 1843, there were no dividends paid, by either the 
 Boston, or the Merrimack, Manufacturing Company, (the on- 
 ly sources of income,) from which a remittance could have 
 been, made, until April and May, (or June,) following ; and, 
 at that time, I had taken the stand, which required a change 
 of the trusteeship, involving, necessarily, a settlement of the 
 executor's accounts ; and it will be seen, presently, that Mr. 
 Boott and Mr. Lowell were sensible of this necessity, and 
 were then acting with reference to it. No pecuniary means, 
 that might accrue, could be spared under such circumstances. 
 They were all needed to enable Mr. Boott to settle as good 
 an account as possibl"©, without leaving Mr. Lowell unpaid. 
 I shall not believe, therefore, until I see a " precise state- 
 ment" to the contrary, that one dollar was remitted to Mrs. 
 Boott, in that state of aflfahs, from December, 1843, until 
 after the probate account was finally settled in December, 
 1844. Indeed, it will be seen, that, November 17, 1844, Mrs. 
 Boott wrote a letter of comj)laint, respecting her deprivation 
 of income, which must have been founded on the fact, now 
 suggested, that no remittance had recently been made. [B. 
 App. p. 45.] It will be noted, too, when we come to it, that 
 
445 
 
 the " Reply" is extremely careful to stop its report of remit- 
 tances exactly in the month of December, 1843. I think, 
 therefore, we may safely set down the aggregate of all the 
 remittances, within the thirteen years now in question, at the 
 sum which the "precise statement" names ; viz. $43,037 02. 
 
 In the third place, for the expenses of the establishment 
 here, including taxes, and the other unnamed et ceteras, what- 
 ever they may have been, I am content to take, for the eight 
 years from September, 1836, to November, 1844, the largest 
 sum suggested in the "Reply;" namely, $4300 a year,, 
 amounting to $34,400. 
 
 Finally, the sum, which I have before mentioned as the 
 amount of private debts paid by Mr. Boott, during these thir- 
 teen years, out of his trust funds, was $65,944. [Ante. p. 
 434.] 
 
 Let us now put these sums together, and see what they 
 amount to, and how they compare with the known means. 
 
 Expense of Mrs. Boott's establishment, while at home, 
 from May, 1831, to September, 1836, at the rate of 
 $5000 a year, $26,600 00 
 
 Remitted to her, in England, after September, 1836, and 
 
 before the settlement of the probate account, 43,037 02 
 
 69,637 02 
 Expense of the establishment, kept up here by 
 Mr. J. W. Boott, including taxes, &c., from 
 1836 to 1844, at the rate of $4300 a year, 34,400 
 
 Paid for principal and interest on Mr. Boott's 
 debts, as heretofore shown, [Ante, p. 434.] 65,944 
 
 100,344 00 
 
 $169,981 02 
 
 Now, let us see, if the known means do not just about cor- 
 respond with the foregoing estimate of expenditure. 
 They were as follows : — 
 
 Dividends on seventy-three shares of Merrimack, from May, 
 1831, to November. 1836, (both inclusive,) as heretofore 
 shown, [Ante, p. 438, note.] 62 780 
 
446 
 
 Brought forward, $62,780 
 
 Two shares sold, in March, 1837, at thirty-three per cent. 
 
 advance, [Ante, p. 438, note.] 2,660 
 
 Dividends on seventy-one shares of Merrimack, thence to 
 November 18, 1844, (which does not reach and include 
 the last semi-annual dividend of that year,) as heretofore 
 shown, [Ante, p. 438, note.] _ 73,180 
 
 Dividends on thirty-nine shares of Boston Manufacturing 
 Company, from May, 1831, (which excludes the April 
 dividend of $50 in that year,) to November 18, 1844, 
 (which includes the two dividends of that year,) as here- 
 tofore shown, [Ante, pp. 437-8, note.] 31,200 
 
 169,770 
 
 Any one of the items, in the foregoing estimate of expendi- 
 ture, may well have varied, in fact, from the estimate, by a few 
 hundred dollars. But the estimate of means is all made up 
 of recorded facts, respecting which, in the absence of accident- 
 al error, there is no room for dispute. 
 
 The result, then, is, that the income from the stocks, held 
 by the executor during these thirteen years, and the proceeds 
 of a sale of two shares of Merrimack, sold by the executor, fur- 
 nished, in round numbers, $170,000, in cash, to Mr. Boott ; 
 and that nearly $66,000 of this cash, thus traced into his 
 hands, is wholly unaccounted for, unless it were applied to the 
 payment of his debts ; which debts, to that amount, in princi- 
 pal and interest, we know were in fact paid, during that pe- 
 riod ; and for which, it has been shown, there were no means 
 of payment in Mr. Boott's power, except the property, which 
 he held as executor, and the income he derived from it. 
 
 And when the questions are, whether Mr. Boott managed 
 well as an executor, or not, and whether there was a balance 
 due to him, or not, from his father's estate, at the time of the 
 stating of the probate account of 1844, and whether Mrs. 
 Boott did, or did not, receive from him, as the account pre- 
 tends, the whole income, to which she was entitled, it is cu- 
 rious to observe, that, of the $170,000 of cash, above traced 
 to the executor's hands, less than $70,000 appears to have 
 gone directly to Mrs. Boott's own use, while $100,000 went, 
 mainly, to the use of Mr. Boott ; for the establishment, kept 
 up here, after 1836, whether we choose to call it Mr. Boott's, 
 
447 
 
 or Mrs. Boott's, was certainly more for his benefit than hers ; 
 and the residue of the money went to the payment of his 
 debts. 
 
 The real truth, therefore, at which we arrive, is, not only 
 that the greater part of Mrs. Boott's income was, for thirteen 
 years, applied^ by Mr. J. Wright Boott to his own use, (not 
 wantonly, but because it was a necessary consequence of the 
 state, to which former mismanagement had reduced his trust 
 funds,) but that he, also, found himself compelled, when divi- 
 dends failed, as they did in 1837, to encroach upon theprin- 
 dpal of the trust fund itself, by selling two sharesof the Mer- 
 rimack stock, and using the proceeds in such manner as his 
 own necessities, and those of his mother, (occasioned by 
 him,) may, at the time, have required. 
 
 Is it not, then, a most extraordinary circumstance, that Mr. 
 Lowell, well knowing every fact, which has now been exhib- 
 ited to the reader, should have had the singular boldness to 
 have published under his name, and in so imposing a style, 
 the statements on this part of the case, which his "Reply" is 
 found to contain ? The reader must, as yet, be utterly at a 
 loss to account for it. Until he sees the whole case, it would 
 be somewhat imprudent, perhaps, to attempt to account for 
 any thing. I only ask him to ascertain the facts, as he pro- 
 ceeds. 
 
448 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 PRETKNCE OF AUTHORITY FROM MRS. BOOTT TO APPLY HER IN- 
 COME TO THE PAYMENT OF MK. BOOTt's DEBTS. 
 
 I have already cited, from the " Reply," the passage, -which 
 sets up for Mr. Boott the justification of a pretended owner- 
 ship of one sixth of the stocks ; and we have looked, as Mr. 
 Lowell requests, " a little more narrowly" at the evidence on 
 this head, and have seen what it leads to. Another passage, 
 deserving brief comment, is as follows : — 
 
 "The only other imputation, that I am aware of, brought forward 
 by Mr. Brooks, in this connection, is, that Mr. Boott expended or ap- 
 propriated his mother's income without her knowledge or consent, and 
 this in the face of her own discharge, which asserts the very contrary." 
 [L. p. 75.] 
 
 The discharge, here alluded tp, was printed by me in my 
 former pamphlet. [B. App. p. 38.] It does not assert that, 
 ■which Mr. Lowell says it asserts, — at least, not in direct 
 terms. This is only Mr. Lowell's peremptory mode of stating 
 his own inference and construction. Mine are diiFerent. 
 
 The paper was executed in London, May 29, 1844. This, 
 it will be observed, was nearly six months before the account 
 of November 18, 1844, was presented in Boston; and Mr. 
 Lowell strenuously insists, that " these accounts were present- 
 ed at the probate office as soon as they were made up." [L. 
 p. 31. J He refers, in proof of it, to a letter of Mr. C. G. Loring, 
 printed by me, [B. App. p. 43.] in answer to one from Mr. 
 "William Boott, dated November 7, 1844, in which Mr. Loring, 
 upon such information as he had, says, " The accounts of your 
 brother have not yet been made up ; though / believe that the 
 materials are now all at hand." [L. p. 32.] The dis- 
 charge, therefore, was a discharge made in anticipation of a 
 
449 
 
 probate account, about to be prepared, and not onview of the 
 particular account, which was, afterwards, in fact presented. 
 
 The discharge itself also recites, that, " by reason of the 
 unlimited confidence always existing between us, the settle^ 
 ment of periodical accounts has not been thought necessary, 
 and, as far as I am concerned, never would be." [B. App. p. 
 38.] It is, thus, apparent that the discharge was given, not 
 only without sight of the particular accoimt, which it was 
 used to pass, but without sight of any previous accounts. 
 They had never been required, or rendered, in consequence of 
 the " unlimited confidence" between the parties. 
 
 It is true the instrument does, also, recite, that 
 
 " My beloved son John Wright Boott, of said Boston, Esquire, was 
 appointed sole executor of said will, and as such, and by virtue of the 
 provisions thereof, became, and has since continued to be, the trustee 
 of said fund of S100,000, and has fully and faithfully paid me, or ap- 
 propriated and accounted to me, for all the income thereof, to which I 
 have been, or am, in any wise entitled, to my entire satisfaction and 
 approval." [B. App. p. 38.] 
 
 ' But, if no accounts had been ever rendered or stated, which 
 I aver, and the discharge itself admits, how did Mrs. Boott 
 know what her fund was invested in, or what the income 
 from it had been, or in what manner that income had in fact 
 been appropriated ? All she could know would be, that she 
 had received a certain sum, yearly, as and for the income of 
 her $100,000; and the sum, so received, she presumed to be 
 the whole income, to which she was " in any wise entitled ;" 
 and this is all she really means, when she says that her son 
 had accounted to her, for all the income, to her " entire satis- 
 faction and approval." What else can she mean, when she 
 declares that accounts had never been thought necessary? 
 What, then, does the discharge, with these recitals, — drawn up 
 here in Boston, before an account had been even called for,* 
 and sent out to Mrs. Boott at London, and there executed by 
 
 * The first call was by Mr. William Boott's letter to Mr. J. Wright Boott, June 
 3, 1844. [B. App. p. 39,] The date of Mi-s. Boott's release, In London, is May, 
 29, 1844. 
 
 57 
 
450 
 
 her, in anticipation of such an account as might be presented,, 
 and for the purpose of passing any account, that should be 
 presented, — what does it amount to, more than a declaration, 
 by Mrs. Boott, of her " unlimited confidence" in her '•' beloved 
 son John Wright Boott ?" How can Mr. Lowell, fairly, regard 
 this as an assertion by Mrs. Boott, that Mr. Boott had not, pre- 
 viously, " expended or appropriated his mother's income, with-. 
 out her knowledge or consent ?" 
 
 The fact, which I aver, is, that Mrs. Boott never knew any 
 thing of the true state of her property, or of the use made of 
 it, in that respect. I infer this from repeated conversations, 
 which I had with her, before she left this country. Does Mr. 
 Lowell mean to have it understood, that she knew, in 1830 
 and 1831, the true posture of affairs, and that the position of 
 her trust fund, then, met her "entire satisfaction and approv- 
 al" ? Mr. Kirk Boott, certainly, did not think that she was 
 aware of it. His letters prove that. It is true, that his letter 
 of May 23, 1831, — which suggested an assignment of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott's property, but threw upon me the responsibili- 
 ty of deciding what should be done, — agrees to " abide by 
 and acknowledge," as his own act, whatever I might con- 
 clude upon, "provided my mother is made acquainted with 
 the state of affairs, and acquiesces in any course, you will 
 recommend." [Ante, p. 283.] But the course, I in fact adopt- 
 of merely obtaining a transfer from Mr. J. Wright Boott, in- 
 dividually, to Mr. J. Wright Boott, as executor, of all the 
 property, which circumstances would allow to be so transfer- 
 red, dispensed, in my judgement, with the necessity of follow- 
 ing out Mr. Kirk Boott's suggestion. He, afterwards, agreed 
 with me, that there would be no advantage in communicat- 
 ing the particulars of that transaction to Mrs. Boott ; and the 
 present inquiry relates only to the use made of the income 
 of the property after that event. When and how, then, 
 did she first become informed, that her income was papng 
 her son's debts ? She was told, generally, by Mr. Kirk Boott 
 and myself, in 1831-3, that her property had been reduced 
 and had become embarrassed, and that it was necessary for 
 her to live with great economy. She did so, till she went to 
 
451 
 
 England, in 1836 ; after which time a certain limited sum was 
 annually remitted to her ; and that, I helieve, to have been all 
 she ever knew of her income, or of its appropriation, unless 
 for the expense of an establishment, stUl kept up here by Mr. 
 Boott, at the family mansion. This she was, of course, 
 aware of, although she may not have known the amount, of 
 the expenditure, nor from what fund it all came. But ap- 
 propriation of her income to the payment of Mr. Bootfs 
 debts, I believe to have been a thing she never dreamed 
 of. Indeed, it is hardly possible that she should have been 
 cognizant of such a fact, without its having ever been alluded 
 to in her many confidential conversations with Mr. Kirk 
 Boott, from whom I should have heard it, and with me, re- 
 specting her pecuniary means and prospects. She, certainly, 
 never was told by us of the cause of her narrowed circum- 
 stances. By whom else could she have been told, before she 
 left this country ? Does Mr. Lowell mean to suggest, that she 
 became informed of the fact, while in England ? If so, it was 
 by letter, of course. Let him produce the evidence, then ; for 
 he tells us, that the letters to members of the family in Eng- 
 land, have been sent thence to him, and are in his hands. [L. 
 p. 128.] 
 
 But Mr. Lowell endeavours to make Dr. Francis Boott, of 
 London, a witness to this point, as follows : — 
 
 "Whatever may have been the state of Mr. Brooks's information 
 on this point, Mr. William Boott, at any rate, well knew the contrary ; 
 for Dr. Francis Boott, of whose family Mrs. Boott has been for the 
 last ten years an inmate, in a letter to his brother William, dated 
 April 15, 1845, expressly asserts the contrary. 
 
 ' No one,' he says, ' who knew Wright, and was free to let his own 
 generous sentiments have fair play, would accuse him of a dishonor- 
 able use of his trust. I scorn the imputation. He might have advo- 
 cated a greater economy ; but he had his mother's sanction for the 
 expenditure, year by year ; and if she did not insist on saving, the 
 fault is hers.'" [L. p. 75.] 
 
 Now Dr. Francis Boott, living in London from 1818, or 
 thereabouts, to the time of the writing of that letter, knew 
 no more of the state of afiairs here, except as it may have 
 been represented to him by different members of the family. 
 
452 
 
 and by Mr. Lowell, than his mother did. He knew nothing 
 of the transactions known to Mr. Kirk Boott and myself. He 
 knew nothing of Mr. J. Wright Boott's former pledges of the 
 property, constituting the trust fund, which pledges, necessa- 
 rily, entailed upon him this use of the income, as his only 
 means of extricating the trust fund, by degrees, from those 
 embarrassments. Dr. Boott could not have known either the 
 exact amount of the income of the trust fund, or the par- 
 ticular manner, in which it was appropriated ; and, conse- 
 quently, could not have known whether his mother sanc- 
 tioned the expenditure or not, unless he means that she sanc- 
 tioned it by mere acquiescence, without knowledge or inquiry. 
 Besides all which, I infer from these detached sentences of his 
 letter, extracted by Mr. Lowell, without even the detached 
 sentences of the letter from Mr. William Boott, which Dr. 
 Boott intended to answer, that Dr. Boott was referring, in the 
 passage above cited, to a complaint, from Mr. William Boott, 
 of the unreasonable expense of keeping up an establishment 
 here, mainly for Mr. J. Wright Boott's personal accommoda- 
 tion, and not to a complaint of his appropriation of his moth- 
 er's income to the payment of his own debts. 
 
 This seems the more probable from the fact, that Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott's complaints were confined to the former head, so 
 far as appears by detached sentences fVom other letters, cited 
 elsewhere, by Mr. Lowell. Thus we are told, "Mr. William 
 Boott, in a letter to Dr. Boott, of December 31, 1844, styles 
 it ' the most expensive bachelor establishment in Boston.' " 
 [L. p. 93.] Again, " Mr. William Boott himself, in a letter 
 to Mrs. Ralston, of March, 24, 1844, says : ' The expense of 
 the establishment, added to the interest of the money, for 
 which it [the estate] would sell, and the saving in taxes, will 
 make up about $7000 per annum.' " [L. p. 94.] 
 
 When Mr. Lowell gives out, therefore, in reference to Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott's use of the income of the trust fund for 
 his own debts, without his mother's knowledge, that Dr. 
 Boott " expressly asserts the contrary," and cites, in proof of 
 it, the foregoing language, extracted from a letter of Dr. Boott, 
 I say, in answer, in the first place, that, if Dr. Boott intended 
 
453 
 
 to make such an assertion, he made an assertion respecting 
 a matter, on which he had no means of information ; in the 
 next, that I suspect Dr. Boott's language relates to a different 
 subject, and that -he is made, by Mr. Lowell, to assert that, 
 which he never did assert. 
 
 But, on this point, and many others, it is impossible to see, 
 with certainty, — from a few words of quotation, scattered 
 about by Mr. Lowell, and said to be taken out of a corre- 
 spondence, not exhibited, — ^the true meaning and application 
 of such small detached portions, divested of their context ; 
 while the opposite party is deprived, not only of the benefit 
 of that context, to explain what is cited, but deprived, also, 
 of all opportunity to cite any other portion of the same cor- 
 respondence, which might make against Mr. Lowell's argu- 
 ment. This seems to be systematic. And it is curious 
 enough, that Mr. Lowell, in addition to the account books of 
 Boott & Lowell, and to all the books and papers of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, which have come to Mr. Lowell's hands, as 
 his executor, should have contrived, also, through the influ- 
 ence, which circumstances have given him over Mrs. Boott, 
 and Dr. Francis Boott, and Mr. James Boott, at London, and 
 Mr. Wells and his family, at Cambridge, and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Ralston, at Philadelphia, to have got possession of nearly all 
 the confidential family correspondence ! — ^familiar letters, writ- 
 ten, for the most part, in the strictest privacy of intimate re- 
 lation, of which no copies were usually kept, at least on this 
 side of the water, and of which he uses such little portions, 
 only, as suit his purpose, in the manner above pointed out. 
 How he has happened to obtain this confidence will be seen 
 in the sequel ; and, fortunately, I have preserved some original 
 letters, myself, from various members of the family. The 
 use, which Mr. Lowell makes, of the family correspondence, 
 by their permission, will compel me, reluctantly, to exhibit 
 some of these letters in another part of this case. I shall do 
 it abstemiously, but also fairly, by printing the whole of any 
 letter, which I may find occasion to quote, or at least all 
 that hears upon this controversy, unless it should happen to 
 affect third persons injuriously, who are not already impli- 
 
454 
 
 cated. In that case, 1 shall still exercise a reasonable discre- 
 tion in withholding that, which I may not judge to be strictly 
 necessary for my own defence. 
 
 I cannot conclude my remarks, on the subject of the mis- 
 appropriation of Mrs. Boott's income, better, than by an ex- 
 tract from my former pamphlet, the whole answer to which, 
 given in the " Reply," has now been shown to the reader. 
 
 " To state tlie case in another form, let us look at it during a par- 
 ticular period after the payment of these principal sums. The income, 
 received by Mr. Wright Boott on the manufacturing stocks, from the 
 time Mrs. Boott went to England, in 1836, to the time of the stating 
 of this account, in 1844, could not have been less than $100,000. 
 During that period of eight years it is known to Mr. Lowell, as well 
 as myself, that the regular remittance to Mrs. Boott was $5000 per 
 annum, amounting to about $40,000. The other $60,000 were ex- 
 pended by Mr. Wright Boott here, and include, at least, $12,000 paid 
 to Mr. Lowell himself for interest." [B. p. 107.] 
 
 This, by the way, turns out to have been a great under-state- 
 ment of the amount paid to Mr. Lowell. It does not include 
 the $21,000 debt, and the interest upon it, which, it now ap- 
 pears, Mr. Lowell held derivatively from Mr. Sturgis, and of 
 which the greater part, at least, must have been paid off after 
 1836. Instead of |12,000, paid to Mr. Lowell after this date, 
 I should have said, nearer $40,000. My former remarks pro- 
 ceeded as follows : — 
 
 " Can these expenditures and appropriations, for the payment of 
 his own private debts and the support of his own estabhshment, be 
 said to be, in any just sense, a payment " to, or for account of," the 
 widow ? Were they by her " order," or even, at the time, made known 
 to her ? I presume Mr. Lowell will not pretend it, at least so far as 
 payment of debts is concerned. Indeed, Mrs. Boott's release, exe- 
 cuted at London, in May, 1844, states the fact, that there were no 
 accounts stated and settled between them, by reason of ' the unlimited 
 confidence ' she reposed in him [Mr. Boott.] The account under consid- 
 eration, therefore, is manifestly made up upon a mere theory, in this 
 particular. All the income, Mr. Wright Boott received, was from the 
 manufacturing stocks in two companies, whose affairs were intimately 
 known to Mr. Lowell, and the number of shares held by Mr. Wright 
 Boott in each, or by holders under him, from time to time, and the 
 amount of dividends paid, were easily ascertained from their books. 
 His receipt of income, therefore, was to be reached by computation, 
 with reasonable accuracy. His disposition of it, on the other hand, 
 
455 
 
 was not to be ascertained, except so far as the payments passed 
 through Mr. Lowell's own hands, because he never had either books, 
 or vouchers, to show it, as Mr. Lowell will not deny. 
 
 But the theory of the account is, that all the income, which ever 
 came to the executor's hands, belonged to Mrs. Boott ; that she tacitly 
 permitted her son to use it as he pleased ; and finally, in May, 1844, 
 being applied to for a general voucher to pass such accounts as he 
 might present to the probate court, she, without seeing the accounts, 
 executed a general release of all her claims against him, whatsoever 
 they might be, and so ratified all his appropriations of her own income 
 to his own use. But, although Mrs. Boott may have had the right 
 to give away the whole income if she pleased, — and her willingness 
 to forgive a large debt to her son, for the sake of passing his accounts, 
 may have been equivalent to that, — how does it justify those previous 
 appropriations to his own use, and to a very large extent, without her 
 authority, or knowledge, at the time ? The party chiefly, or most di- 
 rectly, interested, may have been willing, afterwards, to overlook it, 
 from motives of affection, — but the fact is not the less evidence of his 
 mismanagement, and unfitness to be an agent and trustee. It was a 
 striking fact, which could not be overlooked by those who knew it, 
 and were called upon to decide, for others, whether $46,000 more of 
 trust money should be placed in his hands." [B. p. 107.] 
 
 To this I ought to add, that I have no belief that Mrs. 
 Boott has been made aware, to this day, of the fact, that a 
 single dollar of her income ever went to pay a debt of Mr. 
 Boott's, unless by the intimations of Mrs. Brooks's letter of 
 December 11, 1844, before referred to ; [B. App. p. 46. and 
 Ante, p. 161.] and these, as will presently be seen, were 
 overborne, in Mrs. Boott's mind, by statements from Mr. 
 Lowell. 
 
 Respecting the amount of the "regular remittance to Mrs. 
 Boott," which I speak of above, as |5000 a year, Mr. Lowell 
 says a word, to which I have a word to say in answer. 
 
 I extract, again, from the " Reply," as follows : — 
 
 " Mrs. Boott's income, therefore, during the thirteeen years in ques- 
 tion, did not exceed $10,000 a year.* A reasonably large income, 
 too, from a fund of $100,000. 
 
 From this income, Mr. Boott remitted to his mother about $6 000 
 a year; not $5,000, as Mr. Brooks, with his usual accuracy, asserts. 
 I have before me a precise statement of those remittances, and the 
 average is between $5,900 and $6,000 a year." [L. p. 93.] 
 
 * Mr. Lowell means, of course, after deducting the $2000, which he calls Mr 
 Boott's. Even then he is short of the truth. The income from the trust prop- 
 ertyi during that period, exceeded $12,500 a year. 
 
456 
 
 Elsewhere, he cites a letter from Mr. William "Wells, whom 
 he avers to be a good witness to affairs, which, I said, he was 
 not acquainted with. In the letter cited, that gentleman 
 writes, — "nor does it look like a negligent manager, that, 
 during the last eight years, [the letter is dated August 23, 
 1844,] many of them so disastrous, he has been able to remit 
 to his mother more than $7000 per annum, besides providing 
 for the expenses of her house in Boston." [L. p. 56,] To 
 this, Mr. Lowell feels obliged to append the following note : 
 
 " Mr. Boott remitted to his motber in the seven years from Septem- 
 ber, 1836, to December, 1843, £8810 sterling, which cost him, here, 
 »43,037 02, or about $6,000 per annum ; not $7,000, as Mr. Wells 
 supposed." [L. p. 56.] 
 
 Mr. Wells supposed it " was more than f 7000," and " dur- 
 ing the last eight years," which Mr. Lowell, while he cites 
 him as authority, is obliged, thus, to correct, and does not 
 correct so fairly as he might, after all. 
 
 Now what I stated, concerning Mr. Boott's " regular remit- 
 tance " to his mother, I stated upon no other information than 
 that formerly given to me by Mr. John A. Lowell. If there 
 was any want of "usual accuracy " in my statement, the in- 
 accuracy came from himself. But, I believe, in that instance, 
 there was none. If Mr. Lowell would have the goodness to 
 produce that " precise statement," which he had before him 
 when he wrote, I believe the reader would find that the " reg- 
 ular remittance" was just about what I stated. But there 
 was one year, when the total income, from all the stocks 
 belonging to the executor, was not much short of $30,000, 
 in consequence of an extraordinary dividend of $370 a share, 
 made by the Merrimack Manufacturing Company. And in 
 that, or the following, year, (Mrs. Boott having complained 
 much of her straitened circumstances, living in London, 
 with only $5000 a year, and with numerous calls upon her,) 
 Mr. Boott found means to make an extra remittance; which 
 may, perhaps, have brought up the " average" for the 
 seven years, to about what Mr. Lowell states it. In general, 
 five per cent, upon $100,000 was all that went, directly, to 
 
457 
 
 Mrs. Boott, for her own expenditure. At least, so I was 
 informed by Mr. Lowell. 
 
 As to the figures, exhibited in the note above cited, to make 
 out about $6,000 a year, they are, plainly, over-lapping state- 
 ments. That is, the period, stated in the note, runs from 
 September, 1836, to December, 1843, — ^neither seven years, 
 nor eight years, but just seven years and a quarter. May it 
 not serve to account for this, that, in the months of October 
 and November, 1843, dividends accrued, of $30 a share in 
 the Boston Manufacturing Company, and $100 a share in the 
 Merrimack Manufacturing Company, which, upon the num- 
 ber of shares stated in the account of 1844, amount to 
 $8250 ? [Ante, p. 438, note.] This large sum was re- 
 ceived by Mr. Boott, or by Mr. Lowell for him, within that 
 last quarter of a year, which is thus tacked on to the pre- 
 ceding seven years ; and not one word is said about the 
 amount of remittance from December, 1843, to the date of 
 the probate account, (November 18, 1844,) within which 
 time I have, already, stated my reasons for believing that no 
 remittance was made. [Ante, p. 444.] If Mr. Lowell would 
 have the goodness to state the amount remitted from Sep- 
 tember, 1836, to September, 1843, and thence to Septem- 
 ber, 1844, we should better see the amount, for both seven 
 years and eight years. At present we see neither. And if 
 he would exhibit the " precise statement " itself, we should 
 then know what the remittance regularly and usually was, — 
 if there was, in truth, any regularity in it, of which I know 
 nothing, except as I have been informed by Mr. Lowell. If, 
 as I infer, there was no remittance between December, 1843, 
 and November 18, 1844, (the amount of previous remittance 
 being, as we are now told, $43,037 03,) the average, for the 
 whole eight years and two months, including the extra remit- 
 tance above mentioned, was about $5300 a year. But does 
 Mr. Lowell, ever, in this case, exhibit the whole of any 
 thing, unless it happens, as he thinks, to make, wholly, in his 
 own favour ? 
 
 One other question I have to ask of Mr. Lowell. I find, 
 from the booksi of the two companies, that the aggregate of 
 
.458 
 
 the dividends, which accrued, between September, 1836, 
 and November, 1844, to the date of the prob2|,te account, on 
 the thirty'-nine shares of Boston Manufacturing Company 
 and the seventy-one shares of Merrimack Manufacturing 
 Company, held by, or for, Mr. Boott, as executor, amounted 
 to upwards of $90,000.* Of this, we are told, $43,000 was 
 remitted to Mrs. Boott. What did Mr. J. Wright Boott do 
 with the other f 47,000, besides niaintaining himself at the 
 house in the square ? 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 THE ACC0UI*T, COMPAHED WITH OTHER EVIDENCE KESPECTING 
 THE ESTATE LEFT BY MB. BOOTt's FATHER. REPRESENTA- 
 TIONS or A DIVIDEND OP $20,000. 
 
 I have, thus far, treated the probate account upon the hy- 
 pothesis that Mr. Boott had, originally, nothing to account 
 for, beyond that, which he is therein charged with. 
 
 I have treated it upon the further hypothesis, that he had 
 really paid to the heirs, though not with equality, neither 
 more nor less than $90,000, as the account claims ; and that, 
 after crediting the amount of capital distributed, nothing re- 
 mained to be accounted for, except the particular trust funds, 
 required by the will to be kept up. I have even allowed this 
 accountability to be reduced to the single fund of $100,000 
 for Mrs. Boott,— which Mr. Lowell admits to have been an 
 outstanding trust at the date of the account, — and to the in- 
 come of that fund, so far as its investments are stated. 
 
 Yielding, for the moment, all these points, and taking the 
 account as it stands, I have shown,— and have shown it, gener- 
 ally, by setting Mr. Lowell, in one place, against Mr. Lowell in 
 
 * See the particulars in the note to the last chapter. The April dividend of 
 the Boston Manufacturing Company, in 1830, ($30,) is, of course, to be excluded. 
 
459 
 
 another,— that the account of 1844; with its pretended "cash 
 balance due to the executor," is, essentially, a fiction ; and 
 that, so far from any thing being due, in 1844, from the estate 
 to Mr. Boott, the truth is, that, after all other means, formerly 
 possessed by Mr. Boott, were applied, so far as they would go, 
 to the payment of his other debts, this trust fund of |100,000, 
 charged, as it was, with those debts, remained deficient, in 
 1831, by more than fifty per cent.; that, according to the ac- 
 count of November 18, 1844, it was, still, deficient by the 
 sum of |3715 ; and that the apparent improvement of its 
 condition in 1844, compared with its condition in 1831, 
 arises from two causes only ; first, that Mr. Boott had 'paid 
 o/ a large part of his own debts, which encumbered the trust 
 property, out of the income of the trust property itself ; and 
 secondly, that the stocks are charged, upon a false principle, 
 beyond their value at the time Mr. Boott first made them, 
 specifically, trust property, by a proper transfer. But I have 
 also shown, that, take which principle of valuation the read- 
 er pleases, whether mine or Mr. Lowell's, the result is the 
 same, except in degree. In either case, the trust fund was 
 largely deficient in 1831, less so in 1844, but still deficient ; 
 and that the difierence, in the amount of deficiency at the 
 two dates, arises, solely, if we value the property at its al- 
 leged cost to Mr. Boott, from the gradual payment of Mr. 
 Boott's debts, out of the income of the trust property itself. 
 'This, surely, would be evidence enough of gross mismanage- 
 ment, if I should not go a step further. But, in ray former 
 pamphlet, I stated my belief, that, — ^besides the |100,000 trust 
 fund, which, in 1844, should have been entire, and indeed 
 should have been much augmented by rise in value of the 
 property composing it, and besides the $90,000 claimed to 
 have been paid to the heirs, — there was, but for the effect of 
 the release of 1833, which the "Reply" repudiates, a large re- 
 maining indebtedness to them, or some of them, for property, 
 not appearing in this account, which had come to the hands 
 of the executor, or for which he, being also the surviving 
 partner of his father, had made himself justly chargeable and 
 accountable. Mr. Lowell not only denies this, but contends 
 
460 
 
 that, by distributing among the heirs f 90.000, Mr. Boott, in 
 fact, over-paid them by the sum of about $3700. [L. p. 40,] 
 This, then, is a material part of the issue between us. If Mr. 
 Lowell's premises were all correct, I have shown, tihat, when 
 connected with other facts, about which there is no room for 
 dispute, they lead to the conclusion that na balance was due 
 -from the estate to the executor, and that the trust fund was 
 deficient, in 1844, by at least $3700- This deficiency is 
 proved by Mr. Lowell's own figures, made with refiBrence to a 
 different question, nothwithstanding that the fact is, in terms, 
 denied by him,when that is the point, either directly spoken of, 
 or incidentally alluded to, in the "Reply." [L. pp. 40,59, 
 195.] Such a deficiency, it is true, might have arisen, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Lowell's premises, from the pretended over- 
 payment of that amount to somebody. If, on the other hand, 
 my views are correct, there was not only no such over-pay- 
 ment, but there was a large sum, which the executor should 
 have paid over to some of the heirs, and never did pay, as 
 well as a much larger deficiency on the particular trust fund, 
 than this account, after the most careful analysis, discloses. 
 
 My view of the accounts, thus far, has taken, for its point 
 of departure, the indisputable state of all the property held by 
 Mr. Boott in 183Q, according to the memorandum in his own 
 hand-writing. Thence, it has all been traced and accounted 
 for, up to the time of the probate account of 1844 ; and thus, 
 by comparison with other proved or admitted facts, the ex- 
 treme defectiveness and error of the account has been, in one 
 mode, and to a certain extent, demonstrated. The remain- 
 ing view, by which this will be further demonstrated, depends 
 upon facts anterior to the disclosures made by Mr. Boott to 
 me in 1830. This series of facts goes back to the tiine of the 
 testator's death, in 1817, and even beyond that. 
 
 Of the business transactions, prior to 1830, 1 had little con- 
 temporaneous knowledge. My former statement, therefore, 
 was composed of certain particular facts, which, though prior 
 to 1830, I personally knew, and of the evidence, which had 
 then come to my knowledge, of certain other facts ; from 
 
461 
 
 all which I drew the inference, that, instead of $10,000, only, 
 having become payable from the executor, to each of the 
 heirs, before the release of 1833, as is claimed by the account, 
 about $20,000 ought, before that time, to have been paid to 
 each of them. The " Reply " attacks the premises, on which 
 this inference depends, by denial in part ; explanation, in 
 part ; ridicule, in part ; and, in part, by a counter-statement of 
 other alleged facts ; — ^all which I now propose to consider. 
 
 In the first place, it is apparent that Mr. Boott, senior, at the 
 date of his codicil, which was little more than one year before 
 his death, estimated his own pi'operty to be sufficient for a 
 much larger dividend, among his children, than Mr. Lowell 
 pretends ; for, after having otherwise disposed of nearly 
 $150,000, (including the mansion-house and store,) he gives 
 the residue of his personal estate equally among his children, 
 and then makes the following provision : — " As I have fixed 
 the time until the 19th of March, 1818, before a division of 
 my estate, according to my will dated Nov. 20, 1813, shall 
 take place, yet my executors are, within a year after my 
 decease, to pay to my sons. Kirk and Francis, $10,000 each, 
 in part of what is bequeathed to them, they paying interest 
 for it until the 19th of March, 1818." [B. App. p. 9.] A cau- 
 tious man, like Mr. Boott, senior, would hardly have directed 
 the absolute payment of so large a sum, soon after his de- 
 cease, as & partial payment only, and in addition to the with- 
 drawal and investment, "within a year," of $111,000 of 
 annuity funds, if he had not himself believed that there would 
 be an ample property, beyond all the contingencies of trade, 
 to give his children wmcA more than $10,000 apiece. Would 
 he have done so, if he had not expected to leave them some- 
 thing like double that sum ? 
 
 In support of my allegation, that $80,000, or near it, exclu- 
 sive of reversions, was the real dividend, which each heir was 
 entitled to, another sort of evidence, relied upon by me, was, 
 that Mr. J. Wright Boott, the executor, had repeatedly said 
 so ; and, particularly, that he had volunteered that statement, 
 personally, to me, respecting the portion of Mrs. Brooks, on 
 the occasion of our marriage. May 3, 1821. 
 
462 
 
 I understood, near the same time, from the late Mr. William 
 Lyman, that like information, respecting the amount of the 
 property, had heen given to him by Mr. Boott, on the same 
 evening, that being the date of Mr. Lyman's marriage, also. 
 I afterwards learned from Mr. Ralston, that he had been simi- 
 larly advised, at or about the time of his marriage, which was 
 a year later. I knew from other members of the family, that, 
 while living at home, they always considered themselves au- 
 thorized by Mr. J. Wright Boott, to expend, if they pleased, 
 $1200 a year, as representing the interest of their property. 
 
 The information, which I received from Mr. William Boott, 
 of his brother's statement to him, after his return from Europe, 
 in 1827, and his consultation with me, grounded upon it, have 
 been already mentioned. [Ante, p. 184.] I was also consulted, 
 shortly before Mr. J. Wright Boott's disclosures to me, in 
 1830, by both Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, who had, long 
 before, received $10,000 each from Mr. J. Wright Boott, upon 
 the question, what they should do, and in what manner they 
 should approach Mr. Boott, with a view to obtain from him 
 the remaining $10,000, which, they had been told, was due to 
 each of them. I advised them to make a direct and personal 
 application to him. They took that advice, and, as I was 
 told, quoted me for it, in their interview with Mr. Boott. 
 This, it may have been, (for I can conjecture nothing else,) 
 which gave to Mr. Boott, at that time, the idea of a plot to ruin 
 him, to which / was a party, conspiring with Messrs. Lyman 
 & Ralston. So he stated to his brother Kirk, who told it to 
 me. [B. p. 38.] The amount of promised dividend had, more- 
 over, been frequently alluded to, before that time, in conver- 
 sations between Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, respecting the 
 family affairs. 
 
 For myself, therefore, I want no other evidence to reduce 
 the case to this alternative. Either $20,000 was, in truth, the 
 nearest round sum, which represented the just dividend of 
 each heir, (independently of distant expectancies upon the 
 decease of parties then living,) or Mr. J. Wright Boott, with- 
 out any imaginable motive, misled all his family into that be- 
 
463 
 
 lief, by repeatedly telling them so, and permitting them to 
 act upon that assurance. 
 
 The particular instances of this kind of information, which 
 I mentioned, in general terms, in my former pamphlet, were 
 the statement, made directly to me, and the statement, made 
 to Mr. William Boott. I did not, then, suppose it necessary 
 to multiply instances, or to narrate all the circumstances at- 
 tending those, which I cited. 
 
 Those, of course, were all, that Mr. Lowell was bound to 
 answer. I have already mentioned, that he takes no notice 
 whatever of the representation made to Mr. William Boott, 
 as reported by me, at second hand. Respecting my own 
 case, he does not pretend to question that I intended to state 
 the truth, according to my recollection and belief; but he 
 undertakes to give an explanation of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 statement to me, which he, perhaps, may have considered 
 equally applicable to that made by Mr. William Boott, though 
 it is apparent that this explanation, if not inconsistent with 
 itself, is, at least, totally inconsistent with the further facts, 
 which I now state. These may, or may not, have been 
 known to Mr. Lowell. Such of them as respect payments 
 and allowances, it would seem, should have been known to 
 him, in consequence of his representing Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
 when absent in Europe. [L. p. 28.] However that may be, 
 I have no belief that any one of the immediate family will 
 pretend to deny them. 
 
 But, taking the case as it stood in my former pamphlet, 
 what is Mr. Lowell's explanation? Why, simply, that it is 
 all a mistake. He pretends to think that I must have mis- 
 understood Mr. Boott at the time, or now misrecollect him ; 
 and that, if he spoke of $20,000, as coming to Mrs. Brooks, 
 he meant to speak only of the share she would eventually in- 
 herit, including her reversions, and not of a sum then paya- 
 ble, or to be payable, during the life of Mrs. Boott. [L. pp. 
 52, 53.] Now such a misimderstanding seems next to im- 
 possible. This was not a mere casual remark, by Mr. Boott, 
 likely to be misunderstood, or of which the true purport was 
 likely to be forgotten ; but a conversation of some length. 
 
464 
 
 and formality, under circumstances calculated to leave an im- 
 pression. Mr. Boott took me aside, on the evening of my 
 marriage, for the purpose of entering into that conversation, 
 and expressed himself to the effect, that he hoped, soon, to 
 have the pleasure of paying over to me $20,000, for his sis- 
 ter's share of her father's estate. He went on to remark, 
 that the estate had, as yet, never heen settled ; and that there 
 were, still, some outstanding debts to be collected in England; 
 that he did not know that he could absolutely promise quite 
 f 20,000 ; that the amount realized, and the amount certain to 
 be realized, shortly, would make a dividend of from $17,000 
 to f 18,000, at least, to each heir ; and he thought it would 
 come up to f 20,000 ; but that this must depend, in a degree, 
 upon the final winding up of certain affairs in England, which 
 he hoped to see soon settled. A good deal more was said, to 
 account for the estate's having remained so long open, and 
 about the provisions of his father's will, appropriating a large 
 part of the estate so that it could not be divided during the 
 lives of the annuitants ; but this was the substance of the 
 information, in what is material to this controversy. 
 
 It was so pointed to present prospects, instead of expect- 
 ancies depending on the lives of annuitants, that I, after- 
 wards, grounded a receipt upon it, when $10,000 was paid to 
 me, by note, expressly on account. This paper Mr. Lowell 
 can produce, if he pleases. If I am right as to its tenor, it 
 would prove, at least, that my recollections of the effect of 
 the conversation are not of recent origin. But I, fortunately, 
 have it, now, in my power to produce another " contempora- 
 neous exposition," which must set that question at rest. It 
 happens, that among the papers of my late father, an original 
 letter, written by myself to him, about a fortnight after my 
 conversation with Mr. Boott, has lately come into my pos- 
 session, as one of the executors of my father's will. 
 
 To explain the fact, I should state, that, shortly before my 
 niarriage, iny father spoke to nie respecting an arrangement 
 of property, which he then contemplated making for my 
 benefit. The amount, he said, he had not determined upon, 
 but would make it enough to enable me to marry ; and, in 
 
465 
 
 that view, he inquired of me what fortune I was to receive 
 by the intended marriage. I was obliged to confess my 
 ignorance on this point. Immediately after my marriage, I 
 left Boston, on a journey, and did not see my father until 
 my return. But, on my way home, I wrote to him, from 
 Brattleborough, the letter in question, dated May 17. 
 
 In that letter, bearing in mind my father's recent conversa- 
 tion with me, I was led to allude to my subsequent informa- 
 tion from Mr. Boott. In doing so, I took care, of course, as 
 both interest and duty required, not to hold out to my father 
 extreme expectations, but to inform him of that, which I 
 thought I could count upon with certainty, so that he might 
 govern his own dispositions of property accordingly. 
 
 The most of the letter is taken up with details of the jour- 
 ney, and other matters, neither relevant to my present pur- 
 pose, nor such as would interest the reader. A few sentences, 
 however, in the following extract, (which contains all that 
 bears upon the subject,) will be found highly pertinent. 
 
 E5TEACT FROM an ORIGINAL LETTER. 
 
 [Edward Brooks to Hon. P. C. Brooks; dated "Brattleborough, May 17;" 
 post-mai-ked " May 19;" and endorsed, in the hand-writing of the late Peter C. 
 Brooks, "Edward's letter, rec'd May 24, 1821."] 
 
 " Our next stage was Greenfield, from whence we came here. We 
 parted company with our friends, the Lymans, at Northampton. 
 They go, I believe, to Portsmouth, and will reach Boston about the 
 same time with ourselves. 
 
 On the wedding evening, Mr. Boott spohe to me, for the first time, 
 on the subject of Eliza's property. The estate, it seems, is still unset- 
 tled, owing to large debts due in England, which have been very 
 doubtful, and are not yet, altogether, discharged. He says, from the 
 disposition made of the property, bt the will of his father, the 
 children will divide between $17,000 and $18,000 each; which, he 
 thinks, WILL be realized before long. On my return, I shall 
 have a more full conversation with him on the subject. 
 
 We have heard nothing from any of you, since we left 
 home," &c. &c. &c. 
 
 The further conversation, which I expected with Mr. Boott, 
 I never had, simply because he never offered me a fair open- 
 ing ; and I soon fell into the family habit of considering him 
 a person not to be obtruded upon in such matters. Nothing 
 
 £9 
 
466 
 
 more was ever said by him to me respecting a dividend, until 
 about two and a half years after, Avhen he handed me his 
 note on demand for ^10,000, expressly as a payment on ac- 
 count of my wife's share, without a word of further explana- 
 tion. And I heard nothing more from him about the prop- 
 erty, until his disclosure of 1830, when I found it was all 
 gone, except a remnant, not sufficient, under its incumbrances, 
 to construct Mrs. Boott's trust fund. 
 
 The foregoing letter, which has thus accidentally come to 
 light, will at least serve as further evidence "to show what 
 Mr. Brooks's reminiscences are worth, after such a lapse of 
 time." [L. p. 80.] If it does not positively prove the statement 
 of Mr. Boott respecting a probability of $20,000, it at least 
 proves, beyond question, that I understood him, at the time, 
 as holding out the certainty of a sum, soon to be realized, and 
 divided, that would give to the heirs, from $17,000 to 1 18,000 
 each, instead of $10,000, which the account and the " Reply" 
 pretend to have been a little more than the whole divisible 
 share ! 
 
 Now what can Mr. Lowell say to this ? He can no longer 
 charge me with misrecollection ; or, at least, not to an ex- 
 tent that can be of any avail for his argument. His case is 
 reduced to one of possible misapprehension at the time. It 
 would be pretty remarkable, certainly, if I had misunderstood 
 Mr. Boott, so very widely, on so material a point ; for, whether 
 I was about to receive a large sum of money shortly, or only 
 at the remote and indefinite period of Mrs. Boott's decease, 
 and whether the sum, which I was to have in hand, was to 
 be something near $20,000, or only $10,000, was, at that 
 time, a matter of no small importance to me ; especially since 
 I had reason to believe that it would affect the amount of 
 provision, which my father was proposing to make for my 
 benefit. But it would be remarkable, indeed, if Messrs. Ly- 
 man, Ralston, and William Boott, had all, severally, misun- 
 derstood Mr. J. Wright Boott in just the same way, in other 
 separate conversations, at other times. Still more remarkable 
 would it be, if the misunderstanding, all round, had extended 
 to the actual payment by Mr. Boott, and reception by several 
 
467 
 
 of his brothers and sisters, of |1200 a year, or to the right 
 on their part, to call, if they pleased, for that sum, as the in- 
 come of their distributive shares. And most remarkable of 
 all, that $10,000 should have, afterwards, been paid to me, 
 and receipted for by me, expressly on account, and not in 
 full, of the present distributive share, as, according to the 
 " Reply," it should have been. 
 
 When Mr. Lowell, therefore, in the face of these facts, sug- 
 gests a misunderstanding, he is bound to make out, by clear 
 extrinsic proof, an impossibility, or, at least, the highest im- 
 probability, that Mr. Boott could, or should, have made such 
 a statement, as I aver he did make ; or else to demonstrate, 
 by positive evidence, that the statement was not true. 
 
 Let us see how near an approach he makes to either branch 
 of this alternative. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 MR. Lowell's explanation of mr. boott's statements. the 
 
 $10,000 PAYMENT TO ME. THE AEGUMENT DRAAVN FKOM 
 
 THE SOiENCE AND ACQUIESCENCE OF THE HEIKS. 
 
 Mr. Lowell's mode of making out the probability of my 
 having misunderstood Mr. Boott, is this : — 
 
 " There can be no reasonable doubt, that, if Mr. Boott ever men- 
 tioned the sum of $20,000, he was speaking of his sister's share of the 
 property, including the trust funds. 
 
 Let us see if this is not probable. 
 
 The house in Bowdoin Square had been appraised, only 
 three years before, at $24,000. 
 
468 
 
 Suppose Mr. Boott valued it, in 1821, 130,000 
 
 The trust funds in his hands were then 111,000 
 
 The property presently distributable among the heirs, 
 exclusive of the SI 1,000 trust fund for his aunts, he 
 probably valued at what it turned out to be, 75,000 
 
 $216,000 
 
 This, divided by nine, would give to each of the heirs, 24,000 
 
 But Mrs. Brooks had already received her furniture, 
 
 which had cost certainly not under 4,000 
 
 $20,000 
 So that it is almost certain, that Mr. Boott was speaking of Mrs. 
 Brooks's ultimate expectations, and not of the sum presently re- 
 ceivable." [L. p. 52.] 
 
 What a curious specimen have we, here, of the forcing of 
 figures to meet a case ! 
 
 First, the mansion-house is forced into the account, al- 
 though this was no sum of money, to be divided, at all. 
 
 Next, Mr. Boott is forced to value it at, precisely, $30,000. 
 A little while since, when the object was to rectify Mr. 
 Boott's position in 1830, and to exhibit for him an apparent 
 excess of property, beyond all debts and liabilities, to the 
 amount of $70,000, the reader has seen, that, in order to 
 prove that case, Mr. Lowell, among numerous other assump- 
 tions, valued the mansion-house at $46,000, though it was 
 then, (1830,) really worth only about $30,000. [Ante, p. 254] 
 But, now, when the object is to extract the sum of $20,000, 
 exactly, for Mrs. Brooks's share of the estate, including rever- 
 sions, Mr. Lowell values the same piece of property at 
 $30,000 ; and he values it at that, for the year 1831, though 
 it had been appraised, but three years before, at only $24,000, 
 as he admits ; for neither more nor less than $30,000 would 
 work out this sum, just as $46,000 was necessary to work 
 out the former sum. 
 
 In the third place, Mr. Boott is forced, by Mr. Lowell, to 
 value all the personal property of his father's estate, supposed 
 to be remaining in his hands after having set aside $111,000 
 for the particular trust funds, at exactly $75,000, although 
 the very question at issue is, how much that property was. 
 
469 
 
 Why at $75,000 ? Because, says Mr. Lowell, that is " what 
 it turned out to be." How so ? It " turns out," by nothing 
 but the account of 1844, drawu up hy Mr. Lowell, the cor- 
 rectness of which is the whole matter in dispute. In that 
 account, Mr. Boott is charged with $186,000, only, as re- 
 ceived, in money, for account of the capital of his father's 
 estate ; from which, deducting $111,000 for the trust funds, 
 there would remain, it is true, but $75,000 for distribution ; 
 and, of course, argues Mr. Lowell, Mr. J. Wright Boott, who 
 knew the state of the property, must have valued that re- 
 mainder, in 1821, at what the account of 1844 shows it to 
 have been. But, when, does the account say, that he had re- 
 ceived the money, with which he is charged ? The conver- 
 sation with me, fixed now by an original letter, was in May, 
 1821 ; and at that time, according to the account, Mr. Boott 
 had received only $116,783 95. [L. p. 38.] The residue of the 
 admitted receipts is said to have come from Boott & Lowell ; 
 at what date, it is true, the account does not tell us ; but the 
 house of Boott & Lowell, we are told in the " Reply," did 
 not begin its existence till 1822, nor wind up till July, 1824 ; 
 [L. p. 28.] and the $70,000, (nearly,) said to have been paid 
 over by that house, is declared to have come from its liqui- 
 dation of the outstanding afiairs of the former house of Kirk 
 Boott & Sons, in which the estate was a partner. [L. p. 38.] 
 Yes ; Mr. Lowell ventures to draw so largely on the credulity 
 of his reader as to invite him to believe, that Mr. Boott saw, 
 with prophetic eye, in May, 1821, that, in the course of afuture 
 liquidation, by a future house, destined to be established in 
 1822, he should receive, at last, through that house, from the 
 unsettled accounts of his father's estate, (which could not, 
 legally, have any concern with such a house,) something so 
 near the precise sum of $69,389 99, that, when added to the 
 five or six thousand dollars, which he is, then, supposed to 
 have had in hand, beyond the trust funds, it would give him 
 the exact sum of $75,000 for distribution ! 
 
 " By all these assumptions, as curious as they are mani- 
 festly unfair," [L. p. 91.] the arithmetic of the " Reply" 
 succeeds in producing an aggregate amount of property, 
 
470 
 
 which, when divided by nine, (the number of the heirs,) 
 gives, after all, $24,000, instead of |20,000, to a share. But, 
 in order to get rid of that extra $4,000, it is only needful to 
 make a few more assumptions. Accordingly, it is assumed, 
 that Mr. Boott meant to exclude the cost of Mrs. Brooks's 
 furniture ;* and it is further assumed, " without a shadow of 
 evidence," [L. p. 47.] that the cost of that furniture was, ex- 
 actly, $4000 ! 
 
 Was ever any thing, with arithmetical figures attached to it, 
 and purporting to be founded on facts, so conjured up out of 
 the regions of pure invention ? Yet, Mr. Lowell concludes : — 
 
 " So that it is almost certain, that Mr. Boott was speaking of Mrs. 
 Brooks's ultimate expectations, and not of the sum presently re- 
 ceivable." [L. p. 53.] 
 
 If this were so, how came Mr. Boott to tell Mr. Lyman, on 
 the same evening, that Mrs. Lyman's share, also, would be 
 $20,000 ? There was no $4000 to be deducted for furniture, 
 in her case. How came he to tell Mr. Ralston, in 1823, and 
 Mr. Wniiam Boott, in 1827, that they, each, were to have 
 $20,000 ? Mr. Ralston, at the time of the statement to him, 
 had not received any sum whatever, in furniture, or in any 
 other form ; and Mr. William Boott, if we may credit the 
 " Reply," had received more than ten thousand dollars in 
 Europe, on account of his patrimony. [L. pp. 61, 62.] 
 
 But I am tempted, by Mr. Lowell's example, to try my 
 hand at a little computation in this matter ; though, instead 
 of resting my figures on my own conjectures, I shall rest 
 them on his admissions. 
 
 Mrs. Brooks was undoubtedly entitled, as a part of her 
 "ultimate expectations," to one ninth of the trust 
 funds ; and these, Mr. Lowell admits, above, were, 
 in 1821, $111,000 ; of which, one ninth is $12,333 33 
 
 * This furniture was treated at the time, as a gift. It was not understood to 
 have been purchased out of her funds ; and had not been delivered to her. Sever- 
 al weeks elapsed before she began to occupy the house, which had been famished. 
 The cost I never knew. It is probably over-ostunated by Mr. LoweU. 
 
471 
 
 Brought forward, $12,333 33 
 
 She was also entitled to one ninth of the mansion- 
 house, which Mr. Lowell values above, in 1821, at 
 $30,000. One ninth is _ 3,333 33 
 
 She had received, on account of her share, in furniture, 
 
 as Mr. Lowell assures us, 4,000 00 
 
 And Mr. Boott paid to me, on further account, as Mr. 
 Lowell admits, below, with interest from the day of 
 my marriage, (which was admitting it to be a sum 
 due on that day,) 10,000 00 
 
 Total, 29,666 66 
 
 Hence, if so small a sum as $20,000 was a sum spoken of 
 by Mr. Boott, must we not conclude, from Mr. Lowell's prem- 
 ises, that "it is almost certain that he was" not " speaking 
 of Mrs. Brooks's ultimate expectations" ? For, if no more 
 than f 10,000 was to be the true cash dividend, as Mr. Lowell 
 pretends, that sum, added to the other items, which Mr. Low- 
 ell admits, would have made Mrs. Brooks's eventual share 
 about |30,000, instead of $20,000, as the " Reply" desires to 
 make it. 
 
 But Mr. Lowell, adverting to his own demonstration above 
 cited, goes on to remark : — 
 
 "This view is confirmed by what subsequently occurred. Mr. 
 Boott called upon Mr. Brooks, in December, 1823, and gave his note 
 for $10,C00, on account of Mrs. Brooks's portion, and a check for the 
 arrears of interest from the day of the marriage." [L. p. 63.] 
 
 That is all true, and just as I stated it. [B. p. 43.] He 
 gave me his note, as Mr. Lowell says, " on account" of Mrs. 
 Brooks's portion, expressly, and took a receipt from me, in 
 conformity. 
 
 But Mr. Lowell asks : — 
 
 "Why for $10,000? If he had paid him that sum in money, it 
 would be intelligible enough why it might be inconvenient to pay up 
 the whole at once ; but, as he was giving his note, no reason can be 
 imagined, why, if Mrs. Brooks was entitled to receive $20,000, Mr. 
 Boott should have given his note for only $10,000, and thenceforward 
 regularly paid Mr. Brooks the interest on that sum." [L. p. 63.] 
 
 Now will Mr. Lowell be good enough to tell me, first, why 
 Mr. Boott, making a payment, as executor, of a sum, which 
 
472 
 
 Mr. Lowell admits was due from him, in that capacity, to an 
 heir, should have given a note for it, at all ? The heir was 
 entitled to the estate's money, not to Mr. Bootfs note. If 
 there was no money of the estate to divide, then there was 
 no occasion to have volunteered a payment ; for it was all 
 his own voluntary act, without the slightest movement, or in- 
 timation, from me. If there was money to divide, as execu- 
 tor, why did he bring me his personal promissory note, ex- 
 cept that he himself wanted the money ? And if he wanted 
 the money, what did he want it for? According to the 
 " Reply," he was not a man to engage in speculations with 
 other people's money ; " he was a man of fortune, certainly 
 worth, when I [Mr. Lowell] was his partner, at least |70,000." 
 [L. p. 57.] He put no money, we are given to imderstand, 
 into any thing but his regular business, while that lasted. 
 [L. p. 28.] His regular business, at this time, (December, 
 1823,) was only as a member of the firm of Boott & Lowell. 
 He had, long before, according to Mr. Lowell, put into that 
 firm $40,000, which was all the capital he was to furnish there. 
 [L. p. 58.] Why then did he not pay over, in money, the 
 $10,000, which did not belong to him, and which, if he had 
 not previously used the estate's money for some other pur- 
 poses than those of the estate, should have been money then 
 lying in his hands, as executor, for distribution ? The reader 
 will presently perceive, both, why he did not pay money 
 then, and why the note which he gave, in lieu of it, was 
 suffered to remain, unpaid, till 1826, when it became included 
 in a partnership settlement between him and his brother Kirk, 
 who had become the owner of the note. 
 
 But Mr. Lowell says he can understand, if the pa3rment 
 had been in money, " why it might be inconvenient to pay 
 up the whole at once." Now, I confess, that is, precisely, 
 what I can not understand, o« Mr. Lowell's theory. True, an 
 executor might prefer to distribute stocks, or some other spe- 
 cific investment of the estate, in lieu of selling the stocks and 
 distributing the money. But, if, according to Mr. Lowell's 
 theory, Mr. Boott had not used, and was not then using, the 
 funds of the estate, for any purpose other than the estate's 
 
473 
 
 business, and the time had come for a distribution of those 
 funds, I cannot understand, consistently with this theory, why 
 he should not have made that distribution, either in money, 
 or in the specific property, which he held for the estate. I 
 cannot understand, why an executor, meaning to make a dis- 
 tribution, should give his own notes ; or, why, if his distrib- 
 utable fund lies either in money, or stocks, it is not just as 
 convenient for him, and a little more so, to make the whole 
 distribution at once, in money, or stocks, as to make it half 
 at a time. If, on the other hand, the executor had, inconsid- 
 erately, employed the funds of the estate in trade, and had 
 got them into an inconvertible, or unavailable, shape, and was 
 personally liable for them to the heirs, I can then understandj 
 not only why he should have Avished to give his own note, 
 instead of paying money, or delivering stocks, but, also, why 
 he should wish to give his note for $10,000 only, rather than 
 for $20,000, although $20,000 may have been the whole 
 sum due and payable. Mr. Lowell says, for this " no reason 
 can be imagined;" but it seems to me reason enough, if there 
 were no other, that the note was on demand, and, conse- 
 quently, that he was liable to be required to turn out the cash 
 for it at any moment, if I had chosen to demand it, instead 
 of letting it lie, as I did, on demand, for two or three years, 
 and until I exchanged it, in 1826, for Mr. Kirk Boott's note, 
 at the request, and for the accommodation of that gentleman. 
 But the true reason, in my belief, why Mr. Boott gave his 
 note, was, that he had placed the estate's mbney, and his 
 own, if he had any, where he could not control it. The 
 true reason why he gave a note for no more than $10,000, (in 
 addition to the fact that it was a note upon demand,) prob- 
 ably was, that he had, previously, paid $10,000 each, in 
 money, to Mr. Lyman and to Mr. Ralston. This he knew I 
 must be aware of. There was no reason, except the incon- 
 venience of it, why a like sum should not have been paid to 
 me, in money, long before ; nor, indeed, why a larger sum 
 should not have been paid to each of us. But, as I was, at 
 that time, about going abroad, if he wished to make a pay- 
 ment, and especially to make it hy note, it was important 
 
474 
 
 that it should be done then ; and, if I had not exhibited a 
 perfect "willingness to take his note, he would, no doubt, 
 being then in excellent credit, have procured accommoda- 
 tion elsewhere, and paid over the money, so as to place me 
 on a footing with Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston. But why, 
 when he gave me a note for $10,000, only, did he not say 
 it was a payment in full, if it was so ? Why did he say it 
 was upon account ? And why did he take a receipt in that 
 form 1 
 
 It might facilitate our understanding, perhaps, of Mr. 
 Boott's motive in giving a note, if Mr. Lowell would tell us 
 the exact date, which the account so strangely omits, of the 
 executor's reception of that sum of $69,389 99, paid over to 
 him by Boott & Lowell. Boott & Lowell began in January, 
 1822. It was almost the last day of December, 1823, when 
 Mr. Boott gave me the note. The partnership of Boott & 
 Lowell came to an end, and the firm was dissolved, in about 
 six months after. If Boott & Lowell had, before the date of 
 the note, paid him that large sum, (which with what he had 
 previously received from the old firm, made up the whole 
 distributable property, according to the account of 1844,) 
 having so large a sum of money in his hands, as executor, 
 why did he not give me the money, instead of the note ? 
 Or, if Boott & Lowell paid the executor so large a sum soon 
 after the date of the note, — as the term of the duration of 
 that house would seem to indicate, — how happened it, that 
 Mr. Boott did not, then, take up his note ? Or, how long 
 was it, after the dissolution of the firm, that this great sum, 
 in the hands of Boott & Lowell, actually came to the ex- 
 ecutor ? Mr. Lowell can throw some further light on these 
 matters. Nobody else can. 
 
 Mr Lowell further remarks, — 
 
 " Mr. Brooks seems to have asked no questions on the subject ; 
 nor does it appear that a lisp ever fell from him, or from any one of 
 the eight heirs, on this subject, during the twenty-four years that 
 elapsed before Mr. Boott's death." [L. p. 63.] 
 
 As to " the twenty-four years, that elapsed before Mr. 
 Boott's death," the reader will remember, that, in 1833, the 
 
475 
 
 heirs had, voluntarily, discharged Mr. Boott from all existing 
 claims, great or small. [Ante, p. 373.] Whether he had 
 under-paid them, or not, after that, was wholly immaterial ; 
 and if he had, (which, without accounts, they could not 
 know,) it would have been, at least, very unavailing to com- 
 plain of it. I have, besides, already explained why nobody 
 asked questions of Mr. J. Wright Boott about the family 
 property ; and I have proved the explanation, mainly, by Mr. 
 Kirk Boott's letters. Why Mr. J. Wright Boott, unasked, 
 did not wish to disclose particulars will, also, be intelligible 
 enough, before I have done with the case, if it is not already. 
 But what further says Mr. Lowell ? 
 
 " Neither Mr. Wright Boott himself, nor either of his former part- 
 ners, who must have been coaversant with the whole business, nor 
 JAx. AVells, nor Mr. Brooks, nor Mr. William Boott, in all my inter- 
 course with them, and frequent conversations about the family prop- 
 erty, ever hinted a suspicion that they had been under-paid. 
 
 In my settlement with Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, in 1831, I made 
 it a prominent argument in Mr. Boott's behalf, that, from my own 
 observation, I entertained no doubt that he had overpaid them. The 
 same opinion I have expressed to Mr. Kirk Boott, and also to Mr. 
 Brooks and Mr. William Boott, who have never, either of them, 
 until these recent troubles, disagreed with me in opinion." [L. p. 54.] 
 
 What conversations Mr. Lowell may have had with the 
 other persons here referred to, what arguments he may have 
 used, and what opinions he may have expressed, to them, is, 
 of course, not personally known to me. But, if none of the 
 gentlemen, named by Mr. Lowell, ever hinted a suspicion 
 that they, or somebody, had been under-paid by Mr. Boott, I 
 beg to ask, why Mr. Lowell found himself called upon, so 
 frequently, to express his opinion that they had been over- 
 paid ? 
 
 As to Mr. William Boott, if he never hinted a suspicion, 
 that he had not received his full share, I think the reader has 
 already seen, that, it was not because he had not good ground 
 to entertain it ; [Ante, Ch. 20.] and, if it be tme, that Mr. 
 Lowell ever expressed opinions to that gentleman, which that 
 gentleman did not choose to contradict, it could only have been 
 because his brother's unfortunate management of the family 
 
476 
 
 property was a topic extremely disagreeable to him to con- 
 verse upon, and the particulars of which, (ndver having seen 
 the accounts,) he had no certain knowledge of. It, certainly, 
 was not a subject, which, Mr. J. Wright Boott, himself, 
 would have been likely to introduce to Mr. Lowell, or Mr. 
 Lowell to him; and, except when some urgent occasion 
 called for an expression of opinion, or for resistance to the 
 expressions of Mr. Lowell, all members of the family would, 
 naturally, feel themselves restrained, and bound to silence, 
 on this subject. What motive had they to attempt to con- 
 vert Mr. Lowell? — and, without accounts rendered, \irhaj 
 means had they of doing so ? 
 
 Except in the case of the Lyman <fc Ralston settlement, in 
 1831, and the release of 1833, no occasion ever existed, to 
 my knowledge, likely to draw out the expression of opinions 
 by any body, unless while the allowance of the account of 
 1844 was under consideration, or shortly before that time. 
 The case of Messrs. Lyman and Ralston is one, in which calls 
 for further payment were much urged by them, as will pres- 
 ently be seen ; and the reader will note, that Mr. Lowell is 
 careful not to enumerate them, among the persons, who never 
 "hinted a suspicion that they had been under-paid." After 
 that settlement, and before the family difficulties, which 
 arose in the latter part of Mr. Boott's life, when, and with 
 whom, could Mr. Lowell have conversed on the subject ? and 
 with what parties, who had any cause of complaint? Seve- 
 ral, perhaps most, of the heirs, I think it will appear, had 
 received their full $20,000, — Mr. Kirk Boott, and, I believe, 
 Mr. Wells among them. Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, whatever 
 they may have got by the settlement, assigned, as part of that 
 arrangement, all their remaining interest to Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott. Dr. Francis Boott has been in England since 1818. 
 All the heirs in this country, moreover, released their claims, 
 except on the trust funds, in 1833. Why was that, by the 
 way, if nobody was supposed to have been under-paid ? Why 
 did they think it needful to join in a release ? And why did 
 Mr. Boott accept and record it ? This having been done, in 
 1833, when questions arose, in 1844, about the accounts, all 
 
477 
 
 that was then looked to were the integrity and security of 
 the trust funds. The incongruities and imperfections of the 
 account, in all other respects, were supposed to be covered and 
 swallowed up by that former release, until Mr. Lowell ven- 
 tured to give out otherwise, at first, in effect, to the coroner's 
 jury, and afterwards, in plain terms, in his pamphlet. From 
 the moment when the account was agreed to and passed, 
 that whole subject of controversy was done away, and sup- 
 posed to be buried. It was buried ; and would have forever 
 remained so, but for Mr. Lowell. But, while the question was 
 open, who was there, of the heirs, I desire to ask, for Mr. 
 Lowell to exchange opinions with? Mr. Kirk Boott had 
 been long dead. Mr. James Boott, as well as Dr. Francis 
 Boott, was in England. Messrs. Lyman and Ralston had no 
 interest left. And, in respect to Mr. Wells, Mr. Lowell him- 
 self tells us, " Until after the passage of those accounts, I 
 never exchanged a word with Mr. Wells, on the subject of the 
 family troubles, nor indeed had I conversed with him on any 
 subject for many years." [L. p. 54.] 
 
 Nobody is left but Mr. William Boott and myself. Mr. 
 William Boott's reserve on this subject I have already ex- 
 pressed. While it was under discussion, I was the person, 
 and, I believe, the only person, who spoke freely to Mr. 
 Lowell ; for I was the only one of the heirs, living, who 
 knew certain material facts ; and if Mr. Lowell means now, 
 as he says, that, in our " fyequent conversations about the 
 family property," I never hinted to him my belief that some 
 of the heirs had been paid less than others, and less than 
 they were entitled to, or that I ever agreed with him in a 
 contrary opinion, I shall be obliged to say that Mr. Lowell 
 is labouring under some " old delusion ;" [L. p. 203.] or that 
 his memory is " signally treacherous ;" [L. p. 95.] or some- 
 thing else, not much short of saying, that " the audacity of 
 this passage defies all competition." [L. p. 69.] 
 
478 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 CASE OF MESSBS. LYMAN AND BALSTON. PBOOFS THAT THE 
 $10,000 PAYMENT TO THEM WAS ONLY ON ACCOUNT. 
 
 I have mentioned the fact, that both Mr. Lyman and Mr. 
 Ralston received from Mr. Boott, in money, $10,000 each, 
 before the payment of that sum to me, by note, in 1823, and 
 that they received it, not as a payment in full, but on account 
 of the $20,000, or thereabouts, held out as coming to them 
 upon the closing of certain accounts in England. Their re- 
 ceipts, which ought to show this, are, of course, in Mr. Low- 
 ell's hands. I have also mentioned, that both those gentle- 
 men, in 1830, before I was aware of Mr. Boott's unfortunate 
 position, applied to me for advice respecting the best step for 
 them to take to obtain the remaining $10,000 each, which 
 they understood to be their due, and which, if due, they stood 
 in much need of, in consequence of their embarrassments, 
 growing out of the business of the foundry ; and that, by my 
 advice, they made personal application for it to Mr. J.Wright 
 Boott. This was followed, almost immediately, by the 
 astounding disclosure, made by Mr. J. Wright Boott to Mr. 
 Kirk Boott and myself, of his real pecuniary position. So 
 much rests, of course, upon my statement. 
 
 Opposed to this is the statement of Mr. Lowell, that, in his 
 settlement with Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, in 1831, he made 
 it a prominent argument, in Mr. Boott's behalf, that, from his 
 own observation, he (Mr. Lowell) entertained no doubt that 
 Mr. Boott had overpaid them ! [L. p. 54] 
 
 Now I do not doubt that Mr. Lowell, endeavouring to make 
 the best possible arrangement for Mr. Boott, employed, on 
 that occasion, his most plausi&e arguments, enforced by his 
 strongest statements. That he succeeded in effecting a most 
 advantageous bargain for Mr. Boott, I have already conceded. 
 But did those gentlemen, (Lyman and Ralston,) after having 
 been informed otherwise by Mr. Boott himself, agree to Mr. 
 
479 
 
 Lowell's suggestion, founded upon nothing but his own 
 alleged opinion that they had been overpaid ? Mr. Lowell 
 does not pretend this. He proclaims, boldly enough, that, 
 when he expressed such opinions to Mr. Kirk Boott, to Mr. 
 William Boott, and to me, we never disagreed with him, 
 " until these recent troubles." We certainly had no occasion, 
 before that time, to express our disagreement, whatever occa- 
 sion Mr. Lowell may have found to favour us with his opmion, 
 on a point, which nothing but the accounts could settle. 
 But, respecting Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, the "Reply" is, 
 on this point, studiously silent. We are only told that Mr. 
 Lowell argued to them, and assured them, that he enter- 
 tained no doubt that they had been overpaid. We are not 
 told what they said in answer. The inference is inevitable, 
 that they, having great occasion to urge just claims in a set- 
 tlement, did not accede to his statements. 
 
 To aid in the determination of this fact, as well as on other 
 accounts, I should be particularly glad to see the papers con- 
 nected with that settlement of 1831, all of which Mr. Lowell 
 says he has, [L. p. 109.] and every one of which he is most 
 careful to keep to himself. But, though not favoured with the 
 light of those documents, we are not wholly destitute of 
 contemporaneous evidence, sufficient, I think, to establish my 
 main position, and to confute Mr. Lowell's. 
 
 He must not be surprised, therefore, to find, that, knowing 
 what I knew at the time of the sentiments entertained by 
 those gentlemen, I infer, from all the evidence before me, that 
 they not only did not admit that they had been overpaid, but 
 insisted, that, at least, $10,000 more was then due and paya- 
 ble to them from the estate, besides the $10,000 they had re- 
 ceived, and besides the expectancies at the decease of Mrs. 
 Boott ; that the justice of their demand was never denied by 
 Mr. Boott, nor disputed by any body, unless by Mr. Lowell _: 
 that, if disputed by him, it was^ at last, vutually yielded ; and 
 that a settlement teas made with them, by Mr. Lowell, for 
 Mr. Boott, on that very basis ! 
 
 If I am wrong, in any of these inferences, Mr. Lowell can 
 easily set me right, by simply exhibiting " all the original 
 
480 
 
 papers," which, he says, are still in his possession. [L. p. 
 109.] He has stated the terms of the settlement on certain 
 points ; [L. p. 79.] not on this. He has shown, that, in 
 payment for Mr. Boott's investment of at least $70,000, — 
 which he asserts was not then esteemed a had investment, 
 [L. p. 90.] and which Mr. Ralston, undoubtedly, thought 
 to be a tolerably good, one, though subject to a large amount 
 of debts, — Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, for themselves and 
 their associates, besides assuming the debts, transferred to 
 Mr. Boott, all the reversionary interest (so Mr. Lowell states 
 it,) of their wives, in the real and personal estate of Mr. 
 Boott, senior, together with a cash payment of $7624, secur- 
 ed by note. [L. p. 79.] But was it their reversionary inter- 
 est, only, which they assigned, as Mr. Lowell pretends ? 
 Their deed expresses otherwise. It conveys, in terms, not 
 only all their title in the mansion-house, (which was rever- 
 sionary,) but also, 
 
 " all our respective shares, portions, and interest in all the pdnds, 
 
 STOCKS, CHATTELS, AND PERSONAL PEOPEKTT OF AND BELONG- 
 INa TO THE ESTATE OF THE LATE KiRK BoOTT, EsQ., Or held 
 
 and possessed by any person or persons, as tkdstees under his 
 will, OK AS executors thereof." [B. App. 22.] 
 
 That is, it assigns to Mr. Boott all that was presently due 
 from him as executor, as well as all that might become due 
 in reversion. I was, myself, inaccurate on this point in my 
 former pamphlet, and spoke, incidentally, of the interest 
 assigned as if it had been only reversionary. [B. p. 41.] Mr. 
 Lowell takes care, not only to adopt the error, but to confirm 
 it by positive statement. 
 
 In this connexion, let us inquire, how much, in value, was 
 given, according to Mr. Lowell, in exchange for Mr. Boott's 
 $70,000 investment ? What was all the reversionary interest 
 of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston then worth ? We are told, it 
 would amount, at the decease of Mrs. Boott, to $16,000 a 
 share, [L. p. 201.] or $32,000 for the two shares. That is 
 true, provided we reckon Mrs. Boott's fund as good for the full 
 $100,000, and the mansion-house as then worth the $46,000, 
 which it brought in 1844. But, at the time of the settlement. 
 
481 
 
 in 1831, the mansion-house was not worth more than f 30,000. 
 This brings down the reversionary shares, at the fair estimate 
 of 1831, to less than $14,500 each, even without calculating 
 and deducting Mrs. Boott's life interest, which was then 
 about fifty per cent, of the whole value. So important an 
 element as that, could hardly have been overlooked, by an 
 agent so acute as Mr. Lowell, in such a settlement. If not, 
 then the value, at that time, of the two reversionary shares, 
 taken together, (calling the trust fund, as Mr. Lowell does, 
 $100,000, and the mansion-house $30,000, at which I rate 
 it, and deducting the value of Mrs. Boott's life estate in each,) 
 could have been estimated at only about $15,000; and this, 
 added to the alleged cash payment of $7624, would make less 
 than $23,000 of actual present value, given by Messrs. Ly- 
 man and Ralston, according to Mr. Lowell's representation, in 
 exchange for $70,000 of value, put into the foundry by Mr. 
 Boott. 
 
 This would seem to be rather too liberal a discount for 
 such an agent to have made, on the sale of so excellent an 
 investment, to parties, who estimated it highly. But, if we 
 suppose it to have been agreed that Mr. Boott, though he had 
 paid in $70,000 to the joint concern, owed, at the same time 
 as executor, $20,000 to his partners, personally, for moneys in 
 his hands beyond what he had paid to them, so much of the 
 money, put into the foundry by him, they would, of course, 
 have considered to be, in reality, their money, reducing Mr. 
 Boott's own separate investment there to $50,000. That 
 amount of investment, (liable to Mr. Boott's one third of the 
 debts due from the joint concern,) would, in that case, have 
 been the subject of the sale for about $23,000 of real value to 
 Mr. Boott ; and if the debts of the concern were, as Mr. Kirk 
 Boott states, $80,000, [Ante. p. 278.] one third of them, de- 
 ducted from the $50,000 investment, would leave a sum very 
 nearly balanced by the $23,000 of payment. All this, I ad- 
 mit, may be mere coincidence. I do not pretend to know, 
 now, what the fact was, although I may have known it at 
 the time. But a settlement, on these terms, would, at least, 
 
482 
 
 seem to be a more probable bargain for Mr. Lowell to haye 
 made, than that, which is suggested by his partial disclosures. 
 
 That Mr. Ralston did, for some reason, insist, that Mr. 
 Boott had not furnished so large a portion of the funds, in 
 their joint concern, as Mr. Boott at first contended, I have 
 shown by Mr. Ralston's own letter of November 13, 1830, 
 before printed. [Ante, p. 232.] And since there is no doubt 
 that Mr. Boott had actually paid in, at least, $70,000, and since 
 there could be no doubt, among the parties themselves, how 
 much each of the other partners had actually paid in, it is plain 
 that the ground, upon which Mr. Ralston so insisted, must 
 have been this very fact, that a large part of the money, 
 paid in by Mr. Boott, Avas no more than Mr. Boott owed, as 
 executor, to Mr. Ralston himself, and to Mr. Lyman, and con- 
 sequently was, to all intents and purposes of the partnership, 
 their money. 
 
 Notwithstanding the f 10,000 payment to each, which Mr. 
 Lowell and the account of 1844 represent as more than all 
 that was due, it is certain that a further indebtedness of Mr. 
 Boott, as executor, to them, was well understood in 1830-31, 
 not only by them, but by Mr. Kirk Boott and myself This 
 distinctly appears by the letters of that gentleman, hereto- 
 fore exhibited, although Mr. Lowell pretends to show from 
 another letter, which he produces, that Mr. Kirk Boott thought 
 the balance of the account was the other way ! Before look- 
 ing at that letter, let me remind the reader of a few short 
 passages, bearing directly on this point, in the letters, which 
 he has lately read, and he will see, at once, how the fact 
 stands. 
 
 EXTRACTS. 
 [From the letter of Sept. 29, 1830, Ante, p. 27B.] 
 
 " I do hope E. & L. will not urge this claim, if it can possibly be 
 helped." 
 
 Now, will Mr. Lowell have the goodness to explain what 
 claim Messrs. Lyman and Ralston had, to urge against Mr. 
 Boott, except that he should pay them whatsoever was then 
 due and payable from his father's estate in his hands ? Is not 
 
483 
 
 this the very same claim, which Mr. Ralston and Mr. Lyman 
 had lately invited Mr. J. Wright Boott to settle, after consult- 
 ing with me on the subject ? Is not the existence of this 
 claim the very circumstance, which Mr. Ralston alludes to, 
 in his letter of November 12, in the same year, as one, which 
 ought to satisfy Mr. Boott that he had not, really, furnished 
 so large a proportion of the capital, used in their concern, as 
 he had asserted ? [Ante"7 p. 232.] 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, himself, in the extract from his note 
 to Mr. Kirk Boott, cited by the latter, refers to the same 
 thing. 
 
 [From the same letter, Ante, p. 275.] 
 
 " If the children [meaning his wards of the F. Boott family,] are 
 paid in full, and this claim of theirs also, [Lyman & Ralston's,] the 
 whole burthen will fall on my poor mother" SfC. 
 
 The reader, on turning back to that letter, will note, that 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, instead of denying that this claim was 
 well founded, tacitly admits it, and only prays that it may 
 not be pressed, out of consideration to his mother ; and as a 
 further motive to forbearance, suggests, that " It is certainly 
 for the interest of the heirs that the fund left to my mother 
 should be made good." What can all this refer to but the 
 unpaid balance due from the executor ? 
 
 The " Reply," indeed, represents, that, in this letter, Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott was "commenting upon the reluctance of Ly- 
 man & Ralston to join in an assignment of tlje Mill Dam 
 property, to secure the guardianship accounts ;" and that 
 there is " not a word about his owing any thing to the heirs 
 beyond the trust fund." [L. p. 82.] What can be more 
 absurd ? Will Mr. Lowell please to tell us, what Mr. Boott 
 means by "this claim of theirs" on him? The proposed 
 assignment, which Lyman & Ralston are said to have been 
 reluctant to execute, was no claim of theirs on Mr. Boott, 
 but a claim, which Mr. Boott is supposed to have been urging 
 upon them. 
 
 [From the letter dated " Tuesday Eyening," Ante, p. 278.] 
 " My own opinion is, that J. W. B. should, at once, assign all his 
 property, first to secure F. B.'s heirs, and next the estate and heirs of 
 
484 
 
 my father. The endorsements for E. & L. are no debts of his, [i. e. 
 considering the amount he has already put into the joint concern, be- 
 yond what they have put in,] and securing to them a just proportion 
 [because payment in full was considered hopeless,] of what he may 
 owe them as executor, is all, under the circumstances, they can claim." 
 " J. W. B. cannot, injustice to my mother, assist them." 
 
 What does Mr. Kirk Boott mean by assigning the property 
 to secure " the estate and heirs " of his father, if he did not 
 consider Mr. J. Wright Boott then indebted to the estate and 
 its heirs ? — to each of whom, as Mr. Lowell admits and con- 
 tends, he had paid, before this date, the sum of " $10,000 
 and upwards." [L. p. 27.] And what does he mean, by 
 " securing to them [Lyman and Ralston,] a just proportion of 
 what he may owe them as executor," if he, in truth, owed 
 them nothing ? 
 
 [From the letter of May 22, 1831, Ante, p. 280.] 
 
 " The mortgage of the Mill Dam [Foundry] I presume is made 
 entirely for L. & E.'s debts, and if the property is worth only hdf 
 what they estimate it at, this will cover ant demands they 
 HAVE ON J. W. B. AS EXECUTOR. His reversion of the estate, 
 which he says he will never touch a cent of, might be pledged as 
 security for his endorsements, and in justice, perhaps, this is all that 
 the R.'s can claim." 
 
 Now, what demands had they "on J. W. B. as executor, ^^ 
 if the $10,000 payment, which had been previously made, 
 were, as Mr. Lowell pretends, all, and more than all, they 
 were entitled to receive, during the life of Mrs. Boott ? Claims 
 upon the annuity funds they could not have, until the trusts 
 had terminated. And why does Mr. J. Wright Boott say that 
 he will never touch a cent of his reversion, if he did not then 
 owe to the other heirs, or to some of them, more than he 
 ever hoped to be able to pay, unless by his reversion, so far 
 as that might go, when it should come into possession ? 
 
 [Fi-om the letter without date, written at the time a joint stock company was talked 
 of, Ante, p. 281.] 
 
 " This morning he [one of the Messrs. Ralston] proposed to me the 
 following: — That Lyman should convey to R. R. [Robert Ralston, jr.] 
 all his interest in the M. D. F. [Mill Dam Foundry] as well as any 
 claim upon J. W. B. as executor, and Ms reversionary interest in the 
 estate." 
 
485 
 
 Mr. Lo-well has omitted to notice nearly all the sentences 
 above extracted ; but, on this last, he ventures the following 
 remark : — 
 
 "The above quotation very properly distinguishes between the 
 trust funds, which were in Mr. Boott's hands as executor, and the 
 real estate, of which the reversion had already vested in the heirs. 
 [L. p. 83.] 
 
 This seems to be that description of nicety, which is com- 
 monly called a quibble. Mr. Kirk Boott is, plainly, distin- 
 guishing between nothing but present claims and reversion- 
 ary interests, whether relating to real or personal estate. 
 When he means to speak of " the real estate," that is, the 
 mansion-house, it will be seen by his letters, that he uniform- 
 ly calls it " the house in the square," or uses some other 
 term, which plainly designates a house. When he speaks 
 of " the estate," he always means the general estate, left 
 by his father, and managed by his brother. What did he 
 mean, for instance, in the citation just above, when he speaks 
 of an assignment to secure, first, F. B.'s heirs, and " next, 
 the estate and heirs of my father." Did he mean the man- 
 sion-house? Or, when he says, in a letter, which I shall 
 presently cite, " You were authorized to use the estate in 
 business!" did he mean the mansion-house? Mr. Lowell 
 pays but a poor compliment to the understanding of his 
 readers, when he resorts to such shallow expedients for hid- 
 ing the truth. 
 
 In the face of all this language, used by Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 Mr. Lowell has the boldness to declare, that " not the slight- 
 est hint is given in these letters, that Mr. Boott was indebted 
 to the estate of his father, beyond the amount of his trust 
 fund." [L. p. 82.] As if there could, by any possibility, 
 have been a claim, at that time, by Messrs. Lyman and Ral- 
 ston, or by either of the heirs, on the executor, for any thing 
 on account of an undistributable trust fund ! 
 
 So, when he comes to introduce the letter of Mr. Kirk 
 Boott, which enclosed to his brother Mr. Jackson's letter of 
 May 30, 1831, the conunent is : — 
 
486 
 
 " This letter is interesting on another account. It shows that Mr. 
 Kirk Boott knew, and speaks of it as an admitted fact, that Lyman & 
 Ralston were indebted to Mr. Wright Boott, as executor, and not he 
 to them. If they could secure him as indorser, and pay him the 
 amount due to him as executor, this, Mr. Kirk Boott says, ' would 
 entirely free you from all responsibilities.' How so, if Mr. Boott was 
 then really owing the heirs of his father $90,000 and upwards, as Mr. 
 Brooks pretends ? 
 
 This is another contemporaneous exposition, to be oflSset against 
 Mr. Brooks's reminiscences." [L. p. 104] 
 
 That he was " owing the heirs of his father's estate $90,000 
 and upwards," is not my pretence, — as the reader will pres- 
 ently see ; because he will see, that my pretence is, that sev- 
 eral, if not most, of the heirs, had been paid f 20,000 each, 
 instead of $10,000. But the real difficulty, about exposing 
 Mr. Lowell's imposition, (besides the multiplicity of facts to 
 be made known,) lies in the extremely sinuous and slippery 
 character of this " Reply," which glides, rapidly and smoothly, 
 over the surface of difficulties, and hurries the reader on, from 
 one bold and captivating statement to another, before he has 
 time to see where he is. The only mode of dealing with it 
 is, to pin the author at each particular turn, and to hold him 
 there, pinned, until his exact position has been defined, and 
 the evidence examined. When this has been done, the point 
 in question may, commonly, be settled against him with great 
 ease, and, most commonly, out of his own book. That is 
 what I propose to do, next, with the point above meide out 
 of Mr. Kirk Boott's letter. 
 
487 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 PRETENDED PROOF, BY A LETTER FROM MR. KIRK BOOTT, THAT 
 THE $10,000 PATTMENT TO MR. LYMAN, AND TO MB. RALSTON, 
 WAS AN OVER-PAYMENT. 
 
 The statement is, that Mr. Kirk Boott's letter, enclosing 
 Mr. Jackson's letter of May 30, 1831, « shows that Mr. Kirk 
 Boott knew, and speaks of it as an admitted fact, that Lyman 
 Sj" Ralston were indebted to Mr. Wright Boott, as executor, 
 and not he to them," 
 
 Does Mr. Lowell mean to stultify Mr. Kirk Boott ? The 
 reader has already seen, that, in a series of letters, coming 
 down to May, 22, 1831, that is, within ten days of the letter 
 referred to in the statement above cited, that gentleman uni- 
 formly spoke of it, " as an admitted fact," that Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott was indebted to " the estate and heirs " of his father, 
 and, particularly, that Messrs. Lyman and Ralston held, and 
 urged, unsatisfied claims upon him, as executor. Did he, 
 really, mean to speak of the balance of account, between 
 those parties, as being both ways, almost in the same breath ? 
 Does he really do so ? 
 
 How does Mr. Lowell suppose, (or mean his reader to sup- 
 pose,) that Messrs. Lyman and Ralston could have owed any 
 thing to the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, unless the funds put 
 into the foundry were regarded as funds of the estate? I 
 have already shown that Mr. Lowell, in his pamphlet, en- 
 deavours to make his readers believe that Mr. J. Wright Boott 
 had not used the funds of his father's estate in that busi- 
 ness ; [Ante, p. 257.] although he, formerly, not only admitted 
 the contrary, but insisted that Mr. Boott was justified in 
 that use of the funds, and even that I thought so myself at 
 the time. In proof of this he cited a letter, written at some 
 time in 1830-1, by Mr. Kirk Boott to his brother, containing 
 this language : — 
 
488 
 
 " By the provisions of the will, you were authorized to use the 
 estate in business ; and while there is not, on any side, a shadow of 
 suspicion that you have heedlessly squandered it, there can be no 
 imputation on your honor and integrity, though it he in your hands 
 greatly diminished. But this will not apply to F.'s children. We 
 are therefore of opinion that they must he paid in full, at all events, 
 and effected as soon as possible." [B. p. 130.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell also cited, to the same point, a letter from Mr. 
 Ralston to Mr. Boott, saying : — 
 
 " No one, at that time, or during the whole negotiation subsequent 
 thereto, ever impeached your honor and integrity, or doubted that by 
 your father's will you were at full liberty to employ the capital in 
 your hands in business." [B. p. 130.] 
 
 These letters, or one of them at least, as I formerly ex- 
 plained, were written to soothe Mr. J. Wright Boott's agitated 
 feelings, well depicted by his own strong language in a letter 
 above cited. [Ante, p. 275.] The fact, believed by all of 
 us, was, that the capital, put into the foundry by Mr. Boott, 
 really belonged to the estate. Such a use of the estate's 
 money Mr. Kirk Boott and myself considered an error of 
 judgement, but not an impeachment of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 "honor and integrity." It was true, that the will author- 
 ized a limited use of the funds of the estate in certain mer- 
 cantile business of a particular firm, but not in such a &in, 
 or such business, as Mr. J. Wright Boott had in fact used 
 them for ; and Mr. Kirk Boott, desiring to administer to his 
 brother the utmost consolation, which truth would permit, 
 alludes to this provision of the will as a species of excuse, 
 straining it a little perhaps by the generality of his expres- 
 sion, though he is careful not to say, in terms, that it author- 
 ized the use of the estate's funds in the particular business 
 of the foundry. 
 
 That property, he and I agreed, must not be taken for an 
 investment of the estate ; and we acted upon that agreement, 
 as already shown. [Ante, Ch. 29.] But, when this question is 
 raised by the " Reply," whether Mr. J. Wright Boott, as ex- 
 ecutor, owed Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, for moneys due to 
 them from the estate and not paid over, or whether they 
 
489 
 
 owed him, as executor, for moneys advanced from the estate 
 beyond what they were entitled to, it will be perceived that 
 its solution obviously depends upon this alternative, namely, 
 whether the $70,000, put into the foundry by Mr. Boott, 
 should be treated as a private investment for himself, or as an 
 investment for the estate, made in his capacity of executor ; 
 and that this question might be affected by the manner, in 
 which Messrs. Boott, Lyman and Ralston should settle their 
 partnership accoiuits. 
 
 In the letters, above cited, from Mr. Kirk Boott to me, we 
 have seen that he, uniformly, spoke of Mr. Boott's indebted- 
 ness to his father's estate, and of the claims of Messrs. Lyman 
 and Ralston on him as executor, as known and admitted facts. 
 He was proceeding, then, on the idea, conformably to the 
 understanding between us, that the money, put into the 
 foundry, was to be treated as Mr. Boott's private investment, 
 and should not be accepted as an investment for the estate. 
 In that case, Mr. Boott would still owe, as executor, to Messrs. 
 Lyman and Ralston, whatever their shares might amount to 
 beyond the $10,000 paid to each of them. But if, on the 
 other hand, the money put into the foundry by Mr. Boott, 
 were looked upon as the estate's money, not borrowed by 
 him for his own separate use, but intentionally put in by 
 him, as executor, by way of loan to the joint concern, and as 
 an investment for the estate, in that case, and upon that 
 theory, all the partners would owe the estate for that money, 
 and whatsoever was due from the executor to Messrs. Ly- 
 man and Ralston, for their shares of the estate, might, and 
 would, be overbalanced by the larger sum due from them 
 to the executor, for the moneys, which he, as executor, had 
 invested in the partnership business. This will be found 
 to reconcile, entirely, any seeming inconsistency between Mr. 
 Kirk Boott's letters to me, and the letter to his brother, 
 cited by Mr. Lowell, — the material part of which I will now 
 extract. 
 
490 
 
 EXTKACT iTEOM Mb. KIRK BOOTT'S LETTER to Mb. J. WRIGHT 
 
 BOOTT. 
 
 " J. A. L. oifered, and offers, to go on to Philadelphia for the pur- 
 pose of arranging with the Ealstons as to your indorsements and the 
 mortgage; and I believe he would find little difficulty in settling 
 them. 
 
 The reversionary interest of Lyman & Ralston in the estate is, in 
 fact, some security, and might be substituted for your name. The 
 Milldam might be divided according to your respective interests, the 
 whole deeded to L. ^ B. and a mortgage given hy them for the amount 
 due you as executor. 
 
 This would entirely free you from all responsibilities, and leave 
 you free to make your election as to your future occupation ; and 
 certainly not put L. & E. in any worse condition than they are at 
 present." [L. p. 103.] 
 
 The reader will now perceive, that the whole subject of this 
 letter is merely a proposed scheme for a settlement with his 
 copartners, whereby Mr. J. Wright Boott was to be extricated 
 from the connexion. 
 
 In the first place, he was to be relieved from his endorse- 
 ments on their paper ; and, to facilitate that object, it is sug- 
 gested, that Messrs. Lyman and Ralston might give, in lieu 
 of his name, a pledge of their reversionary interests in the 
 estate of Mr. Boott, senior, to stand as a substituted security 
 to their own accommodation creditors. 
 
 In the next place, the f 30,000 mortgage, which covered 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott's investment in the foundry, it is pro- 
 posed should be discharged. This would leave a clear title 
 in that property to Boott and Lyman, (in whom the legal 
 title stood,) subject to the adjustment of the partnership ac- 
 counts between Boott, Lyman and Ralston, which would de- 
 termine their respective equitable interests. 
 
 In the third place, this Mill Dam property, which was the 
 subject of their partnership account, is " to be divided accord- 
 ing to your respective interests," — ^that is, when it should 
 have been ascertained, by the settlement of their partnership 
 accounts, how much of the common fund each partner had 
 really contributed. This would involve the question, how 
 much of the $70,000, put in by Mr. J. Wright Boott, repre- 
 sented money due from him, as executor, to Mr. Lyman and 
 to Mr. Ralston. 
 
491 
 
 In the fourth place, this being settled, it is proposed that 
 the whole property should he deeded to Messrs. Lyman and 
 Ralston, who would then, of course, owe Mr. Boott, either 
 on his own account, or as the representative of his father's 
 estate, the value of his interest sold to them, beyond what 
 he, as executor, previously owed them. 
 
 And, finally, it is proposed, that this balance, which would, 
 in that case, be due to Mr. Boott, should be treated as a bal- 
 ance due to him in his capacity of executor, and should be 
 secured to him, accordingly, by a mortgage of the foundry, 
 to be made to him as executor. The balance, so ascertain- 
 ed, would represent so much money of the estate, which 
 Mr. Boott had chosen to borrow from himself, as executor, to 
 employ in that concern ; — money invested by him in certain 
 property, which the scheme supposes is to be sold to Messrs. 
 Lyman and Ralston, and which money, it is thus proposed, 
 should be treated as a loan by the executor to Messrs. Lym,an 
 and Ralston, when they should have become sole owners of 
 the foundry, according to the terms of the proposed settle- 
 ment, whereby Mr. J. Wright Boott, both personally, and as 
 executor, was to be withdrawn from the further hazards of 
 the business. Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston would, thus, have 
 been paid what was due to them personally ; and, for the 
 residue of their purchase, they would have become mort- 
 gage debtors to the estate, which would, thus, have become, 
 so far, secured against loss of the funds subtracted by Mr. 
 Boott for the use of the foundry. And this, Mr. Kirk Boott 
 truly says to his brother, " would entirely free you from all 
 responsibilities," — ^meaning, of course, so far as they arose 
 out of his connexion with the firm of Lyman & Ralston, 
 and his use of the estate's funds in the business of that firm. 
 
 But this mere scheme for a settlement, by which, if carried 
 into effect, Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston would have become 
 debtors, on mortgage, to Mr. Boott, as executor, Mr. Lowell 
 treats as if it were a fact, instead of a scheme, and boldly 
 asks the reader to infer, from Mr. Kirk Boott's language, that 
 he knew, and spoke of it as an admitted fact, that Lyman 
 
492 
 
 & Ralston actually weke indebted to the executor as such, 
 and not the executor to them ! 
 
 But Messrs. Lyman and Ralston would agree to no such 
 terms. They would not consent to become substituted debt- 
 ors to the estate, in the place of Mr. J. Wright Boott. The 
 actual settlement, effected some months after by Mr. Low- 
 ell, as described by him, was not on this basis. As before 
 remarked, he does not choose to tell us all the terms of that 
 settlement, and he does choose to withhold all the papers 
 that relate to it. But how difficult it is, in the course of a 
 long argument in a complicated case, to shut truth com- 
 pletely out of sight, and keep it hid at every corner. 
 
 If this general reflection should seem to be somewhat after 
 the manner of the " Reply," I, at least, shall not follow it by 
 pressing the poets into such inappropriate service. I prefer, 
 for my own part, to adhere to the plain prose of so unpoetical 
 a subject as a settlement of accounts, and to prove the false- 
 hood of the "Reply" on this point, out of the "Reply" 
 itself. 
 
 CHAPTER, XLIX. 
 
 PROOF, FKOM THE " REPLY," THAT LYMAN & RALSTON RE- 
 CEIVED, EACH, AN ADDITIONAL f 10,000, IN THEIR FINAL 
 SETTLEMENT. MR. KIRK BOOTt's LETTER OF 1826, AND 
 THE COMMENTS UPON IT. 
 
 Before Mr. Lowell was able to get through his argument, 
 he, unluckily, thought it necessary to make a hasty answer 
 to certain comments of mine on Mr. J. Wright Boott's extra- 
 ordinary will ; which I had pointpd out among the evidences 
 of an intellect perverted, on certain subjects, into a mono- 
 
493 
 
 mania. [B.pp. 81-89.] The circumstances are not material 
 to repeat here, further than to remind the reader, that both 
 Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston had voluntarily surrendered, 
 in 1831, all their rights, present and reversionary, in their 
 father's estate, to Mr. J. Wright Boott, in discharge of their 
 husbands' debts to him, arising out of the settlement of 
 their partnership accounts; that all the property, disposed 
 of in Mr. J. Wright Boott's will of 1844, consisted of three 
 reversionary shares of that estate, two of which he had 
 acquired in the manner above mentioned ; and that, by his 
 will, nearly the whole is left to Mrs. Ralston, — nothing to 
 Mrs. Lyman, though the death of her husband had left her 
 better entitled to such a provision than Mrs. Ralston. The 
 " Reply," such as it is, consists in showing, that, on the final 
 settlement between Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, Mr. Lyman 
 remained indebted to Mr. Ralston in a large sum of money. 
 What was that to Mr. Boott ? What had it to do with the 
 restoration to his sisters of their own patrimonial property, 
 which had been assigned by each of them, with equal gen- 
 erosity, to Mr. Boott, in payment of their husbands' respective 
 debts to him 7 
 
 But I do not, now, propose to inquire into the validity of 
 this excuse for the treatment of Mrs. Lyman. I desire, only, 
 to point to a particular fact, stated by Mr. Lowell in this con- 
 nexion, which bears on the question I am discussing of the 
 indebtedness, and amount of indebtedness, of the executor, to 
 Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, in 1831. 
 
 I extract as follows : — 
 
 "Mr. William Lyman owed the firm on the 31st of De- 
 cember, 1830, for money taken up by him for his 
 family expenses and other purposes, $§4,372 48 
 
 And received a credit for Mrs. Lyman's share in her 
 father's estate, coming from the trust funds, of 
 *24,904 44 (being one half of the estimated value of 
 Mr. Boott's share in the Foundery, purchased hy 
 Messrs. Lyman ^ Ralston with the reversions of their 
 wives) ; the value of each reversion, when realized, will 
 he only about $16,000. When the partnership was 
 Anally dissolved, in April, 1833, the balance against 
 Mr. Lyman, for personal advances to him, was 10,991 07 
 
 which was forgiven to him by Mr. Ealston." [L. p. 201.] 
 
494 
 
 There is a degree of obscurity in this, (whether accidental 
 or intended the reader must determine,) concerning the occa- 
 sion, upon which Mrs. Lyman's share was so valued. The 
 general impression, conveyed to a cursory reader, probably is, 
 that the Italicized passage, to which I desire to draw attention, 
 relates, as its context does, entirely, to some settlement be- 
 tween Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston alone ; and that this had 
 no connexion with the settlement between them, jointly, and 
 Mr. Boott, which occurred in September, 1831. The idea, 
 so obtained, would be, that Mr. L3rman had received, /rom 
 Mr. Ralston, a credit of the sum named, for Mrs. Lyman's 
 share in her father's estate, irrespective of any allowance for 
 it to, or by, Mr. Boott, in his settlement with Lyman & Ral- 
 ston. Closer attention will show, I think, that this could not 
 have been the fact. 
 
 The sum, named, is said to be " one half of the estimated 
 value of Mr. Boott's share in the foundery, purchased by 
 Messrs. Lyman Sf Ralston with the reversions of their wives." 
 When and how was that purchase made ? Mr. Lowell him- 
 self tells us that if was in the settlement, which he made for 
 Mr. Boott with Lyman & Ralston ; [L. p. 79.] and the deed 
 from Messrs. Lyman and Ralston and their wives, by which 
 their shares in the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, were conveyed 
 to Mr. J. Wright Boott, fixes the date of that transaction to 
 have been in September, 1831, and describes what was therein 
 conveyed. [B. App. p. 22.] They, jointly, conveyed the two 
 shares to Mr. Boott, in exchange for the estimated value of his 
 interest in the foundry, which he conveyed to them. Of 
 course, there could be no subsequent conveyance by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Lyman of their share to Mr. Ralston, since it was already 
 conveyed to Mr. Boott ; and if the course of dealings and ac- 
 counts, between Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, was, afterwards, 
 such, that Mr. Ralston, when he came to a final settlement 
 with Mr. Lyman, found occasion to credit him for the value 
 of Mrs. Lyman's share, (which, as well as Mrs. Ralston's, had 
 been conveyed to Mr. Boott, in their joint purchase of the 
 foundry,) that value must have been determined by the allow- 
 
495 
 
 ance made for it by Mr. Boott, in the settlement with him, since 
 it was the price of " one half of the estimated value of Mr. 
 Boott's share in the foundery," conveyed to Ljntnan & Ralston 
 jointly, or according to their appointment, in exchange for 
 what they conveyed to him. The quid pro quo seems to 
 settle this. Mr. Ralston would hardly have allowed for it, to 
 Mr. Lyman, half as much again a.s Mr. Boott had taken it for ; 
 especially if Mr. Ralston, after allowing to Mr. Lyman all he 
 was justly entitled to, was about to forgive to him a balance 
 of $10,000 besides, as Mr. Lowell says he did. 
 
 Here seems to be an important fact, then, concerning the 
 settlement, in 1831, between Mr. Boott and Messrs. Lyman 
 and Ralston, not stated by Mr. Lowell in the place where his 
 " Reply " purports to give an accoimt of the terms of that 
 settlement ; [L. p. 79.] but which leaks out, incidentally, 
 when he finds occasion to use it in a different part of his case. 
 Indeed several facts seem to be involved in the statement. 1. 
 That Mr. Boott's share in the foundry, when purchased by 
 Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, was estimated at near $50,000. 
 This corresponds, very closely, with my late inference from 
 other premises. [Ante, p. 481.] 2. That it was paid for by 
 the shares of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston in their father's 
 estate ; and so Mr. Lowell had previously stated, with the 
 addition however, of $7624, said to have been paid, besides, 
 by a secured note, for some reason unexplained. 3. That 
 Mrs. Lyman's unpaid share of the estate, (and that of Mrs. 
 Ralston must have been just the same, for Messrs. Lyman and 
 Ralston had received, each, a like sum,) was estimated, for 
 this purpose, at a fraction short of $25,000. 
 
 Now mark the consequences. There were nine such 
 shares. 
 
 Of course the whole property, of which a share was to be 
 ascertained, must have been estimated at about nine 
 times $25,000, that is, . $225,000 
 
 But Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston had received, long be- 
 fore, their $10,000 each, as Mr. Lowell admits, and as 
 their receipts in his keeping will show, and the account 
 of 1844 declares that such a sum had been paid to 
 every heir, making 90,000 
 
 315,000 
 
496 
 
 The total property of the estate, then, besides what the will 
 gives, specifically, to Mr. Boott and to the widow, was 
 estimated at about S315,000 
 
 Of this, a part was the mansion-house, appraised in the 
 executor's inventory at 24,000 
 
 Leaving oi personal property, which came to the execu- 
 tor's hands, according to this estimate, 291,000 
 
 If we deduct from this the amount of the particular trust 
 
 funds, about 111,000 
 
 It will leave for the sum, which was, or should have been, 
 
 at some time, distributed among the heirs, 180,000 
 
 This $180,000 stands in the place of the |90,000, claimed, 
 by the account, to have been all that was in fact distributed, 
 and a little more than all that was properly distributable. This 
 $180,000, gives just $20,000 to a share, instead of $10,000, 
 which Mr. Lowell pretends to have been the whole, and even 
 more than the whole, of a distributable share. This makes 
 the aggregate of the personal property, which had come to 
 the executor's hands, exclusive of chattels specifically be- 
 queathed, upwards of $290,000, instead of about $186,000, 
 which is all the account debits to the executor for cash capi- 
 tal received. The result of this statement conforms, almost 
 exactly, to my former view, concerning the probable amount 
 of the estate left by Mr. Boott, senior, and is totally incon- 
 sistent with Mr. Lowell's view, as put forth in his pam- 
 phlet, and totally inconsistent with the truth and complete- 
 ness of the account in question. 
 
 Let me repeat this in another form and more exact figures. 
 
 Mr. Lyman received, on his wife's account, in 1821, $10,000 00 
 
 In 1831, her remaining share of the estate, including re- 
 versions, was estimated, in a certain settlement made 
 by Mr. Lowell, at 24,904 44 
 
 Her whole share, then, before the S10,000 payment, 
 
 must have been 34,904 44 
 
 Every heir had the same share, except Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, to whom the store in State-street was given in 
 addition, and the heirs were, in number, 9 
 
 According to this, the total property, in which the heirs 
 
 had an interest, was, 314,139 96 
 
497 
 
 Brought forward, $314,139 96 
 
 The only real estate, in which they had an interest, was 
 the mansion-house, appraised in the inventory, at 24,000 00 
 
 This makes the total of personal property, which the ex- 
 ecutor had received, and for which he was bound to 
 account with the heirs, sooner or later, 290,139 96 
 
 But the account of 1844 acknowledges 
 the receipt from Kirk Boott & Sons, 
 of, only, . $116,783 95 
 
 and from Boott & Lowell, 69,389 99 
 
 186,173 94 
 
 Hence, there was received by the executor, if Mr. Low- 
 ell's estimate was correct in 1831, but not accounted 
 for in Mr. Lowell's probate account of 1844, 103,966 02 
 
 This sum, it will be observed, is just about enough to 
 cover the $11,000 trast fund for the aunts, which wholly dis- 
 appears between the accounts of 1818 and 1844, and also to 
 cover the additional $90,000 of distributable capital, (beyond 
 what the account claims to have been distributed,) which I 
 contend had been not only received by the executor, but also, 
 mainly, distributed, so far as the shares of some of the heirs 
 were concerned, though not in respect to others. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, to be sure, speaks of Mrs. L5anan's share, so 
 estimated in 1831, as "coming from the trust funds " and as 
 being a " reversion." But how does this hold ? If he means, 
 by " trust funds" not general funds in the hands of the ex- 
 ecutor, but the particular annuity funds, only, they amounted 
 to no more than $111,111 12 ; — while the nine shares, at 
 $24,904 44 each, (the allowance for Mrs. Lyman's share 
 after the $10,000 payment,) amount to $224,139 96. If 
 we suppose the mansion-house included in the $224,139 96, 
 as I presume it was, that, at its appraised value, would take 
 off $24,000 from the total sum ; but this would, still, leave 
 upwards of $200,000 for the estimated reversionary value, 
 according to Mr. Lowell, of trust funds, which, as sl present 
 property, amounted to about $111,000 only. The mansion- 
 house, instead of its original appraisal, may, perhaps, have 
 been estimated, in 1831, at $30,000, — it was not worth more; 
 
498 
 
 but, if so, that valuation of the real estate would take off only 
 f 6000 more from the estimate of personal property, leav- 
 ing f 194,000, still, for the sum, at which these trust funds 
 of f 111,000 must have been estimated, according to Mr. 
 ■ Lowell, though then subject to a life-estate, having, by 
 ordinary chances, a long course of years to run. 
 
 This is impossible. It is obvious that something, besides 
 one ninth of the mansion-house and one ninth of the annuity 
 funds, must have been taken into account, to bring Mrs. Ly- 
 man's outstanding share up to near f 25,000, at the time of 
 the settlement in 1831. Mr. Lowell says, himself, that her 
 reversions, " when realized" at her mother's decease., will be 
 only about $ 16,000. He gets at that sum by calling the trust 
 funds $100,000 only, and calling the mansion-house $46,000, 
 because it produced $46,000 in 1844, though nobody would 
 have appraised it, in 1831, at more than $30,000. But, ad- 
 mitting, as he does, that her reversions in the mansion-house 
 and the trust funds, when realized, could not exceed $16,000, 
 how came they, twenty years before they were to be realized, 
 to be valued at $25,000 ? Why does not Mr. Lowell tell us., 
 what else was estimated, besides these reversions, to bring up 
 Mrs. Lyman's share to near $25,000 ? Since he neither tells 
 us how this was, nor shows the papers, which would explain 
 the fact, we are, at least, free to speculate ; and I ask the 
 reader to suppose that all the property, in which the rever- 
 sions lay, was estimated at something like the following val- 
 uation : — 
 
 Trust fund for Mrs. Boott, $100,000 00 
 
 Trust fund for one of the aunts, (for one at least was 
 
 living in 1831,) 5,555 56 
 
 Mansion-house, fairly valued, for that time, at not ex- 
 ceeding 30,000 00 
 
 Total reversionary property, to come into possession at 
 the decease of the annuitants, 135,555 56 
 
 One ninth of this sum is about $15,000 ; which corresponds 
 with an estimate of a reversionary share made by Mr. Kirk 
 Boott in 1826, as will presently be seen. [Post, p. 501.] 
 
499 
 
 Yet, Mrs. Lyman was allowed about $25,000 ! What was 
 that extra $10,000 for? What was it but Mrs. Lyman's 
 share of moneys, in the executor's hands, already due and 
 payable, but which had never been paid over ? For this 
 was in 1831, and the $10,000, which the account of 1844 
 asks an allowance for, had been paid to Mr. Lyman in 1821. 
 If there is any truth, then, in Mr. Lowell's statement of the 
 valuation of Mrs. Lyman's share of the estate, in 1831, it 
 is certain, that Mr. Boott, as executor, had owed her, in 
 1821, about $20,000. Of this, $10,000, only, was paid at 
 that time, the other $10,000 remaining unpaid, till it was 
 included in this settlement of 1831. ' 
 
 Now I ask the reader to connect this unintentional admis- 
 sion of the " Reply" with the fact before shown, [Ante, p. 
 480.] that the deed of Lyman &. Ralston, conveyed, in ex- 
 press terms, present, as well as reversionary, interests ; and 
 to connect both with the evidence of Mr. Boott's statements, 
 ten years before, that a divisible share would, probably, be 
 $20,000. [Ante, Ch. 45.] It is certain that Mr. Boott's 
 debt, as executor, to Mrs. Brooks, was, originally, as large as 
 his debt to Mrs. Lyman. Is it not, then, certain, that / did 
 not misunderstand Mr. Boott, when he told me, in 1821, that 
 the estate was " still unsettled," but soon would be, and that 
 I should receive, probably, $20,000, certainly something near 
 it, for Mrs. Brooks's portion ? Does not Mr. Lowell, himself, 
 make it certain, that Mr. Boott, did not intend to speak of her 
 eventual rights and interests, but of a sum, which would be 
 presently payable, as soon as certain outstanding affairs of the 
 estate could be closed ? So I understood him at the time. 
 So Mr. Ralston, Mr. Lyman, and Mr. William Boott under- 
 stood him at other times, concerning their respective shares. 
 So Mr. Boott meant to be understood, and so Mr. Lowell knew 
 he meant to be understood ; since he himself, by his own show- 
 ing, acted for Mr. Boott upon that understanding in 1831, 
 When he not only admitted, but VinuaXlj paid, the debt, to 
 that amount, in the settlement with Mr. Lyman, and, as may 
 be reasonably inferred, in the settlement with Mr. Ralston 
 
500 
 
 also, the two settlements being contemporaneous, and, in 
 fact, parts of one and the same transaction. 
 
 And so Mr. Kirk Boott understood, when he constantly 
 spoke, in a series of letters, cited above, of his brother's in- 
 debtedness as executor, notwithstanding that $10,000 had 
 been paid to all the heirs, except to Mr. William Boott,^and 
 that $20,000 had been paid to some of them, as the reader 
 will soon see. And so Mr. Kirk Boott, also, well understood 
 and intended, when, in the letter cited, and perverted by Mr. 
 Lowell, to mislead cursory readers, that gentleman proposed 
 to his brother a particrdar scheme, for the discharge of that 
 remaining indebtedness to some of the heirs, and for the se- 
 curity of others. 
 
 Perhaps the reader will think, that I have, now, held Mr. 
 Lowell pinned to this point long enough, and that I have suf- 
 ficiently convicted him out of his own mouth, as I said I gen- 
 erally could ! 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 THE CHARGE AGAINST ME OF A DISINGENUOUS USE OF MR. KIBK 
 BOOTT's LETTERS. HIS LETTER OF SEPTEMBER, 1826. HIS 
 SETTLEMENT WITH MR. J. WRIGHT BOOTT. 
 
 I must now exhibit another of Mr. Lowell's comments. 
 He cites a letter of Mr. Wells, containing the statement, that, 
 " He [Mr. J. Wright Boott] has, probably, given to all much 
 more than they were entitled to receive from their father's 
 estate ;" and proceeds thus : — 
 
 « Mr. Brooks endeavours to create the impression that the late Mr. 
 Kirk Boott viewed the matter differently, by quoting and emphasiz- 
 ing the following passages from Mr. Kirk Boott's letter to himself of 
 
501 
 
 February 8, 1826, above cited: 'As he [Mr. Wright Boott] is pre- 
 paring to settle the estate and pay over the balances^ (p. 35) ; and 
 again (p. 36,) 'As Eliza's portion will he paid you in a few months, 
 perhaps you will be willing to take this loan.' 
 
 " Nothing can be more disingenuous than the use that is made of 
 these passages. 
 
 " Mr. Kirk Boott had been a member of the house, and knew that 
 Mr. Brooks had received no money from his brother ; he did not 
 know, as Mr. Brooks tells us in the very next line, that Mr. Wright 
 Boott had given his note to Mr. Brooks. 
 
 " ' This led to a conversation when we met soon after ; and then, 
 finding that I held Mr. Wright Boott's note for $10,000, he proposed 
 to take that, as an equivalent, for his purpose, to money.' (p. 36.) 
 
 " Can any man doubt that the portion, which Mr. Kirk Boott re- 
 ferred to in his letter, as soon to be received by Mr. Brooks, was 
 this same 10,000 ?" [L. pp. 56, 57.] 
 
 When I am charged with a disingenuous use of Mr. Kirk 
 Boott's letters, and charged by Mr. Lowell, I do not think it 
 necessary to answer the charge, after what has been shown. 
 But I wish the reader to see another specimen of the various 
 modes of using letters. I will first print the letter referred 
 to: — 
 
 LETTER — KIEK BOOTT to EDWAED BROOKS. 
 
 East Chelmsford, Feb. 8, 1826. 
 
 Dear Sir, — In making the following communication, I beg you 
 will not consider me as preferring any claims or pretensions to your 
 consideration, in consequence of our connection ; but regard it solely 
 in the light of a business transaction between man and man. 
 
 From, recent communications with my brother, I find that our losses 
 in business proved very heavy, and that he is more in advance for 
 me than I expected. As he is preparing to settle the estate and pay 
 over the balances, it is incumbent on me to come to a settlement with 
 him ; and to do this, I must either dispose of the greater part of my 
 manufacturing stock, or procure a loan. The latter, I think, is the 
 preferable course, if I can effect it, as the disposal of any part of my 
 interest in Chelmsford stock, would not only be highly disadvanta- 
 geous in a pecuniary view, but would, at the same time, subject me to 
 misconstruction, while I continue the Agent. I am, therefore, desir- 
 ous to borrow $8,000, the interest upon which I will pay semi-annu- 
 ally, and secure the principal upon my share of the estate, after the 
 demise of my mother, or, if its present value can be calculated, I will 
 make it over at its worth, at once. It will amount to something like 
 $15,000, and perhaps, if real estate keeps its price, to something more. 
 
 As Eliza's portion will be paid you in a few months, perhaps you 
 may be willing to take this loan. If, however, you have or wish to 
 make other arrangements, you will frankly say so, and I shall cheer- 
 
502 
 
 fully seek the accommodation from some other quarter, I ■would 
 rather negotiate with you than another, for it is not pleasant to expose 
 one's poverty further than is unavoidable. Think the matter over, 
 and if you can give me an answer at once, drop me a line, (marked 
 private, to prevent its being opened in my absence,) or you can wait 
 till I see you. Yours, very truly, 
 
 Kirk Boott. 
 
 This letter, it will be observed, was written in 1826; 
 which was long before any suspicion of the integrity of the 
 trust funds, or of any inability of Mr. J. Wright Boott to pay 
 over to the heirs whatever they might be entitled to receive, 
 had arisen. His embarrasments were not disclosed till 
 1830. The losses in business, which Mr. Kirk Boott speaks 
 of, had been incurred by a mercantile house, (Kirk Boott & 
 Sons, No. 2,) in which Mr. J. Wright Boott and. himself, and 
 another brother, were the only partners. It was formed in 
 March, 1818, and was dissolved January 1, 1822, upon the 
 occasion of Mr. Kirk Boott's removal to Chelmsford. The 
 advance, spoken of as made by Mr. J. Wright Boott for Mr. 
 Kirk Boott, was partly in settlement of the business of that 
 house, and partly on other accounts, as will presently be ap- 
 parent. In December, 1823, that is, nearly a year after the 
 dissolution of the house, and more than a year, I believe, af- 
 ter Mr. Kirk Boott had, in fact, removed to Chelmsford, and 
 while Mr. J. Wright Boott was a member of the new house 
 of Boott & Lowell, (the successors of Kirk Boott & Sons, 
 No. 2,) Mr. J. Wright Boott gave me his note, as before 
 mentioned, on demand, for f 10,000, on account of Mrs- 
 Brooks's portion. 
 
 Now, Mr. Lowell's first comment is, that " Mr. Kirk Boott 
 had been a member of the house, and knew that Mr. Brooks 
 had received no money from his brother." How does that 
 follow ? How did the fact that he had been a member of 
 a certain house, in 1821, enable him to know any thing in 
 1826, respecting a payment in 1823 ? What had the house 
 to do with a payment by the executor ? And what, espe- 
 cially, had a house, which came to an end with the year 
 1821, to do with a payment to me in 1823 ? If the business 
 
503 
 
 of the executor was transacted through a house, it must, 
 after 1821, have been the house of Boott & Lowell, so long 
 as it lasted. In that house Mr. Kirk Boott never had any 
 concern. 
 
 The next comment is, that " He did not know, as Mr. 
 Brooks tells us in the very next line, that Mr. Wright Boott 
 had given his note to Mr. Brooks ;" and, in proof x)f this, my 
 statement is quoted, that, in a conversation, soon after the 
 writing of the letter, Mr. Kirk Boott "finding that I held 
 Mr. Wright Boott's note for $10,000, proposed to take that, 
 as an equivalent, for his purpose, to money." 
 
 Now that, which Mr. Kirk Boott did not know, in 1826, 
 (according to a fair interpretation of my language,) was, that 
 I still held Mr. J. Wright Boott's note, given to me in 1823, 
 payable upon demand. And that, which Mr. Lowell did 
 know, was, that, instead of my having stated, as he affirms, 
 that Mr. Kirk Boott was ignorant of the fact that a note had 
 been given, I stated, expressly, circumstances, which went to 
 show his full knowledge, at the time, of the whole transac- 
 tion. This appears by a preceding passage of my pamphlet, 
 in which, after having mentioned Mr. J. Wright Boott's in- 
 formation to me, at the time of my marriage, in 1821, (viz., 
 that the estate "was about to be settled very soon, and divid- 
 ed among the heirs, and would give them $20,000 apiece,") 
 I narrated the transaction of the note as follows : — 
 
 " I neither made any inquiry, nor heard any thing more upon the 
 subject, until about two and a half years after, when Mr. Wright 
 Boott called upon me one day, which, by an entry in my books, I am 
 enabled to fix. as December 29, 1823, and handed me his own prom- 
 issory note for the sum of $10,000, payable on demand with inter- 
 est, and a check for $1,683 57. The former, he said, was on account 
 of my wife's portion in her father's estate, and the latter for interest 
 upon the sum since the day of my marriage ; and he requested me, if 
 I had no objection to taking his note, to give a receipt to him, as ex- 
 ecutor, for $10,000 received on that account. This I gave without 
 hesitation ; and neither made any inquiry, nor received any informa- 
 tion, as to the expected residue. But I found, after Mr. Boott had 
 left me, that the check was for compound, instead of simple, interest, 
 which I thought wrong ; and I immediately wrote him, enclosing a 
 check for the difierence, as a mistake ; but he sent it back to me and 
 refused to receive it. I at first intended to insist on his accepting it ; 
 
504 
 
 but, on mentioning the occurrence to Mr. Kirk Boott, he advised me 
 by no means to do so, as his brother would certainly take offence at 
 it, and, as this was only a partial payment, it might be corrected in 
 the general settlement, if I chose." [B. pp. 34, 35.] 
 
 The state of Mr. Kirk Boott's knowledge, therefore, in 
 1826, when he applied to me, in his foregoing letter, for a 
 loan of $8000, appears to have been, that Mr. J. Wright Boott 
 had paid me, in 1823, f 10,000, on account of Mrs. Brooks's 
 portion, by his own note, on demand, with a check for the 
 interest since my marriage ; and that note, being upon 
 demand, Mr. Kirk Boott naturally supposed, must have been 
 taken up soon after. In this state of information and belief, 
 he writes the letter, which says, that Mr. J. Wright Boott " is 
 preparing to settle the estate, and pay over the balances ;" and 
 that this made it incumbent on him, (Mr. Kirk Boott,) to 
 settle with Mr. J. Wright Boott, for larger advances and 
 losses in business than he had expected. To enable him to 
 make that settlement with his brother, he wished to borrow 
 $8000, and says, "As Eliza''s portion will be paid you in a 
 few months, perhaps you may be willing to take this loan." 
 
 What did he, then, mean by the " balances " to be paid 
 over, and the "portion" to be paid to me? Mr. Kirk Boott 
 knew very well, that $10,000 had been paid by the execu- 
 tor, several years before, to Mr. Lyman, and to Mr. Ralston, 
 in money, and, by the executor's personal note on- demand, 
 to me, for which receipts were given, discharging the estate 
 pro tanto. He knew all this in 1830 — 1, when, we have 
 seen, his letters uniformly speak of the claims of the heirs, 
 and, especially, of the claims of Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, 
 to further payment. 
 
 What " balances " could there be to " pay over " to them, 
 if $10,000 was a full share ? And how could he say that 
 " Eliza's portion'^ would be paid to me " in a few months" 
 if he referred to the payment of the $10,000 due upon my 
 note, of which I could have required payment on any day ? — 
 and which, indeed, was itself payment of " Eliza's portion," 
 so far as it went, since I had consented to receive it as such, 
 and had discharged the estate for that amount. Or, since my 
 
505 
 
 consultation with him, in 1823, was only upon the amount 
 which had been allowed to me for interest, if he did not 
 know that the principal payment was made by note, (as Mr. 
 Lowell says I admit,) he (Mr. Kirk Boott,) must, in that 
 case, have supposed that I had received $10,000 in money ; 
 and, if so, I ask again, what did he mean in 1826, when he 
 speaks of the balance of " Eliza's portion" to be paid in a 
 few months ? 
 
 The letter, therefore, of 1826, instead of being* proof that 
 Mr. Kirk Boott considered ^ 10,000 to be a payment in full, 
 is, in truth, a distinct declaration of his understanding, that, 
 after a payment of $10,000, and after the furnishing of 
 a house, (if that belonged to the patrimony,) there was still 
 a further balance, coming, "in a few months," to Mrs. Brooks 
 from her distributive share, sufficient to induce me to en- 
 gage for a loan of $8000, and that other " balances " were 
 to be paid over to other heirs, who had received "$10,000 
 each, and upwards," as the "Reply" admits. [L. p. 57.] 
 And for what, but these " balances," due to somebody, did 
 the heirs sign the release of 1833 ? I may conclude, there- 
 fore, in Mr. Lowell's own language, with the addition of 
 one word : — " Can any man doubt, that the portion, which 
 Mr. Kirk Boott referred to, in his letter, as soon to be re- 
 ceived by Mr. Brooks, was" not "this same $10,000," which 
 had once, to Mr. Kirk Boott's knowledge, been paid by the 
 executor, and for which I then held Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 private note 1 
 
 The reader, looking back upon the various letters of Mr. 
 Kirk Boott, and upon the comments, which have now been 
 shown to him, will find himself fully prepared, I think, to 
 settle this question, — Who makes a disingenuous use of these 
 letters ? 
 
 The letter, last cited, naturally connects itself with the 
 settlement, then anticipated, and which, soon after, took 
 place, between Mr. J. Wright Boott and Mr. Kirk Boott. 
 
 The result of Mr. Kirk Boott's negotiation with me was, 
 that, not being able to lend him the money he wanted, I 
 transferred to him, instead, the $10,000 note of Mr. J. 
 
506 
 
 Wright Boott, as before stated, and received, in exchange, 
 Mr. Kirk Boott's note for the same sum, which I held, -with- 
 out other security, until two or three years after his death, in 
 1837. It was finally paid, at the convenience of his execu- 
 tor, in the course of the settlement of his estate. Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott's note, being on demand, was, of course, as 
 good as money to Mr. Kirk Boott, for the purpose he had in 
 view ; and when he came to a settlement of accounts with 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, it was included in that settlement, and 
 given up to the promisor. This operated as payment, from 
 Mr. Kirk Boott to Mr. J. Wright Boott, to the extent of 
 ^10,000 ; and my transaction, with Mr. Kirk Boott, had the 
 effect of a loan of that sum to him, for his personal accom- 
 modation. 
 
 So far, all is clear. But, what was this settlement between 
 the brothers ? What did it embrace ? The evidence of it is, 
 of course, in Mr. Lowell's possession, as the executor of Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott. He does not produce it. He prefers that 
 we should still grope " in utter darkness and ignorance," 
 [L. p. 72. J except so far as he may happen to enlighten us, 
 by an occasional hint, always given in the course of an an- 
 swer to some other point in the case than that, to which, 
 for purposes of information, the reader would naturally look. 
 
 The letter of Mr. Kirk Boott clearly describes the general 
 object and purpose of the settlement, when it says, — " From 
 recent communications with my brother, I find that our losses 
 in business proved very heavy, and that he is more in ad- 
 vance/or me than I expected. As he is preparing to settle 
 the estate, and pay over the balances, it is incumbent on me 
 to come to a settlement with him." That is, Mr. Kirk 
 Boott's declared object was, to pay to his brother his propor- 
 tional share of the losses in their former partnership business, 
 and to reimburse whatever sums had been formerly advanced 
 by his brother, for his accommodation. 
 
 What was the amount due for these losses and advances ? 
 My former inference, from such facts as had then come to 
 my knowledge, appears, together with a part of Mr. Lowell's 
 
507 
 
 comments upon it, in the following extract from the " Re- 
 ply":- 
 
 "The process, by which he [Brooks] arrives at this, is a very 
 strange one. Not content with putting down the sum that Mr. Kirk 
 Boott borrowed of him, for this specific purpose, $10,000 
 
 " He adds to it the amount of Mr. Kirk Boott's patrimony, 
 which he assumes without a shadow of evidence, and, as I 
 shall presently show, without a shadow of foundation in 
 truth, to have been lost in the business, and which he sets 
 down at double its real value, 20,000 
 
 " Finding, also, that Mr. Kirk Boott, about this time, trans- 
 ferred to his brother twenty-one shares in the Boston Man- 
 ufacturing Company, (shares, by the way, that had belonged 
 to Mr. Wright Boott all along, and had been taken in Mr. 
 Kirk Boott's name for a specific purpose, as I shall show, 
 in 1823,) — finding, I say, this transfer, Mr. Brooks eagerly 
 seizes upon the coincidence of dates, and puts it down as a 
 reimbursement for these imaginary losses, 27,300 
 
 857,300 
 " A more monstrous assumption was, perhaps, never presented, as 
 the foundation of a serious charge." [L. p. 47. j 
 
 Let us examine the monstrosity of this assumption. 
 
 The first item, — the $10,000 borrowed by Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 or, rather, his purchase from me of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 note, by his own note for that amount, and " for this specific 
 purpose," — seems not to be questioned by Mr. Lowell as 
 one item, which went into the settlement. 
 
 The second item, — the amount of Mr. Kirk Boott's patri- 
 mony, — Mr. Lowell says I assume to have been included in 
 what he calls "these imaginary losses" "without a shadow 
 of evidence," and "without a shadow of foundation in 
 truth," and that I set it down "at double its real value." 
 
 As to my assuming that it was included in the settlement, 
 Mr. Lowell elsewhere admits that this assumption is not ab- 
 solutely "monstrous ;" for he says himself: — 
 
 " It is not to le presumed that Mr. Kirk Boott, himself a most ex- 
 act man, made that settlement without receiving credit for the precise 
 amount of his patrimony'' [L. p. 98.] 
 
 How unfortunate, then, that Mr. Lowell should not have 
 thought of producing the evidence of that settlement, that we 
 
508 
 
 might see, at a glance, what " the precise amount of his pat- 
 rimony " was ! It might have saved a great deal of discus- 
 sion. The amount, at any rate, seems to be the only sub- 
 stantial question, left open between us. Some shadows of 
 evidence respecting it, I think, the reader has already seen ; 
 and he will see more. Mr. Lowell, indeed, promises to 
 show, that the idea of Mr. Kirk Boott's patrimonial share 
 having been lost in former business of the house, is " with- 
 out a shadow of foundation in truth." But he shows no 
 such thing, by any evidence whatever, except his own as- 
 sertions, as will appear in the sequel. I leave this point for 
 the present, and until further facts have been introduced. 
 
 The third item relates to the same twenty-one shares of 
 Boston Manufacturing Company, which have been already 
 spoken of as purchased by Mr. Kirk Boott, in 1823, for his 
 brother's account, to equalize interests, held, or" represented, 
 by his brother, in the Merrimack and Boston Companies, and, 
 which were, afterwards, taken by Mr. J. Wright Boott from 
 his brother Kirk, in 1826, at $1300 a share ; at which rate 
 they are charged to the estate in the executor's account of 
 1844. [Ante, Ch. 38.] 
 
 Now, the setting down of this item to the account of Mr. 
 Kirk Boott, as a part of the payment for the "imaginary 
 losses" of the house, Mr. Lowell aifects to regard as a " mon- 
 strous assumption," for the reason that these shares " had 
 belonged to Mr. J. Wright Boott, all along, and had been 
 taken in Mr. Kirk Boott's name for a specific purpose, in 
 1823," as he promises to show. What he does show, on that 
 point, has been already examined ; [Ante, Ch. 38.] and, it 
 will be remembered, that it appeared from Mr. Lowell's 
 showing, when he found himself called upon to explain the 
 charge of these shares to the estate, in the account of 1844, 
 at nearly double their then market value, that Mr. Kirk Boott 
 took them in his own name, during his brother's absence 
 from the country, in 1823, and that he paid for them, at the 
 time, by the sale of twenty-one shares of Merrimack stock, 
 belonging to himself. [Ante, p. 391.] 
 
 All this, though done by Mr. Kirk Boott in his own name, 
 
509 
 
 it is said by Mr. Lowell, was intended, at the time, (in 1823,) 
 to be for the account of his brother, then in Europe. His 
 brother returned in the course of that year ; for, we have seen, 
 that, in December of that year, Mr. J. Wright Boott gave me 
 his note for the $10,000; yet, nothing further appears to 
 have been done about these twenty-one shares of Boston 
 stock, (said to have been bought for him in 1823,) till March, 
 1826, when they appear to have been transferred by Mr. Kirk 
 Boott to Mr. J. Wright Boott, individually. This, the record 
 of transfer shows ; [B. App. p. 32.] and this, Mr. Lowell does 
 not dispute. But, although the purchase of, and pa3rment for, 
 these shares, by twenty-one shares of Mr. Kirk Boott's Merri- 
 meick stock, in 1823, is said to have been for the account of 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, it leaks out, in the course of Mr. Lowell's 
 explanations, that, when the brothers came to a settlement of 
 accounts, in March, 1826, the settlement was such, that Mr. 
 Kirk Boott took to his own account the sale of his own shares 
 of Merrimack in 1823, instead of charging them to his brother 
 as a sale for his account. [L. p. 71.] 
 
 This being so, I ask, what, on Mr. Lowell's showing, was 
 the consideration to Mr. Kirk Boott, for his transfer to Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, in 1826, of the twenty-one shares of Boston 
 stock, which Mr. Kirk Boott had purchased and paid for, in 
 1823, by his own shares of Merrimack ? What did Mr. Kirk 
 Boott get for his Merrimack shares ? Or, Mr. Kirk Boott 
 taking that sale of Merrimack shares to his own account, as 
 a sale for himself, how did Mr. J. Wright Boott pay Mr. 
 Kirk Boott for the twenty-one shares of Boston, transferred 
 by him to Mr. J. Wright Boott in 1826 ? Did any money 
 pass between them, or was it a mere credit in account ? The 
 reader will presently see that neither money, nor property, is 
 likely to have passed, because Mr. J. Wright Boott was not, 
 at that time, in a position to part with either, unnecessarily, 
 and because he was in advance for Mr. Kirk Boott to a larger 
 amount. I infer, therefore, now, from Mr. Lowell's inform- 
 ation, connected with other evidence, as I did in my former 
 pamphlet, with less evidence before me, that the price of 
 these shares was credited to Mr. Kirk Boott in account ; and 
 
510 
 
 I infer from Mr. Kirk Boott's letter to me, of Feb. 8, 1826, 
 [Ante, p. 501.] and from the near correspondence of time, 
 and the absence of any other subject matter of account 
 shown by Mr. Lowell, that this transfer was a part of the 
 general settlement between the brothers of their dealings, 
 as partners, and otherwise, and that this credit was passed, 
 in Mr. Kirk Boott's favour, as so much payment for the 
 advances, and for his share of the losses, spoken of in that 
 letter. I am confirmed in this inference by Mr. Lowell's 
 omitting to show any other way, in which Mr. Kirk Boott 
 was paid for the shares. 
 
 Without, of course, pretending to know, or guess at, all the 
 items of such an account, I may at least be allowed to con- 
 jecture, till Mr. Lowell shows something to the contrary, 
 which he has not yet done, that its principal features might 
 be represented somewhat as follows : — 
 
 A PKO FOKMA ACCOUNT. 
 
 Mr. Kirk Boott in account with Mr. J. "Wright Boott. 
 
 From 1817 For advances made by J. W. B. on K, B's. 
 
 to 1826 account, and for K. B's. share of loss on 
 
 the copartnership business of Kirk Boott 
 
 & Sons, No. 2, as finally ascertained and 
 
 settled by Boott & Lowell, 
 
 Contra, Cr. 
 
 By amount due from J. TV. B. as executor 
 of Kirk Boott, senior, for Mr. Kirk 
 Boott's distributive share of the estate, 
 
 1826 
 March 1. 
 
 March 17. 
 
 Contra, Cr. 
 
 By 19 shares Boston Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, transferred at this date from K. B. 
 to J. W. B., at $1300 per share, 
 
 By J. W. B's. note of December 29, 1823, 
 endorsed by Ed. Brooks to K. B. and 
 now given up by him to J. W. B. 
 
 By two more shares Boston Manufacturing 
 Company, transferred at this date from 
 K. B. to J. W. B. at $1300 per share, 
 being in final settlement of this account. 
 
 Dr. 
 
 $57,300 
 
 20,000 
 
 Dr. Balance brought down for adjustment, 37,300 
 
 $24,700 
 10,000 
 
511 
 
 Now if this, or something hke it, does not constitute the 
 substance of the settlement, I challenge Mr. Lowell to pro- 
 duce the papers, and let us see what the actual settlement was, 
 and how it entitles Mr. J. Wright Boott, (which is a point I 
 have a. right to know.) to charge these twenty-one shares, in 
 1844, to the estate, at f 1300 a share, when they were not 
 worth, at the time he so took them, more than $900 a share, 
 [Ante, p. 393.] nor worth, in 1844, (when they were first 
 charged to the estate, so far as appears,) more than $725 a 
 share. [B. App. p. 55.] 
 
 But Mr. Lowell, having the papers of Mr. Boott in his own 
 possession, and also having in his possession the books of 
 Boott & Lowell, (who were liquidators, as will be seen, of Kirk 
 Boott and Sons, No. 2,) instead of producing proof of the 
 facts, which those papers and books might disclose, prefers 
 to argue upon possibilities and plausibilities, and upon his 
 own assertions of extrinsic facts, many, if not most, of which 
 I shall show to be erroneous, and endeavours to satisfy his 
 readers, by these means, instead of the better evidence at his 
 command, that I am under another mistake, " as usual," and 
 that no such amount could have been due from Mr. Kirk 
 Boott to Mr. J. Wright Boott, as I suppose. To this I an- 
 swer, produce the proofs, which are in your keeping. 
 
 The " Reply " suggests, however, that I must have been 
 aware that making out so large an amount of loss proved too 
 much, and that I, therefore, put in " a faint alternative," that 
 this sum " might have been, in part, a repayment for over- 
 drafts." It is added : — 
 
 " As the question of overdrafts has no bearing whatever on Mr. 
 Brooks's issues with Mr. Boott, I shall only deal with the other alter- 
 native. And this I have the better right to do, because it was Mr. 
 Brooks's evident design to impress that view of the case upon his 
 readers. For this purpose he emphasizes the word " loss " in the fol- 
 lowing paragraph : — ' Was this the loss of one out of three of the part- 
 ners? Or how much more than the others had that partner drawn 
 out?' (p. 114.) 
 
 " Observe what Mr. Brooks would have us believe. If Mr. Kirk 
 Boott's losses were $57,000, those of the firm could not have been less 
 than $171,000 ; and as, on the same page, he tells us that he cannot 
 ' perceive how Mr. Wright Boott could have had much more ' proper- 
 
512 
 
 ty than Mr. James Boott, that is, ' nothing except the dividend due to 
 him from his father's estate,' — the inference is, that this loss fell upon 
 that estate. Now that estate is not represented in Mr. Brooks's ex- 
 aggerated estimates at over $180,000, beyond the trust funds and real 
 property. Of course the whole, or nearly the whole, was absorbed in 
 those losses. And yet he does not deny, that Mr. Wright Boott has 
 distributed among the heirs S90,000 (p. 109) ; that is to say, that, 
 out of nothing, he has contrived to pay a sum of $90,000 ! And such 
 estimates and inferences as these, Mr. Brooks and his learned and 
 astute advisers gravely present to the world in impeachment of 
 accounts, which his brother has presented, on oath, at the probate 
 office." [L. pp. 48, 49.] 
 
 Now, so far from alleging, that each partner's share of the 
 mere loss, in the mercantile business of the firm, was $57,000, 
 I expressly put, as a call for information, the alternative 
 query, " Was this the loss of one out of three of the partners ? 
 Or, how much more than the others had that partner drawn 
 out ? " And my object, in emphasizing the word "loss," was 
 precisely the reverse of that, which Mr. Lowell affects to sup- , 
 pose. I emphasized, not for the purpose of leading the read- 
 er to believe, that this large sum was only one third of the 
 actual loss of the firm in their mercantile business, but to 
 draw his attention to the fact, that it was too large to be 
 probable, and to pave the way for the inquiry respecting the 
 amount of over-drafts and advances on other accounts. I ac- 
 cordingly spoke, in that immediate connexion, of the mon- 
 eys of the estate, which the executor " had improperly used, 
 and lost in that concern, [the partnership,] or had permitted 
 the other partners to draio out of it." And I further said : — 
 
 " The share of that loss and over-draft, which fell upon Mr. Kirk 
 Boott, whatever it was, beyond Ms own dividend from the estate, was 
 undoubtedly made good to Mr. Wright Boott at the time, and in the 
 manner above stated." [B. p. 115.] 
 
 And the inference I came to was : — 
 
 " The extent of loss, which seems to be indicated by Mr. Kirk 
 Boott's settlement, so far as the data are known, and, even supposing 
 him to have largely overdrawn beyond the other partners, is quite suf- 
 ficient to account for a reduction of the promised dividend of the es- 
 tate from $20,000 to $10,000." [B. p. 115.] 
 
513 
 
 Instead, therefore, of having supposed, as Mr. Ijowell pre- 
 tends, a mercantile loss by the house, of $171,000, 1 suppos- 
 ed, as appears above, that Mr. Kirk Boott's share of the loss, 
 and his over-draft, (beyond the $20,000, which I considered 
 him entitled to draw for his patrimony,) were, taken together, 
 f 37,000 only ; and how much of that was a share of partner- 
 ship profit and loss, and how much was over-draft and ad- 
 vance on other accounts, I did not pretend to determine. I 
 only pointed out the fact, that there was margin enough in 
 that settlement, to infer actual loss, sustained by Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott for his share of the partnership business, sufficient to 
 account for the reduction of the promised dividend from 
 $20,000 to $10,000, in respect to those heirs, who had' been 
 promised $20,000, and who received $10,000 only, or less. 
 
 To whom had it been promised ? To nobody, so far as I 
 know, except Mr. Lyman, Mr. Ralston, Mr. William Boott, 
 and myself. 
 
 To whom had f 20, 000 heenpaid? In answer, I pray the 
 reader now to note, that, although in my former pamphlet, I 
 avoided speaking, as far as possible, of the money concerns of 
 other members of the family, I believed, when I wrote, and 
 I believed, at the time of the voluntary release of all my 
 claims on Mr. J. Wright Boott, in 1833, and 1 believe stil], that 
 most of the heirs received, in one form or another, their 
 full $20,000 each, of the estate's money. My belief is, 
 that nobody was, eventually, left short of that sum, except 
 Mrs. Brooks, — who had received only $10,000, unless the fur- 
 niture of her house was intended as part of her patrimony, — 
 and Mr. William Boott,— who had got nothing, except what his 
 brother had been pleased to pay for him in Europe, or else- 
 where, so far as those payments were a just and lawful charge 
 upon his patrimony. All the rest of the deficiency in the ex- 
 ecutor's cash fell, as it happened, upon the annuity funds, — in 
 which the heirs had a reversionary interest only, — and was 
 made up, so far as it ever has been made up, only by applying 
 Mrs. Boott's income to pay ofi' the incumbrances of Mr. Boott's 
 debts, and in other ways to restore the capital of her partic- 
 ular trust fund. 
 
514 
 
 I cannot, from the nature of the case, be expected to pro- 
 duce conclusive proof of the sums paid to, or for, the several 
 heirs. The evidence is not in my keeping, nor accessible to 
 me. But, I do not believe, that any one of the heirs will be 
 found to deny the fact now suggested. More or less of evi- 
 dence, touching some of them, has been, and will be, shown ; 
 and I demand of Mr. Lowell, if he wishes "to elicit the 
 truth," [L. p. 3.] that the receipts and other evidence in his 
 possession, so far as they may go, of all payments to, or for, 
 and of all settlements with, the several heirs, be produced, 
 and we shall then be better enabled to see who is right, and 
 who wrong, on this point. 
 
 The truth, I believe to be, that Mr. J. Wright Boott, adopt- 
 ed, practically, in the distribution of his father's estate, the 
 principle of " first come, first served." He, unquestionably, 
 designed, and intended, to pay to all, what all were equally 
 entitled to receive. They, who called for money, while means 
 of payment were at easy command, were permitted to take 
 up sums, which, probably, amounted to their full shares, per- 
 haps more. Mr. Wells, at any rate, in the letter above- 
 mentioned as cited by Mr. Lowell, says, "He, [Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott,] has, probably, given to all, much more than they 
 were entitled to receive from their father's estate." [L. p. 56.] 
 If for " all," we should read " some," I might, perhaps, be 
 disposed to adopt Mr. Wells's opinion, so qualified. What 
 foundation there may have been for it, in his own case, he, 
 at aiiy rate, best knows. I think it will, at least, appear, 
 "that he received his full share, after deducting the charges, 
 made against him by the testator, for advances in his life- 
 time, in addition to a large sum, which was forgiven. Dr. 
 Francis Boott, it was always understood and said in the 
 family, received, and took with him, $20,000, at the time of 
 his removal to London, in 1818. Mr. Kirk Boott, and Mr. 
 James Boott, while in partnership with Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
 enjoyed the benefit, I think it will appear, of considerably 
 larger sums, either taken up by them, or used for their in- 
 dividual accounts, and for their respective shares of a joint 
 account, jn which all three were interested. These were 
 
515 
 
 all, parties, whose occasions and opportunities for the use of 
 large sums of money occurred before the affairs of the es- 
 tate, and Mr. J. Wright Boott's own afiairs, had fallen into 
 a state of inextricable embarrassment, which, I have no doubt, 
 his large advances to, and for the account of, some of them 
 contributed to cause. I am confirmed in this by Mr. Low- 
 ell's former remark, that Mr. J. Wright Boott could not have 
 settled the estate without making his brothers bankrupt, — 
 meaning, of course, some of his brothers. But, after the loss- 
 es of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, and of Boott & Lowell, 
 had been encountered by Mr. J. Wright Boott ; after his over- 
 advances to some of the heirs had been made ; after a course 
 of great expenditure on the family account had been going 
 on for years, without due regard to the source whence mon- 
 eys, furnished by him, came, or to the proportion justly be- 
 longing to each member of the family ; and after the estate's 
 money had begun to go freely into the business of the foun- 
 dry, — those of the heirs, whose occasions for large sums of 
 money, and opportunities to control them, arose at that late 
 period, if at all, received the whole of their supposed shares, or 
 half, or nothing, according to the necessity of circumstances. 
 Mr. Kirk Boott, it appears by his own letter, was a debtor 
 to Mr. J. Wright Boott, instead of a creditor, in 1826 ; and 
 the |20,000, due from the executor to him for his patrimo- 
 nial share, became merged, of course, in the settlement of the 
 larger sum, due from him to the executor, either in that ca- 
 pacity, or personally ; for Mr. Lowell and I agree on this 
 point, that, "it is not to be presumed, that Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 himself a most exact man, made that settlement without re- 
 ceiving credit for the precise amount of his patrimony," 
 [L. p. 98.] at least so far as it had been disclosed to him. 
 Mr. James Boott, for a like reason, probably received his full 
 patrimonial share in the same way. Messrs. Lyman and Ral- 
 ston had each received $10,000, on account, in 1821 — 2, as 
 I knew at the time. They had received no more in 1826 ; 
 but they afterwards received, in 1831, their additional 
 $10,000 each, in the manner which has been shown, from 
 the "Reply;" [Ante, Ch. 49.] because, as purchasers of Mr 
 
516 
 
 Boott's interest and investment in the foundry, 
 debtors to him in a larger sum, against whicfi ■ 
 due to each of them, was a proper offset in pnyT: • ..icy 
 
 realized their full shares, provided the foun^ *) • * •worth 
 
 what they paid for it. But neither Mrs. i\ 'Ir. 
 
 William Boott, had any such means of payi«.gyj^|fe^ 3, 
 
 after Mr. J. Wright Boott's embarrassments had arise!P»lio.ud, 
 consequently, they were never paid, except to the extent, and 
 in the manner before stated; not because Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott had any indisposition to pay them, also, in full, but 
 because he had no longer the ability left, having lost all he 
 was ever personally worth, together with a large amount of 
 the funds of his father's estate, in the business done by him 
 after his father's death, which was all a losing business, with 
 the single exception of the Chelmsford speculation ; and, out 
 of that, he made little or nothing, for himself, as will pres- 
 ently be seen. 
 
 And here, it may be proper to note, in passing, a fact, 
 which will be found material in another part of this case ; 
 namely,* that Mr. William Boott and myself, were, probably, 
 the only members of the family, who really gave up any 
 thing considerable by the release of 1833 ; although, for the 
 satisfaction of Mr. J. Wright Boott's feelings, as well as from 
 uncertainty respecting the true state of accounts, it was 
 thought desirable that all the heirs, who had not already 
 released him, should join in that act. 
 
 These statements anticipate, in part, the evidence, on 
 which they are founded. For the reader will observe, that 
 I do not profess to have personal knowledge of the facts 
 stated. In the absence of proper accounts, I am, neces- 
 sarily, driven to inferences, from such evidence as I show, 
 and the reader must judge, as we proceed, how far they are 
 well founded, bearing in mind that Mr. Lowell has, in his 
 own hands, to a great, if not to the fullest extent, the means 
 of either verifying or contradicting them, conclusively. At 
 present, I call the reader's attention to this : that Mr. Lowell 
 waives and evades, in his " Reply," all statement and inquiry 
 about over-drafts by Mr. Kirk Boott. I call attention, also, 
 
517 
 
 CO the shallowness of the sophism, on which he argues that 
 my premises, or assumptions, if he pleases, suppose a loss in 
 trade of $171,000 by the house, in which Mr. Kirk Boott was 
 a partner ; and that, consequently, when I admit payments to 
 the heirs of as much, in the aggregate, as the account of 
 1844 claims to have been paid to them, I say, in effect, of 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, that " out of nothing he has contrived 
 to pay a sum of $90,000." 
 
 My belief, as I state it, is, that, out of the funds of his 
 father's estate, he paid and lent, to some of the heirs, more 
 than double that sum ; that he got back what he could, 
 beyond the f 20,000, which each, who had more in his hands, 
 was allowed to retain as a dividend from the estate ; that he 
 was never worth much, in his own right, beyond his patri- 
 mony ; that, whatever he was worth, he lost in trade and 
 specxilation, within a few years after his father's death ; that 
 he, also, embarked his father's estate, irregularly, in that kind 
 of business ; and that the unfortunate consequence was the 
 deficit, which has been shown to have existed, in 1830 — 31, 
 in the annuity funds established by his father's will, and a 
 further deficit upon the patrimonial shares of such of the 
 heirs as had not previously received their $20,000 each, except 
 in the case of Lyman & Ralston, who, through a subsequent 
 settlement of their partnership connexion with Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, obtained, nominally at least, the balance due to them 
 from him as executor, which balance was properly included 
 in that settlement. 
 
 This view of affairs, it will be seen, supposes a final deficit 
 of twenty or thirty thousand dollars only, beyond the deficit 
 of nearly $70,000, which has heretofore been shown, in the 
 annuity funds, as affairs stood in 1831. [Ante, p. 292.] The 
 great error, therefore, of the account, according to my view 
 of it, consists in the total omission of something like 
 $100,000 of assets, which had come to the executor's hands, 
 and in the total omission, also, of something like $70,000, 
 paid away to certain of the heirs. The receipt of such a sum 
 could not have been stated in the accounts, without showing 
 what was done with it ; and that could not have been stated, 
 
618 
 
 without disclosing, on the face of the account, great inequal- 
 ities of distribution, — inequalities never intended by Mr. 
 Boott, but which circumstances had rendered unavoidable. 
 
 This view coincides, also, with the excuse, above alluded 
 to as formerly made by Mr. Lowell, for Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 omission to settle the estate, in the earlier years of his exec- 
 utorship ; namely, that he could not then have done so, 
 without making his brothers bankrupt. The probable truth 
 of this suggestion, in respect to some of his brothers, will 
 presently appear. 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 StTMMABY OF MR. BOOTT's MERCANTILE CONNEXIONS, AND STOCK 
 TRANSACTIONS. 
 
 The time has now come, when it is proper to look iuto 
 the history of Mr. J. Wright Boott's connexion with several 
 mercantile houses, and of his principal pecuniary transac- 
 tions, so far as they have yet been disclosed or discovered, 
 leading to the state of afiairs, shown by his own written 
 statement, and by the admissions of the " Reply," to have 
 existed in 1830. 
 
 First, for the undisputed facts, and facts proved by clear 
 written evidence. 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott was in partnership with his father 
 at the time of the death of the latter in January, 1817. 
 They were importers of British goods, under the firm of 
 Kirk Boott & Sons, which, for distinction's sake, I call Kirk 
 Boott & Sons, No. 1. The business of that firm was requir- 
 ed, by the will, to terminate March 19, 1818, up to which 
 time it was to be carried on as before, notwithstanding the 
 testator's death, except that so much of capital as might be 
 
519 
 
 needful to construct the annuity funds, for Mrs. Boott and the 
 testator's sisters, was to he withdrawn from trade and invest- 
 ed for that purpose. All this appears by the will ; [B. App. 
 pp. 5 — 9.] and Mr. Lowell is also a voucher for it. [L. pp. 
 22—25.] 
 
 Upon the expiration of the old house, by its limitation un- 
 der the will, a new one was formed, consisting of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, Mr. Kirk Boott, and Mr. James Boott, another 
 brother then just of age, under the same firm, which I distin- 
 guish as Ku'k Boott & Sons, No. 2. 
 
 This is admitted by Mr, Lowell ; [L. p. 24. J and the fol- 
 lowing notice of the dissolution of the old, and the formation 
 of the new, copartnership may be found in the Boston Daily 
 Advertiser of that time, under the date of April 1, 1818. 
 
 Notice. 
 
 " The copartnership heretofore existing under the firm of Kirk 
 Boott & Sons is dissolved ; seltlements to he made with John W. 
 Boott. The business will he continued by the subscribers, under the 
 firm of Kirk Boott & Sons. • 
 
 J. W. Boott. 
 
 Kirk Boott. 
 
 James Boott." 
 
 The house of Kirk Boott and Sons, No. 2, lasted until 
 Mr. Kirk Boott's removal to Chelmsford, (now Lowell,) at 
 the close of the year 1821 ; and a new house was then 
 formed, [L. p. 27.] as appears by the following newspaper 
 announcement, under date of January 1, 1822 : — 
 
 Notice. 
 
 "The copartnership, heretofore existing between the subscribers, 
 under the firm of Kirk Boott & Sons, is this day dissolved by mutual 
 consent. All persons indebted to the late firm are required to make 
 immediate payment, and all persons having demands to present them, 
 to /. W. Boott, or /. A. Lowell, who are duly authorized to settle 
 them at No. 30 State street. 
 
 " The business of the late house will be continued at the same 
 place, under the firm of Boott Sf Lowell. 
 
 J. W. Boott. 
 
 Kirk Boott. 
 
 James Boott. 
 
 J. A. Lowell." 
 
520 
 
 The house of Boott & Lowell terminated July 1, 1824, as 
 ■we are told, [L. p. 28.] though its books were, of course, kept 
 open, for purposes of liquidation, some indefinite time longer. 
 Mr. Lowell refers to them for an entry of a sale of stocks by 
 Mr. Boott, in October, 1827 ; [L. p. 71.] but this I have 
 already mentioned as a probable misprint for October, 1824. 
 [Ante, p. 399.] 
 
 Mr. Boott, after the dissolution of that house, remained 
 out of business, until he formed the connexion with Mr. Ly- 
 man and Mr. Ralston in the Mill Dam Foundry, in 1826. 
 [L. pp. 75, 76.] Prom that connexion, it has been seen, he 
 withdrew by the settlement of September, or October, 1831, 
 and the business of the foundry was then transferred to the 
 corporation, formed by Mr. Lyman and the Messrs. Ralston. 
 [Ante, Oh. 33.] 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott was engaged in no business whatever, 
 after his withdrawal from the Mill Dam Foundry. 
 
 Let me now repeat, in this connexion, what the probate 
 office shows : — 
 
 Under date of Jan. 12, 1818, Mr. J. Wright Boott, as sole 
 acting executor of his father's will, returned an inventory, 
 consisting, entirely, of the real estate, and the household furni- 
 ture, and other like chattels left to the widow, — nothing that 
 the general heirs had an interest in, except the mansion- 
 house, appraised at $24,000, and that subject to the life es- 
 tate of Mrs. Boott: [B. App. p. 13.] 
 
 The executor's first probate account, dated April 1, 1818, 
 was passed May 11, 1818. [B. App. p. 14.] This, as be- 
 fore shown, stated investments made, agreeably to the will, 
 in U. S. stock, Suffolk Insurance stock, and Suffolk Bank 
 stock, sufficient to cover the particular trusts for the widowr 
 and sisters of the testator, and nothing more. That is, the 
 stocks named, amounted, at par, to ^111,11111; and, al- 
 though the premiums paid bring up the foot of the account 
 to $116,783 95, these premiums appear to have been then 
 treated as expense, in forming the funds. The account in- 
 cluded f 10,000 for instalments on the bank stock, not then 
 payable, but soon afterwards paid ; and Mr. Lowell admits 
 
521 
 
 that the trast funds were the only subject of this account. 
 [L. p. 24.] 
 
 Nothing more appears in the probate office till the account 
 of 1844, which charges the executor with the amount of the 
 inventory, the above mentioned foot of the former account, — 
 entered as cash received, at or before that date, from the iirm 
 of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 1,— and the sum of $69,389 99,— 
 entered as " cash received of Boott & Lowell, in liquidation of 
 the outstanding property of Kirk Boott & Sons," at some 
 date not specified. To this is added f 133 61, for the balance 
 of gains and losses by sales, at dates not given, of the stocks 
 named in the account of 1818 as held in trust by the exec- 
 utor. This, it will be remembered, is the whole debit side 
 of the account of 1844, except for " mcome received on the 
 trust fund for the widow, from March, 1818, to November, 
 1844 ;" — and it will also be remembered, that there is no con- 
 nexion, traceable by the account of 1844, between the sums 
 thus debited, and the property said, at the foot of that ac- 
 count, to be in the executor's hands at that date, subject 
 to the cash balance of $25,000, alleged to be due to him. 
 
 Let us now look at other business transactions of Mr. 
 Boott, which, though not known to me at the time of my 
 former pamphlet, are now proved by unquestionable evidence. 
 
 The trust fund, formed in 1818, appears to have been first 
 broken in upon by sales, in July and August, 1819, of 
 $21,000 of the U. S. six per cent, stock of the loan of 1813, 
 standing in Mr. Boott's name as executor, to divers parties, 
 having no connexion with this case. [Ante, p. 269.] The 
 sale of the residue of the six per cent, stocks, as before stat- 
 ed, I have been unable to find ; but, according to the ac- 
 coimt of 1844, the sale of the whole of the six per cent, 
 stock was at a loss, compared with its cost, of $679 37. 
 [See accounts, L. p. 38, B. App p. 14.] 
 
 In 1820, March 1, as appears by the records of the Boston 
 Manufacturing Company, Mr. J. Wright Boott, the senior 
 partner of the house of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, subscribed 
 for thirty shares of a new issue of stock in that company, 
 the certificates of which were taken out in his own indi- 
 
522 
 
 vidual name. The subscription price to new associates was 
 $1150 per share, as I formerly stated, [B. p. 118.] and so Mr. 
 Lowell tacitly admits. The amount paid, of course, was 
 f 34,500. Of these thirty shares the " ^.eply " informs Us, 
 [L. p. 69.] that twelve were intended to represent an invest- 
 ment for Mrs. P. Boott and for her children ; and, in respect 
 to the children, it, in fact, appears, by the probate accounts 
 of Mr. J. Wright Boott as their guardian, that eight shares 
 of that stock went into those accounts, two for each ward. 
 The remaining eighteen shares were intended, we are told, 
 to represent an investment for the account of Mrs. Boott's 
 annuity fund ; or, at least, that the dividends upon them 
 were treated as Mrs. Boott's in the books of Boott & Lowell, 
 as appears by an entry, purporting to be extracted from 
 those books, under date of April 1, 1823. [L. p. 69.] These 
 shares are charged among the property on hand, in the ac- 
 count of 1844, at the subscription price, amounting to 
 |20,700. [L. p. 38. B. App. p. 43.] This investment, if 
 intended at the time as a specific investment for the annuity 
 fund, would about take the place, in March, 1820, of the 
 121,000 of U. S. six per cent, loan of 1813, sold about 
 eight months before, with this difference only, besides loss 
 of interest, namely, that the U. S. stock stood in Mr. Boott's 
 name as executor ; whereas the Boston stock stood in his 
 private name, with nothing to mark it as trust property. 
 If the residue of the six per cent, stock was sold at or near 
 the sarn,e time, there remained about $22,000 still in hand, 
 for which no distinct investment appears, either as execu- 
 tor, or in Mr. Boott's private name. These transactions oc- 
 curred during the existence of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2. 
 
 In the fall of 1821, Mr. J. Wright Boott, in connexion 
 with Mr. Kirk Boott, joined Mr. Nathan Appleton, and the 
 late Mr. P. T. Jackson, in a speculation, which resulted in the 
 purchase of all the shares in the Patucket Canal, and a 
 large quantity of lands at Chelmsford, whereby the control of 
 the water-power of the Merrimack river was obtained, for 
 the purpose of manufacturing and printing cotton cloth, at the 
 place now called Lowell. For the history of that matter, 
 
523 
 
 I may refer to a recent published correspondence between 
 Mr. Nathan Appleton and Mr. John A. Lowell. According to 
 that correspondence, the agreement of the four associates was, 
 to form a company for this purpose, the stock to be divided 
 into six hundred shares of f 1000 each. The two Messrs. 
 Boott subscribed for ninety shares each ; Messrs. Appleton 
 and Jackson for one hundred and eighty each ; and Mr. Paul 
 Moody was allowed to subscribe for the remaining sixty. 
 Afterwards, new associates were admitted, who took shares, 
 relinquished to them, proportionally, by the first subscribers. 
 An exact proportion would have reduced Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott's shares from ninety to fifty-eight. It would seem, 
 however, that he relinquished two more than his exact pro- 
 portion to somebody; since, upon the organization of the 
 Merrimack Manufacturing Company, (which was the corpor- 
 ate name taken soon after by this private association,) Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott appears to have been an original subscriber 
 for fifty-six shares only of the corporate stock. This transac- 
 tion, however, runs into the year 1822, the first assessment 
 on the corporate stock having been payable on the first of 
 April of that year. The transaction of 1821, though a large 
 enterprise, which has led, eventually, to the investment of 
 millions of dollars at Lowell, does not appear to have taken, in 
 the outset, a very great sum of money from the associates, to 
 efiect the first purchases. The whole amount paid in by the 
 associates, prior to their transfer to the corporation, appears, 
 by the correspondence above referred to, to have been short 
 of $68,000. Of this, the Messrs. Boott, if they contributed 
 their full original proportion, would have paid, jointly, about 
 $20,000. But this was, doubtless, reduced by the contribu- 
 tions of the new associates, who were afterwards admitted ; 
 and, upon forty of the shares, parted with by the Messrs. 
 Boott, a profit seems to have been realized of $4000. The 
 moderate sum, thus paid by the unincorporated associates, 
 must have been, afterwards, allowed to them by the corpora- 
 tion, towards their assessments on the corporate shares they 
 took, or must have been repaid to them in some other form 
 upon the transfer of the property to the corporation. 
 
524 
 
 This Chelmsford speculation occurred during the last year 
 of the house of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2 ; but, as we see, 
 did not call, at that time, for much money. 
 
 In the same year, 1821, it appears from Mr. Boott's guard- 
 ianship accounts, that he sold out all the United States 
 stocks, which he held as an investment for his four wards, 
 to the amount, in all, of about $47,000. [Ante, p. 237.] 
 This reimbursed him for an advance of the preceding year, 
 caused by the purchase of eight shares in the Boston Manu- 
 facturing Company for their aceount, and left him, at the 
 end of the year, with cash, of theirs in hand, to the amount, 
 without interest, of about |45,500. [Ante, p. 237.] This 
 sum does not appear to have been re-invested, to any great 
 extent, on those accounts, for many years ; and the debt was 
 constantly increesing by interest upon it, as has been before 
 shown, until the marriage of one of his wards in 1826, when 
 there was a partial payment to that ward. Neither has any 
 investment by Mr. Boott, as executor, or any purchase in his 
 own name, in the year 1821, or the early part of 1822, come 
 to light, which could have taken up any considerable part of 
 the fund thus borrowed from the estate of his wards. If 
 the sum borrowed did not go into his mercantile business, it 
 stands wholly unaccounted for. 
 
 At what precise period of the year 1821 this large sale of 
 United States stocks was effected cannot be ascertained from 
 the probate accounts ; but, with the year 1821, the house of 
 Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, came to an end ; and, on the first 
 of January, 1822, the house of Boott & Lowell began ; and 
 we learn from the " Reply " that Mr. Boott furnished to 
 that house a capital of $40,000. [L. p. 58.] 
 
 In March, 1822, we learn, also, from the " Reply," that 
 Mr. Boott purchased, in his own name, six shares of the 
 Boston Manufacturing Company, from Dr. Jackson, at $1500 
 a share ; for whose account, if not his own, does not appear. 
 He held them till October, 1824. [L. p. 70. B. App. p. 32.] 
 
 The fi.rst assessment on the fifty-six shares of stock in the 
 Merrimack Manufacturing Company became due in April, 
 1822 ; [B. App. 30.] but the payment of that assessment is, 
 
525 
 
 to some extent at least, perhaps fully, accounted for by what 
 was due to the Messrs. Boott for the advances, above men- 
 tioned, on account of the company before its incorporation, — 
 going upon the presumption that they contributed their fair 
 share to the unincorporated association. In the latter part 
 of that year, (1822,) Mr. J. Wright Boott went abroad, taking 
 his brother William to Europe. There, it seems from the 
 " Reply," he travelled about a year. [L. p. 61.J The " Reply " 
 further informs us, that, although, during his absence, "nearly 
 every thing relating to the pecuniary concerns of the family 
 devolved upon" Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 28.] yet, that Mr. Kirk 
 Boott took care of the assessments falling due on the man- 
 ufacturing stock at Lowell. [L. p. 88.] Out of what funds 
 did Mr. Kirk Boott pay these assessments, both for himself 
 and his brother ? Did they not come from Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott ? And, if so, were they not, all, in truth, funds of the 
 estate ? At any rate, Mr. J. Wright Boott must, at some 
 time, have repaid to Mr. Kirk Boott the assessments on his 
 own shares ; and their full amount, when paid, must have 
 taken up |56,000. 
 
 Shortly before Mr. J. Wright Boott went abroad, we have 
 seen that he transferred to Boott & Lowell the United States 
 seven per cent, stocks, which he held, duly invested as 
 executor, for the trust funds of his father's will, to the 
 amount, at par, of $31,111 11 ; and also the Suffolk Bank 
 shares, which appear, by the probate accounts of 1818 and 
 ] 844, to have been held by him on the same trust account, to 
 the amount, at par, of $20,000. [Ante, pp. 268, 271.] 
 
 What did Boott & Lowell with those stocks, during Mr. 
 Boott's absence in Europe ? The transfer books of the Unit- 
 ed States stocks, now deposited at the Merchants' Bank in 
 Boston, furnish the following account of the seven per 
 cents. : — 
 
526 
 
 1822. 
 
 Peb'y 22 
 
 " 28 
 
 Marcli 9 
 
 April 25 
 
 Oct. 1 
 
 1822 
 July 15 
 Nov. 2 
 
 " 18 
 " 20 
 " 28 
 
 Dec. 13 
 
 " 13 
 
 1823 
 
 Jan. 6 
 " 6 
 " 11 
 " 11 
 " 18 
 " 23 
 " 29 
 
 Peb. 3 
 " 3 
 " 7 
 " 20 
 
 Mar. 14 
 
 "BOOTT & LOWELL OF BOSTON. 
 
 PUECHASES. 
 
 From T. Barteile, Guard'n, 
 " Jno. Hooper, 
 " Sundry Accounts, 
 " Jonathan Porter, 
 
 $4,000 
 4,000 
 6,400 
 4,000 
 
 Jno. W. Boott, Executor, 
 
 Sales. 
 
 
 
 To George Evelyn, 
 
 $14,400 
 
 
 " Bass & Heywood, 
 
 4,000 
 
 18,40000 
 
 " Trustees of the Greene Foundation - 
 
 ■517 
 
 " Stephen Williams 
 
 1,000 
 
 
 " H. Andrews & S. A. Eliot, Trustees, - 
 
 7,000 
 
 
 " Edmund Baylies, 
 
 2,500 
 
 
 " Henry Andrews 
 
 944 
 
 
 " D. Messinger & J. Simonds - 
 
 1,380 
 
 
 " Trustees of Greene Foundation, 
 
 615 
 
 
 " Thomas Lamb, 
 
 3,000 
 
 
 " Boston Female Asylum, 
 
 1,000 
 
 
 " Rebecca Peck, 
 
 3,000 
 
 
 " Ezek'l Kendall, Jr. 
 
 700 
 
 
 " Sundry Accounts, 
 
 550 
 
 
 " Eliot & Andrews, 
 
 4.000 
 
 
 " Thomas Minns, 
 
 360 
 
 
 " Susannah Conway, 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 " Mary Hall, 
 
 300 
 
 
 " Henry Andrews, 
 
 95 
 
 31,11111 
 
 
 
 $18,40000 
 31,11111 
 
 $49,511 U 
 
 $49,511 11 
 
 I certify that the above is an accurate copy from the United States Loan Books, 
 kept at the Merchants' Bank, Boston. 
 
 HENRY F. FLAGG, Acc't." 
 
 It will be understood, of course, that the first f 18,400, in 
 the foregoing account, has nothing to do with this case ; at 
 least, I am not aware that it has. The ^31,111 11, which 
 came from "J. W. Boott, executor," appear to have been 
 transferred by Boott & Lowell, from time to time, in small 
 parcels, to different parties, between November 18, 1822, and 
 March 14, 1823. All I know, further, about this parcel of 
 stocks, is, that the probate account of 1844, though it 
 makes no mention of Boott &, Lowell as in any way con- 
 nected with the transaction, and omits to specify the date of 
 the transaction, shows these stocks to have been sold for the 
 estate, by entering, under the head of " Gain on sale of 
 
527 
 
 stocks," a certain amount of gain on a sale of the shares in 
 the Suffolk Insurance Company, and thence deducting losses 
 on all the other stocks ; and among them is, " Less loss on 
 sale of U. S. seven cent, stock, $1,687 08 ;" which loss is, 
 thus indirectly, charged to the estate. [L. p. 38.] Wheth- 
 er it was incurred upon a sale by the executor to Boott &> 
 Lowell, or upon sales made by Boott «fc Lowell as agents for 
 the executor, can not be determined on the face of the trans- 
 fers, but may be important for the heirs to know, and quite 
 important for Mr. Lowell to explain. 
 
 As to the Suffolk Bank shares, the transfer books of that 
 bank show, as I have ascertained by personal inspection, 
 that those shares, also, passed into the hands of Boott & 
 Lowell, October 2, 1822, and were transferred by Boott & 
 Lowell to the Mercantile Marine Insurance Company, May 6, 
 1823 ; and, by the probate account of 1844, it appears, that 
 they were sold at a loss of ^100; which loss is charged to 
 the estate, in a form similar to that above given in the case 
 of the U. S. seven per cents. [L. p. 38.] 
 
 The proceeds of these sales of the seven per cents, and of 
 the bank shares, thus appear to have passed into the hands 
 of Boott & Lowell ; and, if we may judge by these records, 
 they appear, by comparing the cost of the stocks, according 
 to the probate account of 1818, and the losses upon the 
 sales of the same stocks, according to the account of 1844, 
 to have produced f 52,853 43.* Whether the U. S. six per 
 cents, not accounted for by those of the U. S. loan books, 
 which I have, as yet, been able to find, — amounting, at cost, 
 according to the probate account of 1818, to about $22,690, — 
 also passed into the hands of Boott & Lowell, Mr. Lowell 
 
 * U. S. seyen per cent, stock, $31,111 11 
 
 Premium on do 3,029 40 
 
 200 Suffolk Bank shares, 20,000 00 
 
 Premium on do 500 00 
 
 Cost, Ijy the account of 1818, [B. App. p. 14,] §54,640 51 
 
 Loss, on sale of IT. S. seven per cent, stock, by the 
 
 account of 1844, [L. p. 38. B. App. p. 43.] $1,687 08 
 
 Do. on sale of Suffolk Bank shares, by same, 1 00 00 
 
 $1,787 OS 
 
 $52,853 43 
 
528 
 
 will be able to tell us. He will also be able to tell us, what 
 Boott & Lowell did with the money proceeding from any 
 of these stocks, the last of which appear to have passed out 
 of their hands, in May, 1823. 
 
 In January, 1824, it appears by the transfer books of the 
 Merrimack Manufacturing Company, that Mr. Boott became 
 a subscriber for forty shares of the new stock, then created by 
 that company ; which, when paid for, must have taken up 
 $40,000. [B. App. p. 30.] He was then the holder of 
 $96,000 in this stock. 
 
 In the course of that year, it appears, by the same transfer 
 books, that he sold sixteen of his Merrimack shares, (leaving 
 forty of the old stock, and forty of the new,) and in 1825, he 
 transferred four to Mrs. Mary Lee. After this, there appear 
 no transfers from him, (except as collateral security for loans, 
 and a transfer of three shares to Mr. William Lyman, which 
 were afterwards restored,) until the transfers made in 1831, 
 on his guardianship accounts, and to me in trust, as before 
 explained. [Ante, p. 293.] 
 
 In the course of the same year, (1824,) he appears to 
 have sold the six shares of Boston Manufacturing Company, 
 bought from Dr. Jackson, at their cost, as Mr. Lowell states ; 
 [L. p. 71.] and, also, six other shares of the same stock, as 
 the transfer book of the company shows, [B. App. 32.] be- 
 sides transferring two shares to Mrs. Mary Lee. No other 
 transfers of this stock appear afterwards, (except as collateral 
 security, and a transfer and retransfer to and from Mr. 
 William Lyman,) until the transfers, in 1831, of four shares 
 to his guardianship accounts, and of fourteen to me under 
 my trust agreement. 
 
 In April, 1824, he also sold the shares of Suffolk Insurance 
 Company, which he held as executor, according to Mr. Hay- 
 ward's certificate, [Ante, p. 268.] and realized from them, as 
 appears by their cost in the probate account of 1818, and the 
 gain upon their sale entered in the probate account of 1844, 
 $20,357 50,* 
 
 * Cost, by the ^ccpnnt of 1818, [B. App. p. 14.] $17,753 44 
 
 Gain, by tbe account of 1844, [L. p. 38.] 2,604 06 
 
 $20,357 50 
 
529 
 
 In the same year, (1824,) he bought, from the late William 
 Dehon, an estate in Bulfinch Place, which he, immediately, 
 re-sold, reserving the stable, at a cost u[)on the whole transac- 
 tion, according to the account of 1844, of $2500. [L. p. 39.] 
 
 In July, of the same year, the house of Boott & Lowell, 
 we are told, was dissolved ; [L. p. 28.] and, — whether at the 
 winding up of their affairs, or at what other time, we are 
 not told, but, at some time, we are told, by the accoimt of 
 1844, — Boott & Lowell paid over to Mr. Boott, as executor, a 
 sum of $69,389 99, " in liquidation of the outstanding prop- 
 erty of Kirk Boott & Sons." ■ [L. p. 38.] This is charged, 
 in the account, as so much property of the estate additional 
 to the $116,783 95, which, in 1818, had been "invested in 
 stocks to constitute thfe trust fund," [L. p. 38.] but of which 
 a great part was, afterwards, transferred, as we have seen, to 
 Boott & Lowell ; [Ante, p. 271.] and the amount, so trans- 
 ferred, is not specifically accounted for, in the probate ac- 
 count of 1844, otherwise than by charging upon the estate, 
 in the form above shown, the loss experienced in the sale of 
 the stocks. [Ante, p. 527.] 
 
 As holder of eighty shares of Merrimack stock, Mr. Boott 
 became entitled to eighty shares of the Locks and Canals 
 Corporation, when that company was formed out of the 
 Merrimack Company, which, I think, happened in this same 
 year, 1824. He subscribed for, and took, the whole eighty 
 shares in his own name, and afterwards disposed of them, as 
 appears by the following letter : — 
 
 LETTER FKOJU Me. J. T. MORSE. 
 
 Boston, Februaky 13, 1849. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 I find by the leger of the Proprietors of 
 Locks and Canals, that Mr. J. W. Boott took, originally, eighty shares 
 in the stock of that company, which he disposed of to ditt'erent par- 
 ties in the years 1825, 1826, and 1828 ; and that the late Mr. Kirk 
 Boott took, originally, in the same company, ten shares, five of which 
 were disposed of by himself, and five transferred by his executor to 
 the trustees, after his death. 
 
 The book, containing the recorded copies of the transfer deeds, is 
 
 67 
 
530 
 
 not in my keeping, and I cannot therefore give the particulars of each 
 transfer. Respectfully yours, 
 
 J. T. Morse. 
 To Edward Brooks, Esq., \ 
 Court Street. ) 
 
 I find no other transactions in stocks till February, or 
 March, 1826, when Mr. Boott brought his late partners to a 
 settlement. By that settlement, he received, as before shown, 
 [Ante, Ch. 51.] twenty-one shares of Boston Manufacturing 
 Company, from Mr. Kirk Boott, at $1300 a share, which, 
 amounting to $37,300, are charged to the estate at that 
 price in the account of 1844. He received, also, from Mr. 
 James Boott, about the same time, five shares of Merrimack 
 stock, which Mr. Lowell admits to have been transferred in 
 settlement of the partnership accounts. [L. p. 51.] He re- 
 ceived, also, from the same gentleman, about the same time, 
 ten shares in the Locks and Canals. This I was not aware 
 of at the time of the writing of my former pamphlet ; and 
 Mr. Lowell takes care, as the fact makes against him, not to 
 notice my omission. This was, no doubt, a part of the 
 same settlement. I find, also, a transfer from Mr. William 
 Wells to Mr. J. Wright Boott, about the same time, of six 
 shares in the Locks and Canals, which I take to have been 
 the refunding of some advance made to him beyond his wife's 
 share of the estate. The shares in the Locks and Canals, 
 acquired in these settlements, together with the balance of 
 Mr. Boott's own subscription, were all disposed of in 1828, as 
 I find from the books of the company, with the exception of 
 six, which he held till 1831, and then transferred to his 
 guardianship accounts; and the eighty-five shares of Mer- 
 rimack became reduced by transfers to Mrs. Lee, and to his 
 guardianship accounts, and by a sale of two shares in 1837, 
 to seventy-one shares, which appear in the account of 1844. 
 [B. App. pp. 30, 31.] 
 
 In this same year, ( 1826,) he entered into the business of 
 the foundry, upon which he had expended, before September, 
 1830, as we see by his memorandum, $70,000. [Ante, p. 198.] 
 
 This brings us up to the period, at which I took up my 
 
531 
 
 narrative with the state of afiairs then existing, as shown by 
 that memorandum, and by Mr. Lowell's admissions of the 
 truth of its contents. [Ante, Ch. 21.] And it will be noted, 
 that the greatest number, and by far the most important, of 
 Mr. Boott's stock transactions, occurred during the existence 
 of the house of Boott & Lowell ; although nothing in the 
 account of 1844, or in the explanations gf the "Reply," 
 would lead to that supposition. 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 THE ISSUES KESPECTING LOSSES OE PROPERTY, IN TRADE, AND 
 OTHERWISE. A GREAT LOSS, TO SOMEBODY, SHOWN FROM THE 
 REPLY. 
 
 My next step will be, to show, from my former pamphlet, 
 and from the " Reply," what Mr. Lowell was called upon to 
 answer respecting supposed losses of property, and how he 
 answers it. 
 
 I stated that " the great question of the account is, wheth- 
 er it truly represents the whole capital of the estate, and the 
 amount which had been distributed, so as to make out the 
 supposed indebtedness of the estate to Mr. Wright Boott." 
 [B. p. 108.] I added my belief, " that much more than 
 $90,000 was distributed, or at least permitted to go to the 
 use of the heirs ; but not with any equality." [B. p. 109.] 
 And to avoid, as I stated, invidious comments on supposed 
 over-payments to others, I pointed to my own case, only, as 
 one, in which the furnishing of Mrs. Brooks's house should 
 have been charged, in addition to the $10,000 paid to me, 
 unless that expenditure was supposed to be included in the 
 $275,000 paid " to, or for account and by order of, the 
 widow." [B. p. 109.] 
 
632 
 
 If $90,000, paid to the heirs, might he assumed to be 
 correct, as an average result, I in<^uired " whether it can be 
 true, that Mr. Wright Boott was justly accountable, as esjecu- 
 tor, for no more than $186,000 of moneyed capital?" One 
 thing, I said, is certain : — 
 
 " Either Mr. Wright Boott made a gross misrepresentatiqi), with- 
 out any conceivable motive, when he slated to me, in 1821, and to 
 Mr. William Boott, in 1827 — 8, and I believe to other heirs at other 
 times, that the shares, presently distributable, were $20,000 apiece, or 
 else, the account, prepared by Mr. Lowell, does not truly exhibit the 
 full amount of capital, for which the executor was chargeable. The 
 820,000 apiece , would have amounted to $180,000, besides the 
 $11 1,000 of trust funds for his mother and aunts; — in all, upwards 
 of $290,000, instead of $186,000, which the account shows. What 
 Mr. Boott, senior, really left, I do not pretend to know. Mr. Lowell, 
 to some extent, may have better means of knowledge. The books of 
 Boott & Lowell are, no doubt, in his possession ; and from them, I 
 presume, he arrives at the precise sum of $69,389 99, as cash receiv- 
 ed by the executor from that firm, " in liquidation of the outstanding 
 property of Kirk Boott & Sons." But we want to know, whether 
 this is a mere computation of Mr. Lowell's, and if so, upon what data, 
 or whetlier it is the balance of an account in the books of Boott & 
 Lowell, as would seem most likely, and if so, what were the items, 
 which had previously gone into that account, and through what pe- 
 riod it extended, before we can determine whether it truly represents 
 all the property of the estate, which came to Mr. Wright Boott, even 
 after the business of liquidation had passed into the hands of Boott 
 & Lowell. We want farther to know, when it was paid, in what 
 sums, and how it was invested, to determine the extent of his just ac- 
 countability, even for the items of that particular sum. We are still 
 more in the dark as to what had come to his hands before the firm of 
 Boott & Lowell began. Mr. Lowell, apparently, does not go back to 
 the books of Kirk Boott & Sons, or, at least, does not rely upon them 
 for information on tliat head. He refers only to the former probate 
 account, settled in 1818, and takes its foot as the whole residue of 
 property, (besides the items of the inventory,) received by Mr. Wright 
 Boott, before the payment to him by Boott & Lowell. As evidence of 
 receipt, to the extent supposed by the present account, this has been 
 shown to be defective by the sum of $10,000. But was there, in truth, 
 nothing, which came to the hands of Mr. Wright Boott, or for which 
 he had become accountable to the estate, in the interval between the 
 settling of his account, May 11, 1818, and the formation of the firm 
 of Boott & Lowell, in 1822 ? Had nothing of his father's come to 
 his hands before May 11, 1818, except cash, as stated in that account, 
 and the chattels described in the inventorj' ? 
 
 " The books of Kirk Boott & Sons, I presume, would throw light 
 on that question ; but, those I have never seen, and do not know in 
 whose custody they are. They would seem to be, most properly 
 
633 
 
 now, in the hands of Mr. John A. Lowell, as executor of Mr. "Wright 
 Boott. They ought, certainly, to have been in Mr. Wright Boott's 
 own possession at the time of the making of this account, and should 
 have been open to the inspection of Mr. Lowell. But, suice nothing 
 appears to be drawn from them in the account stated, we may, per- 
 haps, fairly infer, that they were not looked at for the purpose ; for 
 it seems impossible, that literally nothing should have been collected 
 on account of the old firm, from May 11, 1818, when the probate ac- 
 count was settled, to Jan. 1, 1822, when the firm of Boott & Lowell 
 was begun, (an interval of nearly four years,) and yet that, after those 
 four years had passed, near S70,00() of the estate's money should 
 have been collected by that firm, and paid over to the executor. 
 Yet such i^ virtually the statement of the present account." [B. pp. 
 109, 110.] 
 
 On the notices of dissolution of old firms and formation 
 of new ones, I remarked : — 
 
 " Now, it may be material to note, that the estate had legally the in- 
 terest of a partner in the_^w4 concern, and 7iot in the second ; and that 
 Mr. Wright Boott was the sole liquidator of the first concern, and 
 Boott & Lowell were liquidators only of the second concern. It is diffi- 
 cult to see, therefore, how Boott & Lowell should have had occasion to 
 settle any account with Mr. Wright Boott as executor, or to pay him 
 any moneys in that capacity. Their settlement must have been with 
 Kirk Boott & Sons, the second concern, whose aflfeirs they were ap- 
 pointed to liquidate; and, consequently, it could not have involved 
 moneys of the estate, except such as Mr. Wright Boott may have 
 permitted, improperly, to be employed in the trade of Boott & Low- 
 ell, or such balance of the estate's money as may have been passed 
 to that concern by Kirk Boott & Sons, the second, if Mr. Wright 
 Boott had improperly invested moneys of the estate in that. His 
 plain duty, as executor and surviving partner, was to have wound up 
 fully the business of the old concern, in which his father was a part- 
 ner, as soon as the business would permit. The rights of all persons 
 interested in it, through the estate of the deceased partner, became 
 fixed, March 19, 1818. No new trade was to be carried on, after 
 that date, on their account, nor at their risk, with one exception. 
 The will, contemplating the probability' of a new partnership by some 
 of the testator's sons, authorized the executor to make, in that case, a 
 specific loan, at interest, to such new house, of the shares of his then 
 minor children, until they should come of age. That, upon the theo- 
 ry of the present account, would have amounted to a loan of *30,C00, 
 and no more. Nothing belonging to the estate, as an undivided prop- 
 erty, could, rightfully, have been placed in the second concern ; its 
 partners may have placed their own shares there, and doubtless did ; 
 the ascertained shares of the minor children might, also, have been 
 placed there by way of loan to them, though the pi-esent account 
 neither states, nor suggests, any such specific investment ; but, what- 
 ever collections the second firm may have made, on account of Mr. 
 
534 
 
 Wright Boott as liquidator of the first concern, these, I presume, 
 must be considered as having come to his hands at once, in his ca- 
 pacity of executor, the moment tliey were collected, he being himself 
 one of the collecting agents. Such moneys should have been imme- 
 diately distributed among the parties entitled, and not continued in 
 trade, except so far as specific loans went, authorized by the will. 
 But, I apprehend, it will be found, if the truth can ever be got at, 
 that Mr. Wright Boott made no such distinctions, — but suffered the 
 capital and outstanding transactions of the first house, in which the 
 estate was a partner, to be indiscriminately mingled with the funds 
 and business of the second house, in which the estate could not right- 
 fully be a partner, and, which, it appears by Mr. Kirk Boott's letter 
 of February 8, 1826, [App. No. 7.] must have been a very disas- 
 trous one ; since his own share of the loss in it, not only used up all 
 his own present share of his father's estate, but brought him into a 
 very heavy debt beyond that. Now it was only the diminished out- 
 standings of this second ruinous concern, which could have been the 
 subject of a settlement by Boott & Lowell, and of a payment by them 
 to Mr. Wright Boott, at some time, of near $70,000, ' in liquidation 
 of the outstanding property of Kirk Boott & Sons,' — for that is the 
 name of the second concern, as well as of the first. And the interest of 
 the executor in such a payment, if it was made to him as executor, 
 which is the fact asserted by the present account, is no evidence that 
 the second concern had not received, used, and lost, a much larger 
 portion of the original estate, before the firm of Boott & Lowell came 
 into existence. Whatever they had so received Mr. Wright Boott 
 was chargeable for as executor, and not for the mere leavings, which 
 may have been collected by Boott & Lowell. 
 
 " The only important items of debit in this account, namely, the 
 amount of cash, which had been specifically invested before Alay 11, 
 1818, and the amount of cash stated to have been paid over to the 
 executor by Boott & Lowell at some time after January 1, 1822, 
 coupled with the total omission of any intermediate receipt by the ex- 
 ecutor, are facts, which I am unable to reconcile with other known facts 
 upon any hypothesis, except that of great loss to the estate, unwar- 
 rantably incurred by the executor, in this second concern, for which 
 he well knew himself to be personally liable, and which he originally 
 intended to make good, and probably would have made good if he 
 had been successful in all his subsequent speculations. How else 
 can we account for his representations at all times, when he made 
 any, that each heir was entitled to a dividend of *20,000 from the es- 
 tate ? How else, for his feeling the necessity of a release from the 
 heirs in 1 833, and particularly from some of them, to whom he had 
 in fact, already paid » 10,000, or more, which, according to Mr. Low- 
 ell's account, exceeded all he owed them ? How else, for the fact 
 stated to me by the late Mr. Pratt, that Mr. Boott, senior, at the dis- 
 solution of the firm of Boott & Pratt, was a richer man than himself, 
 and was afterwards engaged in trade successfully ? And what an il- 
 lustration have we of the difference between a well managed and an 
 ill managed property, in comparing the results, at the present day, of 
 the estates of those two gentlemen, both of which were, or should 
 
535 
 
 have been, out of the hazards of trade at dates not far apart ! Be- 
 sides which, direct proof appears of heavy loss, sustained by the house 
 which the sons established, in the letter of one of the partners (Mr. 
 Kirk Boott,) above referred to. The extent of it we are left to gather 
 from inference. [B. pp. Ill to 113.] 
 
 I then stated the evidence, known to me at that time, re- 
 specting the settlement between Mr. Kirk Boott and Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, in 1826, leading to the inquiry, how much of 
 that large sum, apparently accounted for by Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 was for his share of loss by the firm, and how much for over- 
 drafts or advances made to him. I referred, also, to the con- 
 temporaneous transfer of stock by Mr. James Boott, as evi- 
 dence of some settlement made with him, but doubted wheth- 
 er there had been a complete repayment of his share of the 
 loss. I expressed the opinion that Mr. J. Wright Boott, him- 
 self, instead of being worth some $50,000 or more, as he 
 was commonly reputed when I first knew him, was really 
 worth nothing, after the winding up of the afiairs of Kirk 
 Boott <fc Sons, No. 2 ; but, on the contrary, was indebted to 
 his father's estate for moneys improperly used in that con- 
 cern, or permitted to be drawn out of it ; and that, although 
 he intended, at the time of the letter of Mr. Kirk Boott of 
 February, 1826, soon to settle the estate, and pay over the 
 balances, he was, unfortunately, induced, about that time, to 
 enter into the speculation of the iron foundry, which called 
 for large sums of money, and turned out so disastrously as to 
 defeat all his calculations. My conclusion was : — 
 
 " Without pretending, therefore, to have any knowledge on this 
 subject, except of the facts, or rather of the evidence, above stated, I 
 am obliged to infer from this evidence, until I see something to the 
 contrary, that the collections made by Kirk Boott & Sons, second 
 concern, during the four years of their existence, before the firm of 
 Boott & Lowell began, on account of the business and outstanding 
 property of Kirk Boott & Sons, first concern, nearly the whole of 
 which belonged to the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, were sufficient to 
 cover the subsequent great losses which seem to be plainly indicat- 
 ed ; and that the account exhibited by llr. Lowell, looking at it as a 
 statement of results purporting to run back to the time of the testa- 
 tor's death, is essentially defective in the omission of these collec- 
 tions, which, if inserted, would show, I imagine, a large balance 
 
636 
 
 against Mr. "Wright Boott, even after allowing him the whole benefit 
 of the fictitious credit of near $275,000 for " income paid to, or for 
 account and by order of, the widow." [B. pp. 115, 116.] 
 
 These views were, of course, to a great degree conjectural, 
 and were put forth as such. On revising them, liowever, in 
 connexion with Mr. Lowell's " Reply," and the additional 
 facts, which I have since learned, I see nothing, very essential 
 in this controversy, to alter. But, it may be proper for me to 
 suggest, that my unwillingness to bring into this case the 
 probable receipts of particular heirs, further than the case ab- 
 solutely required, may have left my statement so incomplete 
 as to have given an impression, upon the whole, that 1 sup- 
 posed a much larger amount of mere mercantile loss by Kirk 
 Boott & Sons, No. 2, than is likely to have happened. Mr. 
 Lowell, at any rate, chooses so to view my remarks ; and 
 his answer makes it necessary for me, now, to correct 
 the impression, if I gave it, of any such enormous magnitude 
 of loss, in regular trade, as he wishes his readers to believe 
 that my theory requires. I have already alluded to this sub- 
 ject, but, for the purpose of a correction, I ought,^perhaps, to 
 show, more particularly, how, and where, 1 supposs the 
 money to have gone. 
 
 My idea, stated more in detail than formerly, is, that 
 the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, was, as Mr. J. Wright Boott 
 represented it, large enough to give a dividend of $20,000, 
 or thereabouts, besides reversionary interests in the trust 
 funds and in the real estate, to each of the heirs; and that 
 most of them actually got that amount of dividend, in some 
 shape or other, and sooner or later ; — that Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott over-advanced, beyond that, largely, in some quarters, — 
 he certainly did to his brother Kirk, — and that he supplied, 
 for many years, to the family generally, a larger expenditure 
 than the estate, in its unsettled condition, strictly warranted ;— 
 that he had very little property of his own, at the time of 
 his father's death, except what came to him as an heir or 
 devisee ; — that the losses of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 3, and 
 his over-advances to some of the heirs, took away, for the 
 time, considerably more than all he was individually worth ;— 
 
537 
 
 that the funds of the estate, and his guardianship funds, 
 ■were employed, indiscriminately with his own, in conduct- 
 ing the mercantile business, in which he was engaged ; — 
 that funds, from both these sources, passed into the business, 
 first of Kirk Boott «fc Sons, No. 2, and afterwards of Boott & 
 Lowell ; — that further loss was encountered in the business 
 of this last named house ; — that these losses fell, in the first 
 instance, on his various trust funds, — his own property being 
 insufficient, as before suggested, to meet his own share, and 
 cover the amount he had advanced for others, beyond their 
 just dividends from the estate ; — that these advances he after- 
 wards got back, fully, from Mr. Kirk Boott, from Mr. James 
 Boott probably not, perhaps not from others ; — that he made 
 very little for himself, for reasons that will appear, out of his 
 Chelmsford speculation, though his brother Kirk left a mod- 
 erate property, resulting entirely from that speculation, not- 
 withstanding his large previous losses and debts first to be 
 paid out of it ; — that all, which Mr. J. Wright Boott got 
 back from his advances for others beyond their just dividends, 
 and a great deal more, which belonged to his father's estate, 
 went into the business of the foundry and was mostly sunk 
 there ; sunk, at least, as a present property, available for the 
 payment of debts, and for the making good of tjrust funds ; — 
 and that, finally, since his guardianship accounts were event- 
 ually made good, the balance of all these losses, beyond the 
 amount of his individual property, (losses arising not only 
 from capital directly sunk, but from a terrible interest account, 
 which was constantly eating him up,) fell, by necessity, upon 
 his father's estate, and upon the income derived from its 
 trust funds ; and that the amount of this loss incapacitated 
 him from paying to any heir, after 1830, more than he had 
 already paid, except to Lyman & Ralston, who were paid by 
 a relinquishment to them of his interest in the foundry, so 
 far as that was payment. So that, if the account were cor- 
 rected according to my theory, and in accordance with the 
 particular facts discovered since my former pamphlet, it 
 would not only show a use of the funds in Mr. Boott's 
 hands as executor, very difierent from any thing that now 
 
 68 
 
538 
 
 appears in the account, but would also show the receipt 6{ 
 about $100,000 more of capital than he is charged with, and 
 payment to some of the heirs of about f 70,000 more than 
 he is credited with ; and a large balance finally resulting 
 against him, instead of an apparent balance in his favour. 
 
 This mismanagement, and its consequences, I attribute, 
 mainly, as I formerly did, to principles of action, essentially 
 mistaken for a person in Mr. Boott's position ; to principles 
 of generosity, without justice ; to neglect of accounts, and 
 singular disregard of the ordinary duties of a trustee ; and to 
 a species of mental obliquity, which ended in insanity, par- 
 ticularly affecting, before that development, his notions of 
 his rights over the family property. From these causes he 
 early placed himself, as I conceive, in a false position, from 
 which he was never able to recover ; and which entirely 
 accounts, to my mind, for his unwillingness to disclose, at 
 any time, more than he did disclose, concerning the family 
 property, and for his tacit refusal, notwithstanding the urgency 
 of his brother Kirk and of Mr. Jackson, to settle any accounts, 
 until circumstances, at last, compelled his reluctant acquies- 
 " cence in the account prepared for him by Mr. Lowejl ; and 
 that account, I think, he would never have adopted but for 
 the hallucinations, under which he then laboured. 
 
 Now let us see what Mr. Lowell has to say to this theory of 
 mine, so far as it was formerly disclosed. 
 
 He meets it by an opposite theory ; which is, that Mr. Boott, 
 senior, probably left at his death only about $280,000, all 
 told, which, after deducting the specific bequests and devises, 
 would give to the heirs about $15,000 each, besides their re- 
 versionary interests in the trust funds and the mansion-house ; 
 [L. pp. 25, 26.] that Mr. J. Wright Boott was, at the same time, 
 worth about $70,000, besides what his father left him; 
 [L. p 26. j that heavy losses were sustained by the estate, from 
 -particular causes, which he mentions, in the winding up of 
 the business of the first house, — in which the estate had the 
 interest of a partner, — and that tire present divisible property 
 of the heirs was thereby reduced below $10,000 each ; [L. p. 
 27.] that in the second house, formed by the sons, instead 
 
539 
 
 of loss, there was actually a profit ; [L. p. 51.] that some 
 considerahle loss was sustained, afterwards, by Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, in the business of the foundry, but not more than 
 his private property was abundantly sufficient to bear ; [L, 
 p. 202.] that there was no loss, any where, of funds of the 
 estate, except losses, without fault of the executor,- in the 
 winding up of the partnership business : and that, by pay- 
 ing $10,000 to each of the heirs, as the account claims, the 
 executor, in fact, over-paid them by a few thousand dollars, 
 and this over-payment he preferred not to ask to have re- 
 turned, [L. pp. 27, 58.] though he owed a large sum to Mr. 
 Lowell, to which it might have been very conveniently ap- 
 plied ; that the debt to Mr. Lowell, at the time of the 
 settlement of the account, was over-balanced by the cash 
 balance, due from the estate to the executor, arising out of 
 this over-payment to the heirs, added to more than $20,000 
 of his private property, which had become mingled with that 
 of the estate,* in consequence of my agreement with Mr. 
 Lowell in May, 1831 ; [L. p. 41.] and that, after paying 
 the debt to Mr. Lowell out of this balance, and providing, 
 fully, for his mother's trust fund, [L. pp. 45, 109, 195.] Mr. 
 Boott remained the owner of one third of the reversions of 
 the trust fund and the mansion-house, which, when they fall 
 in, will amount to $48,000. [L. p. 1 10.] 
 
 The latter part of this theory, — concerning the debt to Mr. 
 Lowell, and the supposed private property of Mr. Boott, that 
 was intended to pay it, and the effect of Mr. Lowell's agree- 
 ment with me, — has been already disposed of, upon a view, 
 which admitted, for the sake of the argument, that Mr. Boott 
 had nothing of original capital, belonging to the estate, to 
 account for, beyond that, which he is charged wilh by the 
 account of 1844. It remains only to see, as to the residue 
 of our respective theories, which of them is foimd to agree 
 best with known facts. 
 
 * Mr. Lowell docs not seem to have very clear ide.is as to the amount of this 
 priTate interest. When he is accovmting for the use inade by Mr. Boott of the in- 
 come from the manufacturing stocks, he says it was $20,000 ; or one sixth of the 
 alleged cost of the stocks. [L. p. 92.] When he is treating another point, he says it 
 was at least $25,000. [L. pp. 41, 88.] 
 
540 
 
 The first remark, that suggests itself, is, that a great loss, 
 by some means, and of somebody's property, is plain on Mr. 
 Lowell's own showing. He tells us, that the estate, left by 
 Mr. Boott, senior, was, at first, estimated at $280,000. [L. p. 
 25.] The account of 1844 shows only $186,000, besides 
 the specific items in the inventory, appraised at near $37,000. 
 [L. pp. 38, 39.] The estate fell off, then, from the first esti- 
 mate, according to the " Reply," by not far from $60,000 ; 
 of which Mr. Lowell, since he asserts the fact, as founded on 
 his personal observation, is bound to give some reasonable 
 explanation. 
 
 We are next told, respecting Mr. J. Wright Boott, that, at 
 his father's death, he was possessed of $70,000 of his own 
 earning, [L. pp. 25, 26.] a store, devised to him by his father, 
 which Mr. Lowell rates at $16,000, [L. p. 58.] and one ninth 
 of the divisible property of the estate, rated, after all deduc- 
 tions made, at about $10,000. That is, the " Reply" claims 
 for him, early ia life, a property, in present possession, of 
 about $96,000 ; and, if my view of a share of the divisible 
 estate shall be found correct, his present property, (taking the 
 statements of the " Reply " in other respects to be true,) would 
 have been $106,000. All this was independent of his one 
 ninth of the reversions of the mansion-house and of the par- 
 ticular trust funds. 
 
 So he began his career, according to Mr. Lowell ; but, 
 according to Mr. liOwell, he ends it with nothing, except a 
 reversionary interest in the mansion-house and in the partic- 
 ular trust funds ; namely, his own one ninth, and two ninths 
 acquired from his sisters, worth, at the time he acquired them, 
 only about $7500 each, as we have seen. [Ante, p. 254.] 
 That is, about $15,000 of nominal property, in addition to 
 his own reversionary ninth, takes the place of the $96,000, 
 or $106,000, (according as we reckon a distributive share,) 
 which is said to have been his at his father's death, independ- 
 ently of reversions. If this be so, a loss of property, said 
 to have been Mr. J. Wright Boott's, to the amount of $80,000, 
 or $90,000, is to be added to the $60,000, which is said to 
 have been lost by the estate. In all, a loss of from $140,000 
 
541 
 
 to $150,000 is to be rationally accounted for by Mr. Low- 
 ell, and accounted for consistently with the hypothesis that 
 Mr. Boott distributed only $80,000, among the eight other 
 heirs of his father's estate. 
 
 We shall presently see how far the statements of the " Re- 
 ply," concerning the supposed loss of $60,000 by the estate, 
 without fault of the executor, bear sifting. But how could Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott, upon Mr. Lowell's theory, have lost |80,000, 
 or $90,000, of property not the estate's ? If it was lost in. 
 the winding up of the business of the first house, the 
 estate having an interest of three fourths in the partnership, 
 must have lost thrice that sum ; that is, from $240,000 to 
 $270,000, instead of $60,000, as the " Reply" claims. There 
 was no loss, but a small gain, according to the "Reply," in 
 the mercantile business, in which Mr. J. Wright Boott was 
 engaged with his brothers, after his father's death. [L. p. 51.] 
 No loss is hinted at in the subsequent business of Boott & 
 Lowell. Some loss in the business of the foundry, is admit- 
 ted, it is true; aad in one place, we are told, it was "a 
 large part of his private fortune ;" [L. p. 202.] but, that it 
 amounted to any thing approaching $100,000, as I ventured 
 to suggest, or even $70,000, is treated by Mr. Lowell as quite 
 preposterous. [L. pp. 89, 108-9.] Mr. Boott lived, besides, 
 at very little personal expense ; for the cost of the establish- 
 ment at Bowdoin square, even after his mother had left it, 
 we are assured was not his, but was properly paid out of his 
 mother's income. [L. p. 93.] Where, and how, did this large 
 fortune of his, then, go ? 
 
 That inquiry naturally leads to another, namely, whether he 
 ever had it. That much more than §' 100,000 of property was 
 sunk, under Mr. J. Wright Boott's administration, I deem to be 
 unquestionable. We see that the " Reply," also, admits it. 
 The only material questions, then, are, whose property it was 
 and whether it was lost by mismanagement as executor or 
 not. To these I shall next proceed. 
 
542 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF MR. J. WRIGHT BOOTt's SUPPOSED PRIVATE 
 
 FORTUNE. 
 
 On what is the pretence founded, that Mr. J. Wright Booft 
 was worth, in 1817, $70,000, acquired in his father's life time, 
 while his father died worth, at most, only $280,000 ? — for 
 such are the extravagant assertions of the " Reply." [L. pp. 
 25, 26.] 
 
 My former remark, concerning Mr. J. Wright Boott's prop- 
 erty, was : — 
 
 " So far as I am informed, he had no opportunity of making any thing 
 considerable before he went into partnership with his father. That 
 partnership had existed only two or three years, at the time of his fa- 
 ther's death, and by its terms five per cent, was to be paid upon tlie cap- 
 ital employed, which must have been furnished by his father, before 
 any division of profits, of which his share was to be one fourth. Al- 
 though he was commonly supposed, therefore, to be worth some 
 $50,000, or more, when I first knew him, I am inclined to believe, 
 that he was really worth nothing, after the winding up of the affairs 
 of Kirk Boolt & Sons, second concern." [B. p. 114.] 
 
 Further information, now, confirms me in that belief. I 
 would state it, however, with this qualification ; that, if, 
 upon a settlement, at that date, of all his afiairs, there might 
 have been found any small residue of nominal property, it 
 would have been found to lie, entirely, in claims upon oth- 
 ers, theii quite uncollec table, for unauthorised advances to 
 them out of the funds of his father's estate, beyond their just 
 share in it. These he would have been bound, on a set- 
 tlement, to treat as his own private advances. He could 
 not, for his own relief, have charged them, as executor, to 
 the account of the estate. 
 
 Mr. Lowell's comment on the passage, above extracted 
 from my pamphlet, is : — 
 
 " If Mr. Brooks had stated nothing, except so far as he was really 
 informed, he would have omitted a large portion of his book. Mr. 
 
543 
 
 Wright Boott came of age in May, 1809. and was probably admitted 
 as a partner in the Iwuse on the 1st of February following. At all 
 events, I tind in the New England Palladium of September 11, 1810, 
 an advertisement of a large stock of goods recently imported by Kirk 
 Boott & Son. The father died in January, 1817 ; so that, instead of 
 two or three years, as Mr. Brooks, without qualification, asserts, he 
 had then been a partner of the house about seven years. — in fact dur- 
 ing nearly the whole of that period when, according to Mr. Pratt, (p. 
 1 13,) Mr. Boott, senior, had been engaged in trade successfully." 
 [L. p. 107.] 
 
 Now Mr. Lowell must be too well informed in the commer- 
 cial history of his own country at that period, not to know, 
 what no reader, who is old enough, can fail to remember ; 
 namely, that it runs into the midst of that disastrous series of 
 public measures, concerning non-importation, non-intercourse, 
 embargo, and war, which began in 1806, and did not terminate 
 till the peace of 1815. These measures totally destroyed, for 
 the time being, the only branch of business, in which the old 
 firm of "Boott & Pratt," and, afterwards, the more modern 
 firms of " Kirk Boott & Son," and " Kirk Boott & Sons," 
 were ever engaged. 
 
 Messrs. Boott & Pratt began this business about 178.3. 
 During more than twenty years of uninterrupted commer- 
 cial prosperity, they had amassed, each, a large fortune for 
 that day, — Mr. Boott being, as Mr. Pratt informed me, much 
 the richer of the two. When times of trouble succeeded, 
 they took an early opporttmity to wind up, and retire upon 
 their earnings. Mr. J. Wright Boott arrived at manhood, 
 it seems, during this period of commercial stagnation. The 
 measures of our government, for years after, continued to 
 cut otf all honest merchants, engaged in British trade, from 
 their employment, and left the door of enterprise open, in 
 that branch of business, to none but irregular traders. 
 
 The Messrs. Boott were, neither of them, men, who could 
 be tempted to avail themselves of illicit traffic ; nor was 
 it the habit of either of them, in the father's life time, ever to 
 take extraordinary risks, or to depart from their regular line 
 of business. And it appears from the public acts, to which 
 
544 
 
 I refer,* that, from the time when Mr. J. Wright Boott came 
 of age, according to the " Reply," [L. p. 107.] and, indeed, 
 from a much earlier date, down to the close of the war of 
 1812, the trade with Great-Britain, was never opened, except 
 for about sixty days in the summer of 1809, under an author- 
 ity conferred on the President by Congress, and again for a 
 few months after May 1, 1810, when Congress adjourned, 
 leaving intercourse open with both France and England, but 
 subject to be closed against either power, by proclamation, in 
 certain events. 
 
 The revocation of the famous Berlin and Milan decrees, 
 without a corresponding revocation of the British orders in 
 council, caused the President to issue a proclamation, No- 
 vember 2, 1810, which had the effect of stopping, once 
 more, all commercial intercourse with Great-Britain on the 
 second of February following ; and so it remained, stopped, 
 until the peace of 1815. Yet the whole of these six or 
 seven years, from 1809 to 1815, Mr. Lowell desires the reader 
 to reckon among the years, " when, according to Mr. Pratt, 
 Mr. Boott, senior, had been in trade successfully !" [L. p. 
 107.] 
 
 In respect to the advertisement of September, 1810, found 
 by Mr. Lowell, it indicates, only, that Mr. Boott, senior, was 
 disposed to avail himself of the opening of British trade, in 
 the summer of that year, under circumstances, which seemed 
 to offer a fair promise of its continuance, by entering again 
 into business, for the purpose, probably, of bringing forward 
 his eldest son, whom he then took into partnership. Very 
 
 * Non-Importation Act, April 18, 1806. 
 
 Embargo, September 22, 1807. 
 
 Additional Acts, Feb. 27, March 12, April 22, April 25, 1808, January 9, 1809. 
 
 Non -Intercourse Act, with authority to the President to revoke or modify, 
 
 March 1, 1809. 
 President's Proclamation, April 19, 1809, to talce effect June 10. 
 
 " " August 9, 1809. 
 
 Additions to the Non-Intercourse Act, June 28, 1809, May 1, 1810. 
 President's Proclamation, Nov. 2, 1810, to take effect Feb. 2, 1811. 
 Additional Acts, March 2, 18U, April 4, April 14, 1812. 
 Declaration of War, June 18, 1812. 
 Repealing Acts, February 27, and March 3, 1815. 
 
545 
 
 little could have been done, however, in the -way of importa- 
 tion and sale, before the trade was, once more, unexpectedly, 
 brought to an end by the President's proclamation. 
 
 In this connexion it may be noted, that the will of Mr. 
 Boott, senior, executed November 20, 1813, has no allusion 
 to any mercantile business, as then outstanding or anticipated. 
 On the contrary, it indicates that his property had been 
 withdrawn from trade, and was, mainly, invested in " mortga- 
 ges, bonds, notes," " shares in incorporated companies," and 
 " stock in public funds ;" all of which, as well as real estate, 
 are particularly mentioned. " Accounts, merchandise, and 
 cash," it is true, are included in the general enumeration ; but 
 this is no more than might well be expected, in a description 
 intended to cover all remnants of former business, whatever 
 they might be. On the other hand, when we come to the 
 codicil, made December 15, 1815, we find it begins as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " I, Kirk Boott, taking into consideration that, since the date of my 
 will, bearing date November the twentieth, one thousand eight hun- 
 dred and thirteen, the trade, in which I am engaged in partnership 
 with my son, John Wright Boott, has been considerably entered into, 
 and cannot be closed in a short time without great sacrifices being 
 made, it is my will that in the event of my decease, that my said son, 
 John W. Boott, shall carry it on in the name of the firm, and for and 
 on account of myself and him, in the same proportion of profit or loss, 
 as it may be, as it has heretofore been done, until the nineteenth day 
 of March, one thousand eight hundred and eighteen ; that he shall im- 
 port goods, make sales, receive debts, and make remittances, and do 
 every thing as he shall think conducive to the interest of the trade, in 
 the same manner and form as during my life time ; that no division 
 of the property, as devised by my said will of November twentieth, 
 1813, shall take place until the nineteenth day of March, 1818, above 
 mentioned; that in the interim, between my decease and the said 
 nineteenth of March, the Executors to my will of November 20th 
 may be investing the money, which I have bequeathed in trust for the' 
 support of my wife, Mary Boott, and for my sisters, Elizabeth and 
 Ann Boott." [B. App. pp. 7, 8.] 
 
 The same instrument, afterwards, states the terms of the 
 partnership, and speaks of "the concerns of the trade ' as hav- 
 ing been "settled on the first day of February of each year, 
 since we have been connected together." 
 
546 
 
 The fair inference, perhaps, is, that a partnership was cbn- 
 sidered to have been nominally subsisting since 1810; and 
 some unsettled accounts, or even unsold merchandise, may, 
 possibly, have remained in 1813 ; but, it is very certain, that 
 no considerable business was, or could have been, done, after 
 1810, except to dispose of the importations of that brief pe- 
 riod of trade, until the peace of February, 1815, when im- 
 portation seems to have been vigorously recommenced by 
 Kirk Boott & Sons. Therefore it is that the testator speaks, 
 above, of a trade, which, since the date of his will, (Nov. 20, 
 1813,) " has heen considerably entered into, and cannot be 
 closed in a short time, without great sacrifices." 
 
 Although I may not have been literally correct, therefore 
 in saying that the partnership had, at the time of the death 
 of Mr. Boott, senior, in January, 1817, " existed only two or 
 three years," and Mr. Lowell maybe, literally, correct, when 
 he says it had existed " about seven years," the substan- 
 tial fact is just as I stated it, and exactly the reverse of that, 
 which Mr. Lowell states;. From February, 1810, to Feb- 
 ruary, 1817, there were not three years, in the whole, for 
 British importers to operate in ; that is, not three years, in 
 the whole, within which any new importations of British 
 goods could have been made. During the whole residue of 
 the period, the partnership may have existed ; the business 
 did not. 
 
 And, now, let us look at the manifest absurdity of Mr. 
 Lowell's hypothesis. Mr. Boott, senior, began that partner- 
 ship a richer man than Mr. Pratt. So Mr. Pratt said ; and 
 nobody, not even Mr. Lowell, questions it. Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, a youth in his father's counting room, then just of age, 
 began it without a farthing. Mr. Boott, senior, was to re- 
 ceive five per cent, upon his capital, before there were any 
 profits to divide ; and of all the profits, beyond the five per 
 cent, interest, three fourths Avere his, and one fourth only 
 his son's. This appears by the codicil. [B. App. p. 8.] 
 Consequently, if Mr. J. Wright Boott acquired $70,000, for 
 his share of profits during the partnership, his father must, in 
 the same time, have acquired $210,000, to add to the large 
 
547 
 
 capital he began with, and to the interest upon it, which was 
 rolling on whether other business was in progress or not, sub- 
 ject only to the expenses of his family establishment, which, 
 at that period, were by no means extravagant. He ought, at 
 that rate, to have died worth more than half a million of dol- 
 lars. We should thus have, upon Mr. Lowell's hypothesis, 
 much more loss of property to account for, than any body 
 has yet imagined. And, although the business was suc- 
 cessfully prosecuted, according to Mr. Pratt, who will believe 
 that, by the sales of less than three years of importation, the 
 firm of Kirk Boott & Sons, employing no very vast capital, 
 earned a net profit, beyond interest, of $280,000 ? Or, if 
 they did, who can believe that Mr. Boott, senior, who had 
 previously been, during more than twenty years of unusual 
 mercantile gains, in successful business with Mr. Pratt, and 
 who, in 1813, owned, as a separate property, all those bonds, 
 notes, mortgages and stocks, which are spoken of in his will, 
 should have left, all together, only $280,000 of property ? 
 
 If, during the interrupted term of their brief copartnership, 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott may be supposed to have accumulated 
 some fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, and his father to 
 have added thrice that sum, besides some accumulation of 
 interest, to the handsome fortune he had acquired in connex- 
 ion with Mr. Pratt, this seems to me quite as muchi as any 
 reasonable man will think probable, without some better evi- 
 dence than Mr. Lowell has to offer. For what is his evi- 
 dence ? The reader may be slow to believe it, but the only 
 evidence in the world, referred to in the " Reply," for so ma- 
 terial a fact, is Mr. Lowell's own alleged "reminiscences" 
 of what the apprentices and clerks in the counting-room are 
 supposed to have guessed, about the comparative wealth of 
 their respective masters. And where, by the way, are these 
 clerks and apprentices ? Why have we no statement from 
 any one of them, except Mr. Lowell ? How happens it, that 
 nobody is even referred to, for confirmation of his statement 
 on such a point ? And, supposing Mr. Lowell and the other 
 
548 
 
 apprentices to have entertained such opinions at the time, 
 what were their means of knowledge ? 
 
 Mr. Lowell himself, we are told, entered the counting- 
 room in September, 1815, " when under seventeen years of 
 age." [L. p. 33.] He was a boy of about eighteen, then, 
 in January, 1817, when the senior partner died. At that ear- 
 ly period of life, he says, — " My position enabled me to see 
 and know a great deal about the course of the business of 
 the first firm of Kirk Boott & Sons, of which. the father was 
 a copartner." But he is obliged to add, " The stock, or 
 private partnership, leger was never exposed to the inspec- 
 tion of the clerks. I consequently can not state, positively, 
 the amount of capital in the firm, nor the proportions of it 
 owned by the partners." [L. p. 25.] Again, he says, " The 
 partnership accounts between the father and sons, and af- 
 terwards between the brothers, / never saw ; nor do I know 
 how they were kept." [L. p. 31.] What, then, does he 
 know about them ? Why, we are told :-r- 
 
 " The generally received opinion, among the clerks, ordinarily dis- 
 posed to overrate rather than to undervalue in such cases, was that the 
 property of Mr. Boott, at the time of his death, was about S280,000 ; 
 and ihat of Mr. Wright Boott, who had been a partner of his father 
 for about seven years, was estimated at about $70,000." [L. p. 25.] 
 
 If such was " the generally received opinion among the 
 clerks," it is pretty certain, from what we have just seen of Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott's opportunities for acquiring a fortune, that 
 they must have indulged their disposition of overrating, in 
 his case, to a most unusual extent ; and they seem to have 
 thwarted their own natural inclinations, quite as remarkably, 
 in the case of his father. 
 
 Since this part of the case, then, rests entirely upon Mr. 
 Lowell's "reminiscence," I tliink it will be fair for me to 
 place in offset another of my reminiscences. While I was a 
 very young man, and before I had become particularly ac- 
 quainted with the family of Mrs. Boott, I happened, once, to 
 have a conversation with the late Hon. John Lowell, the 
 father of Mr. John A. Lowell, and to hear from him some 
 highly interesting remarks. Circumstances have brought 
 
549 
 
 them vividly to mind. He was speaking, with his usual ani- 
 mation and impressiveness, respecting the constant dispersion 
 of large fortunes in this country, and its political consequen- 
 ces. In the course of his observations, he referred, for an 
 illustration, to the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, who had then re- 
 cently died, and spoke of it to the effect following : " There 
 was my friend, Mr. Boott, for instance ; he was called a very 
 wealthy man, and yet, you see, he dies, and there are his 
 children left with only $20,000 apiece to live upon." How 
 Mr. John Lowell got the idea, that the estate gave $20,000 
 apiece to the children, is more than I know. If it should 
 happen to have come from one of the clerks in the count- 
 ing-room, it would seem rather inconsistent with the present 
 recollections of Mr. John A. Lowell. Perhaps he will ac- 
 count for it, however, by supposing that Mr. Lowell, senior, 
 meant to speak of the children's " ultimate expectations," at 
 the decease of Mrs. Boott I If so, all I can say to that is, that 
 he did not say so, and I did not so imderstand him. Mr. 
 Lowell, senior, had been on a footing of some intimacy with 
 Mr. Boott, senior, as I always understood; and placed his 
 son, it seems, in that counting-room. We are told, too, in 
 the " Reply," that Mr. J. Wright Boott acted under his ad- 
 vice, in returning "an inventory of the real estate, and of 
 the property specifically devised." [L. p. 24] If so, he 
 had an excellent adviser, and most unexceptionable advice. 
 The advice may have extended, also, to the formation of 
 the trust fund, and to the early settlement of an executor's 
 account to cover it. The proceedings in the settlement of 
 the estate were, so far, perfectly regular. But I do not un- 
 derstand the " Reply " to intimate that Mr. Boott was advis- 
 ed, by any body, not to settle, within a reasonable time, an 
 account of the residue of the estate, and 7iever to file in 
 the probate office the slightest evidence of the property, to 
 which general heirs were entitled, independently of the trust 
 funds. Such advice, certainly, could not have come from 
 the late Mr. Lowell. 
 
 But one thing the present Mr. Lowell thinks he can afford 
 to state positively, notwithstanding his avowed ignorance of 
 
650 
 
 the partnership accounts, and of the relative capital of the 
 
 father and son, at the time of the father's death. He says : 
 
 " Mr. Wright Boott was a man of fortune, certainly worth, 
 when I was his partner, at least $70,000." [L. p. 58.] 
 Now, if Mr. J. Wright Boott was really worth f 70,000, at 
 the time of his father's death, in 1817, besides what his father 
 left him, (which was the former statement, according to 
 the " generally received opinion among the clerks,") he ought 
 to have been " certainly worth," upon the premises of the 
 " Reply," a great deal more than $70,000, when he was a 
 partner with Mr. Lowell. For, his father left him a store, 
 worth, as Mr. Lowell says, $16,000, [L. p. 58.] and a present 
 share of his estate, then estimated, according to these same 
 clerks, at $15,000, or according to their highest estimates, 
 at $16,000 or $17,000, [L. p. 52.] besides the reversions; 
 and although Mr. Lowell thinks there must have been a 
 tremendous loss in the winding up of the aifairs of the old 
 firm, and that it was sufficient, in his judgement, to bring 
 down, to less than $10,000 a share, an estate, which, by " the 
 generally received opinion among the clerks," had been esti- 
 mated at $15j000, $16,000, and even $17,000 a share, yet, 
 it must not be forgotten, that Mr. J. Wright Boott's propor- 
 tion of that loss, as a partner, ought to have been counter- 
 acted in some degree by the profit, which, according to the 
 " Reply,^^ was earned in the business of the second house ; 
 to say nothing of several years' accumulation of interest on 
 so large a sum as Mr. J. Wright Boott is thus assumed to 
 have been worth at the outset. Yet; when he became a 
 partner of Mr. Lowell, in 1822, that gentleman can not say 
 that he was, then, " certainly worth " more than, "a< least, 
 $70,000." But, to make assurance doubly sure, that he was 
 "certainly worth" that sum "at least," the "Reply" un- 
 dertakes to specify, in a note, the particulars, of which the 
 000 is supposed to have consisted ; viz : 
 
 " He had in our business a capital of $40,000 
 
 The store in State Street was worth 16,000 
 
 He had advanced to Wells & Lilly, 14,000 
 
 [L. p. 58.] $70,000" 
 
561 
 
 Now, Mr. Lowell, I admit, ought to know, with certainty, 
 what capital Mr. Boott put into the business of Boott & Low- 
 ell. I say nothing of stocks, belonging to the trust fund, 
 transferred to that house at a later date, since I understand 
 Mr. Lowell to speak, here, of the capital put in at the form- 
 ation of the house, January 1, 1822. But where did that 
 capital come from ? Does Mr. Lowell know that ? Passing 
 by all questions about moneys of the estate, or supposed 
 losses of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, here are Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott's guardianship accounts, which show us, plainly, 
 $45,500, borrowed from the estate of his wards in 1821, and 
 not invested in any thing, known or conjectured, unless in 
 his mercantile business. [Ante, p. 237.] Can Mr. Lowell ex- 
 plain that ? If not, the $40,000 of capital, put into the house 
 of Boott & Lowell, has no tendency to prove that Mr. Boott 
 was, in truth, worth any thing. Let us look, then, at the 
 other items. 
 
 As to the store, which came from his father : Mr. Lowell 
 says it was, at that time, " worth $16,000." Was it so ? 
 It had been appraised in January, 1818, at only $9600. 
 [B. App. p. 13.] It was burnt doAvn in April 1825, [L. p. 59.] 
 and, after rebuilding, was sold, it is true, for $16,000, in 
 1831. This valuation of the new store, in 1831, Mr. Lowell 
 takes for the value of the old store in January, 1822, though 
 it had been appraised, only four years before, at no more 
 than $9600. 
 
 The advances to Wells & Lilly, which are set down, here, 
 as part of Mr. Boott's private fortune, (being the same for 
 which Lilly's note of $14,000 was given,) we are elsewhere 
 told, was a debt " which had grown out of advances made 
 by Mr. Boott, senior, to his son-in-law, Mr. Wells, and sub- 
 sequent advances by Mr. Wright Boott himself." [L. p. 87.] 
 Now, if Mr. Lowell wishes us to take this item, or any part 
 of it, as evidence of Mr. J. Wright Boott's private fortune, it 
 seems to me he ought to tell us how much of these advances 
 had been made by Mr. Boott, senior, and how much by the 
 son ; and he ought also, to tell us when, and out of what 
 funds, the advances were made by the son ; for Mr. Robert 
 
552 
 
 Lilly's note to Mr. J. Wright Boott happens to have been 
 dated December 31, 1828; so that I am quite unable to see 
 how Mr. Lowell should have estimated tliat as part of Mr. 
 Boott's private property during the existence of the firm of 
 Boott & Lowell, which came to an end in 1824. He must, 
 at least, go back of that note, and show whether any thing 
 had been lent, by Mr. J. Wright Boott, out of funds belong- 
 ing to himself, either to Mr. Lilly, or to Wells (fc Lilly, before 
 1822, if he means to satisfy us that Mr. J: Wright Boott had, 
 personally, something to lend. 
 
 And this is all the evidence, Mr. Lowell can give us, of 
 the reasonableness of the " generally received opinion among 
 the clerks " in 1817, according to his present recollections 
 of it, or of the grounds of his own certain knowledge, in 
 1822, that Mr. J. Wright Boott, was, then, worth "at least 
 $70,000." All we can see to he his own is the store ; and, 
 how much he owed at the same time to his father's estate, 
 we can not see from any statement of the " Reply." We 
 shall find, however, from other evidence, that it must have 
 been a considerable sum. 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 LOSSES OF THE FIRST HOUSE OF KIHK BOOTT «fc SONS. BASIS, 
 
 Mr. Lowell's aim being to build up as much property as 
 any body would be likely to credit for Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
 and to bring down a distributive share of the father's estate 
 as low as any body would be likely to credit, his next step 
 is, to account for the reduction of the latter, from the first 
 received opinion of the clerks, by at least one third. 
 
653 
 This is done as follows : — 
 
 " The copartnership, however, met with very heavy losses after the 
 death of Mr. Boott. 
 
 These were owing in part to the political circumstances of the 
 times. The double duties which had been levied during the war were 
 repealed in 1816, and there was in consequence a great fall in the value 
 of merchandise. Kirk Boott & Sons had a very heavy stock of goods, 
 which were sold at a great sacrifice. Their country customers, who 
 had bought very largely at the high prices, under the excitement of 
 the return of peace, suffered in the same way. and began to fail on 
 every side. To crown this series of misfortunes, Mr. Kirk Boott, of 
 London, a relative of Mr. Boott, senior, who had formerly been a 
 partner of the house of Boott & Pratt, and who was the agent in Eng- 
 land of Kirk Boott & Sons, became bankrupt in June, 1817, owing 
 them a very large sum of money, I think about £10,000 sterling. Of 
 this, very little was ever recovered. 
 
 From what I saw and knew of these losses, I came to the conclu- 
 sion, that, if the sum coming to the heirs as residuary legatees had 
 not, before they occurred, much exceeded the received opinion, these 
 events would reduce it below the sum of $10,000 for each, which the 
 will permitted the executors to advance to some of them. When it 
 came to my knowledge, some years afterwards, that Mr. Wright Boott 
 had paid them all $10,000, and upwards, I felt assured that he had 
 overpaid them ; and this opinion I have expressed to nearly every one 
 of them during the last twenty years." [L. pp. 26, 27.] 
 
 We have, now, not even a reference to the " received 
 opinion " of others. It is all Mr. Lowell's own opinion ; 
 which, he says, he has expressed to nearly every one of the 
 heirs during the last twenty years. That period, reckoning 
 from the date of his publication, would carry us back as 
 far as 1828. What could have induced him to express such 
 opinions then ? How did he learn, at that early day, that 
 Mr. Boott had paid only $10,000, (or "$10,000 and up- 
 wards" as Mr. Lowell, admits, notwithstanding the account 
 claims to have paid $10,000 only,) to each of the heirs ? 
 When I conversed with him in May, 1831, he says, he knew 
 nothing about Mr. J. Wright Boott's afiairs, except what I 
 told him. [L. p. 30.] He certainly never learned the fact, 
 now stated, from me ; for I believed that $20,000 was the 
 sum paid, or allowed, to several of the heirs, and believe so 
 still ; nor did I ever hear the matter discussed or alluded 
 to by any body before the summer of 1830, nor by most 
 
554 
 
 of the family, until after the fact of a great loss in the busi- 
 ness of the foundry had become notorious among them ; 
 and that knowledge was followed, at no great distance, by 
 the release of 1833. When, and how, I repeat, then, did 
 Mr. Lowell find occasion to express these opinions to the 
 family, prior to the troubles about a settlement of accounts, 
 in 1844 ? — unless he means (and that is not what he says,) 
 that he expressed them to Messrs. Lyman and Ralston par- 
 ticularly, when he was negotiating with them, in 1831. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, however, grounds his declared opinion, now, 
 upon what he saw and knew of the losses of Kirk Boott & 
 Sons, No. 1, specifying several causes of loss, and their effects, 
 of which he makes himself a personal witness. I profess to 
 know nothing, personally, about any of them, but claim the 
 privilege of sifting Mr. Lowell's statements. 
 
 1. Loss by a failure in England, in 1817, is mentioned, of 
 startling magnitude. But its amount, which is the only im- 
 portant point, Mr. Lowell does not undertake to speak of with 
 his usual confidence. He says it was, " I think, about 
 £10,000 sterling;" and of this, he adds, ^^ very little was 
 ever recovered." Now on this latter point, whatever the 
 amount of the debt may have been, I think I can make Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott himself a witness against Mr. Lowell ; for, 
 according to his statement to me, in May, 1821, as contem- 
 poraneously reported in my letter to my father, above cited, 
 when I had no conceivable motive to represent the case bet- 
 ter than it was, it seems that there were " large debts due in 
 England, which have been very doubtful, and are not yet, 
 altogether, discharged." [Ante, p. 465.] The fair inference 
 from this language is, that the greater part, instead of " very 
 little," had then been recovered. And Mr. Boott's representa- 
 tions to me were, that, from the balance of debts in Eng- 
 land, still outstanding, considerable collections might be 
 confidently expected. 
 
 2. As to the repeal of the double duties ; that measure 
 took effect June 30, 1816, after several months notice.* It 
 
 *See the Act of Febraary 5, 1816, whereby the double duties, then about expir- 
 ing, by their former limitation, were extended to ^une 30, 1816, when they expired 
 
555 
 
 may have caused some failures, after the testator's death, 
 in January, 1817, as well as before, for aught I know, among 
 debtors to the house, for goods previously sold to them. 
 Bat, in respect to the " very heavy stock of goods," which, 
 according to the " Reply," remained unsold, at Mr. Boott's 
 death, I am unable to perceive why the full effect of any 
 fall in their value, occasioned by that reduction of duties six 
 months previously, should not have been notorious at that 
 time : and if so, whatever loss there may have been from 
 that caiise, and also whativer loss may have accrued from 
 failures, which had already occurred, such considerations 
 must have entered, one would think, into the "received opin- 
 ion " of any tolerably intelligent set of clerks, in January, 
 
 1817, concerning the value of the property then on hand. 
 
 3. Mr. Lowell, however, after declaring, as above, the 
 conclusion, to which he came from what he saw and knew 
 of the losses, proceeds thus : — 
 
 " As I left their employment in less than a year after the forma- 
 tion of the second partnership of Kirk Boott & Sons, I cannot speak 
 with so much co^.fidence of the result of the liquidation of the out- 
 standing business of the first firm. Since, however, that liquidation 
 could not begin, by the terms of the will, until the lyth of March, 
 
 1818, and the large stock of goods on hand sold very slowly, it re- 
 mained subject to the appalling reduction of prices, which, as every im- 
 porting merchant will well remember, was consequent upon the re- 
 sumption of specie payments by the Bank of England in the latter 
 part of this year or the beginning of the next They had not, like the 
 new house, the opportunity of availing themselves of the low prices to 
 replenish their stock." [L. p. 27.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell, then, by this paragraph, professes to know 
 nothing, after all, about the result of the liquidation. But, 
 fearing the inadequacy of all the causes, he had assigned, to 
 account for so large a loss as his case requires, another is now 
 surmised, viz., the resumption of specie payments by the 
 Bank of England, ?w the latter part of 1818, or early in 1819, 
 as is said ; and appeal is made to the memory of all importers 
 for " the appalling reduction of prices," caused by that event. 
 Mr. Lowell may be right in this ; — he certainly ought to be 
 better informed than I, on such a point ; but, if so respecta jle 
 
556 
 
 a writer as Mr. McCulloch may be presumed to be of equal 
 authority with Mr. Lowell, on the history of the Bank of 
 England, I may be allowed to suggest, that, according to that 
 writer, Mr. Peel's Act, as it was commonly called, though 
 passed in 1819, fixed the period for resumption in 1823 ; 
 and though the Bank did, in fact, resume its specie payments 
 in anticipation of the time fixed by law, it did not begin to 
 do so till May 1, 1821.* The errors of the "Reply" seem 
 to be as remarkable in matters of public history, as they 
 were lately shown to be in simple arithmetic. One is almost 
 tempted to say, " It really seems as if Mr." Lowell " never 
 could be right even by accident." [L. p. 71.J I will con- 
 tent myself, however, with saying, that, since the resump- 
 tion, did not begin till May, 1821, a winding up and realiza- 
 tion of the afiairs and efiects of the old firm, if begun, 
 as the will required, March 19, 1818, ought to have been 
 pretty substantially accomplished within the three years, from 
 1818 to 1821, and before the unfavourable action of a new- 
 currency in England could have been felt. The memory of 
 importing merchants, therefore, I imagine, will not greatly 
 aid Mr. Lowell on this point ; although it may enable them 
 to perceive, that the second house, which was formed by the 
 sons in the spring of 1818, and began its liquidation in the 
 latter part of 1821, would be likely to feel the full force of 
 that measure, and of the preparations made for it. 
 
 These are all the causes of loss to the first house, which 
 Mr. Lowell is able to suggest ; and, in respect to all of them, 
 the reader, I think, cannot fail to have noticed the singular 
 departure from that positiveness and boldness of statement, 
 (except as to a resumption by the Bank of England in "the 
 latter part of this year, [1818,] or the beginning of the 
 next"! — there is not the least doubt of that,) which usually 
 characterize Mr. Lowell's remarks. 
 
 I may also point out the singularity of the circumstance, 
 that he should not be able to speak with any confidence of 
 " the result of the liquidation of the outstanding business of 
 th.e first firm," [L. p. 27.] and should disclaim all personal 
 
 * McCulloch's Dictionary of Commeroe. Title, " Bank of England." 
 
557 
 
 knowledge of " the profit and loss of either of the firms of 
 Kirk Boott & Sons," [L .p. 36.] wlien he is found to congrat- 
 ulate himself, soon after, on the certainty of the following 
 averments : — 
 
 " Fortunately, these facts were certain : that nothing had been 
 tahen^rom the capital in trade, belonging to his faiher's estate, except 
 the trust funds, during either of the partnerships of Kiik Boott & 
 Sons ; and that the final liquidation of the whole business was detail- 
 ed in the books of Boott Sf Lowell, which had been preserved." [L. 
 p. 59.] 
 
 And yet it appears by the account of 1844, that, after 
 the withdrawal of the capital of the trust funds, invested in 
 1818, not a farthing was collected by the executor, on account 
 of the estate, until $69,389 99 was " received of Boott &. 
 Lowell in liquidation of the outstanding property of Kirk 
 Boott Sj" Sons," [L. p. 38.] — meaning of course. Kirk Boott 
 & Sons, No. 1, since that was the only house, in whose 
 liquidation the estate could have been, lawfully, concerned. 
 
 In this connexion I would call the attention of the reader 
 to the fact, that there is not, throughout Mr. Lowell's book, 
 one word of explanation, nor the least notice taken, of the 
 very extraordinary circumstance, pointed out above, namely, 
 that the executor, should have been able to collect, from the 
 testator's interest in the first firm, upwards of $100,000, with- 
 in fifteen months from the testator's death, (as is proved by 
 the account of 1818,) and should not have been able to col- 
 lect one dollar more, on that account, for nearly four years 
 next succeeding, (that is during the whole term of the part- 
 nership formed by the sons,) and yet that, after the lapse of 
 those four years, he should have been able to collect, during 
 the term of the partnership of Boott & Lowell, near $70,000 
 more ! 
 
 Whence comes this gap of nearly four years, in the process 
 of liquidation ? How happens it, that, from the day of the 
 termination of the first house, when its liquidation should 
 
 have begun, to the end of the duration of the second house, 
 
 within which time, the liquidation of the first ought to have 
 been mainly completed, — not a dollar is realized ? Whence 
 
558 
 
 comes it, that ahsolntelj nothing should have been collected, 
 in that period of nearly four years, although $70,000, nearly, 
 were realized within the subsequent two and a half years of 
 Boott & Lowell ? Is such a fact probable ? Is it, from the 
 nature of the business to be wound up, I may say, possible ? 
 Yet, such is the plain statement of the account of 1844, on 
 Mr. Lowell's theory, that it is a complete and perfect account 
 of the executorship ! 
 
 And here is another inquiry. How came Boott & Lowell, 
 who, we see by their own advertisement, were empowered 
 to liquidate the concerns of the second house only, in which 
 the estate had rightfully no interest, to collect and pay over, 
 not to the late members of that house, but to the executor, 
 for his interest, as such, in the first house, this $70,000? 
 For such is the statement of the account. Is there, can there 
 be, any reasonable explanation, except that the second house 
 took up the stock and business of the first house, just where 
 they found it, and then, having carried on the business, partly 
 with the old stock, and partly with new importations on their 
 own account, four years longer, passed over for liquidation to 
 Boott & Lowell all that remained in their hands at the expi- 
 ration of that term, that remainder being property of the 
 estate due from them to the executor ? These queries, and 
 the inferences they lead to, are not new. I relied upon them 
 formerly, as I have shown, [Ante, pp. 533, 534.J and they 
 stand wholly unanswered by Mr. Lowell ! 
 
 Let us look, for one moment, at the probability of the 
 arrangement, which I suppose to have been made. 
 
 The testator had authorized the executor, it will be re- 
 membered, to lend, to such a firm as the sons established, the 
 shares in his estate of the minor children, then three in num- 
 ber. The three sons, who were members of that firm, had a 
 right, of course, to put into it their own shares. This, with 
 the shares of the minors, made up two thirds of the estate. 
 Dr. Boott's share, to the extent of $20,000, I always under- 
 stood, had been paid to him, when he left this country. 
 There remained only the shares of Mrs. Wells and Mrs. Ly- 
 man ; and the former had already received a large part of her 
 
559 
 
 share by advances made and charged to her by her father, as 
 appears by an instrument, in the nature of a second codicil to 
 his will, proved and filed in the probate office, but not hereto- 
 fore printed. I now make from it this extract : — 
 
 MEMORANDUM of MR. BOOTT, SENIOR. 
 
 ''Boston, November, 30, 1813. 
 
 "The enclosed notes, viz: one, dated January 28, 1813, signed by 
 WilliHtn Wells, Jr., for four thousand dollars, and the other, dated 
 January 80, 1813, signed by William Wells, Jr., for twelve thou- 
 sand dollars, are my property. I have charged myself with them in 
 my book of disbursements, this day. If I should die, without having 
 made any arrangement with the said William Wells, Jr., respecting 
 them, I hereby order the note, dated January 30, 1813, for twelve 
 thousand dollars, and the interest due thereon, to be cancelled, and 
 given to said Wells, without making any charge of it. But, the other 
 note, dated January 28, 1813, for four thousand dollars, and the inter- 
 est due thereon, / order to be charged to my daughter Frances, the 
 said Wells's wife, for which she must account, with the other sums 
 already charged to her, out of the legacy, which 1 have bequeathed to 
 the said Frances." 
 
 Although, therefore, it was a great irregularity in the ex- 
 ecutor, to put the estate, as an undivided and unsettled 
 interest, into the second partnership, still he was authorized 
 to use in that business, under proper limitations, so large a 
 portion of it, (six shares out of eight, excluding Dr. Boott's,) 
 and it is manifest that he was, habitually, so regardless of all 
 forms and mere legal duties, that nothing can be more im- 
 probable than any such nice distinctions, made by him, as 
 the case strictly called for. 
 
 To take the remaining stock of the old firm into the 
 new concern, and to employ all the funds of the estate 
 in its operations, Mr. J. Wright Boott, considering the busi- 
 ness safe and profitable, would, undoubtedly, have regarded 
 as beneficial for the estate, as well as for the brothers, whom 
 he took into partnership ; and, acting upon his own im- 
 pulses of generosity towards those members of the family, 
 who were not partners in the new concern, nothing would 
 be more likely for him to do than to take the old stock into 
 the new concern at its cost, even if it had, as Mr. Lowell 
 suggests, somewhat fallen in value. Nor is it very unlikely 
 
560 
 
 that Mr. Kirk Boott, then fresh from the army, or Mr. James 
 Boott, then just come of age, both entirely without mercan- 
 tile experience, would have acquiesced in such an arrange- 
 ment, considering the advantages to be derived from identi- 
 fying themselves, as completely as possible, with an old estab- 
 lished house, whose business, according to the advertisement, 
 was to be '^continued" by them. Whatever fall may have 
 occurred in the value of the stock on hand by a recent 
 change in the tariff of duties, this was, probably, looked upon 
 as a thing temporary in its effect upon the general business 
 of the house, and likely enough to be soon counteracted by 
 other causes. None of the copartners could possibly, at that 
 time, have foreseen the continued fall of prices, which Mr. 
 Lowell says was caused by the subsequent restoration of the 
 currency in England, — an event, which may have had, I 
 admit, a silent operation, in preparatory measures, some time 
 before the resumption actually occurred. 
 
 Now, if this arrangement, (which, having no personal 
 knowledge about it, I do not, of course, state as a fact, hut 
 as a probability for the reader to judge of,) was the real ba- 
 sis, as I incline to believe, on which the new house started, 
 what would have been the consequence ? All the loss, aris- 
 ing from causes referred to by Mr. Lowell, except the failure 
 of the large debtor in England, must inevitably have fallen 
 entirely upon the second house, and not upon the first. 
 Whatever loss had previously fallen upon the first house, Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott must have shared, as a partner, proportionally 
 with the estate. One fourth of it was his ; and, if Mr. Low- 
 ell is any where near right concerning the probable extent 
 of the loss, as derived from causes operating before March, 
 1818, (when the first house expired,) one fourth of it was 
 sufficient to have taken off very nearly the whole of the 
 small property, which I suppose Mr. J. Wright Boott to have 
 had, independently of that, which his father left him. What- 
 ever losses on the original stock arose from causes operating 
 after March, 1818, they fell upon the second house, exclu- 
 sively, under the arrangement, which 1 assume; and al- 
 though that house had, as Mr. Lowell suggests, the power 
 
561 
 
 to replenish its stock, and doubtless did, by new importa- 
 tions at lower prices, still, according to Mr. Lowell, prices 
 were constantly declining for a series of years, and con- 
 stantly disappointing the expectations of importers. The 
 second house seems to have been, always, operatmg upon 
 a falling market. 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott's own share, as a partner in the second 
 house, of the losses from this cause, upon a four years' busi- 
 ness, added to the first purcliase of stock at a high erst, is 
 extremely likely to have much exceeded his distributive share 
 of the divisible estate. But this was not all. He stood 
 sponsor to the estate for all, that his brothers owed on their 
 shares of the loss, beyond what they were able to pay. If he 
 had sunk his share of the estate, they had sunk theirs; and 
 if he had permitted them, as will be found probable, to with- 
 draw, in the mean time, and expend, or use for their own 
 purposes, in the course of nine years, (from his father's death 
 to the time of the settlement, which he made with them 
 in 1826,) the greater part, or the whole, of their expected 
 patrimony, or more, how could he have stood otherwise, at 
 that time, than a large debtor to the estate ? — and. indeed, 
 how could he have stood otherwise at the time of the I'orma- 
 tion of Boott & Lowell ? The heaviest part of the ad- 
 vances, for personal expenditure at least, must have been 
 made previous to that time ; especially to Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 who, after that time, was drawing a salary of $3000 from his 
 agency at Lowell. 
 
 All Mr. Lowell has said, therefore, in reference to causes 
 of loss in the liquidation of the first house, tends to confirm 
 me in my belief of large loss encountered by the second 
 house ; and yet, nothing in the case requires the hypothesis 
 of any such enormous amount of loss, by that house, in its 
 regular mercantile business, as Mr. Lowell is pleased to rep- 
 resent that my former estimates suppose. This I shall make 
 clear. 
 
562 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 LOSSES, BY THE SECOND HOUSE OF KIRK BOOTT & SONS. ARGU- 
 MENTS OF THE "reply" to disprove them, evidence of 
 
 PAYMENTS TO MR. JAMES BOOTT, AND TO MR. WELLS. 
 
 Let us now see what Mr. Lowell has to say to my sug- 
 gestion of large losses in business, sustained by the second 
 house. 
 
 He denies them altogether. He says there was a small 
 profit. [L. p. 51.] Allow me to ask, then, which is likely 
 to know best, he, or Mr. Kirk Boott, who was one of the 
 partners? Mr. Kirk Boott writes, in 1826, (at which time 
 the result of a business, terminated more than four years 
 before, must have been fully ascertained,) "our losses in 
 business proved venj heavy;" "he, [Mr. Wright Boott,] is 
 more in advance for me than I expected." [Ante, p. 51)1.] 
 Yet, Mr. Lowell, in the face of this declaration by one of 
 the parties, has the temerity to declare that there was no 
 loss, but a small gain ! 
 
 How, then, does he get over Mr. Kirk Boott's express 
 assertion to the contrary ? His course of argument is this : — 
 
 " Now the copartnership of Mr. Wright Boott, Mr. Kirk Boott 
 and Mr. Jaines Boott had lai-ted four years, fiom 1818 to 1822, and 
 tlify must have settled four annual accounts. Mr. Kiik Boott had 
 been the most active member of the (ii-ni, convei'sant with every de- 
 tail of the business, and was a very accursile merchant. The only 
 losses, therefore, that could have sur|)rised him, were those resulting 
 from the sale of their residual stock and the collection of the debts." 
 [L. p. 46.] 
 
 Hence, the reader is expected to infer, that Mr. Kirk Boott 
 did not mean to speak of the general result of the business, 
 but of the mere winding up of what may have been left, 
 after previous profits had been divided. That is, the reader 
 must iafer that " oux losses jn busiuess," stated without ^ual» 
 
563 
 
 ification, did not prove "very heavy," though Mr. Kirk Boott 
 says they did. 
 
 But where is the evidence of the assumed previous profits? 
 The partners may have settled four annual accounts, for 
 aught I know, as Mr. Lowell assumes; and they may have 
 found, for aught he knows, loss in every one of thnm. This 
 seems likely enough with a constantly falling market. But, 
 says the ''Reply," "the only losses, that could have svr- 
 piised him, [Mr. Kirk Boott,] were those resulting from the 
 sale of their residual stock, and the collection of the debts." 
 What is that to the purpose ? Mr. Kirk Boott expresses no 
 surprise at the fact of loss. That he probably knew from 
 year to year, so far as it was ascertained. All he intimates 
 is, that it turned out, by the final winding up, larger than 
 he had anticipated. My brother, he says, " is more in advance 
 for me than I expected." This is the whole expression of 
 what Mr. Lowell calls surprise. It is not imlikely, however, 
 that the business of that period may have been a constant 
 deception to the partners themselves, in regard to the amount 
 of loss by over-valnation of stock on hand, from time to lime, 
 compared with the results of decreasing prices; and the loss- 
 es may, on that account, and because of changes in the cur- 
 rency, have turned out very much larger in the winding up 
 than was foreseen. And I may remark, by the way, that 
 although Mr. Kirk Boott is known to have been highly intel- 
 ligent, and to have turned out an excellent man of business 
 in the agency at Lowell, I am at a loss to imagine how he 
 should have been, while a member of the firm of Kirk Boott 
 & Sons, and especially in the outset of their business, " a 
 very accurate merchant." He had been brought up in the 
 army, and wis never in a counting-room in his life, luitil he 
 went into this house as a partner. He was obliged, here, 
 to learn, by his own experience and excellent discernment, 
 under his brother, Wright, who was, himself, in my opinion, 
 not " a very accurate merchant," that knowledge of the 
 details of business, which most merchants have acquired in 
 the service of others, before they begin to operate for them- 
 selves. It would not seem very strange to me, if the fuH 
 
564 
 
 extent of the losses, they were encountering in their busi- 
 ness, had not been duly me;isnred and appreciated, at the 
 time, by any one of the partners. 
 
 But Mr. LoAv-ell, after stating such reasons, as I have cited 
 above, for doubting, a priori, the fact of a loss by the second 
 &m, declares, positively, as follows : — " The inquiries I have 
 made, for the purpose of this reply, have settled the question. 
 There were no such losses." [li. p. 49.] 
 
 Indeed! How does he make that out? Why, he says, 
 truly, in the first place, that Mr. Kirk Boott, having been " a 
 subaltern in the British army," till he went into the house in 
 1818, had no property beyond his patrimony. In the next 
 place, we are told, that, from 1822 to 1826, (the date of his 
 settlement with Mr. J. Wright Boott,) he supported his fam- 
 ily at Lowell, and informed the directors of the Merrimack 
 Company that he could not live within his salary of $3000 
 a year. This fact, also, I have no doubt of. Thence it is 
 argued, — " Whatever sum, therefore, beyond his patrimony, 
 he refunded to his brother, in the settlement of 1826, he 
 must either have borrowed, or derived from the profits of the 
 earlier years of the copartnership. There could be no other 
 source." [L. p. 49.] And then, alluding to the sum bor- 
 rowed from me for the purpose of the settlement, the " Re- 
 ply" proceeds as follows : — 
 
 "I find, that there remained in his hands, [Mr. Kirk Boott's,] 
 after the adjustment of his accounts, the following property: 
 
 Two shares in the Boston Manufacturing Company, S2,700 
 
 Ten shares in the Merrimack Company, 10,000 
 Ten shares in I he Jjocks and Canals, on which had then 
 
 been paid SooO each, 3,oll0 
 
 His furniture, worth, perhaps, 4,O00 
 
 20,200 
 Deduct the amount borrowed of Mr. Brooks, 10,000 
 
 $10,200 
 
 " He retained then the full amount of his patrimony, as stated by 
 Mr. Wright Boott in the account which we are now discussing, and 
 which must be takeu, ptima facie, as true." [L. p. du.l 
 
565 
 
 This is followed up by a statement of Mr. James Boott's 
 property, (in answer to my suggestion that his share of the 
 loss was probably never fully restored to Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott,) thus : — 
 
 " Mr. Brooks will, pprhaps. have the jroodness to inform us what 
 golden oppoil unities Mr. Kiik Huott, a lieutenant in Lord Welling- 
 ton's army, had enjoyed of accumulatincp a lar^'e amount of properly. 
 
 "ThatMr. James Boott settled with his brother at the same time 
 that Mr. Kirk Boott did, and repaid to Mr. Wright Boott his piopor- 
 tiot. of the over-estimate of the profit of the pi-eceding years is cer- 
 tain ; for he transferred to Mr. Wright Boott, February 28, IKifi, 
 five shares in the Merrimaek Manufacturing Company. And what 
 was his position after the settlement? He had remainmg, 
 
 Five shares in the Boston Manufacturing Company, 
 
 atSISiiO, $6,.5nO 
 
 Five shares in the Merrimack Company, 5,UU() 
 
 These shares he still retains. 
 
 $11,500 
 
 " It thus appears, that, after paying their personal expenses, which, 
 to my knowledge, during the year I was with them in their counting- 
 room, were regularly charged to them, — and which must have much 
 exceeded (especially in the case of Mr. Kirk Boott, who was a mar- 
 ried man.) the interest of 810,1)00, — both of the junior [lartners had 
 their patrimony unaffected by any losses in business. In fact, there 
 had been some small resulting profit. 
 
 "Thus fails utterly the attempt to account for a diminution of the 
 properly on the ground of any losses except such as occurred during 
 the first partnership, when the father's estate was justly chargeable 
 with his share of such losses." [L. pp. 51, 52.] 
 
 This, then, is Mr. Lowell's demonstration, which he con- 
 ceives to have " settled the question !" But does it not 
 prove a little too much ? How happens it, that Mr. Kirk 
 Boott, and Mr. James Boott, "after paying their personal 
 expenses," should have come out of the copartnership just 
 alike, or at least within f 1300 of each other, in property ? 
 Mr. James Boott, a young unmarried man, lived with his 
 mother, at very little necessary expense. Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 who could not live at Lowell on $3000 a year, had support- 
 ed his family in Boston, during the partnership, at much 
 greater cost than that, judging by his general style of living. 
 
566 
 
 Now, if there were really no profits earned by the house, 
 whether it was supposed, at the time, to be earning them or 
 not, Mr. Kirk Boott, in the five years from his father's death 
 to the end of the copartnership, must have taken up, in mere 
 expense of living, nearly, or quite, his whole present patri- 
 mony, supposing it, as I do, to have been f 20,000. If it was 
 only $10,000, as Mr. Lowell contends, so much the sooner 
 must it have come to an end. And Mr. Kirk Boott would 
 have been the more likely to draw freely for his household 
 expense, if he erroneously supposed that the house was mak- 
 ing money, as Mr. Lowell sugge.'its ; for, the " Reply" assures 
 us, that, while the formation of the house of Boott & Lowell 
 was under consideration, Mr. Kirk Boott told Mr. Lowell, 
 " that the business was too good to be abandoned !" [L. p. 
 28.] Mr. James Boott, on the other hand, living with his 
 mother, could hardly have expended, without extravagance, 
 more than the income of his supposed patrimony. This 
 near coincidence of property, therefore, in 1826, if the fact 
 were as Mr. Lowell states, would seem to indicate some 
 cause in operation not alluded to by him, — something else 
 than the mere preservation of " their patrimony, unafiected 
 by any losses in business." [L. p. 51.] 
 
 Now, Mr. Lowell knows very well one fact, which is here 
 entirely concealed. I never supposed that Mr. Kirk Boott 
 had come out of " Lord Wellington's army" with any thing 
 more than his inheritance. But I might have suggested, 
 though I did not, in my former pamphlet, one " golden 
 opportunity," which Mr. Kirk Boott had enjoyed, of accu- 
 mulating property, before the settlement with his brother in 
 1826, — an opportunity judiciously improved by him, accord- 
 ing to his circumstances, and as well known to Mr. Lowell, 
 as to any man living. I refer to his Chelmsford speculation. 
 
 He was the proprietor, individually, it seems, by the cor- 
 respondence before referred to, of a large interest in the 
 original enterprise. By advances from his brother, he was 
 enabled to take and pay for, and by the same means, coupled 
 with loans elsewhere of considerable amount, (some of which 
 I might point out.) he was enabled to hold, until he could 
 
567 
 
 advantageously sell, a large number of shares in the first 
 stock of the Merrimack Company. That stock, besides 
 yielding great dividends after the works were in operation, 
 rose so hi^h, that, in December, 1825, when the stock had 
 been doubled, and jnst after a dividend, I myself bought, at 
 sixty per cent, advance ! The right of doubling his stock, 
 in 1824, must, alone, have been worth to Mr. Kirk Boott, a 
 considerable sum. From Mr. Lowell's statement, it seems, 
 he had sold out, at the time of the settlement with his broth- 
 er, (March, 1826,) all but ten shares in that company, and 
 that he took and held ten corresponding shares in the Locks 
 and Canals, which corporation, upon its then foundation, 
 was formed out of the Merrimack Company as at first consti- 
 tuted, and became the owner of ail the land and water-pow- 
 er, except what was needed for the use of the Merrimack 
 Company, as a manufacturing corporation. The stock of 
 the Locks and Canals, besides making great dividends after 
 a few years had passed, rose from its par of $500, as high, at 
 one time, as $1800 or $1900 a share. 
 
 This fact is notorious; and Mr Kirk Boott sold one half 
 of his Locks and Canals, when they were at or near, their 
 highest point. That gentleman, himself, informed me, not 
 long before his death, that the loan of $10,000. with which 
 I had been able to accommodate him, in 1826, had been the 
 means of earning for him, at least, twenty per cent, a year, 
 beyond interest. In view of these facts, I think the reader 
 will agree with me, that few men have had a more " golden 
 opportunity" of accumulating a handsome property from 
 means at first wholly borrowed, — with no property to bor- 
 row upon, — than Mr. Kirk Boott had enjoyed by his fortu- 
 nate position as one of the first founders of Lowell, with 
 the aid of funds advanced to him by his brother. And, 
 although he left but a moderate property at last, this is to be 
 accounted for only by the heavy debt to be paid off for tiie 
 losses in his old mercantile business ; by the inevitable antici- 
 pation of his patrimony through large family expense while 
 he lived in Boston ; by the continuance of a family expense 
 beyond his salary after he removed to Lowell ; by the ad- 
 
568 
 
 vances and loans he was obliged to rely upon, at first, for his 
 purchases of manufacturing stock ; and by the heavy draw- 
 back of an interest account constantly running against them. 
 1 ought, indeed, to add one other cause, namely, his extraor- 
 dinary and unremitting devotion to the interests of his 
 employers, which, after the first fruits of the original specu- 
 lation were reaped, and after the full care of the regular 
 business had devolved upon him, rendered it impossible for 
 him, with his high sense of honour and duty in such a 
 trust, to improve, as many men might, the tempting oppor- 
 tunities of speculating on his own account in the growing 
 property about him. 
 
 The particular profits, mentioned above as having accrued 
 to Mr. Kirk Boott from his Locks and Canals, and from my 
 loan to him in 1826, at simple interest without even collat- 
 eral security, were realized, it is true, after the settlement of 
 that year with his brother ; but, without going more partic- 
 ularly into the course of Mr. Kirk Boott's operations previous 
 to that time, I think the reader will see opportunity enough 
 for him to have acquired, in the first four or five years of the 
 Chelmsford speculation, with a title in the outset to ninety, 
 out of six hundred, shares, sufiicient property to enable him, 
 with the aid of the ^10,000 loan from me, to pay off the 
 $37,000 of debt, beyond his |20,000 of patrimony, which I 
 suppose him to have paid to his brother in March, 1826, and 
 yet to have had, as Mr. Lowell says he had, about |10,000 
 left, after that settlement, beyond his debt to me ; — espe- 
 cially, when we see that $27,300 of the debt to his brother 
 was paid in the stock of the Boston Manufacturing Company 
 at $1300 a share, though then worth in the market only 
 $900 a share. It is in perfect keeping with Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott's character, to believe, that, from feelings of generosity 
 to his brother, he had, considerately, waited till a handsome 
 profit had been accumulated out of the Chelmsford specula- 
 tion, before he pressed for a settlement ; and it is manifest, 
 that repayment of the large advances made on that account, 
 and for the settlement of losses in the old mercantile part- 
 nership accounts, which proved '.' very heavy," could not 
 
569 
 
 have been had at a much earlier period without stripping his 
 brother of every thing, and indeed, until some considerable 
 amount of profit had been earned, could not have been had 
 at all. Yet Mr. Lowell, well knowing the fact of this 
 Chelmsford speculation, and of a large profit made in it, un- 
 dertakes to say, without qualification, that " whatever sum, 
 beyond his patrimony, he [Mr. Kirk Boott,] refunded to his 
 brother Wright, [ia the settlement of 1826,] he must have 
 borrowed, or derived from the profits of the earlier years of 
 the copartnership. There could be no other source !" [L. 
 p. 49.] 
 
 In respect to Mr. James Boott, Mr. Lowell has made one 
 statement, which, if it be a fact, is new to me. In account- 
 ing for sixteen shares of the Merrimack stock, which stood 
 in Mr. J. Wright Boott's name, and were sold by him, in 
 1824, Mr. Lowell, for the purpose of answering the sugges- 
 tion, that, for aught that appeared, the profit upon that sale 
 ought to have been credited to the estate in the account of 
 1844, states, that twelve of the shares belonged to Mrs. F. 
 Boott and her children, and that the other four " belonged 
 jointly to himself, Mr. Kirk Boott, and Mr. James Boott, 
 being the residue of their interest as owners of one fourth 
 part of the original speculation," [L. p. 72.] meaning the 
 Chelmsford speculation. That is, the " Reply" treats that 
 speculation as a part of the business of Kirk Boott & Sons, 
 No. 2, and assigns one fourth part of it to that house. 
 
 If Mr. James Boott had any such interest in that concern, 
 it seems, at least, not to have been known to the leadiug 
 associates. Mr. J. Wright Boott and Mr. Kirk Boott, accord- 
 ing to the account given by Mr. Appleton in the correspond- 
 ence, appear to have subscribed, separately and individually, 
 for ninety shares each. Their shares, together, were one 
 himdred and eighty, out of six hundred, — considerably more 
 than " one fourth part," but, — which is more material, — Mr. 
 Jam,es Boott does not appear to have been a party to the 
 transaction. The fact I believe to be, that he was admitted 
 afterwards, by his brothers to a small interest under them ; 
 and it may be that his profit upon that sub-interest, added to 
 
 72 
 
570 
 
 the five shares of Merrimack, which he transferred to Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott, February 25, 1826, when they were worth 
 a considerable advance, and to the ten shares of Locks 
 and Canals, which he transferred to him, on the same day, 
 may, together witJi his share of the patrimony, estimated at 
 $20,000, have been sufficient to repay his share of the loss 
 in the business of the firm, and also the advances, which had 
 been made on his particular account, and to have left the 
 ten shares of manufacturing stock, which, Mr. Lowell says, 
 he still owned, at the time of the " Reply." Since his per- 
 sonal expenses ought to have fallen much within the inter- 
 est of his patrimony, he had not a like occasion with Mr. 
 Kirk Boott to draw largely from the firm, or to place his 
 brother under advance for him, unless on account of the 
 Chelmsford speculation, (if he had any considerable interest 
 in that,) and for the settlement of his share of the losses of 
 the house. His total debt to Mr. J. Wright Boott, in 1826, 
 ought to have been, and appears to have been, so far as we 
 have means of judging, much smaller than Mr. Kirk Boott's, 
 and may, contrary to my first supposition, have been wholly 
 paid. Yet, the fact that he was permitted to retain ten 
 shares of manufacturing stock, after the partnership settle- 
 ment, is not very strong proof to my mind that the debt was, 
 in truth, fully paid. Mr. J. Wright Boott was too irregular 
 in his generosities, to permit any confident conclusion to be 
 drawn from such a fact. 
 
 It now appears, however, from Mr. Lowell's statement, 
 [L. p. 51.] that, after the partnership settlement of February 
 or March, 1826, Mr. James Boott had remaining, and retain- 
 ed, up to the time of the writing of the " Reply," five shares 
 in the Boston Manufacturing Company, at a cost of $1300 a 
 share, and five shares in the Merrimack at par, making, 
 together, $11,500. On the other hand, it is admitted [L. p. 
 51.] that, on the 2Sth of February, he transferred to his broth- 
 er, in the settlement between them, five shares of the Merri- 
 mack, which, at its market value, could not then have been 
 worth less than $6000. And it appears, by the records of the 
 Locks and Canals, that he transferred in like manner, at the 
 same time, ten shares of that stock, on which, the " Reply" 
 
571 
 
 tells us, $350 a share had then been paid in, [L. p. 50.] and 
 which, with the advance upon them, may be safely set 
 down at $4000. That is, $10,000, in cash, or its equiva- 
 lent, was actually paid. 
 
 But Mr. James Boott must also have been credited, in any 
 settlement of that date, with the profit upon his share in the 
 Chelmsford speculation, so far as any portion of the specula- 
 tion had been on a joint account, in which he was interested. 
 That there was such a joint account, on which sales were 
 made, we are told by the " Reply," although we are kept in 
 the dark concerning its amount. That a large profit, in pro- 
 portion to its amount, must have been realized, we know 
 from the successful character of the enterprise, and from the 
 rapid rise in the market prices of the Merrimack stock ; and 
 since Mr. James Boott was not an ostensible subscriber to 
 the Chelmsford enterprise, we may fairly presume that his 
 share of the proceeds went into his general account with 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott. Yet, besides his share of that profit, 
 whatever it may have been, $10,000, at least, was paid by 
 him to Mr. J. Wright Boott in the transfers above mentioned. 
 What can we infer from all this, but large loss in the busi- 
 ness of the second house, of which Mr. James Boott's share, 
 was thus repaid, in whole or in part, by his share of the 
 profit in the Chelmsford speculation and by transfers of 
 stocks, above shown, to the amount of $10,000 ? 
 
 One cannot but observe, besides, a remarkable coincidence, 
 now apparent, which serves to corroborate the idea, that a 
 distributive share of the divisible estate had always been 
 estimated at $20,000, and that all parties, who had oppor- 
 tunity to obtain possession of their property before Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott's great embarrassments, received that amount. 
 Mr. James Boott was still holding, according to the " Reply," 
 property, which had cost to Mr. J. Wright Boott $11,500 
 
 But he had previously parted, in the settlement 
 of the old partnership account, with five shares 
 of Merrimack, and ten of Locks and Canals, which, 
 at par, had cost, 8,500 
 
 This makes, exactly, $20,000 
 
572 
 
 What could this property have represented, except Mr. 
 James Boott's estimated share of his father's estate? He 
 had no other property when he went into the house of Kirk 
 Boott & Sons, No. 3 ; he earned nothing there, — for its busi- 
 ness resulted in a heavy loss, as Mr, Kirk Boott declares. 
 No part of the Chelmsford speculation had stood in Mr. 
 James Boott's name ; the profits upon that must have been, 
 like the losses in trade, only items of an imsettled account 
 with Mr. J. Wright Boott, until the settlement of 1826. 
 Yet, previous to that settlement, he held, as his individual 
 property, stocks, which had cost ^20,000. Had he not been 
 allowed, then, by the executor, to take up funds of the es- 
 tate to that amount, because it was understood to be his 
 proper share of it ? 
 
 So, in respect to Mr. Wells, it appears by the extract from 
 a letter of Mr. Ralston, heretofore introduced, [Ante, p. 331.] 
 that that gentleman held, in 1827-8, six shares of Merri- 
 mack, six of Locks and Canals, and three of the Boston 
 Manufacturing Company ; and I find, from the records of 
 the Locks and Canals, that, in February, 1826, at a date 
 nearly corresponding with the partnership settlement of Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott with his brothers, Mr. Wells transferred to 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott six shares in the Locks and Canals. 
 That is to say, previous to that transfer, Mr. Wells was hold- 
 ing shares, in the two companies above-named, which, ac- 
 cording to the prices given by Mr. Lowell for the accounts 
 of Mr. Kirk Boott and Mr. James Boott, had cost upwards of 
 $14,000. Whence did they come, but from the funds of the 
 estate ? And how much, if a distributable share of the estate 
 was $20,000, would Mr. Wells have been entitled to ? It 
 has been already shown, that the testator had directed that a 
 particular note of Mr. Wells for the sum of f 4000, taken up 
 by the testator, should, with the interest upon it, be charged 
 to Mrs. Wells, "for which she must account, with the other 
 sums already charged to her, out of the legacy which I 
 have bequeathed to the said Frances." [Ante, p. 559.] 
 What these "other sums" were, I am not informed. They 
 were, at least, large enough to be an object of attention to 
 
573 
 
 the testator, and to be treated as an advancement. If we 
 suppose them to have amomited, all together, to three or four 
 thousand dollars only, we shall arrive at the conclusion that 
 another heir, who received his portion early, was dealt with 
 upon the basis of $20,000, or thereabouts, to a share. 
 
 Besides these stocks, which Mr. Wells held on account of 
 the balance of his wife's patrimony beyond the advances 
 charged to her by the testator, it is personally known to me, 
 that Mr. J. Wright Boott made loans of money, occasionally, 
 to Mr. Wells. The ten shares of Locks and Canals, trans- 
 ferred by Mr. Wells to Mr. J. Wright Boott, in February, 
 1826, I infer to have been a repayment of some of these 
 loans. It appears to have been called for at the time of Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott's call on his brothers for the settlement of 
 the over-advances on their respective accounts, because he 
 was then intending, as we are told by Mr. Kirk Boott, " to 
 settle the estate, and pay over the balances," to those of the 
 heirs, who had not already received their full shares. 
 
 It may also be noticed, that some light is thrown, by the 
 facts now shown to the reader, upon the manner, in which 
 payments were made to some of the heirs. It will be remem- 
 bered, that Mr. J. Wright Boott was an original subscriber, 
 in his own name, to fifty-six shares of the first stock of the 
 Merrimack Manufacturing Company, which entitled him to 
 fifty-six shares of the second issue, made in 1824 ; but that 
 he appeared to be a subscriber for forty shares only of that 
 second issue ; and it was remarked, that his right of sub- 
 scription for the remaining sixteen shares must have been 
 transferred to somebody, and yet did not appear to have been 
 sold for the benefit of the estate, since the premium upon 
 them does not appear in the account of 1844. [Ante, p. 
 391. J Now, if the original papers on this subject were 
 hunted up, I think it would be found, that Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott transferred his right to subscribe for ten of those shares 
 to Mr. James Boott, and his right to subscribe for the other 
 six to Mr. Wells. This, I believe, was the source of their 
 title to the ten shares and the six shares, which they are 
 respectively found to have held in the Merrimack Company ; 
 
574 
 
 and their ownership of these shares in the Merrimack Com- 
 pany gave them their title to the corresponding number of 
 Locks and Canals. The funds, necessary to pay the assess- 
 ments on all these shares, except so far as they were paid by 
 accruing dividends, were, undoubtedly, furnished by Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott ; indeed, I understood so, at the time, in re- 
 spect to shares held by Mr. Wells ; and, in that form, the full 
 amount, which they were respectively entitled to receive 
 from the estate, was gradually paid up by the executor, — ^at 
 least, such is my inference, — though without any regular set- 
 tlement. In the mean time, the old partnership business of 
 Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, was wound up with great loss ; 
 and other loans and advances had been made, which led to 
 the reclamations of February, 1826, when a purpose was 
 entertained, but for some reason unfortunately never execut- 
 ed, of settling the estate, and paying over all impaid balances. 
 
 The payments and loans to Mr. Wells, above mentioned, 
 were, of course, independent of the sums afterwards covered 
 by the note of Robert Lilly, as liquidator of the &m of 
 Wells & Lilly, for the sum of f 14,000, which note was dated 
 in December, 1828, and afterwards secured by mortgage, as 
 above shown. 
 
 The reader now sees some of the reasons, which may well 
 have led Mr. Wells to believe, concerning Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, that *' He has probably given to all much more than 
 they were entitled to receive from their father's estate." [L. 
 p. 56.] The phrase used by Mr. Wells, is not so inappro- 
 priate as it might at first seem ; for it was one of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott's peculiarities always to speak of his irregular 
 distributions as gifts. Upon one occasion, after the pay- 
 ment of the $10,000 to Mr. Lyman, he transferred to that 
 gentleman, in addition, nine shares of manufacturing stock, 
 which Mr. Lyman understood to be a further payment on 
 account of his wife's share of the estate ; but Mr. Boott after- 
 wards, chose to speak of them as a gift, and Mr. Lyman, not 
 choosing to hold them on those terms, retransferred them to 
 Mr. Boott. This fact I had from Mr. Lyman, and the trans- 
 
575 
 
 fers and retransfers appear by the records of the companies. 
 [B. App. pp. 30, 32.] 
 
 A degree of uncertainty, of course, hangs over some of the 
 foregoing inferences, while we are left to grope in the dark, 
 without regular accounts to guide us. But why does Mr. 
 Lowell put us to specidate in these matters ? Has he not 
 the evidence of these settlements in his hands ? Can he not 
 show, if he would, what they were, precisely ? Why, espe- 
 cially, having this evidence at hand, does he, instead of pro- 
 ducing it, enter into a specious argument to show, — from the 
 slight circumstance of a nearly equal amount of property 
 possessed by Mr. Kirk Boott and by Mr. James Boott, respec- 
 tively, after the partnership settlement, and an amount nearly 
 corresponding with the sum, which Mr. Lowell assumes to 
 have been a share of the estate, — that there could have been 
 no loss in the business of the partnership, and no absorption 
 of their patrimony in that ? And why, when he presents 
 that argument, does he withhold, in that connexion, so mate- 
 rial a fact as the Chelmsford speculation ? And why does 
 he withhold so material a fact as the transfer by Mr. James 
 Boott, at the time of the settlement, of ten shares of Locks 
 and Canals, in addition to the five shares of Merrimack, 
 which I had found to have been transferred, and stated for- 
 merly, being all the evidence then known to me of a settle- 
 ment by Mr. James Boott ? 
 
 Connected with these concealments, every fact stated, only 
 tends to confirm the idea of a large loss sustained by the 
 second house, sufficient, in my belief, to have swept off Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott's own share of the conomon patrimony ; and 
 a loss by the elder house is insisted on by Mr. Lowell of a 
 magnitude sufficient to have absorbed all Mr. Boott was 
 worth, in my estimation, before his father's death. And 
 although this latter loss, whatever it may have been, must 
 have fallen threefold on the estate, it will be remembered 
 that it was after all that loss was, or should have been, fully 
 ascertained, that Mr. J. Wright Boott not only represented the 
 shares of the heirs to be $20,000 each, but acted upon that 
 representation in allowing that amount to some of the heirs, 
 
576 
 
 as would seem, by the settlements he made in several instan- 
 ces, so far as Mr. Lowell has been pleased to afford us light 
 to discern the terms of those settlements. 
 
 One further inquiry will naturally present itself to the 
 reader. If Mr. Kirk Boott, and possibly Mr. James Boott, 
 acquired, from their shares in the Chelmsford speculation,, 
 profit enough to enable them, with the other means shown, 
 to repay their respective shares of loss in the business of 
 Kirk Boott and Sons, No. 2, and to have something left, 
 why did not Mr. J. Wright Boott also? Simply because he 
 did not sell out, as Mr. Kirk Boott did, (and Mr. James 
 Boott's original interest, if he had one, must have been sold 
 out also, any considerable portion of his Merrimack stock, — 
 the right to which, and its rapid advance in market price, 
 and the large dividends made after the works were in com- 
 plete operation, constituted, so far as I am informed, the 
 whole profit of the Chelmsford enterprise. Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, it seems, took, and held, the whole of his original 
 subscription ; he added to it, at the time of the second issue, 
 more than he then sold out ; and he appropriated nearly or 
 quite the whole of that which he held, finally, if not at first, 
 in his own mind, as it would seem, (though no act, till long 
 after, openly evinced it,) partly to Mrs. F. Boott and his 
 wards, and the residue as a substitute for the stocks belong- 
 ing to the trust funds of his father's estate, which he had 
 transferred to Boott & Lowell, and which they had sold. 
 He kept his interest in the Merrimack Company, apparently, 
 in so vague and uncertain a position that what was his, and 
 what the property of one party or of another, whom he rep- 
 resented, he could not probably, himself, have easily deter- 
 mined. He seems to have turned this property, in his own 
 mind at least, to one account or another, as circumstances at 
 the moment seemed to make expedient, and as he thought to 
 be for the interest of others, perhaps, rather than his own, 
 until his necessities for money, to be used in the foimdry, 
 compelled him, at last, to pledge the stock, and to cover it 
 with such embarrassments that he had no longer its control. 
 For the same reason, (pressure for money,) he was unable 
 
577 
 
 to hold the shares in the Locks and Canals, which he became 
 entitled to, and took, share for share. That is to say, holding 
 at that time eighty shares of Merrimack in his own name, he 
 was an original subscriber in his own name, for eighty cor- 
 responding shares of Locks and Canals ; but, within the first 
 two years, before the stock was fully paid in, before any div- 
 idends had accrued, and while the shares were worth in the 
 market only about par and interest, he sold sixty-nine shares. 
 There were but eleven left ; of these, eight were taken on 
 his guardianship account. He acquired, in 1826, sixteen 
 more, through settlements with persons, for whom he was in 
 advance ; but, within two years, he sold out all but his guard- 
 ianship shares. Mr. Kirk Boott, on the other hand, contin- 
 ued to hold a fair proportion of this stock to a late period, 
 some of it to his death, and it added considerably to his 
 estate. 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott parted, early, with the whole of his 
 Locks and Canals, as above stated, except a very few shares 
 retained on his guardianship account ; and the shares, he 
 parted with, produced him little or no profit ; since the oper- 
 ation, with this stock, was quite a reverse to that of the Mer- 
 rimack stock. The Merrimack stock rose very rapidly, and 
 early sales were made at great profit. The Locks and Canals 
 stock rose slowly at first, and very gradually, to near four 
 times its par, and the profit upon this was to the long holder. 
 How diflferent would have been the result of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott's trust account, had he sold for the estate one half of 
 the Merrimack stock, which, though in his own name, really 
 belonged to the estate, at its meirket price of fifty or sixty per 
 cent, advance, and had he taken and retained, for the same 
 account, the corresponding shares of Locks and Canals ! He 
 kept that, of which he should have sold a part, and sold that, 
 of which he should have kept a part, as the event proved ; 
 and he sold his Locks and Canals, not so much because his 
 judgement dictated a sale, so far as appears, as by reason of 
 his necessities for money, growing out of speculations, engag- 
 ed in, unwarrantably and beyond his means, though, as he 
 no doubt thought and intended at the time, for the benefit 
 
578 
 
 of the family. This fact helps us to imderstand the remark, 
 formerly made hy Mr. Lowell : — " If you, Mr. Brooks, or I, 
 or any good man of business, had had the care of that estate, 
 what a noble property it would have been." [B. App. p. 48.] 
 
 It will be perceived, therefore, that I give to Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott ample credit, as I have ever done, for having acted 
 throughout, mainly, with the design of aiding others of the 
 family more than himself, and certainly not upon merely self- 
 ish principles ; but I show, at the same time, by his course 
 of management, the grossest unfitness to discharge the duties 
 of an executor and trustee ; and I show that the consequen- 
 ces of his mismanagement, however generous the motives, 
 which may have led to it, were ruin to himself, great loss to 
 the estate, and utter inability to repair the consequences of 
 his generosity to some by rendering bare justice to others. 
 And this is my whole case in respect to Mr. J. Wright Boott. 
 
 I think I have accounted also, satisfactorily, for the fact 
 that he made no profit for himself out of the Lowell specula- 
 tion, because, so far as he had any clear idea upon the sub- 
 ject, he considered that as belonging to the parties, whose 
 funds he used. And so, in equity, it did ; his own property 
 being utterly lost, although he may not have been, and prob- 
 ably was not, at that time, fully sensible of this fact, and cer- 
 tainly was not ready to avow it, until the sudden disclosure 
 to Mr. Kirk Boott and myself in 1830. 
 
 In the mean time, it is not remarkable that Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott should have been commonly reputed rich, before his 
 embarrassments in the foxmdry became known. A man, who 
 subscribed so largely to new enterprises, who paid promptly 
 what he subscribed, who held at one time $96,000 of the 
 Merrimack stock, and f 30,000 of the Boston, and took eighty 
 shares of the Locks and Canals, — all standing (prior to 1826) 
 unpledged, and in his own private name, — and who was, at 
 the same time apparently wielding a considerable capital iu 
 trade, first as a member of the firm of Boott & Lowell, and 
 afterwards in the business of the foundry, — such a man 
 might well be supposed to be possessed of a large fortune by 
 those, who knew nothing of the private trusts, on which the 
 
679 
 
 property was held, or of the funds employed in its purchase, 
 or of the state of his accounts with members of his own 
 family. If the received opinions of the clerks had been 
 gathered, shortly before the exposition of 1830, they would, 
 perhaps, have amplified his " private fortune " to two or three 
 hundred thousand dollars. Yet, who does not now see that 
 he was, in truth, at that time, hopelessly insolvent ? And 
 who can reasonably doubt, upon the facts disclosed, that, if 
 all his affairs had been brought to a state of complete liquida- 
 tion during the existence of the house of Boott «fc Lowell, 
 he must have been found, even at that early period, quite 
 unable to account, in money, or its equivalent, for the prop- 
 erty of his father's estate ? 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 CONCEALMENT OF FACTS, CONNECTED WITH THE HOUSE OF BOOTT 
 & LOWELL. SUMMARY OF PAKTICULAR LOSSES, THROUGH THE 
 MISMANAGEMENT OF MR. BOOTT. 
 
 Having now disposed of the two firms of Kirk Boott & 
 Sons, we come to that of Boott & Lowell, formed Jan. 1, 
 1822, dissolved July 1, 1824. 
 
 Here, at least, Mr. Lowell cannot plead ignorance or un- 
 certainty ; and we have a right to look, in this part of the 
 case, for a clear and satisfactory discharge of that solemn 
 "duty to the memory of Mr. Boott," which, according to 
 Mr. Lowell's own estimate of duty, promulgated at the outset 
 of his publication, " requires that I [Mr. Lowell] should give 
 some account of such facts within my own knowledge, as 
 may elucidate the matters in controversy." [L. p. 22.] Yet, 
 strange to tell, it is of this house, and of the executor's man- 
 
580 
 
 agement during its existence, — a period embracing so large 
 and active a portion of the executorship, and so many im- 
 portant transactions of the house concerning the estate, in 
 which Mr. Lowell must have participated and acted, — that 
 the " Reply " discloses least ! Much time and space are de- 
 voted, in that pamphlet, to the supposed history of the several 
 preceding firms, and to a consideration of the probabilities of 
 gain or loss in each, affecting the relative position of Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott and his father's estate. Of all this, it appears 
 that Mr. Lowell has little or no absolute knowledge. But of 
 those transactions, which he was personally acquainted with, 
 connected with the house of Boott & Lowell, whose books 
 were in his own possession, what has he disclosed ? 
 
 We are told, when it is an object to make out a large pri- 
 vate fortune for Mr. Boott, that he put into the concern of 
 Boott & Lowell, originally, a capital of f 40,000. But we 
 have cause to believe, from what we have seen, [Ante, Ch. 
 34.] that this capital was all borrowed ; and we are not told 
 that Mr. Boott increased his property by the operations of 
 Boott & Lowell. Is it not fair to infer, from this silence, 
 that his property, if he had any, was in fact diminished there 
 by a losing business? The probate account of 1844 also 
 tells us, that, after the formation of the trust fund of 1818, 
 by moneys drawn from the first house of Kirk Boott & Sons, 
 near ^70,000 more of the estate's money came to the execu- 
 tor out of the house of Boott & Lowell. How it got there, — 
 what it proceeded from, — how and when it was paid over, — 
 the "Reply" does not condescend to inform us, although its 
 author was most emphatically called upon, by my former 
 pamphlet, to explain such matters. We now find, that, be- 
 sides this $70,000, (nearly,) mentioned in the probate account 
 as coming from Boott & Lowell, for property of the estate 
 realized after the $117,000, (nearly,) which had been invested 
 in the trust fund of 1818, at least |52,000, of the specific 
 property of that trust fund, perhaps much more, was taken 
 away from the fund, and transferred, specifically, by the ex- 
 ecutor, to Boott & liowell, and that this specific trust property 
 , was, afterwards, disposed of by Boott «fc Lowell ; but what 
 
581 
 
 was done with the moneys, we have never been informed to 
 this day. They may have gone, sooner or later, to pay for 
 more or less of the Merrimack shares, purchased by Mr. Booit 
 in his own name. And they may not. They do not appear, 
 at any rate, to have gone, directly, or immediately, to that 
 use. We have, up to the present moment, no account of 
 them, nor of the interest or profits upon them, while in the 
 hands of Boott & Lowell; nor of the interest and profits 
 upon the $70,000, which we are told of as coming from 
 liquidation by Boott & Lowell. 
 
 I do not mean to suggest a doubt, (though I have no in- 
 formation on the subject,) that Boott &, Lowell may have 
 settled an account, at some time, with Mr. J. Wright Boott ; 
 that is, that Mr. Boott may have settled an account with 
 himself and his partner. But what was it ? What gains and 
 losses in the liquidation does it show ? What charges and 
 allowances to the liquidators does it contain? Why does 
 not the probate account, drawn up by Mr. Lowell from the 
 books of Boott & Lowell, show the facts concerning stocks 
 of the estate bought and sold through that house, and con- 
 cerning the emplojrment of other moneys of the estate while 
 lying there ? Why is it not even intimated by the account 
 that such transactions ever existed? And why is Mr. Lowell, 
 while professing to enlighten the public, and declaiming 
 against me for groping in darkness and ignorance in search 
 of a conjectural truth, utterly silent in his pamphlet upon 
 those transactions, intimately known to himself? Why are 
 we told of the probabilities of great loss to the estate in the 
 winding up of the first Kirk Boott & Sons? Why are we 
 told, with the positiveness of personal knowledge, that there 
 was no loss sustained by Mr. J. Wright Boott in the winding 
 up of the second Kirk Boott & Sons? In neither of these 
 houses had Mr. Lowell any concern, nor, as he says, did he 
 ever, once, even see the partnership leger. And why are we 
 not told whether Mr. J. Wright Boott increased or dimin- 
 ished his private fortune in the business of Boott & Lowell, — 
 the only house about whose aflairs Mr. Lowell really knows 
 any thing ? And, especially, why are we kept uninformed 
 
582 
 
 respecting f 120,000, at least, perhaps much more, of the 
 estate's money, which that house had the handling of, be- 
 sides f 40,000, probably, of the money of Mr. Boott's wards, 
 for which the estate was liable ?* 
 
 I shall hazard no conjectures on this subject. I pause for 
 another "Reply." I shall have occasion to allude to the 
 subject again, in connexion with other points of Mr. Lowell's 
 conduct. At present, I only ask the reader not to forget 
 these facts : That the probate account states nothing touch- 
 ing any connexion of Boott & Lowell with the estate's prop- 
 erty, except that it charges the executor with f 69,389 99, 
 as received from them in liquidation of the outstanding 
 property of Kirk Boott & Sons, without showing when, 
 how, or in what sums, it was received by the executor ; that 
 it states gain and losses on sales of stocks belonging to the 
 trust fund of 1818, without showing when, or to whom, or 
 by whom, the sales were made ; that all the sales, so far as 
 traced, which involve loss, now turn out to have been made 
 either to Boott & Lowell, or by Boott &, Lowell, as agents 
 for the executor ; that the final sales of these stocks, when 
 sold in the name of Boott & Lowell, were made by Mr. 
 Lowell, himself, while Mr. Boott was in England ; that there 
 were no investments made by or for the executor, that I have 
 been able to discover, adequate to take up the proceeds, and 
 corresponding with the sales in times and sums ; that the 
 account was formerly complained of by me for its extreme 
 generality, and for its omission to state such particulars as 
 were needful, to enable an interested party to see whether 
 
 ♦Capital originally put in by Mr. Boott, apparently borrowed from Ms 
 wards, to whom the estate was liable, $40,000 00 
 
 Proceeds of stoclcs belonging to his trust fund, transferred afterwards 
 to Boott & Lowell, as the records of transfers show, 52,853 43 
 
 Money said to have been collected for the executor by Boott & Lowell, 
 from the outstanding eiFects of Kirk Boott & Sons, and charged as 
 such in the account of 1844, 69,389 99 
 
 Amount apparently furnished by Mr. Boott from Ms father's estate, or 
 for wMch the estate was liable, 162,243 42 
 
 Query, respecting U. S. six per cent, stock, not yet traced, 22,000 ? 
 
 If tMs amount, furnished by Mr. Boott, passed into the business of Boott & Low- 
 ell, how much did Mr. Lowell furnish to that house? 
 
583 
 
 the executor had rightly charged himself with all he was 
 chargeable for, even supposing its positive statements to be 
 literally true ; that it was also complained of for its omission 
 to state much, that must have been received by the executor, 
 to accord with his own representations and acts, and for its 
 omission to connect the sums, admitted to have been re- 
 ceived, with the property, admitted to be on hand, at the end 
 of the account, or to show what intermediate investments 
 and changes of investment, or what other use of the money, 
 had been made ; that Mr. Lowell declares the account to be 
 full and complete as it stands, — a true history of the entire 
 executorship, — and, that, while he professes to give a full 
 explanation, according to his knowledge, of all the mercan- 
 tile transactions, connected with the property of the estate, 
 for the purpose of establishing the truth and completeness of 
 the account, — ^holding it to be a duty to disclose such facts 
 within his own knowledge, " as may elucidate the matters in 
 controversy," — ^he has, hitherto, entirely concealed all those 
 facts, which are now proved, respecting changes of invest- 
 ment in the time of Boott & Lowell, and respecting sales of 
 approved stocks at a loss, either to or by Boott & Lowell, 
 without any corresponding re-investment, unless as capital in 
 trade, or as a loan to Boott & Lowell ; that he has under- 
 taken to settle questions, in the mind of his readers, by infer- 
 ence from remote and collateral evidence, which accounts 
 and entries in the books of that house must determine, 
 directly and conclusively, one way or the other, but which 
 are, nevertheless, kept wholly out of sight ; and, finally, that 
 truths now detected, have been obscured and covered up by 
 bold general averments of a contrary tendency, fallacious 
 arguments upon partial disclosures of particulars, which will 
 not even bear the test of comparison among themselves, and 
 by a cloud of invective, sarcasm, and irony, founded either 
 upon charges I never made, or upon mistakes of mine in 
 matters scarcely material to the main issues, and upon other 
 mistakes imputed to me, but which turn out to be either 
 mistakes, or mis-statements, of the "Reply." 
 
 I believe, I have now shown, that the accomit of 1844 
 
584 
 
 fares no better, upon a view of affairs previous to 1830, so far 
 as they are known, than it did by a comparison of its state- 
 ments with facts of subsequent date, which are accurately 
 known. I believe, I have shown, that, although nobody, 
 now living, may know what the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, 
 really turned out to be, enough is known to make it morally 
 certain, that a much larger amount of property came to the 
 executor's hands than has yet been accounted for, and that 
 Mr. Lowell can give a much better account of it, if he pleases, 
 than has yet been given. I have shown a probability, at 
 least, that $100,000 more than the probate accoimt states 
 was received by the executor, and that $60,000 more than is 
 therein stated was paid by him to some of the heirs, or per- 
 mitted to go to their use ,; that Mrs. Boott's trust fund was 
 deficient, upon the accoimt of November 18, 1844, as it 
 stands, even after allowing the stocks to be charged at their 
 cost to Mr. Boott, by about $3,700 
 
 That the trust fund for the aunts is not thereby 
 
 accounted for at all, amounting to about 11,100 
 
 That the shares of Boston Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, charged to the estate at $1300 a share, 
 came to Mr. Boott in the settlement of a part- 
 nership account, not concerning the estate, at a 
 time when they were worth only $900 a share, 
 and that this difierence, for aught that yet ap- 
 pears, could not, justly, be charged to the estate, 
 being, upon twenty-one shares, 8,400 
 
 That, although most, if not all, the other heirs 
 probably received $20,000,* as the reputed divi- 
 dend of the estate, due equally to all, Mrs. 
 Brooks was under-paid by 10,000t 
 
 33,200 
 
 * Dr. Francis Boott, when he went to London, in 1818; Mr. Wells, by pay- 
 ments, at various times, deducting advances charged by the testator ; Mr. Kirk 
 Boott, and Mr. James Boott, by credit in the partnership settlements of 1826 ; Mr. 
 Lyman and Mr. Ralston, by the payment of $10,000 each, in 1821-2, and by al- 
 lowance for the residue in the settlement of the concerns of the foundiy, in 1831. 
 
 t If furniture, purchased without consulting her, and placed at the time in the 
 
585 
 
 Brought forward, 33,200 
 
 That Mr. William Boott, — charging to him all, 
 that seems to have been properly chargeable 
 against his patrimony, out of his expenses in 
 Europe, and, taking that amount to be as Mr. 
 Lowell states it, — was, probably, under-paid by 
 about 18,000 
 
 51,200 
 
 And that Mr. J. Wright Boott, without the previous 
 authority, consent, or knowledge of his mother, 
 subtracted from the principal and income of the 
 trust fund, after it was re-established in 1830, 
 for the payment of his own debts, due and paid 
 chiefly to Mr. Lowell, about 65,700 
 
 This exhibits an actual ascertained deficiency, due 
 to the heirs and their mother, at the time the 
 account was rendered, (without reckoning in- 
 terest on the principal simis,) of 116,900 
 
 If interest were charged upon them, the sum would proba- 
 bly amount to two or three hundred thousand dollars ! Yet, 
 the account claimed a " cash balance due to the executor " of 
 $25,000 ! And this account was permitted, by compromise, 
 for the sake of peace, to pass with an allowance of that 
 claim, for the purpose of payiug Mr. Lowell ! And Mr. Low- 
 ell, upon the strength of that allowauce, has had the hardi- 
 hood to assert, at first, in my absence, and without my 
 knowledge, but since, publicly, in print, that this fact is 
 proof that I had falsely charged Mr. Boott with mismanage- 
 ment of his father's estate, and unfitness for such a trust ! 
 Thus, even my own concession for his benefit, — in suffering 
 the account to pass without question, and thereby allowing 
 Mr. Lowell to pay himself out of the property of the estate, — 
 is, most unscrupulously, used as his principal weapon against 
 me ! ! 
 
 light of a gift, is considered to be a cliarge upon her patrimony, and Mr. Lowell's as- 
 sumption that it cost $4000 is adopted, interest on the unpaid share would exceed 
 that sum. 
 
586 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 IN WHAT MV SUPPOSED CHARGE OF MISMANAGEMENT, AGAINST MR. 
 BOOTT, CONSISTED. 
 
 If the views, I have now submitted to the reader, concern- 
 ing the statements and the omissions of the probate account, 
 compared with well established facts, are but a tolerable 
 approximation to the truth, they must, at least, set one ques- 
 tion at rest. That is to say : — supposing me to have charged 
 Mr. Boott, in his life-time, as plainly, offensively, and inex- 
 cusably, as Mr. Lowell could desire, with having misman- 
 aged his father's estate, and with having occasioned great 
 loss to it, by neglect, or disregard, of the ordinary duties of 
 an executor, the charge, instead of being a false one, as Mr. 
 Lowell gave out, would now stand proved to have been in- 
 contestibly true. In respect to the course, I took, to effect a 
 change of the trusteeship, so far as my justification depends 
 upon the single question whether the executor had managed 
 the funds, committed to his keeping, properly or improperly, 
 I have nothing more to say. But, there are other points of 
 inquiry, touching Mr. Boott's fitness, in 1844, to be the family 
 trustee; and the " Reply " presents other issues, respecting 
 the propriety of my conduct towards Mr. Boott, and, also, re- 
 specting the conduct of Mr. Lowell towards me. 
 
 Most of these topics connect themselves, more appropri- 
 ately, with another branch of this controversy, relating to Mr. 
 Boott's own conduct, in other than pecuniary matters, and to 
 his deranged state of mind. But, some of them are so im- 
 mediately connected with the subject of the probate account, 
 that it seems proper to dispose of them here. 
 
 One question, concerning myself, arises thus: — The im- 
 pression created, and apparently intended to be created, by 
 the " Reply," is, that I had taken pains, without provocation 
 or excuse, to injure Mr. Boott's reputation in respect to his 
 
587 
 
 conduct as executor, and that I had, purposely, insulted him, 
 and wounded his feelings, by charging him, personally and 
 offensively, with the fact. Is there any just foundation for 
 this idea? 
 - I answer by resuming my narrative. 
 
 We left it with a view of the state of Mr. Boott's affairs at 
 the date of the settlement of his guardianship account, early 
 in 1835 ; from which point of time, 1 have only taken some 
 prospective glances. There was no prominent event, indeed, 
 affecting the subject of accounts, until the year 1844, when 
 circumstances made it imperative that an executor's account 
 should be settled. In the meantime, Mr. Boott had remained 
 out of business, living in his mother's house, going into no 
 society, and occupied with nothing but his green-house and 
 garden, of which he was extremely fond. The reduction of 
 his debt to Mr. Lowell from $46,000, (as is admitted, and 
 much more as I conjecture,) in 1835, to $25,000, in 1844, by 
 applying to it the surplus income of the trust funds in Mr. 
 Lowell's hands, was constantly going on, as before shown ; 
 but this was disclosed to nobody, interested in the property 
 or its income, either by Mr. Boott or by Mr. Lowell. The 
 heirs, generally, were profoundly ignorant of the state of the 
 trust property. All I knew about it was the position, in 
 which it was left in May, 1831, followed by a settlement 
 with Lyman & Ralston, in September following, and a set- 
 tlement of the guardianship accounts, in 1835 ; to which I 
 may add my own observation of the expenditure at the man- 
 sion-house in Bowdoin Square, coupled with some occasional 
 information from Mr. Lowell. Thence, I gathered, that Mrs. 
 Boott, who had removed to England in 1836, received, regu- 
 larly, $5000 a year for her own expenditure ; that the debt to 
 Mr. Sturgis had been paid ; and that the debt of $25,000 to 
 Mr. Lowell remained unpaid. 
 
 In the mean time, from causes not yet to be discussed, it 
 came to pass, that, between the time of the first pressure of 
 embarrassment in the business of the iron foundry, (preced- 
 ing, considerably, the disclosure, in 1830, to Mr. Kirk Boott 
 and myself,) and the circumstances, which immediately led 
 
588 
 
 to the stating of the probate account, Mr. Boott had come to 
 be at variance with every one, successively, (though not with 
 all at the same time,) of his brothers, sisters, and brothers- 
 in-law, living in this country, unless Mr. and Mrs. Wells are 
 an exception. This, I shall presently show more distinctly. 
 Mrs. Boott had thought proper to withdraw to England, and 
 to remain there. Mr. James Boott soon followed his mother, 
 and never returned. Mr. Kirk Boott died in 1837. Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott and Mr. William Boott, except when the latter 
 was at Lowell, lived together at the mansion-house, until a 
 circumstance occurred, in 1843, which compelled Mr. William 
 Boott to withdraw from it. Mr. J. Wright Boott, after that, 
 remained its sole occupant, except that one or more of his 
 young nephews of the Wells family lived with him, as his 
 guests, and that Mrs. Ralston staid there, for a short time, as 
 a visiter from Philadelphia, in the autumn of 1843, and, 
 again, in the summer of 1844. 
 
 Whether Mr. Boott had, or had not, become insane, was, 
 at this time, a question, which had grown up in the family, 
 occasioning much excitement. Mr. Lowell's answer to the 
 evidence on this head I shall consider in its place. But, 
 from whatever cause, the family was completely broken up 
 and dispersed ; and it had become apparent, though no such 
 intention had been distinctly announced, that Mrs. Boott 
 would never return to reunite her household. Hence, a sale 
 of the mansion-house, (a property then grown too valuable to 
 keep, if it was no longer to be put to the use intended by 
 the testator,) became a subject of consideration ; and the 
 conclusion was finally arrived at, by all parties interested, 
 that the time had come when the house ought to be sold, 
 and the proceeds invested, according to the will, for the bert- 
 efit of Mrs. Boott, during her life, and of the heirs at her 
 decease. 
 
 Those of us, who had no confidence in Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott as a suitable trustee, intended, whenever the sale 
 should be made, to bring about, if possible, some arrange- 
 ment to place the proceeds in security. The executor, it 
 will be remembered, was empowered, with Mrs. Boott's 
 
589 
 
 assent, to make a sale of this estate in certain events. Mr. 
 Lowell, as his agent, concluded a bargain, in October, 1843, 
 which fell through in consequence of Mr. Boott's refusal to 
 ratify it. Another was made, in the spring of 1844, by Mr. 
 Boott himself, as Mr. Lowell now afiirms ; [L. p. 8.] at any 
 rate, Mr. Boott and Mr. Lowell concurred in approving it ; and 
 this bargain would, no doubt, have been immediately carried 
 into effect, if they could have given a good title. But the 
 lawyers, whose business it was to look to that for the pur- 
 chaser, perceived that, in strictness, neither of the events 
 had happened, whence, according to the will, the executor 
 was to derive his authority to convey the estate ; and, conse- 
 quently, that his deed, though confirmed by Mr. Lowell, as 
 the attorney of Mrs. Boott, would not be valid. Deeds from 
 all the heirs were deemed necessary. It became, therefore, 
 the business of each heir to determine for himself, whether 
 he would join in a conveyance of the estate or not, and upon 
 what terms. 
 
 This question was proposed to me, for the first and only 
 time, in April, 1844, by Mr. Nathaniel I. Bowditch, acting as 
 the conveyancer of the parties. I at once declined, as mat- 
 ters then stood ; and, in the conversation, which ensued, I 
 was led to assign, briefly, my reasons for a course, that 
 might, otherwise, have seemed extraordinary and perverse ; 
 since I was obliged to admit that I thought the estate ought 
 to be sold, and that I did not object to the price, though I 
 thought it a good bargain for the purchasers. 
 
 The reasons, which I gave to Mr. Bowditch, were, that, 
 unless some other arrangement were made, the proceeds, 
 ($46,000,) would go into the hands of Mr. Boott, and be 
 entirely at his own disposal ; that I knew he contemplated 
 investing them, to a considerable extent, in a manner, which 
 I thought not only unsafe, but positively contradictory to the 
 provisions of the will ; that the only sureties on his probate 
 bond were Mrs. Boott and Mr. William Wells, who, in case 
 of any considerable loss, would not only be sufferers them- 
 selves, but unable to make good the loss of others ; that 
 former occurrences led me to feel no confidence in Mr. 
 
590 
 
 Boott's prudent management of trast property ; that I consid- 
 ered him to be, moreover, decidedly insane, on points affect- 
 ing his relation to several of the family ; that he had never 
 settled his executor's accounts, though twenty-seven years 
 had elapsed ; and that he was, in my opinion, for many rea- 
 sons, a very unsuitable person to be the family trustee. I 
 added, that I should not object to signing the deed, if the 
 trust property could be placed in the hands of some responsi- 
 ble person, who would be acceptable to all concerned, and 
 would give good sureties. The exact language used, I can 
 not pretend to recall ; but, I think, I may safely refer to Mr. 
 Bowditch for the fact, that this was the whole substance of 
 what I said, and that there was no undue excitement, or 
 intemperance of expression, in the manner of saying it. 
 
 Such is the origin, and such was the extent, at least, on 
 that occasion, of my supposed defamation of Mr. Boott. On 
 other occasions, 1 said nothing respecting his conduct as an 
 executor, with such exceptions as I shall state. 
 
 I had never, before, spoken of his mismanagement to any 
 one out of the family, to the best of my recollection and 
 belief, except to Mr. Lowell ; nor had I spoken of it, even in 
 confidential communications to members of the family, fur- 
 ther than some necessity required, unless a private letter to 
 Mr. Wells, written in September, 1842, is to be deemed an 
 exception. That letter I shall presently reprint from the 
 " Reply," and shall, then, narrate the circumstances, which 
 led to it. 
 
 In 1830 and 1831, the state of affairs, known in full only 
 to Mr. Kirk Boott and Mr. Lowell and myself, was, necessa- 
 rily, a subject of partial discussion with Messrs. Lyman & 
 Ralston, in reference to their claims on the executor, which 
 they were then pressing. But there is no pretence that I 
 said, or did, any thing to injure Mr. J. Wright Boott, at that 
 period. On the contrary, I was acting as a common friend, 
 appealed to by both parties, and acting, chiefly, on his 
 behalf. 
 
 At the time of the making of the release in 1833, I con- 
 versed, no doubt, respecting the executorship, with other 
 
591 
 
 parties to that instrument ; but only in reference to its sub- 
 ject, — the discharge of the executor from all claim for any 
 balances, that might be due to them, beyond what they had 
 respectively received, reserving their future claims on the 
 particular trust funds, not then distributable. So far from 
 doing, or saying, any thing to injure Mr. Boott, on that occa- 
 sion, I not only joined in that release, but I, in fact, drew up 
 the paper, find did all, that I properly could, to induce the 
 other heirs to sign it. The position of the trust property, I did 
 not think myself at liberty to disclose to any of them, while 
 Mr. Kirk Boott thought proper to remain silent ; and, after 
 his death, I still felt bound by his example, imtil a necessity 
 arose for positive action. After that release, I believe, I 
 never alluded to the subject of the executorship, — ^unless, 
 perhaps, in some private conversation with Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 or Mr. Lowell, who knew, at least, as much as I did, — ^until 
 my letter to Mr. Wells of September, 1842. Some time 
 after the writing of that letter, I conversed, confidentially, 
 with Mr. William Boott, on the whole subject of his broth- 
 er's conduct, when it had become so extraordinary as, m his 
 opinion, and mine, to be incapable of any solution but that 
 of insanity. 
 
 With these exceptions, though other matters had occur- 
 red, causing great irritation in the family, and occasioning 
 much discussion concerning Mr. J. Wright Boott, I had 
 observed total silence for thirteen years, on the subject of his 
 management of the family property. I preserved that silence 
 until I was called upon to decide, whether I would sanction, 
 by an act of my own, the placing of $46,000 of the family 
 money in his hands, to be invested and managed by him, in 
 addition to the property already there ; and, when so called 
 upon, I simply assigned to the counsel employed, in general 
 terms, and in the manner above stated, my principal reasons 
 for declining. 
 
 Mr. William Boott, it was known, also declined. The 
 fact that a title could not be given, unfortunately, soon 
 became notorious; but not by my agency. An important 
 bargain had been made, which could not be performed. 
 
592 
 
 Many persons were interested in the purchase. There was a 
 dead stop, and the cause of it leaked out from some quarter. 
 Mr. Bowditch, necessarily, informed his client, Mr. Darracott, 
 who was the agent for the purchasers, of my refusal to sign 
 the deed. Mr. Darracott, of course, conversed with Mr. 
 Lowell about it. He, also, called upon me, soon after, to 
 know what it meant, and urged the impropriety, as it seemed 
 to him, of my refusal. The tone of his remarks compelled 
 me to state to him, with more warmth, certainly, than I did 
 to Mr. Bowditch, the principal causes of my refusal. This 
 conversation, and others of like character, with him, at sev- 
 eral interviews of his seeking, I shall have occasion to refer 
 to, again, with more particularity. 
 
 The existence of some dissension in the family had been,, 
 previously, known to many persons. My opinion of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott's insanity, when these subjects were referred 
 to, in a way to put me on the defensive, I repeatedly ex- 
 pressed. But the subject of his past mismanagement of the 
 family funds, and of the consequent loss they had suffered, \ 
 was always careful to avoid, both before and after my con- 
 versations with Mr. Bowditch and Mr. Darracott. Whether 
 these were not proper and necessary occasions for me to state 
 to the party, and his counsel, what I did state, the reader 
 will judge. 
 
 I felt, at any rate, that the responsibility of taking care of 
 the family interests devolved peculiarly upon me, in conse- 
 quence of my knowledge of the past, and in consequence of 
 the death of Mr. Kirk Boott. The reader will remember, 
 that, in 1831, that gentleman had thrown upon me the whole 
 responsibility of acting for the family, and had bound him- 
 self to acknowledge, as his act, whatever deed I might con- 
 clude upon. [Ante, p. 280.] A new crisis had now arrived.. 
 He was gone, and he had left me, by his will, a trustee, 
 jointly with Mr. Lowell, for his family. Mr. Lowell was 
 acting, on the present occasion, avowedly, as the agent of 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, and, as it seemed to me, without much 
 regard to the interests of that trust. Mr. William Boott was 
 the only business man remaining in ^e family, and the only 
 
593 
 
 brother on this side of the Atlantic. I had informed him of 
 the facts known to me, and he concurred in my views. I 
 had no doubt, whatever Mr. Lowell's opinion may be, that 
 Mr. Kirk Boott, had he been living, would have concurred in 
 them also. Mr. Wells, I knew to be uninformed of matters, 
 necessary to be known, in forming a correct judgement on the 
 case. Although a gentleman of most estimable and amiable 
 qualities, I must respectfully insist, that he was by no means 
 a man of business, nor a man likely to take the stand, which, 
 in my judgement, circumstances then required. He had de- 
 clined doing so upon a former occasion, when I thought his 
 position in the family called upon him to take a decided part, 
 and would have enabled him, I think, had he so viewed it, to 
 have righted somewhat the family affairs, and, perhaps, to 
 have prevented much of the mischief, which followed. But, 
 as matters stood, he, though not a very active partisan him- 
 self, was the apparent and nominal head of a party, consist- 
 ing, chiefly, of ladies in the family, who looked on Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott as a persecuted man. Circumstances, besides, 
 which I shall presently explain, had placed a sort of barrier 
 between Mr. Wells and me, and had occasioned a cessation 
 of intercourse, though by no means of old regard on my part, 
 and, I hope, not on his. I did not look, therefore, for coun- 
 sel or co-operation in that quarter, and did not communicate 
 to him what I knew he would rather not hear, and perhaps, 
 mider surrounding influences, would not have greatly heeded. 
 Neither Mr. and Mrs. Lyman, nor Mr. and Mrs. Ralston, had 
 any interest in the question ; since they, by the settlement 
 with Mr. J. Wright Boott, in 1831, had assigned to him all 
 their reversionary right in the mansion-house and the trust 
 funds.* Dr. Francis Boott and Mr. James Boott, as well as 
 Mrs. Boott, were in London. It was in vain to attempt to 
 make them understand the whole of such a case by letter, 
 especially when there was disagreement among parties here. 
 I did not attempt it. Mr. William Boott, in the course of his 
 
 * Mrs. Ealston, afterwafcls, acquired an interest adverse to that of the other 
 heirs, under Mr. J. Wright Boott's will. But this did not exist at the time I 
 speak of, and I did not know of it till after Mr. Boott's death. 
 
594 
 
 correspondence with Dr. Boott, and Mrs. Brooks, by some 
 occasional letters, either to Mrs. Boott or to Dr. Boott, did 
 transmit certain statements, calculated to inform them, par- 
 tially, of the state of affairs. These were counteracted, in a 
 degree, by opposing statements from members of the Wells 
 family, and from Mrs. Ralston ; but very ineffectually, until 
 Mr. Lowell became a correspondent also ; and he, from his 
 apparently disinterested position, excellent judgement, and 
 supposed friendly regard for the interests of the family, soon 
 settled all questions in London, as he had done with most 
 persons here, conformably to his own views. 
 
 This subject I must return to. At present, I introduce it, 
 thus far, only to show that I was placed in a position, which 
 made it necessary for me to take the responsibility, in con- 
 junction with Mr. William Boott, of acting in opposition to 
 Mr. Lowell, — backed, as he was, by iminformed, and misin- 
 formed, portions of the family, — in carrying out such meas- 
 ures as my judgement dictated, for the preservation of the 
 family property, and by which measures it is to me a great 
 satisfaction to believe that I succeeded in preserving it. I was 
 called upon, in effect, to protect the interests of some of the 
 family against themselves, with the certainty of much tem- 
 porary dissatisfaction, but with the certainty, also, that, — if I 
 should take a different course, and a great part of the remain- 
 ing family property should be lost, in consequence of an ar- 
 rangement sanctioned and actively promoted by me, with 
 the knowledge I had of Mr. Boott's former management, — 
 the same parties would complain of me more loudly, and 
 with more reason, when they should come to know the 
 whole truth, and to feel its consequences. 
 
 I was particularly led to this view of the subject by a 
 knowledge of the fact, that Mr. Boott had obtained his moth- 
 er's consent, (that of the heirs, in his then state of mind, he 
 did not think worth asking,) to use the proceeds of the sale 
 of the mansion-house, to build for himself a house in the 
 country, with a hot-house, and garden, adapted to his tastes. 
 With his ideas and tendencies on such subjects, it was, and 
 
595 
 
 is my belief, that a great part of the family property would 
 have been found, in a few years, hopelessly buried there. 
 
 I mentioned this intention of Mr. Boott formerly, [B. p. 
 94.] and Mr. Lowell, who knows the fact, does not deny it. 
 Indeed, it appears, that when the account was settled, or 
 about to be settled, in a manner to effect the payment of Mr. 
 Lowell's debt, and a transfer of the remaining property to a 
 new trustee, (which would, of course, prevent the investment 
 proposed by Mr. Boott,) Mr. Lowell held out the idea to Mr. 
 Boott that he himself might advance the money, necessary 
 to enable Mr. Boott to build this place in the country. I 
 refer for this, to the statement of Mr. Lowell's witness, the 
 coroner, who says, that Mr. Lowell, (amongst all the other 
 things confidentially communicated to a coroner's jury,) 
 mentioned, " that he, [Mr. Lowell.] had advised Mr. Boott to 
 retire into the country, upon a sale of the mansion-house, and 
 had offered to advance to him the means of building himself 
 a place." [L. p. 12.] 
 
 This circumstance I never before heard of; but the other 
 circumstances, above mentioned, are those, under which I 
 declined to execute the deed ; and what I said to Mr. Bow- 
 ditch and to Mr. Darracott was, I believe, the whole length 
 and breadth of my impeachment of Mr. Boott's credit in his 
 trust, at any time before this controversy ^vith Mr. Lowell, 
 except to the extent stated, in the confidential family com- 
 munications above alluded to, or in private conversations 
 with Mr. Lowell himself, (who knew all that I did, and, it 
 seems, a good deal more,) and like conversations with his 
 counsel, and with my own counsel, after the question about 
 a change of trustee had arisen. Indeed, the surprise of most 
 readers at the statements of my former pamphlet, — notwith- 
 standing the previous rumours, so commonly prevalent to 
 my disadvantage, and the excitement caused by the manner 
 of Mr. Boott's death, and the fact that a litigation had been 
 for some time pending concerning the probate of his will, — 
 must be a convincing proof to all candid persons, that I had 
 not been very industrious in circulating, what Mr. Lowell is 
 pleased to call, my defamations of Mr. Boott. 
 
596 
 
 CHAPTER LVIIL 
 
 PROMPT AGENCY IN PHEPARING FOE AND MAKIl^G UP THE ACCOUNT, 
 
 MK. Lowell's responsibility for its substantial truth. 
 
 I ought, perhaps, here to mention, that, until after the 
 death of Mr. Boott, Mr. Lowell and myself were on extremely 
 good terms ; and though I soon perceived that we were act- 
 ing in opposition, when we approached the question of a 
 change of trusteeship, and that he had, for some reason, a 
 point to carry, as well as I, I attributed that, at the time, to 
 nothing hut the ardour of his zeal and friendship for Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, whose cause he had espoused. The point, 
 immediately in contest, I must do him the justice to say, he 
 was never known to yield ; but he always agreed with me, 
 in our private conversations, when there was no point to 
 settle, and no by-stander to witness them, that, had the fam* 
 ily property been differently managed, it would have been 
 much larger than it was. 
 
 A particular proof of some of these conversations, at least, 
 now stands in print ; for the letter of Mrs. Brooks to her 
 mother, dated December 11, 1844, printed by me, contains 
 this passage : — ' 
 
 " Mr. Brooks has, this week, had two long conversations with Mr. 
 Lowell, who said he agreed entirely with Mr. Brooks in his views, 
 and Mr. Lowell denied ever having said, or thought, that Mr. Boott 
 had managed the estate well, or that he considered him a Jit person to 
 have the care of the property. Mr. Lowell then went on to sajj ' If 
 you, Mr. Brooks, or I, or any good man of business, had had the care 
 of that estate, what a noble property it would have been ! Mr. Boott 
 should have been worth $100,000 ; each heir should have had a hand- 
 some fortune, and Mrs. Boott, with more money to spend yearly than 
 she ever has had, should have laid by $50,000 to have bequeathed 
 as she liked ; and that it was a sort of miracle that any thing wiS 
 left.' " [B. App. p. 48.] 
 
 This, it will be remembered, is the letter, which, — in con- 
 
597 
 
 sequence of Mrs. Brooks's request to her mother that she 
 would "write to Mr. Lowell, and ask him as a man of 
 honour, if it is not all true," — was sent out from England by- 
 Mrs. Boott to Mr. Lowell. What answer Mr. Lowell made 
 to that appeal, in his communications to Mrs. Boott, I do not 
 know. But he received the letter, and neither by any com- 
 munication to me, then or since, nor in his pamphlet, purport- 
 ing to answer my former remarks, has he ever undertaken to 
 deny a syllable of the contents of that letter, although one 
 passage in it, alluding to the remarkable coincidence between 
 the balance of Mr. Boott's probate account and the amount 
 of his debt to Mr. Lowell, excited him, considerably, at the 
 time, and brought him to me to complain of the fact that 
 Mrs. Brooks should have so written. It is the same passage, 
 which he affects to dismiss, in his pamphlet, under the de- 
 nomination of a-" choice extract." [L. p. 110.] The " Reply" 
 alludes, in one or two other places, to the letter ; but never 
 for the purpose of disavowing any thing mentioned in it, as 
 done or said by him. So that I have, now, in print, his own 
 tacit admission of the truth of my foregoing statement, and I 
 hold him so far pinned upon that point. Yet, avoiding all 
 notice of these former conversations, the burden of the 
 "Reply" is, that Mr. Boott was a " remarkably good man- 
 ager of trust property !" [L. p. 97.] 
 
 But I return to narrative. The moment my conversations 
 with Mr. Bowditch and with Mr. Darracott were reported to 
 Mr. Lowell, he, manifestly, perceived danger and difficulty, 
 which required prompt action. His first effort was to per- 
 suade, and even to talk of compelling, Mr. Darracott, as that 
 gentleman told me, to accept a deed from Mr. Boott and Mrs. 
 Boott alone. Failing in that, he saw, at once, that a change 
 of trusteeship was inevitable, and that this would, necessa- 
 rily, involve a settlement of an executor's account, or, at 
 least, of something that might pass for one. Not a word, be 
 it observed, had been said by me, or by any body, about 
 accounts at this time. The bargain of sale was in April, 
 1844. [L. p. 196.] My conversation with Mr. Bowditch was 
 immediately after, when he had first begun to look at the 
 
598 
 
 title under the will of Mr. Boott, senior, and, from the tenor 
 of that instrument, perceived the necessity of deeds of con- 
 firmation from the heirs. I had said nothing about requiring 
 a settlement of accounts, though I said I could not sign the 
 deed, if Mr. Boott was to be the trustee. Mr. William Boott's 
 letter to his brother, calling for accounts, was not till June 3, 
 1844. [B. App. p. 39.] No such call was made by him be- 
 fore that time, nor by me at any time. It is true that Mr. 
 William Boott had previously mentioned, in a private letter 
 to Dr. Boott of London, dated March 31, 1844, according to 
 an extract printed by Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 197.] that he enter- 
 tained the idea of obtaining a settlement of accounts through 
 the judge of probate. May 1, 1844, it seems, he wrote again, 
 to say that this step would be unnecessary, because it was 
 found that the heirs must sign a deed of the house, which he 
 should not do until Mr. J. Wright Boott should have given 
 up the trust. [L. p. 197.] It also appears, by a letter from 
 Dr. Boott to Mr. William Boott, dated April 18, 1844, of 
 which an extract was printed by me, [B. App. p. 36.] that 
 Mrs. Boott, at that date, wrote to Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
 "requiring him to settle his accounts." But all this private 
 correspondence was, of course, unknown to Mr. Lowell at 
 that time. It was equally so to me. Indeed Mrs. Boott's 
 letter to Mr. J. Wright Boott, " requiring him to settle his 
 accounts," could hardly have been received in this country 
 when Mr. Lowell made the first movement, of which I am 
 now about to speak. 
 
 That movement was sending out drafts of releases, to be 
 executed in London by Mrs. Boott and Dr. Boott, in anticipa- 
 tion of the accounts, which Mr. Lowell must, then, have intend- 
 ed to prepare, and to get passed in the probate office ; and that 
 intention must have been formed in consequence of my con- 
 versations with Mr. Bowditch and Mr. Darracott, — ^nothing 
 else, that I am aware of, having occurred here to suggest it. 
 I state this as a fact, but the reader will understand that it is 
 only my inference, which he will adopt, or not, as he pleases. 
 The releases, he will find on inspection, are such as could 
 not have been drawn by a foreign lawyer, unacquainted with 
 
599 
 
 the domestic particulars they state. They were, manifestly, 
 upon their face, drawn up here, in Boston, and they were 
 executed in London, as their date declares. May 29, 1844. 
 [B. App. pp. 37-39.] That is, they were executed, there, a 
 few weeks, only, after my conversation with Mr. Bowditch 
 here, and several days before Mr. William Boott's call on his 
 brother for the accounts. 
 
 Besides, I spoke of this preparing of the releases, formerly, 
 as the act of Mr. Lowell, [B. p. 95.] and he does not deny it. 
 But I do not speak of it, now, as a thing in itself faulty, — on 
 the contrary, it indicates an uncommonly quick perception 
 of the nature of the task, which lay before him, and great 
 promptitude in preparing for its execution. The task obvi- 
 ously was to present a' plausible account, which would pro- 
 vide for his own debt, cover up the deficiencies of the 
 executor, and suggest no superfluous inquiries, while it must 
 be put in such form, that Mr. Boott would be likely to adopt 
 it. The first preparation for this consisted in getting releases 
 from parties, who could not, by possibility, know what the 
 account would be, upon which their releases were to operate. 
 For my part, I never heard of the releases imtil long after 
 the account was settled ; nor, in fact, until I found them on 
 the records of the probate ofiice, when I was preparing my 
 former pamphlet ; but, how, when, and why, they were pre- 
 pared, has now become plain from all the circumstances. 
 
 Another more remarkable instance of the same commenda- 
 ble qualities I may mention here, by the way, in reference to 
 a fact once before alluded to. Some two or three years be- 
 fore Mr. Lowell found any occasion to use them, that I know 
 of, he had contrived to get into his hands, from the parties 
 in London, the whole private family correspondence in their 
 possession. This is scarcely an inference. For my corre- 
 spondence with Mr. Lowell occurred in December, 1846, and 
 Mr. Lowell tells us that the family letters, from which he 
 makes so many extracts iu his pamphlet, had, at that time, 
 been in his possession nearly eighteen months ; [L. p. 173.] 
 which goes back to the summer of 1845, shortly after Mr. 
 Boott's death. By that event, Mr. Lowell, as executor of 
 
600 
 
 Mr. Boott, became the possessor of all Mr. Boott's papers, 
 and of all the account books, if any existed, prior to those of 
 Boott & Lowell. The latter were already in his hands as 
 the liquidator of the business of that firm. Every vestige, 
 that remained, of the accounts of the several firms, of which 
 Mr. Boott had been a member, and of all his settlements with 
 his partners, and of all his transactions concerning his father's 
 estate, were, thus, in the sole custody of Mr. Lowell ; but he 
 could not be content till he had got the whole family corre- 
 spondence also ; and the confiding family seem to have, 
 unhesitatingly, delivered this confidential budget into Mr. 
 Lowell's keeping ! We shall presently see what use he 
 makes of it. 
 
 Now this promptitude of action in getting the releases, 
 needful to effect the settlement of a contemplated account, 
 naturally leads us to look for equal promptitude in the prer 
 paring of the account, which the releases were designed to 
 pass ; — and this opens questions of some importance to Mr. 
 Lowell. Who made this account of 1844? When and how 
 was it made ? And how came Mr. Boott to sign and present 
 an account, so essentially defective, so extremely loose and 
 general, and claiming, so unjustly and untruly, a cash balance 
 of $25,000 as due to himself? 
 
 Mr. Lowell complains, with truth, that, in my former pam- 
 phlet, I spoke, as I have done throughout my present re- 
 marks, of this account as an account made by him. [L. p. 
 30.] I did so, in conformity with his own statement to the 
 jury, according to the declaration of Dr. Palmer, [Ante, p. 77.] 
 and in conformity with his own statement to me, and also 
 in conformity with his several statements to Mr. William 
 Boott, and to Mr. Franklin Dexter, at other times, as reported 
 to me by those gentlemen. [B. p. 121.] 
 
 I stated further, upon the authority of those gentlemen, 
 that Mr. Lowell, said that Mr. J. Wright Boott had refused 
 to sign this account ; and, upon the authority of Mr. Dexter, 
 that he refused to sign it, as Mr. Lowell said, because it made 
 him {Mr. Boott,) a creditor of the estate ; and upon my own 
 authority, I stated, that Mr. Lowell said to me, not only that 
 
601 
 
 Mr. Boott had so refused and for that reason, but that he 
 persisted in his refusal for nearly six months. [B. p. 121.] 
 But, while I attributed to Mr. Lowell the drawing up of 
 the account, as it stands, and the overcoming of Mr. Boott's 
 first reluctance to its adoption, I did not impute to him any 
 considerable blame for having framed the account, as it was 
 framed, either in form or in substance ; nor even for having 
 induced Mr. Boott to adopt it. In my then state of informa- 
 tion on the subject, I confined my complaint of Mr. Lowell, 
 respecting the accoimt, almost entirely, to the use he had 
 made of it. This will appear by the following extracts : — 
 
 " It will, of course, be understood, that the foregoing statements, 
 concerning the accounts and the mode of their adjustment, are not 
 made from any desire to undo what has been done, nor with reference 
 to any pecuniary interests involved affecting myself. Well knowing, 
 substantially, the true state of the case, I freely released, Mrs. Brooks 
 consenting, all our claims on the executor in 1833, and we released 
 them over again in 1844. There is no pecuniary interest, therefore, 
 in the question. But in the next place, I desire to have it under- 
 stood, that I make no great complaint of Mr. Lowell for the manner, 
 in which the principal account is stated. He had no materials, from 
 which he could easily have made a better one." [B. p. 123.] 
 
 I then went on to state the paucity of materials, which I 
 then supposed to exist, and the supposed reasons for draw- 
 ing up the account in that form, so as " to give an appear- 
 ance of reality, sufficient for a plausible statement to stand 
 on the records of the probate office," and I proceeded as 
 follows : — 
 
 "Nor do I think it greatly objectionable, that the account should 
 have been (though unnecessarily,) so stated as to presen! ihe aspect 
 of a cash advance, by the executor, of $25,000 beyond his receipts, 
 considering that the stock held by Mr. Lowell as a security for the 
 money due to him, stood of record, since 1831, as a conveyance by 
 Mr. Wright Boott, in the capacity of executor, to Mr. Lowell, acting 
 in the capacity of trustee for somebody, and that this form of state- 
 ment went to shield his friend and former partner, in whom he felt a 
 strong interest, and for whom he was acting in this business, from 
 ostensible misconduct in his trust, apparent on the public records. 
 
 " But that of which I do complain, and which I confess myself 
 astonished at, knowing as I do what facts were known to Mr. Lowell, 
 aside from mere figures, is the use, which he has thought proper to 
 make of this account, in vindication of his friend, at the expense of 
 
 76 
 
602 
 
 myself audi others, whom h& cliarges with misconduct, on the hasis of 
 this' same aceountf as if it were a reed exposition of Mr. Wright 
 Boott's ffood management of the estate, and proof of the injustice and 
 unreasonableness of those, who thought he had mismanaged it, and 
 was unfit for a trustee." [B* p. 124]; 
 
 It never had occurred to me, at the time of the writing of 
 the foregoing passages, that Mr. Lowell would pretend to 
 take the ground, which is taken in his " Reply ;" namely, 
 that this account, instead of standing on the release of 1833 
 as a transaction, which superseded and extinguished all prior 
 accountability, was intended to be, and isj a literal and' full 
 account of the whole executorship from the beginning, waiv- 
 ing the effect of all previous voluntary releases. [L. p. 31.] 
 This allegation, coupled with the facts, since discovered, 
 concerning the extensive stock transactions of the executor, 
 and his use of the estate's funds, during the period of the 
 house of Boott & Lowell, and the direct agency of that 
 house in some, at least, of those operations, places this whole 
 branch of the controversy on a new footing ; and it becomes 
 highly materia], now, to understand upon what footing, pre- 
 cisely, Mr. Lowell really means to rest this part of his case. 
 
 In one place, we are told : — 
 
 " / [Mr. Lowell] made up the accounts from the data, he [Mr. 
 'Booti] furnished," [L. p. 31.] 
 
 In another : — 
 
 " It will also be observed that all that portion of the accounts, 
 which involves, bi/ necessary implication, the profit and loss of either 
 of the firms of Kirk Boott S^ Sons, was stated on Mr. Boott's personal 
 knowledge and responsibility." [L. p. 36.] 
 
 Elsewhere it is said, in reference to " the partnerships of 
 Kirk Boott & Sons," that the "final liquidation of the whole 
 business was detailed in the books of Boott &^ Lowell," and 
 that Mr. Boott " was therefore enabled to render fuUjusUce 
 to every one but himself." [L. p. 59.] 
 
 The same idea is conveyed in another passage, which 
 avers : — 
 
603 
 
 " The residual capital, collected and accounted for hy Boolt ^ Low- 
 ell, was the true measure of the sum realized from his father's estate, 
 beyond the amount of the trust funds, the real estate, and the specific 
 legacies." [L. p. 45.] 
 
 And again, we have this account of the matter : — 
 
 " When Mr. Boott was called upon by his brother "William, in 
 June, 1844, to settle his accounts at the probate oiBce, he applied to 
 me for that portion of them which related to the time when he had 
 ieen my partner, which I furnished to Mm. Subsequently, he brought 
 me aU the papers which he had collected relating to his accounts, that 
 I might put them in form for him. This was the whole extent of my 
 agency in the matter. I do not know upon what authority Mr. 
 Brooks undertakes to attribute to me any further responsibility than 
 that of having aided Mr. Boott to the extent above specified. I made 
 up the account certainly ; but it was from the materials furnished to 
 me, and on the principles indicated by Mr. Boott himself." [L. p. 30.] 
 
 It is thus admitted, unequivocally, that Mr. Lowell " made 
 up the account ;" but, it is said, " from the materials fur- 
 nished," " and on the principles indicated, by Mr. Boott 
 himself ;" and there is a distinct disclaimer of all " personal 
 knowledge and responsibility" of Mr. Lowell, concerning 
 " all that portion of the accoimts, which involves, by neces- 
 sary implication, the profit and loss of either of the firms of 
 Kirk Boott & Sons ;" and yet, it is said, referring to both of 
 those firms, " the final liquidation of the whole business was 
 detailed in the books of Boott ^ Lowell ;" and that Mr. 
 Boott " was therefore enabled to render full justice to every 
 one but himself;" and that the residual capital collected by 
 Boott (fc Lowell, " Wcis the true m,easure of the sum realized 
 from his father's estate, beyond the amount of the trust funds, 
 the real estate, and the specific legacies ;" and although 
 Mr. Boott, it is also said, " brought me [Mr. Lowell] all the 
 papers," it appears that he, (Mr. Boott,) had first " applied to 
 me, [Mr. Lowell] for that portion of them, [the accounts] 
 which related to the time when he had been m/y partner, — 
 which I furnished to him." 
 
 Now the reader must understand, from all this, what he 
 can. I would carefully avoid the smallest injustice to an 
 opponent, whose language I quote. But, according to my un- 
 
604 
 
 derstanding of it, Mr. Lowell means to say this : — 1. What- 
 ever the books of Boott & Lowell contain, relating to the 
 subject matter of this account, that much I, [Mr. Lowell] 
 extracted from those books, and furnished to Mr. Boott. 
 2. Mr. Boott, afterwards, handed to me [Mr. Lowell,] " all 
 the papers, which he had collected relating to his accounts," 
 — including, of course, the memoranda, which Mr. Lowell 
 had furnished to him. 3. The books of Boott & Lowell 
 detailed the final liquidation of the whole business of the 
 two preceding firms, and, consequently, showed all that Mr. 
 Boott had received from those firms, belonging to his father^s 
 estate, although they did not show all, that he had paid to 
 the heirs ; so that, by means of my [Mr. Lowell's] statement 
 from the books of Boott & Lowell, Mr. Boott was " enabled 
 to render full justice to every one but himself," — ^the residual 
 capital, collected by Boott & Lowell, being " the true measure 
 of the sum realized from his father's estate, beyond the trust 
 funds," «fcc. 4. From these materials, (which Mr. Boott, it 
 seems, could make nothing out of, satisfactory to himself,) I 
 [Mr. Lowell] drew up the account, in its present form, as a 
 full and true account of the whole executorship. 
 
 Am I not right, in this interpretation of the effect of Mr. 
 Lowell's language, in the several passages above collected? 
 
 If I am, let us look at this account, [L. pp. 38, 39. — B. 
 App. pp. 43, 44.] and consider, what could have been the 
 papers and materials furnished by Mr. Boott, besides those 
 extracts or memoranda, from the books of Boott & Lowell, 
 which Mr. Lowell had previously _/MrM«sAerf to him. 
 
 The account debits the executor with the amount of the 
 inventory, and with the foot of the probate account of 1818. 
 Probate copies of those papers are the only possible materials 
 for those entries. 
 
 On the credit side, all the items of the account, except two, 
 consist of specific articles in the inventory, — which were 
 only to be delivered over, specifically, to the persons entitled 
 to them, — and of probate fees, which are usually endorsed 
 upon the copies from the probate office. The " materials," 
 then, thus far, were only the usual office copies of former pro- 
 bate papers. They contained no new subject of account. 
 
605 
 
 Next comes the great debit, and the great corresponding 
 credit of $274,686 36, for income received on the trust fund, 
 and paid over " to, or for account and by order of, the wid- 
 ow." Now there is no pretence that Mr. Boott ever took 
 receipts from his mother, or had any accounts settled with 
 her. Let Mr. Lowell produce one if he can. On the con- 
 trary, he does not pretend to deny my former assertion, that 
 this item, on the credit side, rests for its voucher, entirely, 
 on the general release, obtained from Mrs. Boott before the 
 account was made up, and obtained in a form suitable to 
 pass whatever allowances the account might claim. There 
 was no other paper relative to this credit, which Mr. Boott 
 could have produced. 
 
 On the debit side, how was this large item made up ? Was 
 it not a mere computation? The stocks, composing the 
 account of 1818, and the stocks, afterwards bought, and 
 treated in the account of 1844 as the executor's, told, very 
 nearly, their own story. The books of the firms preceding 
 that of Boott & Lowell, it is said, were destroyed. Any oth- 
 er accounts, kept by Mr. Boott, are not pretended. If there 
 were any, let them come forth. But, except for income on 
 the stocks of 1818, received before the existence of the house 
 of Boott &/ Lowell, their books, and Mr. Lowell's own books, 
 would show, during the whole period of the account, either 
 the income actually received, or the rate of dividend, by 
 which it might be estimated ; and the earlier income, from 
 1818 to 1822, was, from the nature of the stocks, not diffi- 
 cult to approximate, very nearly, as I think I have already 
 shown. [Ante, p. 436-439.] I can not believe that there 
 was one scrap of material, except the release, furnished by 
 Mr. Boott, towards this great item on either side of the 
 accoimt. It was all, I suspect, mere estimate and computa- 
 tion. If not, let Mr. Lowell produce whatever there is to 
 show for it. 
 
 On the credit side, what remains ? One item only, — the 
 $90,000, said to have been paid to the heirs. For that, and 
 more, as an aggregate result, including settlements of Mr. 
 Boott with his different partners, there may have been some 
 
606 
 
 receipts or other papers, proving more or less of pa3nnent. 
 And these, I submit to the reader, are a,ll " the material?," 
 which Mr. Boott is likely to have furnished, on which any 
 single entry in this account is founded, unless it were title 
 deeds and certificates of stock, as evidences of the property, 
 admitted to be on hand ; and most of these must have been 
 held by Mr. Lowell, the property being under pledge to him. 
 If there was any thing else, let Mr. Lowell show it. 
 
 To return, then, to the debit side of the account. Except 
 the results of the old probate papers, and the mere computa" 
 tion of the aggregate amount of income received, there is not 
 an item stated on that side of the account, which did not 
 come out of the books of Boott & Lowell, though no one is 
 specified as derived from that source, except the large sum of 
 $69,389 99, said to have been received by the executor, "in 
 liquidation of the ou.t§tanding property of Kirk Boott & 
 Sons," And the items, coming from those books, are, let it 
 be noted, with the credit of $90,000 paid to the heirs, the 
 whole material portion of the account, in which the heirs were 
 directly concerned, 
 
 The income on the trust fund was nothing to them, except 
 as they were interested to see justice done to their mother. 
 The debit of the inventory, and the credits for its contents, 
 specifically delivered, were mere matters of forni. The 
 $116,783 95, drawn from the old probate account of 1818, 
 was only re-stating that, which the executor had formerly 
 charged himself with. There is no new subject of account 
 with the heirs brought in, except the entries derived from 
 the books of Boott Sf Lowell ; and those items of the account, 
 which are derived from those books, purport to represent, as 
 Mr. Lowell admits, [L. p. 45.] the whole estate of Mr. Boott, 
 senior, except that portion of it, which had been originally 
 invested for the trust fund, according to the probate account 
 of 1818, and the specific property, real estate included, named 
 in the inventory of that year. In relation to the whole 
 essence of this account of 1844, except alleged payments to 
 the heirs, Mr. Lowell, it seems, was, virtually, as much an 
 accounting party as Mr. Boott. Yet, the " Reply " puts it to 
 
607 
 
 the reader, as if Mr. Lowell, knowing nothing, himself, of the 
 more important matters in this account, had merely thrown 
 together certain materials furnished to him by Mr. Boott, of 
 which certain memoranda of entries, previously found by 
 Mr. Lowell in the books of Boott & Lowell, had constituted 
 a small part ! 
 
 The " Reply" professes entire ignorance, or, at least, not 
 sufficient acquaintance to speak with confidence, " of the re- 
 sult of the liquidation of the outstanding business of the first 
 firm " ; [L. p. 27.] and, yet it says, (referring expressly, to 
 both the former firms, — " the partnerships of Kirk Boott & 
 Sons,") that "the final liquidation of the whole business was 
 detailed in the books of Boott & Lowell." [L. p. 59.] "All 
 that portion of the account, which involves, by necessary 
 implication, the profit and loss of either of the firms of Kirk 
 Boott & Sons," we are told, " was stated on Mr. Boott's per- 
 sonal knowledge and responsibility ;" [L. p. 36.] and, yet, it 
 appears that there is no portion of this account, which does 
 involve their profit and loss, by necessary implication or 
 otherwise, except that portion of it, which is comprised in 
 the entry of the large sum received from Boott &> Lowell ; 
 for, all else in the account, representing original capital, is 
 only the inventory of real estate and specific chattels, and 
 the amount of the particular trust funds, which the will 
 directed to be withdrawn from the house of Kirk Boott &. 
 Sons, before its liquidation began, and without regard to its 
 profit and loss. [See Will and Codicil, B. App. pp. 5-9.] 
 
 Now, Mr. Lowell, possessing the books of Boott *fc Lowell, 
 and being the virtual accounting party for that house, was 
 surely bound to have stated, in this account, every thing, 
 affecting the interest of the estate, which those books can 
 disclose. Whatever came from the executor to Boott & 
 Lowell, and whatever the executor did with the estate's 
 funds through Boott & Lowell, Mr. Lowell, as a party to 
 those transactions, was peculiarly bound to exhibit, in a dis- 
 tinct and intelligible form. Further than that, whatever ac- 
 count of Mr. Boott, individually, was kept by the house in 
 its books, either with the estate or with the heirs, or of Mr. 
 
608 
 
 Boott's own personal transactions with funds of the estate, 
 the duty was, at least, as much upon Mr. Lowell, when he 
 undertook to make up the executor's account, as it was upon 
 Mr. Boott, to exhibit, truly and faithfully, the items therein 
 entered, since he was the copartner of Mr. Boott, and the 
 books of the copartnership were in his keeping. And when, 
 instead of drawing off the items, he undertakes to state, as 
 he does, only general results, he takes upon himself, (I sub- 
 mit to the reader, ) the whole responsibility of the truth and 
 completeness of the account, so far as it is, or might be, de- 
 rived from those books, and can not now be allowed to shift 
 off that responsibility upon a friend in his grave. 
 
 But, when we come to look at other evidence than the 
 account itself, we see, that the two and a half years of Boott 
 «fc Lowell, comprise the most active portion of Mr. Boott's 
 dealings with the stocks, admitted to have formed the original 
 trust fund of 1818, and also, with the stocks, finally treated 
 as representing, in 1844, the trust fund in part, and, as we 
 are told, Mr. Boott's own property, in part, and the property 
 of his wards, in part. His two subscriptions to fifty-six 
 shares and to forty shares of Merrimack stock, ostensibly for 
 himself, but out of which come the seventy-one shares of the 
 account of 1844, fall within that period. His purchase and 
 sale of Mr. Dehon's estate, ostensibly for himself, leaving the 
 stable on hand at $3500, charged to the estate by the ac- 
 count of 1844, fall within the same period. So do his sales 
 of the old stocks of the trust fund of 1818, to the amount of 
 f 52,000 and upwards ; and those sales were made, as it turns 
 out, either by the executor to Boott 6f Lowell, or else, if trans- 
 ferred to Boott & Lowell, as agents for the executor, the 
 sales were made by Mr. Lowell himself, while Mr. Boott 
 was absent in England. Yet, of all these matters, not one 
 word is disclosed in this account, — except the bare fact, that, 
 at some time, left to be guessed at, between 1818 and 1844, 
 certain gains and certain losses resulted from certain sales 
 by the executor of the stocks on hand in 1818 ! 
 
 Why were these omissions ? And what does Mr. Lowell 
 mean, by saying that putting the accounts in form for Mr. 
 
609 
 
 Boott, upon " materials furnished," and according to " prin- 
 ciples indicated" by Mr. Boott, was the whole extent of his 
 agency in the matter ? [L. p. 30.] And what, by the way, 
 were " all the documents," which, he says, he offered to 
 show to Judge Warren ? [L. p. 35.] 
 
 CHAPTER LIX, 
 
 BT MH. LOWELL. 
 
 The " Reply" informs us, that Mr. Boott affirmed, " that 
 he had paid to each of the heirs more than the $10,000 
 charged to them, but that he was determined to bring in an 
 account that could not be disputed." [L. p. 31.] Nor is it 
 disputed that $90,000, in the whole, (as the account claims,) 
 and more, had been paid among the heirs. The whole ques- 
 tion is on the other side of the accoimt, — ^how much had 
 been received ? — and it is remarkable, that Mr. Lowell does 
 not pretend, that Mr. Boott made any statement to him, 
 whatever, on that point. It is merely said, that, — " He, [Mr. 
 Boott] never expressed any doubt of being able to show, that 
 he had never received from the estate more than he had cred- 
 ited in the account." [L. p. 31. J But did any body directly 
 ask him ? Mr. Lowell made out the account ; and all that 
 part of it, which relates to the amount received, beyond what 
 Mr. Boott had formerly charged himself with, by the account 
 of 1818, as derived from the old firm of Kirk Boott «fc Sons, 
 was furnished by Mr. Lowell out of the books of Boott &" 
 Lowell. If he expressed no doubt on this point, why should 
 Mr. Boott ? Must not Mr. Boott, himself, have gone for in- 
 formation to these same books, if they contain, as Mr. Lowell 
 
610 
 
 says they do, " the final liquidation of the whole business" of 
 the former firms ? 
 
 We are further told, that when the papers were first brought 
 to Mr. Lowell, he asked Mr. Boott, why he did not commence 
 his accounts from the date of the discharge ; and the answer 
 was : — " No, Mr. Lowell, I am determined to begin from the 
 beginning, and show that the estate has not been wasted in 
 my hands." [L. p. 31.] Such, then, was the exact tenor of 
 the commission from Mr. Boott, upon which Mr. Lowell un- 
 dertook to draw up the account. He was to state an account, 
 from the beginning, that would show that the estate had not 
 been wasted in Mr. Boott's hands. This he accomplishes in 
 the manner we have seen, and submits it to Mr. Boott, with- 
 out any inquiry, so far as appears, upon a most important 
 point ; namely, whether Mr. Boott had received any thing for 
 the estate, in the interval of nearly four years, between May, 
 1818, when his former probate account was passed, and Jan- 
 uary 1, 1822, when the partnership of Boott & Lowell began? 
 According to the account of 1844, the whole remaining 
 money, therein included, after that, which had been already 
 shown by the account of 1818, came from Boott & Lowell. 
 And all, the " Reply" has to say upon this subject, is, that 
 Mr. Boott, — not being asked, — "never expressed any doubt" 
 that he was charged with all his receipts. " The result," 
 according to the " Reply," " was the one exhibited at the 
 probate office, showing a balance in his [Mr. Boott's] favor, 
 for advances, of f 3700." [L. p. 31. J But the paper showed 
 no such thing, to any common observation. What it showed, 
 upon its face, was, — " cash balance, due to the executor, 
 $25,215 45." 
 
 " This," says Mr. Lowell, " did not surprize me." [L. p. 
 31.] Of course, not. Why should it ? Did not he make the 
 account ? But he adds, " it appeared to be what Mr. Boott ex- 
 pected." [L. p.31.] Indeed! How did that appear ? Did he 
 not refuse to sign it ? I assert, on the authority of Mr. Low- 
 ell's statement, to me, that, "for nearly six months, he posi- 
 tively refused to sign that, or any other account, which repre- 
 sented himself to be a creditor of the estate." [B. p. 121.] 
 
611 
 
 I assert, further, on the authority of Mr. William Boott, and 
 of Mr. Franklin Dexter, that Mr. Lowell made the same 
 declaration to each of those gentlemen, except as to the 
 length of time, during which the refusal continued, and ex- 
 cept that I believe he did not state the reason of the refusal 
 to Mr. William Boott, as he did to Mr. Dexter, and to me. 
 But what says Mr. Lowell? He says, very truly, that I 
 charge him with having induced Mr. Boott, reluctantly, to 
 adopt the account, and he then proceeds thus : — 
 
 " Now. so far is this from being true, that Mr. Boott never for one 
 moment refused to sign the accounts, or expressed any doubt of his 
 being entitled to the balance they exhibited. He did, however, inti- 
 mate an intention of refusing to accept it. This occurred at an inter- 
 view at Mr. Lorinfs house a few days before the account was pre- 
 sented." [L. pp. 32, 33.] 
 
 He means, of course, a few days before it was presented at 
 the probate office ; and a letter from Mr. Charles G. Loring is 
 cited, which says : — 
 
 " Mr. Boott expressed his firm conviction, that, if he had charged 
 all, that had been expended for the heirs, and could exhibit a detailed 
 statement of his appropriations of the property in his hands, a larger 
 balance would be found due to him ; but he seemed disposed to reliTi- 
 quish any claim for that exhibited, under the pressure of the circum- 
 stances, in which he was placed by his inability to render detailed 
 accounts, and the imputations made upon him, of abuse of his trust." 
 [L. p. 33.] 
 
 Such was the aspect of the case, as presented to Mr. Loring 
 by his clients. No wonder that, upon such a case, Mr. Loring 
 should have " designated the course, he [Mr. Boctt] pro- 
 posed as Q,uixotic." [L. p. 33.] Here was an account, 
 drawn up by Mr. Lowell, in whom Mr. Loring naturally 
 placed the utmost confidence, both as an accurate accountant, 
 and as a disinterested friend of ail parties, purporting to ex- 
 hibit a cash balance of $25,000 due to the executor. And 
 here is Mr. Boott, whom Mr. Loring considered to be a per- 
 fectly sane man, (though, in this instance, a little " Quixotic,") 
 and a gentleman, on whose assertions the utmost confidence 
 might be placed, telling him, that, if he had charged all he 
 had expended for the heirs, and could exhibit detailed state- 
 
612 
 
 ments, a larger balance would be found due to him, and yet 
 proposing to relinquish, voluntarily, (nobody having asked 
 or suggested it, or having made any objection whatever to 
 the account, — for nobody, but those three persons, had then 
 ever seen it,) a clear balance, which is found due to him, 
 according to that account, of f 25,000 ! 
 
 And for what reasons ? They are two. First, because he 
 could not exhibit certain details, which would show a larger 
 balance due to him ; and, secondly, because the persons, in 
 whose favour the balance shown was to be relinquished, were 
 falsely imputing to him an abuse of his trust ! What a mis- 
 erable appearance does this make, after what we have seen 
 about the reality of affairs behind this account, and after all 
 Mr. Lowell's high flown figures about Mr. Boott's tendering 
 the issue, throwing down the gauntlet, defying his assailants 
 to the proof, [L. p. 206.J &c., &c., &c. ! Especially, how 
 poor does it appear, when we find that all the most important 
 period of the account lies within the range of the books of 
 Boott & Lowell, and that there was no manner of dilRculty 
 in exhibiting the minutest details of that interesting period ! 
 I should be sorry, indeed, if I believed, as Mr. Loring does, 
 and as Mr. Lowell, also, professes to believe, that Mr. Boott 
 was not insane, at the time of that conversation, upon all 
 topics connected with his administration of the family prop- 
 erty, and his accountability to some of the heirs of his father's 
 estate. 
 
 We are, also, furnished with a letter from another gentle- 
 man, Mr. E. G. Loring, the present Judge of Probate, to the 
 effect, that he was informed by Mr. Lowell, that, "when the 
 balance, shown " by this account, " was communicated to 
 Mr. Boott, he replied, that he always had known the estate 
 was in debt to him, but that he did not wish to stand urging 
 demands, as a creditor, against his brothers and sisters." 
 [L. p. 34.] NoAv this, it will be observed, is only another 
 statement by Mr. Lowell, coming through Judge Loring. 
 That gentleman only repeats what Mr. Lowell told him. 
 Yet the account, as now expounded by Mr. Lowell does not 
 purport to urge the balance, which it shows, as a demand 
 
613 
 
 against the brothers and sisters, but merely, as the "Reply" 
 assures us, to reclaim so much of Mr. Boott's own private 
 property, which had become mingled with property of the 
 estate, in consequence of an agreement with me ! [L. p. 41.] 
 I leave it to Mr. Lowell to determine whether Mr. Boott's 
 misapprehension on that point, as formerly reported by him- 
 self to Judge Loring, tends to prove sanity or insanity. 
 
 But what is it, which Mr. Lowell now means to say is not 
 true ? — that Mr. Boott refused to sign the account ? or that 
 Mr. Lowell said he so ■ refused ? For these are two different 
 questions. If Mr. Lowell means to assert, now, that he, Mr. 
 Lowell, did not state, that Mr. Boott had refused to sign the 
 account, he places himself in the unfortunate position of con- 
 tradicting two gentlemen, besides myself, who positively af- 
 firm that he did so state. If Mr William Boott's testimony 
 may be suspected of any undue bias from personal feeling, I 
 may, at least safely refer to Mr. Franklin Dexter, who has 
 not the remotest connexion with this controversy, and never 
 had, except that he once called, as a friend, at my request, 
 on Mr. Lowell for a purpose, which wUl be explained in 
 its place, and that he afterwards acted, for a short time, as 
 my counsel. But this was in 1845 ; and I now exhibit the 
 following part of a letter, dated March 15, 1848, the whole 
 of which I shall print in another connexion : — 
 
 EXTRACT PEOM A LETTER op Me. DEXTER. 
 
 " Mr. Lowell certainly stated to me, in that interview, that Mr. J. 
 W. Boott, when the account made up by Mr. Lowell was first pre- 
 sented to him, said, that he would never sign an account that brought 
 his hrothers and sisters in deht to Mm. It was not that he would not 
 accept the balance, but that he would not sign the account, — and I so 
 reported to you." 
 
 Mr. William Boott says, that Mr. Lowell said very nearly 
 the same thing to him. I say, he said the same thing to me, 
 with a material addition respecting the long continuance of 
 the refusal. 
 
 Now if Mr. Lowell means to give a direct contradiction to 
 all this, so be it. If not, why he then only places himself in 
 
614 
 
 the very awkward predicament of asserting, now, a thing not 
 to be true, which he himself, in at least three several conversa- 
 tions, with three several gentlemen, had before asserted was 
 true. I leave him the choice. 
 
 But, when Mr. Charles G. Loring is cited as a witness, that 
 Mr. Boott only intimated a willingness to relinquish the bal- 
 ance, it will be perceived that the time referred to by Mr. 
 Loring, and the time referred to by Mr. Lowell, in his state- 
 ments to Mr. Dexter, to Mr. William Boott, and to me, are 
 not the same. Mr. Dexter says, the occasion mentioned by 
 Mr. Lowell, when Mr. Boott refused to sign the account, was, 
 "when the account, made up by Mr. Lowell, was first pre- 
 sented to him." On the other hand, the occasion, spoken of 
 by Mr. Loring, was an interview with Mr. Boott and Mr. 
 Lowell, when they called upon him, together, to consult him 
 respecting the account. Mr. Lowell had presented the ac- 
 count to Mr. Boott before that time, of course. And, Mr. 
 Lowell says, this interview with Mr. Loring was only " a 
 few days before the accounts were presented," meaning in 
 the probate court. [L. p. 33.] 
 
 Now the assertion, which I make upon my own credit, is, 
 that Mr. Lowell told me, that Mr. Boott not only refused to 
 sign the account, but persisted in refusing for nearly six 
 months. This Mr. Lowell wishes the reader to infer must be 
 a mistake of mine, because Mr. 0. G. Loring writes, in an- 
 swer to Mr. William Boott's letter of November 7, 1844, (the 
 account is dated November 18,) " The accounts of your 
 brother have not yet been m,ade up, though, I believe the 
 materials are, now, all at hand." [L. p. 32.] But what did 
 Mr. Loring know of these facts ? What could his statement 
 be more than a repetition of that, which Mr. Lowell may 
 have given him to understand ? While Mr. Boott was refus- 
 ing to adopt the proposed draft of an account, Mr. Lowell, 
 when inquired of, might, very naturally, have said that he 
 was not quite ready, yet, to present an account, but that the 
 materials for it were all at hand ; and, upon that information, 
 Mr. Loring would, naturally, have written as he did. As to 
 the " materials," we have seen that they were always at 
 
615 
 
 hand. They lay in the old probate papers, a few receipts 
 from some of the heirs, the books of Boott & Lowell, Mr. 
 Lowell's own books, and the releases obtained from London, 
 which, being dated May 29, must have been received here 
 by the steamer about the middle of June. 
 
 In this connexion, I pray the reader to note, that, although 
 Mr. Lowell cites this letter of Mr. Loring, and leaves the 
 reader to his inference, he does not undertake, directly, to 
 deny his having stated to me, as I affirmed in my former 
 pamphlet, that Mr. Boott refused for nearly six months to 
 sign the account. On the contrary, he only asks, — " Did 
 I say, then, that he refused to sign the accounts, because they 
 were untrue ? Or is this the poison, to which an incident, 
 so honorable to Mr. Boott, is turned by passing through the 
 alembic of Mr. Brooks's mind ?" [L. p. 34.] 
 
 Certainly, Mr. Lowell did not say any such thing as that 
 Mr. Boott refused to sign them because they were untrue ; — 
 he only stated the fact, that Mr. Boott did refuse to sign 
 them, and that he persisted in so refusing for nearly six 
 months. Mr. Lowell was, at that time, declaiming to me, 
 with great warmth and earnestness, upon the disinterested- 
 ness of Mr. Boott's character and conduct, for which this 
 fact was used as an argument, — and so I formerly reported 
 Mr. Lowell. [B. p. 121.] The statement was made to 
 prove one thing. It may, nevertheless, prove another ; — 
 and, all I supposed it to prove, was the truth of the fact, 
 which Mr. Lowell stated, to satisfy me of the disinterested- 
 ness of Mr. Boott. 
 
 I supposed so, at the time of writing my pamphlet, not 
 only because Mr. Lowell had so said, but because other facts 
 confirmed it. I had then found that Mr. Lowell, as early as 
 May, 1844, was getting releases, preparatory to an account. 
 There was no want of promptitude on his part, at that stage 
 of the business. Early in June, before the releases of May 
 29 could have arrived, Mr. William Boott wrote to his broth- 
 er, requesting, for the first time, an account of the executor- 
 ship, and was immediately answered, through Mr. Charles G. 
 Loring, as follows : — 
 
616 
 
 LETTER— C. G. LORING to W. BOOTT. 
 
 « 39 Court Street, 5th Ji/ne, 1844. 
 To W. BoOTT, Esq. 
 
 Dear Sir, — Mr. John "W. Boott has placed in my hands your 
 note to him of 3d instant, with a request that I would reply to it ; and 
 I have the pleasure to say, that Mr. Boott is making arrangements 
 for rendering, at the prohate office, the returns to which you refer, 
 and that no avoidable delay will take place. Yours, respectfully, 
 
 C. G. LORING." 
 
 Now the " arrangements," (except the releases from Lon- 
 don,) for making up and rendering such an account as this 
 is, — IF MR. BOOTT AGREED TO IT, — did not require a week. 
 How is it possible, that it should have occupied Mr. Boott 
 and Mr. Lowell, from the fifth of June till the eighteenth of 
 the following November ? 
 
 Another curious incident happens to fall within this period. 
 Mr. Boott executed a will on the ninth of September ; and 
 that will, after some bequests of pictures, guns, plants and 
 other specific articles, of which "all my plants and gar- 
 dening apparatus and botanical books " were given to Mr. 
 Lowell, proceeds thus : — 
 
 " I further give, devise and bequeath to John A. Lowell, Esq., his 
 heirs, executors, or assigns for ever, all my interest in reversion in 
 and of certain real and personal property, held in trust under the pro- 
 visions of the will of my late father, and all the interest in reversion 
 in certain real and personal property, held in trust under the provis- 
 ions of the will of my late father, which toas conveyed to me hy Will- 
 iam Lyman and Mary his wife, and' all the interest in reversion in 
 certain real and personal property held in trust under the provisions 
 of the will of my late father, which was conveyed to me hy Robert 
 Ralston and Ann, his wife, in trust ; first, to pay and discharge a 
 debt of twenty-five thousand dollars, which I owe to him i" [B. App. 
 pp. 41, 42.] 
 
 Now, if Mr. Boott considered himself, at that time, entitled, 
 in his own right, to $25,000 of manufacturing stock, — as he 
 was according to Mr. LoAvell's present exposition of the 
 account, — or if Mr. Boott knew that his father's estate owed 
 him even more than the balance of the account in question,— 
 as he did according to the statement of the interview at 
 
617 
 
 Mr. Charles G. Loring's, — ^how did it happen, that, only two 
 months before the account was filed, he should have made a 
 will, the first object of which appears to have been to secure 
 the payment of his debt to Mr. Lowell, out of so distant a 
 source as these reversions ? 
 
 Perhaps, it may be said, this proves that the account could 
 not then have been made up. But, will Mr. Lowell say, that, 
 until the account was made up, Mr. Boott, being a sane man, 
 possessed of " a most accurate memory and a clear perception 
 of his own rights and obligations to others," [L. p. 30.] did 
 not know, or remember, so prominent a fact as this, in his 
 own private affairs ? Could he be ignorant, if it were a fact, 
 that a balance of $25,000, or more, was standing to his cred- 
 it, in his accounts with his father's estate ; and that he was 
 himself the true owner of that amount of property, invested 
 in excellent manufacturing stock, though it stood covered, 
 by accident, under the name of J. Wright Boott, executor 1 
 Did he not know that he had a right to apply this, im,medi- 
 ately, to the payment of Mr. Lowell ? 
 
 What, then, was the cause of the making of such a will ? 
 Why, according to Mr. Lowell, " the reason was probably 
 this" :— 
 
 " It had come to his [Mr. Boott's] knowledge, that Mr. Brooks had 
 so far forgotten himself as publicly to assert, that I had no legal claim 
 to that debt, on the ground of the form in which it stood secured, — a 
 form existing solely in virtue of his own interposition, in May, 1831." 
 [L. p. 204.] 
 
 That, which Mr. Lowell considers my public assertion, he 
 goes on to show was a private letter from Mrs. Brooks to 
 her brother, Dr. Francis Boott, dated July 15, 1844, in which 
 she says : — 
 
 '■ The debt to Mr, Lowell is, or was, three weeks ago, still unpaid, 
 and fifty shares of the Merrimack Company are still pledged to Mr. 
 Lowell as security, while, in fact, Mr. Lowell can not legally recover 
 one cent. Edward has never till lately mentioned these circumstan- 
 ces to any one, and had no disposition to make any trouble on that 
 account, if the rest of the heirs were satisfied." [L. p. 204.] 
 
 What evidence there is of public assertion in this, I am 
 
 78 
 
618 
 
 unable to see. Il was a confidential communication to one 
 of the family, who had a right and interest to know it, and 
 refers to no other than like confidential communications 
 made by me here. Nor do I understand why Mr. Lowell 
 should speak of the objection to the legality of his claim as 
 depending upon the form, in which it was secured. The 
 ground of objection was, that the debt was Mr. Boott's, and 
 the shares pledged for it the estate's ; and that Mr. Lowell 
 knew this, when he last took the security, if not when he 
 first made the loan. Is that & form 7 
 
 However, it seems that Mr. James Boott, — with a want of 
 discretion, which, I am very confident, he would never have 
 been guilty of, but for Mr. Lowell's assurances to all parties 
 in London, that Mr. J. Wright Boott was perfectly sane, — 
 sent this letter out to him; and, Mr. Boott, thereupon, ex- 
 pressed to Mr. Lowell " his indignation, at what he was 
 pleased to designate as the unparalleled baseness of these 
 intimations." [L. p. 205.] 
 
 This language of a man entirely deranged, at that time, on 
 the subject of his family relations, as the reader will see, 
 when I lay before him the evidence in that part of the case, 
 Mr. Lowell is but too happy to adopt, while he attributes 
 the making of the will to this just indignation of Mr. Boott. 
 But, suppose Mr. Lowell right in that view, what is it to our 
 present purpose ? The account does not purport, upon its 
 face, to involve, in the smallest degree, the question, whether 
 Mr. Lowell had a legal lien on those stocks or not. It asserts 
 no such lien, but the reverse, and proceeds upon the ground, 
 as Mr. Lowell assures us, [L. p. 41.J that an interest of 
 $25,000 in them was Mr. Boott's private property. The 
 " Reply " insists, — not only that such was the fact, but,— that 
 Mr. Boott was well warranted, for that reason, in appropriat- 
 ing, for years, the income from one sixth of the stocks to tlje 
 payment of his own debts ; [L. p. 92.] and, by the terms of 
 the settlement agreed on, the estate is made in effect, to buy 
 out that interest of Mr. Boott, and to pay for it, as a reality, 
 with the proceeds of the mansion-house. [Ante, p. 160.] 
 
619 
 
 I repeat my question, then : — How came Mr. Boott to pro- 
 vide for his debt to Mr. Lowell out of a mere distant expect- 
 ancy in reversion, if he really had such a present interest in 
 these stocks as the " Reply " now asserts, or had a claim, 
 which he himself recognized, of $25,000, presently due to 
 him from the estate, cis the account pretends ? 
 
 The inference, I venture to draw, is, that what Mr. Lowel| 
 formerly stated was true, and that what he now states is not 
 true. I infer, in conformity with his statement to me, and 
 in conformity, also, with his several statements to Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott and to Mr. Dexter, that Mr. J. Wright Boott re- 
 fused to admit any such right, interest, or claim, as Mr. Low- 
 ell's proposed account had set up for him ; and, fearing also, 
 in consequence of the letter above mentioned, sent to him 
 by Mr. James Boott, that Mr. Lowell might not be able to 
 maintain his asserted lien upon the stocks, and that the 
 heirs might not assent to the payment of his private debt 
 out of the estate's property, he resorted, probably under legal 
 advice, to the mode pointed out in this will to secure Mr. 
 Lowell's eventual payment ; at any rate, by making Mr. 
 Lowell the legatee, in trust for that declared purpose, of his 
 reversionary interests to accrue at the decease of Mrs. Boott ; 
 and, he did so, m,erely because he well knew that he had 
 nothing else, besides these reversions, adequate to pay, or 
 secure, so large a debt. 
 
 By what arguments, Mr. J. Wright Boott was finally 
 brought round to adopt the account as it stood, we shall, 
 probably, never know. But, that he refused, at first, to do 
 so, can not be doubted, if either myself, or Mr. William 
 Boott, or Mr. Franklin Dexter, is believed, — provided, al- 
 ways, that Mr. Lowell formerly spoke truth to us. And, 
 under the same proviso, if I am believed, Mr. Boott persisted 
 in. that refusal for nearly six months. My inference, there- 
 fore, is, that the account was, in fact, prepared by Mr. Low- 
 ell, substantially as it now is, in May or June, 1844 ; and 
 that it was not presented in the probate court, nor submit- 
 ted to Mr. Loring, until November, only because Mr. Boott 
 
620 
 
 would not consent to adopt it. And in my belief, as for- 
 merly stated, he never would have consented to sign that 
 account, had he, in truth, been, as Mr. Lowell argues, in a 
 state of perfect sanity. 
 
 Another reason for believing that the account was made up 
 and presented to Mr. Boott in May or June, — notwithstand- 
 ing Mr. Loring's belief that it was not made up on the sev- 
 enth of November, though " the materials " were then " all 
 at hand," — is the following statement of Mr. Lowell, made 
 soon after the fifth of June, as set forth in my former pam- 
 phlet, and not denied in the " Reply :" — 
 
 "But soon after Mr. William Boott's note [of June 5,] had been 
 sent, he was told by Mr. Lowell, that Mr. Wright Boott was previ- 
 ously preparing the accounts, in consequence of a suggestion from 
 himself, that the state of feeling in the family would make it neces- 
 sary for him to settle them." [B. p. 95.] 
 
 Now, we have already seen, that Mr. J. Wright Boott pre- 
 pared no account, except through Mr. Lowell's agency. 
 The inference, therefore, from- the foregoing statement, is, 
 that Mr Lowell had been "previously preparing the ac- 
 counts," and that Mr Boott was, in truth, only considering 
 whether he would or would not adopt them. 
 
 The account was, however, signed, and presented at the 
 probate office, five or six months later, namely, at or soon 
 after its date, [November 18,] and Mr. Lowell, as the agent 
 of Mr. Boott, was thereupon referred by me to Judge 
 Warren, as counsel for Mrs. Brooks, and for myself as an 
 heir in her right, and for Mr. William Boott. The negotia- 
 tion and compromise followed, which are described in the 
 letter of Judge Warren already printed, — [Ante. p. 139.] a 
 compromise, whereby all objections on our part to the ac- 
 count were waived, without proof or inquiry respecting its 
 contents, deeds conveying the mansion-house were executed, 
 and releases made of all our claims on Mr. Boott, he resigni- 
 ing his trust into the hands of Mr. C. G. Loring, and passing 
 over to him all the property left, after taking out from the 
 proceeds of the mansion-house, the alleged cash balance of 
 the account. 
 
621 
 
 This brings me to the proper point for considering Mr. 
 Lowell's explanation of another ground of complaint, I have 
 against him, relative to the account, which is, that, in order 
 to facilitate the passage of the account, he made an unwar- 
 ranted use of iny name, by signing it for me, without my 
 knowledge, to a formal release of Mr. J. Wright Boott, in 
 my capacity of trustee, jointly with Mr. Lowell, imder the 
 will of the late Mr. Kirk Boott. 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 ME. Lowell's unwarranted use of mt name as trustee, to 
 
 PASS AN account. 
 
 To make this matter perfectly clear, the reader must at- 
 tend to dates, as well as to the course of events. 
 
 The account is dated November 18, 1844. After exam- 
 ining it, 1 drew up a paper, in behalf of Mr. William Boott, 
 Mrs. Brooks, and myself, stating our grounds of objection to 
 it, so far as we were then informed. That paper was in the 
 form of a petition to the Judge of Probate. It was not signed 
 by any body, but, as a draft, was submitted by me to Judge 
 Warren, November 24, 1844, for his advice respecting it, and 
 respecting the best course of proceeding to effect my declar- 
 ed object, which was, simply, to place whatever was left of 
 the property in charge of a safe trustee with proper sure- 
 ties. So Judge Warren states. [Ante, p. 139.] 
 
 Negotiations thereupon ensued between him and Mr. C. 
 G. Loring, as counsel, and Mr. Lowell, as the friend and ad- 
 
622 
 
 viser of Mr. Boott. Some conferences, and some corre- 
 spondence, between Mr. Lowell and myself,also occurred ; 
 and the result of the whole was the agreement of com- 
 promise heretofore mentioned. 
 
 As my present subject of complaint is a grave one, I will 
 now extract my former account of it, at length ; — 
 
 " I have already mentioned, that a part of the agreement, under 
 which Mr. Wright Boott's account was passed, without question, in 
 the Probate Court, was, that Mr. William Boott, Mrs. Brooks, and 
 myself, should enter into a general release of whatsoever claims we 
 might respectively have on him, as executor or trustee. With that 
 view a paper was prepared by counsel, dated December 9, 1844, 
 whereby ' We, the parties executing this instrument, heirs at law, 
 and representing heirs at law, of Kirk Boott, late of Boston,' &c., ' in 
 consideration of one dollar,' &c., ' remise, release, and discbarge him, 
 the said John W. Boott, his heirs,' &c., ' from all claims and de- 
 mands, of whatsoever name and description, which we, or either of 
 us, ever had, now have, or may hereafter have, against him, the said 
 John W. Boott, as executor of the last will and testament of the said 
 Kirk Boott, or as trustee under any of the provisions of said will.' 
 This paper, it will be seen by the Appendix, (No. 30,) purports to 
 have been signed, sealed, and delivered, in the presence of Hugh 
 Mathews, first by myself and wife, then by Mrs. Wells, Mr. William 
 Boott, and Mr. Wells, and lastly by ' J. A. Lowell, for himself and 
 Edward Brooks, trustees under the will of Kirk Boott' — meaning 
 the late Mr. Kirk Boott, of Lowell, for whose family Mr. Lowell and 
 myself were joint trustees. 
 
 " Now my agreement, in this matter, extended no farther than to the 
 release of any personal claims of Mrs. Brooks and myself. I posi- 
 tively refused to be instrumental, as trustee for others, in releasiog, 
 for a nominal consideration, any claims which might justly belong to 
 them, preferring, if that were insisted on, to resign my trust, and 
 leave the settlement of such a question to the discretion of my suc- 
 cessor, of which Mr. Lowell had distinct notice. 
 
 " The circumstances attending the execution of the paper in ques- 
 tion, so far as known to me, were these. It was brought to me about 
 the time of its date, and before it had been signed by any body. It 
 was thereupon executed by myself and Mrs. Brooks at my own house. 
 Bugh Mathews was, at that time, a servant in my family, and was 
 called in to witness our signatures, which he did. He signed' his 
 name as a witness, in the proper place, but the precaution of specify- 
 ing whose particular signatures he witnessed was neglected. The 
 paper then passed out of my hands, and I never saw it afterwards. 
 At what times, and in whose presence, it was signed by the other 
 parties, I am not informed — certainly not in the presence of Hugh 
 Mathews. I delivered it, signed by myself and wife only, and wit- 
 nessed by said Mathews, to Mr. William Boott, who probably signed 
 
623 
 
 it afterwards, without any witness, and delivered it either to Mr. Low- 
 ell, or to one of the counsel in the case. Mr. and Mrs. Wells were 
 at Cambridge. They were never called upon by me, nor, as I am 
 informed, by Mr. William Boott ; and Hugh Llathews had nothing 
 farther to do with the matter. Mr. Lowell, no doubt, obtained their 
 signatures, and afterwards signed the paper himself, in the form above 
 stated. 
 
 " I have also mentioned above, that it was part of the agreement, 
 that confirmatory deeds of the mansion house, satisfactory to Mr. 
 Bowditch, as counsel for the purchaser, were to be executed. Accord- 
 ingly, a few days after the paper above-mentioned had been returned 
 to Mr. Lowell, a draft of a deed of the mansion house to Mr. William 
 Lawrence, intended to be signed by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, myself and 
 wife, and Mr. William Boott, was sent or delivered to me by Mr. 
 Lowell. That deed was already executed, I believe, by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Wells. At any rate, it appears by the certificates of acknowledgment, 
 that it was executed by all the parties above-named, on the 1 6th of 
 December ; — by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, in the presence of Mr. Lowell, 
 who witnessed their signatures ; and on the same day, by Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott, Mrs. Brooks and myself, in the presence of Mr. P. C. 
 Brooks, who witnessed our signatures. 
 
 " On the following morning, December 17, I returned that deed, so 
 executed, to Mr. Lowell, with the following letter, intended to prevent 
 any possible misapprehension of my intentions, already verbally made 
 known to him, not to release any claims in my capacity of trustee. 
 
 [Here followed the letter, whicli I omit in this qnotation, as it will be found, in 
 my text, at page 652.] 
 
 " This letter, it will be observed, was a distinct notice to Mr. Low- 
 ell, of the fact which Judge Warren states in his letter to me, that the 
 assent to the passing of the account exhibited was, on my part, by 
 way of compromise merely, and not because I believed, or intended 
 to admit, the balance claimed, to be a balance justly due. And yet I 
 was not at that time aware, that the account presented had been made 
 up hy Mr. Lowell himself, and that Mr. Wright Boott had, for a long 
 time, positively rejused to adopt it ; which fact I subsequently learnt, 
 as above stated. 
 
 " It was also distinct notice that I could not, and should not, consent 
 to be a party to any such waiver of claim, in my capacity of trustee, 
 and thai my intention then was immediately to resign my trust ; 
 which intention I was afterwards induced to alter, as will presently 
 appear. 
 
 " It will also be noticed, that a variance between myself and some 
 of the cestui que trusts, is alluded to. That variance consisted only 
 in a difference of views as to the grounds, on which I had proceeded, 
 in bringing about the arrangement, by which the property in Mr. 
 Wright Boott's hands was to be transferred to a new trustee. Mrs. 
 K. Boott, it will presently be seen, had sided against me in the mat- 
 ter, but with no information of the facts, material for a correct judg- 
 
624 
 
 inent, except such as was derived from Mr. Lowell. What that in- 
 formation was, will presently appear. The fact was not known to me 
 at the time of the writing of this letter. 
 
 '' Finally, it is apparent, that I had no idea, at the time of the 
 writing of the letter, that any release of the claims of Mr. K. Boott's 
 family had heen made, or attempted, by any body. 
 
 " Soon after the sending of that letter, and on the same day, I had 
 an interview with Mr. Lowell, at which he presented a draft of a 
 deed, prepared for himself and myself to sign, as trustees. A short 
 conversation then occurred on the subject of my letter. I repeated 
 my determination not to sign any paper, releasing claims in behalf of 
 Mrs. K. Boott, and her family ; to which Mr. Lowell replied that it 
 would not be necessary — meaning, as I understood, that no such re- 
 lease was demanded ; and, upon examining the deed, which I was re- 
 quested to sign, I found it to be a simple quit-claim, to Mr. William 
 Lawrence, of any right or title we might hold, as trustees, in the 
 mansion-house estate, without any release, express or implied, of 
 claims on the executor. I saw no objection to executing that, as the 
 sale was an advantageous one, and the proceeds, according to the ar- 
 rangement made, were to pass into the hands of a new trustee, who 
 was entirely satisfactory to me. Accordingly, this deed was executed 
 by Mr. Lowell and myself jointly, on the 17th of December, (as ap- 
 pears by the certificate of acknowledgement,) in the presence of two 
 witnesses. Understanding, thus, from Mr. Lowell, that I was not ex- 
 pected, as trustee, to join in any release of claims on the executor, 
 and finding that the deed, which Mr. Lowell had spoken of, contained 
 nothing of the sort, I was induced, on reflection, to alter my deter- 
 mination of resigning the trust, considering that it was a personal con- 
 fidence reposed in me by a friend, for the benefit of his family, which 
 I ought not to disappoint, or surrender, from light considerations ; 
 and 1 was, besides, led to believe, that Mr. Lowell himself was rather 
 desirous 1 should not resign. I accordingly gave him notice, soon 
 after, that he need not trouble himself to prepare the account of our 
 joint trusteeship, as requested, since I did riot intend, at present, to 
 resign. 
 
 I heard no more from Mr. Lowell, on the subject of releasing 
 claims. He never intimated to me that he had executed, or intended 
 to execute, any such release ; still less that my name had been, 
 or was to be, used in any way for such a purpose. Judge, then, 
 my surprise, when, upon seeing an attested copy from the probate 
 records, in July, 1847, of the general release of December 9, 1844, 
 which I had signed on my individual account only, and had refused to 
 sign as trustee, I discovered, for the first time, that Mr. Lowell had 
 actually signed that paper, and not for himself alone, as one of the 
 trustees, but expressly " for himself and Edward Brooks, trustees un- 
 der the will of Kirk Boott ;" and that this signature, as well as the 
 signatures of Mr. and Mrs. Wells, and Mr. William Boott, stood, ap- 
 parently, witnessed by my own servant, Hugh Mathews, (who had 
 witnessed the signatures of Mrs. Brooks and myself alone,) as if it 
 were all one act, done at one time, and in the presence of one witness, 
 
625 
 
 and of course with my full knowledge and assent. The effect of such 
 a signature, under such circumstances, I leave for others to settle — 
 noting, by the way, that it appears to have been unaccompanied by 
 a seal. At least it appears by the record, (the original paper having 
 been withdrawn from the probate office, I have not been able to see 
 that,) that six persons had signed the release, but that five seals only 
 are affixed. But whatever the effect may be, it seems that Mr. 
 Lowell, intended to release those claims, and assumed to act in my 
 behalf, and to use my name as assenting to the act, not only without 
 my authority, but without my knowledge, and notwithstanding I had 
 positively refused to be implicated as a trustee, in any such voluntary 
 release of the rights of others, and had given him distinct notice of 
 that determination. Immediately upon the discovery of this assump- 
 tion, I addressed to Mr. Lowell the note of July 8, 1847, (App. No. 
 66,) calling for explanation, to which he has not thought proper to 
 return any answer." [B. pp. 125 to 129.] 
 
 The answer comes in the " Reply," and it is proper that 
 the reader should see that, also, at length. 
 
 " I have said enough, perhaps too much, of that part of the pam- 
 phlet that is personal to myself. It is so apparent, on the face of it, 
 that the issues with me are not the true ones, but are mere pretexts, 
 for calling in the public, as arbiters in Mr. Brooks's quarrel with Mr, 
 Boott, that it would, perhaps, be wise to confine myself to the latter. 
 There is, however, one other subject of complaint preferred against 
 me of so extraordinary a character, as to deserve a passing notice. I 
 refer to the alleged use of Mr. Brooks's name in the signature of a 
 release, on behalf of a trust held by him and myself jointly, under 
 the will of the late Kirk Boott, of Lowell. The facts are briefiy 
 these : — 
 
 " When Judge Warren brought to me a proposition from Messrs. 
 Brooks and William Boott, which was rejected, he had taken the pre- 
 caution of providing himself with a release, duly executed by them, 
 of all demands on Mr. Boott as executor and trustee, to be handed to 
 me in case the offer were accepted. Although this contingency had 
 not happened, he yet left the paper with me, but I was not to use it 
 without his previous authority. 
 
 " On a subsequent day, I accidentally met Mr. Brooks and had a 
 conversation with him, which led to the final settlement. He said, that 
 if I would write him a letter embodying the substance of what I had 
 said to him, he thought they would agree to a settlement on that basis. 
 I did so in a letter dated December 10, 1844, of which the opening 
 sentence was as follows : — 
 
 ' Boston, December 10, 1844. 
 
 ' Edward Brooks, Esq. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — I do not know why I should be worrying myself 
 about other people's affairs ; but the kindness that I experienced in 
 
 79 
 
626 
 
 early life from Mr. and Mrs. Boott has endeared to me all of the 
 name, and I would fain do something to alleviate the dissensions ex- 
 isting among their children.' 
 
 " I then proceeded to detail the plan for the future management 
 of the trust fund, which had formed the subject of our conversation in 
 the morning. The next day I received from Mr. Brooks the follow- 
 ing reply :— 
 
 [I omit the letter here, as it will be found at page 637.] 
 
 "Not one word, it will be observed, about any reluctance to consent 
 to this arrangement as joint trustee with me under the will of Mr. 
 Kirk Boott. The letter is a full and cordial assent to the proposed 
 arrangement, without reservation. 
 
 "I immediately showed this letter to Judge Warren, and procured 
 his consent to make use of the release he had left with me, which I 
 sent to Cambridge, to be executed by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, and also 
 executed myself, in behalf of the trust under the will of Kirk Boott, 
 and in the usual form of such signature. This I never doubted that 
 I was fully authorized to do by Mr. Brooks's note, above cited. On 
 the following probate day, Monday, December 16, 1844, (the dates 
 are here important,) this paper was exhibited to the judge of pfobate, 
 in evidence that the opposition to the passage of the accounts, for- 
 merly notified to him, was withdrawn, and the accounts were accord- 
 ingly on that day passed. Mr. Boott, the next week, when he pre- 
 sented his third account, which was one of mere form, left all his 
 discharges for record. 
 
 " Now Mr. Brooks's complaint is, that I used his name, not only 
 without any authority from him, but with express notice of his dissent, 
 (p. 125.) 
 
 '"What is to be said,' says Mr. Brooks, in another place, (p. 
 172,) ' of his assuming in my name, as well as his own, to execute a 
 release of our joint claim on the executor as trustees for the family 
 of Mr. Kirk Boott, without authority from me, and without my 
 knowledge, and after I had positively declined being in any way in- 
 strumental in releasing any claims which I held as a trustee for 
 others.' 
 
 " To show how eagerly, and how blindly, Mr. Brooks grasps at any 
 excuse for throwing blame upon me, I have only to call attention to 
 the fact, that the letter from him to me, published in his pamphlet 
 (p. 126,) as evidence that he had notified to me his dissent, is dated 
 December 17, 1844, that is to say, the day after the account had been 
 passed at the probate office ! 
 
 " He says, himself, (p. 1 65,) that it is placed beyond doubt, that the 
 account was passed and allowed ' because no one objected, and be- 
 cause releases were filed from all parties interested ; ' and yet he 
 now pretends, that his letter of December 17th was a seasonable 
 notice not to sign on his behalf a release, which was exhibited at the 
 
627 
 
 probate court, signed by all the parties interested, on the I6th ! This 
 contempt for chronology is, as I have already had occasion to show, 
 characteristic of Mr. Brooks's mind. 
 
 " This is not all. His letter to me, of December 17th, had no 
 reference whatever to any release, but to a deed of the estate in 
 Bowdoin Square, which required our joint signature ; which signa- 
 ture Mr. Brooks, in that letter, very capriciously, as it seemed to me, 
 refused on his part. I immediately went to bis office and persuaded 
 him to sign it. Mr. Brooks says (p. 127), that in that conversation, 
 he repeated his ' determination not to sign any paper, releasing claims 
 in behalf of Mrs. K. Boott, and her family ; to which Mr. Lowell 
 TepWeA that it would not be necessary ;' emphasizing these words to 
 intimate, I suppose, some deception on my part, — whereas, if I had 
 made any such remark, it would have been the most natural one in 
 the world, as the account had been passed the day before ! I will not 
 dwell on the absurdity of a trustee allowing accounts, that he believes 
 to be fictitious, to be passed, no one appearing to object to them, and 
 the next day refusing, on the plea of conscience, to sign merely pro 
 forma discharges." [L. pp. 190 to 193.J 
 
 This answer, I now propose to examine, and to state, in 
 connexion with it, some further facts, and to exhibit some 
 additional evidence, in order that the reader may see which 
 party is, in this instance, guilty of a " contempt for chro- 
 nology," and of such other established land-marks of truth 
 as the case may involve. I shall leave it to the reader to 
 affix what epithet he pleases to the act of signing another 
 man's name, without authority, to a legal instrument, and 
 using it to aid in the passing of an account. But that Mr. 
 Lowell did that act, and that his reply to the charge consists 
 of nothing but evasion and falsehood, I intend to place 
 beyond controversy. 
 
 I call attention, first, to the following sentence : — 
 
 " "When Judge Warren brought to me [Mr. Lowell] a proposition 
 from Messrs. Brooks and William Boott, which was rejected, he had 
 taken the precaution of providing himself with a release, duly exe- 
 cuted hy them, of all demands on Mr. Boott as executor and trustee, 
 to he handed to me in case the offer were accepted." 
 
 This sentence, connected with the general scope of the 
 " Reply," gives us to understand, that Judge Warren was so 
 well aware of the harsh character and unreasonable preten- 
 sions of myself and Mr. William Boott, (causeless and relent- 
 
628 
 
 less persecutors, — so the " Reply " holds out, — of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, ) that he would not even trust his own clients 
 to stand by their bargain, if one should be made ; but " had 
 taken the precaution " to bind them, beforehand, to a formal 
 release, which he drew of his own motion, and got them to 
 sign, in order that he might be sure to hold them, by handing 
 it at once to Mr. Lowell, if he should accept our proposal. 
 
 The further intimation is, that some proposition was there- 
 upon made by Judge Warren, in our behalf, of such a charac- 
 ter as might be expected from unreasonable men, and that 
 it was promptly rejected. 
 
 Now, — ^will the reader believe it ? — the only proposition, 
 made by us, through our counsel, Judge Warren, to Mr. Low- 
 ell, was, on consultation with Mr. J. Wright Boott, for whom 
 Mr. Lowell acted, immediately accepted ; — and Judge War- 
 ren, instead of voluntarily arming himself against his own 
 clients with a release, for the purpose of making that prop- 
 osition, in fact drew the release, spoken of, three days^ after 
 the proposition had been accepted, and then drew it at the 
 special request of Mr, John A. Lowell ! 
 
 I cite Mr. Lowell himself, as my witness. The original of, 
 the following letter, in his own hand-writing, is in my hands,, 
 dated, it will be observed, three days before the release ! 
 
 LETTER FROM J. A. LOWELL to C. H. WAEEEN. 
 
 « Boston, Dec. 6, 1844, 
 " Deak Sir : 
 
 " I have arranged the matter with Mr. Boott upon the 
 terms agreed upon between us. 
 
 As Mr. Loring is very much engaged, I shall feel much obliged 
 if you will prepare a discharge, such as, under the circumstances, you 
 think gour clients should sign, and I will submit it to Mr. Loring. 
 
 I think it would be well if it were so drafted that Mr. Wells and 
 the other members of the family here could unite in it. 
 
 I am, 
 
 , Yrs., with much respeqt, 
 
 J. A. Lowell." 
 Charles H. Waeben, Esq., 
 Covirt Street." 
 
629 
 
 The " clients^' of Judge Warren were Mrs. Brooks and my- 
 self as heirs in her right, and Mr. William Boott, as an heir 
 in his own right. The " trustees under the will of Kirk 
 Boott," were not his clients. Those trustees merely repre- 
 sented the Kirk Boott family. Judge Warren never was 
 retained in hehalf of that family, nor requested to act for me 
 in that representative capacity. Indeed, I had no right, as 
 I conceived, to move in that capacity, except concurrently 
 with Mr. Lowell, my co-trustee. 
 
 The proposal, which Judge Warren had made, — the only 
 proposal ever made by him in behalf of his clients, — is de- 
 scribed by himself, thus : — " I proposed to him [Mr. Lowell] 
 to waive all examination of the account and its vouchers, 
 that Mr. B. should resign his trust, and that the heirs, upon 
 his doing so, should give him a release of all further claims 
 upon him." [Ante, p. 139.] The same gentleman says, *' Mr. 
 Lowell, after consultation with Mr. J. W. Boott, acceded to 
 my proposition." [Ante, p. 140.] The foregoing letter of 
 Mr. Lowell was his notice to Judge Warren of the result of 
 that consultation. It informed him that Mr. Boott agreed to 
 our terms. An executed release had not been obtained from 
 us beforehand, to be handed over forthwith ; but Mr. Low- 
 ell's letter, signifying his acceptance of our offer, requests 
 that a draft of a release should be prepared. This was no 
 novelty proposed by him, — still less by our own counsel, — 
 for the piurpose of binding us, but a paper, necessary to be 
 drawn by somebody, conformably to our voluntary offer, 
 that offer having been accepted. Judge Warren was the 
 person who drew the instrument, not as a measure of precau- 
 tion, for his own security in making a proposal, but after the 
 acceptance of the proposal, and only because Mr. Lowell 
 requested him to draw it, in consequence of the engagements 
 of Mr. Lowell's own counsel. The paper was not made, or 
 executed, before the ninth of December, as its date shows ; 
 [Ante, p. 622.] and our proposal was accepted on the sixthof 
 December, as the foregoing letter shows. Yet, the very 
 exact and scrupulous author of the " Reply " says, — 
 
esQ 
 
 " When Judge Warren brought to me a proposition from Messrs. 
 Brooks and William Boott, which was rejected, he had taken the pre- 
 caution of providing himself with a release, duly executed hy them 
 of all demands on Mr. Boott as executor and trustee, to be handed to 
 me in case the offer were accepted. Although this contingency had 
 not happened, he [Judge Warren] yet left the paper with me," &c. 
 
 So much for the beginning of Mr. Lowell's statement of 
 facts. His next step is to speak of some subsequent conversa- 
 tion with me, as having led to the final settlement, stating that 
 I proposed to him that he should write me a letter, embodying 
 the substance of what he had said, — as if he had been the 
 author of the proposal of compromise ; that he accordingly 
 wrote a letter, dated December 10, of which he prints the 
 first sentence, only, and gives the reader to understand that 
 the whole letter did bat repeat his verbal proposal for a com- 
 promise ; and that my answer, of December 11, which he 
 prints entire, was m,y assent to his proposal, and constituted 
 the agreement of com,promise. [Ante, pp. 625-6.] 
 
 Now in this, also, I am compelled to say, there is not one 
 word of truth, from beginning to end. The reader will ob- 
 serve, that, by Mr. Lowell's letter of December 6, above 
 printed, assenting to Judge Warren's proposal, the agreement of 
 compromise was complete. Mr. Boott had agreed to resign, 
 and we had agreed, thereupon, to make no opposition to his 
 account, and to release him from all further claims. This 
 was the compromise. Nothing remained, to be agreed upon 
 further, unless it were the independent point of selecting some 
 suitable person to succeed to the trust. This hardly required 
 an agreement, as the judge of probate has full power to fill 
 such vacancies. However, the parties endeavoured to agree 
 in guiding his selection ; and the reader will observe, that 
 my letter of December 11, which I shall presently print, 
 merely signifies that Mr. William Boott and myself had 
 fixed upon Mr. Charles G. Loring to be that trustee, if 
 acceptable to Mr. Lowell. A new fact, which the reader 
 should now be informed of, is, that Mr. Lowell was ex- 
 tremely desirous to be that new trustee himself; for what 
 reasons the reader may judge, when he sees the whole evi- 
 
631 
 
 dence in this case. It was this desire, on his part, which 
 produced a suspension of further action (except in the 
 preparing of the release,) from the sixth to the eleventh of 
 December. 
 
 Judge Warren, when he next saw Mr. Lowell, after the 
 receipt of his letter signifying the assent of Mr. Boott to the 
 surrender of his trust, (the letter of December 6,) took oc- 
 casion to suggest, that Mr. Lowell's own counsel and con- 
 nexion, Mr. Charles G. Loring, would be a very suitable 
 person to be the trustee, and, as he thought, would be 
 agreeable to me. Mr. Lowell, of course, could make no 
 reasonable objection, and said nothing, I believe, to Judge 
 Warren, of his own wish and expectation in that behalf; 
 but, on the contrary, gave him to understand that he thought 
 Mr. Loring would be a most excellent choice. He met me, 
 however, not long after, and the conversation occurred, to 
 which he alludes in general terms, and a part of which I 
 shall now describe more particularly. 
 
 It was, in truth, one of several conversations between Mr. 
 Lowell and myself about this time, embracing, among other 
 things, his remarks, concerning former mismanagement of 
 the family property, quoted by Mrs. Brooks, on my report, 
 in her letter to her mother, of December 11, before referred 
 to. [Ante, p. 596.] 
 
 The particular conversation, now in question, occurred in 
 State-street. It was begun by Mr. Lowell ; and his object 
 was to urge upon me, the propriety and expediency, under 
 all circumstances, of permitting him, (Mr. Lowell,) to be- 
 come the new trustee. He alluded to the character of 
 the property, to his familiar acquaintance with it, to his 
 long and intimate relations with the Boott family, and 
 to the fact that he was already an agent for Mrs. Boott, 
 who would, undoubtedly, be gratified to have him for 
 her trustee. He said that other members of the family 
 desired it ; and he proceeded to tell me how he intended 
 to manage the property, very advantageously both for 
 her and for the heirs, and that Mr. J. Wright Boott, whose 
 
632 
 
 unfitness for such a trust he admitted in very plain terms, 
 should not be allowed to intermeddle. A portion of his re- 
 marks, respecting his proposed management of the property, 
 I told him I thought he had better reduce to writing ; and that 
 I would confer on the matter with Mr. William Boott. Those 
 remarks were made in answer to my observation that I did 
 not think very well of manufacturing stock, as an investment 
 for such a trust, because of its fluctuations and irregularity of 
 income. 
 
 That he should become the trustee certainly seemed, on 
 many accounts, both natural and desirable. My general con- 
 fidence in Mr. Lowell's adaptation for such an office had, at 
 that time, been in no degree shaken by the merely overzeal- 
 ous part, (as, in my then state of information, I supposed it to 
 be,) which he had been acting in behalf of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott. I had but one real objection ; and that I, at last, 
 frankly stated to him, to this effect : — 
 
 " Mr. Lowell, the only objection that I see, upon the whole, 
 to your being the family trustee, is, that Mrs. Brooks and I 
 have reason to believe, that you have allowed your name 
 to be used with Mrs. Boott to prejudice her mind against 
 certain members of her family." Mr. Lowell's answer was, 
 in a very emphatic tone, "If my name has been used, Mr. 
 Brooks, to prejudice Mrs. Boott against any of her family, 
 I assure you it has been entirely without my knowledge or 
 consent." To this I said, moving towards the door of an 
 insurance office, near at hand, " Just step in here, then, and 
 put those very words on paper, and I agree, at once, that 
 you shall be the trustee." "No," says Mr. Lowell, "lam 
 not going to put any thing on paper about it." My reply, 
 was, "Very well, — then you can't be the trustee, — that's 
 all." And thereupon we parted. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, perhaps, did not think me so serious, as I was, 
 in considering his mischievous interference, as we regarded 
 it, in our family affairs, to be an insurmountable objection. 
 At any rate, not a great while after, I received his letter of 
 December 10, of which he has printed the first sentence 
 
633 
 
 only, — ^presuming, no doubt, from the circumstance of my 
 omission to print that letter formerly, while printing many 
 less important pieces of evidence, that the original must 
 have been lost or destroyed. He ran for luck in that ; and, 
 •with his usual sagacity, guessed aright. I had lost it, and 
 searched for it in vain, at the time of my former writing. 
 But his sagacity could not enable him to foresee that I 
 should afterwards recover it, — as I did, — though not till 
 some considerable time after the publication of his " Reply." 
 I shall, now, since he has favoured us with so small a 
 specimen, lay it, in full, before the reader. 
 
 LETTER FKOM JOHN A. LOWELL to EDWARD BROOKS. 
 
 " Boston, Deo. 10th, 1844. 
 "Edward Brooks, Esq., 
 Dear Sir: 
 " I do not know why I should be worrying myself about other 
 people's affairs, — but the kindness that I experienced in early life 
 from Mr. and Mrs. Boott has endeared to me all of the name, and 
 I would fain do something to alleviate the dissensions existing among 
 their children. 
 
 I know of no mode so likely to effect this end, as to remove all 
 occasion for future collision. 
 
 Should the property now be placed in the hands of a trustee, in 
 whom all parties could not but place an implicit confidence ; who 
 would consider the intei-ests of the heirs as much confided to him, as 
 that of your mother; who would endeavour to keep the capital entire 
 by applying the overflowing of prosperous years, witli Mrs. Boott's 
 consent, to the increase of the fund ; in such case, I think that the 
 manufacturing property might be preserved with obvious advantage 
 to all parties. 
 
 Under a different management, I agree with you that it would be 
 wiser and more just that it should be sold, and the proceeds funded in 
 a way that would not endanger the capital. 
 
 The plan that occurred to ra", was this. 
 
 Mrs. Boott to expend a sum to be agreed upon between her and 
 the trustee. 
 
 The remainder of the income to be funded and kept separate. 
 At Mrs. Boott's decease, so much of this reserved fund to be applied 
 to the credit of the estate as shall be required to make good the capi- 
 tal. The residue, if any, to be considered as Mrs. Boott's personal 
 estate, devisable or inheritable as such. 
 
 I have not communicated these views to any one, but have no 
 doubt of obtaining Mrs. Boott's concurrence in them. 
 
 I could not advise Mr. J. W. Boott to resign unless a successor 
 were previously agreed upon. I am, Dear Sir, truly yours, 
 
 80 J. A. Lowell." 
 
634 
 
 Though it be stepping aside from the point immediately 
 in hand, I desire, while this letter is fresh, to call the reader's 
 especial attention to the clause, which proposes to take, from 
 time to time, out of the income of the trust property, the 
 means of forming a reserved fund, and further proposes, that, 
 " at Mrs. Boott's decease, so much of this reserved fund " is 
 " to be applied to the credit of the dstate, as shall be required to 
 make good the capital." The reader may at least suspect 
 that he sees in this one excellent reason why Mr. Lowell 
 thought it inexpedient to extend the quotation from his 
 letter beyond the first sentence, — which expresses nothing- 
 but his own amiable sentiments towards the whole Boott 
 connexion. 
 
 What did he mean by reserving income " to be applied to 
 the credit of the estate," and " to make good the capital ?" 
 Perhaps he will say that he meant no more by this language 
 than by the preceding phrase of " keeping the capital entire." 
 I cannot undertake to affirm what he did mean. But making 
 good the capital, and crediting the estate, seem rather to 
 indicate the restoration of that, which had been already lost, 
 than the mere keeping up of the existing capital, which the 
 new trustee might receive. The true question is, — What did 
 Mr. Lowell expect me to understand from the letter ? To 
 enable the reader to determine that, he must place himself in 
 my position at the time. I had agreed to allow Mr. Boott's 
 account, just as it stood, provided he would resign. Mr. 
 Lowell considered that a point settled, if he pleased to have it 
 so. He had no longer a motive for standing on particularly 
 high ground. The account, — notwithstanding its valuation 
 of the stocks above their market value when they were first 
 stamped as trust property, — admitted, as I have shown, that 
 Mrs. Boott's trust fund was defective by $3715 45. That 
 the trust capital had been impaired and lost, to that extent at 
 least, was apparent on the face of the paper. In conversa- 
 tion, (the account being agreed to,) Mr. Lowell had freely 
 admitted Mr. Boott's unfitness for the trust, and the conside- 
 rable losses sustained, in consequence, by all pei'sons inter- 
 
6S5 
 
 ested in the estate. Mrs. Brooks's letter of December 11, 
 {the day after the letter of Mr. Lowell, now in question,) 
 shows what Mr. Lowell had just said to me, as I had reported 
 it before any controversy had arisen between us. The letter 
 was printed in my former pamphlet, and will reappear, with 
 other family correspondence, in another part of this case. 
 A sentence or two, once before extracted, should be read in 
 this connexion : — 
 
 " Mr. Brooks has this week had two long conversations with Mr. 
 Lowell, who said he agreed entirely with Mr. Brooks in his views, 
 and Mr. Lowell denied ever having said or thought, that Mr. Boott 
 had managed the estate well, or that he considered him a fit person to 
 have the care of property. Mr. Lowell then went on to say, ' If 
 you, Mr. Brooks, or I, or any good man of business, had had the care 
 of that estate, what a noble property it would have been. Mr. Boott 
 should have been worth 8100,000; each heir should have had a 
 handsome fortune, and Mrs. Boott, with more money to spend yearly 
 than she ever had, should have laid by S50.000 to have bequeathed 
 as she liked, and that it was a sort of miracle that any thing was left.' " 
 
 Did not Mr. Lowell expect, then, that I should interpret' 
 his letter conformably to his recent conversation ? Did he 
 not intend that I should understand his plan to be to restore 
 lost capital out of future income ? Did he not expect that 
 his plan, with that feature in it, would be more likely to be 
 agreeable to me ; and did he not intend that I should put 
 that construction on it ? His " Reply " -w^as written, unfor- 
 tunately for him, under a belief that this letter had not been 
 preserved, and that nothing bearing the signature of John A. 
 Lowell, could be brought against him by me, which would 
 even bear doubtfully on the question of Mr. Boott's admitted 
 mismanagement. He could not afford to admit, in the 
 " Reply," that he had formerly admitted any thing ; still less 
 to expose, by printing his whole letter, so much as an ambi- 
 guity, even, on a point so vital in this controversy. This, I 
 believe to have been one motive for the suppression. ■ But, 
 however, that may be, I shall show another reason, too plain 
 for doubt ; namely, that the letter, however interpreted as to 
 the making good or keeping good of capital, distinctly falsi-- 
 fies the "Reply" in a very material statement, respecting 
 
636 
 
 Mr. Lowell's authority to sign the release in my behalf. He 
 says he was authorized by my answer to this letter. But 
 when the letter and the answer are placed side by side, it 
 will be seen that this pretence has not even a colour of foun- 
 dation in truth. 
 
 But, — to return to narrative, — the general object of tire 
 letter was quite apparent to me. It merely followed up our 
 previous conversations, with a view to obtaining the trustee- 
 ship, which would aid Mr. Lowell in keeping his long-estab- 
 lished control over the Boott family and property. This was 
 the surest way to secure such settlements of accounts, and 
 such answers to curious inquiries, as might best suit his ends. 
 Let us look to the indications of the letter. 
 
 The very conciliating sentence, with which it opens, — 
 declaring the absence of all personal interest, — adverting 
 to the early kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Boott, which had so 
 ^^ endeared" to him " all of the name," — and setting forth 
 his sincere desire to do something to alleviate the dissen- 
 sions of their children, — ^was well calculated to smooth 
 over the effect of any little indiscreet movement on his 
 part, which we might suppose to have influenced the 
 feelings of Mrs. Boott. It was to answer as a substitute 
 for the written disclaimer, which I had asked for. I had ex- 
 pressed my doubts of the expediency of keeping a trust fund 
 of that description invested in so fluctuating a property as 
 manufacturing stock, which had, at one time, yielded an 
 annual income of nearly f 30,000, and, at another time, none. 
 It was one object of the writer to show how this kind of 
 property, yielding large income on the whole, might, — if 
 managed by a trustee having influence enough with Mrs, 
 Boott to obtain her consent to a reservation from years of 
 abundance, — ^be made to turn to the advantage of the heirs ; 
 and, particularly, of those of the heirs, (Mr. William Boott, 
 Mrs. Brooks and myself,) against whom Mrs. Boott had been 
 really prejudiced through Mr. Lowell's interference, as I shall 
 hereafter show. This would, of course, be efiected, if a por- 
 tion of her income were withdrawn from her own disposal, 
 
637 
 
 and applied to the restoration of the lost capital of the es- 
 tate for the benefit of those, who were entitled to it. But 
 the main idea, intended to be conveyed, without stating it 
 in direct language, was, that the writer, in consequence of 
 his known influence over Mrs. Boott, was the man, of all 
 others, to effect this, should he be made trustee. " I have 
 not communicated these views to any one," he says, " btit 
 have no doubt of obtaining Mrs. BoolVs concurrence in 
 them." As a still further inducement to the selection of 
 himself for the trust, the last sentence suggests, — notwith- 
 standing that Mr. J. Wright Boott's resignation had once 
 been agreed to, as the reader has now seen, under Mr. Low- 
 ell's own hand in his letter of December 6, — ^that the pro- 
 posed resignation was still open to retraction, and that he (Mr. 
 Lowell,) " could not advise Mr. J. W. Boott to resign, unless 
 a successor were previously agreed upon." 
 
 The expectation undoubtedly was, that, upon these sug- 
 gestions, we should immediately assent to his succession. 
 But the Opinion of Mr. William Boott and myself was, that 
 the whole income of the trust fund, however invested, fairly 
 belonged to Mrs. Boott, and ought to be at her own disposal ; 
 and our feeling of objection to Mr. Lowell, as the family 
 trustee, — growing out of his interference with Mrs. Boott, to 
 bias her opinions concerning the course we had taken in an 
 unfortunate family difference, respecting the conduct and 
 sanity of Mr. J. Wright Boott, — -was quite insuperable. 
 
 Without undertaking to except to his scheme, therefore, 
 I simply replied, as follows : — 
 
 EDWAED BROOKS to JOHN A. LOWELL. 
 
 "Dec 11, 1844. 
 " Jno. a. Lowell, Esq., 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have shown your letter to Mr. W. Boott. We 
 have conferred together upon it, and find nothing to except to. 
 
 We have fixed on Mr. Charles G. Loring as the new trustee. 
 From what Judge Warren said last week, we infer that this gentle- 
 man will be agreeable to you, and he is entirely so to us. 
 With great regard, 
 
 Tour Obd't Serv't, 
 
 Edward Buoojis." 
 
638 
 
 It -vras not easy to escape from this. A formal nomination 
 was made ; the person could not reasonably be excepted to, — 
 especially by Mr. Lowell, who had, in fact, already commit- 
 ted himself on that point to Judge Warren ; — ^and, after 
 another brief conversation with me, finding that I was im- 
 movable on the subject of his own appointment by my consent, 
 he handed my letter to Judge Warren, with notice that our 
 nomination was agreed to ; and our release of Mr. J. Wright. 
 Boott, signed by myself and Mrs. Brooks and Mr. William 
 Boott, was thereupon handed by Judge Warren to Mr. Low- 
 ell, in order that he might collect the signatures of other 
 parties. 
 
 The reader will now notice the following points : — 
 
 1. The original proposal for a compromise came from 
 «s,— not from Mr. Lowell, — -and was, simply, that we would 
 waive all proof and inquiry about the account, and release 
 all our claims on Mr. Boott, if he would resign, and allow 
 the admitted property to go into new hands. 
 
 2. An acceptance of this proposal was signified in writ- 
 ing by Mr. Lowell, as soon as he had consulted with Mr. 
 Boott. 
 
 3. No proposition of ours was rejected. 
 
 4. Judge Warren, when he made our proposal to Mr. 
 Lowell, had not " taken the precaution of providing himself 
 with a release duly executed" by us ; but, after our proposal 
 had been accepted) drew the release at the particular request 
 of Mr. Lowell, and in conformity with our original proposal. 
 
 5. It was not a conversation between Mr. Lowell and me, 
 which led to the settlement; but the general terms of settle- 
 ment were substantially agreed on, in the manner above stat- 
 ed, between Judge Warren and Mr. Lowell, leaving no fur- 
 ther subject for agreement, except the independent question, 
 who should be the successor in the trust. 
 
 6. The sole object of Mr. Lowell, in the subsequent 
 conversation with me, was to induce me to agree that he,. 
 Mr. Lowell, should be the successor ; which I declined, for 
 the reason stated. 
 
639 
 
 7. Mr. Lowell's letter, of December 10, of which he 
 prints the opening sentence, was not, as he suggests, the 
 basis of the settlement, (which had been agreed to four days 
 before,) but a letter having the same object with his conver- 
 sation, and suggesting, by connexion with that previous con- 
 versation, something, which was not agreed to by us, name- 
 ly, that he should be the trustee. 
 
 8. The proposal for the appointment of Mr. Loring, 
 came from us, and not, as the " Reply," might lead its 
 reader to infer, from Mr. Lowell, — ^but was merely acqui- 
 esced in by him, much, I imagine, to his own discomfiture, 
 when he found he could not be the trustee himself. 
 
 All these matters, — except what passed in the conversation 
 between Mr. Lowell and me, — the reader now has in proof, 
 by the letters produced ; and," although the tenor of that con- 
 versation cannot be directly proved, either by a witness or a 
 writing, the fact of a conversation is stated by Mr. Lowell ; 
 and also, that it related to a "plan for the future maiiage- 
 m,ent of the trust fund." The substance of this plan, 
 which, he says, "had formed the subject of our conversation 
 in the morning," he also says, is embodied in his letter of 
 December 10. That letter, of which, he, supposing the 
 original lost, suppressed all but the first sentence, I produce 
 in full ; and, although it does not state, in terms, that his 
 own appointment to the trusteeship was a part of the 
 " plan," I submit to the reader, whether it does not point- 
 edly support that conclusion, which I report to have been 
 the purpose of the conversation, followed up by this 
 letter. 
 
 I further desire it to be noted, that every one of the eight 
 propositions, above stated, and mostly proved by contempo- 
 raneous papers, is a direct reverse to some one of the daring 
 statements, or suggestions, compressed into a single page of 
 the "Reply"! 
 
 But the falsehood of the " Reply," its purpose of mislead- 
 ing, and the intention to suppress so much of a contempora- 
 neous letter as would expose the falsehood, become perfectly 
 
640 
 
 transparent, when we perceive that, after citing the first sen- 
 tence only of Mr. Lowell's letter of December 10, and print- 
 ing my entire answer of December 11, the "Reply," goes 
 on to say, in reference to my answer, — 
 
 " Not one word, it will be observed, about any reluctance to con- 
 sent to this arrangement as joint trustee with me under the will of 
 Mr. Kirk Boott. The letter is a full and cordial assent to the pro- 
 posed arrangement without reservation !" 
 
 What the proposed arrangement was, is artfully concealed 
 from the reader, by the suppression of all the material part of 
 Mr. Lowell's letter. But the reader is given to understand, 
 from the entire statement, that the proposal was a general pro- 
 posal of compromise, distinctly including my claims as trustee, — 
 and that my letter was "a full and cordial assent" to that 
 proposal ! 
 
 Now, the reader, by laying the two letters together, will 
 observe, that my answer was not only not an assent to any 
 general arrangement of compromise proposed by Mr, Lowell, 
 but was a mere notice, that, without excepting to his scheme 
 for the future management of the property, should he be- 
 come the trustee, Mr. William Boott and my self had selected, 
 and thereby nominated, Mr. Charles G. Loring for that office. 
 There is " not one word, it will be observed," in his own 
 suppressed letter, which I was answering, about an^/ areange- 
 ment to be made by me as "joint trustee" with Mr. Low- 
 ell, " under the will of Mr. Kirk Boott.*' There is not even 
 the most distant allusion to any such matter, either in Ms 
 letter, or in my answer. It is not even pretended, in the 
 " Reply," that this subject of releasing claims, held by us, 
 jointly, in trust for others, had ever been broached in any 
 conversation, preceding the correspondence, so as to be drawn 
 into it by implication. Yet, the " Reply" gives the reader to 
 understand that Mr. Lowell's suppressed letter must have em- 
 bra^ced that subject distinctly ; my letter is printed as evidence 
 of my " full and cordial assent" to the supposed proposal ; 
 and, finally, the " Reply" explicitly declares, — in reference to 
 Mr. Lowell's signing of my name as trustee, to a release of 
 
641 
 
 the claims held by us in trust, — " This I never doubted that 
 I was fully authorized to do by Mr. Bhooks's note above 
 
 CITED !" 
 
 But the reader has not, yet, all the facts before him. I 
 have shown several deliberate misstatements of facts, in this 
 part of the " Reply." But I propose to show several more ; 
 and, particularly, to show, too distinctly for escape, the orig- 
 inal falsehood, through which the account was passed, by the 
 unauthorized and secret signing of my name to the release. 
 
 After Mr. Lowell had signiiSed to Judge Warren his assent 
 to our nomination of Mr. Charles G. Loring, (whereby every 
 subject of agreement relative to the compromise was conclud- 
 ed, and nothing remained but to carry it into execution,) the 
 next stage in the proceeding was the drafting of a deed of the 
 mansion-house for the heirs to sign, — their signature to such 
 a deed being the original desideratum, which had led to the 
 stating of an executor's account, and to the compromise con- 
 cerning the allowance of the account. This deed bears date 
 December 14, 1844, — the date, probably, at which it was writ- 
 ten. It was first executed, as mentioned in my former state- 
 ment, by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, apparently in the presence of Mr. 
 Lowell, who is an attesting witness to their signatures. It 
 was acknowledged by them, December 16. It was executed, 
 in the evening of the same day, by myself and wife, and by 
 Mr. William Boott at my house, where my late father, hap- 
 pened at the time to be. He witnessed our signatures, and 
 took our acknowledgements, dated December 16. These 
 dates and attestations are proved by the recorded deed. The 
 release of all claims on Mr. Boott, which had been previously 
 drafted by Judge Warren, (December 9,) at Mr. Lowell's re- 
 quest, and sent to me, had been signed by me, personally, but 
 not as trustee, and by my wife, and by Mr. William Boott, and 
 had been returned to Judge Warren. By him, it seems it 
 was handed to Mr. Lowell, who, we are told, " was not to 
 use it without his previous authority." 
 
 The "Reply," moreover, informs us, that, — 
 
642 
 
 "On \he following probate day, Monday, December 16, 1844, (the 
 dates are here important,) this paper was exhibited to the judge of 
 probate, in evidence that the opposition to the passage of tlie accounts, 
 formerly notified to him, was withdrawn, and the accounts were 
 accordingly on that day passed. Mr. Boott, the next week, when he 
 presented his third account, which was one of mere form, left all his 
 discharges for record." [Ante, p. 626.] 
 
 Now, although it is true that the disputed account was 
 passed December 16, and passed upon an exhibit of sun- 
 dry releases, including the release now in question, and that 
 this last mentioned release, when so exhibited, bore the sig- 
 natures not only of myself personally, and of Mrs. Brooks, 
 and Mr. William Boott, but also of Mr. and Mrs. Wells, and 
 of "J. A. Lowell, for himself and JEdward Brooks, trustees 
 under the will of Kirk Boott," it is material for the reader to 
 know that neither Judge Warren, nor myself, nor Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott, nor any person in our behalf, was present in the 
 probate court, when that transaction occurred. This does 
 not rest on my statement. I cite Judge Warren's nearly 
 contemporaneous letter, of December 19, 1844, heretofore 
 printed. He says, expressly, " No party appeared in the 
 probate court to question Mr. J. W. Boott's account ; and, so 
 far as I heard, no examination of vouchers has been had or 
 sought." [Ante, p. 140.] Mr. Lowell himself also says, in- 
 cidentally, respecting the accounts, "no one appearing, io 
 object to them." [Ante, p. 627.] 
 
 I next desire the reader to note, that Mr. Charles G. Loring, 
 also, was not present on that occasion, although he had been, 
 all along, acting as the counsel of Mr. Boott and Mr. Lowell, 
 and was himself to be the new trustee. He does not appear 
 to have been connected with the transactions of December 
 16. He had merely agreed, soon after the receipt of my 
 letter of December 11, to accept an appointment to the 
 trust ; but he did nothing, personally, in the business, un- 
 til after the date of the transactions now complained of. 
 The proof of his absence from the probate court of the six- 
 teenth of December is, that the application, in his name, 
 made and dated on that day, and stating " that he has been 
 
643 
 
 requested by the parties in interest to act as such trustee, and 
 that he accepts of said trust, and is ready to give bond ac- 
 cording to law," is signed, — not by himself, but — " Charles 
 Greely Loring, by J. A. Lowell." This appears by the 
 original paper on the files of the probate office. Mr. Loring's 
 bond, which was, of course, signed by himself, as well as 
 by Mr. John A. Lowell, the sole surety, it is true, bears date 
 on the same day. But, though so dated, to correspond with 
 the record of his appointment, it was, no doubt, executed on 
 a subsequent day, at any rate, not in the probate court, but at 
 his own office ; since it is witnessed by two gentlemen, 
 (Messrs. C. W. Loring and Seth Webb, jr.,) belonging to that 
 office, and not by the register or clerks of the probate office, 
 as is usual with bonds executed there. 
 
 Nobody, but Mr. Lowell, appears to have had any hand in 
 the needful preparations, (except the mere drafting of legal 
 papers,) for a transfer of the trust. 
 
 On the same sixteenth of December, Messrs. G. A. God- 
 dard, L. Stanwood, and J. Pickering Putnam appear to have 
 been appointed appraisers, two of these gentlemen being at 
 the time clerks of Mr. Lowell. But if these persons had 
 been present in the probate court on that day, they would 
 have been then sworn, before the judge, or register, whereas 
 they were, in fact, sworn December 19, as the record shows, 
 before "/. A. Lowell, Justice of the Peace;" and their ap- 
 praisement was not returned into the probate court, until 
 December 23. [B. App. p. 54.J 
 
 The deeds of transfer of the manufacturing stock to the 
 new trustee are, moreover, dated December 21, and were ex- 
 ecuted by Mr. Boott, apparently in the presence of Mr. 
 Lowell, alone. At least, it seems so, from the following cer- 
 tificate concerning the seventy-one Merrimack shares. 
 
644 
 
 CEKTIPICATE of Mr. WIDLIAM G. WISE. 
 
 Lowell, Mat 18, 1850. 
 Deae Sik, 
 
 Your favor of yesterday was duly at hand. The deed 
 of seventy-one shares from J. W. Boott executor, to C. G. Loring, 
 trustee, is dated 21st December, 1844. 
 Witness, John A. Lowell. 
 Acknowledged before John A. Lowell, as Justice of the Peace. 
 Respectfully, 
 
 Your ob't serv't, 
 
 WM. G. WISE. 
 Edwaed Beooks, Esq., Boston. 
 
 It may be fairly inferred that the deeds of the thirty-nine 
 shares of Boston stock were made at this same time, in the 
 same presence ; and the deed of the stable in Bowdoin-street 
 appears, by the record, to have been executed on Saturday, 
 December 21, in the presence of Mr. Lowell, and of his 
 clerk, Mr. Putnam. They are the only attesting witnesses 
 to that deed, and it was acknowledged on the same day be- 
 fore " /. A. Lowell, Justice of the Peace ;" but not put on 
 record till December 23. 
 
 December 23 is also the date of the executor's third and 
 final account, and the day, on which it was passed and al- 
 lowed in the probate court. [B. App. pp. 52, 53.] In this 
 account he charges himself with the balance of his account 
 of November 18, and with certain dividends subsequently 
 received, and with the proceeds of the mansion-house, and 
 asks to be allowed for the property transferred to the new 
 trustee, after deducting the "cash balance," claimed upon 
 the former account as " due to the executor." 
 
 Monday, the twenty-third of December, therefore, was the 
 day, on which the business of the compromise was consum- 
 mated in the probate court, and the day, on which the trans- 
 fers of property probably took effect by delivery and record, 
 notwithstanding that the papers, relating to the appointment 
 of the new trustee, and to the nomination of appraisers, 
 as well as the decree allowing the disputed account, are 
 dated December 16. That part of the business, only, ap- 
 
645 
 
 pears to have been acted upon by the judge of probate on 
 this last mentioned day, nobody, (besides the register and his 
 clerks,) being present before him, that I can discover, except 
 Mr. Boott and Mr. Lowell. In short, Mr. Lowell, on this 
 occasion, appears to fill to perfection the part of that "verita^ 
 ble Mephistophiles," to use his own phrase, [L. p. 22.] which 
 he says I represent him to be, — managing, himself, in his 
 own way, the whole business, for all parties, up to the twen- 
 ty-third day of December. On that day, the new trustee, Mr. 
 Loring, first makes his appearance in the probate office, by 
 returning an inventory, and signing his approval to the ex- 
 ecutor's third and final account. [B. App. pp. 53—5.] The 
 previous account, passed on the sixteenth, must have 
 been passed, therefore, entirely upon Mr. Lowell's repre- 
 sentation that it was agreed to by all parties, and upon 
 an exhibit to the judge of releases, which appeared to 
 embrace all parties adversely interested ; at least, the right 
 of the Kirk Boott family being vested in Mr. Lowell 
 and myself as joint trastees, it appeared, upon the face 
 of the release, that Mr. Lowell had signed it for me, 
 as well as for himself ; and it might be fairly inferred that 
 this was done with my assent, and in my presence ; since 
 Hugh Mathews, the witness to my own private signature, 
 was, apparently, the witness, also, to the signature of "J. 
 A. Lowell, /or himself and Edward Brooks, trustees under 
 the will of Kirk Boott." Through an unsuspicious negli- 
 gence, not very uncommon in the witnessing of papers, there 
 was nothing to restrict his certificate of attestation to one 
 signature, rather than another; there was but one date to the 
 paper ; and, so far as the paper showed, it appeared to have 
 been signed by all the persons who signed it, at one and the 
 same time, although, in truth, no one but Mrs. Brooks and 
 myself, had signed in the presence of Hugh Mathews. 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, it will be observed, too, knew no 
 more about this part of the business, (the release,) than the 
 judge of probate did. He had hfeld no personal communica- 
 tion, either with me or with my counsel, and had no agency 
 
646 
 
 in obtaining signatures, except through Mr. Lowell. How 
 critically the releases were examined by the judge, I do not 
 know ; probably they were barely glanced at. The state- 
 ment of such a witness, accompanied by the mere offer of 
 papers to prove it, was perhaps, enough to satisfy him. At 
 any rate, Mr. Lowell must have caused the judge to under- 
 stand that the releases embraced every party representing a 
 legal interest, and that the " trustees under the will of Kirk 
 Boott" in particular, assented, in that capacity, to the account; 
 since, otherwise, it is quite incredible that the judge should 
 have allowed such an account to pass sub silentio, against 
 minors not represented, without even an ordinary exam- 
 ination of vouchers. Indeed, the " Reply " says, — •" This 
 paper [the release] was exhibited to the judge of probate, 
 in evidence that the opposition to the passage of the ac- 
 counts, formerly notified to him, was withdrawn, and the 
 accounts were accordingly on that day passed." But, although 
 the paper is said to have been thus shown to the judge, for 
 the purpose avowed by Mr. Lowell, it seems that its posses- 
 sion was not parted with for an instant ; at least it was not 
 deposited in the probate office, for record or examination, at 
 that time ; since the "Reply" tells us, that "Mr. Boott, the 
 next week, [December 23,] when he presented his third ac- 
 count, which was one of mere form, left all his discharges 
 for record." [Ante, p. 626.] 
 
 Why Mr. Lowell should call that third account " one of 
 mere form," I do not well see ; since it charged the executor 
 with nearly $30,000 of additional property, and claimed au 
 allowance for the transfer of all the property to the new 
 trustee. [B. App. p. 52.] This transfer of the property to 
 a new trustee was, as before remarked, the very point of the 
 compromise ; and the paper, which Mr. Lowell had so con- 
 siderately signed in my behalf, it seems, was not left for 
 record, so that it could be examined by any curious party, 
 until this point had been reached, — that is, not until the 
 whole business of the probate office was finished, — a week 
 AFTER the passing of the second account on the faith of 
 THAT papek. 
 
647 
 
 It further appears, by the following receipt on file in the 
 probate office, that, very soon after Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 death, all the original releases were, again, withdrawn from 
 the files, and taken possession of by Mr. Lowell : — 
 
 RECEIPT. 
 
 " Boston, March 31, 1845. Eeceived of the Register of Probate 
 the following papers relating to the settlement of the accounts of J. 
 W. Boott, executor of Kirk Boott : — 
 
 Release from Mary Boott, widow, dated London, May 29, 1844. 
 " " Francis Boott, M. D , " " " " 
 
 " " Edward and Eliza Brooks, 
 
 " " Frances Wells, 
 
 " " William Boott, t^ . j i-, i 
 
 " William Wells, [ ^^^l^ ?^J! 
 
 " J. A. Lowell for self, and Ed- ^' ^°**- 
 
 ward Brooks, Trustees under 
 the will of Kirk Boott, 
 
 J. A. LOWELL, 
 
 by J. Pickering Putnam." 
 
 Hence, it was only from the books of record, in which cop- 
 ies of the releases had been preserved, that, when an occasion 
 arose, which led me, three years after the event, to obtain a 
 copy of some of those records, I became accidentally acquaint- 
 ed with the fact of the use, which Mr. Lowell had made of 
 my name as trustee. 
 
 But to return to the time of these transactions, and to the 
 point of authority, express or implied. Mr. Lowell's sug- 
 gestion to Judge Warren, ia his letter of December 6, re- 
 questing him to prepare a suitable discharge, is, " I think 
 it would be well, if it were so drafted that Mr. and Mrs. 
 Wells, and the other members of the family here, could imite 
 in it." That is, those members of the family, who were 
 not Judge Warren's clients. It was accordingly drawn as we 
 have seen : — " We the parties executing this instrument, 
 heirs at law, and representing heirs at law, of Kirk Boott, 
 &c.," "in consideration of one dollar," &c. "remise, re- 
 lease and discharge him the said John W. Boott, his heirs," 
 (fcc. " from all claims and demands." That is, it was drafted, 
 
648 
 
 by Mr. Lowell's request, made on the sixth of December, 
 in a form suitable to embrace, not only Mr. and Mrs. Brooks, 
 as heirs at law, but, also, Edward Brooks and John A. Low- 
 ell, trustees, as representing, jointly, other heirs at law. In 
 that form it was sent to me, on or about the ninth of Decem- 
 ber, and was executed by me, for myself only, in respect of 
 my individual interest, and by Mrs. Brooks, for herself, and 
 by Mr. William Boott, for himself. So executed, it was 
 handed by Judge Warren to Mr. Lowell, probably on the 
 eleventh of December. This was, of itself, distinct notice 
 to Mr. Lowell that I did not intend to execute it in my ca- 
 pacity of trustee ; since every man of business well under- 
 stands, that, when he intends to execute a deed as trustee, he 
 must say so, in express terms, either by writing the word 
 " trustee" after his private signature, or by describing himself, 
 in the instrument, as acting in that capacity ; especially if he 
 possesses a private interest of his own, to which his simple 
 signature might otherwise relate. 
 
 For what purpose was the paper handed to Mr. Lowell ? 
 Simply that he might examine its sufficiency, and obtain the 
 signatures of such other proper parties as might choose to sign 
 it. But he " was not to use it," (that is, to pass an account 
 by it,) without the previous authority of Judge Warren, as 
 he himself states. 
 
 He says, indeed, that upon the receipt of my letter of De- 
 cember 11, (that is the letter nominating Mr. Loring,) "I 
 [Mr. Lowell,] immediately showed thi^ letter to Judge War- 
 ren, and procured his consent to make use of the release he 
 had left with me." But, supposing that to be true, how was 
 he "to m,ake use" of it ? Does he mean to have it under- 
 stood that Judge Warren authorized him to alter my own 
 signature, or to sign it for me in some new right or capacity ? 
 Judge Warren, himself, possessed no such power. The ut- 
 most authority, which he could, possibly, have conferred on 
 Mr. Lowell, was to deliver that paper to Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
 as our deed, — the deed of those parties, whom Judge War- 
 ren was acting for, and precisely as they had chosen to sign 
 
649 
 
 it, — whenever the object of the compromise should he secured 
 by a proper transfer of the property into the hands of a Tiew 
 trustee. In the mean time, Mr. Lowell was at liberty to 
 obtain the signatures of such other proper parties, including 
 " the trustees under the will of Kirk Boott," as might please 
 to sign the paper ; and he might deliver it as their deed, also, 
 if they should authorize him to do so. 
 
 What was, in fact, done with it ? Mr. Lowell, having the 
 paper in his possession, without my signature as trustee, first 
 obtained the signatures of Mr. and Mrs. Wells, (probably at 
 the same time that he obtained their signatures to the deed 
 of the mansion-house,) and he next signed it, without consult- 
 ing me, "for himself and Edward Brooks, trustees." This 
 would seem, from the date of the acknowledgement of the 
 last mentioned deed, most likely to have happened on the 
 sixteenth of December, and, of course, just before the pre- 
 sentation of the account. But, whenever it may have hap- 
 pened, it is not pretended that he ever exhibited the release, 
 so signed, or gave notice of the fact that he had so signed it, 
 either to me or to Judge Warren ! On the contrary, he sim- 
 ply sent me, on the same sixteenth of December, the deed 
 of the mansion-house, executed by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, in 
 order that Mrs. Brooks and myself might sign that deed, 
 without any notice whatever that he had signed the release 
 in my behalf as trustee, and without any notice of the pas- 
 sage of the account on that very morning, or of any step 
 taken towards it ! 
 
 On the nineteenth of December, (the release being still in 
 Mr. Lowell's pocket, or at least not on the files of the probate 
 office,) Judge Warren is informed that the business is all 
 done; and, having perfect confidence in the gentleman with 
 whom he dealt, he would naturally suppose that it had been 
 done with entire regularity, under the sanction and immediate 
 superintendence of the opposite counsel, Mr. Charles G. Lo- 
 ring. Accordingly, on that day, (December 19,) Judge War- 
 ren, being so informed, writes to me, that, "as a consequence, 
 fof Mr. Lowell's acceding to our proposition of compromise,] 
 
 83 
 
650 
 
 Mr. B. has resigned the trust, Mr. Loring has been appointed 
 trustee, and property to the amount of one hundred thousand 
 dollars or more, besides the purchase-money of the house, 
 (|46,00Oj has been transferred to him." [Ante, p. 140.] 
 
 I say that Judge Warren was so informed by somebody, 
 because it appears by his letter, that he was not present in 
 the probate office, and there is no pretence that he was pres- 
 ent at the transfer of the property. Of course, all this must 
 have been stated by him upon mere information. Whence 
 derived, except from Mr. Lowell ? The information, as it 
 turns out, was not in fact true on the day it was given ; 
 for we have just seen that the transfer of property, which 
 was the whole essence of the compromise, had not been, 
 •made at the date of Judge Warren's letter, (December 19,) 
 since the deeds are dated December 21, and the business of 
 the probate office was not completed till December 23. Nev- 
 ertheless, I confided in that statement from Judge Warren, as 
 he did in the statement of his informant ; and we looked no 
 further ; and if we had, we should have found nothing on 
 file in the probate office, all the important papers being at 
 that time in Mr. Lowell's pocket. He had merely shown 
 them to the judge, in proof of his statement, and had imme- 
 diately withdrawn them again. As for me, being told by my 
 counsel that the business was all done, the manner, in which 
 it was done, I supposed at the time to be immaterial. It 
 was enough for me that I was not called upon to act, or to 
 appear to act, for any body but myself and wife, which was 
 the only point I had made relative to the manner of clos- 
 ing the business. But, since the surrender of the property 
 into the hands of a new trustee was my sole object, the ex- 
 pectation, when the release, with my signature to it, was 
 handed to Mr. Lowell, must, necessarily, have been, that 
 Mr. Boott's resignation, Mr. Loring's appointment, and the 
 transfer of the property, would be all effected on the same 
 day as one contemporaneous act ; and confidence was reposed 
 in Mr. Lowell that all this should be secured, before my 
 release was to be used as an effective instrument to dis- 
 
651 
 
 charge Mr. Boott. It manifestly could not have been intend- 
 ed that the disputed account should first be passed, and that 
 the executor should be discharged of all accountability, upon 
 the faith of my release, and that the delivery of the property 
 to a new trustee, which was the sole consideration for my 
 release, should be left to the contingencies of a future day, 
 in the hands of a man, who would thus have got his dis- 
 charge beforehand, and whom I considered to be in a state 
 of positive derangement. 
 
 What use Mr. Lowell made of that confidence, and how 
 Judge Warren, as well as Edward Brooks, was misled, the 
 reader has now seen. However, since the property was, in 
 fact, handed over a few days after, no harm came, I admit, 
 from this particular deception ; and the only effect of the 
 premature action in the probate court of December 16, and 
 of the withdrawal of the papers, was to preclude all possi- 
 bility of my knowing any thing, meanwhile, of the use made 
 of my name as trustee, if I had happened to look for it. 
 
 I have already remarked, that my transmission of the 
 release to Mr. Lowell, with my personal signature, only, affix- 
 ed to it, and no signature in my capacity of trustee, was 
 notice enough to him, that I did not intend, by any act 
 of mine, to bind the interests of that trust to the compro- 
 mise. But let not the reader suppose, that I left my inten- 
 tion to rest upon that implied notice, alone. Par firom it. / 
 held a conversation with Mr. Lowell on this very point, and 
 then distinctly informed him that 1 could not, and should not, 
 undertake to act as trustee for the minor children of Mr. Kirk 
 Boott, in releasing unknown claims, but, if a release from 
 them was found to stand in the way of a settlement, I would 
 willingly resign my trust, and leave it to others to judge of 
 the propriety, and take the responsibility, of that act. The 
 date of that conversation I can not fix more nearly than 
 somewhere between December 11, and December 16 • but 
 the material fact, that there was such a conversation the 
 reader will observe, is distinctly averred in my former state- 
 ment, [Ante, p. 623] and is not denied in the " Reply." 
 
652 
 
 The allegation is simply evaded, by passing it over without 
 comment, and causing the reader to imbibe a false impres- 
 sion, that the only notice from me, on this subject, was my 
 letter of December 17. The reader will also observe, that 
 this previous conversation is alluded to in the opening of 
 my letter of December 17, printed below, which letter was 
 intended to put in Avriting what I had already in substance 
 said, so that there might be no mistake. The first line of 
 the letter, it will be seen, positively proves the fact, tacitly 
 admitted by Mr. Lowell, that there had been some conversa- 
 tion respecting a paper to be signed by us as trustees. 
 
 This letter, it will be rernembered, accompanied the deed 
 of the mansion-house, which I returned, executed, on the 
 morning of December 17, and was as follows : — 
 
 LETTER PROM EDWARD BROOKS to J. A. LOWELL. 
 
 " December 17, 1844. 
 " My Dear Sik, — 
 
 I send you the deed executed, as you requested. You spoke to me 
 of another deed, or paper, to he signed by you and myself, as trustees, 
 under the will of our late friend, Kirk Boott, of Lowell. 
 
 It is my intention immediately to resign that trust, and I should 
 much prefer that the deed should be signed by the new trustee, or by 
 yourself alone. 
 
 The steps taken by myself and my wife, in this matter, have been 
 based on the idea of a compromise for the sake of peace. 
 
 As a trustee, particularly where there is a variance between the 
 cestui que trusts and the trustee, / am very differently situated. 
 
 I am not prepared to say, that, on a full, fair and just statement of 
 accounts, the executor is entitled to claim a balance of $25,000. 
 
 In my own case, I have a right to waive any claim I may be sup- 
 posed to have. JVot so as trustee. 
 
 Presuming that you have no doubt as to the equity of the claim 
 made by the executor, you can sign the deed without scruple. 
 
 I shall send in my resignation of the trust to-day or to-morrow, 
 and as this will make a settlement of accounts necessary, I shall rely 
 on you to have it in readiness for the next probate day. 
 Yours, very truly, 
 
 Edward Brooks.'* 
 
 " J. A. Lowell, Esq." 
 
 This offer of resignation, lest my scruple should obstruct 
 a settlement of the executor's account, in the probate court. 
 
653 
 
 is conclusive proof, if any were yet wanting, that I was not 
 aware, at the time of the writing of the letter, that the ac- 
 count was already settled, and that, to effect it, my name as 
 trustee had been actually signed to a release ! Yet the whole 
 substance of the " Reply," on this point, consists in showing 
 that the date of the probate decree is December 16, and that 
 the date of my letter is December 17. What answer is this 
 to my complaint ? None in the world, except as it leads the 
 reader to infer a mere falsehood ; and this is more distinctly 
 conveyed, when it is said, " Yet he [Brooks] now pretends 
 that his letter of December 17th was a seasonable notice, &c." 
 [Ante, p. 626.] 
 
 My intention of resignation was removed in consequence 
 of an interview with Mr. Lowell, immediately following 
 his receipt of my letter. Such an interview he admits, in 
 the passEige, which I now extract. He says, indeed, that 
 my letter " had no reference whatever to any release, but 
 to a deed of the estate in Bowdoin Square, which required 
 our joint signature ; which signature Mr. Brooks, in that let- 
 ter, very capriciously as it seemed to me, refused on his part." 
 But, he adds, " / immiediately went to his office, and per- 
 suaded him to sign it." [L. p. 193.] Now, my letter, it 
 will be seen, referred to the paper, whatever it was, which 
 had been previously spoken of by Mr. Lowell, as a paper 
 requiring our joint signatures ; and, in reference to such a 
 paper, I had, verbally, given to Mr. Lowell distinct notice, 
 now repeated in my letter, that 1 should sign nothing, as 
 trustee, to commit my cestui que trusts to a discharge of 
 their claims on the executor. The release was a paper, 
 answering this description. To bind the trust, it required 
 our joint signatures, as trustees ; or, at least, a signature in 
 behalf of each trustee, either by his own hand or by that 
 of an authorized agent. But the paper, which Mr. Lowell 
 brought to me, and which, he now says, was the paper he 
 had referred to in our conversation, turned out to be only a 
 draft of a deed of the mansion-house from the trustees under 
 the will of Kirk Boott to William Lawrence, and contained 
 
654 
 
 no release, express or implied, of claims on the executor. It 
 was merely an assent to the sale of that estate, in behalf of 
 the heirs, whom we, jointly, represented ; to which, now 
 that it was arranged that the proceeds should go into the 
 hands of a safe trustee, I saw no objection. 
 
 I repeated my determination, however, at this interview, 
 not to release any claims in behalf of those heirs ; and the 
 answer was, " It will not be necessary ;" — and this answer 
 was unaccompanied by any notice of the fact, that the ac- 
 count was already passed, and the release already signed, in 
 the manner above described ! The " Reply" pretends no 
 such notice ; but it leaves the reader to infer, from the tenor 
 of its statements, that I must, of course, have been acquainted 
 with the transactions in the probate court, and this, the 
 evidence, above detailed, proves was not the fact. The 
 " Reply" also admits, by endeavouring to excuse, the answer, 
 " It will not be necessary." The remark is, that I printed 
 the passage " emphasizing those words to intimate, I [Mr. 
 Lowell] suppose, some deception on my part, — whereas, if I 
 had made any such remark, it would have been the most 
 natural one in the world, as the account had been passed 
 the day before !" 
 
 This may have all been very natural to Mr. Lowell ; of 
 that I shall not undertake to judge ; and, whether there was 
 " some deception " or not in this matter, the reader can 
 judge for himself. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, however, expressed hopes that I would not 
 resign ; and, seeing that the deed, I was asked to sign, was 
 in itself unobjectionable, and understanding from what was 
 said that no release of claims, by the trustees, would be re- 
 quired, I signed the deed, and, after consideration, concluded 
 not to resign my trust, supposing that the interest of that 
 trust had been in no way committed by any positive act. I 
 knew it had not been committed by any act of mine ; and it 
 never entered my head to imagine that my co-trustee should 
 have dared, without my consent or knowledge, to sign my 
 name as trustee to the release, or even that he had under- 
 
655 
 
 taken, or would undertake, after what had passed between 
 us, to sign his own name, with a view of binding the trust, 
 without my concurrence. 
 
 The next notice I had, respecting the progress of affairs, 
 was from Judge Warren, in his letter of December 19, to 
 the effect that the business was all happily concluded; and, 
 without inquiring when, where, or how, I supposed that it 
 might have been transacted, as such business then very com- 
 monly was, in a private audience, before the judge of pro- 
 bate, at some time convenient to himself and the parties, in 
 lieu of a formal hearing on a regular court day ; and that no 
 release in behalf of the Kirk Boott family had been found 
 necessary to the passage of the executor's account, which 
 was all I cared about in the matter. 
 
 The reader now has the facts before him, and I have but 
 few remarks to make upon the character of the " Reply" to 
 this part of my case. 
 
 That my name was signed, in the manner above stated, 
 without my consent or knowledge, and for the purpose of 
 passing the account, Mr. Lowell does not deny. How, then, 
 does he get over the fact ? To most men this would seem 
 no easy task ; — -but Mr. Lowell makes very light of it. He 
 even affects to turn my complaint into ridicule, as a mere freak 
 of captiousness, quite without excuse. " Why," says Mr. 
 Lowell, in effect, " did I not write a letter to Mr. Brooks on 
 the tenth of December, of which I show to the reader the 
 first sentence, — a sentence declaring my great and disinter- 
 ested love of the whole Boott family, and my sincere desire 
 to heal their dissensions, — and the residue of which letter I 
 assure the reader, contained my proposition for a compromise ? 
 And did not Mr. Brooks write me an answer, which I shoiv 
 to the reader in full, and in which there is ' not one word 
 be it observed, about any reluctance to consent to this ar- 
 rangement as joint trustee with me under the will of Mr. 
 Kirk Boott ?' " This [signing of his name] I never doubted 
 that I was fully authorized to do by Mr Brooks's note 
 above cited " ! ! 
 
656 
 
 Now, what possible authority, I ask, in the name of truth, 
 could Mr. Lowell have imagined to have been thereby con- 
 veyed to him to sign for me, a paper not alluded to either 
 in Ms letter or mine? — a paper, too, which I had myself 
 already signed as I meant to sign it, and which I had pur- 
 posely omitted to sign as trustee for others, with express no- 
 tice to him of my intention in that behalf ? If Mr. Lowell 
 really believed that such an authority was conveyed by my 
 assent to his letter, why did he print my letter only as the 
 evidence of that assent, and omit to print his own letter, (ex- 
 cept one immaterial sentence,) thereby precluding the reader 
 from seeing for himself what was the proposition assented to, 
 and leading him to infer from the whole statement, that the 
 tenor of his proposal was totally different from any thing, 
 which the letter actually contains, or suggests ? 
 
 However, this letter of mine, connected with his, is Mr. 
 Lowell's sole alleged authority, such as it is ; and in virtue 
 of that authority he takes the paper, whensoever it may have 
 come to his possession, carries it to Cambridge, procures (he 
 additional signatures of Mr. and Mrs. Wells, and then, with- 
 out notice to me, signs it himself, not only for himself as one 
 of the trustees, but, expressly, for Edward Brooks also, as 
 the other trustee, under the will of Kirk Boott, being, as he 
 says, " in the usual form of such signature," [L. p. 192.] 
 and all standing, apparently, under the attestation of my own 
 servant, Hugh Mathews. 
 
 " The usual form of such signature .'" Well, — that may 
 be true enough. No one better understands the forms of 
 business than Mr. Lowell. I presume that, whenever one 
 man writes another's name without authority, he takes 
 care to do it in what he supposes to be the "usual form of 
 such signature." I have never made the slightest objection 
 to the form, in which Mr. Lowell signed my name. The 
 only complaint in the world, I have to make, is, that he 
 should have signed it at all, without my consent given or 
 asked, without authority express or implied, and that he 
 should have done it secretly, without my knowledge at the 
 
657 
 
 time, and without communicating it to me afterwards, and 
 altogether against my known will on that subject, and that 
 he should presume to treat the fact, when discovered, as a 
 matter of no moment. 
 
 Let us see how Mr. Lowell deals with so grave a charge 
 As indisputable evidence of my dissent, at the time, to all 
 action in my name, as trustee, for others, in this voluntary 
 release of claims, I formerly printed my letter of December 
 17, 1844, now reprinted above. This Mr. Lowell admits he 
 received, but affects to treat with extreme contempt, and to 
 turn the circumstance of the date of the letter against me, as 
 if it made the matter merely ridiculous ; — ^for I have invaria- 
 bly observed of Mr. Lowell, in all the dealings I have ever had 
 with him, that he assumes a tone, confident, presumptuous, 
 and overbearing, just in proportion to the badness of his 
 cause. Accordingly, we find him, now, using the following 
 language. "He [Mr. Brooks] now pretends that this letter 
 of December 17, was a seasonable notice not to sign on his 
 behalf a release, which was exhibited at the probate court, 
 signed hy all the parties interested, on the I6th ! This con- 
 tempt for chronology is, as I have already had occasion to 
 show, characteristic of Mr. Brooks's mind." [L. p. 193.] 
 Now observe the exact phraseology here, because it betrays 
 something, which I consider very characteristic of Mr. Low^ 
 ell's mind. Without once alluding to the previous convert 
 sations I had held with him to the same effect, he gives out, 
 by indirection, that my case of notice rests, solely, on that let- 
 ter of December 17. Having tacitly assumed that absolute 
 falsehood, he says, " the release was exhibited at the pro- 
 bate court, signed by all the parties interested, on the 16th" — 
 — one day before the date of my letter. This may be all 
 true,-^-except that I deny that my signature, as one of the 
 trustees under the will of the late Kirk Boott, is upon that 
 paper at all,^and if true, it would seem, at first blush, 
 to all persons ignorant of the circumstances, to be a pretty 
 decisive answer. Every reader, who sees that statement 
 without further explanation, naturally says to himself,^" If 
 
658 
 
 the paper was really exhibited, in open court, the day before 
 the date of Mr. Brooks's letter, Mr. Brooks must have had 
 notice of it ; for he must have been present, by himself or his 
 counsel, and should have objected at the time, instead of 
 writing a letter the next day, and endeavouring to do away 
 the effect of what had been done by offering to resign his 
 trust." 
 
 I have already proved that this idea is unfounded in fact ; 
 but, since it may not be so well known to every reader, as 
 it is to those who have business in our courts, it may l>e proper 
 to add, that, when a settlement is agreed upon out of court, 
 nothing is more common than for all the papers to be handed 
 to the counsel, or agent, of one of the parties, to be exhibited 
 and filed when it shall suit his convenience, provided be 
 be a person, in whom implicit confidence may be reposed 
 that every thing will be rightly done, according to the 
 agreement. This it was, which happened here. The compro- 
 mise had been agreed upon ; several papers were yet to be 
 prepared and executed, to carry it into full effect ; this paper, 
 already signed by some, was put into Mr. Lowell's hands that 
 he might obtain the signature of others ; and all the papers 
 were left with him, by me and by my counsel, as we should 
 have left them in the hands of any respectable man, occupy- 
 ing the position of Mr. Lowell, and believed to be an accurate 
 man of business, in perfect security that the right use, and 
 no other, would be made of them at the right time and no 
 other. 
 
 The deed of the mansion-house, — the most pressing step in 
 the whole business for Mr. Boott and Mr. Lowell, — ^was not 
 sent to Mr. Lowell, executed, as appears by my letter, till 
 the morning of the seventeenth. The transfer of the prop- 
 erty to the new trustee, — the only step material to my side 
 of the compromise, — was not made certainly before the 
 twenty-first, nor was the business completed in the probate 
 court till the twenty-third. Not, until that day, was the final 
 account presented by Mr. Boott, without which the business 
 .could not be regularly closed. In such a matter nothing was 
 
659 
 
 done till all was done. The releases, in particular, were to 
 take effect when the transfer of property occurred, or, at the 
 instant before, when the accounts were to be passed, and 
 the property was, thereupon, to change hands. All this prep- 
 aration was, at the date of my letter, supposed to be yet in pro- 
 gress. 
 
 But what does Mr. Lowell ? Immediately upon the agree- 
 ment's being made, and before it was possible that it should 
 be executed for want of needful preparation, havring the half- 
 signed release in his hand, he completes it in the manner 
 above described, without notice to me ; and then, without 
 waiting for other indispensable parts of the transaction to be 
 in readiness, so that the property might be transferred, he 
 hastens, with the release, so signed, to the first probate court, 
 in the company of Mr. Bootb ahne, — informs the judge that 
 the parties have agreed to the settlement of that pending ac- 
 count, — exhibits this release, and the other releases, in proof, — - 
 obtains a decree allowing the account on the faith of that 
 ■statement and evidence,— ^and then takes away the releases 
 again, to keep them in his own pocket tmtil the other pre- 
 parations can be made at leisure, and until the business can 
 be finished at some subsequent probate court, so that the 
 settlement of accounts may be beyond all danger of defeat, 
 and the manner, in which it was effected, beyond all prob- 
 ability of discovery. 
 
 In the mean time, I, confiding in Mr. Lowell, and in the 
 regular progress of the thing towards completion, had given 
 myself no further thought about the matter. I had no notice 
 of the movement in the probate court ; no opportunity to be 
 present ; neither had my counsel. For myself, indeed, I 
 never knew that Mr. Boott's account had been passed on the 
 sixteenth, until I observed that to be the date of the pro- 
 bate record, when preparing my former pamphlet ; and, al- 
 though I then thought it strange that the account should 
 have been actually passed on that day, when the surrender 
 of the property to the new trustee did not appear to have 
 been made till several days afterwards, nor the subsequent 
 
660 
 
 account to have been passed till the twenty-third, while 
 Judge Warren's letter, telling me that the business was ac- 
 tually finished, appeared to be dated on the nineteenth, still, 
 suspecting no wrong, I thought nothing of these discrepan- 
 cies, though I could not account for them, until I discovered 
 this extraordinary fact concerning the signature to the release. 
 
 But my letter of the seventeenth was not my first notice 
 to Mr. Lowell of my refusal to join in a release as trustee. 
 That I have abundantly shown, not only by my own state- 
 ment, but by Mr. Lowell's tacit admission. Mr. Lowell well 
 knew my objection before the sixteenth. On that day, he 
 sent me the deed of the house, to be signed by myself and 
 Mrs. Brooks and Mr. William Boott ; and, on returning it, 
 signed, on the morning of the seventeenth, I, very naturally, 
 took the occasion to repeat, more formally, the grounds of my 
 objection to acting in this business, in my capacity of trus- 
 tee ; but, that I might not thereby stand in the way of the 
 settlement, nor thwart Mr. Lowell's known desire that all con- 
 cerned should join in a release, I offered and proposed, if he 
 were content to take the responsibility of acting for the 
 Kirk Boott family entirely upon himself, to resign my trust. 
 What follows ? Mr. Lowell comes to see me, and brings with 
 him a draft of a deed, representing it to be the identical pa- 
 per, requiring the signatures of himself and myself as co- 
 trustees, to which he had, in our former conversation, referred. 
 I insist on my objection to signing as trustee. He asks me 
 to read the paper. I do so, and find it to be a mere deed 
 of conveyance to Mr. Lawrence of our interest, as trustees* 
 in the mansion-house, without a release, express or implied, 
 of any claim on Mr. Boott. I give him to understand that I 
 have no objection to signing that deed, considering the sale 
 a fair one, and that the proceeds would go into safe hands, 
 but again repeat that I can not, and will not, agree to sign, 
 in that capacity, any release of claims on Mr. Boott. To 
 this Mr. Lowell, saying nothing of what had happened, sim- 
 ply replies, — " It will not be necessary ! !" 
 
 Little did I dream, when he told me this in his most artless 
 
661 
 
 manner, that he was only saying, in effect, — " You need not 
 trouble yourself, my dear Sir, about signing, or not signing, 
 any such paper as that, — because I have already done it for 
 you" ! I understood him, of course, literally, as he meant I 
 should understand, that no act of the trustees was judged to 
 be needful. 
 
 And now, having seen what all the facts are, — none of 
 them really denied by Mr. Lowell, — ^let us take the best side 
 of his own story. 
 
 His substantial plea comes to this : That he signed the re- 
 lease for me in good faith, and " in the usual form of such sig- 
 nature," supposing that I wished or expected him to do so, as 
 a matter of course. Aud yet, is it not Wonderful, if he was so 
 perfectly sure of my consent, that he should not have preferred 
 to get my own name, so easUy done, to a paper so very 
 important as this proves to have been for himself personally? 
 Am I not justified in saying that it was important to him, 
 personally, after all we have seen about the connexion of 
 Boott & Lowell with the subject matter of this account ? 
 to say nothing of its securing full payment of a debt due 
 to himself, for large sums of money lent, as trustee, upon 
 questionable security. 
 
 But we will suppose that he did so sign it for me, hon- 
 estly and in good faith, and that he carried it into the pro- 
 bate court, on the sixteenth day of December, not dreaming 
 that I could have the least objection to releasing, as trustee, 
 claims similar to those, which I had consented to release 
 for myself personally. On the very next day, he gets a note 
 from me, about which there can he rw misapprehension, positively 
 declining to sign any such paper in that capacity. Supposing, 
 I say, that his intentions were all fair and open, and that he 
 had acted under a mere mistake, what should he have done 
 on the receipt of such a note ? Would not any other gen- 
 tleman of his standing and reputation have come, or writ- 
 ten, to me, immediately, and said, " I am truly sorry for 
 what has happened ; I have already put your name as trus- 
 tee to that release, presuming you had authorized me to do 
 
662 
 
 so, or at least that you would have no objection. Meaning 
 to be prompt in this matter, I carried it, yesterday, to the 
 judge of probate, and the executor's account was, unfortu- 
 nately, passed, upon the faith of it. But this, after all, is 
 rather a matter of form ; the decree has not yet been record- 
 ed ; the release has not been filed ; the property, I am hap:- 
 py to say, has not been delivered, and other needful parts 
 of the arrangement are still incomplete ; so that a mistake, 
 in this hasty proceeding, is yet entirely open to be corrected ; 
 and I am now ready to do whatever you may require, to set 
 matters right." 
 
 I ask every fair-minded man if such would not have been 
 his own course ? But, what does Mr. Lowell ? He pockets 
 my letter, — says nothing in reply, — ^keeps close, — ^runs for 
 luck, — counting upon my confidence in him, and upon the im- 
 probability of my searching the records of the probate office, 
 and upon the greater improbability of my calling for absent 
 papers, — ^breathes not a. syllable of his having put my name 
 to the release, nor of his having thereby got the account al- 
 ready passed, — ^but, on the contrary, brings me another pa- 
 per to sign as trustee, to which I see no objection, — and, 
 when I remind him that I cannot sign a release as trustee, 
 merely says, "Oh, that will not be necessary ! " — and leaves 
 me to find out, three years and a half after, that he had ac- 
 tually done for me that, which I had expressly declared, 
 both verbally and in Avriting, my fixed determination that 
 I would never do. Thus, in spite of every precaution, I 
 stand recorded in the probate office, apparently assenting to 
 a release of claims, held only in trust, by Mr. Lowell's sig- 
 nature in my behalf, written, as it seems by the paper, in the 
 presence of my own house-servant, directly under my own 
 personal signature, and witnessed by him. 
 
 On making the discovery, I write to Mr. Lowell for an 
 explanation. This he treats with " silent contempt," re- 
 fusing all answer upon the subject till he is dragged out, be- 
 fore the readers of my pamphlet, in print ; and then, he has 
 the consummate assurance to publish an answer holding up 
 
663 
 
 the whole affair to general ridicule, upon the ground of its 
 being a mere foolish mistake of mine, — a silly anachron- 
 ism, — ^because, forsooth, my letter, repeating a verbal notice 
 of several days before, was dated on the seventeenth, and 
 he had, without notice to me, procured the account to be 
 passed on the sixteenth ! 
 
 What such a release, and such a passing of an account, 
 may be good for, I shall not, at this moment, undertake 
 to determine ; but I desire to publish to all who read these 
 pages, that my present judgement, respecting the propriety 
 of my joining in that release as trustee, is, still, what it 
 then was; that, if the matter were to do over again, I 
 should refuse, now, as I did then, to be a party to any such 
 act ; and, further, I desire to publish, that this signature, 
 affixed hy Mr. Lowell, and purporting to be afixed for me, 
 is NOT MY SIGNATURE, twr evidence of my assent, in any sense 
 of the term, and was nevek authobized by me, expressly 
 or impliedly, and that Mr. Lowell knew it was not when 
 he so signed; — and, there I leave it. 
 
 One word of explanation, however, as to my own course, 
 seems needful. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, in addition to the imputed anachronism, in- 
 dulges himself in some further pleasantry, as follows : — 
 
 " I will not dwell on the absurdity of a trustee allowing accounts 
 that he believes to be fictitious to be passed, no one appearing to ob- 
 ject to them, and the next day refusing on the plea of conscience to 
 sign merelj pro forma discharges." [|Ante, p. 627.] 
 
 The ideas of the " Reply," concerning form and substance 
 in the execution of a trust, are so different from mine, that I 
 shall not stop to discuss them. But, in respect to my imputed 
 neglect of duty, in allowing the account to be passed without 
 interposing a positive objection, in behalf of my trust, it 
 might be answer enough to show, as I have, that the fact of 
 its passage, at that time, and in that manner, was concealec 
 from me by Mr. Lowell until the deed was done. It was dmu 
 while I supposed jn-eparation was yet making for doing it, 
 
664 
 
 ■with full opportunity for all parties to object, who had not 
 already agreed to the settlement. But further, I would re- 
 mark, that an allowance of the account by a judge of pro- 
 bate, upon his judicial responsibility, was one thing ; a vol- 
 untary release of claims on the executor for all matters, wheth- 
 er in the account or out of it, by a party interested, was 
 quite another. The question is, whether I ought to have 
 joined, as trustee, in such a release. Reason enough against 
 it, has, I trust, been made to appear. I did not, indeed, then 
 know all, which I know now ; but I knew, well enough, 
 or, at least, had reason enough to believe, that Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott was, in equity, largely indebted to his father's estate ; 
 in other words, that he had received more of that estate than 
 the account charged him with; how much more I did not 
 know. I believed, also, it is true, that Mr. Kirk Boott had 
 been allowed $20,000, as the dividend due to him from the 
 estate. But I did not positively know that ; nor did I know 
 that a much larger sum was not really due to him. What 
 the effect might be of former transactions, including the dis- 
 charge of 1833, to which Mr. Kirk Boott was a party, if all 
 the real facts of the case should be discovered, and what 
 the effect of a decree allowing an account, which entirely 
 omits to charge the accounting party with certain sums, not 
 mentioned, nor referred to, in it, — all this it was not my prov- 
 ince to assume to determine for any body but myself For 
 the sake of quieting dissensions, of effecting a settlement im- 
 portant to the peace of the family, and of securing, at the 
 same time, the safety of a remnant of family property, I was 
 willing to compromise, for myself, by the most formal and 
 effectual release that counsel could devise, all claims against 
 Mr. Boott, belonging to me in my wife's right, and she was 
 willing to join me in that act. I was not willing, and, in- 
 deed, had no right, in my own judgement, to yield up, in 
 the dark, any claim, legal or equitable, that might remain 
 to the minors, for whom I was a trustee. I preferred to re- 
 sign the trust, and leave that responsibility to others, if they 
 chose to assume it. 
 
665 
 
 What would Mr. Lowell have said, had I signed the 
 release as trustee ? Even now, he says there was no com- 
 promise. But with how much more colour of plausibility 
 would he have said so then ? How would he have borne 
 down upon me in that case ? " See," he would have said, 
 " the consistency and fairness of this Mr. Brooks. He pre- 
 tends that the allowance of the account was a compromise ; 
 and, yet, he signed a. full release of all claims, not merely 
 for himself, but as trustee, and in behalf of others, some of 
 them minors, whose claims, if they had any, he knew he 
 had no right to abandon, or to surrender without the small- 
 est pecuniary consideration." 
 
 What could I have answered to this ? I should have had 
 no more to say for myself than Mr. Lowell has to say for 
 himself, in having usurped that office, and in having under- 
 taken to sign my name, secretly, to a release, which, it now 
 appears, was to accrue in part to his own benefit, — -thus, not 
 only violating his faith to me as a co-trustee, but his duties, 
 in my judgement, to the wards, whose interests, we were equal- 
 ly bound to protect. 
 
 For my part, I saw no course, for me, but to resign my 
 trust, if such a release w£is to be required. Would that have 
 been a culpable dereliction of duty ? Perhaps I might have 
 been blameable for a weakness, even in that. But, the case 
 was, that my co-trustee, professing a knowledge, (as I shall 
 presently prove,) upon the subject of the old partnership 
 transactions and family accounts, which I did not pretend 
 to possess, and declaring a confidence, which I could not 
 feel, in the truth of the executor's account, was urging 
 me to adopt it. He was willing, apparently, to take 
 the responsibility of signing off for every body ; and sev- 
 eral of the family of the late Mr. Kirk Boott, influenced 
 by Mr. Lowell's views and representations, were actually 
 desirous that the release should be given, and the account 
 passed. What would have been said, then, if, after agree- 
 ing to a compromise for myself, I had, nevertheless, insisted, 
 under such circumstances, on fighting out the battle for them, 
 
 84 
 
666 
 
 against their will, and against the will of my co-trustee ? 
 And what, if I had thereby defeated the proposed family set- 
 tlement, and prevented the restoration of the proffered peace ? 
 The dilemma was such, that I saw nothing left for me but 
 to resign. I so notified to Mr. Lowell, at first verbally, and, 
 again, in my letter of the seventeenth ; and I should cer- 
 tainly have so resigned, but for his comforting assurance, 
 that a release of their claims would " not be necessary." The 
 reader may judge, then, whether I acted, in this matter, 
 either as a wanton disturber of the family peace, or as a 
 party unmindful of my duties as a trustee, — ^both of which 
 violations of duty I am charged with by Mr. Lowell ; — and 
 he may also judge, for himself, what the motives were, upon 
 which Mr. Lowell acted, throughout this business, and what 
 his motive is in publishing a " Reply," of which but a small 
 part of the falsehood has, as yet, been exposed. 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 MR. Lowell's bepbesentations or the settlement, fubthee 
 
 SUBTBACTION OF MBS. BOOTT's INCOME. 
 
 The narrative, upon points connected with the accounts, 
 and with' the question of Mr. Boott's conduct as an executor, 
 is now brought up to the time of the final settlement in the 
 probate ofiice, Deceniber 23, 1844. Thence to the time of 
 the inquest, Marph 7, 1845, whatever occurred, worthy of 
 narration, relates to the separate question of Mr. Boott's san- 
 ity, with the exception of certain matters entirely personal 
 between me and Mr. Lowell. These I propose now to lay 
 before the reader. 
 
 Very soon after the compromise arrangements had all been 
 
667 
 
 •carried into effect, a conversation occurred between us. We 
 mutually expressed our gratification at what seemed to be a 
 happy conclusion of a business, which, while it remained 
 open, occasioned undue excitement in certain portions of the 
 family. The change of trusteeship, it was thought, would 
 remove all danger of collision, between Mr. Boott and any 
 of his family, concerning pecuniary matters at least ; and 
 it seemed that the harmony, amongst the other members of 
 the family, which had been disturbed, of late, by the ques- 
 tion of Mr. Boott's removal from his trust, might now be re- 
 stored, if its restoration were promoted by a course of careful 
 conduct on the part of those, Who were best informed re- 
 specting the business part of the transaction. We both 
 agreed that the surest way, to effect this desirable object, was, 
 for MS to say nothing upon the recent subjects of difference, 
 but simply to give out that we had agreed upon a trustee, to 
 whom all the property had been transferred, and that all 
 questions about property and accounts were amicably settled. 
 Mr. Lowell was particularly emphatic on this point, and said, 
 at parting, " Whatever you may hear about it hereafter, you 
 may rest assured that it dofeS not come from me." 
 
 Within three days, I heard, from what seemed to me good 
 authority, that certain friends of the family were told by 
 Mr. Lowell, jast after our conversation, that "Wright Boott 
 had come out triumphantly ; that the idea of any misman- 
 cgement, or loss of property, was completely abandoned by 
 Brooks and William, Boott ; that his accounts were found 
 to be entirely correct, and showed a large balance due to him, 
 which Was agreed to." 
 
 This breach of the spirit of our agreement was extremely 
 vexatious ; and the more so, because I could not bring it home 
 to Mr. Lowell, without involving friends, who did not wish 
 to be quoted. I told him, however, in general terms, what 
 I had heard, without naming my authority. He did not deny 
 the fact, but affected to consider that what he had said did 
 not amount to a breach of our agreement, and assured me 
 that he should be more cautious in future. I heard other 
 
668 
 
 rumours, notwithstanding, at other times, to the like effect, as 
 coming from Mr. Lowell ; but never in a shape to be authen- 
 tically traced to their source, and, after all he had said, I was 
 not willing to believe that they originated with him ; nor did 
 I deem them of very serious importance, until they came to 
 be connected with the question of the cause of Mr. Boott's 
 death. Even then, I did not venture to attribute what I 
 heard to Mr. Lowell, so positively as to call for explanation, 
 until I learned, a year and a half after the coroner's inquest, 
 what the information was, which he had given to the jurors ,' 
 and then I thought it high time for me to move, as I did. 
 
 A few weeks after the settleirtent, an accidental conversa- 
 tion occurred between Mr. Lowell and Mr. William Boott, 
 also, the substance of which Mr. William Boott mentioned 
 to me. It led to a brief, but friendly correspondence, which 
 I have before adverted to. [Ante, pp. 225, 487.] The cor- 
 respondence speaks best for itself. 
 
 LETTER TROM E. BROOKS to J. A. LOWELL. 
 
 January 31, 1845. 
 Deae Sir, 
 
 I learn from Mr. William Boott that you have in your possessioB 
 a letter from Mr. Kirk lioott, of Lowell, in which he says that, at a 
 meeting between himself, myself, and one or more other persons, it 
 ■was agreed, with my assent, that Mr. John W. Boott was justified in 
 placing his mother's property in the Mill Dam Foundry. If Mr. 
 Boott has understood you correctly, may I ask the favoi»r of you ttt 
 allow me to see that letter. Yours very truly, 
 
 Edwakd Brooks. 
 At Mr. Brooks's request, I state that the above information is cor- 
 rect, as far as I understood Mr. Lowell in conversation yesterday. 
 
 W. Boott. 
 
 LETTER FROM J. A. LOWELL to E. BROOKS. 
 
 Deab Sir: 
 
 My statement to Mr. William Boott, was, that I had seen a letter from 
 Mr. Kirk Boott, of Lowell, in which he says, in substance, that at a 
 meeting between himself and yourself and one or two other per- 
 sons, it was agreed, with your assent, that Mr. J. W. Boott was jus- 
 tified in using some portion of the funds, in his hands as executor, in 
 business at the Mill Dam Foundery. 
 
 That letter never was, except for a few hours, in my possession, 
 
66^ 
 
 and I took no copy of it. I will try to procure a copy of it, or the 
 original, for your inspection. Yours very truly, 
 
 J. A. Lowell. 
 Jan. 31, 1845. 
 
 LETTER raojl. J. A. LOWELL To E. BROOKS. 
 
 Boston, Jan. 31, 1845. 
 Dear Sie : 
 
 The following is an extract from a letter from Kirk Boott, Esq. 
 of Lowell. 
 
 " Sunday evening, 
 "Mt Dear "Weight ! 
 
 " I intended to have had some conversation with you before my re- 
 turn home, but was too jaded, last evening, to attempt it. 
 
 " After leaving you, yesterday morning, I went to E. B.'s office, 
 where Ralston, soon after, joined us. 
 
 " They both exonerate you from any selfish views in the manage- 
 ment of the property, and, admitting your undeviating economy, con- 
 sider you have sacrificed yourself to the desire of helping others. 
 
 " By the provisions of the will you were authorized to use the 
 estate in business, — and, while there is not, on any side, a shadow of 
 suspicion that you have heedlessly squandered it, there can be no 
 imputation on your honor or integrity, though it he in your hands 
 greatly diminished. But this will not apply to F.'s children. We 
 are therefore of opinion that they must be paid in full, at all events, 
 and effected as soon as possible." 
 
 This is all the letter contains on this subject You will remember 
 that, by a settlement afterwards made with Lyman and Ralston, Mr. 
 Boott was exonerated from all the debts of the Mill Dam Foundery, 
 and, of course, the fund was not diminished, as Mr. K. Boott seems to 
 have feared it might be. 
 
 Mr. Robert Ralston, in a note on tlio same subject, says : — " I can 
 most fully confirm the statement in Kirk's note. No one, at that 
 time, or during the whole negotiation subsequent thereto, ever im- 
 peached your honor or integrity, or doubted that, by your father's 
 will, you Were at full liberty to employ the capital in your hands in 
 business. I well remember that it was the opinion of Mr, Brooks, 
 your brother Kirk and myself, that you had acted always in a most 
 disinterested manner, sacrificing yourself for others." 
 
 I am yours, very truly, 
 
 J. A. Lowell. 
 
 I do not mean to take up time with comments on this cor- 
 respondence, (which is not noticed in the " Reply,") further 
 than to point out the total failure of the authority, cited by 
 Mr. Lowell, to support his position, that I had ever agreed that 
 
670 
 
 Mr. Boott was justified in placing his mother^ s property, ot 
 any property, held by him as executor, in the Mill Dam Foun- 
 dry. It was true, only, that the will allowed him, after 
 forming the particular trust funds, to lend the remaining 
 shares of the minor children, to be used in one particular 
 business, by one particular firm, if it should be established; 
 but not by such a firm, or in such a business, as that of 
 Messrs. Boott, Lyman & Ralston, at the foundry. For fur- 
 ther explanations on this point, I refer to my former remarks. 
 [B. pp. 130 to 136.] 
 
 It was, I believe, about the time of this conversation, in 
 January, 1845, that I learned from Mr. Lowell, incidentally, 
 that a part of Mrs. Boott's income had been taken to 
 make up the apparent sum in the hands of the new trus- 
 tee. My former remarks on this subject are held out as 
 quite ludicrous in the " Reply," and are there connected, by 
 juxtaposition, with the very serious subject treated of in the 
 last chapter. The shaft of wit, so shot for the reader's en- 
 tertainment, and obviously to turn oflf his attention from 
 graver matters, is hardly worth the picking up ; but there are 
 facts of some importance, connected with this part of the 
 case, which the reader ought to know ; and, for the purpose 
 of stating them, I insert what Mr. Lowell says : — 
 
 " Another anachronism, precisely similar in its nature to the one 
 just commented upon, occurs on page 123d of Mr. Brooks's pamphlet. 
 
 " I had understood the final agreement for the passage of Mr. Boott's 
 accounts to be based upon a proposition previously made to me by 
 Judge Warren, that so much of a dividend of the Merrimack Compa- 
 ny, just declared, should be retained by the trustee as capital, as 
 should be found necessary, upon appraisement of the stocks, to make 
 good the original amount of the trust funds, namely, $100,000. The ' 
 sum of $4500 45 was retained accordingly. 
 
 " It appears that Mr. Brooks and Mr. William Boott did not wish 
 to insist on that condition, and addressed a joint note to Mr. Loring, 
 requesting him to consider the whole of that dividend as income, and 
 to pay it, as such, to Mrs. BoOtt. ' Whether this has been done or 
 not,' says Mr. Brooks, ' we have not been informed ; but I infer oth- 
 erwise from the fact, that a new paper, designed apparently to ratify 
 the actual settlement, seems to have been sent out to London, I pre- 
 sume by Mr. Lowell, immediately after the settlement was completed, 
 
671 
 
 and to have been signed there, February 1, 1845, by Mrs. Boott, Dr. 
 Francis Boott, and Mr. James Boott.' 
 
 " The joint note of Mr. Brooks and Mr. William Boott to Mr. Lo- 
 ring (App. p. 57) bears date February 3, 1845 ; so that, in plain 
 English, it amounts to this, that Mr. Brooks considers a release exe- 
 cuted in London on the 1st of February 1845, as warranting the 
 inference that we were ' unwilling to comply with a request made in 
 this country two days afterwards ! I wonder that he did not charac- 
 terize our reluctance as obstinate and protracted." [L. p. 193-5.] 
 
 The fact, which I stated, respecting Mr. Lowell's having 
 obtained a second release from Mrs. Boott, after the settle- 
 ment, and the purpose, for which I said it was obtained, it 
 will be observed, are, here, tacitly admitted by the " Reply." 
 
 I have further to remark, that, if Judge Warren ever pro- 
 posed that the capital of Mrs. Boott's trust fund should be 
 made good, or apparently good, out of her own income, he 
 did so without any authority from me ; and, having no other 
 evidence of it than this statement of the " Reply," unsup- 
 ported by Judge Warren's own account of his proposal, I dis- 
 believe the fact. 
 
 The accounts, however, were settled, in reality, though 
 not in ostensible form, upon that false basis. That is to say, 
 the account of November 18, even upon the incorrect valua- 
 tion it assumes of the property on hand, exhibited only 
 $96,000 and a fraction, instead of $100,000, for the invest- 
 ment of Mrs. Boott's trust fund. Between that time and the 
 settlement of the final account of December 23, Mr. Boott 
 received from the manufacturing stock $7100 of income, 
 which, after passing over the shares to his successor, was 
 left in his hands, expressly, as " Income received on account 
 of Mrs. Boott, and to be paid to her or for her account." 
 [B. App. p. 53.] But, when the inventory of the new trustee 
 came to be made np, it was thought desirable, by Mr. Lowell, 
 to make, if possible, a show of $146,000 of property in the 
 hands of the new tmstee, (that is, $100,000 for the trust 
 fund, and $46,000 for the proceeds of the mansion-house,) 
 notwithstanding that $26,000 was taken out for the payment 
 of his debt. 
 
672 
 
 The high price of manufacturing stock, at that time, facil- 
 itated the execution of this idea. The seventy-one shares of 
 Merrimack, which had cost Mr. Boott only par, and had 
 sometimes been worth much less than par, were appraised at 
 twenty-eight per cent, advance. But, notwithstanding this 
 fortunate circumstance, the whole property, (exclusive of 
 the mansion-house,) charged in the executor's accounts at 
 f 121,500, could only be brought up, by the new appraise- 
 ment, to $ 120,655 ; against which stood the cash balance 
 of $25,215 45, claimed by the executor. This cash balance 
 being taken out of the proceeds of the mansion-house, 
 ($46,000,) there was left, from this source, $20,784 55, to be 
 added to the appraised value of the stocks and the stable. 
 But this would bring up the sum total of property, in the 
 hands of the new trustee, even with the aid of this high 
 appraisement, to no more than $141,439 55. Of course, to 
 make up an exhibit of $146,000*, and enable Mr. Lowell to 
 represent to the family that Mrs. Boott's trust fund, and the 
 proceeds of the mansion-house, were all whole, it was needful 
 that a further sum of $4560 45 should be paid to the new 
 trustee. Such a sum is, accordingly, inventoried by the new 
 trustee as " Cash received from John W. Boott." [B. App. p. 
 55.] But whence could it be taken ? Not out of the execu- 
 tor's "cash balance," for that was to go to Mr. Lowell. But 
 it might be taken, and was taken, out of the ^7100 of " In- 
 come received on account of Mrs. Boott, and to be paid to 
 her, or for her account .'" 
 
 This source of the payment is not stated on the face of the 
 probate paper ; — it appears, there, as if the $4560 45 was a 
 mere gratuity from Mr. Boott, who, according to his ac- 
 cou7its, had already paid over all that he owed, except the 
 $7100, and that was retained, ostensibly, /or his mother, being 
 her admitted property. But Mr. Lowell, it will be perceived, 
 in the extract above made from his pamphlet, admits, that this 
 $4560 45 was, in fact, taken out of that $7100, and he charges 
 the taking of it upon Judge Warren, as a thing proposed 
 by him. No such fact is stated by Judge Warren, in his let- 
 
673 
 
 ter of December 19, 1844, written when he erroneously sup- 
 posed the whole settlement finished, and written for no other 
 purpose than to inform me, fully, of the terms of the set- 
 tlement. [Ante, p. 139.] 
 
 Thus, Mrs. Booti's, income was made, without her consent 
 or knowledge, to aid the high market prices of the day, in 
 completing, nominally, the capital of her own trust fund, by 
 a contribution of $4560 45, to be added to the $65,000, or 
 thereabouts, which had been subtracted from her income 
 in former years, for the payment of Mr. Boott's other debts. 
 [Ante, Ch. 43.] This was done, also, without the consent or 
 knowledge of Mr. William Boott, or of myself. We learn- 
 ed the fact, casually, from Mr. Lowell, about the time 
 above mentioned. Such a mode of settlement was entirely 
 contrary to our expectation, and entirely contrary to our 
 views of propriety ; since it was taking property from Mrs. 
 Boott, for the benefit of ourselves, and the other reversioners 
 of the trust fund. We understood, however, that Mr. Low- 
 ell spoke of the transaction as a thing done by our desire. 
 Consequently, we addressed the following note to Mr. Lo- 
 ring :— 
 
 LETTER FROM E. BROOKS and W. BOOTT to C. G. LOBUfG. 
 
 Boston, 3d February, 1845. 
 C. G. LoRiNG, Esq., Trustee, &c. 
 
 Dear Sib, — Having learned from Mr. Lowell that, owing to 
 some misunderstanding as to the manner, in which we intended the 
 trust fund, belonging to the estate of the late Mr. Kirk Boott, should 
 be made good, the last dividend on the shares in the Merrimack 
 Company has been added to the fund as principal, we request you to 
 consider this dividend as iwcome, and pay it, as such, to Mrs. Boott. 
 
 We are, Dear Sir, 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 Edward Brooks. 
 William Boott. 
 
 We never received any answer to this request. But, at the 
 time of writing my former pamphlet, I had discovered that, 
 immediately after the settlement of the final account a new 
 
674 
 
 release of all claims on Mr. J. Wright Boott had been drawn 
 up, here, for Mrs. Boott to execute, and had been executed 
 by her at London, February 1, 184.5, and that this executed 
 release had been, afterwards, filed in the probate office here. 
 It was obvious that this must have been done under the idea, 
 that her former release, of May 29, 1844, already on file, 
 could cover only misappropriations of her income antecedent 
 to its date, and would not embrace the particular misappro- 
 priation made, by turning it into capital of the trust fund, in 
 the settlement of December 23. The plain object of the new 
 release was to cover that, and any other misappropriations of 
 her property, that may have occurred after May 29. The 
 discovery of so deliberate a plan for this purpose, carried out 
 by the filing of the release, and coupled with the fact that no 
 answer was given to our request by Mr. Loring,led me, when 
 writing my former pamphlet, to infer that the release, of Feb- 
 ruary 1, 1845, was considered to be a complete subsequent 
 ratification, by Mrs. Boott, of the actual settlement ; and that 
 Mr. Loring's expectation of receiving that release, then on its 
 way from London, was the cause of his omitting to answer 
 our letter of February 3, 1845 ; since, if received, it would 
 dispense with any call for action upon our request. The 
 release must, of course, have been filed, in the probate office, 
 some days, or weeks, after our letter had been received ; and 
 the act of filing it, indicated, of course, an intention to stand 
 upon the legal effect of that paper, instead of refundiog the 
 money to Mrs. Boott. I accordingly stated, in the passage of 
 my former pamphlet cited by Mr. Lowell, my further infer- 
 ence, drawn from these premises, that our request had not 
 been complied with. 
 
 The fact, that the release was signed, in London, two days 
 before our letter was written, in Boston, requesting Mr. Loring 
 to pay that sum to Mrs. Boott, is the sole occasion of Mr. 
 Lowell's sarcasm. He affects to consider my inference 
 another instance of "attributing an antecedent event to 
 a subsequent cause." [L. p. 12.] My inference may have 
 been right or wrong ; the premises may have been well or ill 
 
675 
 
 stated ; but, ia what the anachronism consists, or where the 
 folly is, — except in the " Reply," — I think the reader will be 
 at a loss to discover. 
 
 One thing, however, I think, he will easily discover : — That 
 is, that the $4560 45 was taken /toot Mrs. Boott, really, to 
 pay Mr. Lowell. Mr. Boott could not consent to be dis- 
 charged by the heirs without seeming to have accounted, in 
 some way, for the principal of his mother's trust fund, so that, 
 with the aid of her release, he might stand right, to all ap- 
 pearance, on the probate record. This was equally impor- 
 tant for Mr. Lowell ; since he had caused it to be understood, 
 by most of the family, that Mrs. Boott's trust fund was quite 
 unimpaired, under Mr. Boott's management. This I shall 
 prove presently. But Mr. Lowell could not consent to forego 
 any part of his own debt ; and it was not possible, for the 
 want of means, to make up the nominal amount of the trust 
 fund without leaving Mr. Lowell unpaid, to the extent of 
 about $4500, except by taking that sum from the $7100, left 
 in Mr. Bootl's hands for his mother's account. That being 
 the plain alternative, there seems to have been no hesita- 
 tion how to choose. Indeed such appropriations of Mrs. 
 Boott's income had ceased to be a novelty. 
 
 The next occurrence, concerning Mr. Lowell's conduct 
 towards me, was a conversation immediately preceding the 
 inquest. I gave a full account of it in my former pamphlet. 
 He has now made his answer, and that I propose next to 
 consider. 
 
676 
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 MR. Lowell's conduct in kelation to the iNq,uEST. time 
 
 OF HIS RECEPTION OF MH. BOOTt's LAST LETTER. 
 
 The question, which I have discussed, of Mr. Boott's con- 
 duct as an executor, and the question, still remaining, whether 
 he was sane or not, are controversial matters, which, accord- 
 ing to the " Reply," I love to dwell upon, for the sake of 
 indulging a malignant and cowardly spite against the mem- 
 ory of an unhappy man, whom death has, long since, removed 
 from this scene of contention. My present topics, on the 
 other hand, relate, exclusively, to the conduct of Mr. Lowell, 
 Here, at least, that gentleman can make no such mistake. 
 
 I narrated, formerly, an interview, at which Mr. Lowell 
 made me acquainted with the fact of Mr. Boott's suicide, 
 then just discovered. His concealment from me, at that in- 
 terview, of the letter received from Mr. Boott, said to have 
 enclosed his will, if he had in truth then received it, and, if 
 not, his omission to inform me of its subsequent reception, 
 before the inquest, connected with his conduct at the inquest, 
 and afterwards, and with the impressions conveyed to the 
 jury, in my absence, and without notice, were principal sub- 
 jects of my former complaint. 
 
 To one question more importance seems to have been 
 attached, by most readers, than by me ; namely, the precise 
 time of the probable reception of that letter. I stated the 
 conversation at the interview above mentioned, and that it 
 began some fifteen or twenty minutes before two o'clock, 
 and ended at the door of the coroner's ofiice, to which I had 
 conducted Mr. Lowell, " about two o'clock, I think a little 
 after." [B. p. 173.] Mr. Lowell himself says, "it was past 
 two o'clock." [L. p. 16.] The conversation impresses every 
 body as equivalent to an assertion, by Mr. Lowell, that he 
 had, at that time, received no letter from the deceased. It 
 
677 
 
 so impressed me ; and Mr. Lowell himself does not pretend 
 to view its just effect otherwise. Indeed, he says, " I [Mr. 
 Lowell] told him that I had received no letter." [L. p. 16.] 
 Mr. Lowell did not tell me that, in direct terms ; but what he 
 told me would naturally lead to the inference. 
 
 Now I do not pretend to disguise the fact, that, after all 
 which had come to my knowledge at the time of the writing 
 of my former pamphlet, I felt obliged to withdraw my confi- 
 dence from any former indirect statement of Mr. Lowell, 
 made, in any part of this case, while he had a point to carry, 
 or when there was likely to be more in his mind than he 
 wished to expose. Subsequent discoveries, — and especially 
 the character of the "Reply," — have not increased my confi- 
 dence in his assertions, however positive, under such circum- 
 stances, nor when necessary to maintain a position once taken, 
 or useful to exculpate himself. 
 
 The several statements, concerning the moment of the 
 reception of that letter, all coming directly or indirectly from 
 Mr. Lowell, were so various and conflicting, and the surround- 
 ing circumstances of the inquest, and of Mr. Lowell's conduct 
 in relation to it, were so unusual and strange, that, upon the 
 single question, whether he had the letter in his pocket, or 
 not, at the time of the conversation with me, ending at the 
 door of the coroner's office, it was difficult to determine what 
 the truth was. I was cautious, therefore, not to state any in- 
 ference on that point, — although my suspicion may have 
 been apparent enough, — but to state only the conflicting evi- 
 dence, leaving every reader to draw his own inference, with 
 all the information I had to give him, and leaving Mr. Low- 
 ell to explain the suspicious circumstances, if he could. I do 
 not see. therefore, that I am culpably answerable for the infer- 
 ence, to which a fair statement of the evidence may have 
 led any reader, even if it should happen that new evidence, 
 then unknown to me, be found sufficient to satisfy him that 
 his former inference was erroneous. 
 
 The several former statements, respecting, the receipt of the 
 letter, were as follows : — 
 
678 
 
 The official account of the inquest reported Mr. Lowell as 
 saying, that he received it " about two o'clock, through the 
 post-office." [B. App. p. 59.J According to two of the jurors, 
 who were examined, he said, " he had received it that morn- 
 ing" one of them adding " through the post-ojice." [B. pp. 
 29, 30.] According to another, he said, he had received it 
 " that day." [B. p. 29.] He told me, himself, at an interview 
 after the inquest, that the letter was " brought to him, at his 
 house, after he had parted from me." [B. p. 149.] 
 
 The coroner, on the other hand, stated to Mr. Dexter, that 
 " the letter was exhibited to him by Mr. Lowell, at the time 
 Mr. Lowell had called upon him to procure an inquest." [B. 
 p. 151.] The same witness stated to Mr. Loring, " that Mr. 
 Lowell opened the letter in his presence ;" [B. p. 152.] and 
 Mr. Loring, writing in Mr. Lowell's behalf, admitted that the 
 letter was produced to the coroner, at the time when Mr. Low- 
 ell called on the coroner, " to procure an inquest to be holden." 
 [B. p. 173.] That time appeared, as I stated it, to be at, or 
 a little after, two o'clock, and Mr. Lowell admits that it was 
 past two when I left him entering the coroner's office. 
 
 My summary of the evidence did not omit, however, to 
 suggest the several contingencies, that might, possibly, recon- 
 cile the apparent conflict, consistently with Mr. Lowell's not 
 having the letter when I so left him. I concluded it thus : — 
 
 " But whether he received it, between the time of my leaving him 
 at the coroner's door and the time of his first seeing the coroner, or 
 had received it previously, or found it at his own house afterwards, 
 and then went again to seek the coroner, is not in my view very ma- 
 terial. He had, at any rate, given me the impression that the letter 
 was not for him, when he stated that it was not known to whom it 
 was addressed, without suggesting any reason why his own letters, 
 through the post-office, should have failed to reach him before that 
 hour of the day. I ask, then, whether, if he did receive the letter 
 immediately after we separated, and that letter was found to contain 
 a will, affecting my rights of property, in common with those of others 
 in the family, it was not his duty, as a friend and a gentleman, before 
 taking any further steps towards an inquest, which he did not intend 
 should result in a verdict of insanity, to have given me immediate 
 notice of the fact of his reception of such a letter, and such a will? 
 It may be very true that my own share of the pecuniary interest in- 
 
679 
 
 volved was not so large as to have affected materially my course of 
 action. But what right had Mr. Lowell to assume to judge of (hat 
 for me? — or to prevent my interposing, as I might think proper, 
 in behalf of others, whose interests were involved ? What right had 
 he to act upon a notice of my desire not to be present at the inquest, 
 when a material alteration had occurred, to his knowledge, in the 
 state of iacts, upon which that desire was expressed, without first giv- 
 ing me notice of that change of circumstances, and of his own inten- 
 tion to do what he could towards establishing the sanity of the testator, 
 so far as it was to be affected by the result of an inquest ?" [B. pp. 
 173-4.] 
 
 The point of my complaint, it will be perceived, therefore, 
 was wide of the question whether he had the letter, when I 
 left him at the coroner's door, or not. Yet, to that question, 
 the " Reply," chiefly, addresses itself, and states the fact to 
 have been as follows : — 
 
 " Mr. Brooks and myself proceeded together in search of a coroner ; 
 but, as it was past two o'clock, and Mr. Brooks was naturally anxious 
 to hasten home with the sad intelligence, he left me at the door of the 
 building, in which the coroner's office is situated. I found that the 
 coroner had gone to dinner; and, on returning to my own house, I 
 received the letter produced by me at the inquest, inclosing Mr. 
 Boott's will, and notifying to me his intended self-destruction." [L. 
 p. 16.] 
 
 It is now proper that the reader should see the last state- 
 ment on this subject from Mr. Lowell's witness, the coroner. 
 It is contained in the following memorandum of a conversa- 
 tion, heard by Mr. J. 0. Adams, under circumstances hereto- 
 fore explained. [Ante, p. 88.] 
 
 MEilORANDUM OF A CONVERSATION, 
 
 JSeiween Edward Brooks, Esq. and Sheriff Pratt,* in Mr. B.'s ojUce 
 
 this nth day of April, 1848, 9 1-2 o'clock, A. M. 
 
 Mr. Pratt said, — " 1 have never had a copy of your book. Mr. Low- 
 ell sent me a copy of his, and called my attention to what you had 
 said about me in your pamphlet — that you had been harsh and severe ; 
 but I did not pay much attention to it." 
 
 Mr. B. said, — " I have said that," &c. Mr. B. then got a copy and 
 gave to Pratt, and opened it. " What I say is about that letter, and 
 Mr. Lowell's showing it to you. You can see it,— I thought you had 
 a copy." 
 
 * Mr. Pratt is a deputy sheriiF, as well as a coroner. 
 
680 
 
 Mr. Pratt. — " I have heard there was a trouble about that. I recol- 
 lect that Mr. L. showed me the letter, when he came to my office about 
 two o'clock, on the morning of the inquest. It is my impression that he 
 showed me the letter the first time he saw me, — for he may have been 
 at my office twice, — though I think, he called only once. He men- 
 tioned his business, said that Mr. Wright Boott had committed sui- 
 cide ; and that he (Mr. L.) had a letter from him, appointing him 
 executor. He took out the letter and showed it to me. I am not cer- 
 tain that he came to my office more than once, — am certain that he did 
 not come more than once. He said, I have just taken a letter from 
 the Post- Office. I did not tell Mr. Dexter, that he read the letter to 
 me ; but that he took the letter in his hand and showed it to me. This 
 was hard on to two o'clock." 
 
 Mr. Brooks said, that there was some contradiction about Mr. Low- 
 ell's conduct at the inquest. 
 
 Mr. Pratt said, — " I did not hear your name mentioned, or any thing 
 said about your family matters. I did not know that you belonged to 
 the family. There was a general conversation after the inquest. Mr. 
 Lowell talked with the jury. 1 did not hear him say any thing against 
 you. I said to the jury, that Mr. Lowell had a letter from the de- 
 ceased ; and asked if they would like to see it. I asked Mr. Lowell 
 if the letter contained any thing in relation to the cause of Mr. Boott's 
 death, or that he thought was material or proper to be shown. He 
 said it did not. I did not call for the letter. I said I should want 
 one good physician on the jury. Mr. Lowell said Dr. Putnam is at 
 the house, and will be a good man. I knew Dr. P., and mentioned 
 his name to the officer, who summoned the jury. This was before Dr. 
 Palmer was summoned. I did not know any thing about the matter. 
 I said to the jury, if you don't find that Mr. Boott was insane, don't 
 find any thing about it, — because if you find Mm insane, and he should 
 be found sane, it would be bad. Somebody, I don't know who, said 
 there was no evidence of his insanity. Others said the contrary, and 
 that no man would commit suicide who was not insane. Mrs. Ly- 
 man swore strongly, and so did the servants."* 
 
 John C. Adams. 
 
 Although we have no explanation, in the " Reply," of the 
 manner, in which the letter got to Mr. Lowell's house at that 
 late hour of the day, the fact, that it was seen there, in his 
 hands, at some short time after two o'clock, and that its seal 
 was then, apparently, broken, in the presence of Dr. Jackson, 
 
 * These witnesses, according to the official report, [B. App. 58.] merely testified 
 to the effect that they had not discovered any thing in his appearance indicating 
 insanity,— Mrs. Lyman adding, that she had never seen her brother, dming the 
 year that she had lived in the house with him. This was erased from the report, 
 at her request. 
 
681 
 
 is vouched by a letter from that gentleman ; and it is needless 
 to say, that, in his statement of matters, which he believes 
 himself to have personally witnessed, I place as implicit con- 
 fidence as I should in those of any gentleman of equally high 
 character and known accuracy, who is writing nearly three 
 years after an occurrence, described with so much particu- 
 larity of minute detail, in circumstances, very insignificant at 
 the time, but which the question at issue had made import- 
 ant, when he was called upon, by Mr. Lowell, to see what he 
 could recollect, that might be of service. It is due to Mr. 
 Lowell that the reader should see the whole of this letter, 
 which I take from the " Reply." [L. p. 18.] 
 
 LETTER FKOM Db. JACKSON. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 In reference to the letter, written to you by the late Mr. Wright 
 Boott, on the evening before his death, I remember certain things very 
 distinctly, which I will state. 
 
 I went with you to Mr. Boott's residence on the day after his 
 death, between twelve and one o'clock, in consequence of a note to 
 you from Mrs. Lyman, written, very obviously, under great agitation, 
 asking you to go to Mr. Boott's, and to take me with you. 
 
 When arrived there, we found Mr. Boott dead, and obviously by 
 his own hand. Mrs. Lyman related to us the circumstances, she knew, 
 respecting her brother's movements the preceding evening. From 
 these it seemed certain, that he had written one or more letters on 
 that evening, and had gone out at a late hour, and after a short time 
 had returned, and gone to his bed-chamber. The inference was, that 
 he went abroad to deposit his letter, or letters, in the post-oflB.ce. It 
 was at once suggested, that he would have written to you, under the 
 circumstances in which he was, more probably than to any one else ; 
 but you said that you had not received any letter from him. You 
 and Mrs. Lyman tlieu examined the drawers in the chamber, such as 
 were not locked, to see if he had left any note, or letter, in them ; but 
 none was found. 
 
 When we left the house in Bowdoin-square, we walked together to 
 Pemberton Hill ; I turned up into the Square, and came home ; you 
 went down Court street, to take measures in reference to the sad 
 event which had occurred. This was near two o'clock, as nearly as I 
 can remember, but not two. I went home, and, as soon as I had 
 attended to some affairs there, I went into your house, with a view to 
 some arrangement for informing Mr. Wells's family of the melancholy 
 occurrence. My brother Patrick went into your house either just 
 before, or just after me. On my entrance, you told me you had just 
 
682 
 
 got the letter, and you held in your hand a thick letter ; you were 
 crossing tho; room at the moment; you then sat down by the window, 
 and broke the seiil of the letter. After lookinL^ through the letter 
 hastily, you read to us some parts of it, but not the whole, as I sup- 
 posed and understood at the time. 
 
 At the same time you stated to me, that you had seen Mr. Edwai-d 
 Brooks, since you had parted with me, and that you had also taken 
 some measures in relation to a coroner. 
 I am, dear sir. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 JAMES JACKSON. 
 Pemherton Square, December 3, 1847. 
 To John A. Lowell, Esq. 
 
 There is another letter from Dr. Jackson, dated January 
 26,1848, printed in the " Reply," containing a few sentences, 
 which have a remote bearing on questions appertaining to 
 Mr. Lowell's interview with me, and which sentences I there- 
 fore extract in this connexion, as I shall have occasion to 
 refer to them. 
 
 " On that day, about one o'clock, you came to my house, and showed 
 me a note signed '' Mary Lyman," or " M. Lyman," I forget which. 
 The note was written without the usual formalities, and every thing 
 about it showed that the writer was under great agitation. You 
 expressed doubts as to the person who wrote it, but I felt persuaded 
 that it was from the sister of Mr. Boott. The note begged you to 
 go directly to her, and to take me with you. We went accordingly 
 to Mr. Boott's residence in Eowdoin-square.'' [L. pp. 186-7.] 
 
 The letter then states what occurred at thp house, and par- 
 ticularly what Mrs. Lyman's demeanour was, and proceeds 
 thus : — 
 
 "After a time I suggested the proprietif of having a coroner's in- 
 quest ; at which she manifested some reluctance, and asked if such a 
 measure was necessary. I said, that, if it were not taken, some ques- 
 tion might afterwards be raised, whether Mr. B. died by his own 
 hands,^ or those of another, a point which any jury could decide then 
 by seeing what we saw. 
 
 " This conversation led to a question as to Mr. Boott's insanity. 
 On this point Mrs. Lyman spoke with a great deal of vehemence, 
 utterly denying that he had ever been insane." [L. pp. 187-8.] 
 
 Now I do not propose to make a point of that, which I did 
 
683 
 
 not make a point of, formerly. But, on reading all the state- 
 ments we now have, one cannot but be struck with the sm- 
 gularity of several facts, of which we are still left without 
 any satisfactory explanation. 
 
 How did it happen, that Mrs. Lyman's messenger should 
 have found Mr. Lowell at his house, so late in the day as Dr. 
 Jackson puts it, — "between twelve and one o'clock," accord- 
 ing to one letter,— " about one o'clock," according to the 
 
 other? 
 
 How did it happen, that a letter, put into the post-office 
 the night before, should not have reached Mr. Lowell till 
 after two o'clock 1 It is said, indeed, that " every business 
 man knows that such delays are of constant occurrence at our 
 post-office; letters, so deposited, not being, ordinarily, at- 
 tended to, till after the morning distribution of the mails." 
 [L. p. 17.] But I cannot find that such is the common ex- 
 perience of other business men ; nor that the supposed cus- 
 tom of delay, in the delivery of city letters, is admitted by 
 the postmaster. 
 
 How happened it that, — when it was suggested, as Dr. Jack- 
 son states, in the conversation with Mrs. Lyman, that the 
 letter, written by Mr. Boott, was probably for Mr. Lowell, 
 and when the drawers of the chamber were immediately 
 searched, to see if it might not have been deposited in one of 
 them, and when the conclusion was formed, from all the cir- 
 cumstances, that Mr. Boott must have gone to the post-office 
 the night before,— how happened it, I say, that the inquiry 
 was not pursued to other places, where Mr. Lowell's letters, 
 at that time of day, were most likely to be? The most 
 natural course, one would think, would have been for Mr. 
 Lowell, on his way from Bowdoin-square, to have stopped 
 at his own house, and, if the letter had not arrived during 
 his absence, to have proceeded to his counting room, and to 
 the post-office, before calling upon me or the coroner ; or, if 
 he chose to call on either of us by the way, still to have pro- 
 ceeded, thence, directly to those natural places of inquiry ; 
 since his belief, as expressed to me in our conversation, was, 
 
684 
 
 " that the deceased had put a letter into the post-office for 
 somebody, between ten and eleven o'clock, last night ;" [B. p. 
 145.] and it was immediately suggested by me, as it seems 
 it had previously been suggested by Mrs. Lyman, or Dr. 
 Jackson, that the letter was most likely to have been ad- 
 dressed to him. The statement of the " Reply," however, is, 
 that Mr. Lowell went directly from the house in Bowdoin- 
 square to my office ; thence, I know, he went straight to the 
 coroner's ; and thence, it seems, he went back directly to his 
 own house, whence he had lately come. " I found that the 
 coroner had gone to dinner; and on returning to my own 
 house, I received the letter." [L p. 16.] 
 
 And here, again, we are, naturally, led to aSk, from whom 
 did he receive it? Who brought it to his house, at a little 
 after two o'clock ? Why have we not the direct evidence of 
 that person, that he delivered the letter there, at that time, 
 instead of the evidence of another person, who only saw it in 
 Mr. Lowell's possession afterwards ? It must have been a 
 letter of remarkable size, if it contained all that it is said to 
 have contained, including a will ; it was " a thick letter," 
 according to Dr. Jackson, and therefore likely to be distin- 
 guished from the common run of post-office letters ; it was 
 addressed in Mr. Boott's own hand, with which every clerk 
 in Mr. Lowell's counting room must have been familiar ; and, 
 in consequence of the general shock caused by this suicide, 
 and the immediate connexion of the letter with that event, 
 in the public mind, the fact that a last letter had been re- 
 ceived by Mr. Lowell, made, within four and twenty hours 
 of its reception, and for a long time after, such a sensation, 
 among all persons connected either with Mr. Boott or with 
 Mr. Lowell, that one would think the man, who had brought 
 that letter to Mr. Lowell, could never have forgotten the 
 circumstance. Yet his testimony is wanting. The coro- 
 ner, it will be observed, by the way, in his last account, 
 says, that Mr. Lowell told him, " I have just taken a letter 
 from the post-office." In one of his former statements, the 
 coroner said, that the letter was opened in his presence. 
 
685 
 
 [Ante, -p. 678.] And Dr. Jackson says, that, when he saw 
 the letter in Mr. Lowell's hands, "you [Mr. Lowell] stated 
 to me, that you had seen Mr. Edward Brooks, since you 
 had parted with me, and that you had also taken some 
 measures in relation to a coroner." [Ante, p. 682.] Is Dr. 
 Jackson, then, quite sui-e, that he actually saw the break- 
 ing of the seal?— i-for that is the only circumstance, in 
 his whole statement, tending to fix the fact, independently 
 of Mr. Lowell, that the letter was, at that moment, just re- 
 ceived ; and even that circumstance does not positively ex- 
 clude the idea, that Mr. Lowell, might have taken it from 
 the post-office, — as the coroner, says he had declared to him, 
 five minutes before, — and, consequently, might have had it, 
 though unread, in his possession, at the time of our interview. 
 He may have had his reasons for not wishing the fact to be 
 known, until he had found opportunity to examine the con- 
 tents, and make uphismind whether.he should disclose them 
 or not. 
 
 The reader may think all this tending to superfluity of 
 captiousness ; but he must see abundant reason why /should 
 have become extremely distrustful of Mr. Lowell, throughout 
 this whole business. There was something peculiar, too, 
 in his wiawwer of speaking about the letter, during our con- 
 versation, which I cannot convey to the reader. Suspecting 
 nothing at the time. I did not, then, attempt to account for 
 it to my own mind. But when I recall it now, as I do 
 distinctly, I confess that the circumstance has its eSect upon 
 my judgement. However, all I have further to say on the 
 subject is, that, if Mr. Lowell is satisfied with the position 
 in which he has left this part of his case, I am also. In- 
 deed, I never considered the mere point of his having re- 
 ceived the letter before he called at my ofiice, a very material 
 point /or me ; nor do I consider that drop in the bucket to be 
 any longer, very material for Mr. Lowell. 
 
 That which I did, and do, consider material, namely, the 
 admitted fact that the letter was in Mr. Lowell's possession 
 long before the inquest, — his proceeding in the inquest, not- 
 
686 
 
 withstanding, after what had passed between us, without 
 notice to me of the reception and contents of the letter, — ^his 
 conducting the inquest to a result, which excluded insanity, in 
 the existing posture of our family affairs, — his doing this in 
 the absence of both Mr. William Boott and myself, without 
 caution given to either of us of his intention, or desire, in 
 that respect, — his omission to notify to Mr. William Boott the 
 sad event of the day, and the inquest proposed, contrary to his 
 express engagement, — his declaration to the jurors of cir- 
 cumstances tending to account for the death on the theory of 
 maltreatment by relatives, and, especially, his suggestion that 
 the deceased had been untruly charged with mismanagement 
 of his father's estate, — the use made by him, in that con- 
 nexion, of the account drawn up by himself, and of the al- 
 lowance by the judge of probate of the balance it claimed, 
 without stating the manner, in which it came to be allowed, 
 — the suppression, by suggestions of expediency, of all these 
 matters in the official report, coupled with total omission to 
 communicate them to me in any other form, — his subsequent 
 conduct in relation to the letter of the deceased, allowing its 
 contents to become known, sufficiently to connect themselves 
 with common rumours respecting the cause of the suicide, and 
 yet refusing to me a sight of the letter, and any fair oppor- 
 tunity to examine and meet the charges, which he said it 
 contained, — his assurance, contrary to the fact, that he had 
 not shown or read the letter to any one,— all this, — my whole 
 original complaint, — stands, after a " Reply," substantially, 
 just as it did, or, at least, no better than it did for Mr. Low- 
 ell. His explanations on these points must be briefly dis- 
 posed of. 
 
687 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 MK. Lowell's conduct in relation to the inquest. ^, his 
 
 INTEREST IN ITS RESULT. 
 
 The " Reply " makes a great show of excellent motives 
 and kind intentions, on the part, of Mr. Lowell. I, for- 
 merly, said nothing about motives or intentions. Mr. Lowell 
 chooses to bring them into the case ; and, it is my business, 
 now, to examine what he says of them. 
 
 The reader, however, should first be reminded of the fol- 
 lowing conversation between me and Mr. Lowell. : — 
 
 " Mr. Lowell was the first person, who informed me of the event. 
 The course of our interview was nearly as follows. He came into 
 my office at about fifteen or twenty minutes before two o'clock, and 
 told me, in general terms, that Mr. Wright Boott had destroyed him- 
 self. I was much shocked, and expressed my surprise, remarking, 
 that ' I thought he had been very tranquil since the settlement of the 
 accounts.' Mr. Lowell said, ' he has been quite tranquil until about 
 ten days ago, when he got an idea that his brother William had stolen 
 a letter of his, and sent for me in consequence. He said it was a 
 letter from his mother, which ought to have come by the last steamer, 
 and insisted that his brother must have taken it from the post-office 
 and kept it. 1 found it impossible to reason him out of this idea. He 
 insisted upon my going with him to the post-office for the purpose of 
 investigating the subject, and getting his box changed.' Mr. Lowell 
 then narrated the particulars of the suicide, so far as they were known 
 or conjectured, and, among other things, mentioned, that the deceased 
 had put a letter into the post-office, for somebody, between ten and 
 eleven o'clock last night. I made no remark on that at the time, — 
 but he, soon after, going on with his narrative, repeated, with some 
 emphasis, ' he put a letter into the post-office last night, and I can't 
 find that any body has got it' I then asked, ' how do you know 
 that ?' He said, ' the servants saw him writing till about half past 
 ten, and then saw him put a letter into the breast of his coat and go 
 out with it. He was absent just about long enough to have gone to 
 the post-office ; but nothing has been heard of the letter, and nobody 
 knows to whom it was directed.' I said, ' You would have been the 
 most likely person for him to have addressed a letter to.' He replied, 
 " Perhaps so — but it may have been sent to Mrs. Ralston, or to Mr. 
 Wells.' I said, ' Yes, or it may have been directed to England.' 
 
688 
 
 He assented to this as not unlikely. I then remarked, ' All that you 
 have now told me serves to confirm the idea that I have long enter- 
 tained, as you know, that Wright was insane.' He said, ' I don't 
 know about that. Do you think there ought to bean inquest?' I 
 replied, ' By all means.' He then asked, ' Where is the coroner to 
 be found ? I don't know where to find one.' I answered, ' Neither 
 do I ; but I presume somewhere among the constables' ofiBces in 
 Court-square.' It was, by this time, about two o'clock, and I pro- 
 posed to go with him into Court-square and see if we could find the 
 coroner. We went out together with that view. On the way I re- 
 marked, that, ' in the present state of affairs in the family I should 
 rather prefer not to be present at the inquest, unless it is necessary.' 
 He said, ' It is not at all so — I can do every thing.' I reminded him 
 that Mr. William Boott was at Lowell, and would not be back till six 
 o'clock. He said, ' Give yourself no trouble about that. I will be 
 at the cars myself, or have some one there, to notify him the moment 
 he arrives, and will make all previous arrangements.' 
 
 On arrival in Court-square, I soon found the sign of Jabez Pratt, 
 coroner, which I pointed out, saying, ' here is the man you want ;' and 
 as I was anxious to go home and break the news to my wife, I in- 
 quired, ' Do you want any thing more of me ?' He said ' No, — I 
 will take care to notify William Boott ;' and I left him at the doot of 
 Mr. Pratt's office, just after two o'clock, and went home, in perfect 
 confidence that he would not only do all that he had undertaken, but 
 would do it precisely as it ought to be done." [B. pp. 145-6.] 
 
 Not one word of this narrative is contradicted, or mate- 
 rially qualified, in the " Reply." 
 
 Now my complaint was of unfriendly treatment, to say the 
 least, — considering the relations, in which we stood, — in pro- 
 ceeding with the inquest, and allowing it to terminate as it did, 
 after the receipt of the letter, precisely as if there had been 
 no change of the circumstances, under which I had expressed 
 my desire not to be present, and to leave the conduct of the 
 business to Mr. Lowell. 
 
 The " Reply " makes no direct answer to this ; but it pre- 
 sents a number of excuses. The nearest approach to an 
 answer lies in the following disclaimer of any conceivable in- 
 terested motive to act adversely to me, and in the suggestion 
 of the insignificance of a coroner's verdict, in questions of 
 property : — 
 
 "I had no interest whatever in the settlement of Mr. Boott's ac- 
 counts, or in the verdict of the jury of inquest." " I knew that a verdict 
 
689 
 
 of suicide, by a coroner's jury, involves, in this country, no consequen- 
 ces ; that it does not necessarily express any opinion on the question of 
 insanity ; and that, when it does, it can not be introduced, even as 
 prima facie evidence, in a trial on the probate of the will." [L. p. 20.] 
 
 How Mr. Lowell came to know, before he had a moment's 
 time to consult counsel, so much of the law on this subject, 
 he does not inform us ; but, if he knew all this, he also 
 knew how usual it is for the verdict of a jury of in- 
 quest to establish the fact of insanity, as a means of 
 accounting for, and excusing, the suicide, whenever there 
 is the slightest other evidence to show a disordered mind. 
 He knew, besides, how vastly important it was, irrespective 
 of any mere legal consequences, that such a verdict should 
 be found in this particular case, if the facts would warrant 
 it. Especially he knew, that such a verdict could not but 
 be greatly desired, and reasonably expected, both by Mr. 
 William Boott and myself, considering certain facts, which 
 were beyond dispute, and our long settled opinions, and the 
 dissension, that had existed in the family on^his very point, — 
 all perfectly well known to Mr. Lowell. 
 
 It is said, in further excuse, that "six out of the eight sur- 
 viving members of Mr. Boott's family, did not believe in his 
 insanity, and desired no verdict contrary to the truth." [L. 
 p. 2L] 
 
 Of course, no one of the family desired a verdict contrary to 
 the truth ; but the very question among them had been, — 
 What is the truth? An impartial jury, weighing the evidence 
 without feeling or prepossession, could judge better than 
 they. No one of the six brothers and sisters referred to, ex- 
 cept Mrs. Lyman, was, at that time, acquainted with the fact 
 of the suicide. What their opinions might be, after such a 
 startling event, was quite unknown to Mr. Lowell, except in 
 the case of Mrs. Lyman. She had never been accustomed 
 to think her brother insane ; but, it is very evident, froni the 
 account of her state of feeling at the moment, given by Dr. 
 Jackson and Mr. Lowell, [L.pp. 186-188.] that her rfestVe would 
 have been for that result, which she might have been led to 
 
690 
 
 think most favourable to her brother's memory. What others 
 of the family might desire, in this new posture of the case, 
 Mr. Lowell could not possibly judge of. The most of them, 
 probably all except myself, were utterly ignorant of particu- 
 lars of recent occurrence touching the state of Mr. Boott's 
 mind, — the scene, for example, at the post-office, alluded to 
 above, no less than the suicide. The postmaster testified 
 to that scene, afterwards, in the probate court, as satisfying 
 several persons present that Mr. Boott was insane ; and there 
 was other conduct of the deceased, about that time, which 
 had impressed other strangers with the like belief, as I shall 
 have occasion to show. Mr. Lowell acted, therefore, with 
 extraordinary presumption and precipitancy, if he really as- 
 sumed, as his motive of action, that all the near relatives, 
 except Mrs. Brooks and myself and Mr. William Boott, — 
 could their sentiments have been collected over the dead 
 body, with full knowledge of all the facts known to him, — 
 would not have felt the desire, which relations ordinarily feel, 
 that a jury should be satisfied that the last fatal act was 
 fairly attributable to an irresponsible state of mind. 
 
 Does Mr. Lowell mean to have it supposed that they would 
 have 'preferred, at that solemn moment, to have it believed, — 
 as he has since endeavoured to cause them and others to be- 
 lieve, — that Mr. Boott " with great calmness, as befitted the 
 occasion," deliberately adopted suicide, in consequence of the 
 cruelty and malice of some of his and their own brothers and 
 sisters, rather than to have it believed that his strange conduct, 
 which I shall prove, during a portion of his life, and in the 
 destruction of his life, should be accounted for by insanity ? 
 I shall not credit this of any one of them. And as to their 
 present belief, — after a verdict, which did not find that ex- 
 cuse, and after the representations, which have been made to 
 them by Mr. Lowell, — as I shall prove, — if that belief now is 
 what Mr. Lowell asserts, it will be made perfectly obvious 
 to every reader, that it is founded, essentially, on their un- 
 bounded and much abused confidence in Mr. Lowell. 
 
691 
 
 But, when we are told that he had no tnterest in the mat- 
 ter, and did nothing to influence the verdict, I beg to ask, 
 How came one of the jurors to be impressed with the belief, 
 frcm all he heard and saw, " that Mr. Lowell was extremely 
 atixious to have Mr. Boott made out a sane man ?" I ask 
 further, had he not strong motives to desire that Mr. Boott 
 should not be made out an insane man ? 
 
 Look at the magnitude and extent of his pecuniary deal- 
 ings with Mr. Boott. See how the property of the estate 
 had been mingled, — to what extent, or in what manner, pre- 
 cisely, we know not, but to a great extent, we do know, — 
 with the affairs of the old firm of Boott & Lowell ; — not 
 only the unliquidated interest of the estate in outstanding 
 mercantile business, if any there was lawfully outstanding, 
 but even the specific funds, which had once been set apart, 
 and specifically invested, for the special trusts of the will. 
 Of those identical funds, so invested, a sum of $52,000, at least, 
 in stocks, is traced directly from the executor into the hands of 
 Boott & Lowell. [Ante, p. 527.] The stocks were sold by 
 them ; and, as yet, the proceeds are not traced out of their 
 hands, hack to the estate. I do not mean to suggest even a 
 probability that any part of them, beyond commissions and 
 usual mercantile charges, still rests in Mr. Lowell's pocket. 
 That, of course, I know nothing about. But it is not the idea, 
 which I mean to present. It is far from covering the whole 
 question of direct pecuniary interest. The firm, as a firm, it is 
 clear, was, at one time, largely indebted to the estate for these 
 stocks, or their price, or their proceeds, and for other funds of 
 the estate in their hands. One of the partners was himself the 
 executor. The other partner, so far as we can see, takes and 
 uses, jointly with the executor, trust property, which he must 
 have known that the executor had no right, or authority, so 
 to deal with. There may have been, and I believe that there 
 was, more or less of loss upon the operations of the house of 
 Boott & Lowell. Mr. Lowell no where hints the contrary, 
 though his argument requires it. Perhaps, it may not have 
 been of great amount ; yet, as Mr. Boott was situated, it 
 
692 
 
 was of real importance to him. There may have been, and 
 there probably was, (Mr. Lowell can tell us, and nobody else 
 can,) afterwards, and many years ago, some settlement of all 
 the partnership accounts of Boott & Lowell, between the 
 partners. In that case, it must have been understood, of 
 course, that Mr. Boott was to take upon himself the burden 
 of duly accounting, in behalf of thfe firm, for all that belonged 
 to his trusts, and that he would hold his partner harmless on 
 that score. But, as it turned out, before any such accounting 
 took place, he was found to have lost what little property 
 there may have been of his own ; and a large part of the prop- 
 erty of the estate was, also, irretrievably lost in his hands, 
 and he became utterly unable to account for it. Did all the 
 funds of the estate, for which Boott & Lowell had made 
 themselves chargeable, ever reach their true owners? Is Mr. 
 Lowell, or is he not, yet liable, as surviving partner, to ac- 
 count in equity for any balance ? Were the circumstances 
 such, that the private settlement between the partners, pre- 
 suming that there was one, left no responsibility upon Mr. 
 Lowell to see to the due application of these trust moneys ? 
 
 I put these matters interrogatively, because all the circum- 
 stances are not yet disclosed, nor, perhaps, enough of them 
 to warrant a distinct and positive opinion. All we positively 
 know is, that funds, which stood in the name of "John 
 W. Boott, executor," went to Boott & Lowell ; and that, 
 whatever may have been restored by Boott «fc Lowell to 
 J. Wright Boott, personally, nothing went back from them, 
 ostensibly, to " John W. Boott, executor." Whatever he held, 
 after the dissolution of that firm, he held, apparently, in his 
 own name and right, until the year 1831 ; and when, in that 
 year, he undertook to reconstruct his trust funds, the property 
 was so embarrassed, by his private pledges and engagements, 
 that he was quite unable to clear it. It never has been clear- 
 ed, to this day, except by appropriating to the payment of 
 his private debts, large portions of the income of the trust 
 property itself, and a large part of the proceeds of the sale of 
 the mansioij-house. Who is to answer for the loss ? 
 
693 
 
 However that may be, there has been, on Mr. Lowell's 
 part, such a want of frankness and readiness of disclosure, 
 concerning the connexion of Boott and Lowell with the ex- 
 ecutor's stock dealings, and concerning other transactions of 
 . that period, in which he participated more or less, that, until 
 the mystery of his silence, and the true nature of the transac- 
 tions, shall have been satisfactorily explained, he cannot rea- 
 sonably complain of conjectures to his disadvantage. Without 
 imagining, therefore, any thing more essentially wrong than 
 an improper use of these trust funds, by permission of the 
 executor, at a time when Mr. Lowell was a very young man, 
 connected in business with an older one, whom he may have 
 supposed richer in his own right than he was, I am obliged to 
 infer, from his marked reserve, the existence of some reason, 
 which made it undesirable to Mr. Lowell, when an executor's 
 account was to be settled, that these old transactions should 
 be minutely inquired into ; and especially undesirable, after- 
 wards, that the suggestion of any kind or degree of insanity, 
 on the part of Mr. Boott, should be mixed with them, or with 
 the settlement of December, 1844. Is a mere general dis- 
 claimer of personal interest satisfactory, under such circum- 
 stances ? It is all we have from Mr. Lowell. 
 
 The next fact we find, bearing on this point, is a large 
 loan, — ^no less than $30,000, — made by Mr. Lowell, from trust 
 funds in his hands, to Mr. Boott, and made upon the security 
 of stocks, which, though standing in Mr. Boott's name, it now 
 appears, did not in equity belong to Mr. Boott, but to the 
 trusts of his father's estate ; and it seems that Mr. Lowell 
 had means of knowing their true ownership, or at least knew 
 enough to put him on inquiry. [Ante, Ch. 39.J How 
 came Mr. Lowell to make such a loan? How came he 
 to take such security ? Was it all out of disinterested re- 
 gard for Mr. J. Wright Boott? The loan is, afterwards, 
 increased, by an advance of $21,000 more on Mr. Boott's ac- 
 count, and additional stocks of the estate pass into Mr. Low- 
 ell's hands, he knowing, at that time, certainly, that Mr. 
 Boott was not worth one dollar of his own, and that these 
 
694 
 
 stocks had been specifically marked as the estate's property. 
 [Ante, Oh. 36.] Other subsequent advances are at least prob- 
 able ; and thirteen years elapse, during which there seem to 
 have been continued pecuniary dealings with Mr. Boott, 
 founded always, apparently, on the security of these stocks. 
 And, during all this period, the income of the trust funds is 
 constantly applied, without the knowledge of the party enti- 
 tled to it, to the reduction of the principal, and the payment 
 of the interest, of the debt due to Mr. Lowell. Mr. Boott is 
 then called upon to settle an account. Mr. Lowell prepares 
 one for him, showing nothing of the transfer of the trust 
 funds to Boott &, Lowell, nor of the subsequent pledge to 
 himself of the stocks, which really represented more or less of 
 those funds, but exhibiting a balance, as due from the estate 
 to Mr. Boott, just sufficient to cover his private debt to Mr. 
 Lowell. Mr. Boott positively refuses to sign this account. 
 He declares that he will never sign any account, which rep- 
 resents him as an apparent creditor of his brothers and sisters. 
 He finally yields, and does sign and present the account, and 
 the heirs, knowing nothing of these facts, agree to allow it, 
 if he will resign his trust. In the mean time, he had made 
 a will, under very singular circumstances, bequeathing to 
 Mr. Lowell reversionary property enough to cover this same 
 debt, which was afterwards paid by the settlement of ac- 
 counts, and bequeathing to him, besides, his very valuable 
 collection of " plants, and gardening apparatus, and botanical 
 books." [B. App. p. 41.J Now, if Mr. Boott was an insane 
 man all this time, — I leave the reader to his own conclusions. 
 I only ask, whether it did not behove Mr. Lowell to make 
 him out sane, if he could ? 
 
 How is it possible, upon the ordinary principles of human 
 nature, that Mr. Lowell should have been desirous, or willing, 
 that Mr. Uoott should be thought by any body to have been 
 an insane man, if he could see any other probable way of 
 accounting for the facts, and, especially, if he himself believ- 
 ed, as he says he did, — and he certainly so testified, — that he 
 had never seen any indications of insanity ? Having taken a 
 decided stand on that point in Mr. Boott's life time, by repre- 
 
695 
 
 sentations to some of the heirs, — though not to me, — while a 
 settlement of accounts was to be made for Mr. Boott, in a 
 form to prevent inquiry and cover his own claim, how could 
 he, afterwards, recede from the ground he had taken, when a 
 settlement had been actually made on that basis ? A finding 
 of insanity, at the death, would, assuredly, have run back, 
 in the mind of every man, to the first moment when it had 
 become a subject of discussion, or suspicion ; and who could 
 say where such an inquiry would stop, or to what it might 
 lead, in connexion with such an account of the whole exec- 
 utorship as had been, so recently, settled with the heirs, 
 upon a compromise, made in ignorance of material facts ? 
 It was difficult, — is it not always difficult ? — for Mr. Lowell 
 to take a retrograde course. 
 
 I do not mean to suggest, that he may not have fully per- 
 suaded himself of that, which it was most for his interest to 
 believe. I shall have occasion, indeed, to prove a very sud- 
 den change of opinion, respecting Mr. Boott's sanity and the 
 causes of trouble in the family ; and that this change of opin- 
 ion was precisely coincident with his knowledge of the fact, 
 that there must be a resignation of the trusteeship, and a 
 settlement of the executor's accounts. I do not say that the 
 change was not a real one. All I mean to say is, that, having 
 expressed an opinion of Mr. Boott's sanity, long before his 
 death, having acted upon it, and having caused others to act 
 upon it, and having, thereby, secured a settlement of the ac- 
 counts in his own way, that opinion may well have become 
 fixed and immovable, and was, also, as it happens, the opin- 
 ion, which his interests required him to maintain. He was 
 no longer open to conviction by any new fact. There was 
 nothing for him to do, but, either to back out entirely, 
 admitting that he had been all in the wrong himself, and 
 that he had misled others, or to maintain, in spite of suicide, 
 and of whatsoever else might happen, the positions, to which 
 he had formerly pledged himself ;— namely, that Mr. Boott 
 was perfectly sane,— that the notions of any mismanagement, 
 unless in mere matters of form, were totally unfounded,—^ 
 and that the account, he had prepared for him was a 
 
696 
 
 complete and unimpeachable account. To back out ! What 
 was it but to endanger the settlement, and the reopening of 
 accounts? And, apart from all considerations about Boott & 
 Lowell, how can he have the face to say, that he had no 
 interest in the settlement of an account, which paid to him 
 a long standing debt of $25,000, resting upon a security, 
 concerning which nice inquiries were at least disagreeable ? 
 What odds does it make, that the moneys, lent, were from 
 trust funds in his hands, for which he may have been ac- 
 countable to his trust, and not his own private moneys ? And 
 how can he venture to declare, thus publicly, that he had no 
 interest in the verdict of the jury, if that verdict was to in- 
 volve, in any form, or for any purpose, the question of Mr. 
 Boott's sanity or insanity ? What difference would it make to 
 him, that the verdict would not be legal evidence to affect 
 the probate of Mr. Boott's will, or have any other legal effect, 
 if it was to have an effect in popular estimation, or in the 
 estimation of the Boott family, upon matters, in which he 
 had so deeply committed himself ? 
 
 When a portion of the family had been, all along, main- 
 taining that Mr. Boott was insane, and another portion had 
 been insisting that he was not, what would have been the 
 effect of the opinion of six impartial men, trying the question 
 judicially, and publicly declaring that the suicide was a con- 
 sequence of insanity ? Was it not motive enough, then, for a 
 desire to prevent so striking a confirmation of the disputed 
 opinions of Mr. William Boott and Mr. Edward Brooks, that 
 Mr. Lowell had, himself, so recently, made up, and induced 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott to adopt, an account exhibiting a bal. 
 ance in his own favour, — that he had procured that account to 
 be allowed in the manner, which has been shown, — ^that he 
 had himself a personal interest in its allowance, — and that 
 several members of the family had relied, in that settlement, 
 upon Mr. Lowell's representations that there had been no 
 substantial mismanagement, or loss, and that Mr. Boott was 
 not labouring under any mental infirmity ? These represen- 
 tations I shall clearly prove ; and the other facts, I think I 
 have proved. 
 
697 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 MR. Lowell's conduct in relation to the inquest, how i 
 
 WAS MISLED. 
 
 Mr. Lowell left me with the assurance, as he admits, that 
 he had received no letter from Mr. Boott ; and, under that as- 
 surance, he agreed, at my request, to discharge me from the 
 disagreeable necessity of personal attendance at the inquest, 
 by voluntarily engaging to do every thing himself. 
 
 Now, I ask, did he not, thereby, put himself in my place ? 
 Was he not bound, by every obligation of honour, to have the 
 business conducted as he knew I should wish to have it con- 
 ducted, and in no manner to prejudice me, unless he gave 
 me notice to the contrary ? Yet, within five or ten minutes 
 from our parting, according to his present showing, he re- 
 ceives a letter ; he finds a will in it, cutting off most of the 
 heirs, myself included, from any portion of the inheritance ; 
 he tinds himself named as the executor ; and he finds that I 
 am charged, in the letter, by Mr. Boott, at the last moment of 
 his life, with conduct, so disgraceful, that, unless the charges 
 were admitted to be the ofispring of some insane delusion, it at 
 least deeply concerned me to know them, were it only for pur- 
 poses of explanation to Mrs. Boott and her family ; and, as the 
 best explanation of them, it deeply concerned me that the 
 fact of their author's msanity should be established by the 
 inquest. Yet, representing me, as he did for the purposes 
 of the inquest, and under the assurance, he had given me 
 that he had no letter from Mr. Boott, and knowing, as he 
 did, my long settled opinion of Mr. Boott's insanity, he gives 
 me no notice of the reception of this letter, or of this will but 
 proceeds with the inquest, as if nothing new had happened ■ 
 and, without introducing a particle of the evidence, known 
 to him, which would tend to prove the insanity of Mr. Boott, 
 or even suggesting that any person entertained such an opin- 
 ion, he permits, and in effect causes, a verdict to be found 
 
698 
 
 which, under the circumstances stated, or suggested, by him 
 to the jury, is all but an express finding of sanity, in an act 
 of suicide caused by my cruel and oppressive treatment of 
 the deceased ! 
 
 Now, I ask, whether any fair-minded man, having an inter-^ 
 est of his own, adverse to that of a friend, for whom he was 
 acting in so delicate a business, would have done or permitted 
 this, without giving his friend very distinct notice of his own 
 opinions, and of his adverse interest, and of his own intentions, 
 and of the unexpected reception of such a letter, and will, so 
 materially altering my position in the case ? Yet Mr. Lowell 
 has the coolness to say : — 
 
 " My receiving the letter afterwards could make no difference in 
 the course which it was my duty to pursue, except that it made it im- 
 perative upon me, as the representative of Mr. Boott, to take upon 
 myself, (what kindness to the parties, and a desire to spare their feel- 
 ings, had already induced me to assume) the labor and responsibility 
 of the inquest and the funeral." [L. p. 185.] 
 
 Why did he not give me notice, then, that he was about 
 to act in this new capacity, and not as the representative of 
 myself, and, through me, of the other survivers in the family ? 
 For, it will be remembered, that / was the only male member 
 of the family , whom he had consulted on the subject of an in- 
 quest. He derived no authority to act in that business, at all, 
 except from me, until the receipt of the letter. He left 
 me, having undertaken to act as iny representative ; — he 
 now says that he found himself, almost instantly afterwards, 
 called upon to act " as the representative of Mr. Boott ;" — yet 
 he gave me no notice of the change, and he thought it his 
 "duty," in representing the dead, to misrepresent the living, 
 for whom he had undertaken to act. 
 
 Mr. Lowell has the assurance to say further : — 
 
 " Mr. Brooks was fully advised of my opinions on the subject of 
 Mr. Boott's insanity both by my letters to Dr. Boott above cited, which 
 I had read to Mr. William Boott, and by my conversation with him- 
 self that morning, in which I refused to assent to his inference on 
 that point /rom the suicide." [L. pp. 184-5.] 
 
699 
 
 Let us see if this be so. Mr. Lowell does not pretend that 
 I was advised of his opinions, as now professed, except upon 
 the occasions, and by the particular means, he mentions. My 
 former statement was express, as follows : — 
 
 " As to Mr. Lowell's state of mind upon the subject, [of Mr. Boott's 
 insanity] I never had any clear evidence what it was, until I was 
 made acquainted with his testimony before the jury. He never di- 
 rectly admitted to me, nor do I know that he did to others, a belief 
 that Mr. Wright Boott was not sane. Indeed he could not well do 
 that, while he was acting as his agent. But my inferences from his 
 remarks were, that he entertained at least a strong suspicion, and in- 
 deed I thought a secret belief, of it." [B. p. 91.] 
 
 These were my inferences from his remarks, before the 
 conversation immediately preceding the inquest. 
 
 Mr. Lowell now admits that he did entertain that belief, 
 or " serious doubts," at least, [L. p. 162.] until he altered his 
 mind, about the time of an interview with Dr. Jackson, un- 
 der circumstances, which I shall explain. It appears, then, 
 by Mr. Lowell's admission, that my inferences, from all that 
 had passed between us, were well warranted, unless they 
 should have been qualified by the particular facts, he now 
 mentions ; which are two : 1. Certain letters from himself 
 to a third person : 2. The conversation with me on the day 
 of the inquest. 
 
 First, as to his letters. He does not pretend that they were 
 ever shown, or read, to me. But, he says, he read them to Mr. 
 William Boott ; and this, upon the theory of a conspiracy, he 
 wishes the reader to consider the same thing as having reaui 
 them to me. 
 
 These letters, which are printed in the " Reply," [L. pp. 
 164-5.] the reader should now see, attending to certain parts, 
 which I shall mark by difference of type. 
 
 LETTER FKOM J. A. LOWELL to Dr. FRANCIS BOOTT. 
 
 "Boston, April 10, 1844. 
 " Francis Boott, Esq., London. 
 
 "Mtdear Friend, — As I have been told, that my opinion has 
 been quoted to you on the subject of the state of your brother Wright's 
 mind, I think that it would be unfair, both to him and to you, if I al- 
 lowed such a statement to be made without the proper qualiiication. 
 
700 
 
 " I have never seen any thing, in my intercourse with him, that 
 would have induced such a suspicion. 
 
 " It is true that, upon an ex parte statement from others, that he 
 had taken great offence, without any provocation, against members of 
 his own family, — and had proceeded to personal violence against one 
 of them, — I became apprehensive that constant seclusion was produc- 
 ing unhappy effects upon his mind ; and I did confidentially consult 
 Dr. Jackson, whether it might not be well to induce him, by a change 
 of scene, to dispel any ideas that might be taking too strong posses- 
 sion of his imagination. 
 
 " Since that time, I have found, in my intercourse with other ■par- 
 ties, a degree of exasperation against him, that gives to the whole 
 matter, much more than I had supposed, the aspect of an ordinary 
 quarrel, in which both sides may have given and endured provocation 
 without impeachment of the moral or physical sanity of either, and I 
 must say, that this exasperation is quite inconsistent with a conscien- 
 tious belief, however they may persuade themselves, that so near a 
 relative has been afflicted with this greatest of human misfortunes. 
 
 " You will not understand me, my dear friend, as taking any part, 
 or expressing any opinion, on the original matters in dispute. I have 
 carefully avoided hearing any statements from either side. I have 
 said to both of them, that there was no sacrifice, of time or feeling, 
 that I would not make to bring about a reconciliation ; but that, if there 
 was no hope of success as a peace-maker, I was determined not to 
 become involved in the matter. 
 
 " My only object now is to prevent improper inferences being made 
 from a supposed expression of opinion on my part, — an opinion 
 originally founded on hypothetical statements, arerf. which I NOW 
 
 SEE WHAT I THINK GOOD REASON TO WITHDRAVT. 
 
 " I inclose a letter from Dr. Jackson on the same subject. 
 " I remain yours very truly, 
 
 J. A. LOWELL." 
 
 LETTER FEOM SAME to SAME. 
 
 Boston, April 19, 1844. 
 Francis Boott, Esq., London. 
 
 My DEAR Friknd, — I wrote to you a few days since, inclosing a 
 letter from Dr. Jackson, intended to remove any unfair impression 
 that might have arisen in your mind from the opinion attributed to 
 him, as to the state of your brother's mind. 1 have since seen Wright 
 on business connected with these unhappy differences, and am fully 
 persuaded that he is as self-possessed and rational as tou 
 
 OR I ARE. 
 
 As I have said to you before, I have no knowledge, nor do I wish 
 to have, of the causes of these dissensions, nor do I blame any one. 
 Misunderstandings will arise among the most honorable and high- 
 minded men, and the interference of friends frequently proves una- 
 vailing. 
 
 But 1 do know much — more, perhaps, than any other pee- 
 
701 
 
 SON, — of the HISTOKT OF THIS PROPERTY AND ITS MANAGEMENT ; 
 
 and lam very sure, that, with many and very grave errors of form, 
 
 SUBSTANTIALLY THE -WHOLE MATTER STANDS RIGHT ; and I do 
 
 earnestly desire, that a pure, generous, and high-minded man, whom 
 I have known as such fornearly thirty years, should he shielded 
 
 FROM THE CONSEQUENCES OF MERELY TECHNICAL OMISSIONS. 
 
 I am, dear sir, very truly yours, 
 
 J. A. LOWELL. 
 
 These are the two letters, which, Mr. Lowell says, he read 
 to Mr. William Boott. Now I never understood, from Mr. 
 William Boott, that he had heard Mr. Lowell read more than 
 one letter, addressed by him to Dr. Boott ; though the " Re- 
 ply " says that he had read the " letters to Dr. Francis Boott, 
 above transcribed." [L. p. 176.] I am confirmed in my 
 belief, that the " Reply " errs in that assertion, by the con- 
 clusion of Mr. Lowell's own letter to Mr. William Boott, 
 dated June 24th, 1844, as will appear by the following cor- 
 respondence : — [L. p. 175.] 
 
 LETTEE FROM W. BOOTT to J. A. LOWELL. 
 
 Boston, June 22, 1844. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I have, with great surprise, lately teamed from England, that you 
 have been writing to my mother about the difficulties existing in her 
 family, and that your opinion, or advice, has had an influence in deter- 
 mining her conduct towards some of her children. 
 
 Will you have the kindness to send me a copy of what you have 
 written to her, and to give me the reason for your interference ? 
 
 I have also learned, at second hand, from Dr. Jackson, that you 
 made a statement to him last year, upon which he gave an opinion 
 that my brother Wright was of unsound mind ; that you afterwards 
 made a second statement to him, which led him to reverse his opinion • 
 and that he, at your request, gav? you this second opinion in writing. 
 
 If these things so happened, will you oblige me by informing me 
 when your second statement was made, — what it was, — why the pre- 
 caution was taken of getting Dr. Jackson to write his opinion, and 
 
 whether, at the time of mating your second statement, you had inquired 
 for, and were possessed of, the facts necessary for forming a correct 
 judgment upon the point in question. 
 
 With many apologies for this trouble, 
 
 1 am. Dear Sir, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 TIT T. T, ^M- Boott. 
 
 J. A. LoTVELL, Esq., Boston. 
 
702 
 
 LETTER TEOM J. A. LOWELL to W. BOOTT. 
 
 Boston, June 24th, 1844 
 William Boott, Esq. 
 
 Mr Dear Sir,— I am willing to believe that your note of Satur- 
 day, though somewhat peremptory in form, was not intended to be 
 disrespectful or unfriendly. On that belief I will answer it. 
 
 I never wrote to your mother in my life. / never gave, directly 
 or indirectly, any opinion or advice that could influence her conduct 
 towards her children. 
 
 I never made any statement of facts to Dr. Jackson, except such 
 as referred to the state of feeling between the parties-^fa,cts suffi- 
 ciently notorious. 
 
 I did not request of him to reduce his opinion to writing. 
 
 I will only add, that many dissensions and family quarrels, espe- 
 cially with persons of a naturally reserved temperament, have their 
 origin in the hasty adoption of second-hand rumors. 
 
 I did write to Frank [Dr. Francis Boott] on the subject of the 
 state of his brother's mind. If you are disposed to call at my office 
 in a spirit of friendliness, I will read you that letter with pleasure. 
 I am, dear Sir, yours very truly, 
 
 J. A. Lowell. 
 
 The qfer, therefore, was confined to the reading of a single 
 letter. Was the performance more extensive ? It would seem 
 not, from another passage of the " Reply," directly contra- 
 dicting, on this point, the passage above cited, which says 
 he read the " letters to Dr. Boott above transcribed." I quote, 
 now, as follows : — 
 
 "It will not escape observation, that I was so far from desiring or 
 permitting any influence, that might chance to attach to my opinion, 
 to operate silently, in London, to the disadvantage of these gentlemen, 
 that I communicated to Mr. William Boott himself the only letter, ex- 
 pressing any opinion, which I had written previously to Mr. Wright 
 Boott's death." [L. p. 179.] 
 
 Now, we are constrained to ask, which of the two letters, 
 above printed from the " Reply," (both of which, it asserts, 
 in one place, were read to Mr. William Boott,) was, in fact, 
 the "only letter," which, it confesses, in another place, was 
 ever so read ? And, suppose that letter to have been fully and 
 fairly read,— which is more than I would undertake to 
 avouch, — what did I know about it ? My former statement 
 shows : — 
 
703 
 
 « The contents of the letter lam not fully informed of. Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott did avail himself of the offer to call and hear it read, and 
 Mr. Lowell read to him, at the same time, a draft of a letter to Mrs. 
 Boott, which, it was understood, had not yet been sent; but Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott is unable to recollect the contents of these letters, except 
 that they went to explain the circumstances, under which property of 
 the estate had come to Mr. Lowell's hands, as security for Mr. Wright 
 Boott's note, which he took and held as a trustee, without fault on his 
 own part; and also were calculated to convey an impression that Mr. 
 Wright Boott's state of mind was not one of insanity." [B. p. 98.] 
 
 It will Be observed that I speak of a letter sent to Dr. 
 Boott, and of a letter intended to be sent to Mrs. Boott. 
 Now, Mr. Lowell says, that the draft of the letter to Mrs. 
 Boott was read at a different time, and several months later. 
 [L. p. 179.] If so, it only goes to show how little I really 
 knew about Mr. Lowell's writings from any statement of 
 Mr. "William Boott to me. It will also be observed, that no 
 explanation of the "circumstances, under which the property 
 of the estate had come into Mr. Lowell's hands," is contained 
 in either of the two letters to Dr. Boott. This must have 
 been in the subsequent letter to Mrs. Boott. All I could have 
 known, then, so far as appears, in March, 1845, (the date of the 
 inquest,) concerning the particidar letter to Dr. Boott, which 
 Mr. William Boott had heard read eight or nine months before, 
 was that it was " calculated to convey an impression that Mr. 
 Wright Boott's state of mind was not one of insanity." I had 
 no idea that a strong and positive opinion to that effect, pur- 
 porting to be founded on Mr. Lowell's personal observation, 
 had been expressed ; nor that any thing had been said to fore- 
 stall Dr. Boott's opinion respecting accounts not then exhib- 
 ited, or respecting the executor's general management of the 
 property ; still less that a state of " exasperation " against Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott, '■^ quite inconsistent with a conscientious be- 
 lief" of his insanity, and requiring that he should be "shield- 
 ed from the consequences of merely technical omissions," 
 had been attributed to those members of the family, who 
 ventured to maintain that a state of insanity was his unhappy 
 condition, Nor do I believe, now, that any such imputation, 
 upon Mr. William Boott, as well as myself, was ever made 
 
704 
 
 known to him by Mr. Lowell, in the form in which it now ap- 
 pears. If it had been, I think, I should have heard of it at the 
 time ; and in that case, I am sure, it must have led to a call 
 for further explanation. In the mean time, during that year, 
 (1844-45,) I had held many private -conversations with 
 Mr. Lowell. No such ideas were ever conveyed to me by 
 him. My inferences, from all his conversations, were such, 
 respecting his opinions of Mr. J. Wright Boott's state of 
 mind, as I have above expressed ; and the case, if doubt- 
 ful before, was now illustrated by the fact of a suicide, 
 particularly shocking in the manner of its execution. In- 
 deed, Mr. Lowell does not pretend that he ever said one 
 word to me, that should have prepared me for his testimony 
 to the jury, on the point of sanity, except in the conversation 
 two hours before the inquest. 
 
 Now let us look to that. It was then that he informed me, — 
 not only of the suicide and its horrid circumstances, but, 
 also, — of Mr. Boott's sending for him, and his accompany- 
 ing Mr. Boott, to see the postmaster, about the missing letter, 
 some ten days before. In answer to my remark, that I 
 thought Mr. Boott had been quite tranquil since the settle- 
 ment of the accounts, Mr. Lowell said, " He has been quite 
 tranquil, until about ten days ago, when he got an idea that 
 his brother William had stolen a letter of his," &c. " I found 
 it impossible to reason him out of this idea," &c. Now, what 
 was this, so far as it went, but positive information to me of 
 a most irrational excitement, existing within ten days, known 
 to Mr. Lowell, and spoken of, indirectly, as an instance of 
 insane delusion 7 I afterwards remarked, " All, that you have 
 now told me, serves to confirm the idea, I have long enter- 
 tained, as you know, that Wright was insane." He said, " I 
 don't know about that. Do you think there ought to be an 
 inquest?" I replied, " By all means." [Ante, pp. 687-8.] 
 
 This, is what Mr. Lowell calls, a refusal to assent to my 
 inference from the suicide. Was it, in truth, any thing more 
 than an expression of slight hesitancy, about a direct admis- 
 sion of the fact, connected with the question of having or 
 
705 
 
 not having an inquest ? The notice of my own opinion was 
 not as an inference '■'■from the suicide," merely, but as an 
 opinion previously formed, well known to Mr. Lowell, and con- 
 firmed by the new facts he had stated. This notice was per- 
 fectly explicit and distinct. Now, if his opinion were clear 
 and distinct the other way, and he meant to act fairly to- 
 wards me, why did he not, then, declare himself ? Instead of 
 doing so, he says, " T don't know about that. Do you think 
 there ought to be an inquest ?" For what purpose, let me 
 ask, except to resolve all doubts, respecting the sanity of the 
 deceased ? So I understood him, certainly, when I replied, 
 " By all means." And did not Mr. Lowell well know that I 
 so understood him ? 
 
 Let the reader look to the whole conversation, as above 
 detailed, [Ante, pp. 687-8.] and, remembering what Mr. Low- 
 ell then told me, respecting Mr. Boott's recently disturbed 
 state of mind, (disturbed by nothing but a causeless suspicion 
 of a theft by his own brother,) and this followed by such 
 an act of suicide, — let him judge, for himself, whether 
 I could possibly have inferred, from Mr. Lowell's language, 
 that he entertained, nevertheless, that clear and decided 
 opinion of Mr. Boott's perfect sanity, which he admits he 
 expressed to the jury. If not, I ask again, whether any 
 fair-minded man, about to conduct that inquest at my re- 
 quest and in my behalf, knowing my decided opinion on that 
 subject, and never having expressed to me any decided 
 opinion of his own to the contrary, would have left me, after 
 such a conversation, to engage in that service, without 
 saying, in so many words, that he should feel it to be 
 his duty to testify distinctly against my opinion, and not 
 to have a verdict of insanity found, if he oould prevent 
 it? Would any fair-minded man have so testified, as Mr. 
 Lowell testified, without notice to me, and have wholly 
 omitted to suggest to the jury, that other persons had long 
 considered the deceased insane, or even to allude to the case 
 of recent excitement at the post-office, which he had just 
 mentioned to me ? These same qu^tions, substantially, I 
 
706 
 
 formerly put to Mr. Lowell ; and the reader has seen all the 
 answer he gives to them. 
 
 And now let me put one other. Would -any fair-minded 
 man, under such circumstances, have given to the jury the 
 impressions, he gave to them, concerning ill conduct by my- 
 self and others towards the deceased, and have confirmed 
 those impressions by showing the outside of a letter, described 
 as the last act of the deceased, and as containing charges 
 which must prevent its being read, because the deceased was 
 not there to substantiate them, without affording to the par- 
 ties, so charged, an opportunity to show to the jury that the 
 writer was in a deranged state of mind, and that the charges, 
 contained in the letter, were founded on nothing but his own 
 delusions ? 
 
 Had Mr. Lowell come out, like a man, and said to me, as 
 he says now, that, in his belief, Mr. Boott was just as sane as 
 I am, the consequence would have been, that I should have 
 said, at once, " If that is the case, I must go through the dis- 
 agreeable task of attending this inquest in person." I should 
 have told Mr. Lowell, that I must invite the jury to consider 
 that question ; and that I could not leave it to him to draw 
 them in an opposite direction. 
 
 The " Reply" avers, indeed, that, — . 
 
 " So far from endeavouring to impress upon the jury, that Mr. Boott's 
 "suicide was attributable to the dissensions in the family, I [Mr. Low- 
 ell] brought distinctly to their notice, that both in the matter of his 
 accounts, and in that of the sale of the house, all difficulties had been 
 adjusted, and his mind relieved upon those points, and that I ' did not 
 know of any recent cause of trouble.'" [L. p. 15.] 
 
 What he brought distinctly to the notice of the jury, and 
 what effect he produced upon them, their testimony best 
 proves. That question has been abundantly considered. 
 [Ante, Ch. 9, to Ch. 14.J What he avers, above, as to his not 
 endeavouring to produce such impressions, I place on the 
 same footing with his denial that he ever " gave, directly or 
 indirectly, any opinion or advice, that could influence her 
 [Mrs. Boott's] conduct towards her children." What he did 
 
707 
 
 write, to Dr. Boott, with whom Mrs. Boott was then living, 
 in two particular instances, appears, above, from his own 
 showing. What effect it produced, and why it produced 
 that effect, I shall distinctly show. But I acquit him, in 
 both cases, of a direct intent to accomplish the particular 
 mischief. He meant only to effect his own ends. I do 
 not charge him with having been malicious, towards any 
 one, but, simply, selfish in the extreme. He did not desire 
 to perpetuate ill feelings in the family, which he says I charge 
 him with ; [L. p. 166.] still less did he desire to raise up ill 
 feeling against himself in any quarter, if he could avoid it. 
 Neither did he desire, perhaps, to satisfy the jury that /, par- 
 ticularly, had been the cause of Mr. Boott's death. But, he 
 had desired to have the accounts settled as they were settled ; 
 he desired that they should remain undisturbed ; he desired 
 that there should be no further inquiry into Mr. Boott's exec- 
 utorship, and his own dealings with the executor ; and he 
 especially desired to have it believed, that Mr. Boott was per- 
 fectly sane, in all his previous transactions, notwithstanding 
 the presumption against it, afforded by a course of strange 
 conduct during life, and by the manner of his death. If 
 those ends could be accomplished, and accomplished in so 
 quiet a manner as not to expose himself to harm, nor make 
 known to me the means of their accomplishment, what cared 
 he for collateral consequences to others ? To whom, or to what,, 
 the death of Mr. Boott might be attributed, provided it were 
 not attributed to insanity, was quite a secondary considera- 
 tion, which did not affect Mr. Lowell. Since he chooses, 
 therefore, by making his declared intentions and motives so 
 prominent, to invite the discussion, I shall submit to the 
 reader, whether I have not, now, furnished him with the true 
 key to Mr. Lowell's course of proceeding, just before, and at, 
 and ever after, the inquest. Was I not right, when I said that 
 the question of Mr. Boott's mismanagement as an executor, and 
 the question of the truth of the account, which Mr. Lowell 
 prepared for him, lie at the bottom of this controversy ? 
 The query put to me — « Do you think there ought to be 
 
708 
 
 an inquest ?" — was put, in that remarkably ingenuous manner, 
 which I have, several times, observed in Mr. Lowell, as if the 
 idea was one, that had then, for the first time, struck him. 
 Now one of Dr. Jackson's letters, extracted above from the 
 " Reply," [Ante, pp. 681-2.] informs us, that the propriety 
 of an inquest had been, but a few minutes before, a subject 
 of conversation, between Dr. Jackson, Mr. Lowell, and Mrs. 
 Lyman, at the house, from which Mr. Lowell had jus* 
 come. " After a time," says Dr. Jackson, "I suggested the 
 propriety of having a coroner's inquest ; at which she 
 [Mrs. Lyman] manifested some reluctance." [L. p. 187.] — 
 " They [Mrs. Lyman's remarks] were occasioned only by 
 some suggestion, above referred to, in respect to his^ sanity, 
 or insanity, which arose in discussing the question of a 
 coroner's jury." [L. p. 188.] We may ask, by the way, 
 how came the question of " sanity or insanity " to be sug- 
 gested, if Dr. Jackson and Mr. Lowell both thought there 
 was no reasonable ground for such a question ? And who 
 suggested it ? However that may be, another of Dr. Jackson's 
 letters states, that, when he and Mr. Lowell parted, in 
 walking from the house, " you [Mr. Lowell] went down 
 Court-street to take measures in reference to the sad event 
 which had occurred ;" — and after they had met, again, at Mr. 
 Lowell's house, at the time when Mr. Lowell was seen with 
 the letter in his hand, Dr. Jackson says, — " At the same time 
 you stated to me that you had seen Mr. Edward Brooks, since 
 you had parted with me, and that you had also taken some 
 measures in relation to a coroner." [L. pp. 18, 19.] I hold it 
 to be certain, therefore, that Mr. Lowell came to my office fully 
 impressed with the necessity of an inquest, in Dr. Jackson's 
 opinion, and with the idea of a trial of sanity or insanity con- 
 nected with it ; and that he came for the purpose, not merely 
 of telling me of the suicide, but of sounding me on the 
 subject suggested to him by Dr. Jackson, and of taking 
 measures for the inquest, if he found an inquest to be 
 unavoidable. 
 
 He may have been in hopes that I should discourage 
 
709 
 
 the idea, and that he might see his way to a funeral without 
 any inquest at all, throwing the responsibility of that proceed- 
 ing upon me. That, I have no doubt, he would have much 
 preferred to the risk of an inquest, which might find " suicide 
 in consequence of insanity." But, if my decision should be in 
 favour of an inquest, his next intention, I have no doubt, was, 
 to secure to himself, if possible, the m,anagement of that in- 
 quest ; for, no sooner had I answered to his question, — " By 
 all means," — than he replied by asking " Where is the coroner 
 to be found? I don't know where to find one ;" — [B. p. 145.] 
 indicating, very plainly, his formed intention to search for such 
 an officer. And, since he says he had not then received Mr. 
 Boott's letter, and was not aware that he was named as his 
 executor, I beg to ask, what he had to do with an inquest ? 
 and why had he formed the intention of going himself to the 
 coroner, before I had made any request that he should do so, 
 or expressed any desire to avoid a personal attendance ? 
 
 He had already ascertained, as appears by one of Dr. Jack- 
 son's letters, [L. pp. 187-8.] what Mrs. Lyman's testimony 
 would be, if she were called as a witness. Had he not 
 satisfied himself, also, that the women in the house would 
 give no opinien contradictory to her, on the point of Mr. 
 Boott's sanity ? Mr. William Boott, he knew, was at Lowell. 
 It was easy to have an inquest holden before that gentleman 
 could arrive. All he had to do, further, was, to contrive to 
 get me out of the way, and the course was his own. In this 
 instance, I must confess, that I fell, or rather threw myself, 
 most unsuspiciously, into Mr. Lowell's trap, proposing, even 
 of my own accord, not to be present. The friendly alacrity, 
 with which Mr. Lowell embraced that ofier, and took upon 
 himself the entire burden of so unpleasant an office, would 
 have been, to a bystander, delightful to behold. It ought to 
 have opened my eyes ; but it did not. Strange as it may 
 seem, after the hints I had had, I still confided in Mr. Lowell. 
 But I had no suspicion, it will be remembered, of numerous 
 facts, since discovered, which these pages disclose ; and, par- 
 ticularly, no suspicion of any interested motive to govern, or 
 bias, his course at the inquest. 
 
710 
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 MR. Lowell's conduct respecting a notice to mr. william 
 
 BOOTT. HIS ALLEGED MOTIVES. SOME CORRECTIONS BY MRS. 
 LYMAN. 
 
 Mr. Lowell has, all along, disclaimed, most emphatically, 
 any personal interest, or interference, in the difference, -which, 
 unhappily, arose in the Boott family, respecting Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott. According to his own account, he was the common 
 disinterested friend of all parties. The general helief that 
 he was so has been his chief strength. It has given to his 
 statements undue influence with certain members of the fam- 
 ily, who had no opportunity of judging for themselves, and 
 with the community generally, for the same reason. This 
 has enabled him to play his game, thus far, with a success 
 almost equal to its boldness ; for there are games, at which 
 face and tone are said to be more effective than a strong 
 hand. 
 
 He declares, in one of his letters to me, that he was " no 
 party to the difiiculties which have caused so much pain in 
 Mrs. Boott's family." [B. p. 17.] I shall show, on the other 
 hand, when I come to that question, that he was, behind the 
 curtain, a principal party to all the difiiculties of the year be- 
 fore Mr. Boott's death, as well as since his death, and that he 
 is, now, the chief cause of painful estrangements, still exist- 
 ing, between a mother and children, whose mutual attach- 
 ments were of the tenderest description. 
 
 In another letter to me, printed above, he says, " The kind- 
 ness that I experienced, in early life, from Mr. and Mrs. 
 Boott, has endeared to me all of the name." [Ante, p. 633.] 
 Mrs. Lyman, Mrs. Brooks, and Mr. William Boott were, of 
 course, embraced in this circle of affection. But it seems 
 by no means to have been confined, literally, to thosQ who 
 bore, or had borne, the name of Boott. The circle was ex- 
 
711 
 
 pansive enough to include collateral connexions. For me, 
 also, it seems, that Mr. Lowell cherished a sentimental attach- 
 ment ; since he speaks, in his pamphlet, of a certain " lin- 
 gering tenderness," which, alone, prevented him from treat- 
 ing, as he says it deserved, my application, in December, 
 1846, for an explanation of the course, then first made 
 known to me, which he had taken at the inquest. [L. p. 
 174] How long this tender sentiment continued to linger 
 upon him, to his personal disadvantage, does not distinctly 
 appear. It would seem, — not only in my case, but in that of 
 the other members of the family, who are above named, — to 
 have thoroughly exhaled in the course of his " Reply." At 
 the time, however, of which I now speak, — the date of the 
 inquest, — this unrequited tenderness had suffered no abate- 
 ment. We shall see the acts of benevolence, to which it 
 led. 
 
 The " Reply " admits an express undertaking by Mr. 
 Lowell, in his interview with me, to give notice to Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott, the moment he should arrive from Lowell. [L. 
 p. 184.J He was expected to arrive, and did arrive, in the 
 cars, at about six o'clock that afternoon. Mr. Lowell had 
 said to me, in reference to the notice, " Give yourself no 
 trouble about that. / will be at the cars, or have some 
 one there, to notify him, the moment he arrives, and will 
 make all previous arrangements ;" and when, on parting 
 
 from him at the door of the coroner's office, I asked, " Do 
 
 you want any thing more of me ?" — his last word was, 
 
 " No, — I will take care to notify William Boott," — that deli- 
 cate and friendly duty being so strongly impressed upon his 
 mind, by the affectionate sentiments above declared that 
 he could not restrain himself from repeating the assurance. 
 [Ante, p. 688.] 
 
 Any step on my part, was, of course, prevented, by my 
 implicit reliance on Mr. Lowell. I remained at home, with 
 Mrs. Brooks, expecting that Mr. William Boott, as soon as 
 the inquest was over, would call upon his sister and myself. 
 But when nine o'clock had passed, and I heard nothing, I 
 
712 
 
 thought it best to go round to Mr. William Boott's lodgings, 
 to inquire after him ; and I found this gentleman, at that 
 late hour of the evening, uninformed, not-only of the inquest, 
 which had then been closed several hours, but even of his 
 brother's death ! 
 
 Now what says the " Reply" to this ? " I offered to inform 
 Mr. William Boott, not of the inquest, but of the suicide." [L. 
 p. 184.J Of course Mr. Lowell did not offer, in terms, at the 
 interview with me, to inform him of the inquest, because 
 none had, as yet, either been held or appointed. It had only 
 been agreed between us, that he should call upon the coroner 
 for the purpose of having one appointed. But my under- 
 standing was, — anct did not Mr. Lowell well know it ? — that 
 Mr. William Boott would have the notice before any inquest 
 should be actually holden. The " Reply," however, declares 
 as follows : — 
 
 " I distinctly stated to Mr. Brooks that the inquest would he held 
 that afternoon, and as early as possible, out of respect to Mrs. Ly- 
 man's feelings, and that the jury might see every thing as nearly in its 
 original condition as possible." [L. p. 184] 
 
 I am sorry that my recollections do not distinctly bear 
 out Mr. Lowell's distinct averments on that head. How 
 should he have said any thing about the time, at which an in- 
 quest would be holden, before he had seen the coroner, whose 
 business it was to appoint a time, and to summon a jury ? What 
 great difference could it make, in respect either to Mrs. Ly- 
 man's feelings, or to the condition of every thing in the house, 
 whether the inquest were holden at about four o'clock, or at 
 about six, — at which latter time it was known that Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott would be in town ? The " Reply," moreover, 
 admits, that no steps were taken by Mr. Lowell towards in- 
 forming Mr. William Boott of his brother's death; and this, 
 it is admitted, he did, positively, undertake. Such an omis- 
 sion seems the more extraordinary, considering that Mr. 
 Lowell's sole motive of action was, as he alleges, his ten- 
 derness of feeling towards Mr. William Boott and myself. 
 The excuse is a conflicting tenderness of feeling towards 
 Mrs, Lyman : — 
 
713 
 
 « I was the last witness examined, and as soon as I got through I 
 called upon Mrs. Lyman. She was in such distress it was impossi- 
 ble to leave her, till the arrival of one of her nephews. So much 
 time had thus been taken up, that it was dark before I left the house 
 and the cars from Lowell had long since arrived. [L. pp. 19, 20.] 
 
 But " one of her nephews," and, as I understand, the 
 nephew alluded to, (Mr. Kirk Boott,) it seems, on Mr. Low- 
 ell's showing in another place, was himself, all the while, 
 present at the inquest, and heard Mr. Lowell testify. [L. p. 
 13.] He was at hand, therefore, to take Mr. Lowell's place, 
 in tendering such consolation as he could to Mrs. Lyman, the 
 moment Mr. Lowell had discharged his imperative duty as a 
 volunteer witness. Besides, the pressure of the duty towards 
 Mrs. Lyman, (who was consoled hy Mr. Lowell with the in- 
 formation that her brother's dying breath charged her with 
 being a spy in the house.) was not so urgent, after all, but that 
 Mr. Lowell found time, after the verdict, as we learn from his 
 own witnesses, to have some considerable talk with the jury 
 in order to enlighten them further, concerning the strange 
 things they had heard and witnessed. [Ante, pp. 82, 88.] 
 Hence, only, was it " dark," when Mr. Lowell left the house, 
 though the inquest began at four o'clock, and its necessary 
 business need not have occupied one hour. 
 
 But the final reason for omitting the promised notice must 
 be entirely satisfactory. " I had no doubt that Mr. William 
 Boott had heard of the event, which was by that time known 
 all over the city .'" [L. p. 20.] Undoubtedly it was ; and Mr. 
 William Boott was one of the very few individuals, among 
 one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants of Boston, 
 who was ignorant, at nearly half past nine o'clock that even- 
 ing, (though he had been in the city three hours,) that his 
 own brother had destroyed himself, in the course of the pre- 
 ceding night, and that an inquest had been concluded, which 
 found a verdict of suicide, but, — as appeared on the following 
 morning, — did not find the act to have been one of insanity, 
 and scarcely omitted to find that he, himself, as well as I, 
 had been a culpable cause of the death ! 
 
714 
 
 Mr. Lowell, however, makes a great parade of the extraor- 
 dinarily kind feelings, which influenced all his movements in 
 this matter : — 
 
 " If I took immediate measures for having an inquest held, it was, 
 as Dr. Jackson and Mrs. Lyman well know, that the fact of Mr. 
 Boott's suicide might be established, before any vulgar rumors should 
 assign another cause for his violent end. Mr. Brooks declined being 
 present from motives of delicacy, which I could well appreciate, and 
 which would apply with at least equal force to Mr. William Boott. 
 It never occurred to me that either of them would dream of being 
 present. [L. p. 184.] 
 
 In this view of the case, he says, he is confirmed by Dr. 
 Boott. Now I take leave to suggest to Mr. Lowell, as a good 
 general rule, in case he should, ever, again be called upon to 
 perform any like kind offices for his particular friends, that 
 it is well to allow, to persons of full age and ordinary dis- 
 cretion, an opportunity to judge for themselves, in their own 
 afiairs ; or, if not, at least to give them notice of the man- 
 ner, in which he intends to manage their afiairs for them. 
 " Motives of delicacy " might withhold parties, having a 
 particular interest, from attending an inquest, under some 
 circumstances ; but I should, certainly, in my own case, over- 
 come any such morbid reluctance, under other circumstances; 
 and I am not able fully to appreciate, perhaps, the value of 
 the distinction, between a vulgar rumour that I had cut the 
 throat of a brother-in-law, (which Mr. Lowell, thus delicately, 
 intimates as one of the hazards of the case,) and a vulgar ru- 
 mour that I had been the death of him by unjust accusations, 
 groundless calumnies, and a course of malignant persecution. 
 The chief difierence, in my estimation, lies in this ; — the one 
 suggestion, if it be false, is, in most cases, easily disproved; 
 the other, from its nature, is more difficult to grapple with. 
 For the one species of slander there is a legal remedy ; for 
 the other none. 
 
 As to what actually passed at the inquest, I have nothing 
 to add to the statements of the jurors, and of Mr. Lowell's 
 own witnesses. [Ante, Ch. 14.] His many excuses, how- 
 pyer, seem to deserve notice. He says, 
 
715 
 
 « Mr. Brooks, most unjustly, charges me with having been a self- 
 called witness at this inquest. Literally 1 no doubt was so ; but that 
 I was so for any other purpose than one of kindness to him and Mr. 
 William Boott, and to obey the clear dictate of duty, is wholly untrue. 
 
 " I was, as Mr. Brooks well knows, the only person who had, in 
 Mr. Boott's own hand writing, evidence of his intention of suicide. 
 What would Mr. Brooks, with his predisposition to impute to me base 
 and dishonorable motives, have said, if I had, by voluntarily absenting 
 myself, suppressed this evidence ?" [L. p. 188.] 
 
 There were several ways, in which Mr. Lowell might have 
 relieved himself from so unpleasant a dilemma. One would 
 have been to lay the letter before the jury, so that they 
 might judge of it for themselves, and determine what fmther 
 inquiry, concerning the deceased's state of mind, was called 
 for by its extraordinary statements. I say he might, simply, 
 have laid the letter before the jury ; for it was the letter, 
 not Mr. Lowell, which proved the intention of suicide. Mr. 
 Lowell could prove nothing, but that the letter was in Mr. 
 Boott's hand-writing, — a fact, which many other persons 
 could have proved equally well, — and that he had received it 
 at some indefinite hour of that day, by some indefinite means, 
 through the post-office, — a fact, which is entirely immaterial. 
 Another mode would have been to send the letter to me, 
 or to give me notice that he had such a letter, and of its 
 contents concerning me, and I should have known, very soon, 
 what to do in that case. Where was the kindness to me and 
 to Mr. William Boott, in Mr. Lowell's making himself a wit- 
 ness, without showing the letter, — declaring that " it contained 
 charges, which he [the writer] was not here to substantiate," — 
 connecting those charges, by averment and suggestion, with 
 notions of harsh and improper conduct towards the deceased, 
 in relation to his accounts, — and, at the same time, declaring, 
 concerning the author of those dying declarations, that he 
 [Mr. Lowell] " has never discovered any thing indicating in- 
 sanity in the deceased," without suggesting that other per- 
 sons had long felt assured of it. 
 
 The particular kindness to me, and to Mr. William Boott, 
 ntended by the " Reply," is, I presume, (if I rightly inter- 
 pret its innuendoes,) that Mr. Lowell's efforts, by establishing 
 
716 
 
 the fact of suicide, tended to prevent "any vulgar ru- 
 mours" that we had crept into Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 chamber, at night, and assassinated him in his bed. But 
 -was Mr. Lowell's testimony necessary for that? Accord- 
 ing to Dr. Jackson, he and Mr. Lowell " found Mr. Boott's 
 corpse lying on the bed, under such circumstances, and 
 with such accompaniments, as showed that he died by 
 his own hands." [L. p. 187.] Now, I am unable to see, why 
 the same sight, with the testimony of the witnesses in the 
 house, who first found the corpse in that situation, would 
 not have satisfied a commonly intelligent jury of the same 
 fact ; since it was so plain, by mere ocular inspection, to 
 Dr. Jackson and Mr. Lowell. 
 
 The truth is, that there is not one particle of testimony, 
 given by Mr. Lowell, according to the official report, which 
 was legal evidence of any thing material to be proved, exc&pt 
 as it bore on the question of sanity. In that view, it was quite 
 material for him to state, as he did, that he had known the 
 deceased for nearly thirty years ; that he had, formerly, been 
 in business with him ; that the " deceased was in the habit 
 of consulting witness about his aflFairs more than any one 
 else ;" and that he " has never discovered any thing indicat- 
 ing insanity in the deceased;" [B. App. p. 59.] and it was 
 quite immaterial to have added the further information, giv- 
 en to the jury, which does not appear in the oflUcial report, 
 except as it tended to account for the fact of a suicide from 
 some other cause than mental derangement. Mr. Lowell 
 knew nothing else, touchuig the subject of inquiry, which 
 the inhabitants of the house did not know better, except his 
 own possession of a letter, and of a will, which would speak 
 for themselves ; and these he did not allow to speak. But, 
 since it is suggested, that this was all done from the over- 
 flowings of kindness, to rescue me from the danger of an in- 
 dictment for murder, perhaps I ought to respond with heart- 
 felt gratitude for the preservation of my life ; and my lack 
 of that sentiment can only be set down for another proof of 
 the singular perversity and hardness of heart, which the 
 
717 
 
 "Reply" has found out to be among my distinguishing 
 qualities. 
 
 There is one little error, in my report of what happened at 
 the inquest, as derived from Mrs. Lyman, which I am bound 
 to correct, according to her request, in the letter heretofore 
 mentioned. [Ante, p. 68.] My former account was as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " Mr. Dexter obtained for me the official report of the evidence at the 
 inqnest, — a copy of which is annexed. (App. No. 42.) It will be 
 observed, that Mrs. Lyman's testimony, as there recorded, is, ' that 
 the deceased, John W. Boott, is her brother, and that she resided with 
 him ; — has resided with him since March, 1844 ; — never has discov- 
 ered any thing like insanity in him.' This, of course, would give the 
 idea, that she had been in the habit of seeing him constantly during 
 the year, and so had means of forming an opinion respecting his state 
 of mind But, on examining the original, I found that a sentence, or 
 part of a sentence, following this, was crossed out ; the words, however, 
 were still sufficiently legible to see, that it was the beginning of a 
 stjitement qualifying the last remark, and to the effect, that she had 
 not seen her brother, or had any communication with him, during the 
 whole year. On inquiry of Mrs. Lyman, I learnt, that, when she 
 had made that statement, and was proceeding farther to show how 
 little opportunity she had had of discovering marks of insanity, if it ex- 
 isted, (for in truth, she had hardly seen her brother for many years,) 
 she was interrupted by a remark of Mr. Lowell's, that he supposed 
 that irrelevant ; and, consequently, she forbore to speak of the con- 
 duct of the deceased towards herself, feeling that it would be discredit- 
 able to her brother's memory, (except as evidence of insanity,) and 
 being told that such matters need not be stated. The sentence, how- 
 ever, which she had begun, or a part of it, had been already written 
 down by the foreman, and she requested, that, if it was immaterial, it 
 might be left out. It was accordingly crossed out, and she proceeded 
 as her testimony now stands in the report. If the inquiry, thus opened 
 by the witness, had been pursued, instead of being suddenly stopped, 
 and proper questions had been put to her, to draw out what she knew, 
 she would have been obliged, thougb reluctantly, to state facts, con- 
 cerning the conduct of the deceased towards herself, which every ju- 
 ror would, probably, have thought quite unaccountable, except on the 
 idea of a partial insanity. All this, however was shut out." TB n 
 155.] '- '^' 
 
 Mr. Lowell denies having interrupted Mrs. Lyman, [L. p. 
 186,J and denies having done any thing to influence the ver- 
 dict of the jury, except testifying as his duty required. [L. p. 
 21.J On this point Mrs. Lyman corrects me, as follows: — 
 
718 
 
 " Page 155, you say, I was interrupted by Mr. L. This is wrong. 
 1 replied to the juror, who questioned me, that / had lived in the 
 house a year with Wright, and did not believe him insane. I then 
 turned to Mr. Lowell, and said, ' perhaps I should state on what terms 
 I had lived there.' Mr. Lowell said 'it did not hear upon the case.' I 
 added, during the year, I had never seen my brother. The juror re- 
 peated — ' Never seen your brother for the whole year ?' — I said ' No,' 
 — and, perceiving great astonishment manifested by the jurors, and 
 fearing to do Wright any harm, I begged to have no record made 
 of the fact." 
 
 The reader will judge how material this correction is ; and 
 whether Mr. Lowell's saying, when appealed to, that the ex- 
 traordinary terms, on which Mrs. Lyman had been permitted 
 to live in the house, " did not bear upon the case," does not 
 justify the substance of my charge ; namely, that, by his in- 
 terference, — though, as it now appears, upon a question of 
 advice put to him by the witness, and not by an actual in- 
 terruption, — 'he did, upon his own responsibility, cause the 
 exclusion of pertinent evidence of a series of facts, strongly 
 tending to prove the insane condition of the deceased, con- 
 trary to the mere opinion of a witness, who, though living 
 in the same house, had not seen him for a year, and had 
 conversed with him but once, I believe, for sixteen years ! 
 Yet, says Mr. Lowell, " It is utterly untrue, that I inter- 
 fered with, or attempted to influence, that verdict at all, ex- 
 cept by my own testimony, under the obligation of my 
 oath !" [L. p. 21.] 
 
 I will now complete the sum of my errors, in reporting 
 Mrs. Lyman, so far as she has informed me. The following 
 is my former account of my recollection of her statements of 
 certain conversations with Mr. Lowell : — 
 
 " We did so, and found Mrs. Lyman at the house, and two female 
 friends with her. The conversation turned, among other things, upon 
 the inquest, which, Mrs. Lyman eaii, was held about four o'clock; and 
 that she and the two women (meaning the servants,) and Mr. 
 Lowell, had been examined ; and that Mr. Lowell produced the letter. 
 I asked what letter. She said the letter which Wright had written 
 the night before. I said you must be mistaken about that, for Mr. 
 Lowell told me, at two o'clock, that there was a letter, supposed to 
 have been put into the post-office, but that nobody had got it. Mrs. 
 Lyman replied, " it was to Mr. Lowell himself, and he had it at tlie 
 
719 
 
 inquest." Being still incredulous, I asked whether she was present 
 when Mr. Lowell testified, and saw the letter herself. She said, no, 
 but that, after the inquest, Mr. Lowell told her about it, and told her 
 some things that were in the letter. I asked what they were. She 
 said, " I was charged in the letter with being in the house as a spy, 
 and you with placing me here for that purpose.'' She was at that 
 time entirely ignorant that the letter contained a will ; and could 
 recollect nothing more of its contents, as stated by Mr. Lowell. She 
 afterwards told me, that Mr Lowell said it was rather incoherent — an 
 expression, which, at a subsequent interview, he was unwilling to 
 admit that he had used, preferring then to say, vague and indistinct." 
 [B. p. 148.] 
 
 Mrs. Lyman's correction is as follows : — 
 
 " A more important mistake occurs on page 148. The facts, after 
 my examination, are, that Mr. Lowell came to me, and said, ' The in- 
 quest is over — the verdict, suicide.' He then told me he had received 
 a letter, written by Wright the night previous, and in reply to my 
 question, he added, that the letter was a long one — that it was a re- 
 view of the family quarrels from the beginning, — that Wright charged 
 me with heing a spy in the house, placed there by you, — that you were 
 not an honest man, though not pecuniarily dishonest, — and that he 
 dwelt upon his grievances very much. Upon my asking the general 
 tone of the letter, he said it was rather incoherent. I never heard, 
 till sometime afterwards, that the letter had been produced at the in- 
 quest ; and you then told me what the coroner told you, as stated in 
 the book. I left the room as soon as my examination closed, and no 
 letter was seen while I was there. These are serious mis-statements, 
 so far as I am concerned. I have my own notes to prove my accu- 
 racy, and the statement of J. W. B.'s letter, put down from memory, 
 which Mr, Thwing confirmed as to substance. Upon it is Wright's 
 refusal to read it." 
 
 To explain the latter part of Mrs. Lyman's statement, the 
 reader should know that a letter, prescribing certain condi- 
 tions, on which Mrs. Lyman was to be received into her 
 mother's house, was written by Mr. Boott to her, about a 
 year before his death. This letter, after reading, she was re- 
 quired to return to him, with her assent to the conditions, 
 subscribed at its foot. Having no copy of the letter she 
 wrote down, soon after, as well as she could from memory, a 
 statement of its contents, which she sent to her brother, with 
 a request that he would examine it, and certify it to be sub- 
 stantially correct, if it was so. But Mr. Boott refused even 
 
720 
 
 to read the paper, and sent it back to her, with a memoran- 
 dum to that effect endorsed upon it. So that Mrs. Lyman 
 was left without any evidence of the contents of a paper of 
 conditions, which she had been required to subscribe, and 
 by which she was expected to govern herself, except her own 
 memory, and that of her friend, Mr. S. C. Thwing, to whom 
 Mr. Boott had read the original. Was this, by the way, the 
 conduct of a sane man ? 
 
 In my foregoing report of Mrs. Lyman's statements tome, 
 the only substantial error appears to relate to the fact of the 
 production, at the inquest, of the letter, which Mr. Lowell had 
 just received from Mr. Boott. It now appears, that Mrs. Ly- 
 man did not know, at the time of our conversation, whether 
 it was produced there or not, and did not state to me 
 that it was, although, it seems, I made that inference from 
 something that was said. But, as to what Mr. Lowell said, 
 respecting the contents and character of the letter, it appears 
 that I at least did not overstate Mrs. Lyman's report of it. 
 
 It further appears, that Mrs. Lyman, while anxiously en- 
 deavouring to correct errors, still insists that Mr. Lowell, origi- 
 nally, said, that the letter was " rather incoherent." This, Mr. 
 Lowell afterwards desired to qualify, by substituting the 
 words " vague and indistinct." Bat his position in the 
 "Reply" is, that this letter, (which we are not permitted to 
 see,) is proof of the sanity of its writer, — Mr. Lowell, of 
 course, fathering, by adoption, the truth of its charges, since 
 nobody imputes want of veracity to Mr. Boott. Upon the 
 subject of the truth and rational character of the charges, I 
 shall, presently, " enlighten Mr." Lowell. [L. p. 69.] 
 
 It appears, too, that I was mistaken in supposing that Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott's paper of conditions prescribed, in terms, 
 that Mrs. Lyman should live by herself, in her own apart- 
 ments, and hold no communication whatever with him. 
 
 This paper I never saw, till it was printed by Mr. Lowell ; 
 and, although extraordinary enough in other respects, and 
 containing matter, which strongly intimates that intention, it 
 does not appear to contain such a condition, in express terms. 
 This is another of the statements of my former pamphlet, 
 
721 
 
 which I was requested by Mrs. Lyman to correct. I accord- 
 ingly do it, now, in her own words, written before the ^^ Re- 
 ply" (in which the letter of conditions was printed,) had made 
 its appearance, and, of course, while Mrs. Lyman had nothing 
 to make the correction by but her own memory, and the mem- 
 orandum above mentioned, which Mr. Boott refused to read. 
 By that refusal, he undoubtedly meant that she should under- 
 stand, that he did not intend to hold any conamunication with 
 her, either verbal or written. The following is the cor- 
 rection, made by Mrs. Lyman : — 
 
 " This, [my above-mentioned statement] is also wrong, not as to the 
 requirements, but, as to their being in the paper. It was at the time 
 of his visit to me, at Miss Lane's, that he made them." 
 
 The reference is to a visit at the boarding-house where 
 Mrs. Lyman then lived, (the first and only meeting of the 
 parties for many years,) when the terms of Mr. Boott's con- 
 sent to the admission, she sought, under her mother's roof, 
 were verbally made known. Of these terms the greater part 
 were, afterweirds, reduced to writing by Mr. Boott, and sign- 
 ed by Mrs. Lyman on his requisition. His state of mind, 
 perhaps, did not permit him to perceive how inadequately he 
 had expressed himself, in the writing, on the point of total 
 non-intercourse ; but Mrs. Lyman, to whom that condition 
 had been verbally made known, as the basis of the ar- 
 rangement, felt herself equally boimd by it ; and he, also, 
 did not forget to act upon it in its strictest sense. 
 
 This, I believe, discharges my whole duty of correction, on 
 Mrs. Lyman's behalf; and the reader may now judge, from 
 the several corrections made, here and elsewhere, how far Mr. 
 Lowell's assertion is likely to be true, that he is " authorized 
 by Mrs. Lyman to contradict nearly every thing, stated as on 
 her authority in Mr. Brooks's pamphlet." [L. p. 140.] 
 
722 
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 MB. Lowell's conduct in relation to the last letter of 
 
 THE deceased. 
 
 This letter Mr. Lowell has steadily refused to show, or 
 read, to me ; but not, it appears, to all other persons. 
 
 He tells us, that it is "written with great calmness, as be- 
 fitted the occasion, and evinces no aberration of mind." [L. 
 p. 160.] 
 
 " The occasion" was this. The writer was on the point 
 of taking his own life in a most appalling manner. This hap- 
 pened at night, in the dwelling house of his mother, of which 
 the only other inmates were a widowed sister, (Mrs. Lyman,) 
 and some female domestics. Was it not, by the way, an in- 
 sane idea of preparing as shocking a spectacle as possible 
 for the spies and enemies, by whom he believed himself to be 
 surrounded, which prompted that form of suicide in that, 
 place ? This, however, is only a part of the general ques- 
 tion of his insanity, not yet before us. At present, I con- 
 fine myself to the letter, which this "occasion" produced, 
 and to the conduct of Mr. Lowell concerning it. 
 
 We have seen, in the last chapter, what Mr. Lowell told 
 Mrs. Lyman, respecting its tenor, immediately after the in- 
 quest ; namely, " that the letter was a long one ; that it 
 was a revietv of the family quarrels from the beginning; 
 that Wright charged me [Mrs. Lyman] with being a spy in 
 the house placed there by you, [Brooks ,'] that you [Brooks,], 
 were not an honest man, (though not pecuniarily dishonest ;) 
 and tha,t it dwelt upon his grievances very tnuch." In re- 
 spect to " the general tone of the letter, he said it was rather 
 incoherent." [Ante, 719.] 
 
 This,.(excepting the remark about its incoherency,) was 
 the first account of the letter, which reached me. I heard 
 n from Mrs. Lyman, when I called upon her, between nine 
 and ten o'clock of the evening of the inquest ; and the 
 
723 
 
 same account, substantially, was given, that same evening, by- 
 Mr. Lowell himself, to me and to Mr. William Boott, when we 
 called upon him, immediately after leaving Mrs. Lyman. [B. 
 p. 149.] 
 
 It now appears, by abundant evidence, heretofore detailed, 
 [Ante, pp. 113, 114,] that Mr. Lowell, in fact, produced the 
 letter at the inquest, and there, without handing it to the 
 jury for inspection, either stated, or read from it, the writer's 
 expressed hope that Mr. Lowell might not think the worse 
 of him for the method, he was about to take, "to end his 
 wretchedness." That, Mr. Lowell said, was " all that bore 
 upon the case ;" that the rest of the letter "related to private 
 afiairs ;" and that he preferred not to show the letter, " as it 
 contained charges, which he [the writer] was not here to 
 substantiate." [Anta, p. 114.] 
 
 All this I was ignorant of at the time. I supposed, at first, 
 from something, which Mrs. Lyman had said, (though, it now 
 appears, she did not intend to convey that impression,) that 
 the letter had been handed to the jury ; but I also took it for 
 granted that the jury must have found the suicide to have 
 resulted from insanity. The next morning, I learned that 
 there had been no such finding ; and, to my surprise, that 
 Mr. Lowell had testified to the effect that he had never had 
 the least reason to think the deceased of unsound .mind. But 
 I was, on the same day, assured by him, that nobody had seen 
 the letter hut himself] and this, for the moment, of course, 
 dispelled my previous idea that it had been shown to the 
 jury. 
 
 This assurance from Mr. Lowell was in answer to my ver- 
 bal request that he would permit me to see a letter, which, he 
 had said, contained dishonourable charges against me, and 
 which, he had also said, was written by a sane man. 
 
 I now extract from my former pamphlet, as follows : — 
 
 " His answer was, that he thought he ought not to show it ; that 
 nohody had seen it but himself; and that he did not attach the least 
 importance to what was said concerning me. Nothing more passed 
 between us at that time ; but, on reflection, I was not satisfied with 
 the position of the thing, and determined to make a formal request, 
 which I did, the next morning, by letter, as follows : 
 
724 
 
 " March 9, 1845. 
 " My Dear Sir, — The letter, which Mr. J. W. Boott wrote you 
 on the last evening of his life has, as you have informed me, several 
 allusions to myself. As this letter is known to be in existence, 
 although you have assured me that no one has seen it hut yourself, it 
 would afford me satisfaction, in the peculiar circumstances of the case, 
 to be allowed to peruse it. Will you let me know, by the bearer, 
 whether I may be allowed to do so ? 
 
 With great regard, your ob'd't, 
 
 Edward Brooks. 
 
 " To this I received a prompt answer, as follows : — 
 
 " Dear Sir, — ^I am not prepared, at present, to consent to your 
 seeing a letter, which Mr. Boott, at so solemn a moment of his life, 
 wrote to me, without expressing a wish that it should be commaai- 
 cated to any one. It is written with great calmness, as befitted the 
 occasion, and evinces no aberration of mind. 
 I am, truly, your ob. sv., 
 
 J. A. Lowell. 
 " Sunday morning, March 9th, 1845." 
 
 " Being still more dissatisfied, after this explicit declaration of the 
 sanity of the letter, in Mr. Lowell's opinion, I consulted Mr. William 
 Boott, and finally concluded to state the case to Mr. Franklin Dexter, 
 as a friend, and to be governed by his opinion. I did so. Mr. Dex- 
 ter thought, thpit I was entitled, under the circumstances, to see the 
 letter, or at least to know, precisely, what it said concerning me, and 
 that Mr. Lowell, on reconsideration, could not, in justice to me, re- 
 fuse it ; and he undertook to see that gentleman in my behalf. He 
 did so, and the result of the interview was, that Mr. Lowell declined 
 showing the letter, either to me, or to Mr. Dexter, as my friend, who 
 asked it in order that he might judge for me, whether it required any 
 notice. Mr. Lowell's alleged ground of refusal was, that it came to 
 him confidentially ; that it related to family matters, wJiich had been 
 closed, and ought not to be re-opened ; and that, although he himself 
 considered Mr. Wright Boott perfectly sane, yet, he ga^e no weight to 
 his expressions concerning myself, because they were such, only, as 
 one man was apt to use against another, with whom he had a differ- 
 ence ; that the letter produced no effect on his own mind, and could 
 not upon others, as it was, and would be, unseen exceft by himself. 
 Mr._ Dexter then asked Mr. Lowell, whether he would have any ob- 
 jection to making a statement, in writing, to the effect of what he had 
 just said, and expressed his own belief that such a statement would 
 be entirely satisfactory to me, as it would afford me means of contra- 
 dicting any reports to my prejudice, by showing that Mr. Lowell him- 
 self attached no serious importance to the charges. Mr. Lowell an- 
 swered, that he thought he should accede to that course, provided Mr. 
 Brooks and Mr. William Boott would agree not to oppose the probate 
 of Mr, Wright Boptt's will on the ground of his alleged insanity. To this 
 
725 
 
 Mr. Dexter replied, that he was not authorized to stipulate for either 
 of us on that point, but that, from his conversation with me, he had 
 no belief that we had any inclination to disturb the will, and that he 
 would confer with us on the subject. The substance of this conver- 
 sation I state, of course, on the authority of Mr. Dexter's report to 
 me, and it will be found repeated, nearly as above given, in letters 
 from Mr. Dexter, referred to below. 
 
 " The singularity of the condition, now proposed, as a consideration 
 for the performance of what I regarded as a mere act of justice to 
 myself, on the part of Mr. Lowell, connected with the other circum- 
 stances above mentioned, concerning the letter, and concerning what I 
 had heard of the testimony before the jury, (though I had no idea, 
 until more than a year after, of the extent, to which Mr. Lowell had 
 gone,) made me desirous, before giving an answer, to know, more par- 
 ticularly, what the finding of the coroner's jury was, and upon what 
 evidence it was grounded. With the view of ascertaining this, Mr. 
 Dexter called, at my request, upon the coroner, and obtained a copy 
 of the official report of the evidence, and also had some conversation 
 with him on the subject, in the course of which the coroner stated, 
 that the letter in question was exhibited to him hy Mr. Lowell, at the 
 time Mr. Lowell had called upon him to procure an inquest ; that he 
 ('the coroner) read the greater part of the letter, and was not restrict- 
 ed from reading the whole ; and that, among other things, it contain- 
 ed a statement, that the writer had been driven to the act of self- 
 destruction by unjust accusations of mismanagement of his father's 
 estate. 
 
 " This, when reported to me, I thought gave a graver aspect, and 
 more importance, to the case, than any thing I had before heard, at the 
 same time that it was, to my own mind, additional evidence of the in- 
 sanity of the deceased. Mr. William Boott agreed with me in this 
 opinion, and that any condition, as to the probate of the will, which 
 might debar us from bringing the question of the testator's sanity to 
 a legal test, while Mr. Lowell asserted it, and while a letter from the 
 testator, containing so serious a charge against both of us, not only 
 existed, but had been shown, was a wholly unreasonable thing for Mr. 
 Lowell to ask. Mr. Dexter concurred in this view. We, therefore, 
 instructed him to say, in our behalf, that we must decline pledging 
 ourselves, under these new circumstances, to any particular course 
 concerning the probate of the will, and must request once more, 
 since the letter had been shown to one other person, at least, that we 
 or some friend in our behalf, might be permitted to see it. This Mr. 
 Dexter did, in writing, as appears by the annexed copy of his letter 
 to Mr. Lowell, dated March 11, 1845." [B. pp. 149-152.] 
 
 LETTER FEOM E. DEXTER to J. A. LOWELL. 
 [B. App. p. 60.] 
 
 Boston, March 11, 1845. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 You will remember, that, on Sunday, I called on you in behalf of 
 Mr. Brooks, to repeat his request that he might see the letter, which 
 
726 
 
 Mr. J. W. Boott addressed to you just before his death. You de- 
 oHned complying with this request, for reasons which you then stated. 
 I then suggested to you the measure of your writing a letter to Mr. 
 Brooks, stating that Mr. J. W. Boott's letter contained no charge 
 against him, except such expressions as might naturally follow from 
 the excitement of a personal difference, and which produced no effect 
 on your mind. I stated to you that I was not authorized by Mr. 
 Brooks to propose that measure, but that it occurred to me as one that 
 ■would, probably, be satisfactory to Mr. Brooks. You answered, that 
 you thought you should accede to that course, provided Mr. Brooks 
 and Mr. W, Boott had no design of opposing the probate of Mr. 
 Boott's will, on the ground of alleged insanity. To this I replied, that, 
 although not authorized to answer for those gentlemen, on that point, 
 I had no belief that either of them had the least inclination to disturb 
 the will. There our interview ended, as I understood, with the ex- 
 pectation that I should inform you what were Mr. Brooks's and Mr. 
 Boott's intentions, as to the probate of the will. 
 
 Since that interview, I have learned from the coroner, that Mr, J. 
 "W. Boott's letter was exhibited by you to him, when you called on 
 him to procure an inquest to be holden. The coroner further inform- 
 ed me, that he read the greater part of the letter, and was not restrict- 
 ed from reading the whole, and that, among other things, it cohtained 
 a statement that the writer, Mr. J. W. Boott, had been driven to the 
 act of self-destruction by unjust accusations of mismanagement of his 
 father's estate. This I reported to Mr. Brooks, and have since had 
 an interview with him and Mr. W. Boott, who now request me to say, 
 in their behalf, that, under the present aspect of the case, they must 
 decline pledging themselves to any course in regard to Mr. J. W. 
 Boott's will. They further request me, again, and under these new 
 circumstances, to repeat the request, that they, or some friend of theirs, 
 may see Mr. J. W. Boott's letter; — but, if you should still decline ac- 
 ceding to that request, that you will preserve the letter, as it may be 
 important to thera hereafter. 
 
 I will add, that, as you referred me on Sunday to Mr Loring, as 
 your counsel, if I came in the capacity of Mr. Brooks's counsel, (an 
 office which I then hoped to be able to avoid.) I have since called on 
 Mr. Loring, who will state to you what was said between us. 
 
 I am, respectfully, yours, &c. 
 
 F. Dexter. 
 
 J. A. Lowell, Esq. 
 
 The answer to this letter was by Charles G. Loring. Esq. 
 in behalf of Mr. Lowell. As it is a long one, I extract only 
 the most material parts, referring to my former pamphlet for 
 the residue : — 
 
 EXTRACT FROM Mu. LORING'S ANSWER. 
 
 " Upon reading to me this letter, [Mr. Dexter's,] Mr. Lowell ex- 
 pressed the greatest surprise at these allegations,— assuring me that 
 
727 
 
 the letter had never been out of his hands ; that he had only read 
 such portions of it to Mr. Pratt as were necessary to show that Mr. 
 Boott had intended and inflicted his own death, and which he consid- 
 ered it his duty to read to him for that jiurpose, — the office of the 
 coroner being to ascertain whether the deceased came to his death 
 by his own hands, or those of another ; and that the letter contains no 
 such statements as represented in your note ; and that lie never made, 
 or suggested, any proposal, or willingness, that the letter should be 
 read by Mr. Pratt, excepting in replying to his request that he (Mr. 
 L.) would have it with him at the inquest, when he assented to 
 producing it there, if called for ; understanding, as is obviously true, 
 that the jury would have the right to demand its production and pe- 
 rusal, if judged necessary. And further informed me that, at the in- 
 quest, the letter was not unfolded; though, in reply to the inquiry 
 whether he had one, he answered in the affirmative, and took it from 
 his pocket; the jury thinking it not necessary to require knowledge 
 of its contents, excepting in some particulars relating to the question 
 of Mr. B.'s self-destruction, which were stated in the testimony of 
 Mr. L., the minutes of which you have seen." [B. App. p. 62.J 
 
 Mr. Loring then goes on to narrate an interview, just held 
 with Mr. Pratt, in the presence of Mr. Lowell, in which Mr. 
 Pratt admitted that he had said, that Mr. Lowell opened the 
 letter in his presence, and read to him some extracts, or re- 
 peated some portions of it ; but not that he had heard, or 
 seen, any thing in it about me ; that he had to]d Mr. Dexter, 
 and others, that something had been heard by him about dif- 
 ficulties in the family, but he could not say whether he got 
 the idea from the letter or not ; that Mr. Dexter was mis- 
 taken in saying that he (Mr. Pratt) said that he saw or heard 
 the greater part of the letter ; that it was a very long letter, 
 and very little was read to him ; that he did not know that 
 Mr. Brooks's name was mentioned, and had no idea whether 
 the allusions were favourable or unfavourable. 
 
 To this Mr. Dexter made a brief reply, the substance of 
 which lies in the following sentence : — 
 
 EXTEACT PKOM Me. DEXTER'S REPLY. 
 
 " I now state, in brief, that I am quite sure I reported Mr. Pratt 
 correctly, in substance, with the single doubt whether he said that Mr. 
 Boott stated, in terms, that the unjust accusations against him had driv- 
 en him to suicide, or whether those accusations were stated in such 
 connection as to lead to that inference. If the latter was the case, it 
 is a mere verbal difference." [B; App. p, 64.] 
 
728 
 
 This terminated all personal applications for the letter. 
 Some months afterwards, I learned that Mr. Lowell denied 
 ever having said that the letter contained a charge of dishon- 
 esty against me. In consequence of this, I applied to Mr. 
 Dexter for information of what was said to him, and receiv- 
 ed the following answer : — 
 
 LETTEE PKOM r. DEXTER to EDWAED BEOOKS. 
 [B. App. p. 64.J 
 
 Boston, Sept. 14, 1845. 
 Mt Deak Sm : 
 
 There cannot be any doubt that the letter, which Mr. J. W. Boott 
 addressed to Mr. J. A. Lowell, on the day of his death, contained a 
 charge of dishonesty against you ; for, when I called on Mr. Lowell, 
 at your request, on the Sunday succeeding Mr. Boott's death, to ask 
 that you might see that letter, I made the request to Mr. Lowell, dis- 
 tinctly, upon the 'ground that he had told you that the letter con- 
 tained such a charge. I urged, that, after such a declaration from 
 him, you had a right to see the letter. Mr. Lowell did not deny that 
 the letter contained such a charge, nor that he had told you so ; but 
 declined showing it, on the ground that it was confidential, and that 
 he had not mentioned to any one else that it contained any charge 
 against you. I think it is impossible he could have answered as 
 he did, if, in fact, the letter contained no such charge; and I am quite 
 surprised that there should be any question of it. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, in the course of the interview, offered to make some 
 statement to me relating to the letter, confidentially; but having 
 called as your friend, I declined hearing it, if I were not at liberty to 
 repeat it to you. 
 
 I do not remember what point he proposed so to state ; indeed, I 
 doubt if he went far enough to enable me then to understand. 
 
 On my repeating to him my wish that you might see the letter, or 
 that he would give an explanation of its contents, Mr. Lowell said that 
 he should not object to saying, in writing, that the letter contained 
 no charge against you of dishonesty in pecuniary matters, but only 
 such things as one man says of another, with whom he has a quarrel, 
 and that it had not produced any eflTect on his, Mr. Lowell's mind. 
 This statement, however, Mr. Lowell said he would make only on 
 condition that neither you, nor Mr. W. Boott, should dispute the pro- 
 bate of Mr. J. "W. Boott's will. 
 
 Yours, very truly, 
 
 Fkanklin Dextbe. 
 
 Edward Brooks, Esq., Boston. 
 
 The reader hardly needs to be reminded that the course of 
 events, and the progress of rumours concerning the cause of 
 
729 
 
 Mr. Boott's death, connected with his last letter, compelled 
 me to become an opponent of his will, as the only means, 
 left, of bringing to a legal trial the question of the sanity of 
 the testator, and with the purpose of demanding the letter 
 from Mr. Lowell, in the probate court, as an important piece 
 of evidence. The demand was made, hut was resisted, suc- 
 cessfully, on technical grounds. I then withdrew my appear- 
 ance from the cause ; but Mrs. Lyman, to whom I had as- 
 signed all my pecuniary interest in it, took the cause, by ap- 
 peal, to the Supreme Court, and there, by advice of her coun- 
 sel, filed a bill of discovery, with a view of obtaining the let- 
 ter in aid of her case. But, pending Mr. Lowell's plea to 
 that bill, and before it came to a hearing, Mrs. Lyman volun- 
 tarily abandoned her suit ; and I was advised that the law 
 did not afford me any means of compelling a production of 
 the letter. [Ante, Ch. 3.] 
 
 The length, to which Mr. Lowell has allowed himself to 
 go towards endorsing the statements and accusations, declared 
 by himself to be in that letter, may be judged of, not only by 
 the tenor of the " Reply," (which, in effect, argues that they 
 were well-founded and true,) but, more briefly, by the fol- 
 lowing extract from an affidavit sworn to by him in the pro- 
 bate court : — 
 
 EXTRACT FEOM ME. LOWELL'S AFFIDAVIT. 
 
 " That this deponent verily believes, and has at all times, since 
 he first read the same, believed, that, neither in the hand-writing, nor 
 in the style, nor in the statements made, nor in the reasoning con- 
 tained, in said letter, is there any thing, to the knowledge or belief of 
 this respondent, which tends to show that the said John W. Boott wa3 
 not of sound and disposing mind and memory at any time ; but, on the 
 contrary, this deponent verily believes, and hath always, since he read 
 the said letter, verily believed, that the said letter strongly tends to 
 prove that the said John W. Boott was sane when the same was writ- 
 ten." [B. App. p. 68.] 
 
 That is, Mr. Lowell could not content himself with simply 
 negativing the idea, that any thing in the letter might aid me 
 in showing an insane delusion, but he volunteers to declare, 
 upon his oath, that, in his belief, Mr. Boott's offensive state- 
 
730 
 
 ments, as he had reported them, concerning me, strongly 
 tend to prove the sanity of the man who made them. In 
 other "words, he swears, most superfluously, to his behef, that 
 these statements are well founded in fact, (without which 
 they, certainly, could have no such positive tendency,) and 
 the " Reply," accordingly, pretends to make out a reasonable 
 foundation for the belief of a sane man that the statements 
 were true. When we come to the evidence on that point, 
 the reader will have an opportunity to judge, whether this 
 afiidavit, — as well as the " Reply," — does not " strongly tend 
 to prove " that Mr. Lowell was prepared to stick at nothing, 
 which might serve a present purpose in this case. But I con- 
 fine myself, now, to Mr. Lowell's conduct as a gentleman, 
 without inquiring into his private belief, or the foundation of 
 Mr. Boott's hallucinations. 
 
 The pertinacious refusal to show me this letter, — contain- 
 ing nothing, so far as I was informed by Mr. Lowell, but 
 family afiairs, and statements particularly concerning myself, 
 in family relations, — is distinctly admitted ; and we have 
 nothing, in the "Reply," but a profession of excellent mo- 
 tives, " as usual," to account for it : — 
 
 " I entertained at that moment sincere hopes, that the differences 
 existing in the family would soon die out for lack of aliment ; and 
 there were passages in this letter tending to irritate the parties, and 
 which, for that reason, I was desirous to withhold. My other motive 
 was, that the letter contained matter of a strictly confidential charac- 
 ter, not relating in any way to these disputes, which I did not feel at 
 liberty to disclose. I, accordingly, politely, but steadily, declined to 
 exhibit it." [L. p. 160.] 
 
 Now it will be observed, in the first place, that Mr. Lowell, 
 at the outset, when deliberately answering, in writing, my re- 
 quest to see the letter, did not rest his refusal on either of 
 those grounds. The only reason assigned to me, was, that Mr. 
 Boott had written the letter, " at so solemn a moment of his 
 life," " without expressing a wish that it should be commu- 
 nicated to any one." 
 
 This simple omission of Mr. Boott to express a loish, that 
 his letter should be shown to those whom it concerned, was, 
 
731 
 
 afterwards, magnified by Mr. Lowell, with the progress of the 
 pressure for its production, into ideas of special confidence 
 and a " sacred trust," [Mr. Lowell's affidavit, B. App. p. 64.] 
 coupled with an assurance, given to Mr. Dexter, " that it relat- 
 ed to family ^natters, which had been closed, and ought not 
 to be reopened." [Ante, p. 724] The "Reply " goes the fut- 
 ther length of declaring, now, for the first time, " that the let- 
 ter contained matter of a strictly confidential character, not 
 
 RELATING IN ANT WAY TO THESE DISPUTES, wllich I [Mr. LoW- 
 
 ell] did not feel at liberty to disclose." 
 
 If that were so, why did not Mr. Lowell, at first, say so, in- 
 stead of saying "that it related to family matters , which had 
 been closed, and ought not to be reopened!" And, if the 
 latter was the ground of the refusal, what had "Ae to do, I de- 
 sire to know, with these "family matters 1" What right 
 had he to judge, against members of the family, and to pre- 
 clude them from the opportunity of judging for themselves, 
 whether these " family matters " were closed or not, and 
 whether they ought to be reopened or not ? We might give 
 the greater credit to the sincerity of Mr. Lowell's judge- 
 ment, — notwithstanding the exceeding arrogance and imper- 
 tinence of assuming to judge for others in matters of this na- 
 ture, with which, he says, he had no concern, — if it did not 
 appear that he had disclosed more or less of the contents of 
 the letter to persons out of the family, and persons not par- 
 ticularly entitled to participate in that " sacred trust ;" since 
 Mr. Boott, certainly, had not " expressed a wish, that it 
 should be communicated " to them. 
 
 Mr. Lowell will, perhaps, say that he has never " com- 
 municated to any one," those parts of the letter, in which 
 the saeredness of the trust particularly lay, — certainly not the 
 matter, which was " of a strictly confidential character, not 
 relating in any way to these disputes." But, why could 
 he not have disclosed to me, — a party concerned, — as much 
 as he did to others, who were not concerned ? And why 
 could he not have allowed me to see those parts of the 
 letter, at least, which did relate " to these disputes," and to 
 
732 
 
 "family matters," particularly implicating myself? Why 
 did he not state, explicitly, if such were the fact, that there 
 was a portion of the letter, " strictly confidential," and " not 
 relating in any way to these disputes," which he did " not 
 feel at liberty to disclose ;" but that " the greater part" of the 
 letter, — all I could care to see, — did not lie subject to that 
 objection ; and that, reserving the confidential portion, a 
 sight, or a copy, of the residue would be quite at my ser- 
 
 vice 
 
 ? 
 
 But no, — there was another reason, it seems, — not given to 
 me, — but which is assigned in the " Reply " as his foremost 
 motive. He really hoped, that, by refusing to show me the 
 letter, " the difierences, existing in the family, would soon 
 die out for lack of aliment ; and there were passages in this 
 letter tending to irritate the parties, and which, for that rea- 
 son, I was desirous to withhold !" 
 
 Now I invite the reader to review Mr. Lowell's course, in 
 this whole business, and to consider how singularly happy 
 he was in his choice of means, if the amiable purpose were to 
 heal a family dissension. 
 
 Just look at the course taken. Mr. Lowell, first, reads parts 
 (as I shall prove,) of this letter to several persons, who had 
 no concern in it. He speaks, again, of the letter, before the 
 jury of inquest, as a mysterious production, containing charges, 
 which its sane writer was not there to substantiate ; and 
 he connects this with suggestions of ill treatment of the 
 deceased, by certain hard-hearted relatives, which led to 
 his death. He, next, repeats a portion of the charges to 
 myself and to Mr. William JBoott, and, more at large, to 
 Mrs. Mary Lyman, — all alleged conspirators against the 
 late Mr. Boott, — all considered by Mr. Lowell to be in a state 
 of high exasperation, — and all persons, against whom the 
 charges of the letter are supposed to be particularly pointed. 
 We, (the conspirators,) are told, that this document contains 
 Mr. Boott's " review of the family quarrels, from the begin- 
 ning," and that " it dwelt upon his grievances very much." 
 I am infornjed, that it accuses me of dishonesty. Mrs. Lyman 
 is informed, that she is said to have acted the base part of a 
 
733 
 
 spy in her brother's house ; and we are both informed, that I 
 am declared to have acted the baser part of procuring Mrs. 
 Lyman to serve me in that capacity, and of placing her in 
 Mr. Booit's house for the very purpose ! 
 
 The next step is, that I request permission to see, for my- 
 self, whether such charges are really contained in the letter, 
 and in what manner, and connexion, they are made. But this 
 I am refused, for no better reason, stated to me, than that Mr. 
 Boott had not expressed a wish that these matters should be 
 communicated to any one ; — that is, the very matters, which 
 Mr. Lowell had, nevertheless, just told to the persons implicat- 
 ed, and probably to other persons also. I repeat my request, 
 through a friend, and am then told, by Mr. Lowell, — who is 
 entirely disconnected from the family, — that he does not think 
 it right to let me see this letter, because it relates to family 
 matters, which he judges, had been closed, and which he 
 judges, ought not to be reopened. What is the forewarned 
 consequence ? I am driven to oppose the probate of Mr. 
 Boott's will, as the only means of getting at the letter, and 
 proving that its writer was under insane influences. What 
 happens then ? The gentleman, who refuses me a sight of 
 the letter, constantly avers, and finally swears, that the per- 
 son, who made these accusations, was, — notwithstanding all 
 appearances to the contrary, — perfectly clear and sound in all 
 his perceptions and ideas, when he made them, and that the 
 letter, itself, " evinces no aberration of mind," but, on the 
 contrary, " strongly tends to prove that the said John W. Boott 
 was sane, when the same was written." 
 
 At last, I discover what this gentleman is said to have de- 
 clared to the jury of inquest ; and I then call upon him, to 
 know whether my information is correct, assuring him that, 
 if it is, there must have been some mistake in his statements, 
 prejudicial to me, which I wish to correct. What does he 
 then ? Why he positively refuses even to inform me what 
 his testimony was ; still more to admit ihe possibility of any 
 mistake, on his part, or to aiford me the slightest chance so 
 far as depends upon him, of correcting the mistake, if I could 
 show one. What follows then ? I am thereby driven, since I 
 
734 
 
 have no other remedy, to vindicate myself from unfounded 
 aspersions by a guarded statement in print, for the informa- 
 tion of my friends. And, thereupon, Mr. Lowell comes out 
 with such a publication as I now answer ; spreads it most ex- 
 tensively ; and compels me, in self-defence, to disclose, and 
 prove, many painful matters of family concern, which, in 
 my former pamphlet, I had laboured, I thought successfully, 
 to keep out of sight, for the sake both of the dead and of the 
 living. 
 
 Could any thing have been more cunningly devised to 
 hush up all causes of trouble in the Boott family, if that were 
 the object, and put a stop to all further talk about " these 
 disgraceful feuds ?" 
 
 What, especially, could have been better contrived to allai/ 
 irritated feelings, and dispel that " exasperation" against the 
 deceased, which Mr. Lowell professes to have discovered in 
 certain members of the family, (who, he asserts, did not, as 
 they pretended, honestly believe in Mr. Boott's insanity,) 
 than to communicate, verbally, just so much as was communi- 
 cated, and no more, of the contents of the letter ^o the exas- 
 perated parties themselves, refusing them, at the same time, 
 permission to see it, and assuring them that its statements are 
 strong evidence of sanity ? 
 
 Can it be, that so wary and intelligent a person, as Mr. John 
 A. Lowell, should really have acted thus, from the motive 
 he alleges ? and that he should have done so purely for the 
 sake of other persons, without any interest of his own ? 
 
 Did he not, let me ask, rather flatter himself, that the con- 
 tents of such a letter, " written at so solemn a moment," if 
 cautiously whispered aKout, would tend, with very many 
 persons, to account for the suicide, in a way to quiet all no- 
 tions of insanity ? Did he not expect, that a knowledge, 
 by the persons implicated, that he possessed such a letter, 
 would tend to awe them into silence on that topic, from fear of 
 disagreeable consequences to themselves, which the publicity 
 of the letter might occasion ? And was it not with a view to 
 that species of intimidation, that he voluntarily stated so 
 
735 
 
 much of its contents as he did state to Mrs. Mary Lyman, 
 from whom, he -well knew, they would naturally reach me ? 
 Is not this view strengthened hy the course he took after- 
 wards ? For, — when he saw, that, instead of being alarmed, 
 I was disposed, after full reflection, to push the matter 
 to an issue by urgently insisting upon a sight of the letter, — 
 he then, instead of representing its statements, as he had 
 represented them at first, to be of a very serious char- 
 acter, endeavoured to repress my urgency by assurances " that 
 nobody had seen the letter but himself; and that he did not 
 attach the least i7nportance to what was said concerning 
 me." 
 
 However the reader may answer these questions to his own 
 mind, I have no doubt that Mr. Lowell did hope, and confi- 
 dently expect, that, by withholding from me, as far as possi- 
 ble, all information and knowledge of the wrong he had se- 
 cretly done me, and making it difficult, he perhaps thought 
 impossible, for me to bring to light those matters, which were 
 essential for my vindication, while the principal evidence of 
 them was locked up in his own keeping, I should, finally, be 
 obliged to succumb, and leave him master of the field, with 
 every thing settled his own way, and shut up against further 
 inquiry. 
 
 Counting upon his position, and influence, and the prejudice 
 he had created, he flattered himself that public opinion 
 and a large part of the Boott family, were so firmly secured on 
 his side, that I could not stand up against the combination of 
 forces, which, without making himself visibly active he 
 had concentrated against me ; and, in which movement he 
 thought his own dexterity could not be tracked. It has re- 
 quired, certainly, some patience and perseverance to unravel 
 his web. So far as I have now gone, I trust the work has 
 been efiectually done ; and, when the remaining evidence 
 shall have been shown to the reader, my belief is that the 
 true cause, which has aggravated so immeasurably the un- 
 happy condition of the Boott family, will stand exposed in 
 the person of Mr. John A. Lowell. 
 
736 
 
 A friend, who knew, at the time, something of the course of 
 affairs relative to the settlement of accounts, and something 
 of my dissatisfaction with Mr. Lowell, even before I had ar- 
 rived at the point of utter distrust, remarked to me, when I 
 first saw him after Mr. Boott's suicide, which he considered 
 as settling, of course, the long agitated question of insan- 
 ity, — " That's a bad job for John A.Lowell." If it should 
 prove so, I pray the reader to remember, that it will only 
 be because he has chosen, in the hope of sheltering him- 
 self at any hazard, to persist in attempting to make it 
 "a bad job" for me. A very little yielding at the outset, 
 accompanied by a little more frankness on his part, would, 
 probably, have prevented all the ill consequences, to him- 
 self, which may grow out of this controversy. On my own 
 account, I ought not, perhaps, to regret the course he chose 
 to take, after I first called upon him for a sight of Mr. Boott's 
 letter ; since I am now entirely sensible, that, — had he given 
 me, at once, on Mr. Dexter's suggestion, such a paper as 
 I should then have been willing to receive in lieu of seeing 
 the letter, and had he dealt fairly by me, concerning his 
 communication of the contents of that letter to other per- 
 sons, — it would have been impossible for me to escape the 
 consequences of prejudicial opinions, which, I now plainly 
 see, took their origin, mainly, and derived their strength, 
 wholly, from him. 
 
 To return then to the comments of the " Reply." In con- 
 sidering them, the reader will not forget, that, within twenty- 
 four hours after the inquest, Mr. Lowell, to quiet ray request 
 for a sight of the letter, assured me, that nobody had seen it, 
 but himself. This appears, not only by the statement of ray 
 former pamphlet, which stands uncontradicted, but by the 
 language of my contemporaneous letter to Mr. Lowell, of 
 March 9, 1845, repeating his then recent assurance. "As 
 this letter [Mr. Boott's] is known to be in existence, although 
 you have assured me that no one has seen it but yourself, it 
 would afford me satisfaction, in the peculiar circumstances 
 of the case, to be allowed to peruse it." His answer did not 
 
737 
 
 deny, or question this statement. [Ante. p. 724.] Again, the 
 " Reply " admits, that, when Mr. Dexter repeated the request 
 in my behalf, Mr. Lowell repeated to him that he "had not 
 shown, and did not intend to show, to any one, the letter 
 written to him by Mr. Boott on the evening before his death." 
 [L. p. 166.] And, once more, the "Reply," speaking to its 
 readers, declares that " the letter had never been read to any 
 one." [L. p. 167.] 
 
 The averment, therefore, was, and is, perfectly distinct and 
 unqualified, that the letter had neither been shown nor read to 
 a single person. Yet, it appears, distinctly, that it had been 
 either shown, or read, — parts of it, at least, — to the coroner, at 
 his office, when Mr. Lowell called on him about holding an 
 inquest ; that it was, afterwards, produced at the inquest, and 
 a portion of it, there, either read, or repeated, to the jury ; 
 and I shall presently prove, that portions of it, and, I believe, 
 those most offensive towards me, had, also, been read to other 
 persons, who stood in no such official relation, and had not 
 the right, which members of the family had, to know what 
 concerned the family alone. 
 
 First, however, let me point out what the " Reply " asserts, 
 respecting the interview with Mr. Dexter : — 
 
 "Within two days of Mr. Boott's death, which occurred in March, 
 1 84.1, JMr. Franklin Dexter had announced to me, that hi- had been 
 retained as counsel for Mr. Brooks and Mr. William BooU. and that 
 his clients were determined to have an inquiry into the question of 
 Mr. Wright Bootes sanity. No idea of disputing the probate of has 
 will wa.s then entertained ; and it was obvious to me, that the inquiry- 
 spoken of by Mr. Dexter could not fail, ultimately, to assume the 
 form of a written or printed vindication of Mr. Brooks's conduct in 
 his relations with Mr. Boott. Nor do I now believe, that any other 
 form of inquiry was seriously contemplated." [L. p. 2-3.] 
 
 The further account is as follows : — 
 
 " In my interview with Mr. Franklin Dexter, on the Sunday pre- 
 ceding BIr. Boott's funeral, he stated to me the determination ^of his 
 clients to have an inquiry instituted into the question of Mr. Boott's 
 sanity. I replied that I did not see how that could be done unless 
 «a;;)artc, or unless It were by disputing the probate of Mr. Boott's 
 will, of which 1 was the executor. When, soon afterward, Mr. Dexter 
 
 93 
 
738 
 
 proposed that I should write to Mr. Brooks, stating that I had not 
 shown, and would not show, the letter, and that it had produced no ef- 
 fect upon my own mind, I answered, that, if I were assured it was not 
 the design of Mr. Brooks and Mr. William Boott to place me in an 
 antagonistical position to them, by disputing the probate of a will, 
 which it would be my duty to defend, I would willingly give to Mr. 
 Brooks the assurance proposed ; otherwise I must decline. Mr. 
 Dexter replied, that in this he thought me quite right, but that he had 
 no idea that his clients entertained any such intention." [L. p. 159.] 
 
 The object of these statements seems to be to corroborate 
 the idea, held up in the " Reply," that there was an uncalled 
 for hostility of movement on my part, and a combined move- 
 ment, between me and Mr. William Boott, growing out of 
 our alleged conspiracy with Mrs. Lyman and Mr. Robert C. 
 Hooper, against Mr. J. Wright Boott, and out of the feelings of 
 animosity towards him, imputed to each of us, as existing in 
 his life time, following him into his grave, and seeking vent 
 in some excuse for a publication to defame his memory. 
 This is one of the cold-blooded slanders, which Mr. Lowell, 
 presuming upon his position, has ventured to publish of per- 
 sons holding a fair standing in society, in the hope to save 
 himself, by making those, whom he has injured, odious. 
 
 In aid of that view, the " Reply" insists on representing 
 Mr. Dexter as having acted, in the only interview he had 
 with Mr. Lowell, in the avowed capacity of counsel, and as 
 counsel /or both Mr. William Boott and myself, and as be- 
 ginning the interview by announcing the determination of 
 " his clients" to institute an inquiry into Mr. Bootfs sanity; 
 to which Mr. Lowell represents himself as replying in the 
 manner above shown ; and represents Mr. Dexter as declar- 
 ing that he thought Mr. Lowell " quite right," in declining to 
 write me such a letter as Mr. Dexter had proposed, without a 
 previous assurance that neither I, nor Mr. William Boott, 
 would oppose the probate of Mr. J. Wright Boott's will. And 
 the idea of opposing the will is represented as suggested by 
 Mr. Dexter's first annunciation. 
 
 Now this account of the interview I pronounce to be es- 
 sentially false ; and I shall leave it to the reader to judge 
 Avethher Mir. Lowell did not know it to be so, 
 
739 
 
 In the first place, the reader will perceive, that it does not 
 conform to the previous contemporaneous account, so far as 
 that account went, of the same interview, contained in Mr. 
 Dexter's letter, to Mr. Lowell himself, of March 11, 1845, 
 above cited. But, on seeing the statements, above quoted 
 from the " Reply," on points not distinctly spoken of in that 
 letter of Mr. Dexter, and on seeing, also, its statement, else- 
 where, about Mr. J. Wright Boott's unwillingness to accept 
 the balance of the account, instead of his refusal to adopt 
 the account, I addressed inquiries to Mr. Dexter, on those 
 points, to which I received the following answer : — 
 
 LETTER FEOM FEANEXm DEXTER to EDWARD BROOKS. 
 
 Beveklt, Maech 15, 1848. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I have received your note of the 9th inst., inquiring ofime whether 
 certain statements, made by Mr. Lowell in his pamphlet, agree with 
 my recollections. 
 
 My recollection of those matters is very distinct, and is as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 I never had but one interview with Mr. Lowell, respecting the mat- 
 ters in question, and that was on Sunday afternoon, next after Mr. J. 
 W. Boott's death. (March 9th, 1845.) On the morning of that day, 
 you applied to me to call on Mr. Lowell on your behalf, and repeat 
 your request to see Mr. J. W. Boott's letter. I consented to do so. 
 You requested me to consider myself as your counsel in so doing. 
 This I declined ; but said I would go as your friend. I did so, and 
 stated your request. Mr. Lowell's first remark to me was, that, if I 
 came as your counsel, he could not converse with me, but must refey 
 me to Ids counsel, Mr. C. G. Loring. I answered that I was not your 
 counsel, and we had a long conversation. I had not then seen, or had 
 any communication from, or on behalf of, Mr. William Boott, in rela- 
 tion to any of the matters spoken of in these pamphlets. Merely for 
 the sake of distinctness, I add, tliat / did not announce myself to Mr. 
 Lowell as your counsel, or that of Mr. William Boott, until my letter 
 to him of March 1 1th, 1845, by the last clause of which it will appear, 
 that I did not so consider myself, at the time of my interview with Mr. 
 Lowell. That letter is printed in the appendix to your pamphlet, 
 page 60. 
 
 AVhen you called on me, on Sunday morning, you told me, that, if 
 you were not allowed to see Mr. J. W. Boott's letter, you would, to 
 protect yourself against the report of the imputations said to be con- 
 tained in it, show that Mr. Boott was insane. After Mr. Lowell had 
 refused the request that you might see that letter, I told him that such 
 would be your course, as a consequence of that refusal. I in no other 
 manner announced, at that interview, your determination, and in no 
 
740 
 
 manner whatever that of Mr. William Boott, to dispute Mr, J. W. 
 Boott's sanity. If Mr. Lowell refers to my letter of March 11th, 
 1845, for these communications, lie is mistaken as to the time ; and, as 
 to the manner, my letter will speak for itself. 
 
 Mr. Lowell certainly stated to me, in that interview, that Mr. J. W. 
 Boott, when the account, made up by Mr. Lowell, was iiist presented 
 to him, said that he would never sign an account that brought his 
 brothers and sisters in debt to him. It was not, that he would not 
 accept the balance, but that he would not sign the account, — and I so 
 reported it to you. Yours, truly, 
 
 Franklin Dextee. 
 
 Edward Brooks, Esq. 
 • 
 
 There are some other facts, connected with these state- 
 ments of the " Reply," which deserve notice. While it was 
 understood that Mr. Lowell's pamphlet was in preparation, 
 Mr. Dexter informed me, that Mr. Lowell had, through a 
 friend, exhibited to him the manuscript of that part of the 
 " Reply," containing the account of the interview between 
 them, for the purpose of ascertaining whether it agreed with 
 Mr. Dexter's recollections. Mr. Dexter further informed me, 
 that, finding the account erroneous, he had so told Mr. Low- 
 ell's friend, and had given him a corrected statement, in writ- 
 ing, to be communicated to Mr. Lowell, closing that state- 
 ment with the remark, that he understood that Mr. Lowell 
 had so communicated to him all that he intended to publish, 
 relating to that interview ; and that Mr. Lowell had made 
 no reply to this communication. 
 
 After hearing this, I had no apprehension that, in relation 
 to that interview, Mr. Lowell would publish any thing, to 
 which he and Mr. Dexter were not agreed, nor any thing 
 which had not been previously communicated to Mr. Dexter. 
 I was surprised, therefore, on the appearance of the pamphlet, 
 at seeing what its statements were ; but more so, when Mr. 
 Dexter informed me, soon after, that that portion of it (the 
 same which I have above extracted from page 159,) appeared, 
 notwithstanding his corrections, to be, word for word, as it 
 was originally shown to him in manuscript ; and that anoth- 
 er part of the pamphlet (the same which I have above ex- 
 tracted from page 2,) contained other material, and highly 
 incorrect, statements of what took place at that same inter- 
 
741 
 
 vie-w, -which had never been communicated to him. There 
 can be no mistake about this, because I have, now, in my 
 possession, the original corrections of Mr. Lowell's statement, 
 as they were dictated by Mr. Dexter to Mr. Lowell's friend, 
 and, in the hand-writing of that friend, were left with him, 
 to be communicated to Mr. Lowell. The paper was, after- 
 wards, returned to Mr. Dexter, at his request, and has, since, 
 been handed to me. 
 
 It is not for me to complain of the want of gentlemanlike 
 courtesy, and even of common civility, towards Mr. Dexter, 
 manifested by this entire neglect of corrections, furnished 
 upon Mr. Lowell's own application, without even notifying 
 to Mr. Dexter that he dissented from them ; but I think I 
 may be permitted to say, that Mr. Lowell's course, in this 
 matter, pretty clearly indicates that the purpose of his appli- 
 cation to Mr. Dexter " was not to elicit the truth," [L. p. 3.] 
 but to secure beforehand, if possible, a confirmation by him of 
 a statement, the truth of which Mr. Ijowell himself at least 
 doubted about, but which he was determined to publish at 
 any rate, because it best suited the view of the case, which 
 he intended to hold out to the pubHc. 
 
 His publishing a further statement, which he had not ex- 
 hibited to Mr. Dexter, relating to the same conversation, was 
 neither more nor less than a breach of what every gentleman 
 would, under like circumstances, consider as a clearly implied 
 promise. But what a trifle is that, compared with the effect 
 intended to be produced by the " Reply !" 
 
 This last-mentioned statement [L. p. 2.] contains, among 
 other things, the distinct assertion that Mr. Dexter, in that in- 
 tei-view, announced himself as my counsel, and the counsel 
 of Mr. William Boott ; an assertion, which Mr. De.xter's let- 
 ter to me, above printed, shows that he would instantly have 
 contradicted. Did not Mr. Lowell know that he would con- 
 tradict it ? It is at least clear, that the assertion is not true. 
 It is true, that, on requesting Mr. Dexter to enter upon a 
 troublesome office, for my benefit, I was willing and desir- 
 ous to place it on the footing of professional employment. 
 But Mr. Dexter, considering the nature of the service, which 
 
742 
 
 was rather an affair of honour and courtesy between gentle- 
 men, than a matter of law, positively declined going to Mr. 
 Lowell otherwise than as a friend, and presented himself dis- 
 tinctly in that capacity, as now appears, to Mr. Lowell. It 
 was Mr. Lowell himself, who brought counsel into the case, 
 by referring Mr. Dexter to Mr. Loring, as the counsel of Mr. 
 Lowell ; and it was not until two days after that interview 
 of March 9, that Mr. Dexter, finding that no friendly arrange- 
 ment could be made, first consented, in consequence of that 
 , reference by Mr. Lowell to his counsel, to act, thenceforward, 
 as my counsel. 
 
 Mr. Dexter not only went to Mr. Lowell, at the outset, as a 
 friend, merely, but he went /or me alone, and so represented 
 himself to Mr. Lowell. Mr. Dexter had not seen Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott, as he states. I had not undertaken to speak for 
 that gentleman. He had never requested me to act for him 
 in this matter. I was looking at it, solely, as my own per- 
 sonal aflair. 
 
 The statement, that Mr. Dexter began by announcing an 
 intention of Mr. Willianl Boott and myself to oppose the 
 probate of Mr. J. Wright Boott's will, if the letter were not 
 shown to us, is just as untrue as the statement that he an- 
 nounced himself as our counsel. There had not only been 
 no concert, or consultation even, on that point, between me 
 and Mr. William Boott, but the idea of opposing the probate of 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott's will had never entered my head, nor I 
 believe that of Mr. William Boott. It was first suggested by 
 the remark of Mr. Lowell, as reported to me by Mr. Dexter, 
 and by me to Mr. William Boott. The only idea, I had en- 
 tertained, before that suggestion, of a means of showing the 
 insanity of Mr. Boott, in answer to the imputations of his let- 
 ter, was by causing the coroner's jury to be resummoned, for 
 the special purpose of hearing evidence on that point, in order 
 that their verdict might be amended in this particular. What 
 other step I might have been driven to take, had that measure 
 been found impracticable, is more than I can say ; but, as I 
 formerly remarked, the plan of a limited publication was first 
 determined upon when I saw the turn which my correspond- 
 
743 
 
 ence with Mr. Lowell had taken, in December, 1846, and 
 when I was advised that there was no other form of remedy- 
 left for me. But, — however Mr. Lowell may have misinter- 
 preted Mr. Dexter's remark, that a refusal to show me the let- 
 ter would lead me to show that Mr. Boott was insane, — it is 
 clear, from Mr. Dexter's report of the interview, that the re- 
 mark was made in reply to Mr. Lowell, in order to make him 
 sensible of the probable consequence of his refusal, and not 
 byway of minatory announcement, to begin with, in the ca- 
 pacity of counsel, as the " Reply " pretends. 
 
 In the true spirit of friendliness, Mr. Dexter, when he found 
 Mr. Lowell determined not to sliow the letter, proposed, as an 
 accommodation between me and Mr. Lowell, that Mr. Lowell 
 should simply state to me, ia writing, what he had himself 
 stated, verbally, to Mr. Dexter, as part of his excuse for refus- 
 ing it ; namely, that he gave no weight to Mr. Boott's expres- 
 sions concerning me, because they were such, only, (so he 
 then said,) as one man is apt to use against another, with 
 whom he has a difference ; that the letter produced no effect 
 on his own mind, and could not upon others, as it had been, 
 and would be, unseen, except by himself; and that it contained 
 no charge against me of dishonesty in pecuniary matters. 
 But even such a writing as that, — so perfectly harmless to Mr. 
 Lowell, if he were pursuing a fair and open course, — so useful 
 as it might be to me, in contradicting unpleasant reports, and 
 setting matters right between me and certain members of the 
 family, whose opinions had been prepossessed by Mr. Lowell, 
 — that gentleman could not bring himself to grant, unless he 
 could make a good bargain by it ! Mr. Dexter's language, in 
 his above cited letter of September 14, 1845, is, — " This state- 
 ment, however, Mr. Lowell said he would make, only on con- 
 dition, that neither you, [Brooks] nor xMr. W. Boott, should dis- 
 pute the probate of Mr. J. W. Boott's will!" 
 
 Could any thing be more unreasonable than such a condi- 
 tion ?— particularly when extended to Mr. William Boott, for 
 whom Mr. Dexter was not then acting, and who had made 
 no request to see the letter, and whose name had not even 
 been mentioned, so far as appears, in the conference ? 
 
744 
 
 The requisition was, that — not only I, the applicant for a 
 courtesy, which almost amounted to a right between gentle- 
 men, but — another gentleman also, who had asked nothing 
 of Mr. Lowell, should consent to surrender our pecuniary in- 
 terests, as heirs at law of the late Mr. J. Wright Boott, and 
 tacitly confirm a will, which gave the property to others, 
 (part of it to Mr. Lowell,) and that, by suffering the will to 
 pass unquestioned, we should impliedly admit, that its author, 
 and the author of a letter imputing disgraceful conduct to me, 
 and probably to Mr. William Boott, was, as Mr. Lowell asserted 
 him to be, a perfectly sane man when he made these charges, 
 — though this was contrary to our known belief, long main- 
 tained against much opposition. The admission, indeed, 
 might have a material bearing on the past settlement of ac- 
 counts, and on all the questions in the late controversy con- 
 cerning that settlement, so interesting to Mr. Lowell. And 
 what was to be the consideration for so important a conces- 
 sion ? The granting of the courtesy sought ? Not at all ;— 
 but the very much smaller one of a writing from Mr. Lowell, 
 to the effect that all Mr. Boott had said, in the letter, did not 
 alter his opinion of me ! 
 
 Still, had my information of Mr. Lowell's proceedings con- 
 tinued, when this proposal came to my ears, with time for an 
 answer, just what it was when Mr. Dexter suggested it, I 
 should, for the sake of doing what I could towards healing 
 the family dissension, have readily agreed, with Mr. Dexter's 
 approbation, (for I had placed myself in his hands,) to the 
 terms proposed. I should have accepted the very moderate 
 certificate of character, which Mr. Lowell was willing to give 
 on that condition, trusting that the weight of his good opinion 
 with certain members of the family, and with many other 
 friends, might serve to shield me, in some degree, from the con- 
 sequences of evil rumours and misconstructions. My belief is, 
 that Mr. William Boott would have agreed to it also ; for 
 neither he, nor I, had any wish, on our own account, and for 
 our own benefit, (as our subsequent assignment to Mrs. Lyman 
 proves,) to disturb Mr. J. Wright Boott's disposition of his 
 
745 
 
 property ; and neither of us was, at that time, authorized to act 
 for any other person in this matter. 
 
 But, before there was opportunity to consult Mr. William 
 Boott, and to return an answer to this proposal, the very 
 next thing I learn is, that the coroner knows the whole drift of 
 the letter, and says he had seen it, and had read the greater part 
 of it. Nor was I at all satisfied that this was not substan- 
 tially true, by the circumstance that the coroner, when 
 interrogated by Mr. Lowell and his counsel, in the presence 
 of a third person, who was writing down his answers, (all 
 which was without notice to me or my counsel,) took back, or 
 qualified, what he had just said to Mr. Dexter, in a manner to 
 excuse himself, in some degree, for so great an indiscretion, 
 admitting, however, still, that the letter was shown, and more 
 or less of it read to him, by Mr. Lowell. 
 
 Perceiving, thus, that the contents of the letter were already 
 abroad among strangers, — to what extent I could not tell, — 
 hearing the rumours prevailing, concerning the cause of Mr. 
 Boott's suicide, and the existence of such a letter quoted in 
 proof of it, — I determined to act on Mr. Lowell's suggestion, 
 and to oppose the probate of the wUl, since it was then thought 
 to be too late to reopen the inquest, and there was no other 
 way of trying, judicially, the sanity of Mr. Boott. 
 
 Mr. Lowell makes great complaint of all this. He says 
 that the notice of my change of course was an imputation that 
 he had made false representations. Well, I must confess that 
 I think it was. He adds, " I was exceedingly astonished at 
 such a charge, conscious as I was that the letter had never 
 been read to any one !" [L. p. 167.] Yet, he himself exhib- 
 its, in his " Reply," the coroner's examination, as taken down- 
 at Mr. Loring's office, admitting, — ^not indeed that he had 
 heard " the greater part " of " a very long letter," but — that, 
 a " very little was read to him." How much may have been 
 in that little depends, entirely, (since we can not confide 
 in Mr. Lowell,) on the degree of credit that may be given 
 to the coroner-s statement to Mr. Loring, contradicting his 
 statement to Mr. Dexter,— which was, "that he read the. 
 
746 
 
 greater part of the letter, and was not restricted from reading 
 the whole, and that, among other things, it contained a state- 
 ment that the writer, Mr. J. W. Boott, was driven to the act 
 of self-destruction by unjust accusations of mismanagement 
 of his father's estate ;" — ^the very idea, which as it turns out, 
 Mr. Lowell had communicated to the coroner's jury. 
 
 At any rate, the coroner's story, even as reported by Mr. 
 Loring, was inconsistent with Mr. Lowell's unqualified assur- 
 ance to me, and to Mr. Dexter, that nobody, but himself^ had 
 ever seen the letter. 
 
 The comment of the " Reply " is : — 
 
 " One of these two things, therefore, must have occurred j either Mr. 
 Dexter must have misapprehended what the coroner had said to him, 
 ^and, though I should repose as much confidence in Mr. Dexter's ex- 
 actness as in that of any one, this obviously may have been the case,) 
 or else the coroner made two statements, within twenty-four hours, on 
 the same point, diametrically at variance with each other. In either 
 case, the imputation against me falls to the ground ; in the first case 
 it is refuted ; in the second, one statement of the coroner neutralizes 
 the other, and my own remains uncontradicted. It then became the 
 bounden duty of Mr. Brooks and Mr. William Boott, as gentlemen 
 and men of honor, to tender to me an apology for having doubted my 
 word. They not only did not do this, but they proceeded, at once, to 
 take the very course, with respect to the probate of Mr. Boott's will, 
 which had been indicated by Mr. Dexter as a consequence of the dis- 
 covery of my supposed misstatement. It is perfectly obvious, that 
 they shut their ears to any justification of the course I had pursued; 
 and this could have arisen only from a necessity of having some osti,: 
 sible antagonist, in assailing whom they might less invidiously attack 
 the memory of Mi\ Boott." [L. p. 168.] 
 
 Now, in respect to the suggestion that the coroner's two 
 statements neutralized each other, and therefore left Mr. Low- 
 ell's statement unimpaired, I have only to quote, anew, that 
 gentleiman's own admission, through his counsel, in a letter 
 printed above. " Mr. Lowell expressed the greatest surprise 
 at these allegations, [of Mr. Dexter,] assuring me that the letter 
 had never been out of his hands ; that he had only read such 
 portions of it, to Mr. Pratt, as were necessary to show that Mr. 
 Boott had intended and inflicted his own death ; and which 
 he considered it his duty to read to him for that purpose." 
 
747 
 
 [Ante, pp. 726-7.] But the question is not of Mr. Lowell's 
 duty to the coroner, hut of the faith to be reposed in his 
 assurances. When he assured me that no one had seen the 
 letter, but himself, did he not mean that I should also under- 
 stand that nobody had heard it read ? Did he expect me to 
 understand, only, that it had not been " out of his hands ?" or 
 that he had " read only such portions of it " as he thought it 
 his "duty" to read, in order to enlighten the coroner con- 
 cerning the cause of Mr. Boott's death ? 
 
 In respect to the suggestion of a probability that Mr. Dex- 
 ter might have misapprehended the coroner, I have only to 
 refer, once more, to Mr. Dexter's own language, while the 
 matter was yet fresh in his recollection,in answer to Mr. Lo- 
 ring's suggestion to the same effect ; — " I am quite sure that 
 I reported the coroner correctly," (fcc. [Ante. p. 727.] 
 
 I should, certainly, have been very happy to apologize to 
 Mr. Lowell for having doubted his word, had he succeeded in 
 satisfying me that I had not very good reason to doubt it. If, 
 for example, he had told me, in the outset, that nobody had 
 seen the letter, or heard any part of it read, except the coroner ; 
 and that the coroner had not been informed of any part of its 
 contents, except the declared intention of Mr. Boott to take 
 his own life ; and the coroner had not contradicted that state- 
 ment ; or had placed himself in a position to make contradic- 
 tory statements from him clearly of no value ; or if it had ap- 
 peared probable that Mr. Dexter had misunderstood the coro- 
 ner, absolutely and entirely, about the letter, — there might 
 have been a case for me to apologize upon. I should have 
 been very prompt to make such amends, had I appeared, 
 either to myself, or to Mr. Dexter, to be under any sort of mis- 
 take. But, unfortunately for Mr. Lowell, such was not the 
 case. Mr. Dexter was very sure of the substantial effect of 
 what the coroner had said to him ; and he was a gentleman 
 on whose punctilious exactness, in a delicate personal matter, 
 I knew I could rely as much as upon that of any man living. 
 That the coroner had contradicted himself, to some extent, 
 was apparent enor^h, it is true. But what of that? Even 
 his qualified statement to Mr. Loring admitted that he had 
 
748 
 
 seen the letter, and had heard ^ar^o/ «7 read, and Mr. Lowell, 
 through his counsel, had admitted the same thing himself! 
 
 This was quite the reverse of what 1 had been given to 
 understand by Mr. Lowell ; and, unless Mr. Dexter were sup- 
 posed to have made up the coroner's statement to him, there 
 could not be a shadow of doubt, that the coroner either learn- 
 ed from the tenor of the parts of the letter, read to him by Mr. 
 Lowell, that Mr. Boott was driven to suicide by unjust ac- 
 cusations, or else that he was so informed, by Mr. Lowell, 
 of that supposed cause of Mr. Boott's death, in connexion 
 with the parts of the letter read to him, as to lead him to in- 
 fer that such was the effect of the letter. Now will Mr. 
 Lowell be good enough to inform us how the coroner got 
 such an idea, concerning either the tenor, or effect, as the 
 case may be, of that letter ? How did he get the idea that 
 Mr. Boott was driven to suicide by false accusations ? Did 
 he invent it ? Certainly not. He got it either from the let- 
 ter, or, in the same way that the jury got it, from the state- 
 ments of Mr. Lowell, connected with the mysterious lan- 
 guage of a letter, which, Mr. Lowell said to the jury, con- 
 tained charges against somebod y, of such a character that the 
 letter ought not to be read, the writer not being there to 
 substantiate them. He never seems to have thought of the 
 better reason tliat the parties accused were not there, to be 
 heard in their defence. 
 
 It is true that I did not know this at the time. But it was 
 plain, from what I did know, that there had been false play, 
 (although I had not then the least idea of its extent;) and 
 it was plain that, upon the precise point of Mr. Lowell's 
 having shown the letter, either Mr. Lowell had not told me 
 the literal truth, or he had told me what was true to the letter 
 only, and false in its effect. From that moment, I do not 
 hesitate to say, my confidence in Mr. Lowell was utterly lost ; 
 and every successive discovery of fact, from that time to 
 this, has only tended to satisfy me that I was right in the 
 judgement I then formed, surprising as it may have been to 
 many persons, before the appearance of my present .proofs. 
 
 But one of the most curious facts in the case is, that Mi'- 
 
749 
 
 Lowell, himself, has now been compelled to publish conclvr 
 sive evidence, that what he told me, about no one's having 
 seen the letter, was both literally and substantially untrue. 
 I refer, now, not to the coroner's statement, either to Mr. Dex- 
 ter or to Mr. Loring ; neither do I refer to the declarations of 
 the jurors ; but to the carefully written statement of Dr. 
 James Jackson, — printed by Mr. Lowell for the express pur- 
 pose of clearing himself from another suspected falsehood, of 
 which the evidence then pressed strongly upon him. The 
 statement of Dr. Jackson, — which, when once sought for and 
 obtained, Mr. Lowell could not venture either to correct, or 
 to misprint, or to suppress, — while it tends to exculpate Mr. 
 Lowell from my suspicion that he had the letter in his pocket, 
 during his conversation with me, (the point for which the 
 statement was sought,) convicts him, positively, and beyond 
 escape, on the other and more material point of his having 
 unnecessarily commimicated more or less of the contents of 
 the letter. I quote, as follows, from Dr. Jackson : — 
 
 " My brother Patrick went into your house either just before or 
 just after me. On my entrance you told me you had just got the let- 
 ter ; and you held in your hand a thick letter ; you were crossing the 
 room at the moment ; you then sat down by the window and broke 
 the seal of the letter. After looking through the letter hastily, tou 
 KBAD TO us SOME PAETS OP IT, — but uot the wkole, as I supposed 
 and understood at the time." [Ante, pp. 681-2.] 
 
 Now, why did not Mr. Lowell, when he told me, the very 
 next morning, that nobody had seen the letter, but himself, 
 frankly tell me the fact that he had read " some parts of it" 
 to the coroner ; that he had also read, or repeated, " some parts 
 of it" to the jury ; and that he had also read " some parts of 
 it" to the two Messrs. Jackson 1 What parts of it, by the way, 
 did he read to those gentlemen ? Dr. Jackson does not in- 
 form us ; and Mr. Lowell informs us only that " the letter had 
 never been read to any one !" But we see what impressions the 
 coroner got about the contents of the letter. We see what im- 
 pressions the jurors got from Mr. Lowell about the alleged 
 " false accusations" against Mr. Boott, connected with the fact 
 of his suicide. I fear that the late Mr. P. T. Jackson, whose 
 
750 
 
 good opinion was so desirable to all, who had the happiness 
 to know him, may have gone to his grave with the belief, 
 derived from what he heard of that letter and what Mr, 
 Lowell otherwise told him, that I had acted a very wicked 
 part in this whole afiair, and that Mr. Boott was really 
 the victim of a malignant persecution, and not of his own 
 insanity. I fear that my friend. Dr. Jackson, may yet live in 
 that belief, from the letter, and from statements made to him 
 by Mr. Lowell. I have reason to apprehend that many of 
 the numerous, respectable, and influential connexions of 
 these gentlemen, and of Mr. Lowell, have adopted a like 
 opinion, flowing ultimately from him ; although they are all 
 persons, like Dr. Jackson, too cautious, too kind, and too sen- 
 sible of the nature of the charge, to say much on so painful 
 a subject. 
 
 I believe that I am indebted to the author of the " Re- 
 ply" for all this weight of sentiment against me, as well 
 as for like opinions formed by certain members of the Boott 
 family, who have pinned their faith upon Mr. Lowell as the 
 great vindicator of truth ! The public at large, nay, my own 
 personal friends, were beginning to imagine that there must 
 be something in it, for no other reason than because such 
 opinions were entertained in such quarters, and, especially,, 
 because so very considerable a person as Mr. John Amory 
 Lowell was every where quoted for authority. 
 
 Mr. Lowell! "Poor Wright's steadfast friend!" (So Dr. 
 Boott calls him.) [L. p. 170.] The common friend of the whole 
 Boott connexion ! (So he describes himself.) Intimately ac- 
 quainted with all the facts, and especially with the accounts! 
 Perfectly disinterested ! The best judge in the world of Mr- 
 Boott's entire sanity ! A gentleman, who, from his position 
 and character, could have no conceivable motive, or desire, in 
 this business, except to establish the fact, out of pure love for 
 truth, that one much beloved friend, in the perfect possession 
 of his faculties, had most deliberately killed himself, writing 
 " with great calmness, as befitted the occasion," and that other 
 friends, not less valued, — so " endeared" to him that he can 
 scarcely yet shake off the " lingering tenderness," — had wick- 
 
751 
 
 ediy conspired to harass an unfortunate relative to death by 
 false accusations, and other ceaseless acts of cruelty and perse- 
 cution ! Was it not time for me to speak for myself, and 
 show the realities of this case ? 
 
 One of Mr. Lowell's comments on the doubting of his 
 word, above complained of, seems, after all we have seen, to 
 border on the ridiculous. He says, by way of introduction, 
 that, — 
 
 "Mr. Brooks, by putting the correspondence of December, 1846, 
 at the beginning of his boolc, produces the impression that this was 
 our first intercourse upon the subject. Had he narrated events in 
 their chronological order, it would have been apparent that he had, 
 by his own course of conduct, forfeited all right to call upon me for 
 an explanation." [L. p. 174.] 
 
 Mr. Lowell's regard for " chronological order " we have 
 already seen somewhat illustrated. We shall see some more 
 striking exhibitions of the same valuable quality, when we 
 come to scrutinize his array of evidence to prove a conspiracy. 
 
 The comment, however, which I intended to quote, is 
 made in reference to my former remark, that " I hold him, 
 not excused, as a gentleman, for refusing to inform me what 
 his testimony was, when asked for the declared purpose of 
 enabling me to correct erroneous impressions, produced by it, 
 to my serious detriment." [B. p. 162.] On that point he ob- 
 serves that, — 
 
 " Mr. Brooks forgets, that, nearly two years before, he had put him- 
 self in the position of having doubted my word, and, when the evi- 
 dence, on which that doubt rested, had been, if not refuted, entirely 
 neutralized, of having offered no apology for so insulting a doubt. 
 
 " There cannot be two opinions, among men of honor, as to his hav- 
 ing forfeited the right of claiming any explanation from me." PL. 
 p. 174.] ■■ 
 
 How unfortunate that this should not have occurred to Mr. 
 Lowell at the time of our correspondence ! How much more 
 dignified would it have been totally to decUne answering on 
 that lofty ground, about which « there can not be two opin- 
 ions among men of honor," instead of first undertaking, 
 " frankly," as he says, [B. p. 15.] to make the explanation, 
 
752 
 
 and then shuffling and evading the pinch of the question, 
 in the remarkable manner, which that correspondence shows, 
 •while he concludes by " respectfully " requesting to be ex- 
 cused from any further participation " in any of the issues 
 growing out of these difficulties!" [B. p. 18.] 
 
 But let me not do Mr. Lowell the injustice to conceal his 
 avowed motive here. He declares that, — 
 
 " A desire of preventing, if still possible, the public disclosure of 
 these disgraceful feuds, and a lingering tenderness towards him, [viz. 
 Edward Brooks,] alone prevented me from treating his application 
 as it deserved !" [L. p. 174] 
 
 This " lingering tenderness " I have mentioned so often, 
 that every body must see how fully it is appreciated ; — and I 
 am sure nobody can doubt the sincerity of Mr. Lowell's desire 
 to prevent a public exposure. He appeals, however, to the 
 court of honour ; and there I am perfectly content that he; 
 should take his trial. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVII. 
 
 AN OUTLINE OF MY ANSWER TO SUNDRY NEW CHARGES MADE BY 
 MR. LOWELL. 
 
 I have done with the subject of accounts, and with the 
 various collateral topics, connected with that subject by the 
 allegations or suggestions of the " Reply." Several ques- 
 tions, concerning Mr. Lowell's personal conduct at, or soon 
 after, the time of Mr. Boott's death, have also been disposed 
 of, upon the idea that they were more properly connected 
 with the settlement of the accounts, than with any other 
 matter in controversy. Indeed, I have already covered the 
 whole original ground of controversy, between me and Mr. 
 
753 
 
 Lowell, with the exception of certain statements and evi- 
 dence, contained in my former pamphlet, tending to justify 
 my opinion that Mr. Boott was partially insane, as well as to 
 show that I had reason to be greatly surprised at Mr. Lowell's 
 remarks upon several occasions. 
 
 If Mr. Lowell had contented himself with merely answer- 
 ing that evidence, without converting his ansi.ver into an at- 
 tack, — ^if he had only endeavoured to show, b^ other evidence, 
 that my opinion of Mr. Boott's insanity was ill-ibunded, — this 
 abstract question is of so little importance, in my view of the 
 case, for the justification of my own conduct, that I might, 
 perhaps, now consider myself sufficiently discharged of my 
 obligation to expose the true character of the " Reply." 
 
 But, Mr. Lowell has been pleased to make his defence of 
 Mr. Boott's sanity a pretext for assailing, further, the con- 
 duct and motives of myself and others in our family rela- 
 tions. The " Reply" has given birth to a new set of 
 charges, having little or no connexion with the question, 
 whether I had falsely accused Mr. Boott of mismanaging his 
 father's estate. That idea, conveyed to the jury of inquest 
 without my knowledge, and under the other circumstances 
 stated, was the original calumny, which has been, heretofore, 
 the main ground of our controversy. But Mr. Lowell has 
 endeavoured, with some adroitness, to shift the issue, duite 
 another, and a wide, field of inquiry is now opened by the 
 " Reply." The interior concerns and mutual relations of 
 the Boott family, generally, are brought into the discussion, 
 by charges of personal quarrels among them, attributed, entii-e- 
 ]y, to the scandalous ill conduct of certain members ; namely, 
 Mrs. Brooks and myself, Mrs. Lyman, and Mr. William Boott, 
 who are supposed to have co-operated in purposes of mis-i 
 chief, — Mr. Robert 0. Hooper, though not a member of the 
 family, occasionally lending his aid. We are accused, conjoint- 
 ly, of originating, fomenting, and keeping alive, the family 
 dissensions, by our meddlesome and quarrelsome disposition , 
 directed particularly against Mr. J. Wright Boott, without 
 reason or provocation. 
 
754 
 
 An answer to this sort of attack, manifestly, involves a gen- 
 eral view of the conduct of Mr. J. Wright Boott towards oth- 
 ers, and of others towards him, in matters distinct from his 
 accounts and executorship. The question of Mr. Boott's 
 soundness of mind, instead of the question of his good man- 
 agement of property, is, here, the connecting thread, which 
 draws together many painful topics. They are of a kind, 
 which I should gladly he excused from discussing ; especially 
 as a satisfactory view of them requires the printing of private 
 letters, not relating to business transactions, nor intended to 
 be read, except by those to whom they were addressed, and 
 w'hich none of the family can desire to see in print. 
 
 Mr. Lowell, alone, would scarcely induce me to take a step 
 so repugnant to my feelings. But, unfortunately, some: o^ 
 my near connexions have been so blinded by his influences, 
 as to place in his hands a large part of a confidential family 
 correspondence, — thus furnishing him with delicate weapons, 
 of which he has not scrupled to make a very bad use. In 
 one or two instances, only, has he printed from this budget the 
 whole of any one letter ; and never enough of consecutive 
 correspondence to give a tolerably fair view of the surround- 
 ing circumstances, or of the feelings and motives of the 
 writers. In general, he has selected single sentences only, or 
 detached expressions, or very short passages, out of a large 
 number of letters, and, — by arranging them, with entire disre- 
 gard of "chronological order," so as to produce the most 
 striking effect, in reference to the one-sided view, which he 
 thinks it for his interest to present, — he has succeeded in pro- 
 ducing impressions, not merely imperfect, but positively er- 
 roneous, respecting the actual state of facts before Mr. Boott's 
 death ; and impressions highly disreputable to myself, and to 
 several other persons. Certain members of the family have, 
 inconsiderately, supplied him with the means to do this 
 wrong. This is very unfortunate ; but it is not the whole of 
 the misfortune. They and other members of the family, by 
 their acquiescence in what he has done, permit themselves to 
 be held out as giving their countenance, and approval, to rep- 
 resentations of bad feeling, and unprovoked ill conduct, on 
 
756 
 
 the part of brothers and sisters, towards a brother deceased, 
 and towards brothers or sisters yet living, which, if these 
 same members of the famUy were witnesses in the case, I am 
 sure, the most of them would never support by their own 
 statements,— nor am I ready to believe that any one of them 
 would,— however their feelings may, formerly, have been en- 
 listed against the idea of Mr. Boott's unfitness to be the fam- 
 ily trustee. Mr. Lowell does not hesitate to make open boast 
 of his support, by this larger portion of the fannly, as he rep- 
 resents, in a view of facts, which I must show to be essen- 
 tially erroneous. His misrepresentations are, tacitly, allowed 
 to stand for truths. The mere glimpses of a family corre- 
 spondence, which he has exposed, seem, in a degree, to corr 
 roborate them. And readers of the " Reply" rely upon its 
 statements, in this purely domestic part of the case, only ber 
 cause they are supposed to be upheld by the family ; for these 
 statements relate to matters, of which Mr. Lowell, obviously, 
 can have little or no personal knowledge. 
 
 What then am I, — a party thus aggrieved, — ^to do ? I have, 
 it is true, no access to that part of the family correspondence, 
 of which Mr. Lowell is the sacred depository. But I have, in 
 my hands, original letters, written contemporaneously with 
 the occurrences and occasions, of which they speak, by sev- 
 eral of the very persons, who allow themselves to be publish- 
 ed as the supporters of Mr. Lowell's views. These letters 
 will, in some cases, show a directly opposite state of facts, to 
 that which has been asserted, and in others will show senti- 
 ments, quite the reverse of those attributed to the writers by 
 Mr. Lowell. What alternative is there, but to exhibit this; 
 evidence? I confess, at present, I see none. ImovetosucI^ 
 a task very reluctantly ; but, if a part of the family, in real 
 or apparent conjunction with Mr. Lowell, choose to make the 
 discussion of such topics inevitable, I can only say that I 
 shall choose to make it thorough, so far as may be needful to 
 exonerate myself and Mrs. Brooks from the unfounded impu- 
 tations, which have been, thus publicly, cast upon us. 
 
 It is a further subject of regret to me, that this will, obvi- 
 ously, require so large an addition to the many pages already 
 
756 
 
 printed, that the whole can not be brought within the com- 
 pass of a convenient volume. The number of my present 
 page makes this perfectly apparent ; and it leads me to de- 
 part, in one particular, from my original design. My inten- 
 tion was, to place no part of my answer to Mr. Lowell in the 
 hands of my friends, until I was ready to show them the whole 
 of it, in print. This, as it was entirely arranged and written, 
 I hoped to have done, long ago, and in less space than I have 
 already occupied. But I have found, by experience, much 
 greater delay than I anticipated, incident to the carrying of 
 such a book through the press, with its numerous references 
 and quotations, as well as the many corrections, and some- 
 times additions, which suggested themselves during its pro- 
 gress. So much time has thus already elapsed, and some 
 ardent persons have thought proper to express so much as- 
 surance that I could have nothing effective to show, in dis- 
 paragement of Mr. Lowell's triumph, that I confess myself 
 unwilling to retain the portion of my answer now printed, 
 (a subject distinct and complete in itself,) for a period so much 
 longer as, I now perceive, will be needful in printing, with 
 due care, that which remains. I have concluded, therefore, 
 to close this volume with a general view of the state of the 
 controversy, as it now stands, leaving my comments on 
 other parts of the " Reply" to be the subject of a supplement- 
 ary communication, unless some unforeseen circumstance 
 should, in my judgement, adequately relieve me from the 
 necessity of another disagreeable step. 
 
 It seems, however, to be due to all parties, and no more 
 than fair to Mr. Lowell, that some idea should be given, at 
 this time, of the course I intend to take, and some brief out- 
 line of the principal points, which I am prepared to establish. 
 
 In my former pamphlet, I made a prominent point of Mr. 
 Boott's insanity. I had, and have, a deep conviction of the 
 fact. It was, in truth, one of my governing motives for in- 
 sisting on a change of the trusteeship, in 1844. But, my at- 
 tempt to satisfy my former readers of that apology for Mr. 
 Boott is put, by Mr. Lowell, on much the same footing with 
 my impeachment of his good management as a trustee. It 
 
757 
 
 is treated as an indignit7,— an outrage on the memory of the 
 dead. He, who holds himself out as the fast friend of the 
 deceased, makes every effort to disprove, what he affects to 
 consider a cruel calumny, instead of an excuse ; so that it has 
 become no less apparent to every reader of the " Reply," 
 than it was to the jury of inquest, " that Mr. Lowell was, 
 extremely anxious to have Mr. Boott made out a sane man." 
 [Ante, p. 78.] Why, he best knows ; though others are at 
 liberty to guess. The only reason assigned is regard for 
 truth and his friend's memory! 
 
 We are assured, also, that " six out of the eight surviving 
 members of Mr. Boott's family did not believe in his insanity, 
 and desired no verdict contrary to the truth ;" [L. p. 21. J and, 
 of course, if Mr. Lowell is authorized, as he assumes, to repre- 
 sent their present opinions, they do not desire, now, that any 
 one should be satisfied that Mr. Boott was afflicted with any 
 kind, or degree, of mental derangement, being satisfied them- 
 selves that the truth is the other way. The only consequence 
 of this is, that they, and Mr. Lowell, must account for Mr. 
 Boott's conduct, which I shall be obliged to prove, on such 
 other theory as they please. My business will consist in dis- 
 proving the only theory, which the " Reply" has put forth. 
 
 To Mrs. Brooks, and myself, and Mr. William Boott, and, I 
 presume, I may safely add Mrs. Lyman, according to my im- 
 pression of her present views of the case, (and this constitutes 
 about one half of the now surviving brothers and sisters,) 
 it certainly would be a gratification to find others coinciding 
 with us in opinion on the point of partial insanity. This 
 portion of the family would gladly have seen, at the time 
 of the inquest, and would gladly see, now, that charitable 
 mantle,— so generally, and so broadly, thrown over the grave 
 of the self-destroyer,— drawn, in this instance, over the 
 errors and failings of one, who was once a much-loved 
 brother, and who is described by Mr. Lowell as " a gifted 
 but unfortunate son." [L. p. 23.J Three of us, at least, be- 
 lieved, and believe, that such a finding, by an intelligent 
 jury, after careful examination of the facts, would have 
 been the true and sure quietus of a most unhappy family 
 
758 
 
 dissension. But if we, who are said to be actuated by nothings 
 but feelings of resentment towards the deceased, stand alone 
 in this desire, — if all the rest of the family, who are called 
 to mourn his shocking end, together with their and his warm- 
 hearted and disinterested friend, the intimate of thirty years, — 
 at least in his business transactions, — ^think and desire others- 
 wise, I know not why I should go much out of my way, in 
 a personal controversy with this gentleman, to thwart his and 
 their desires. 
 
 While certain statements, concerning me, attributed to Mr. 
 Boott, derived an especial value and importance, in my judge- 
 ment, from Mr. Lowell's endorsement of them, I thought my- 
 self particularly bound to show, that they originated in 
 nothing but the insane delusions of their author. The facts, ' 
 which I have since discovered, respecting Mr. Lowell's con- 
 duct, and especially the character of his " Reply," have re- 
 lieved me, I am happy to say, from any undue solicitude on 
 that score. The statements, alluded to, stand, now, in my 
 estimation, and I think they will in that of every unprejudiced 
 reader, with no additional weight derived from Mr. Lowell's 
 adoption of them. They are, simply, Mr. Boott's expressions, 
 thrown out in a certain frame of mind. As such, I have no 
 difficulty in dealing with them upon the facts, which ean 
 be proved, whether he is reputed to have been sane or insane. 
 I am, therefore, equally content to meet the case, made against 
 me in the " Reply," upon either alternative. Reason enough 
 has, I trust, been shown, to justify the effecting of Mr. Boott's 
 resignation of the care of the family property, even admitting 
 him to have been not less sane than Mr. Lowell ; and, in re- 
 spect to all the other charges, brought against myself or Mrs. 
 Brooks in the " Reply," whether upon the authority of its 
 author, or that of the late Mr. Boott, I do not intend thatour 
 personal vindication shall be left dependent, in any degree, 
 upon the reader's belief in Mr. Boott's insanity. 
 
 I have spoken of that question as a connecting thread, 
 which runs through the remaining topics. As such, I intend 
 rather to treat it incidentally, in answering Mr. Lowell's com- 
 ments, than as the main proposition, which I am bound to 
 
759 
 
 establish. Refening to my former pamphlet for the general 
 view, which I took of Mr. Boott's mental condition, and tor 
 a body of evidence in support of it, I shall, now, content my- 
 self with taking up, as my texts, certain promment pas- 
 sages and ideas of the "Reply;" and, in refutmg them, I 
 shall expose, by the way, its feebleness and insufficiency, as 
 an answer to the former evidence of that gentleman's insan- 
 ity on certain subjects. 
 
 In the part of the case, which relates to personal conduct, 
 Mr. Lowell will find that he does not possess the advantage of 
 better means of knowledge than myself, as he did on the sub- 
 ject of the accounts. On the contrary, when he was bold 
 enough to attempt to found an argument on private history, 
 in the domestic circle of the Boott family, — ^with which, not- 
 withstanding his business relations with Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
 and latterly with Mrs. Boott, he held very little social inter- 
 course, — ^it will appear that he ventured upon dangerous navi- 
 gation, under very poor pilotage, or none at all. Here, at least, 
 I am familiar with the passage ; and can easily run his craft 
 ashore at every tack. To use his own language, I shall make 
 it " pretty evident that" Mr. Lowell " has undertaken to 
 enlighten the public about transactions of which he never 
 knew any thing, or which he has completely forgotten ,•" [L. 
 p. 109.] the former being, in most cases, the probable truth. 
 It will appear, perhaps, that he and certain members of the 
 family, contributed to mislead each other. He, certainly, mis- 
 led them on some points, and may, to some extent, have been 
 misled in turn on others. That is to say, the family, general- 
 ly, relied, implicitly, upon Mr. Lowell's assurances that every 
 thing, respecting the accounts and the management of the prop- 
 erty, was substantially right. Believing this to be so, a small 
 portion of the family in this country, (it was confined, origi- 
 nally, chiefly to a few ladies,) who were unwilling to admit that 
 Mr. Boott was either insane, or otherwise incompetent to be 
 the family trustee, or that he had misconducted himself in 
 any other respect, suffered themselves to become unduly ex- 
 cited about the means takea to cause his resignation, and 
 were wrought up into a state of very extravagant sentiment 
 
760 
 
 and expression, respecting Mr. Boott and his supposed perse- 
 cutors. Mr. Lowell found it for his interest, while the settle- 
 ment of accounts was an open question, to adopt the views of 
 these ladies, or at least to appear to them to adopt their views ; 
 and he did so, or pretended to do so, without either knowl- 
 edge or inquiry, and without making the fact distinctly 
 known to me. Members of the family, abroad, could judge 
 of the true state of affairs here only by the representa- 
 tions, which reached them from home ; and, among these 
 representations, it will be found that Mr. Lowell's carried 
 the day. He has contrived, thus far, to maintain, with 
 that portion of the family, the ascendency, which his dis- 
 interested position originally gave him. After the settle- 
 ment of accounts, came the unexpected event of a suicide, 
 which it was necessary to account for, without permit- 
 ting the idea of insanity to prevail. Then followed the 
 litigation respecting the probate of Mr. Boott's will, involving 
 the question of his sanity ; and, this having ended without a 
 trial in the upper court, and being succeeded by my discovery 
 of Mr. Lowell's testimony at the inquest, and by our unsatis- 
 factory correspondence, and, consequently, by my former pam- 
 phlet, Mr. Lowell has, throughout, found himself in a position, 
 which, as he thought, made it for his interest to maintain one 
 side of a family controversy, originally espoused by him, 
 solely ia reference to the settlement of accounts. For the 
 sake of maintaining that side, he has gone all lengths in his 
 "Reply," without regard to its consequences to those for 
 whom he professes so much attachment ; and he has relied, 
 for his supposed facts in the domestic history, upon loose and 
 erroneous impressions, derived, more or less directly, from the 
 most excited and least informed portions of the family ; while 
 a few scraps, carefully culled out of a family correspondence, 
 ransacked with that view, seem to lend a degree of counte- 
 nance and support to his theory. 
 
 The foregoing remarks will serve to suggest, to every intel- 
 ligent reader, the general line of my defence against Mr. 
 Lowell's latest attack ; but I will now proceed to state a few 
 
761 
 
 particulars, which I propose hereafter to substantiate, and 
 make perfectly clear. 
 
 One object of the « Reply" being to convince its readers 
 of Mr. Boott's sanity, and to create a prejudice against those 
 who denied it, it is said, — 
 
 " Not a single human being, having opportunity of judging, and 
 whose opinion was unbiassed hy personal resentments, has been ad- 
 duced as believing in Mr. Boott's insanity." [L. p. 126 ] 
 
 I shall examine that position. 
 
 In the first place, I shall show, that many persons, against 
 whom no suspicion of a personal resentment has ever been 
 suggested, and who had fair opportunity to form an opinion, 
 expressed their belief, on different occasions, that he was 
 partially insane ; among them nearly every member of the 
 Boott family, other connexions or personal friends, and several 
 gentlemen of medical experience, including Dr. Jackson, 
 and Dr. Francis Boott. Mr. Lowell himself, at one time, 
 admitted it. And, although Mr. J. Wright Boott led a 
 life of such seclusion that few persons, latterly, saw him 
 at all, I shall prove that several strangers, who happened, 
 shortly before his death, to meet him on occasions when 
 he was in a state of particular excitement, formed that 
 opinion, from their own observation. The testimony, in the 
 probate court, of a former postmaster of this city, as printed 
 in my former pamphlet, is directly in point. But several 
 other gentlemen, including Mr. Lowell, were present at the 
 interview, to which he testified ; and all, — ^unless Mr. Lowell 
 be an exception, — formed the same opinion. I shall show 
 that, on another occasion, a respectable physician, well known 
 in this city, who had no acquaintance with the Boott family, 
 and had never heard of any trouble or dissension in it, nor 
 any thing about Mr. J. Wright Boott's state of mind, called to 
 see him on business, not long before his death; and the result 
 of their interview was, that this genlleman,— experienced 
 as a medical man in such matters,— went home convinced, 
 by his own observation of Mr. Boott's appearance, lan- 
 guage, and demeanour, that he was insane ; so much so, that 
 
 96 
 
762 
 
 he expressed that opinion in his own family the same evening 
 and was reminded of it by them, some time after, when 
 they heard of Mr. Boott's death, by suicide. 
 
 I shall compare, with the evidence above referred to, the 
 statements of other gentlemen, not connected with the Boott 
 family, who are relied upon by Mr. Lowell as positive wit- 
 nesses of Mr. Boott's sanity, — they also having formed their 
 opinions in brief interviews on subjects of business, not long 
 before his death. On these occasions, it does not appear 
 that Mr. Boott was under any particular excitement, and he 
 impressed those gentlemen favourably, in all respects. They 
 did not notice any mark of derangement. But, without the 
 slightest disrespect for their judgements, I shall show, by the 
 well established laws of partial insanity, that their negative 
 testimony is absolutely of no value, to contradict the posi- 
 tive testimony above referred to, or to counterbalance opin- 
 ions, formed by other persons from their own observation of 
 Mr. Boott, at other times, and under different circumstances ; 
 since the gentlemen, cited by. Mr. Lowell, expressly declare 
 that Mr. Boott was, when they saw him, in a perfectly calm 
 and unexcited state of mind, and it appears that they took to 
 be true his averments of certain matters, which they knew 
 nothing of, but which, I shall show, had no real foundation 
 in fact. And, since he is admitted, on all hands, to have 
 been a man of truth, I think the fair inference must be, that 
 these unfounded notions can be reasonably accounted for only 
 as the phantasies and delusions of a deranged mind. 
 
 The opinion of Messrs. Choate and B. R. Curtis, respecting 
 the sanity of Mr. Boott's last letter, I shall show, stands in the 
 same predicament, for the simple reason that those distin- 
 guished gentlemen were utterly ignorant of the facts, neces- 
 sary to test the foundation of its statements. They had, lit- 
 erally, nothing to judge from, except that the letter, by itself, 
 may have made sense, — ^which, as is well known, is in no de- 
 gree inconsistent with the kind of insanity supposed. And, 
 although I have not had the benefit of seeing that letter, I 
 shall show from every other scrap of Mr. Boott's writing, or 
 conversation, in the latter part of his life, which Mr. Lowell 
 
763 
 
 has permitted us to see, that a certain set of fixed ideas runs 
 through the whole of them, and that these ideas had no cor- 
 responding reality out of their author's brain. 
 
 In the next place, I shall examine the evidence, relied upon 
 by Mr. Lowell, to destroy the credit of certain witnesses, 
 whose long acquaintance, and daily intimacy of intercourse 
 with Mr. Boott, during a period of marked progress in his 
 mental disorder, gave them a far better opportunity, than any 
 other competent witness enjoyed, of forming a correct judge- 
 ment respecting his true state of mind. I refer, particularly, 
 to Mr. Robert C. Hooper, and to Mr. William Boott, whose 
 statements I formerly printed. The ground of the impeach- 
 ment of the testimony of those gentlemen is alleged personal 
 quarrels with Mr. J. Wright Boott, and feelings of resent- 
 ment towards him in consequence. I shall show that there 
 is scarcely a colour for the charge of any personal quarrel on 
 the part of Mr. Hooper. Against Mr. William Boott, it is true 
 that a stronger show of a case is made, by the particular ver- 
 sion, given in the " Reply," of a scene, which ended in his 
 being struck by Mr. J. Wright Boott, and out of a few 
 " choice extracts" from his familiar letters to his brother, Dr. 
 Boott. 
 
 In respect to the scene, above alluded to, an account is given 
 of it, in the " Reply," purporting to have been derived at the 
 time, by Mr. Lowell, from Mr. J. Wright Boott himself, in 
 which his own personal violence was attributed to very pro- 
 voking language used by Mr. William Boott. This account, 
 I shall show, has the merit of entire novelty. It makes its 
 first appearance now, under the pressure of the argument ; 
 and I shall further show, that it is directly contradicted by 
 Mr. Lowell's previous accounts of the same matter, after he 
 had heard Mr. J. Wright Boott's story." Those accounts en- 
 tirely corroborated Mr. William Boott, and represented that no 
 provocation was given. 
 
 As to the shreds of correspondence, cited to prove feelings 
 of animosity, I shall show that, in respect to them, Mr Wil- 
 liam Boott is most unfairly dealt with; and that, Avith a 
 httle more regard to "chronological order," and to the state 
 
764 
 
 of facts existing at the time each letter was written, it becomes 
 apparent, that the excitement of the writer had nothing to do 
 with the personal ill treatment he had formerly suflRired from 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, but was caused by particular, and more re- 
 cent, provocations from other persons, who were pursuing a 
 course well calculated to irritate any man, placed in such cir- 
 cumstances. The feelings of resentment, indicated by pa> 
 ticular expressions, will be found to have been, generally, di- 
 rected against these other persons, rather than against Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott ; and it will appear that, when Mr. William 
 Boott was provoked by them to use a harsh phrase concern- 
 ing that brother, it was under circumstances, which naturally 
 account for it, and show that it can not be fairly taken as an 
 indication of his usual state of feeling, nor be received as 
 evidence to discredit his general fixed belief of his broth- 
 er's partial insanity, constantly maintained by him, while 
 others refused to admit it. 
 
 I shall show that the same course of remark applies to the 
 warmth of expression attributed to me, on certain occasions. 
 I shall exhibit a state of facts, — entirely shut out of sight by 
 Mr. Lowell, — which could not but occasion a degree of 
 warmth on my part, owing to the conduct, not of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, but of persons whom no one suspected of in- 
 sanity. 
 
 Another passage of the " Reply," to be disposed of in the 
 same connexion, is this : — 
 
 " The kindest view that could be taken of the conduct of those, with 
 whom Mr. Boott was at variance, was, that they had never practicaUy 
 believed him to be insane." [L. p. 21.] 
 
 Indeed, Mr. Lowell has the effrontery, (I can not call it 
 less,) to assert, in direct terms, and without qualification, that 
 "Mr. and Mrs. Brooks did not think Mm insane;" [L p. 
 126.] and he asks, " Is it possible, that when Mr. Willicm 
 Boott penned these sentences, [referring to particular expres- 
 sions, picked out of his letters to Dr. Boott,] he believed, in his 
 heart, that his brother was insane ?" [L. p. 134-5.] 
 
 I shall show, in answer to this, what the conduct was of 
 
765 
 
 the several persons " with whom Mr. Boott was at variance," 
 and what the circumstances leading to it were, which have 
 been either wholly concealed, or entirely perverted, by Mr. 
 Lowell. But, further, I am prepared to prove Mr. Lowell's 
 own distinct declaration, before his interest required him to 
 assert otherwise in the " Reply," that he " had no doubt that 
 Mr. Edward Brooks and Mr. William Boott did honestly 
 believe in Mr. J. Wright Boott's insanity." 
 
 I intend also to take up, as a valuable text, the following 
 announcement of the " Reply :" — 
 
 "I shall begin with Mr. and Mrs. Brooks, whose quarrel with hini 
 [Mr. J. W. Boott,] appears to have had the earliest origin." [L.pp. 
 111-112.] 
 
 In connexion with it, I shall take, for another text, the 
 following language of Mr. J. Wright Boott, according to a let- 
 ter from Mr. Darracott, printed in the " Reply." The letter 
 was written, by Mr. Darracott, upon my request that he would 
 furnish to Mr. Lowell the information it contains, respecting 
 a remark made by Mr. Boott. Mr. Darracott complied with 
 my request, although he said, (very truly I doubt not,) that 
 he did not see what bearing it could have. Mr. Boott's lan- 
 gucige was this : — 
 
 " Ours was always a united and happy family, until Brooks came 
 into it." [L. p. 154.] 
 
 Under these heads, I shall be compelled to exhibit some- 
 thing of the character of my own intercourse with the various 
 members of the Boott family, as illustrated by their own letters 
 and by other evidence ; and I shall, also, be compelled to show, 
 by like means, the relations of the various members of the fam- 
 ily to each other, at different periods. It will be found, that, 
 for many years after I became connected with the family of 
 Mrs. Boott, hers was well entitled to be called " a united and 
 happy family," throughout its entire circle; and, for myself, 
 more than twenty years elapsed before I had the slightest dif- 
 ference with any one of them. Indeed, until the unfortu- 
 nate dissension arose respecting Mr. J. Wright Boott, within 
 the two or three years next before his death, there ^-as no 
 
766 
 
 difference between any parties, in -rtrhich either Mrs. Brooks 
 or myself was implicated ; nor, in fact, was there any, knovn 
 to me, which deserved the name of a quarrel, dissension, or 
 disaffection, between any branches, or members, except such 
 as occurred, for a series of years, between Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, alone, and some other one, or more, of the family. 
 But, in respect to Mr. J. Wright Boott, it will appear, that a 
 marked change in his demeanour, towards others, began at a 
 time coinciding with the first pressure of his pecuniary em- 
 barrassments. Thenceforward, it is unfortunately true, that 
 there arose a continuous succession of ruptures, between him 
 and some one or other of his brothers, sist6rs, and brothers-in- 
 law, embracing, at different times, nearly every one of them. 
 These feuds occasionally extended, for a time, beyond the 
 original parties, — others being drawn in to a greater or less 
 degree, — ^but Mr. and Mrs. Brooks never permitted them,' 
 selves to be implicated, on either side, until their own turn 
 came to suffer, personally, from Mr. J. Wright Boott. In fact, 
 there never was, I believe, what could fairly be called a quar- 
 rel in the family, to which Mr. J. Wright Boott was not one 
 party, or Which did not grow out of, or relate to, his conduct. 
 The instances, of which I speak, were not such slight and 
 temporary differences, as may often occur in a large family, 
 without any extraordinary cause ; but breaches of the most 
 serious kind, ending in an entire cessation of intercourse, be- 
 tween Mr. J. Wright Boott and some one or more of the fam- 
 ily, which was always of long duration, and, in most instances, 
 continued through life. 
 
 Such a breach occurred with the following parties, succes- 
 sively ; the late Mr. Lyman, — Mrs. Lyman, — Mr. Ralston,— 
 Mrs. Ralston, — Mr. William Boott, — and, finally, Mr. Brooks 
 and Mrs. Brooks. The late Mr. Kirk Boott, in his life time, 
 can scarcely be excepted from this list, the breach with him 
 being all but total. This state of facts I shall prove, in part, 
 by original letters in my possession from several of the persons 
 above named, and from other members of the family. Among 
 them are several from Mr. Kirk Boott, written very shortly 
 before his death, and which have never yet seen the lighf. 
 
767 
 
 Near approaches to the same state of things were not wanting, 
 between Mr. J. Wright Boott and every other brother and 
 sister, in addition to Mr. Kirk Boott ; but I speak now only 
 of those cases, which came to positive rupture, followed by 
 an entire cessation of intercourse for years; and of these, I 
 shall show that the " quarrel," as Mr. Lowell calls it, of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Brooks, — instead of " the earliest," — ^had the latest 
 origin, and that it was, entirely, of Mr. Bootts own mjiking. 
 
 I have said that, until the latter part of Mr. Bootts life, I 
 had no diflference with any one member of the family : but I 
 shall show, further, that I succeeded in preserving, through 
 many trying circumstances, the most friendly relations to- 
 wards Mr. J. Wright Boott ; that I was constantly called 
 upon by him, as well eis by other members of the family, for 
 gratuitous services, which were cheerfully rendered ; and that, 
 on more than one occasion of serious difficulty, between him 
 and some other one or more of the family, I was required, by 
 the choice of both parties, to act as the common mediator; 
 and that I did so, with more or less of success, taking much 
 pains, at least, to preserve, or restore, the family hcirmony. 
 
 In every case of rupture, the breach will be found to have 
 originated in strange and perverse conduct on the part of Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott ; and there will appear a sort of uniformity, 
 running through all these cases, and arising from nothing but 
 his peculiarities, — by whatever name they may be called. 
 The beginning was, invariably, some unfounded suspicion 
 entertained by Mr. Boott ; the progress was always marked 
 by unexplained coldness of manner on his part, proceeding to 
 manifest signs of aversion,— increasing rudeness,— positive 
 insult without provocation,— charges, quite unfounded, and 
 very simHar to those said to he contained, against some of us 
 in his last letter,— and, at last, if an entirfe abstinence from' 
 mtercourse with him did not sooner intervene, by some violent 
 outbreak of gross offence ; and this was the more striking 
 because of his usual great decorum, and urbanity of manners 
 The groundless suspicion, once entertained, could never ii 
 would seem, be thoroughly eradicated. All this may be Lt 
 down either to a most peculiar, moody, and ungovernable. 
 
768 
 
 temper, or to a species of partial insanity, just as the reader 
 pleases, — at least, so far as I am concerned. Until quite late 
 in his life, it is true that the latter explanation of his strange 
 conduct was not suggested, if suspected, by those who suffered 
 from its paroxysms ; but, it will appear, that scarcely any one 
 of the family was wholly exempt from suffering by them,; 
 and that this explanation of his conduct came, at last, to be 
 very generally received. 
 
 I shall show when, and how, this course of offensive con- 
 duct first began to manifest itself towards me, and, after- 
 wards, towards Mrs. Brooks ; and I shall show to what point 
 it was allowed to proceed, before it was arrested by the 
 consequent interruption of intercourse. I shall show, further, 
 that, at the time when intercourse ceased between us, the 
 Wells branch of the family took a view of family affairs, con- 
 nected with Mr. J. Wright Boott's conduct, which was 
 taken by no other one of the family ; that his marks of de- 
 cided aversion, were at that time, extended to every other 
 brother, sister, or brother-in-law, on this side of the Atlantic ; 
 and that, from the other side. Dr. Boott, who is now claimed 
 by Mr. Lowell as one of his warmest adherents, expressed him- 
 self, as strongly as any body, in reprehension of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott's conduct, (of which he himself cited instances,) to- 
 wards brothers and sisters, both dead and living, and in rep- 
 rehension, also, of the laudatory letters from some of the Wells 
 family concerning him. Now, since most of the persons, above 
 spoken of, are justly described by Mr. Lowell as very amiable 
 and excellent people, (though two or three of us, who happen 
 to stand in his way, are thought to be striking exceptions,) I 
 shall leave the reader to draw his own conclusion from the 
 fact, that Mr. J. Wright Boott was, for years, at utter vari- 
 ance and enmity with nearly every one of them. 
 
 These sentiments of Dr. Boott, respecting the merits of Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott's conduct in the family, (I speak of merits, 
 supposing him sane,) will be found to have remained un- 
 altered, and in full force, even after his opinion of his broth- 
 er's insanity had been staggered by Mr. Lowell's representa- 
 tions, supported by a certain letter from Dr. Jackson, to which 
 
769 
 
 I shall again refer, as well as before that opinion was formed. 
 Indeed, the long settled opinions of Dr. Boott concerning the 
 causes of dissension in the family, strongly and clearly ex- 
 pressed in his letters, will be found, — like his opinion on the 
 point of insanity, — to have yielded at last, so far as they have 
 yielded, to nothing but his overweening confidence in Mr. 
 Lowell's good judgement, amiable feelings, strict regard for 
 truth, and perfect disinterestedness! This will be found 
 equally true of Mrs. Boott, so far as a change in her senti- 
 ments appears by Dr. Boott's letters, from some of which, ex- 
 tracts, bearing on this point, were printed in my former pam- 
 phlet. [B. pp. 140-1.] 
 
 In respect to Dr. Boott's former opinion of his brother's in- 
 sanity, the statement of the " Reply " is, that it was founded 
 " on ex parte statements from Mr. Brooks, Mr. William Boott, 
 and Mr. Robert C. Hooper." [L. pp. 126-7.] So far as con- 
 cerns " Mr. Brooks," this will be found to be totally untrue. 
 I never made a statement, by word or letter, to Dr. Boott on 
 the subject in my life.* Neither, I believe, did Mr. Hooper. 
 The allegation , that any such statements were made by either 
 of the persons named, can be true only of Mr. William Boott. 
 He was the habitual family correspondent of his brother, Dr. 
 Boott, and, of course, communicated intelligence, from time to 
 time, of all interesting occurrences in the family. He, at one 
 time, transmitted to his brother an original letter of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott to Mr. Hooper, which he had obtained from 
 that gentleman, and which Dr. Boott pronounced to be 
 stamped with insanity upon its face. The reader, on seeing' 
 it, could not fail to agree with him. But Dr. Boott formed his 
 opinion, not from that letter alone, but from many facts, 
 derived from other sources, as well as from Mr. William 
 Boott. Some of them were from parties, whom Mr. Lowell 
 supposes to be, (or so pretends,) on his side of the question; 
 and some of them reached Dr. Boott from so very unexcep- 
 
 * Since the above was in type I have discovered an obscure erratum in the " Ee. 
 ply," from which it appears that this was intended for Mrs. Brooks. The reader 
 will see presently, how far the statement is tme in respect to her. 
 
 97 '■ 
 
770 
 
 tipnable a source as Mr. J. Wright Boott himself ; — 'all Which 
 will, in due time, appear by Dr. Boott's own letters. 
 
 In regard to Dr. Boott's change of opinion, if it be really 
 changed, on the point of his brother's insanity, this will be 
 found to have been derived entirely,/ro«i. Mr. Lowell, support- 
 ed by the supposed opinion of Dr. Jackson ; and Dr< Jackson's 
 opinion will be found to rest upon nothing but a statement 
 of assumed facts, made to him by Mr. Lowell, without knowl- 
 edge or inquiry, and made at the moment when Mr. Lowell 
 jirst learned my refusal to sign the deed of the house, if Mr- 
 Boott was to be the trustee of the proceeds ; that is, at the 
 moment when he first perceived the necessity of a resignatioh 
 by Mr. Boott, and, consequently, of a settlerhent of accounts 
 implicating himself. 
 
 This coincidence I shall put beyond doubt by entries in the 
 books of Mr. Nathaniel I. Bowditch, (to whom I signified my 
 refusal, and who signified it to his clients,) connected with Dr. 
 Jackson's letter to Mr. Lowell>and Mr. Lowell's letters to Dr. 
 Boott. Up to that time, Mr. Lowell's representations of the 
 facts of the case will be found to have been such as to in^ 
 duce Dr. Jackson to confirm the idea of a partial insanity, 
 then generally believed by the family ; but, when Mr. Lowell 
 found that I had taken a stand, in a matter of business, oppos- 
 ed to him, and one which must, necessarily, lead to a settle- 
 ment of the executor's accounts, he instantly turned round, 
 and, without any communication with me, or with Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott, represented to Dr. Jackson that we were in a state 
 of great exasperation against Mr. J. Wright Boott, — that the 
 whole affair was nothing but an ordinary quarrel, — and that 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott's Conduct towards his relations appeared 
 to be founded upon very reasonable provocation ; — and, there- 
 upon, he obtained a letter from Dr. Jackson, expressing the 
 opinion, that, " on the statement you last mMde to me, I 
 should judge that there was not any evidence of monomania 
 in Mr. Boott's case." [L. p. 163.] This was transmitted to 
 Dr. Boott, with the letters from Mr. Lowell himself, which 
 the reader has already seen ; [Ante, pp. 699 to 701.] and these 
 have, probably, been followed by many, which he has not 
 
771 
 
 Seen ; and Dr. Boott and Mrs. Boott have placed absolute con- 
 fidence, in these letters. 
 
 In respect to my own breach with Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
 before I had come to the conclusion that his singular conduct 
 proceeded from actual insanity, and was not under his own 
 control, it will be shown that it did not originate at the time, 
 nor in the manner, nor from any of the causes, set forth in 
 the " Reply." It will appear, particularly, that my letter to 
 him of September 22, 1842, was (considering him a sane 
 man,) no more than a justifiable consequence of his own acts, 
 and that it was not the cause of our breach, but that the 
 breach had occurred long before. Neither was it caused by 
 any letter, act, or word, of Mrs. Brooks. 
 
 Another idea, prominently held out in the " Reply," is, that 
 Mrs. Brooks, (at my instigation, of course,) was in the habit 
 of communicating, by letter, to her mother and brothers in 
 London, every petty occurrence, here, that could be turned into 
 a subject of complaint against Mr. J. Wright Boott. The 
 purpose is supposed to have been to forestall opinions, and 
 create prejudices, with the view of preparing, or inducing, Mrs. 
 Boott and Dr. Boott to co-operate with us against Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott. This underhand dealing is represented to 
 have been a principal cause of the family dissensions, and a 
 justification of certain conduct of Mr. J. Wright Boott 
 towards us. [L. pp. 112, 115.] 
 
 I shall take up the evidence, on which these suggestions 
 are founded, and shall show, among other things, that, in main- 
 taining that view, Mr. Lowell has had the misfortune, as I 
 have good reason to believe, to misprint, by one whole year, 
 the date of a material letter, — ^the false date being quite im- 
 portant to the course of his argument. I refer to a letter 
 from Mrs. Brooks to Dr. Boott, containing her earliest, and 
 only, detailed account, in writing, of the occurrences, which 
 had led, some eighteen months before, to a breach with Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott, out of which other difficulties had grown, 
 then more than a year old. 
 
 The truth, in this portion of the narrative, as in numerous 
 other instances, will be found to be an exact reverse of the 
 
772 
 
 statements of the " Reply;" and I shall show the real state 
 of facts to have been as follows : — 
 
 Unprovoked, unreasonable, and, as I now think, insane be- 
 haviour, on the part of Mr. J. Wright Boott towards Mrs. 
 Brooks and myself, in the latter part of 1841, or early in 
 1842, occasioned a breach, which, for a time, extended 
 only to him, and left us only where many other members of 
 the family had long stood ; that is, on no terms of intercourse 
 with Mr. Boott. At a later date, I was led to address a letter 
 to Mr. Wells, founded upon matters, concerning himself and 
 his own family, connected with Mr. J. Wright Boott, to whom, 
 in consequence of new provocations, I wrote also. Of the 
 letter to Mr. Wells, its causes and consequences, I shall have 
 occasion to speak again. At present, I have only to state the 
 fact, that my friendly intercourse with Mr. Wells came to an 
 end in September, 1842 ; and that its termination was a con- 
 sequence of the prior breach with Mr. J. Wright Boott, and of 
 circumstances following it. In this state of affairs, Mrs. Brooks 
 and myself maintained perfect silence, and carefully avoided 
 either speaking, or writing, even in the family circle, on do- 
 mestic occurrences so partictilarly disagreeable. 
 
 In June, 1843, Mr. William Boott, with whom Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, though living under the same roof, had 
 long been on terms of total non-intercourse, was actually 
 struck by his brother, in a paroxysm of unprovoked rage, 
 and was compelled, in consequence, to quit the house. He, 
 after consulting two or three of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 best friends respecting him, pursued the same course of 
 silence and reserve, which had been adopted by Mrs. Brooks 
 and myself, except that he thought it his duty to keep Dr. 
 Francis Boott informed of the facts, on which he grounded 
 his own opinion that Mr. J. Wright Boott had become decid- 
 edly insane, and except that he was also drawn into some cor- 
 respondence with Mr. and Mrs. Wells respecting him. 
 
 After a time, Mr. William Boott found himself in a false 
 position, in consequence of very gross misrepresentations/! 
 from some quarter, of the nature and causes of his diffi- 
 culty with his brother. By-and-by, Mrs. Brooks and my- 
 
773 
 
 self began to find ourselves, also, assailed, by one friend 
 after another, with stories, they had heard, of some great mis- 
 conduct on our part towards Mr. J. Wright Boott. The fact 
 of a family dissension was thus, by no agency of ours, fast 
 getting to be notorious, and upon a false version. We were, 
 of course, compelled at last, in self-defence, to make some 
 corrections, and give some explanations to friends, who in- 
 quired of us whether this or that statement, respecting our 
 conduct, was true. While this course of events was going 
 on here, we learned, from London, that like erroneous ac- 
 counts were getting to the ears of our mother and brothers 
 there ; and, at last, the alleged opinions of those relatives, 
 abroad, began to be quoted, here, as evidence against us. 
 
 This unfortunate state of affairs, at home, had then con- 
 tinued a year or two, and was daily growing worse. Hopes, 
 all along, had been entertained that Mrs. Boott might return 
 to Boston ; and there was even an idea, at one time, that Dr. 
 Boott might be induced, also, to remove to this country. If 
 so, it was thought that a better influence might be exerted, 
 by one or both of them, over Mr. J. Wright Boott ; whose 
 insane ideas seemed to us to be fostered and inflated, rather 
 than checked, by the only members of the family with whom 
 he maintained any intercourse, or whom he chose to permit 
 to enter the family mansion, of which, contrary to his moth- 
 er's intention, and without her knowledge, he had absolutely 
 usurped an exclusive possession. 
 
 These hopes of Mrs. Boott's return gradually died away. 
 Meanwhile, tenderness to her aged mother, and unwillingness 
 to annoy her with disagreeable news, had, during this period, 
 restrained Mrs. Brooks from making the slightest allusion to 
 these topics, or even to any topic remotely connected with 
 them, in her letters to her mother, with one single exception ; 
 and that exception did not relate to the conduct of Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott, nor suggest the idea of a family dissension. 
 It was understood that Mr. William Boott's free communica- 
 tions to Dr. Boott were, also, withheld by him from Mrs. 
 Boott, for the reason above suggested. In the mean time, 
 we were informed, and, I shall prove, correctly informed. 
 
774 
 
 that some of the family, here, with whom we unfortunately 
 differed about Mr. J. Wright Boott, were constantly writing 
 to Mrs. Boott, and so was Mr. J. Wright Boott himself, in a 
 tone calculated to create false impressions, and to lead her 
 judgement astray. It seemed possible that Dr. Boott's judge- 
 ment, also, might thus be affected. Under these circum- 
 stances, Mrs. Brooks, (after one or two letters to Dr. Boott, 
 containing allusions to the unhappy state of affairs in the 
 family, and, particularly, to the recent assault upon Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott,) concluded, at last, that it was proper for her to 
 transmit to Dr. Boott, for his own information and gorern- 
 ment, a temperate, and I may say softened, statement of the 
 facts, then a year or two old, particularly concerning Mr. J. 
 Wright Boott's offensive conduct towards herself, and some of 
 its consequences. This was in November, 1843, and is the 
 same statement, which Mr. Lowell prints as transmitted in a 
 letter under the date of November 30, 1842! 
 
 Dr. Boott did not think it best to communicate this to 
 Mrs. Boott, nor did Mrs. Boott receive any accounts, except 
 from her usual correspondents above mentioned, Mrs. Brooks 
 was advised, however, by very judicious and sincere friends of 
 the family, who were well aware of the true state of the case, 
 that it was her duty to make her mother acquainted with 
 facts, which might affect her mother's own movements, and 
 lead, perhaps, to some amendment here. But she was still re- 
 luctant to disturb the tranquillity of Mrs. Boott, though sen- 
 sible that erroneous impressions were conveyed to her from 
 other quarters. 
 
 At length, in March, 1844, tlje death of Mrs. Lyman's 
 husband had occasioned that lady to remove to her moth- 
 er's house in Boston. One of the conditions, on which Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott permitted her to come there, was, that 
 she should not only live separately from him, and in her own 
 apartments, but that neither Mr. Brooks, nor Mrs. Brooks, nor 
 Mr. William Boott, should ever be allowed to visit her! 
 These new occurrences, and the necessity of some perma- 
 nent arrangement for Mrs. Lyman, were the particular occa- 
 sion of a letter from Mrs. Brooks to her mother. She had, at 
 
775 
 
 that time, (March, 1844,) come to the conclusion, in accord- 
 ance with the opinions expressed to her by discreet friends, 
 that it was not right that her mother should be kept, longer, 
 in absolute ignorance, or under an entire misapprehension, of 
 the causes of the very unhappy state of affairs in her own 
 household and family. She, accordingly, for the first time, 
 in that letter, called Mrs. Boott's attention to those sub- 
 jects, referring for particulars to her own above-mentioned 
 statement, sent to Dr. Boott several months before, and to the 
 letters of the last year or two from Mr. William Boott, which, 
 she had heard from him, were in Dr. Boott's hands. 
 
 Now Mr, Lowell, it will be seen, could not have been igno- 
 rant of most of the facts, I now state, and intend to prove ; since 
 all the femily correspondence, existing in London, was trans- 
 mitted to him, as he admits ; [L. p. 128.] and a few garbled 
 extracts from it are printed in his " Reply." Yet, the evidence 
 of these facts is not merely suppressed, but an entire reverse 
 of them is published, as truth ; and, in my belief, a date is 
 altered, by him or by his printer, so that a letter, under a false 
 date, appears to give effect to certain statements of the " Re- 
 ply," respecting the conduct of myself and Mrs. Brooks, 
 which its true date positively contravenes. It is possible, I 
 admit, though by no means likely, that Mrs. Brooks, writing 
 in November, 1843, may have, herself, mistaken the time by 
 one whole year, and may have misdated her letter accord- 
 ingly. But, that her letter was, in fact, written, in Novem- 
 ber, 1843, and not, as the "Reply" represents, in November, 
 1842, is put beyond doubt by Dr. Booths answer to the let- 
 ter, in my possession, as well as by other evidence, to be 
 stated in due time. I must, therefore, believe this important 
 mistake to be Mr. Lowell's, until he proves the contrary, as 
 he easily may, if the letter was really misdated, by simply 
 exhibiting the original, which is in his possession. 
 
 I shall have occasion, also, to show a series of misstate- 
 ments, misquotations, and misrepresentations, in various forms, 
 in this part of the " Reply," which would be quite re- 
 remarkable, if we had not already been through the case of 
 the EiccountB. The reader will be able to judge for himself 
 
776 
 
 whether these are made by design, or whether they have hap- 
 pened only because Mr. Lowell is, — as he says I am, — " ex- 
 ceedingly careless." [L. p. 84.] 
 
 I shall be obliged to state, at some length, circumstances, 
 respecting a certain letter, from me to Mr. Wells, which is 
 made much of in the " Reply." It is the same letter, from 
 which I printed, formerly, a very brief extract, as I supposed,/ 
 which turned out to be incorrect as a quotation, (though not 
 in any thing material to the sense,) in consequence of an im- 
 perfection in my copy of it, as heretofore explained. [Ante, 
 Ch. 4] The intended quotation, it will be remembered, re-, 
 lated only to one particular point ; namely, the refutation of 
 a report of my having acted oppressively towards Mr. Wells, 
 in requiring him to find some person to take a certain mort- 
 gage ofi' my hands, which I had held a long time as security 
 for a considerable sum, lent to Mr. Wells for his personal ac- 
 commodation. I stated that the property had then become 
 worth so much more, than it was worth when I made the 
 loan upon it, that Mr. Wells had no difficulty in effecting a 
 transfer of the mortgage : and that he himself never consid- 1 
 ered that there was any oppression, or any intention of un- 
 kindness, on my part, in that transaction. I proved these 
 statements by extracts from Mr. Wells's own letters to Dr. 
 Boott. But Mr. Lowell, nevertheless, undertakes to contra- 
 dict them. He says, that, if Mr. Wells experienced no trouble 
 in getting the mortgage taken up, it was only because Mr- 
 Boott transacted the business for him ; that Mr. Boott, in 
 truth, found great difficulty in effecting it ; and that he, 
 finally, " obtained the money from Mr. Ebenezer Francis, 
 but only on condition that Mr. Wells should pledge, in addi- 
 tion to the estate, six of his shares in the Merrimack Manu- 
 facturing Company." [L. p. 123.] 
 
 I shall contradict this statement, directly, by Mr. Fran- 
 cis himself, who says he never made any such condition, and 
 and was never asked to lend the money on the security of the 
 estate alone. He, of course, did not refuse such additional se- 
 curity as was voluntarily offered to him. But, I shall show 
 that it was only because the business was managed by so indis-: 
 
77^ 
 
 creet an agent as Mr. Boott, that such additional security was 
 needlessly offered, and that the estate, alone, was quite suffi- 
 cient to satisfy any capitalist, who desired to make a long 
 loan of that amount on mortgage. 
 
 The residue of my letter to Mr. Wells related to other 
 matters ; and, after much deliberation, I concluded, with the 
 advice of my counsel, not to print it in my former pamphlet, 
 because it was foreign to the direct issue, then open between 
 me and Mr. Lowell, and involved explanations, which, — 
 though very material to a right understanding of the causes 
 of trouble in the Boott family, — could not be made without 
 implicating other persons, whom I wished to keep as clear as 
 possible from all harm by this controversy, nor without disturb- 
 ing the feelings of Mr. Wells, an old friend, for whom I have 
 always entertained, and still entertain, a true regard. But Mr. 
 Lowell, failing in his usual sagacity, and judging by some 
 standard of his own, — certainly not by mine, ^probably had 
 the weakness to suppose that I desired, on my own account, to 
 conceal a part of the truth ; and that I withheld this letter, 
 for that reason. Mr. Lowell, perhaps, thought the letter a 
 good illustration of the idea, conveyed by him to the jury 
 of inquest, when he described me as " a violent man;" [Ante, 
 p. 77;] and, having himself but a very imperfect knowledge 
 of the facts, in this part of the case, he seems to have believ- 
 ed that such a letter might be made to appear so unreasona- 
 ble and harsh towards Mr. Wells, that showing it to the 
 reader would serve to confirm the notion, every where held 
 out, of unreasonable and harsh conduct on my part towards 
 Mr. Boott; for it is quite a point of the "Reply" to lead 
 its readers to believe, that my course of action, two or 
 three years afterwards, concerning the disposition of the fam- 
 ily property, did not result from a real want of confidence in 
 Mr. Boott's good management, nor from any doubt of the 
 truth of the accounts, but that it was dictated, solely, by old 
 feelings of animosity, arising out of a personal quarrel. At any 
 rate, Mr Lowell appears to have thought that the letter might 
 do me harm, and serve at the same time to divert attention 
 from himself. 
 
778 
 
 He prevailed upon Mr. Wells, it seems, to permit him to 
 publish this letter ; and he has published it, with many com- 
 ments, making my conduct towards Mr. Wells quite a prom- 
 inent topic, — as if that had any thing to do with the real 
 issue. This I esteem very unfortunate, — not for me, but for 
 other persons. But what cares Mr. Lowell for such conse- 
 quences ? 
 
 As to the mere style of the letter, I shall not undertake to 
 defend that. It was written in haste, of which it bears marks ; 
 and it was written under excitement j not without good, cause. 
 But I shall go to the bottom and substance of the letter. I 
 shall show that it was written with an honest and true- 
 hearted purpose, and, as I formerly remarked, in no spirit of 
 unkindness to Mr. Wells ; — that every word in it, even that 
 which may seem harsh, is perfectly true, Emd amply justified 
 by the facts, which led to it ; — that, owing to the course Mr. 
 Boott, (not then reputed insane,) was pursuing, a state of 
 aflfairs had arisen in the family, in which it was impossible 
 for any one of them to remain absolutely neutral, and that, 
 in fact, no one of them did ; — ^that the conduct of Mr. Wells's 
 own family, in connexion with Mr. Boott, had been such as to 
 call for his paternal remonstrance, at least ; — that my relations 
 to one of his sons, (Mr. Francis B. Wells,) were most peculiar; 
 (this I shall prove by letters of confidence from Mr. Francis B, 
 Wells himself, which I have never yet shown to any one, ex- 
 cept my counsel ;) and that they were such as to authorize, and 
 in my judgement require, under the circumstances, the strong 
 representations, which I made concerning him, for his own 
 benefit, and the benefit of his father and family. In brief, I shall 
 show that a case then existed when a temperate and firm in- 
 terference, on the part of Mr. Wells, might probably have 
 prevented a part, at least, of the mischief, which followed, 
 and of which I then had a terrible foreboding, as the letter 
 plainly proves, and as events afterwards justified even be- 
 yond my fears. 
 
 I can not, in a mere general outline, go further into partic- 
 ulars on this head. It would be a great relief to me, if I 
 could see my way never to do so. I desire, however, to say, 
 
779 
 
 that I mean not, now or hereafter, to impute blame to Mr. 
 Wells for pursuing the course, which his judgement, misin- 
 formed upon many facts, may have dictated as proper for him, 
 though I still think that his judgement was mistaken. Neither 
 do I mean to impute to any member of the Wells family 
 greater blame than that of very indiscreet conduct, causing 
 much thoughtless provocation, and tending, undesignedly, it 
 must be presumed, to increase and extend the family dis- 
 sension. But my opinion is, and this I shall endeavour to 
 maintain, that a different course, pursued by Mr. Wells and 
 his family, would have averted much evil ; and that it was 
 impossible for myself and Mrs. Brooks, under the actual cir- 
 cumstances, to maintain the same harmonious intercourse, as 
 formerly, with that branch of the family. Dr. Boott, it will 
 appear, reprehended, as strongly as we did, the injudicious 
 action of the ladies in that family ; and he did so, judging, 
 not from our representations, but from their own letters. He 
 differed from us, at that time, only in supposing, upon the 
 partial information he had, in London, of the position of affairs 
 here, that we might, and should, have made a distinction be- 
 tween them and Mr. Wells, in the continuance of family 
 association. Dr. Boott's confidence, in the impartial justice 
 of Mr. Lowell's disinterested representations, may have, since, 
 altered his views of the whole case ; but, what his views were 
 at the time, and what they were founded upon, will appear, 
 very distinctly, by his own letters ; and I think his idea of 
 drawing, and preserving, a marked line between Mr. Wells 
 and his own family, in respect to social intercourse, will ap- 
 pear to have been more amiable than practical. 
 
 Many smaller matters I shall not now anticipate. But the 
 reader may rest assured, that I shall not omit to go to the bot- 
 tom of the argument, that there was reasonable grourid for Mr. 
 Boott, as a sane man, to entertain certain ideas, which, the 
 " Reply " for the most part admits that he did entertain, in the 
 last years of his life ; namely, the idea, that certain near rela- 
 tives, and certain former intimate friends, were combined in a 
 league against him ; — the idea, that Mr. William Boott was in 
 the habit of interesting and purloining his letters, and was 
 
•780 
 
 aided, in doing so, by the clerks in the post-office ; — the idea, 
 that he was surrounded by spies, — that Mrs. Lyman was one 
 of them, — and that she was placed by me in the same house 
 with himself, in order that she might serve me in that useful 
 capacity. These, and certain other phantoms of injustice 
 and persecution, equally extravagant, it is seriously argued, in 
 the " Reply," upon certain evidence there exhibited, were 
 quite rational ideas ! That is, the circumstances are said to 
 be such, that a man, described as possessing, not only the most 
 amiable traits of character, but, a vigorous intellect, and per- 
 ceptions without a cloud, might well have drawn those infer- 
 ences from the facts before him. 
 
 Some of these charges seem almost too ridiculous for 
 answer. The only overt act, attributed to me, in relation to 
 these subjects, is, I believe, the having placed Mrs. Lyman 
 in the house as my spy ! In respect to that, I happen to be 
 able to prove, that I had nothing to do with her going to 
 that house, and that Mr. Boott, as a sane man, must have 
 known it ; — that her husband's death made it necessary that 
 she should seek some new abode ; — that Mrs. Brooks and 
 myself invited her to make our house her home, until she could 
 make some other arrangement more agreeable to herself; — 
 that other friends advised her that her mother's house, as the 
 common family home, kept open at Mrs. Boott's expense, 
 and then unoccupied, except by Mr. J. Wright Boott and the 
 servants, was the most proper place for her to go to ; — that 
 her removal to that house was privately agreed upon, between 
 herself and Mr. Boott, on certain terms, which he prescribed, 
 and which she, though she considered them hard, assented 
 to ; — that her principal adviser, in concluding the arrange- 
 ment, was Mr. S. C. Thwing, who had been selected to ad- 
 minister upon her husband's estate, — an" office, which I de- 
 clined ;^-that he was the only person, besides Mrs. Lyman 
 herself, who conferred with Mr. Boott upon the subject ; — 
 that Mrs. Brooks, when she was informed of the plan by Mrs. 
 Lyman, earnestly remonstrated with her against it, in the 
 presence of Mr. Thwing, and, expressly, upon the ground that 
 it was not safe for Mrs. Lyman to live in the house with 
 
781 
 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, in his then state of mind, and after 
 the personal outrage, which he had committed on Mr. Will- 
 iam Boott. Mrs. Lyman, however, could not bring herself, at 
 that time, to helieye that Mr. J. Wright Boott was actually in- 
 sane ; and, notwithstanding conduct towards herself, which, 
 it would seem, nothing short of insanity could havfe prompted, 
 she did not then view it in that light ; but, attributing his 
 harsh behaviour to a less pardonable cause, and apprehend- 
 ing no personal danger from living under the same roof, she 
 determined to adhere to her plan. For myself, I was not, at 
 that time, looked to, even for counsel, in Mrs. Lyman's 
 affairs. 
 
 In short, all that part of the " Reply," which relates to my 
 conduct in family matters, will be found, if I am capable of 
 estimating the weight of evidence, in a case which concerns 
 myself, to be as great an imposition upon the public, as that 
 which relates to the accounts. 
 
 My only causes of regret are, that I can not expose the 
 " Reply," here, as it deserves, without occasioning pain to 
 persons, who are not guilty of the libel ; nor without making 
 a use of private letters, from persons yet living, as well as 
 from persons deceased, for which these confidential commu- 
 nications were never intended ; nor without seeming to be 
 my own trumpeter, by printing, as the best proof of my 
 amicable relations to the various members of the family, 
 acknowledgements and commendations, from warm-hearted 
 people, some of which I am positively ashamed to print, for 
 the simple reason that they run so far beyond the humble 
 merit of mere friendly services, which common good will, and 
 fortmiate circumstances, enabled me to render. 
 
782 
 
 CHAPTER LXVIII. 
 
 A RECAPITULATION, AND SUMMARY OF THE CONTROVERST, AS IT 
 
 NOW STANDS. 
 
 Some of the collateral topics, which have been discussed 
 in connexion with the subject of Mr. Boott's accounts, prop- 
 erly belong to that subject, from the nature of the transac- 
 tions. Others have been forced into the discussion by the 
 allegations, or suggestions, of the " Reply." Those, which 
 relate to Mr. Lowell's personal conduct, are placed in the 
 same connexion, because the conduct, complained of, is be- 
 lieved to have been a consequence of his agency and interest 
 in the settlement of the accounts. 
 
 The reader may well have become wearied, in following 
 out the numerous ramifications of a subject so complex. It 
 has, necessarily, required the exploration of an extensive range 
 of facts, not always easy of detection. The subject is made 
 still more complicated, and perhaps confused, by the false is- 
 sues interposed, and by snares for the understanding dexter- 
 ously thrown in the way, by the opposite party. 
 
 The process of disentangling, exposing, making perfectly 
 plain, and establishing by evidence, the realities of such a 
 case is, necessarily, a slow one ; especially with a stock of ma- 
 terials, in the way of proof, so very slender as that, which the 
 author of the " Reply " intended to leave at my disposal. I 
 have derived, notwithstanding, much valuable aid from his 
 pages. For this, I should be bound to express a sense of 
 grateful obligation, were it not that the contribution seems to 
 have been wholly involuntary, on his part. I believe that all 
 the Eidmissions of the " Reply " will be found to arise out of 
 the silent operation of that general law, which forbids the 
 making of a consistent whole by the mixture of falsehood 
 and truth. Ingenuity, so exercised, rarely, if ever, fails to 
 
783 
 
 defeat itself, — producing a misjointed and impossible mon- 
 ster. 
 
 In a matter of accounts, I have, of course, been obliged to 
 proceed step by step. The state of the controversy has re- 
 quired me to pause at each, for the purpose of showing what my 
 former statement was, what Mr. Lowell's is, and what are 
 the real facts, according to the evidence, which is submitted 
 to the reader. I have thought it best, too, to answer false sug- 
 gestions, and to remove obstructions, on the spot where they 
 presented themselves, though at some expense to the progress 
 of the argument, rather than to leave them behind me, and 
 appear, at the time, to overleap or avoid them. This method 
 of proceeding, though desultory and digressive, seemed to me, 
 upon the whole, the most appropriate, if not the only, mode 
 of dealing, effectually and finally, with the brilliant gener- 
 alities, ingenious sophisms, unscrupulous misstatements, and 
 taking displays of rhetoric, irony and sarcasm, by which, 
 however iU-suited to the subject, the author of the " Reply " 
 has contrived, not unsuccessfully for the moment, both to 
 amuse, and to mislead, even intelligent readers, who commit- 
 ted the fundamental error of taking it for granted that un- 
 qualified assertions, boldly made by Mr. Lowell, must have 
 a solid foundation in truth. 
 
 I have taken more than usual pains in this branch of the 
 case, because, as I remarked in the outset, the question of 
 the account lies, in my apprehension, at the bottom of my 
 whole controversy with this gentleman. Not that any pecun- 
 iary interest was supposed to be at stake, when I entered 
 the lists with Mr. Lowell. In that point of view, it can not 
 fail to be understood, that, whether the accounts were right 
 or wrong, real or fictitious, the result, so far as money is con- 
 cerned, was, in my own belief, quite as indifferent to me, as 
 it can be to any of my readers ; since all my claims on the 
 late Mr. J. Wright Boott, whatever they may have been, and 
 whatever they might otherwise be worth, I had voluntarily re- 
 leased twice over. What the effect of subsequent discoveries 
 may be, on such a settlement as was in fact made, is another 
 question. I only mean to remind the reader, that it was 
 
784 
 
 not the account itself, neither its form, nor its substance, 
 which, originally, stirred this controversy ; but, as I former- 
 ly remarked, the use covertly made of it by Mr. Lowell to 
 rmf injury, coupled with an obstinate refusal, when the fact 
 was discovered, to admit, retract, explain, or concede, any 
 thing. The errors of Mr. Boott, in the management of lijs 
 father's estate, and in all other matters, — ^his accounts, with 
 all their imperfections, — ^his mistakes, and his hallucinations 
 of every kind,— would have slumbered with him quietly in 
 the grave to this day, but for the unfair dealing towards me, 
 in the first place, and the singular pertinacity, in the next, 
 of a gentleman, who professes to be his friend and vindica- 
 tor, and yet compels me, in self-defence, to make these pri- 
 vate affairs subjects of a controversial discussion. 
 
 Prominent among these subjects is the truth of an account, 
 for which Mr. Lowell has made himself responsible. His 
 connexion with the origin of the account, the manner of its 
 settlement through his agency, the use he afterwards made 
 of it, and the character of his printed statements respecting 
 it, in answer to my former remarks, have caused this to be- 
 come the leading topic of our controversy. It is, besides, the 
 only one difficult in its nature to make perfectly compre- 
 hensible to most readers. This I hope has been done. But 
 it seems indispensable, before proceeding further with the 
 less formidable subjects glanced at in the last chapter, to 
 take some retrospect of the ground, which has been gone 
 over in so much detail, and with so many digressions, for the 
 purpose of noting the principal steps, collecting results into 
 a general view, and seeing how the main question now stands 
 between me and Mr. Lowell. 
 
 I began with the assertion that Mr. Lowell was, in truth, 
 the assailing party. [Ante, p. 3.] 
 
 In proof of this, I referred to statements made behind my 
 back, on the occasion of an inquest held upon the body of 
 the late Mr. J. Wright Boott, and to the impression they pro- 
 duced. I showed that Mr. Lowell, acting, professedly, as 
 my friend, and as a friend of the family, was the only per- 
 son present, who assumed, in our behalf, to direct the course 
 
785 
 
 of inquiry ; — that no evidence Was introduced, though much, 
 to Mr. Lowell's knowledge, existed, tending to show unsound- 
 ness of mind in the deceased, as a means of accounting for 
 his suicide ; — that, on the contrary, Mr. Lowell himself be- 
 came a voluntary witness, and testified that, duHng an inti- 
 mate acquaintance of nearly thirty years, he had never seen 
 any indication of it ; — that he also stated, in substance, to the 
 jury, that the deceased, being a man of fine feelings, great 
 integrity, and a nice sense of honour, had been much troubled 
 by the fact that he had been charged, untruly, with misman- 
 aging his father's estate ; — ^that he had been summoned, by 
 some of the heirs, to settle his accounts as executor ; — -that 
 the accounts were disputed ; — that Mr. Lbwell himself as- 
 sisted him in making them up ; — that, instead of any defi- 
 ciency, there was found to be a clear balance diie to him of 
 $25,000 ; — that these accounts, though disputed, were al- 
 lowed and passed by the judge of probate, and were " a tri- 
 umphant vindication of Mr. Boott ;" — that, notwithstanding 
 this, some of the heirs, declaring their want of confidence in 
 his agency, persisted in refusing to exectite a certain deed, 
 needful to carry into efiiect a fair bargain made by him, at 
 which he was greatly troubled in mind ; — that Mr. Lowell 
 named me as one of the heirs, who had caused this family 
 fend, and spoke of me particularly as a " Violent man," and 
 attributed the death of Mr. Boott to those unhappy dissen- 
 sions, arising but of tiiy groundless charges against him. 
 [Ante,Ch. 9.] 
 
 I further showed that a letter was produced by Mr. Lowell 
 at the inquest, said to have beeii written by the deceased 
 shortly before his death ; — that this letter was not submitted 
 to the inspection of the jury, but that a portion of it was 
 read to them, by Mr. Lowell, declaring the writer's intention 
 of taking that method "to end his wretchedness ;"— that the 
 reason given for not reading the residue was, that it contained 
 "charges against some person or persons,— naturally under- 
 stood, from all that was said, to include me, — which the writer 
 was not there to substantiate; — [Ante, pp. 113 to 115.] th^t 
 the jury were impressed, by all this, with the belief that 
 
786 
 
 Mr. Boott was not under any influence of a deranged imagin- 
 ation, but had become wearied of life, with good reason, 
 in consequence of the unjust and cruel treatment he had ex- 
 perienced, chiefly from me ; — and that, in conformity with 
 this belief, their verdict established the simple fact of sui- 
 cide, and negatived, by implication, the idea of insanity. 
 
 It is true, that Mr. Lowell does not admit that he made, on 
 that occasion, the greater part of the remarks and suggestions 
 attributed to him. On the contrary, he positively denies some 
 of them ; others he denies by implication and argument. I 
 hold it, nevertheless, to be established, beyond question, that 
 he did, partly by direct statement, and partly by insinuation, 
 convey those ideas to the jury ; and I have only to refer the 
 reader to some of the eeirly chapters of this volume, in which 
 the evidence on that head is stated and analyzed, and the de- 
 clarations of the various witnesses who were present, whether 
 cited by me, or by Mr. Lowell, are carefully compared with 
 each other, and with the statements of the " Reply." The 
 conclusion, to which they lead, is, in my mind, inevitable. 
 [Ante, Ch. 9, 13, 14] 
 
 It further appears, without contradiction, that, immediately 
 after this verdict, rumours arose, and were extensively be- 
 lieved, — ^particularly, I may now add, in Mr. Lowell's large 
 and influential circle of acquaintance,-T-7to the eflect that the 
 death of Mr. Boott was justly attributable to my inexcusable 
 conduct, conjointly with that of some other members of the 
 family. 
 
 Now I ask, in the first place, whether these statements 
 from Mr. Lowell, in the hearing of a number of persons, and 
 these common rumours, inunediately following them, do not 
 stand in the relation of probable cause and natural eflect ? If 
 they do, was I not right in holding Mr. Lowell answerable 
 for that consequence, and requiring him to justify the state- 
 ments which had caused it ? If he has failed to do so, in any 
 essential particular contributing to the general conclusion, — 
 if any part of his statement, imputing the death of Mr. Boott, 
 directly or indirectly, to my error and misconduct, was untrue 
 in fact, and contrary to his better knowledge, — or, even if any 
 
787 
 
 part of it was literally trae, and yet pointed to that false con- 
 clusion, in consequence of his omission to state other circum- 
 stances equally well known to him, — in short, if there was 
 the slightest infusion of falsehood, either by suggestion, or 
 suppression, in the entire statement, and, especially, if the 
 statement itself was an unnecessary statement, — I ask whether 
 this did not constitute, under the circumstances in which I 
 was placed, a very gross and aggravated assault upon my 
 character ? Was it the less aggravated by the circumstance 
 that it was made in my absence, and without my knowledge, 
 and under the guise of executing an office of friendship ? 
 
 All that part of his statement to the jury, which related to 
 the accounts, and to Mr. Boott's management of his father's 
 estate, and to my supposed error and misconduct in that re- 
 gard, I think I have shown to be essentially untrue, and that 
 Mr. Lowell must have known it to be so. The reader shall 
 judge. 
 
 I next addressed myself to certain plausible objections of 
 Mr. Lowell, to my former pamphlet, as an unnecessary pub- 
 lication of family dissensions, and an unjustifiable attack on 
 the memory of the dead. 
 
 To this end I showed that Mr. Lowell's own conduct, and 
 other circumstances, not under my control, left me no other 
 practicable form of redress, — at least none reasonable in its na- 
 ture, and likely to be effectual for my vindication, — than that, 
 which I reluctantly adopted as my last resort. [Ante, Ch. 1 
 to Ch. 3.] 
 
 The reader will remember that I was entirely ignorant, for 
 more than eighteen months, that any statement had been made 
 by Mr. Lowell on the occasion of the inquest, other than that 
 which appeared in the coroner's officied report ; and his state- 
 ment, according to that report, was confined to an expression 
 of disbelief and ignorance of any thing indicating insanity. 
 Such a declaration from Mr. Lowell took me by surprise, for 
 reasons that I have stated. [Ante, Ch. 64.] But the declara- 
 tion, however surprising, afforded nothing that I could fairly 
 take hold of. I had no right to call Mr. Lowell to account 
 for that negative testimony in a mere matter of opinion ; nor 
 
188 
 
 coul^ I say, upon tjiat information only, that the reports 
 concerning me took theii:, origin froni hiiU- The only tangi- 
 ble circumstance, then kno\vn to me, which seemed to give 
 countenance to thei^e, injurious runiours, poin,ted to a different 
 source. I rpfer tp the Igtt^r written by, the deceased in his last 
 moments. This, I^Ir. X'qy^ell told me, contaiiipd certain charges 
 against me and othif i: niembers of the family. Such charges, 
 if known as; corning from such a source, might tend to, account 
 for, the rym,oitirs, whiph thickened against- me ; but IVfr. Lowell 
 also tpld n;i,e,tb3.t nobody, but himself, had ever seen, or, should 
 see, the letter, aind I w^s ignorant of what he had said to the 
 jury about it, I ha,d reason, it is true, to distrust the exact 
 truth of lijs declar,atiop tljat h^ had not shown the letter to 
 any one. Parts of it, ^t leatst, appeared to haye been either 
 showi| or read to thp c^orpner. I knfiW, of no other instance ; 
 and. for this th^re was t^ie excuse of a. supposed duty to the 
 coroner. [Ante, p. 727.] I could not be sure that the re- 
 ports, to my injury, carne ffpm that single official communica- 
 tipi^. I had rea^jOn, it is tr^e, tq syspect that I had been misi- 
 l^d respecting Mi:. Lowe^U's intentions in volunteering to su- 
 perintend the inquest. I had been surprised by his clear 
 and positive testimony tp the point of Mr. Boott's sanity, af- 
 tejr what had, so recently, passed between us, and by the ver- 
 dict to whjch, his testimony le,d, arid by his possession of a let- 
 ter frpii^ the deceased so soon after his assurance to me that 
 he had received no such letter ; and I was greatly dissatisfied 
 with other parts of his conduct, which had then become 
 known tp nie. [Ante, Ch. 62 to Ch. 66.] I thought he 
 had dealt by m^ ungenerously, and unfairly, in not acquaint- 
 ing, me with the fact of his havirig the letter before the. 
 inquest. I doubted, even, whether it was not in his pos- 
 session at, the tim9 of our conversation, when he gave me 
 to understand, ott^ejcyrise, I was sure, at any rate, that he 
 had riot told me the whole ir,uth, when he s^iid nq one had 
 seen thCj letter, without excepting the case of the coroner. 
 Bjit, although niy c^oiifidence in Mr. Lowell was lost, all this, 
 afforded me np surq ground for imputing to A^ the princi- 
 psjl grieyancp,, under whicl^l/was suff^ryig. ' I considered 
 
789 
 
 myself to have been very shabbily treated, by a gentleman, 
 whom I had supposed to be a friend, and fit to be trusted ; 
 but that was all I could say. I could not lay my finger, with 
 certainty, upon any act done, or word uttered, by him, as 
 the immediate cause of my siifiering. 
 
 The letter of the deceased, with suspicions that its con- 
 tents had been unnecessarily made known, was all that then 
 appeared for a wronged man to act upon. But I believed that 
 letter of the deceased, as I did his suicide, to be the work 
 of insanity. Others, however, who might seem to have had 
 equal opportunity of judging, would not admit that he was 
 insane. Mr. Lowell had sworn that he was not, so far as 
 he knew ; and he had assured me that this letter, in particu- 
 lar, "is written with great calmness, as befitted the occasion, 
 and evinces no aberration of mind." [Ante, p. 724] This, 
 to be sure, I did not believe one word of ; since I was also 
 told, by Mr. Lowell, not only of charges against me, which, 
 I knew, had no sound foundation, but also, that the letter 
 purported to give a history of the family dissensions, and 
 of Mr. Boott's supposed grievances ; and, on these subjects, 
 I felt a perfect conviction, as I still do, that Mr. Boott could 
 not have written, sanely, at any time, within the two or three 
 last years of his life. But how could I make others sensible 
 of this, without knowing, precisely, what the language and 
 statements of the letter were? And how could I avoid the 
 effect of such statements, coming from a man whose integ- 
 rity was not questioned, and who was no longer alive, to an- 
 swer for what he had written, or said, unless I could establish 
 the fact that he was insane when he wrote the letter, and 
 show that these injurious statements, attributed to him, were 
 among the hallucinations of a diseased mind ? 
 
 The reader will remember, that, under these impressions, 
 I, took every possible step, proper for me to take, to ob- 
 tain a sight of the letter, as a necessary preliminary to ena- 
 ble me to judge, miderstandingly, whether I was called upon 
 to defend myself, in any form, against its charges or not. Mr. 
 Lowell obstinately refused tp show it to me, and could only 
 be brought to qualify his former declarations, concerning the 
 
790 
 
 marked sanity of the production, so far as to say that its 
 charges against me produced no effect on Mm. He was asked 
 whether he would consent to put that in writing, for my sat- 
 isfaction and defence, so far as it might go ; and his answer 
 was, that he should be willing to do so only upon condition 
 that Mr. Boott's will should not be disputed, either by Mr. 
 William Boott, or by me, on the score of incapacity in the tes- 
 tator ; — in other words, that, without even seeing the letter, 
 both Mr. William Boott and myself should, — by allowing such a 
 will, disinheriting us, to pass without question, — impliedly ad- 
 mit, contrary to our own belief, that the charges said to have 
 been made by the writer of the letter, who was also the 
 maker of the will, were not hallucinations, but the deliber- 
 ate, solemn, dying declarations of a man of sound mind and 
 disposing memory, whose integrity stood unquestioned. [Ante, 
 Ch. 66.] 
 
 The attempt to impose this unreasonable condition, — '■ 
 coupled with an obstinate refusal to show me a letter so nearly 
 concerning myself, and with the promulgation of Mr. Lowell's 
 opinion that it was the work of a sound mind, and with the fact 
 that the existence of the letter, and the nature of its charges, 
 had, by some means, become notorious, — determined me, it 
 will be recollected, to adopt a course, which might never have 
 occurred to me, but for Mr. Lowell's Suggestion ; namely, to 
 dispute the probate of the will, for the purpose of bringing the 
 sanity of the testator to the test of a judicial decision ; and, at 
 the trial, to compel a production of the letter, that its insane 
 delusions might be exposed. Mr. William Boott, for reasons 
 similar to mine, coincided with me in this course. But it will 
 be remembered that Mrs. William Lyman, afterwards, deter- 
 mined, under advice, to dispute the probate of the will on her 
 own account ; and that both Mr. William Boott and myself, not 
 desiring, or intending, to obtain for ourselves any pecuniary 
 benefit from the result of the litigation, assigned to Mrs. Ly- 
 man all our right, title and interest, as heirs at law, in the 
 estate of Mr. J. Wright Boott. The consequence was, that 
 she became the only opponent of the will, who possessed a 
 legal, or pecuniary, interest, adverse to its allowance. Hence, 
 
791 
 
 she was, necessarily, the sole appellant from the pro forma 
 decree of the judge of probate. [Ante, Ch. 3.] 
 
 This assignment of my pecuniary interest to Mrs. Lyman, 
 was, as it turned out, a mistake on my part ; since I thereby 
 deprived myself of all personal control over the suit. Mrs. 
 Lyman, afterwards, from motives of her own, without consult- 
 ing either me, or Mr. William Boott, withdrew her appeal. 
 This gave effect to the decree appealed from, and established 
 the will. It was too late for any other party to appeal ; and 
 I found myself, thus, unexpectedly, precluded from all possi- 
 bility of showing the insanity of the late Mr. J. Wright Boott 
 by judicial proof. I was equally deprived of all means of 
 compelling, by process of law, a production of the letter, 
 which Mr. Lowell refused to permit me to see. [Ante, Ch. 3.] 
 
 The reader will also remember that it was not until after 
 the suit, concerning the will, had thus suddenly terminated, 
 that I became informed of Mr. Lowell's statements to the 
 jury, a year and a half before, not contained in the official re- 
 port of the inquest. The truth, then, for the first time, 
 flashed upon me, beyond my former suspicions. I perceived 
 that, if my information was correct, Mr. Lowell had made 
 statements, in matters of fact, untrue in their substance and 
 eflect, deeply injurious to me, and fully adequate, in my 
 judgement, when connected with the circumstance of the 
 letter, and with the verdict found at the inquest, to account 
 for the rumours, which had thereupon arisen, and under the 
 effects of which my reputation still suffered. [Ante, Ch. 1 
 to 3.] 
 
 My first business, of course, was to ascertain that there was 
 no material mistake in the information I had received ; and, 
 if not, to ascertain whether any voluntary reparation would be 
 made by Mr. Lowell. The reader hardly needs to be re- 
 minded of the correspondence invited by me for those pur- 
 poses. He can not have forgotten Mr. Lowell's evasion of 
 all direct answer, so long as it was possible to evade, and his 
 refusal, when evasion was possible no longer, to make any an- 
 swer to my inquiries respecting the statements he had made in 
 matters of fact, — especially those relating to the aceaunis and 
 
792 
 
 their settlement. His Very slender excuse for the refusal 
 can scarcely have been forgotten, nor his peremptory denial 
 that any wrong had been done to me, for which reparation 
 was due, or respecting which I had any right to demand an 
 explanation. [Ante, Ch. 8.] 
 
 I was thus compelled, as my next step, to resort to proof 
 before a magistrate, by declarations from nearly every member 
 of the coroner's jury, of the nature and substance of Mr. Lo- 
 well's statements to them. [Ante, Ch. 9.] They were such, 
 and the ground taken by Mr. Lowell in our correspondence 
 was such, that, in the absence, as I was advised, of any legal 
 remedy, or means of instituting an inquiry at law into the 
 truth of the case, no alternative remained but either to sub- 
 mit in silence to very gross imputations upon my character, 
 founded on these false statements of Mr. Lowell, or to at- 
 tempt my own vindication in print. [Ante, Ch. 2.] 
 
 This necessity gave birth to my former pamphlet, — ^not 
 published, nor even very generally circulated, but placed in 
 the hands of those persons, whom I wished to inform of such 
 facts as seemed to me essential, to set me right in their es- 
 timation. The character of that pamphlet, — its tenderness 
 towards the memory of Mr. J. Wright Boott, when I was 
 compelled to speak of his errors, — its reserve on points af- 
 fecting other members of the family, maintained even to the 
 injury of my own defence, while I was compelled, neverthe- 
 less, to give some partial insight into the causes of the family 
 dissension, — its moderation even towards Mr. Lowell, in a 
 case of great personal injury suffered at his hands, — ^these are 
 matters, for which I may confidently appeal to the pamphlet 
 itself; especially now that the truth of the case may be 
 judged of by the light of the further disclosures contained in 
 these pages. This pamphlet of mine, the reader sees, was 
 followed by a " Reply " from Mr. Lowell, extensively circu- 
 lated, and of so remarkable a character, that one hardly knows 
 which to be most amazed at, the audacity of its assertions, or 
 the overbearing pretension of its style. Nothing short of 
 unquestionable verity, shown by the clearest proof, could 
 justify, or exeuae, either the one or the other. It is enough, 
 
793 
 
 for my present purpose of recapitulation, to remind the reader 
 that, after partly denying, and partly seeking to excuse, the 
 several matters, which Mr. Lowell is proved to have declared 
 before the coroner's jury, this "Reply" reiterates, in print, 
 the very same matters, in substance, as truths, and promul- 
 gates, also, under the pretence of repelling an imputed attack 
 on the dead, much new matter, defamatory of me, as well as 
 of others, and so arranged, that the publication amounts, in 
 reality, to an affirmation of the truth and justice of the worst 
 rumours circulated against me, originating, as they did, main- 
 ly, if not solely, from Mr. Lowell's own former remarks and 
 suggestions. [Ante, Ch. 8.] 
 
 If, then, these former remarks and suggestions, as well as 
 those of the " Reply," are shown to have been un\i8arranta- 
 ble, I trust I shall not have failed to satisfy every impartial 
 reader that Mr. Lowell was, from the beginning, and, by the 
 character of his late publication, still is, in truth, the attack- 
 ing party ; that he has, wilfully, provoked and compelled the 
 present contest ; that his pretence of imputing to me a de- 
 sign, and desire, to asperse the memory of the late Mr. Boott, 
 as the motive of my app)earance in print, and his pretence 
 of arrogating to himself the magnanimous part of a disinter- 
 ested friend of the family, and vindicator of the dead, are 
 mere hollow pretences, set up for the purpose of screening 
 himself ; and that, finding me shut out by circumstances from 
 a judicial investigation, he has pertinaciously excluded me 
 from every other alternative, consistent with a just regard to 
 ray own reputation, but that of appeal to the judgement of 
 our common acquaintance, for the trial of the truth of our 
 respective statements. 
 
 I come then to the question of truth ; and the argument 
 lies, briefly, thus : — 
 
 The original attack upon me consisted in making certain 
 verbal representations, which caused it to be believed, by 
 many persons, that the late John Wright Boott died the vic- 
 tim of a family conspiracy, of which I was the leader. The 
 attack, in its present shape, goes the further length of at- 
 tempting to prove, that this was a belief well founded in fact, 
 
794 
 
 and that Mr. Boott himself rationally concluded that death 
 was his only refuge from his persecutors. 
 
 The portion of the " Reply," which has now been thor- 
 oughly examined, takes up that specification of this general 
 charge, which most especially relates to myself. It will be 
 found to embrace almost the only overt acts of mine, which 
 are subjects of complaint. The residue of the "Reply" 
 rests, almost entirely, upon the conduct and language of 
 other persons, supposed to reflect upon me through the no- 
 tion of a conspiracy. 
 
 The specification, I speak of, may be stated, in substance, 
 thus : — Persecution of the late Mr. J. Wright Boott con- 
 cerning his accounts and dealings as executor, accompanied 
 by false accusations of gross mismanagement in that ca- 
 pacity, occasioning great loss to parties interested under his 
 father's will ; and that these /aZse accusations were wilfully 
 persisted in, after reasonable proof that they were unfounded. 
 
 The alleged proof of ih.e falsehood oi these imputed accusa- 
 tions is the allowance, by the judge of probate, of a disputed 
 account, claiming a balance of f 25,000 as due to Mr. Boott. 
 That probate decree is set up as a bar, in honour and con- 
 science, as well as in law, to all inquiry concerning the real- 
 ity of the balance claimed and alloAved. [Ante, Ch. 16.] But, 
 without relying wholly upon that, the " Reply " proceeds 
 with an elaborate endeavour to satisfy its readers, that the 
 account, with certain explanations of its seeming statements, 
 is, substantially, a just and true account ; that Mr. Boott was, 
 in the main, an excellent manager of the trust property in 
 his hands ; that his errors, if there were any, were errors of 
 form only ; and that no loss was suflered, by any party inter- 
 ested under his father's will, in consequence of his manage- 
 ment of the estate. 
 
 My answer, in the foregoing pages, has been, in the first 
 place, — That the allowance of the account, by the judge of 
 probate, proves nothing as to its correctness, and constitutes no 
 impediment, in the pending issue between me and Mr. Lowell, 
 to a full and free examination of its statements, or of its 
 omissions : — 
 
r9o 
 
 1. Because it was passed without examination or proof, and 
 only by consent, under an agreement oi compromise between 
 me and Mr. Lowell, which purposely avoided and excluded all 
 inquiry into the account, in consideration of Mr. Boott's re- 
 signing his trust, and with the intention, mutually expressed 
 between me and Mr. Lowell, of burying forever the dissen- 
 sions, which had arisen respecting Mr. Boott's conduct as ex- 
 ecutor : — [Ante, Ch. 16.] 
 
 2. Because the account was passed upon a false represent- 
 ation by Mr. Lowell to the judge of probate, supported by 
 the unauthorized signature of a sealed instrument in my be- 
 half. For it will be remembered, that, by means of that instru- 
 ment so signed, it was represented that I had consented to a 
 general discharge of Mr. Boott from all claims, held by me in 
 my capacity of trustee, jointly with Mr. Lowell, as well as 
 from claims held on my individual account ; and I have 
 shown that this use of my name was made, to pass the ac- 
 count, notwithstanding Mr. Lowell's perfect knowledge that I 
 positively refused to be a party to the discharge in that ca- 
 pacity, or to release any claims excepting my own. The 
 fact, that my name had been so used, remained undiscov- 
 ered by me for three years : — [Ante, Ch. 60.] 
 
 3. Another reason, why the allowance of the account on 
 such a compromise cannot now be justly set up by Mr. Low- 
 ell, in bar of further inquiry, is this : — Mr. Lowell himself ^rsf 
 violated the spirit of our compromise, and put the truth of 
 the account directly in issue, when he appealed to its state- 
 ments, and to its allowance by the judge of probate, (without 
 disclosing the manner in which it came to be allowed,) as " a 
 triumphant vindication of Mr. Boott," and as proof that I had 
 charged him falsely with mismanagement of his trust, and 
 loss of a part of the property committed to him. [Ante, 
 Ch. 9, 16.] 
 
 In the next place, my answer is, that there never was any 
 persecution of Mr. Boott, on the subject of his accounts and 
 dealings as executor or trustee, nor on any other subject, by 
 me, or by any other member of his family ; and that there is 
 not the slightest foundation for the suggestion of a conspiracy 
 
796 
 
 against his peace and happiness, nor any truth in the charges 
 of unmerited harshness towards him, on the part of myself, or 
 on the part of any individual designated by Mr. Lowell. 
 This charge of the " Reply " I have not yet fully examined, 
 because it runs into matters disconnected with the accounts. 
 It involves points, respecting Mr. Boott's state of mind and 
 conduct towards others, and respecting the conduct of oth- 
 ers towards him, at different periods of his life, which are 
 quite independent of any question about management of 
 property. The discussion of these points will call for an 
 exhibition of facts and evidence, which the reader has not 
 yet seen. He has seen only a general summary, in the last 
 chapter, of what I propose to show. [Ante, Ch. 67.] The 
 particulars belong, mainly, to a distinct head of my defence, 
 or rather to my defence against a distinct set of charges ; 
 which defence, when fully made, will be found, if I am any 
 judge of evidence, just as clear and conclusive against Mr. 
 Lowell's imputations, as that which relates to Mr. Boott's 
 management as executor. Thus far, I have confined myself, 
 to the accounts, and to topics intunately connected with 
 them. 
 
 But, so far as the idea of unmerited harshness of conduct, 
 towards Mr. Boott, is connected with the question of his ac- 
 counts, a few prominent facts have already appeared, which 
 have an obvious bearing on the question of general mal- 
 treatment. Of these, it may be proper, here, to remind the 
 reader. 
 
 It has appeared, incidentally, that Mr. Boott, insteeid of be- 
 ing persecuted, by any portion of the family, on the subject of 
 his executorship, was treated with a degree of indulgence and 
 forbearance, in that relation, beyond any example that ever 
 came to my knowledge. 
 
 It has been seen, that, from 1817 to 1844, he was permitted 
 to hold and dispose of the property, which came to him in 
 that capacity, just as he pleased, without any account of it, 
 rendered or called for ; — that, in 1830, it became known to Mr. 
 Kirk Boott, and to me, that a great part of the family property 
 was lost, the whole of it jeoparded, by Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
 
797 
 
 injudicious and improper management, and yet, through ten- 
 derness to him, — a false tenderness, perhaps, — the remaining 
 property was left in his hands, subject to the liens, with which 
 he had incumbered it, and no attempt was made to force an 
 account or a resignation ; — that, in 1833, every heir in this 
 country, who had, or supposed that he had, any claim upon 
 him for a present debt, joined in a voluntary release of it ;— 
 that I wEis active in promoting this, as I was in aiding Mr. 
 Boott about eifecting settlements with his partners, and cred- 
 itors, and wards ; — that, to avoid a family rupture, ruinous to 
 Mr. Boott, I continued to acquiesce, silently, in permitting 
 him to manage and use, without accounting to any body, 
 what was left of the trust funds, until I was put to an elec- 
 tion, in 1844, after the family peace had been broken, whether 
 I would, then, be instrumental ia enlarging his trust, by the 
 stun of $46,000, at a time when I believed him to be insane, 
 and knew him to be, at any rate, most unfit to be the family 
 trustee, and to be contemplating a most injudicious invest- 
 ment of a portion of this very fund ; or whether, by declining 
 to sign a certain deed, which it was perfectly optional with 
 me to sign or not, as I pleased, I would eflfect a quiet surrender 
 of the trust into more suitable hands. [Ante, Ch. 15, 25, 28, 
 33, 34, 37.] I have shown, so far as a negative averment of 
 this description can be shown, that, instead of attempting to 
 propagate charges against Mr. Boott of waste, and misman- 
 agement, and misuse of trust property, to the injury of his 
 general reputation, — although it was my object, for the bene- 
 fit of the family, to bring about a surrender of his trust,— ^my 
 statement of reasons for declining to execute the deed was 
 made only to the parties, and their counsel, with whom I was 
 compelled to treat on that subject ; and that it amounted only 
 to a general declaration of my want of confidence in his good 
 judgement and capably, as a manager of that trust, for causes 
 assigned, which carefully avoided the slightest imputation 
 upon his integrity. [Ante, Ch. 57.] And here I am content 
 to leave the subject of my conduct towards Mr. Boott, until 
 I come to consider, in detail, Mr. Lowell's proofs of the pre- 
 
798 
 
 tended conspiracy, and to show the real cause of the dissen- 
 sions, which arose in the Boott family. 
 
 But the main answer, which I have made to Mr. Lowell's 
 charge of persecuting Mr. Boott vrith false accusations, resT^ect- 
 ing his executorship, consists in showing, — 
 
 First, that those accusations, so far as any were made, 
 either at the time of my endeavour to effect a change of the 
 trusteeship, or before, or since, in whatever language they 
 may have been expressed, were perfectly just and true ; and 
 that the account, cited by Mr. Lowell in proof that the accu- 
 sations were false, is, essentially, a fiction: — 
 
 Secondly, that Mr. Lowell knew, extremely well, that my 
 allegation of mismanagement by Mr. Boott was true, at the 
 time he published it as a falsehood ; and that he knew, 
 equally well, that the account was a fiction, when he cited it 
 as proof of a fact, and when he printed an argument, bolstered 
 up by the weight of his own assertions and personal influ- 
 ence, to induce his readers to believe in the reality and cor- 
 rectness of this account. 
 
 Have I not shown that the account is essentially a fiction, 
 and that the charge of mismanagement was well founded ? 
 
 Certain general facts are placed beyond dispute. 
 
 1. Mr. J. Wright Boott had the entire control of all the 
 personal estate left by his father, whatever it may have been. 
 He was the only surviving partner, and the sole acting exec- 
 utor ; and the executor was also charged with all the special i 
 trusts of the will, and was the sole testamentary guardian of 
 the minor children. He held this position for nearly seven and 
 twenty ;^ears, during which he had never settled an account, 
 except of the formation of the particular annuity funds, re- 
 quired, by the will, to be separated from the residue of the 
 estate ; nor had he ever filed an inventory, or statement of 
 any kind, to show how much that residue amounted to, or of 
 what it consisted, besides the mansion-house, the moveables 
 in it, a small piece of land valued at f 500, a pew, and a 
 store, which was devised to himself. [Ante, Ch. 15.] 
 
 2. The special trust funds, set apart, in 1818, and specifi- 
 cally invested by him as executor, were broken up, within a 
 
799 
 
 few years, by sales of all the stocks composing them ; the 
 proceeds were not specifically re-invested as executor, nor as 
 trustee ; and nothing, afterwards, was ever held by Mr. Boott 
 visibly, in either of those capacities, until certain property, 
 subject to certain liens and claims for his private engage- 
 ments, was, in 1831, placed in his name as executor, or oth- 
 erwise bound for his trusts, through my intervention, at the 
 request of the late Mr. Kirk Boott, for the piupose of securing 
 what was really trust property against his general creditors. 
 [Ante, Ch. 27, 29, 30.] 
 
 3. At the time of which I speak, — after the conveyance 
 to me of certain property, in trust, to secure the payment of 
 debts due from him, as guardian, to his wards of the F. Boott 
 family, — after the sale of the store in State-street, devised to 
 him by his father, — and after the sale to his partners, Messrs. 
 Lyman and Ralston, of his interest in the Mill Dam Foun- 
 dry, — there was not one dollar's worth of visible property, 
 held by Mr. Boott, unpledged far his own debts, to represent 
 the trusts under his father's will, with the single exception 
 of a stable in Bowdoin-street, valued by him at f 3000, but 
 worth, in truth, not more than $1500. [Ante, Ch. 30, 35.] 
 
 4. The omission to settle the estate cannot be set down 
 to a mere inadvertence. The importance of the subject was 
 not overlooked by others, nor did they neglect to lay it be- 
 fore Mr. Boott. On the contrary, it has been shown, that a 
 general settlement of his family accounts was pressed upon 
 Mr. Boott, iu 1831, as far as it could be, short of legal com- 
 pulsion, or of a personal rupture, by the united endeavour 
 of the late Mr. P. T. Jackson, the late Mr. Kirk Boott, myself, 
 and Mr. John A. Lowell. The letters of Mr. Jackson and of 
 Mr. Kirk Boott are before us. The former gentleman placed 
 the necessity of such a settlement on the strongest ground 
 possible ; namely, that it was an indispensable prerequisite to 
 the filling of an important and profitable agency, which Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott had previously agreed to accept. But we 
 have seen, that, immediately after that notice, he resigned 
 the agency, for no other reason, apparently, than to avoid set- 
 tling the accounts. [Ante, Ch, 33, 34.] 
 
800 
 
 Mr. Kirk Boott urged a settlement, again, as a necessary 
 Step to the taking up of any useful occupation. The appeal 
 was ineffectual ; and Mr. J. Wright Boott never, afterwards, en- 
 tered into any business whatever, from which a dollar was 
 earned. [Ante, Ch. 34.] 
 
 5. The executor's account, which came at last, in 1844 
 came only because some accomit could no longer be avoided, 
 as incident to a change of the trusteeship, then known to be 
 inevitable. [Ante, Ch. 58, 59.] 
 
 Is this account then a real account, as it purports to be, 
 and as Mr. Lowell says it is, of all the executor's receipts and 
 payments during a period of nearly twenty-seven years, with-- 
 out regard to the release he had from the heirs, in 1833 ? 
 [Ante, Ch. 21. J 
 
 I remarked, in the first place, on the singular facts apparent 
 on its face. I pointed out the unusual brevity , and the suspi- 
 cious generality, of its statements, such as I have never seen, 
 before or since, in any paper purporting to be an executor's 
 account, unless accompanied, — as this is not,— with separate 
 schedules of particulars. [Ante, Ch, 17.] 
 
 I have shown that this account really claims a balance of 
 $25,000, as a debt, due from the estate to the executor,^not 
 $3700 only, as the " Reply " pretends, — and that, by the 
 proceedings in the settlement with the new trustee, this sum 
 was actually paid, as a debt due to the executor, out of the 
 proceeds of a sale of real estate, belonging to Mrs. Boott for 
 life, with remainder to all her children. [Ante, Ch. 18.] 
 
 The account admits a cash capital, received, originally, by 
 the executor, to the amount of about $186,000 only. I have 
 shown that this limitation of the admitted capital is neces- 
 sary, if the credits for payments are correct, to make out the 
 alleged cash balance of $25,000 due to the executor. I 
 have further shown that, according to this statement of the 
 original capital, and the other statements on both sides of 
 the account, and the statement of property at its foot, it ap- 
 pears that Mr. Boott had invested, and held in his capacity of 
 eseecutor, |25,000, more than the estate, after making the 
 
801 
 
 payments credited, had furnished for investment ; an ab- 
 surdity, which, of itself, proves either a material omission, or 
 a want of reality in some one or more of the statements. 
 [Ante, Ch. 18.] 
 
 The account claims to have made a distribution to the heirs 
 of f 90,000, in exactly eqiial shares of f 10,000 each. I have 
 shown tliat, if that statement be true, the executor must have 
 disregarded one of the plainest provisions of the will, and 
 thereby defeated the minors of their right to interest on the 
 original shares, during their minority. [Ante, Ch. 19.] 
 
 That there was, in truth, no such equality of payment, as 
 the account pretends, I have shown particularly by my own 
 case, and by the case of Mr. William Boott, compared with 
 that of some other heirs ; and I think I have shown that 
 Mr. Lowell fails, upon a true construction of the will, to 
 make out any right of the executor to charge to the estate 
 the sum of $ 10,000, as a payment of the patrimonial share 
 of Mr. William Boott, (supposing his share to have been 
 $10,000 only,) since the sums, said to have been paid for 
 him in Europe, during his minority, which make up, accord- 
 ing to Mr. Lowell, the greater part of the f 10,000, were not 
 justly chargeable to his patrimony under the provisions of 
 that will. [Ante, Ch. 20.] 
 
 I have shown, by the " Reply " itself, that the account, up- 
 on its face, admits a deficiency of $3700, in the amount held, 
 at its date, for Mrs. Boott's annuity fund ; and that it does 
 not explain the cause of such a deficiency, otherwise than 
 by su-^gesting the probability of an over-distribution to the 
 heirs ; which, if true, was a plain misappropriation of so 
 much of the particular trust fund. [Ante, Ch. 18, 19.] I 
 have further shown that this deficiency was finally made up 
 to the fund, in a subsequent account, only by taking so much 
 of the anmiitanfs own money, then in the executor's hands, 
 and turning it into capital, without her consent, she being 
 in England, and, at the time, ignorant of the fact, as, I be- 
 lieve, she still is. [Ante, Ch. 61.] 
 
 I have shown that a. further deficiency, existing at the date 
 of the account in this annuity fund, is, to the extent of 
 
802 
 
 f 10,500, covered up by charging the stocks, on hand, at their 
 alleged cost to Mr. Boott, at the time whea he purchased and 
 held them in his own name, subject to his own debts and 
 engagements, instead of charging them according to their true 
 value, at the time when he first converted those stocks into 
 trust property, by causing them to be transferred to himself 
 as executor, though still subject, in part, to his private pledges. 
 [Ante, Ch. 27, 35.] 
 
 I have shown that there is no pretence of accounting for 
 two other particular annuity funds, (the funds for the aunts,) 
 amounting to $11,000, unless distribution of the capital of 
 these funds, among the heirs, is to be taken, by mere im- 
 plication, as part of the $90,000, alleged to have been dis- 
 tributed ; and that if this were so, still, according to the 
 statement of the account, the income of those funds, during 
 the lives of the parties entitled to it, was never paid to them, 
 nor to any body — ^unless it was paid to the widow of the 
 testator, to whom it did not belong, — which I aver to be con- 
 trary to the fact, and which could not be true without entire 
 disregard of plain duty by the executor. [Ante, Ch. 19, 43.] 
 
 1 have further shown that the account covers up and con- 
 ceals the fact, that $66,000 of trust money had been taken, 
 and used, by the executor, for the payment of the principal 
 and interest of his own private debts ; and that this conceal- 
 ment of the account is eflFected, first, by an omission ; sec- 
 ondly, by a misstatement. The omission is of two mare 
 shares of manufacturing stock than the account speaks of; — 
 shares, which, though pledged, were marked as property of 
 the estate, in 1831, were transferred by me to the executor, 
 in 1835, and were sold by the executor, in 1837, but are 
 no where accounted for. The misstatement is, that all the 
 income, received by the executor from the funds in his hands, 
 during the whole period of the executorship, had been "paid 
 to, or for account and by order of, the widow;" where- 
 as, I have shown, chiefly by the adnjissions of the "Reply," 
 that, out of nearly $170,000 of income received, after May, 
 1831, only about $70,000 had, in fact, been paid over to her, 
 oy difectly/o;- her wse, and no orders from her, respecting the 
 
803 
 
 application of the residue, are produced or pretended ; nor 
 is any other voucher, for so large a sum, referred to, than a 
 general release of claims, obtained from Mrs. Boott, by Mr. 
 Lowell, before this, or any other account, had been even stated, 
 and, of course, without notice to her of the charges, upon 
 which her release was to operate. [Ante, Ch. 43, 44.] 
 
 Of the residue of this income I have shown that about 
 |34,000 had been used, mainly, for the support of Mr. Boott, 
 in an establishment kept up in Boston, during Mrs. Boott's 
 absence in England ; but kept up, as I admit, with her knowl- 
 edge, and therefore, perhaps, justly chargeable to her, without 
 any special order. But I have also shown, that the remaining 
 $66,000 of this income was paid away, in the discharge of 
 Mr. Boott's private debts ; and that those appropriations of 
 Mrs. Boott's income were made without her consent, or 
 knowledge, at the time, and, as I believe, without her knowl- 
 edge to the present day. ["Ante, Ch. 43, 44. J 
 
 The proof, that I give, of these mis-appropriations of trust 
 moneys, for the discharge of Mr. Boott's private debts, is the 
 admitted fact that his debts have been paid, coupled with 
 proof of the amount of his debts, and with proof that he had 
 no other means of making the payments, to the extent above 
 indicated. 
 
 This involves the difficulty, it is true, of establishing a 
 negative proposition ; namely, that Mr. Boott had no other 
 means. But, by the aid of the admissions of the "Reply," 
 I think this is satisfactorily made out ; and the reader will 
 need only a brief outline of the process, to see the necessity 
 of the conclusion. 
 
 My general position is, that Mr. Boott was really insolvent, 
 during the last fourteen years of his life ; and that, after pay- 
 ing his other debts, he was unable, at any time within that 
 period, to make good the deficiencies of his trust funds, even 
 admitting to be true the statement of the account that he was 
 bound to charge himself, in his capacity of executor, with no 
 more than $186,000 of cash capital, originally received. 
 How does this appear ? 
 
804 
 
 I have shown that, in 1830, he made a partial disclosure to 
 me of his pecuniary situation. I produce the evidence of it 
 in his own hand writing. [Ante, Ch. 21.J 
 
 It appears, by the " Reply" itself, that he was at that time 
 under embarrassment, in consequence of his connexion in 
 business with the firm of Lyman & Ralston. [Ante, Ch. 22.] 
 That connexion soon terminated: and it is. distinctly ad- 
 mitted that he was in no business,, afterwards, from which 
 any thing was earned, even for his own support. [Ante, p. 
 242.] It is not pretended that he acquired any property, 
 by inheritance or otherwise, after that date. Neither is it 
 pretended that any considerable part of the $90,000, charged 
 in the account as distributed among the heirs, could have 
 been paid to them after that date. It is, moreover, admit- 
 ted, that there was no property of his father's estate standing, 
 at that time, in his name as executor, or trustee, or other- 
 wise visibly distinguished as trust property. [Ante, pp. 
 264-5.] It follows, of course, that, if we can ascertain all 
 the property, which he then possessed, and its value, so long 
 as he held it, and what debts he owed, we not only settle 
 the point of his solvency or insolvency at that date, but, — 
 since he neither gained nor lost any thing afterwards by 
 new business, nor received any new accessions of property, — 
 we settle it for the rest of his life, except so far as his lia- 
 bilities may appear to have been assumed by others, or dis- 
 charged by some foreign means. If we can, also, ascertain 
 what property he parted with, and when, and what it 
 produced, or what amount of debts it paid, — what liabilities 
 were assumed and discharged by other persons, — what prop- 
 erty he held, to the last, as trust property, — its changes of 
 value, — what income be derived from it, — how much went 
 into current expense, or payment to annuitants, — and what 
 debts he finally, owed, — it is manifest that we have the means, 
 not only of determining his condition of solvency or insolv- 
 ency, throughout the period, but, also, of determining how 
 much of the income, from the trust property in. his hands, was 
 applied to the payment of his own debts. 
 
SOo 
 
 Now all this 1 profess to have laid before the reader, with a 
 degree of approximation to exactness, sufficient, at least, for 
 a practical solution of every question material in the case. 
 
 I show, in the first place, Mr. Boott's written statement of 
 all the property he possessed, in 1830, except what he con- 
 sidered himself as holding, specifically, for the accounts of the 
 family of a deceased kinsman, namely, the late Mr. Francis 
 Boott. [Ante, pp. 197-8.] That exception produces no em- 
 barrassment, because I am enabled to show, precisely, what 
 it embraced. It appears, by record evidence, that all the 
 "shares" mentioned in his memorandum, were shares in 
 two manufacturing companies only, namely, the Merrimack 
 and the Boston ; the whole number of shares, he then held 
 in each company, appears by its records ; and transfers, after- 
 wards made, either to himself as guardian and trustee of the 
 family referred to, or directly to one of its members, are re- 
 corded, which, being deducted from the whole number pre- 
 viously standing in his name, leave a number corresponding 
 with that in the memorandum, within one share. [B. App. 
 pp. 30—33. Ante, p. 421. J This defines, sufficiently, the 
 extent of the exceptions; from the memorandum, so far as 
 these stocks are concerned ; and the probate accounts of Mr. 
 Boott, as guardian, show what other property he held at that 
 time /or his wards, besides tiie uninvested cash balances due 
 to them from himself. The " Reply," moreover, admits, in 
 eflfect, that Mr. Boott was possessed of no other property, 
 applicable to the payment of his debts, and to the security of 
 the trusts under his father's will ; or, at least, it admits that he 
 was possessed of no other property, knoion to Mr. Lowell, 
 than is named in the memorandum ; and I have shown that 
 the correctness of the memorandum, in its description of each 
 particular item of property, is also admitted, in detail, — not- 
 withstanding a general sneer at the authenticity of the memo- 
 randum, as dependent upon my memory for explanation. 
 [Ante, Ch. 21.J 
 
 The memorandum, is thus shown, by a variety of evidence 
 brought together, and entirely concordant, to be, substantially, 
 a true sehediile of all the property possessed by Mr. Boott, in 
 
806 
 
 1830, belonging either to himself, or to his father's estate, or 
 to the special trusts of his father's will. Out of that property 
 is to be distinguished and set apart, if its aggregate may suf- 
 fice for the purpose, so much as will represent and cover the 
 funds, for which he was accountable, either as executor or 
 trustee, under his father's will. As one of the heirs, he was 
 entitled to retain his own share of that which he held as ex- 
 ecutor. As a particular devisee, he was the separate owner of 
 the store in State-street. Of that which he held in trust for 
 his mother, as well as of the mansion-house estate, he was 
 also entitled, as one of the heirs, to an eventual reversionary 
 share, to come into possession at his mother's death. So, in 
 respect to the particular trust funds for the benefit of his 
 aunts, living in 1830, he was entitled to a reversionary share, 
 to accrue at their deaths respectively ; and if they were not 
 then living, the capital had sunk into the residue of the estate, 
 for which he was accountable to the other heirs, deducting his 
 own share. The present value, in 1830, of these reversionary 
 interests I have estimated. [Ante, Ch. 26.] But, since he died 
 in the life-time of his mother, and never sold his reversionary 
 interests, nor raised money upon them in any form, they, in 
 truth, contributed nothing to the payment of his debts. And, 
 since no new property was afterwards acquired, it follows, 
 that, whatever payments he is shown to have made, after the 
 date of the memorandum, must have been made from the 
 property therein described, or from its issues and proceeds. 
 
 I next show, that the foot of the probate account of 1844 
 describes all the property then in Mr. Boott's actual posses- 
 sion. It all stood in his name as executor, and purported to 
 be held by him in that capacity ; [Ante, Ch. 17.] and it is not 
 pretended that he, at that time, owned any thing, himself) 
 besides an interest, whatever it may have been, in the prop- 
 erty so described, except a tomb, and certain chattels for 
 his own personal use, mentioned in his will. [B. App. pp. 
 41-2.] Hence, by a comparison of the account of 1844 
 with the memorandum of 1830, we perceive what property 
 had mean time been parted with ; and, by, other unquestion- 
 able evidence, it has been shown at abotit what time each 
 
807 
 
 parcel was disposed of, and what it produced. [Ante, Ch. 
 29, 30, 35, 42.] 
 
 Now that Mr. Boott was really insolvent, at the time of that 
 memorandum, is demonstrated, I believe, beyond a doubt. 
 All the property, mentioned in it, taken in gross, and with- 
 out deducting pledges, amounted, at his own valuation, to 
 |2 13,000. But this, I have shown, was a great over-valua- 
 tion. The market prices of the stocks have been proved. 
 They are set down, in the memorandum, at par; but, 
 they were worth, in the aggregate, at their market prices, 
 about |20,000 less than par. [Ante, Ch. 25.] Mr. Boott's 
 interest in the foundry, set down at $70,000, is shown, by the 
 "Reply" itself, to have produced, soon after, only $7624, 
 in cash, or its equivalent, besides a transfer of certain rever- 
 sionary interests, — from which nothing was ever realized by 
 Mr. Boott, during his life, — and besides a general release 
 from certain parties, to whom, according to the " Reply," 
 nothing was in fact due, and whose demands, .at any rate, 
 I do not count, in the solution of the problem of solv- 
 ency or insolvency. [Ante, Ch. 5, 35, 41, 42.] A note, 
 valued in the memorandum at its face, viz ; $14,000, is 
 shown, by what it produced, to have been really worth, in 
 1830, about $10,000 only. [Ante, pp. 289—291.] A sta- 
 ble, set down at $3000, was sold, many years after, for 
 $1500, producing nothing mean while. [Ante, p. 248.] The 
 store, alone, produced more than it was valued at,, by $1000. 
 [Ante, pp. 200 — 201.] Hence, the total assets of the memo- 
 randum, at their then marketable value, (excepting the 
 value of reversions received in exchange for the foundry, 
 which is reckoned below,) are found not to have much 
 exceeded $126,000. To this, we have only to add the 
 available value of these reversionary interests, which after- 
 wards came to Mr. Boott as part of the proceeds of a 
 sale of his interest in the foundry, and the value of the 
 reversionary interest which Mr. Boott previously owned, 
 and we shall have arrived at the sum total of his means 
 of paying debts, and securing trusts. These reversionary in- 
 terests were partly in the mansion-house, and partly in Mrs. 
 
808 
 
 Boott's annuity fund. They represented three-ninths in each, 
 subject to the life-interest of Mrs. Boott. Three-ninths of the 
 mansion-house, in reversion, are shown to have added less than 
 $5000 oi present value to the assets of the memorandum ; and 
 three-ninths, in reversion, of the annuity fund are shown to 
 have been worth fiothing, as property, to Mr. Boott, because the 
 fund is proved to have been deficient by more than one third, 
 and Mr. Boott was bound to pay the heirs of the other two 
 thirds in full, before he could claim any thing for himself. 
 [Ante, p. 353.] The real saleable value, therefore, of all he 
 possessed, was only about $131,000 ; and, of this, $5000, ly- 
 ing in reversion, was never in fact sold, nor otherwise ap- 
 plied to the liquidation of debts. 
 
 On the other hand, it is admitted, by the " Reply," that Mr. 
 Boott was bound, at that time, to show, for his mother's an- 
 nuity fund, property to the amount of - - §100,000 
 And debts to other persons are distinctly admitted, 
 
 [Ante, p. 306,] which amount to - - 101,000 
 
 201,000 
 
 The trust for his two aunts is neither admitted, 
 nor denied, to have been an outstanding trust. 
 The fund, required for it by the will, was - 11,000 
 
 The balance of the guardianship debt I have proved 
 [Ante, Ch. 24.] to have been larger than the 
 « Reply " admits, by 26,000 
 
 And I think I have proved, notwithstanding the 
 denial of the " Reply," that there were at that 
 time other debts, for which Mr. Boott was lia- 
 ble, jointly with Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, 
 [Ante, Ch. 22, 33.] amounting, probably, to - 50,000 
 
 288,000 
 
 We may reject, from this amount of liability, every thing 
 which is not distinctly admitted, and we may deduct, frotn 
 the annuity fund, the share which Mr. Boott owned in re- 
 version, in 1830, and even the additional shares in reversion, 
 which he subsequently acquired as part of the price of his 
 
809 
 
 interest in the foundry, and, after all such allowances, the 
 condition, in which Mr. Boott is left, will still be a state of 
 plain insolvency. 
 
 To obviate the plausible objection that so great an amount 
 of indebtedness could not have been got rid of by so small 
 an amount of assets, I have traced the disposition of the 
 property, and the gradual liquidation of debt, downward, and 
 have shown by what contribution from other sources, and 
 by what other means, an apparent extinction of the debt 
 was finally effected. [Ante, Ch. 25, 28, 29, 35, 41, 42, 43, 
 18.] 
 
 I have shown that there was some rise in value of the prop- 
 erty ; that Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, owing jointly with Mr. 
 Boott a portion of the debts, assumed, and finally paid, 
 that portion ; that property yielding a great income was not 
 sold, but retained as trust property ; that a portion of this 
 large income from trust property was applied to the gradual 
 payment of debt ; that a small portion of the principal was 
 also so applied ; and that the balance of the debt, left at the 
 end of fourteen years, was charged, directly, against the es- 
 tate, and was paid by the estate, under the fictitious account 
 of 1844. 
 
 To recount the leading particulars, I have shown that, in 
 May, 1831, the property, mentioned in the memorandum of 
 1830, with the exception of certain items, was either put in 
 trust, or marked as trust property, to secure whatever was 
 due from Mr. Boott to his father's estate, and whatever was 
 due to his wards upon a personal debt, for which his father's 
 estate was liable as surety. I have shown that the stocks 
 had then risen in value, compared with their market price, in 
 August, 1830. But I have shown, also, that, estimating the 
 stocks with this increased value, the whole property, so put 
 in trust, subject to certain debts of Mr. Boott, for which it 
 was pledged; and after providing for the guardianship debt, 
 for v/hich it was also bound, would have left, at that date, 
 no more than f 32,000 of saleable value, to represent all the 
 outstanding special trusts of the will. The fund, originally 
 set apart by the executor for those trusts, is shown to have 
 loa 
 
810 
 
 been nearly f 117,000. The sum, positively required for 
 those trusts by the will, was $111,000. No distribution of 
 any part of it had been made, to the knowledge of the 
 heirs. But, at any rate, the "Reply" admits that f 100,000 
 was due to the fund for Mrs. Boott, and the apparent de- 
 ficiency, in that fund alone, amounted to $68,000. [Ante, 
 eh. 29.] 
 
 The only property of the memorandum, not put in trust, 
 or marked as trust property, was Mr. Boott's store, and his 
 interest in the foundry. Now his store, in May, 1831, had 
 been already sold, and I apply its proceeds to the reduction 
 of his debts. [Ante, pp. 283, 353.] 
 
 I next show, that, in September, 1831, Mr. Boott came to 
 a settlement with his partners, Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, 
 tvhereby they assumed all the debts of that concern, taking 
 his share of the foundry at a valuation, and that they paid 
 to Mr. Boott only f 7624 for his investment there, in addition 
 to the value, whatever it may have been, of the reversionary 
 interests of their wives in the mansion-house and the trust 
 funds, which were assigned to Mr. Boott, and in addition to 
 the value of a release of all their claims on him, as executor, 
 for whatever he may have owed them, in that capacity, be- 
 yond the f 10,000 each, which they had previously received. 
 This settlement took off $70,000 of the nominal assets, 
 mentioned in the memorandum of 1830 ; but it also wiped 
 off $80,000 of the liabilities, included in the foregoing esti- 
 mate, and it furnished $7624, applicable to the payment of 
 ether debts, thus bettering Mr. Boott's condition by nearly 
 $18,000. But there was, still, a deficiency of trust property, — 
 after providing for the guardianship debt, and paying off 
 the particular pledges, — which left Mrs. Boott's annuity fund 
 defective by more than one half ; and, if the $11,000 fund 
 for the aunts is reckoned as an outstanding trust, for which 
 Mr. Boott was then accountable, the total deficiency, in the 
 special trust funds, amounted to $62,000. [Auto, Ch. 3.5.] 
 
 A voluntary release from the heirs, in 1833, discharged Mi'. 
 Boott from his liability to them, as executor, for any moneys at 
 that time due and payable. Thi? did not touch the $100,000 
 
811 
 
 fund, not payable during the life of Mrs. Boott ; nor so much 
 of the $11,000 fund as had not then become payable by the 
 death of the annuitants. [Ante, Ch. 37, 41.] 
 
 I next show, that a settlement of the guardianship ac- 
 counts occurred, in 1835. There had been, in the mean time, 
 an accumulation of four years income on the trust property, 
 held by the executor, beyond the allowance made to Mrs. 
 Boott for her own consumption. And it was made to appear, 
 that, after applying that surplus to the payment of Mr. Boott's 
 debts, together with the proceeds of every item of property, 
 he had sold, yielding any thing applicable to the payment of 
 debt, all the remaining property, subject to its pledges, was, 
 still, insufficient to make good Mi-s. Boott's annuity fund by 
 ^35,000, valuing the property according to the prices of the 
 time when it first, ostensibly, became trust property; or, if it 
 be taken at the valuation of the probate account of 1844, 
 there was, still, a deficiency of $25,000 in the annuity fund. 
 And it is made plain that the redaction of the apparent de- 
 ficiency, between 1831 and 1835, can not be accounted -for, 
 except by applying a portion of the income of the trust 
 fund to the payment of Mr. Boott's private debts. [Ante, 
 Ch. 42, 43.] 
 
 I have sho"«rn, besides, that, after the payment of this guar- 
 dianship debt, the debt due from Mr. Boott to Mr. Lowell 
 stood at f 46,000, at least, probably more : and that I have 
 applied to the payment of the guardianship debt all the 
 property in Mr. Boott's hands, except that which is stated, in 
 the probate account of 1844, as still held by him in his ca- 
 pacity of executor. That is to say, the case is reduced, in 
 1835, to this : — Mr. Boott held no property, in immediate pos- 
 session, except as executor, and he owed a debt of $46,000 to 
 Mr. Lowell. But, in 1844, his debt to Mr. Lowell is found to 
 be only $25,000. Interest upon the debt of $46,000 had 
 been kept down, and the principal had been reduced by 
 $21,000. These payments must have been made by means 
 of the trust property; for there was no other property held 
 by Mr. Boott, in 1835. But, with the exception of certain 
 items afterwards sold, which I have ^plied by aaticipatHai 
 
812 
 
 to the guardianship debt, the executor's capital remained, in 
 1844, as it was in 1835. It follows, of course, that the pay- 
 ments of principal and interest, made to Mr. Lowell, had 
 been made out of the income of the property, abovementioned 
 as held in trust. [Ante, Ch. 42, 43.] 
 
 I have gone a step further : — Laying aside all the disputed 
 liability for debts of Lyman & Ralston, — subsequently as- 
 sumed by Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, in their partnership 
 settlement with Mr. Boott, — I have taken an account of the 
 other debts, admitted to have been paid hy Mr. Boott, and of 
 the interest upon them, after 1831, to the times of their re- 
 spective payments, and I have deducted the actual proved re- 
 ceipts of Mr. Boott, derived from all the assets of 1830, except 
 what remained unsold, according to the account of 1844 ; and 
 I have thereby demonstrated, that nearly $66,000 of the in- 
 come from the stocks, held by the executor at the date of the 
 probate account, had gone, during those thirteen years, from 
 1831 to 1844, to the payment of his debts. I have confirmed 
 this by showing, from authentic sources, what the total 
 cash receipts of Mr. Boott, as executor, were, from 1831 to 
 the date of the account, and by showing, from the "Reply," 
 what payments were made by him, as executor, for the ac- 
 count of Mrs. Boott, after she went to England, in 1836. 
 I have added to this a reasonable allowance, founded upon 
 my own observation, for Mrs. Boott's expenditures at home, 
 from 1831 to 1836; and the result is, that, after deducting 
 all payments, made by Mr. Boott in his capacity of execu- 
 tor, from all his receipts as executor, within that period, there 
 remains a balance of about $66,000 of receipts, totally unac- 
 counted for, unless by the payment of his own debts. [Ante, 
 Ch. 43.] 
 
 Finally, I have shown that the account of 1844 makes out 
 its apparent balance of $25,000 due to the executor : — 1. By 
 charging this $66,000, which had gone to the payment of 
 private debts, as paid over to the widow ; — 2. By charging the 
 stocks on hand at a higher price than their market value, 
 when they were turned over to the trust account, in 1831 ; — 3. 
 By admitting only about $186,000 of moneyed capital to have 
 
813 
 
 been received by the executor from his father's estate, and, 
 by claiming that $90,000 of that capital had been paid to the 
 heii's. 4. I have shown that the apparent balance, thus 
 claimed for the executor, as due to him, corresponds, almost 
 exactly, with the balance of debt then due from Mr. Boott 
 to Mr. Lowell ; and that this alleged debt of $25,000, claimed 
 for the executor by the account of 1844, was paid by the 
 estate to Mr. Boott from the proceeds of a sale of the man- 
 sion-house, and that the sum, so received, passed, through 
 the name of Mr. Boott, directly to Mr. Lowell, for the pay- 
 ment of Mr. Boott's remaining debt to him. [Ante, Ch. 42, 
 43, 31, 37, 38, 18.] 
 
 Having thus shown the falsehood of the account, and the 
 evidence of mismanagement, — even upon the assumption that 
 |186,000, only, of moneyed capital had been originally re- 
 ceived by the executor, and that $90,000 of that capital had 
 been distributed among the heirs, in equal shares of $10,000 
 each, — I proceeded to show that these statements were, both, 
 wide of the truth ; that much more was in fact received, 
 and that more, also, was in fact paid to some of the heirs. 
 
 For this purpose, I relied on Mr. Boott's own representation 
 to me, in 1821, that $20,000, probably,— from $17,000 to 
 $18,000, certainly. — was about to be paid to each heir, with- 
 out disturbing the special trust funds, as soon as certain mat- 
 ters, outstanding in England, could be brought to a close ; 
 and I proved the reality of the fact, that such a represent- 
 ation was made to me, (since it was questioned in the " Re- 
 ply,") by a contemporaneous letter from myself to my father, 
 found among his papers, and communicating to him my ex- 
 pectation of the more limited amount above-mentioned, in 
 consequence of the statement, therein referred to, as recently 
 made to me by Mr. Boott. I referred to verbal declarations, 
 made to me by other heirs, of like representations made 
 to them by Mr. Boott ; and I confirmed the fact by a letter 
 from Mr. Kirk Boott, in 1826, (that is, after payment of 
 $la,000 each had been made to Mr. Lyman, Mr. Ralston, 
 and myself,) stating that Mr. J. Wright Boott was preparing 
 " to pay oyei' the balances," and indicating his belief that my 
 
814 
 
 share would he large enough to authorize my making a loan 
 to him of $8000. [Ante, Ch. 45, 50.] 
 
 If these representations of Mr. J. Wright Boott were true, 
 it appears that the whole moneyed capital, which he had re- 
 ceived as executor, must have been somewhere from $264,000 
 to $291,000, mstead of $186^000, only, as is stated in the 
 account of 1844. That is to say, there imust have been, m 
 the first place, for the several annuity funds, $111,000, and, 
 in the next, for the nine heirs, $180,000, — if we estimate a 
 •share at the maximum rate of $20,000, — 'or $153,000, — if we 
 estimate a share at the minimum rale of $17,000. 
 
 In proof that these representations of Mr. J. Wright Boott 
 were substantially true, I have shown : — 
 
 1. That the testator directed the speedy formation of spe- 
 -cial annuity funds to the amount of $111,000, and the imme- 
 diate payment, to two of his sons, of $10,000 each, on ac- 
 count of their shares in the remaining personal estate. This 
 sum was to be dra,wn out, by eaxih of these sons, before the 
 final balance of a residuary ishare could possibly be ascer- 
 tained by a full settlement of the estate ; and, consequently, 
 such a provision, by a testator eminently cautious, indicates, 
 at least, his own expectation of a considerable surplus to be 
 divided, beyond the §10,000 each, which be authorized the 
 -sons to take at once. [Ante, Ch. 45.] 
 
 2. That $10,000 each was paid, in 1821-2, to Mr. Lyman, 
 Mr. Ralston, and myself, expressly on account, and that re- 
 ceipts were given in conformity, which Mr. Lowell must 
 possess, but does not produce. [Ante, Ch. 46, 47.] 
 
 3. The intention of further payments of not less than 
 $8000, each, to the same parties, is proved by Mr. Kirk Boott 's 
 letter of 1826; and, by his letters of 1830 and 1831, it is 
 proved that Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, at that time, as- 
 serted their respective claims on the executor for expected 
 balances, and that the justice of their claims was not denied 
 by him. [Ante, Ch. 28, 47, 30.] 
 
 4. The deed of Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, given in the 
 settlement of their partnership concerns with Mr. Boott, in 
 September, 1831, expressly assigns to him, as part of the 
 
815 
 
 settlement, their claims on him as executor, for dues then pay^ 
 able, as well as the future reversionary interests of their 
 wives, notwithstanding that $10,000, each, had been previ- 
 ously paid to them. [Ante, Ch. 47.] 
 
 5. Th« reversionary shares of their wives in the mansion- 
 house, and in the admitted special trust fund of their mother, 
 are shown to have been worth, in 1831, not more, certainly, 
 than $15,000 a share, and it appears, by the "Reply," that 
 their whole outstanding shares in the estate, presefit and re- 
 versionary, were estimated in the settlement above spoken of 
 at $25,000 each, notwithstanding that $10,000, each, had 
 been received by Messrs. Lyman and Ralston long before. 
 [Ante, Ch. 49.] 
 
 If there is no mistake in this latter statement of the 
 " Reply,'' or in my apprehension of it, it proves, conclusively, 
 that f 20,000 apiece, instead of f 10,000, was actually al- 
 Imoed, as a share, to Mr. Lyman and to Mr. Ralston, in settle- 
 ment of their claims against the executor, independently of 
 their reversionary rights ; and that it was allowed by Mr. 
 LoiweU, though paid only by a corresponding over-valuation 
 of the foundry. 
 
 In further confirmation of the truth of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott's representations, in 1821-2, I have shown a probabil- 
 ity, at least, that like payments, or allowances, had been made 
 to several other heirs. It appears that Mr. James Boott ac- 
 tually held $20,000 of property, in 1826 : and there is no 
 known source, whence it could have come to him, except his 
 ^are of the estate. Mr. WeUs, also, appears to have receiv- 
 ed about $20,000, less the advancements charged against him 
 by the testator. Dr. Francis Boott, I always understood, had 
 received a like sum, although I am unable to prove the fact. 
 I have shown that Mr. Kirk Boott certainly received what- 
 ever was due to him, through a partnership settlement, in 
 1826, and that certain advances, previously made for him by 
 Mr. J. Wright Boott, were sufficient to cover an allowance of 
 $20,000, in that settlement, for his share of the estate. I 
 have also shown, in answer to one objection of the " Re- 
 ply," that the probabk results of his Chelmsford speeulatiou 
 
816 
 
 were sufficient to enable Mr. Kirk Boott to pay the balance 
 due to his brother, deducting an allowance of |20,000 for 
 his share of the estate, and yet to leave for him that whole 
 residue of property, which Mr. Lowell asserts that he pos- 
 sessed after the settlement of 1826. [Ante, Ch. 50, 55.] 
 
 The probability seems to be, from all the evidence pro- 
 duced, that most of the heirs were allowed to receive, in some 
 form, the nominal equivalent of $20,000 each, though Mrs. 
 Brooks and Mr. William Boott certainly did not ; and it was, 
 probably, to avoid the disclosure of unequal distributions, and 
 of balances still due to some of the heirs, that payments to 
 other heirs, beyond the sum of $10,000 each, are not credited 
 in the account. The omission, on one side of the account, 
 of payments and distributions, actually made to some of the 
 heirs, would, necessarily, involve an omission, on the other 
 side of the account, of a corresponding amount in the capital 
 received ; otherwise, the account could not terminate, as it 
 does, with an apparent balance, due to the executor, sufficient 
 to pay his debt to Mr. Lowell. 
 
 Prom the foregoing premises, 1 infer that the account should 
 have charged the executor with nearly $100,000 more of 
 capital originally received, and should have credited him 
 with about $70,000 more of capital distributed, unequally, 
 to some of the heirs, and not to others. 
 
 In confirmation of this view, I have shown that the "Re- 
 ply " admits losses of capital, belonging either to Mr. Boott, or 
 to his father's estate, to the amount of from $140,000 to 
 $ 150,000. It is true, that of the capital , so lost, the greater part 
 is said, in the " Reply," to have been Mr. Boott's private 
 fortune ; and so much of it, as is admitted to have been the 
 property of the estate, is said to have been inevitably lost, 
 without fault of. the executor, by the course of events in the 
 winding up of the business of the first house, named, "Kirk 
 Boott & Sons." [Ante, Ch. 52.] 
 
 These allegations led me to examine the specified causes 
 of Joss, and to go somewhat into the history of the sev- 
 eral mercantile houses, of which Mr. J. Wright Boott was 
 ^ nj,exnfeer. Without Xiecapitulatjing miuu,tely, I may remind 
 
817 
 
 the reader, that, before the formation of the house of " Kirk 
 Boott & Son," Mr. Boott, senior, is admitted to have been 
 a man of handsome fortune, while Mr. J. Wright Boott was 
 a minor without property. I have shown that, during the 
 whole period of his copartnership with his father, there were 
 hut three years, during which the trade with Great Britain, 
 in which they were engaged, was politically open ; and that 
 the terms of the copartnership allowed to his father five per 
 cent, for the use of his capital, before any division of profits 
 was to be made between them ; and that profits, when earned, 
 beyond that rate of interest, were divided in the proportion 
 of one fourth, only, to the son, and three fourths to the father. 
 Hence, I have demonstrated the absurdity of Mr. Lowell's 
 allegation that Mr. J. Wright Boott was worth, at his father's 
 death, $70,000, besides his inheritance, unless the father's 
 estate, and, consequently, the executor's accountability, should 
 be admitted to have been vastly larger than any hypothesis 
 of mine demands. I have shown, on the contrary, that Mr. 
 J. Wright Boott's opportunities did not permit him to have ac- 
 quired any very large property, previous to his father's death, 
 and that Mr. Lowell fails, utterly, to point out any specific 
 property, or any amount of capital not borrowed, possessed 
 by Mr. Boott within a few years after his father's death, ex- 
 cept that which he derived under his father's will. [Ante, 
 Ch.51 to 55.] 
 
 I have shown that most of the alleged causes of loss, in 
 the winding up of the business of the house in which the 
 father was a partner, would have pressed less upon ^Aa^ house 
 than upon the current business and final liquidation of the 
 second house of " Kirk Boott & Sons," — formed by three of 
 the sons after the death of their father, — and that the busi- 
 ness of this latter house is declared by Mr. Kirk Boott to 
 have been a very losing one. I infer, from the marked si- 
 lence of the " Reply," that the business of the later firm of 
 Boott & Lowell was, also, productive of some loss to Mr. 
 Boott. I show, that, during the existence of these houses, 
 Mr. Boott entered into large speculations, and came under 
 heavy advances, quite beyond, any means of his own, to 
 
818 
 
 some, or to oue at least, of his brothers. I show a proba- 
 bility, at least, that the capital of the estate was permitted by 
 the executor to pass into the business of these several mer- 
 cantile houses, and to furnish these advances to his broth- 
 ers, and that the losses, both of principal and interest, what- 
 ever they may have been, fell, by necessity, upon that capital, 
 for which the executor had thus made himself personally 
 responsible. I show a high probability that Mr. Boott would 
 have been found worth nothing, after liquidating his debts, 
 had he brought his accounts to a settlement, all round, at the 
 time he went into the business of the foundry, in 1826 ; 
 and, consequently, that the capital, employed by him, in 
 that business, was really capital belonging to the estate. 
 It is clear that he sunk in that business nearly f 70,000 of 
 available capital ; and, not counting, as property, reversion- 
 ary shares of a trust fund, which he was unable to make 
 good to the other parties interested in it, my belief is, that his 
 total loss of active means, in that concern, was, eventually, 
 including interest, about $100,000. The loss, whatever it 
 was, must have fallen upon capital, or upon the income from 
 capital, belonging to his father's estate. [Ante, Ch. 54, 55.] 
 
 Finally, I have shown, as a consequence of all this mis- 
 management, that the ascertained losses of parties, interested 
 under the will of Mr. Boott, senior, probably amounted, 
 without reckoning interest on the principal sums, to much 
 more than 5)^100,000. These losses constituted a just claim, 
 in favour of those parties, against the executor, for that 
 amount, except so far as it had been discharged by the vol- 
 untary releases of 1833 ; and, after giving full effect to those 
 releases, Mr. J. Wright «Boott was, still, a large debtor to 
 some of the parties interested under the will, at the time of 
 the stating of a probate account, with an apparent balance of 
 f 25,000 due to himself, which account the " Reply " asserts 
 to be a true account of all the executor's receipts and pay- 
 ments, without regard to the eiFect of the former releases. 
 [Ante, Ch. 56.J 
 
 I trust, therefore, that I have fully maintained my first 
 propppitioa, in t>oth its branches; namely,, that there had. 
 
819 
 
 been great mismanagement by the executor, resulting in loss ; 
 and that the account, cited by Mr. Lowell as proof to the 
 contrary, was, essentially, a fictitious account. 
 
 But believing, as I do, that Mr. Boott was insane upon 
 every subject connected with his family relations, — including 
 the principles of just accountability for the family property 
 committed to his care, — I should do great injustice to his mem- 
 ory, if I permitted the responsibility of that account to rest, 
 wholly, or mainly, upon him ; and my answer, in a personal 
 controversy of this nature, — following a publication so ex- 
 tremely insolent, and so utterly unfounded in truth, as the 
 " Reply," — would be very incomplete, if I did not show that 
 Mr. Lowell, at the time of that publication, knew, even bet- 
 ter than I, the general fact of mismanagement and loss, and 
 that he perfectly well knew the fictitious character of the 
 account, drawn up by himself. 
 
 Did he, or did he not, know the general fact of misman- 
 agement by the executor, and of great loss resulting from it ? 
 
 Forme, his own admissions, in private conversations, before 
 this controversy arose, are evidence enough. But those I 
 cannot prove otherwise than by my own statements, which 
 he may deny, valeat quantum. I have pointed out the fact, 
 however, that some of his statements on this subject were 
 repeated, on my authority, soon after they were made, in a 
 letter from Mrs. Brooks to Mrs. Boott ; that this letter was sent, 
 soon after, by Mrs. Boott to Mr. Lowell ; and that he has 
 never ventured, from that day to this, to deny the truth of 
 my report of his conversations, by any communication made 
 known to me. [Ante, Ch. 58.] 
 
 But let us see what has been, more positively, proved, con- 
 cerning his means of knowing the executor's course of man- 
 agement. 
 
 It appears, chiefly by his own showing, that he was a clerk 
 in the first house of Kirk Boott & Sons, from June, 1815, 
 until March, 1818, when that house terminated, agreeably- 
 to the directions of the will of Mr. Boott, senior, who died 
 in January, 1817 ; — [L. p. 23.] that he was a clerk in the sec- 
 ond house of Kirk Boott & Sons, for about one year, ending 
 
820 
 
 in March, 1819;— [L. pp. 23 — 5.] that he formed a partner' 
 ship with Mr. J.Wright Boott, under the firm of Boott & 
 Lowell, the successors of the second house of Kirk Boott 
 & Sons, which partnership continued from January 1, 1822, 
 to July 1, 1824 ; — [L. pp. 27-8.] that, during about one year 
 of that period, he was the private agent for his partner, 
 then absent in Europe, and attended, among other things, to 
 the family accounts ; — [L. pp. 28, 69.] that he was one of the 
 advisers of Mr. Boott, during his difficulties in 1S30 and 1831, 
 and effected the settlement with his partners in the house of Ly- 
 man 6f Ralston ; — [L. p. 79.] that he was, himself, at that time, 
 the largest, and, finally, the sole, creditor of Mr. Boott, by rea- 
 son of large sums of money lent upon collateral security, and 
 that he thereby became the actual holder, as pledgee, of 
 the greater part of the property disclosed by the account of 
 1844, and that he continued to hold it up to the time of that 
 account. [L. pp. 87, 97, 41, 42.] He appears, in 1835, as 
 the principal counsellor and assistant of Mr. Boott, about 
 the settlement of his guardianship accounts. [L. pp. 80, 
 81.] He appears, again, in 1844, as Mr. Boott's man of busi- 
 ness, and negotiator, in the preparing and final settlement 
 of the executor's account. [Ante, Ch. 58 to 61.] He testified 
 at the inquest, according to the official report, that "Deceased 
 was in the habit of consulting with witness, about his afiairs, 
 more than any one else." [B. App. p. 58.] He became the 
 executor of the deceased, and, thereby, came into possession 
 of all his books and papers, in addition to those of Boott & 
 l^jOweU, which he held as surviving partner. [B. App. p. 71.] 
 The " Reply " further admits, that, about the time of the 
 death of Mr. Boott, senior, Mr. Lowell was conversant with 
 the provisions of his will ; for we are told that the general 
 residuary property of the heirs, beyond the special trust funds, 
 and the particular legacies and devises, was a subject of con- 
 versation and estimate among the clerks. [L. pp. 25, 26.] 
 According to Mr. Lowell's unfortified report of the estimates 
 of the clerks,- they did not range above $16,000 or $17,000 
 to a share, besides reversionary interests, and even finally set- 
 tled at about $15,000. [L, pp. 62, 26.] This, however, rests 
 
821 
 
 on his own reminiscence ; and he, alone, by his own report, 
 appears to have brought down the estimate, at a later period, 
 to $10,000, or less, [L. p. 27.] in consequence of supposed 
 causes of loss, which I think I have shown could not have 
 had the operation attributed to them, and which, if I am 
 right, Mr. Lowell could not have supposed them to have at 
 the time of their occurrence. [Ante, Ch. 54. J 
 
 I think it sufficiently appears, that Mr. Boott was not in the 
 habit of keeping books of account, separately from the books of 
 the mercantile houses, with which he was connected ; that his 
 cash dealings, as executor or otherwise, were effected through 
 those houses, and were recorded in their books ; and conse- 
 quently, that, during the period of the existence of the house 
 of Boott & Lowell, Mr. Lowell, as the accountant of that 
 house, must have been at least as well acquainted with them 
 as Mr. Boott himself. In fact, the books of that house are 
 expressly cited by Mr. Lowell, to prove certain receipts and 
 payments of Mr. Boott, as executor, and as guardian. [L. 
 p. 69.] 
 
 Considering these general means of knowledge,' if any man 
 knew whether Mr. Boott was managing the business of his 
 father's estate properly, or improperly, Mr. Lowell was that 
 man ; and, accordingly, he himself declares, in one of his 
 letters to Dr. Boott, written in the life time of Mr. J. Wright 
 Boott, " I do know much, — more, perhaps, than any other per- 
 son, — of the history of this property, and its management." 
 [L. p. 165. Ante, pp. 700, 701.] 
 
 Let us look, then, to the evidence of certain particular 
 facts, which, having such ample means of knowledge, it 
 would seem, he could not but have known. 
 
 I have proved that the principal operations of Mr. Boott, in 
 the buying and selling of stocks, and the chief calls for 
 money for his large investment in the Chelmsford specula- 
 tion, and in the companies which grew out of it, and for the 
 advances made in the same business to his brothers, occurred 
 during the period of the house of Boott & Lowell. [Ante, 
 Ch. 51.] Is it possible that Mr. Lowell, his partner, should 
 have been totally ignorant of those transactions ? Must he 
 
822 
 
 not have known that the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, was still 
 unsettled? Did he not see that the funds, employed in 
 trade and in those speculations, together, were greatly beyond 
 ^ny private fortune, which, he now says, he supposed Mr. 
 Boott to possess ? Whence did he imagine these large funds 
 to have come ? 
 
 We have proof, by his own admission, that he knew Mr. 
 Boott's habit of holding his trust funds, uninvested, ostensibly, 
 as executor or trustee, and that they stood undistinguished 
 from his own; for, he says, he condenmed the practice as un- 
 justifiable, and remonstrated with Mr. Boott against it. [L. pp. 
 35, 88. Ante, Ch. 27.] But, I have proved that the trust fund of 
 1818, — the most of it, at least, — was, at first, properly invested 
 in the name of " J. W. Boott, executor ;" that stocks, so held in 
 trust as executor, were afterwards sold ; that the proceeds, 
 were not invested as executor, but were treated like private 
 ' funds, and, when reinvested, came out as investments in the 
 private name of Mr. Boott 5 and I have also proved that this 
 change, in Mr. Boott's course of dealing with his trust funds, 
 occurred during his connexion in business with Mr. Lowell, 
 and while his accounts were kept, as it seems, in the books 
 of Boott & Lowell. [Ante, Ch. 27.] Not only so, but it is 
 distinctly proved that Mr. Lowell, himself, accepted transfers, 
 from the executor to Boott &. Lowell, of stocks so held, to a 
 large amount, and afterwards himself sold those stocks, dur- 
 ing his partner's absence in Europe, and that no equivalent 
 appears to have been placed by .him in the name of the ex- 
 ecutor ; nor have we, to this day, any account of the manner, 
 in which the proceeds were disposed of. [Ante, Ch. 27, 56, 
 63.] Yet, in these transactions, Mr. Lowell was, clearly, an 
 active participator. 
 
 He knew, or ought to have known, in 1827 and 1830,— 
 for I have proved that he had the means of knowledge in 
 his own hands, — that stocks, then pledged to him by Mr. 
 Boott, though standing in his own name, were not, in truth, 
 his own property, but that some portion of them, if not 
 all, were stocks which represented trust funds, for which 
 Mr. Boott was accountable, and that they could not be bound 
 
823 
 
 for Mr. Boott's private debts, without being taken from the 
 trusts, to which they belonged in fact, though not in form. 
 [Ante, Ch. 39.] Yet, Mr. Lowell accepted transfers of those 
 stocks, in pledge to himself, as security for Mr. Boott's private 
 debt. 
 
 He knew of the Chelmsford speculation, of course, and of 
 the large amount of funds it had taken up ; and he knew, 
 also, of the iron foundry speculation, entered upon in 1826, 
 and terminated in 1831, and of the embarrassments, under 
 which Mr. Boott laboured in consequence ; for he himself 
 acted for Mr. Boott, as he avers, in the settlement made with 
 Messrs. Lyman and Ralston. [L. p. 109.] He knew, and 
 states, that funds were invested there by Mr. Boott to the 
 amount of ^70,000, at least, and that, from these funds, only 
 $7624 ever came back, in the shape of active means, suitable 
 for the payment of debts. [L. pp. 90, 79.] He could not but 
 have known, in the course of the negotiations, the claims of 
 both Lyman and Ralston to further dues from the executor, 
 beyond the $10,000 each, which they had previously received ; 
 and, although he says that he insisted that the $10,000, 
 already paid, was an over-payment, [L. p. 54.] it appears, I 
 think, with sufficient distinctness, that he in fact allowed 
 them, in that settlement, and nominally paid to them by the 
 assignment of Mr. Boott's interest in the foundry, an addi- 
 tional $10,000 each, as due to them from the executor. 
 [Ante, Ch. 49.] Is it credible, then, that he should not have 
 known, at that period, the positively insolvent condition of 
 Mr. Boott ? or that he should not have known that other like 
 balances were due to other heirs ? 
 
 He knew that all the property, which was marked as trust 
 property, in May, 1831, subject to pledges, with which he 
 was well acquainted, and subject to the reputed balance of 
 the guardianship debt, was greatly insufficient to make good 
 the, particular trust funds, called for by the will. [Ante, Ch. 
 29, 30, 31.] 
 
 He knew that the shares, afterwards transferred to him by 
 Mr. Sturgis as seciirity for new advances made to Mr. Boott, 
 were a part of the property so marked for the estate j yet he 
 
824 
 
 received them in pledge for the private debt of Mr. Boott, 
 and never gave rne notice that he had taken them, though 
 he informed me, a long time after, that the debt to Mr. Stur- 
 gis had been ^a?fl?. [Ante, Ch. 36.] 
 
 He knew that Mr. Boott never afterwards acquired new 
 property, and that nothing could have been paid by him to 
 any heir, to make a balance in his favour, after the period of 
 known insolvency, and of visible inability to make good even 
 the special trust funds. [L. p. 91.] 
 
 He knew, extremely well, that Mr. Boott was gradually 
 paying off his debts out of the income of the trust property, 
 because he himself was the holder of more than one half of 
 the property, the personal recipient of the dividends, which 
 accrued upon it, and the holder, also, of the debt, which was 
 paid off, in great part, by those dividends, besides his general 
 knowledge of the fact that Mr. Boott was possessed of no 
 other means of paying his debts, except this trust property, 
 which was pledged for them. [Ante, Ch. 43.] 
 
 Now, if Mr. Lowell knew all, or most, of these particular 
 facts, at the time of their occurrence, or afterwards, and had 
 the means of knowledge, which are above shown, concern- 
 ing Mr. Boott's business habits and affairs, generally, I ask 
 whether he did not, necessarily, know the main fact, that 
 there had been great mismanagement by Mr. Boott, in his 
 capacity of executor, and that more or less of loss had arisen 
 from it, to parties interested in the due performance of his 
 trusts ? Did he not certainly know this, when he had him- 
 self received large sums out of the income of the trust prop- 
 erty, in discharge of Mr. Boott's private debts to him ? Did 
 he not know it all, at the time of the publication of his '^Re- 
 ply," after my former statement had put him on inquiry, 
 with all the means of knowledge in his own hands ? 
 
 It is hardly necessary to ask, after the evidence of knowl- 
 edge in the other matters above stated, whether he did not 
 know the fictitious character of the accomit, at the time when 
 he appealed to it as "a triumphant vindication of Mr. Boott." 
 If I have proved the account to be essentially erroneous, — as 
 no man, ^ho has attended to the evidence, can doubt, — how 
 
825 
 
 could Mr. Lowell have failed to know the fact ? Have I not 
 proved that he was the author of that account ? — that it was 
 made by him, not from materials and information proceeding 
 from Mr. Boott, but, in all it contained of new, or useful, 
 information to the heirs, from materials furnished by him to 
 Mr. Boott, out of the books of Boott & Lowell ? So far is 
 the account from being, substantially, the work of Mr. Boott, 
 that I have proved, by Mr. Lowell's own statement to a dis- 
 interested witness, that Mr. Boott refused, at first, to adopt it. 
 By his statement to me, if my report of it may be received 
 as evidence of the fact, Mr. Boott persisted in the refusal for 
 nearly six months. Who induced him, finally, to adopt it, 
 but Mr. Lowell ? [Ante, Ch. 58, 59.] 
 
 Did he not know the agency of Boott ^ Lowell, in large 
 transactions concerning the estate, and the use made of its 
 funds, at that period, which this account does not disclose ? 
 Did he not know that it could not be true, as the account, by 
 necessary implication, asserts, that nothing was collected 
 from the assets of the first house of Kirk Boott & Sons, dur- 
 ing the four years of the existence of the second house of 
 that name, which was the appointed liquidator of the former 
 house ? Did he not know that between sixty and seventy 
 thousand dollars, in principal and interest, of Mr. Boott's 
 debts had been paid, he himself receiving the most of it, 
 out of the income of the trust fund, and that this was not "by 
 order of the widow," and that the statement of the account, 
 in that particular, was positively false ? Did he not know 
 that the apparent balance of the account, ia the executor's 
 favour, was meide,. wholly, out of that misappropriation, and 
 that, otherwise, the account must have stood with a large 
 balance against him, by subjecting the principal of the trust 
 fund to the debts, for which it was in fact pledged ? 
 
 Yet, it was Mr. Lowell, who held forth this, as a true ac- 
 count, to ignorant heirs, relying implicitly on his assurances, 
 and on his better means of knowledge. It was he, who ob- 
 tained from parties in England prospective releases, adequate 
 to pass, so far as their interests were concerned, any account 
 that might be presented ; and he it was, who applied those 
 
826 
 
 releases to the passage of this account. [Ante, Ch. 58, 60.] 
 It was he, who obtained, from those of the heirs, here, who 
 disbelieved, or distrusted, so remarkable an account, their 
 assent to its allowance, on condition that Mr. Boott should 
 resign his trust, [Ante, Ch. 16, 60.] It was those releases, 
 from parties who knew nothing of the facts, and this com- 
 promise, with parties who knew little of them compared with 
 himself, which superseded, and dispensed with, all proof or 
 inquiry respecting the account, and respecting matters behind 
 the account. One obstacle only remained to its passage, and 
 that was the want of a release from me, in my capacity of 
 trustee, which I positively refused to give ; but that was got 
 over by the signing, for me and in my name, by Mr. Lowell, of 
 a legal instrument, which I had positively refused to sign for 
 myself in that capacity, and by presenting the paper, so sign- 
 ed, to the probate court, as evidence that I freely assented 
 in that capacity, as well as in respect to my private interest, 
 to an absolute release of all claims on the executor. [Ante, 
 Ch. 60.] And it is Mr. Lowell, who cites such an account, 
 so made, and so passed, as evidence that I had falsely accused 
 Mr. Boott of mismanaging his trusts; and he it is, who 
 has published the extraordinary statements concerning it, 
 which have now been exposed, as part of an argument, to 
 prove that gross misconduct on m/y part occasioned the death 
 of Mr. Boott ! 
 
 If I have succeeded in establishing my second proposi- 
 tion, — that Mr. Lowell knew of the mismanagement when 
 he accused me of making false charges to that effect, and that 
 he knew of the imperfection and substantial incorrectness of 
 the account, prepared by himself, when he cited it as proof 
 that my charges were false, — what can be said or thought of 
 his "Reply," put forth, as it is, in a tone of confident au- 
 thority, which, if its pages were not before us, would surpass 
 belief? 
 
 Indeed, the character of that publication, taken from be- 
 ginning to end, in connexion with the facts now proved, and 
 with the proof of Mr. Lowell's knowledge concerning them, 
 is, to my mind, more fatal than a confession. What man, 
 
827 
 
 under such circumstances, could so have written, with the 
 honest purpose either of establishing a truth, or of vindicat- 
 ing a deceased friend ? 
 
 That the general purpose of the " Reply" is not to estab- 
 lish a truth, but the reverse, and not to vindicate others, but 
 to screen its author, is apparent enough from the foregoing 
 review of the substance of the argument. But, when we 
 come to analyze the means, employed to give popular effect 
 to the imposition, one scarcely knows how to point out, in a 
 brief recapitulation, the manifold instances, exposed in the 
 preceding pages, of particular deceptions, various in kind and 
 degree, but all contributing more or less to a structure of fic- 
 tion. 
 
 Shall I call to mind some of the many fallacious expedients 
 for diverting attention from the true issues, and exciting un- 
 founded prejudices, by which the reader of the " Reply" has 
 been led off upon new and immaterial subjects of inquiry, 
 presented to him as if they were of the last importance ? 
 
 I do not mean- to speak of mere arts of style, which may 
 tend to deceive some readers ; but I may refer, for a more 
 substantial example, to the bold pretence that there is no 
 real controversy between me and Mr. Lowell, and that I 
 only feign one, in order to make him a convenient cover 
 for renewing the discussion of an old quarrel with a party 
 deceased, whose memory I am charged with reviling, and 
 seeking to revile in this form ; while the plain truth is, that 
 I simply defend myself against attacks from Mr. Lowell, 
 made in a shape, which inevitably compels me, if I defend 
 myself at all, to speak of that deceased party in reference to 
 his management of property. [Ante, Ch. 1 , 2.] 
 
 Or, I may refer, for another illustration, to the bringing for- 
 ward, as a prominent subject for discussion, the propriety of 
 my conduct towards Mr. Wells and his family, in matters 
 not alluded to by me in my former pamphlet, and which have 
 no important bearing upon any question previously opened in 
 this controversy. [Ante, Ch. 67.] 
 
 Of similar character is the groundless suggestion that Mrs. 
 Maiy Lyman and Mr. William Boott are, each, to be held 
 
828 
 
 jointly responsible with me for a pamphlet, which neither (d 
 them had any thing to do with ; for, out of this gratuitous 
 assumption, an excuse is framed for directing much of the 
 reader's attention to their conduct or language on particular 
 occasions, and for making them, instead of me, subjects of 
 very unfair animadversion. [Ante, Ch. 7, 20.] 
 
 Another like attempt to mislead the reeider's judgement, by 
 the introduction of foreign matter, appears in the evidence 
 offered to prove Mr. Boott's excellent management, as is al- 
 leged, of funds held by him as guardian for certain remote 
 relatives ; and this interpolation, to make it seem the less in- 
 appropriate, is coupled with an attempt to fix upon me a 
 charge against Mr. Boott of " unfaithfulness " towards those 
 wards; although it is plain that the whole question was 
 then, as it is now, respecting Mr. Boott's management of the 
 property of his mother, and brothers, and sisters, and that 
 what I said was in reference to the performance of his duties 
 as executor, trustee, and guardian, under his father's will, 
 and did not refer to his guardianship of the F. Boott family. 
 [Ante, Ch. 16.] 
 
 Under the same head may properly be classed the exag- 
 geration, in the " Reply," of a few immaterial errors in my 
 former pamphlet, until they are wrought up into a picture of 
 such general and habitual inaccuracy, that no reliance, as it 
 argues, can or ought to be placed on any statement from 
 me, though great exactness of statement, and perfection of 
 memory, seem to be claimed for Mr. Lowell. The reader 
 should not only see how insignificant these errors really are, 
 in their bearing on the main questions in controversy, and how 
 little they tend to prove the point for which they are cited, 
 [Ante, Ch. 3 to 6, 22, 23, 35.] but he should note, in the 
 same connexion, some of the extraordinary misstatements of 
 the " Reply," by error or design, as the case may be, in mat- 
 ters where error was quite inexcusable, and should observe the 
 manner, in which arguments, and prejudicial conclusions, are 
 built upon these false premises. 
 
 I may cite, as one instance, the absolute invention of a 
 material fact, in the history of the probate proceedings, re- 
 
829 
 
 specting an appeal from the decree allowing Mr. 3. Wright 
 Boott's will ; — [Ante, Ch. 3.] as another, the wilful misstate- 
 ment, if it be not a series of ridiculous mistakes, respecting 
 the difference between simple and compound interest in Mr. 
 Boott's guardianship accounts ;-=^[Ante, Ch. 6, 24.J or I may 
 refer to some astonishing pretensions, founded either upon 
 the grossest misstatements, or upon the most egregious blun- 
 ders, in figures, and processes of simple arithmetic, leading 
 the reader, who reposes faith in Mr. Lowell's computations, 
 instead of adding or subtracting for himself, into a totally 
 false view of material points in the case. [Ante, Ch. 25, 26, 
 39, 46.] 
 
 These are such startling instances of fundamental mistake, 
 or misstatement, as no reader will be prepared to believe of 
 Mr. Lowell, in matters of this nature, until they are shown 
 to him too clearly for question. I ask the reader, therefore, to 
 look at them, and at the use made of them in the "Reply;" 
 and to consider, at the same time, the arrogant pretence, rest- 
 ing on so very slight a foundation, of utterly discrediting so 
 humble an opponent as myself, as a person too inaccurate to 
 be trusted in the plainest statement of fact. 
 
 But I rather prefer to invite a reconsideration of the false 
 averments and denials, evasions, and suppressions, of the "Re- 
 ply," in matters bearing most directly on the main points of 
 this controversy. 
 
 I begin with the misstatement of the substance of our for- 
 mer correspondence, and the evasive character of that corre- 
 spondence itself, on the part of Mr. Lowell. [Ante, Ch. 8.] 
 
 I proceed to the manner in which the " Reply" seeks to 
 avoid the just effect of Mr. Lowell's proved testimony at the 
 inquest, by charging me with tampering with five respectable 
 witnesses, to corrupt their testimony ; [Ante, Ch. 10.] and by 
 charging them and the magistrate, as well as me, with collu- 
 sion and unfairness ; [Ante, Ch. 12.] and by pretending that 
 I had purposely omitted to call certain other witnesses, lest 
 I should " elicit the truth," [Ante, Ch. 9, 13.] although the 
 statements of those persons, as printed in the " Reply," 
 neither contradict, nor essentidly modify, the testimony of 
 
830 
 
 the Witnesses whorH I did call, comprising every member 
 of the coroner's jury, except Mr. Lowell's own brother-in-law, 
 omitted from motives of delicacy to him, but not without 
 an invitation to Mr. Lowell to produce that witness himself, 
 if he pleased. [Ante, Ch. 11, 13, 14.] 
 
 Shall I refer to the manner in which " the coroner's 
 STATEMENT " is printed, when it is produced as evidence for 
 Mr. Lowell, with the suppression of a material part, tending 
 greatly to impair the -W-eight of its authority? [Ante, Ch. 13,] 
 
 Shall I cite the positive denial of the fact, now directly 
 proved by the coroner himself, that Dr. Putnam was put upon 
 the jury at Mr. Lowell's suggestion? [Ante, Ch. 11.] 
 
 Or, shall I recall the attempt to impute mistake to the ju- 
 rors, in their recollections of Mr. Lowell's testimony respect- 
 ing accounts and matters of business, by suggesting that they 
 may have probably confounded his testimony with that of 
 some other witness ; when no other witness was examined, 
 except Mrs. Lyman and the female domestics, who testified 
 to nothing which had the remotest relation to these matters 
 of business and account, testified to by Mr. Lowell alone. 
 [Ante, Ch. 12.] 
 
 Or, shall I specify the pretence of a bar, both in honour 
 and law, to all inquiry into the truth of the account, which 
 Mr. Lowell first prepared for Mr. Boott, and then persuaded 
 him reluctantly to adopt, and afterwards cited, behind my 
 back, as proof that I had made false charges, against Mr. 
 Boott, of mismanagement in his capacity of executor? The 
 bar set upj it will be remembered, is the fact of the allowanee 
 of this account by the judge of probate, wiA my assent ; 
 and yet, it has been made manifest that the account was so 
 allowed and assented to only upon a compromise, which 
 waived, and expressly excluded, an examination of the ac- 
 count, and was coupled with a refusal to admit its correct- 
 ness, although it was allowed to pass, on condition that Mr. 
 Boott would resign his trust. And I may specify, in the same 
 connexion, the denial, by implication, that there was any such 
 compromise in the case, notwithstanding the clearest proof of 
 it by Judge Warren, through whom the compromise was 
 
831 
 
 made, — a witness, not only unimpeached, but commended, in 
 the " Reply," for the fairness of his report of that transac- 
 tion. [Ante, Ch. 16.] 
 
 I may, at least, point to the remarkable sophism, which 
 seeks to persuade the reader that this account does not really 
 claim for Mr. Boott the sum of $25,000, as a debt due to him 
 from the estate, but claims a debt of $3700 only, and a mix- 
 ture of $25,000 of Mr. Boott's private property with that of 
 the estate, in certain stocks held by the executor, although 
 these allegations are contrary to the direct averment of the 
 account itself, contrary to the understanding, at the time, of 
 every party concerned in the compromise, and repugnant to 
 the fact that the debt was paid, as a debt of the estate, out 
 of the proceeds of the mansion-house, and that the stocks 
 were all transferred to his successor in the trust as specific 
 property of the estate. [Ante, Ch. 18.] 
 
 This may be followed by a reference to the singularly bold 
 assurance, that the account, in question, contains a full and 
 true exhibit of all the executor's receipts and payments, 
 without regard to the effect of a voluntary release from the 
 heirs in 1833 ; [Ante, Ch. 21.] and to the still bolder pre- 
 tence of impeaching the verity of Mr. Boott's written state- 
 ment, in 1830, of all the property then held for himself and 
 his father's estate, by suggesting that the value of this memo- 
 randum, as evidence of such a fact, depends, wholly, on my 
 reminiscences and explanations, notwithstanding that every 
 syllable of its contents is shown to be elsewhere admitted, in 
 the course of the " Reply," item by item, and that no other 
 property is indicated, or even suggested, as being in the pos- 
 session of Mr. Boott. [Ante, Ch. 21.] 
 
 Let me again advert, in this connexion, to the audacious 
 assumptions, and to the authoritative declarations of certain 
 arithmetical absurdities, whereby the pi-etended assets of Mr. 
 Boott, in 1830, are grossly exaggerated, and his actual liabili- 
 ties apparently much reduced, so as to mislead incautious 
 readers into a very false estimate of his real position. [Ante, 
 Ch. 25, 26, 39, 46.] 
 
832 
 
 And, then, let me ask the reader to look at the evidence of 
 positive misstatements of a diflferent description, in plain 
 matters of fact, personally known to Mr. Lowell, and quite 
 material to the merits of the controversy between us ; as, 
 for example, the positive averment, that, at the time of our 
 agreement, in May, 1831, respecting stocks pledged to him 
 by Mr. Boott, Mr. Lowell knew nothing of Mr. Boott's of' 
 fairs, except what I told him! [Ante, Oh. 30.] 
 
 Or, as another example, I may cite the charge against me 
 of a cruel misrepresentation, in declaring that Mr. Boott, after 
 paying a debt of $21,000 to Mr. Sturgis, had reduced his 
 debt to Mr. Lowell only f 5000, in thirteen years, when Mr. 
 Lowell, by adding the Sturgis debt, which he had bought 
 without my knowledge, to the debt previously due to him- 
 self, of which I was speaking, says the truth is, " that Mr. 
 Boott, reduced his debt to me, f 26,000, during those very 
 thirteen years!" [Ante, Oh. 36.] 
 
 Or, for still another example, I may cite the charge against 
 me of another wilful misrepresentation, by the printing of a 
 word in Italics, for the purpose of leading my readers to be- 
 lieve that Mr. Boott, at one time, desired to resign his care of 
 the family property, — as the fact very plainly was,— ^whereas, 
 it is represented by Mr. Lowell, that he wished only to assign 
 his private interest in the iron foundry ; and the " Reply " 
 attempts to palm off that falsehood upon its readers, by pre- 
 tending to refer, in proof of it, to a letter, of which the ma- 
 terial part, distinctly disclosing the truth, is suppressed, while 
 another part, capable, by itself, of that false construction, is 
 quoted in terms. [Ante, Oh. 32.] 
 
 Indeed, I must refer, generally, to the evidence of repeat* 
 ed misrepresentations, perversions, and suppressions, in the 
 " Reply," of letters, and parts of letters, of Mr. Kirk Boott, 
 directly contradicting the averments, for which it pretends to 
 appeal to those letters, and even to cite passages, which, separ- 
 ated from their context, may bear the false meaning as* 
 cribed to them. [Ante, Oh. 22, 23, 28, 32, 47, 48, 50, 55.] 
 
 So, I piay refer, under this head, to the declaration, in 
 those bold terms of defiance which seem to belong to imde- 
 
833 
 
 niable truth, that Mr. Boott's position •would have been per- 
 fectly impregnable, if he had been willing to avail himself 
 of the release from the heirs in 1833, and could have conde- 
 scended to state an account, beginning, at that date, by charg- 
 ing himself with the full amount of the trust funds required 
 by his father's will ; whereas, it is perfectly apparent that an 
 account, truly stated upon that principle, must either have 
 left Mr. Lowell's debt unprovided for, or must have exposed 
 the fact, which the present account conceals, that this debt 
 is, in effect, charged upon the estate, and paid out of the es- 
 tate's property ; and when it is equally apparent that the 
 form of account, actuedly adopted, assumes a rule of valua- 
 tion of the stocks, which makes a nearer approach to an ap- 
 parent accounting for the whole trust property than* any other 
 that could have been plausibly devised, consistently with 
 providing for the payment in full of the debt due to Mr. 
 LoweU. [Ante, Ch. 37.] 
 
 I may also refer to the remarkable concealments, both in 
 the account and in the " Reply," of facts peculiarly within 
 Mr. Lowell's personal knowledge, which are quite material 
 to the main issue, and necessary parts of that history, which 
 the author, under his sense of " duty to the memory of Mr. 
 Boott," professes to give, "of such facts, within my own 
 knowledge, as may elucidate the matters in controversy." 
 [L. p. 22.] 
 
 Let me point to the evidence of his probable knowledge, 
 and certain means of knowledge, of the true ownership of 
 more or less of the stocks, which he took in pledge for pri- 
 vate loans to Mr. Boott ; — [Ante, Ch. 39.] to his concealment 
 of a material fact, concerning the reduction of the capital of 
 the Boston Manufacturing Company, while he is charging 
 me with a mistake, or misrepresentation, on that very point ; — 
 [Ante, Ch. 40.] and to his concealment of the great fact, that 
 he had himself received, and applied to the payment of prin- 
 cipal and interest due to him from Mr. Boott, upwards of 
 $60,000 of the income of the property, held in trust for Mrs. 
 Boott, while he is denying that there was any misappropria- 
 tion of the trust funds, and pretending to claim that a, small 
 
 105 
 
834 
 
 portion of the income, admitted to have been so applied, 
 (but admitted as if that portion were the whole that was so 
 applied,) was the private property of Mr. Boott, and, there- 
 fore, properly applied to the payment of his debts, although 
 this claim of a portion of the income, as being Mr. Boott's 
 private property, is rested on a principle so utterly absurd, 
 that I can not see how any reasonable man could believe in 
 the honesty of the argument. [Ante, Ch. 43.] 
 
 I may point, also, to the concealment, when he is professing 
 to state the terms of the settlement, which he made for Mr. 
 Boott with his partners, Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, of the 
 important fact, afterwards incidentally disclosed, that an 
 original share of the personal estate of Mr. Boott, senior, 
 exclusive of the particular trust funds, in which the heirs had 
 a reversionary interest only, was estimated at $20,000 ; while 
 the account, and the whole argument of the "Reply," are de- 
 signed to create a belief that such a share was less than 
 $10,000, and it is, in fact, distinctly declared, as Mr. Lo- 
 well's opinion, that Mr. Boott overpaid the heirs, when he 
 paid them that sum ; [Ante, Ch. 49.] and, in this connexion, 
 it should not be forgotten, that Mr. Lowell has in his posses- 
 sion the receipts of such of the heirs as actually received a 
 sum of f 10,000, expressing, as I aver in my own case, and 
 believe in the other cases, that it was only a payment on ac- 
 count, and that he conceals and suppresses this evidence. 
 [Ante, Ch. 19, 46 to 49.] 
 
 I may specify, further, his concealment of the fact of Mr. 
 Kirk Boott's large interest in the successful speculation at 
 Chelmsford, afterwards Lowell, while he is denying that 
 Mr. Kirk Boott ever had means sufficient to account for the 
 settlement of so large a loss in trade, as he says I had sug^ 
 gested. [Ante, Ch. 55.] And I, certainly, can not omit to 
 specify his total concealment of the connexion of Boott & 
 Lowell with the trust funds, held by the executor, when' 
 it is clearly proved that a large part of the stocks, held 
 specifically by the executor as an investment for those trusts, 
 was transferred by him, as executor, to the house of Boott 
 &. Lowell ; that the stocks, so transferred, were afterwards 
 
835 
 
 sold, and converted into money, by Mr. Lowell himself; 
 and that the proceeds, so far as any account of them can be 
 conjectured, were suffered, finally, to come out as investments 
 in the private name of Mr. Boott, and certainly were not 
 feplaced by Boott & Lowell in his name as executor. [Ante, 
 Oh. 56, 58.] 
 
 Nor should I omit Mr. Lowell's evasions, on the subject of 
 his having made up for Mr. Boott the account of 1844 ; — 
 [Ante, Ch. 58.] or his denial of the fact, that Mr. Boott for a 
 long time refused to adopt it, and the clear proof, from Mr. 
 Lowell's own lips, that Mr. Boott did so refuse. [Ante, Ch. 
 59.] 
 
 And shall I not remind the reader of the evasions, and false 
 suggestions, and positive misstatements, of the " Reply," on 
 the subject of the secret signing of my name, as trustee, to a 
 release, and of the use of that instrument in the probate court, 
 to obtain an allowance of the axjcount ? — [Ante, Oh. 60.] of 
 the want of explicitness on the subject of the time and man- 
 ner of Mr. Lowell's reception of Mr. Boott's last letter ? — [An- 
 te, Ch. 62.] of the denial of all interest in the result of the 
 inquest, and of any personal motive to prevent a verdict of in- 
 sanity ? — [Ante, Ch. 63.] of the pretence that I had fair warn- 
 ing from Mr. Lowell respecting his alleged opinions on that 
 subject, and respecting the course he intended to take at the 
 inquest? — [Ante, Ch. 64] of the pretences of disinterested 
 and friendly motives towards me, and towards others of the 
 family, in the course which he in fact pursued ? — [Ante, Ch. 
 65.] and of the constant asseverations by Mr. Lowell, that he 
 had not shown, or read, Mr. Boott's last letter to any one, in 
 connexion with the unquestionable proof that he had, never- 
 theless, shown or read more or less of the letter to several 
 persons, on repeated occasions ? [Ante, Ch. 66.] 
 
 But, it would be in vain to attempt to recapitulate all the 
 instances of untrue statement, or disingenuous concealment, 
 or deceptive suggestion, which I have had occasion to notice, 
 in the course of my remarks on the "Reply;" although I 
 have noticed a part of them only. 
 
836 
 
 If any reader of this summary doubts, — and I expect that 
 many will be slow to believe, — the truth and justice of the 
 inferences above stated, I can only ask him to look at the 
 chapters referred to in support of them, and to see, for himself, 
 and candidly to consider, the evidence, on which they rest. 
 If he desires, or is willing, to inform himself, fully, of the 
 merits of this controversy, and of the false character of the 
 " Reply," I know not how he is to do so at less pains than 
 by a perusal of the foregoing pages. 
 
 There may be some points, now first suggested, and demand- 
 ing explanation, which, possibly, Mr. Lowell may satisfactorily 
 explain by new evidence, imknown to me. I shall be glad 
 if he can succeed in doing so. But there are other points, 
 fundamental in this controversy, and seriously affecting Mr. 
 Lowell, which ,1 have been driven, by the desperate char- 
 acter of his publication concerning me, to prove against him, 
 and which, in my judgement, can never be cleared up fur- 
 ther than they have been ; for the evidence of them is com- 
 plete, and all the explanation, which there was to give, the 
 " Reply " professes to have given. 
 
 Of these the reader must judge ; and, if any thing more is 
 to come, in the way of explanation, I think the public will 
 have a right, hereafter, to look for some further evidence of 
 material facts than Mr. Lowell's own confident assertions, 
 promulgated in the style of the " Reply." Mere audacity of 
 statement, dressed out for popular effect, will hardly beai 
 repetition. 
 
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