[102] and help to strengthen the ties of friendship and amity between both countries. Possibly, but not probably, I may conclude to visit Washington before the final adjournment of Congress. Ms. Mar. 14, 1864.
Oliver Johnson to W. L. Garrison.
I wrote you, I think, of every important incident connected with our visit to Washington. We left there Friday morning,4 and were in the house of dear old Thomas Garrett by 4 1/2 P. M.5 In the evening there was a good audience to hear Mr. Thompson. As he was rather feeble, I opened the meeting (at his6 earnest request) by giving the people some account of his life. He followed in a most admirable extemporaneous address, which charmed his auditors, and of which the most radical portions were loudly cheered. The influence on the city was most happy, and dear old Thomas Garrett was more than delighted. . . .
To-morrow we are off to Newark, where Mr. Thompson will speak in the evening. Then he will go to New York for a couple of days, and after that to Elmira, Syracuse, Auburn, and Rochester.
I need not tell you, my dear Garrison, that I have enjoyed every moment spent in Mr. Thompson's company. The more I see of him, the more I love and reverence him, and the more I hear him, the more I admire his eloquence. How fine are his instincts, how clear his intellect, how true his heart! How admirably poised is his mind, how rare his moral discernment, how nice his discrimination in all things! He is so generous, so catholic in spirit, so comprehensive in his aims, that he wins