collected should be regularly transported to China, and the ships return to New York laden with tea and silks, and then proceed once more to the Pacific coast to repeat the circuit; to maintain all the parts of this scheme without the expectation of any but a remote profit, sending ship after ship before any certain intelligence of the first ventures had arrived,—­this was an enterprise which had been memorable if it had been undertaken by a wealthy corporation or a powerful government, instead of a private merchant, unaided by any resources but his own.  At every moment in the conduct of this magnificent attempt Mr. Astor appears the great man.  His parting instructions to the captain of his first ship call to mind those of General Washington to St. Clair on a similar occasion.  “All the accidents that have yet happened,” said the merchant, “arose from too much confidence in the Indians.”  The ship was lost, a year after, by the disregard of this last warning.  When the news reached New York of the massacre of the crew and the blowing-up of the ship, the man who flew into a passion at seeing a little boy drop a wineglass behaved with a composure that was the theme of general admiration.  He attended the theatre the same evening, and entered heartily into the play.  Mr. Irving relates that a friend having expressed surprise at this, Mr. Astor replied:—­

“What would you have me do?  Would you have me stay at home and weep for what I cannot help?”

This was not indifference; for when, after nearly two years of weary waiting, he heard of the safety and success of the overland expedition, he was so overjoyed that he could scarcely contain himself.

“I felt ready,” said he, “to fall upon my knees in a transport of gratitude.”

A touch in one of his letters shows the absolute confidence he felt in his own judgment and abilities, a confidence invariably exhibited by men of the first executive talents.

“Were I on the spot,” he wrote to one of his agents when the affairs of the settlement appeared desperate,

“and had the management of affairs, I would defy them all; but, as it is, everything depends upon you and the friends about you.  Our enterprise is grand and deserves success, and I hope in God it will meet it.  If my object was merely gain of money, I should say:  ’Think whether it is best to save what we can and abandon the place’; but the thought is like a dagger to my heart.”

He intimates here that his object was not merely “gain of money.”  What was it, then?  Mr. Irving informs us that it was desire of fame.  We should rather say that when nature endows a man with a remarkable gift she also implants within him the love of exercising it.  Astor loved to plan a vast, far-reaching enterprise.  He loved it as Morphy loves to play chess, as Napoleon loved to plan a campaign, as Raphael loved to paint, and Handel to compose.