The war of 1812 foiled the enterprise.  “But for that war,” Mr. Astor used to say, “I should have been the richest man that ever lived.”  He expected to go on expending money for several years, and then to gain a steady annual profit of millions.  It was, however, that very war that enabled him to sustain the enormous losses of the enterprise without injury to his estate, or even a momentary inconvenience.  During the first year of the war he had the luck to receive two or three cargoes of tea from China, despite the British cruisers.  In the second year of the war, when the Government was reduced to borrow at eighty, he invested largely in the loan, which, one year after the peace, stood at one hundred and twenty.

Mr. Astor at all times was a firm believer in the destiny of the United States.  In other words, he held its public stock in profound respect.  He had little to say of politics, but he was a supporter of the old Whig party for many years, and had a great regard, personal and political, for its leader and ornament, Henry Clay.  He was never better pleased than when he entertained Mr. Clay at his own house.  It ought to be mentioned in this connection that when, in June, 1812, the merchants of New York memorialized the Government in favor of the embargo, which almost annihilated the commerce of the port, the name of John Jacob Astor headed the list of signatures.

He was an active business man in this city for about forty-six years,—­from his twenty-first to his sixty-seventh year.  Toward the year 1830 he began to withdraw from business, and undertook no new enterprises, except such as the investment of his income involved.  His three daughters were married.  His son and heir was a man of thirty.  Numerous grandchildren were around him, for whom he manifested a true German fondness; not, however, regarding them with equal favor.  He dispensed, occasionally, a liberal hospitality at his modest house, though that hospitality was usually bestowed upon men whose presence at his table conferred distinction upon him who sat at the head of it.  He was fond, strange as it may seem, of the society of literary men.  For Washington Irving he always professed a warm regard, liked to have him at his house, visited him, and made much of him.  Fitz-Greene Halleck, one of the best talkers of his day, a man full of fun, anecdote, and fancy, handsome, graceful, and accomplished, was a great favorite with him.  He afterward invited the poet to reside with him and take charge of his affairs, which Mr. Halleck did for many years, to the old gentleman’s perfect satisfaction.  Still later Dr. Cogswell won his esteem, and was named by him Librarian of the Astor Library.  For his own part, though he rather liked to be read to in his latter days, he collected no library, no pictures, no objects of curiosity.  As he had none of the wasteful vices, so also he had none of the costly tastes.  Like all other rich men, he was beset continually by applicants for pecuniary aid, especially