Governor Samuel A. Foote.

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political opponents; so that, through his known inflexibility of purpose, that could not be turned by any amount of outside pressure or party drill, and his courteous manners, he truly, as a man, wielded a great influence. His mode of speaking was simple, and as in conversation. He never attempted a methodized discourse; but aiming directly at what he considered the essential thing, and developing but one idea at a time, he soon exhausted what he had to say, though it was generally found that he struck at the heart of the matter, and said the true and weighty word. It is related of him, however, that he fully appreciated the value of the ability to speak well in a free country, and encouraged his sons to train themselves in the art of public address.

Undoubtedly Andrew learned his first lesson of obedience -the prime word in a sailor's creed-at home; yet father and son were so much alike in stubbornness of will that Gorernor Foote once said that he thought he "had succeeded pretty well in controlling all his boys with the exception of Andrew-him alone he had only attempted to guide." Yet in both father and son there was, as has been said, a kindly, genial vein; and they were both what might be truly called popular men with all classes. Courtesy, indeed, was inculcated as a prime principle in the family life; and the example of Washington-the American gentleman as well as hero-was not as yet forgotten. This gentler side of the Puritan character and education is sometimes lost sight of. Doubtless there was too little of the spirit of indulgent sympathy with innocent enjoyment, and too intense a stress laid on obligation and not enough on love; but the Puritan family was by no means like a planet journeying on in perpetual eclipse. It rolled out sometimes into broad and pleasant sunshine upon Thanksgiving days, election days, and the holiday sports of childhood and youth, and whenever original Anglo-Saxon humor, good-nature, and cheerful piety fairly asserted them

selves. We have but to add, what has already been hinted, that Governor Foote, being himself a high-toned Christian man, reared his family in the strict principles of New England morality; religion, as the foundation of character, was laid at the bottom. Though it was not in Andrew's case the immediate cause of a religious life, who can tell what a profound influence this home piety, leading the mind constantly to view the practical earnestness, and even solemnity of life-its obligations to God-had upon his whole future career?

In regard to the schoolmasters and school-days of Andrew Foote, a word might be said-and but a word-for his was a nature that did not easily take mould from without, but rather developed itself by a native force from within. He was not a man of thought so much as of action. The strength of his nature was on its moral side. What he purposed he thought; what he willed he did. His life is in his deeds. Silent in preparation, issuing from deep sources, his acts, like the acts of men of his kind, were rapid; their results are open to every eye, and the world does not care very much to know about the early shaping influences of a power which is noiselessly generated like electricity in the hidden springs of nature. In fact, his schools and schoolmasters did not probably have much to do in making the man. He drew his sagacity to plan, his courage to dare, his power to act, from his parents, and from the nature God gave him. His first school-upon entering which, it is said, he made a desperate but, in this sole instance, unsuccessful fight for freedom-was in New Haven, and was kept by Miss Betsey Bromham, afterward Mrs. Austen, who was permitted to visit the Admiral in his last sickness in New York, and then and there to express the life-long interest which she felt for her former child-pupil.

When the family removed to Cheshire, Andrew was sent first to the common or district school kept in that village, and