Despite his initial New Year's enthusiasm, Irving was tired and “out of order” for much of January. He dabbled at a new story, “The Legend of the Enchanted Soldier,” but pronounced the effort “lame.” “I have done little or nothing,” he sulked to Peter in February. He had so overworked himself preparing the abridgment of Columbus, he said, that his “cutaneous complaint” had flared again. Any writing could only be done with “great difficulty.”71
News of Andrew Jackson's victory over John Quincy Adams in the 1828 presidential election reached Spain in early 1829. Irving was pleased Jackson had secured a solid majority, but he diplomatically informed the Adams-appointed Everett that he admired Adams, too. “I am loth to see a man superseded who has filled his station worthily,” he told Everett, though he defended Jackson as likely to be a “sagacious, independent, and high-spirited” president. “I believe that a person like yourself, who has filled his office faithfully, ably, and respectably, will never be molested,” he reassured Everett.72 He was wrong.
Talking American politics only made Irving more homesick, as did attending a dinner in honor of George Washington's birthday with the British and American delegations. “I have a craving desire to return to America,” he told Peter. “It incessantly haunts my mind and occupies all my dreams.”73 Such thoughts were making it diffi-cult to keep writing. He believed he had completed his first draft of his book on Spanish explorers, Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus, but he still wanted a peek at Navarette's upcoming Coleccion installment. Navarette made it clear to Irving that the book had been commissioned by the king himself, so releasing it to anyone but the king first would be an act of disloyalty—a point Irving grudgingly conceded.
Irving was less gracious, however, when it came to Murray, who had expressed concerns about the profitability of Granada. Murray's “croaking,” Irving told Aspinwall, “knocked my pen out of my hands for a day, but I resumed it and pursued my plans.” He had had it with Murray's lack of faith.74
On April 20 Carey, Lea & Carey published A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada in New York. This time, the American edition preceded the appearance of its British counterpart by about a month. Murray had secured the copyright on March 5, but held back publication until the British Parliament completed its debate on “the Catholic question,” an act to overturn laws discriminating against Roman Catholics. Until the debates concluded, the public could “read, talk, and think of nothing else.”75 Murray's instincts were unerring when it came to gauging the timing of publication; however, he had made another critical decision regarding Granada that backfired badly.
Unlike Columbus, Irving never intended for Granada to be a straightforward history. “It is founded on facts diligently gathered… out of the old Spanish Chronicles, which I have endeavored to work up into an entertaining and popular form, without sacrificing the intrinsic truth of history,” Irving had explained during the work's early stages.76 If Columbus was historical romance, Irving said, then Granada was romantic history—as such, he didn't want readers to believe he was trying to pass it off as entirely factual. Therefore, Irving argued, he wished to publish under a pseudonym, and asked that the work be credited to “Fray Antonio Agapida.” Murray hadn't agreed with that argument, or to the pseudonym. In his view, the best way to guarantee book sales and to recover the significant amount of money he had invested in Granada was to put Washington Irving's name on the title page. And so he had.
Irving was furious. Murray's change was “an unwarrantable liberty,” he fumed, “and makes me gravely, in my own name, tell many round untruths…. Literary mystifications are excusable when given anonymously or under feigned names, but are impudent deceptions when sanctioned by an author's real name.”77 He angrily lectured his publisher:
By inserting my name in the title page as the avowed author, you make me personally responsible for the verity of the fact and the soundness of the opinions of what was intended to be given as a romantic chronicle. I presume you have done this to avail yourself of whatever attraction my name might have in drawing immediate attention to the work, but this might have been effected in some other way, without meddling with the work itself, which ought never to be touched without the knowledge and consent of the author—I am sorry to make these complaints, but these matters displease and annoy me.
That out of the way, he reproached Murray for his lack of faith in the profitability of his writings, using angry words that Murray, quite literally, threw back in his face years later:
I have been annoyed too by your forebodings of ill success to this work… remember too that you lost heart about the Success of Columbus… and yet you see it continues to do well—I trust that you will be equally disappointed in your prognostications about the success of the Conquest of Granada, and that it will not eventually prove disadvantageous either to your purse or my reputation. At any rate, I should like hereafter to make our arrangement in such manner that you may be relieved from these apprehensions of loss and from the necessity of recurring to any management of the press to aid the publication of a work of mine.78
Irving's huff met with stony silence.
While Irving hoped the book would resonate not only with “mere readers for amusement,” but “among the literary,” he had probably done his job too well. The literati embraced it—the poet William Cullen Bryant hailed it as “one of the most delightful of his works”—but casual readers were uncertain what to make of it. For all his fussing about the pseudonym, Irving had confused his audience, who were unsure where the history ended and the romance began. The Edinburgh Literary Journal summed up the confusion best: “We were unable to make out whether we were to expect a piece of fiction, a history, or a mixture of both.”79
On May 1 Irving left for Granada. “I mean to indulge myself with a luxurious life among the groves and fountains of the Alhambra,” he told Peter. It would also be an opportunity to see the palace and the gardens in their summer colors, “in the most splendid season,” Irving sighed, “with moonlight nights.”80 On his arrival, Irving's old acquaintance, Alhambra governor Don Francisco de la Serna, offered Irving his own apartments in the Alhambra during his stay in the city. Irving didn't need to be asked twice. He moved into the governor's elegant but sparsely furnished rooms, with unlimited access to the palace and grounds. The governor also promised Irving full access to the scattered remains of the Moorish archives he had collected, a prize Irving thought he might use for Companions of Columbus.
In the quiet of the governor's rooms, Irving tinkered with the manuscripts he had on hand, “so as to present some other work to the public before long,” he told Brevoort. The unfinished Companions of Columbus was in his trunks, as was the groundwork for a biography of Muhammad. Yet those seemed like too much work. The longer Irving stayed in the palace, the more he was convinced his experiences there would make an entertaining book. “Nothing could be more favorable for study and literary occupation than my present abode,” he told Peter. “I am determined to linger here until I get some writings under way connected with the place.”81
To Irving's delight, Mateo Ximinez, his “poor devil historian of the ruins,” continued to regale him with more tales. Irving filled his journals with detailed notes. “I take my breakfast in the Saloon of the Ambassadors in the Court of the lions,” he told one correspondent, “and in the evening when I throw by my pen I wander about the old palace until quite late, with nothing but bats and owls to keep me company.”82
In early June Irving abandoned the governor's chambers for the more remote and more beautiful apartments that King Philip V had built for his wife, Elizabeth of Farnese. He ventured to the city only to visit the duke of Gor, “an acquaintance exactly to my taste,” Irving said, who shared his enthusiasm for Spanish history. The duke left his sprawling palace home at Irving's disposal, and granted him permission to visit the exclusive Jesuit library at the university, where Irving sometimes spent all day among old books and manuscripts.83
For
the first time in ages, Irving was content. He was delighted with his surroundings—“It almost seems to me a dream, that I should be lording it in the deserted palace of the unfortunate Boabdil el chico,” he said—but he was certain he was only several months from at last returning home. “My dear Brevoort,” he wrote in late May, “the happiest day of my life will be when I once more find myself among you all…. My dearest affections are entirely centered in my country.”84
If he was brooding at all, it was about the fate of Granada. While the book had been published on May 23, Irving had not heard of its status by late June, and believed Murray was still delaying its publication. “He has been playing fast and loose in such a manner with this work,” he griped to Aspinwall.85
Another source of annoyance were the stubbornly unproductive Bolivian mines, which had at last frustrated him to his breaking point. “I wish them to be forfeited,” he told Aspinwall.86 Dumping his shares cost him most of the profits from the first British edition of Columbus, but he was finally free of the financial albatross that had siphoned away his money since 1825.
But those concerns were a continent away. As the Granada evenings turned warmer with the advancing summer, Irving grew more content with his solitude. The gardens brimmed with strawberries and apricots, and the sun made the courtyard pools so hot during the day that he could take warm baths in them by the evening. “One really lives here in a species of enchantment,” he told Peter with satisfaction.
The enchantment came to an end in July. Just as his Spanish adventure had begun with an appeal from one American embassy, so it would end with a call from another, as the newly elected Jackson administration reorganized its diplomatic corps. In Madrid Everett was replaced by former Vermont governor Cornelius Van Ness. Meanwhile, Senator Louis McLane of Delaware was hustling to London, to take the post of American minister to the Court of St. James's.
The British post was a critical one; McLane was coming to London to assure the English that Andrew Jackson was no John Quincy Adams, and that the issues that had bogged down the prior administration—like trade with the British West Indies—would be open for negotiation with the new government. McLane needed a good secretary, one who could not only write well but was familiar with London, could socialize easily, and could maneuver effectively among British government officials and nobility. Secretary of State Martin Van Buren believed he had an ideal candidate.
“Your brother the Judge [John Treat] received a very polite letter from Mr. Secretary Van Buren,” Brevoort informed Irving on July 18, “in which he states it to be the intention of the government to offer you the appointment of Secretary of Legation in London, and is desirous of ascertaining whether you would accept the office.”87 Brevoort, John Treat, and Ebenezer had already discussed the offer, and their advice was unanimous: “We hope you will agree with us that it is not a thing to be rejected, especially as it is offered without any solicitations on your part…. It is certainly an honorable mark of confidence in you by the government, and they can have no possible design beyond that of manifesting to the world the high regard entertained by your Country for your character.”88
Paulding, still serving as a naval agent in New York, had also pushed for Irving's appointment, and when Van Buren checked with John Treat to see if Washington was really interested in the post, John Treat said yes. When President Jackson at last extended the offer, Irving could hardly refuse. The decision had already been made for him.
“I have a thorough indifference to all official honors,” Washington told Peter, who probably knew better, “yet having no reasons of stronger support for declining, I am disposed to accord with what appears to be the wishes of my friends.” Washington saw the offer “as emanating from my country, and a proof of the good will of my countrymen,” he told Ebenezer, “and in this light it is most glittering and gratifying to me.” He accepted the position, on one condition. “Should I find the office of Secretary of Legation irksome in any respect, or detrimental to my literary plans, I will immediately throw it up, being fortunately independent of it, both as to circumstances and as to ambition.” Clearly, he hoped it would not be a full-time job.89
Four days after receiving notice of his nomination, Irving notified Minister McLane of his acceptance, and promised to meet the new ambassador in London as quickly as he could. “It gives me great satisfaction, sir,” he wrote tactfully, “to be associated in office with one of whom public report and the private communications of my friends speak in the highest terms of eulogy.”90
Washington Irving was officially an employee of the United States Department of State. His friends and family were pleased. For the most part, Irving was too—but away from the eyes of his immediate circle, he qualified his enthusiasm for the new position. “I only regret,” he wrote, “that I had not been left entirely alone, and to dream away life in my own way.”91
11
Politician
1829–1832
What a Stirring moment it is to live in…. It seems to me as if life were breaking out anew with me, or that I were entering upon quite a new and almost unknown career of existence.
—Washington Irving to Henry Brevoort, March 1, 1831
IRVING'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS were thrilled with his decision to accept the post to the Court of St. James's. “Everybody here thinks you ought to have been the Minister,” Brevoort told Irving half-jokingly, but Irving was quick to dismiss such suggestions. “Whatever ambition I possess is entirely literary,” he assured his supporters. “If the world thinks I ought to be a minister, so much the better; the world honors me, but I do not degrade myself…. It is better that half a dozen should say why is he seated so low down, than any one should casually say what right has he to be at the top.”1
By late September 1829, Irving was in London. He and his new boss, Minister Louis McLane, set to work putting their new offices in order, sorting through the papers of the prior administration, and reviewing their diplomatic instructions from President Jackson. The new foreign policy of the American government—at least as it related to England—was as straightforward as President Andrew Jackson himself: “To ask nothing that is not clearly right,” Jackson told Congress, “and to submit to nothing that is wrong.”2
While Jackson's predecessor, John Quincy Adams, believed foreign policy wasn't quite that simple, Jackson maintained that Adams had bungled his relations with the British by making things far too political and complicated. That was especially true, he thought, of the negotiations regarding trade with the British West Indies, which had been closed to the United States since as far back as the Revolutionary War. In retaliation, the United States had imposed trade restrictions on British ships and ports, and for decades the two countries had engaged in dueling duties, fees, and regulations.
In fairness, Adams had come close to resolving the issue, playing competing trade interests in Britain and Canada against each other, but without success. Then, in July 1825 Parliament approved legislation lifting many of its restrictions on American ships involved in West Indies trade, on the condition that the Americans remove their restrictions on British ships. Congress scuffled over the issue, wary of handing Adams a victory in the matter—there were still sore feelings over the alleged “corrupt bargain” that had elevated Adams to the presidency without a clear majority of electoral votes—and refused the offer. Since then, the West Indies had remained off limits to American ships.
The dispute was a perpetual sore spot with the growing and increasingly powerful merchant class. President Jackson confidently assured Americans that the problem was nothing a little straight talk couldn't solve, but first he had to smooth ruffled English feathers. Hence, his directions to McLane—which had come largely from Secretary of State Martin Van Buren—were to first ingratiate himself with the English, and then get them back to the negotiating table.3
Jackson and Van Buren had an ideal team in Washington Irving and Louis McLane. Only three years younger than Irving, the Delaware-born McLane was, li
ke Irving, an attorney and veteran of the War of 1812. He had served in the U.S. Congress continuously since 1817, sitting first as Delaware's lone congressman, then as a senator from March 1827 until his appointment as minister. McLane's peers found him “correct, conciliating, and spirited,” “someone who would give no insult, and he would receive none”—very much in line with Jackson's approach to governing. Irving was impressed. “I am perfectly delighted with him,” he told Brevoort, “and doubt not that we shall live most happily together.”4
Not quite together. Irving and McLane took up facing houses on Chandos Street in Cavendish Square. While McLane set up quarters at No. 9, Irving remained easily available to the minister across the street at No. 3, where he retreated to work or write. Unfortunately, there was very little time for writing.
McLane had deftly assigned most of the busywork that normally fell to the secretary of the legation—the “scribe work,” Irving called it5—to a younger gentleman, and utilized the sociable Irving as an aide-de-camp. As they circulated in court, McLane and Irving began gently opening up diplomatic channels, casually informing Foreign Secretary Lord Aberdeen of their government's willingness to negotiate on the West Indies issue.
Most of the time, however, Irving's duties involved day-to-day maintenance of the legation, providing sailors with temporary pocket money until their funds arrived, processing passports, and sorting through the various parcels of letters and gifts the embassy received regularly—all for a paltry $2,000 annual salary. This was clearly not the part-time job he had anticipated when he left Spain, but he promised friends he would remain at his post for at least a year.
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