New York Sept 23^d/1828.
Dear Seward,
I received your letter containing your approbation of the
Inscription, and immediately gave it to the stone-cutters. I have had the
latter clause of the first side altered– however, so as to contain an
allusion to his death on the Ocean–That side now reads as
it did before except that additional passage viz
“Europam peragrantem
“Infirm-a valetudo comitata est,
In patriam redeuns
Supremum diem obivit
Et nunc sub undis Oceani
Procul ab amicis
Immatura morte quiescit”
I am happy to think that you are pleased with the incrip–
tion as well as myself–
I wish now to suggest to you a few corrections
in the “memoir”–It is a composition which I regard with a war–
mer feeling than admiration, for the affection and love which
it breathes, and for the simple and unaffected style in which
that affection and love are expressed– I would not, if I could
alter it in one whit, except in one or two little particulars,
which are only important, when the address is published– When
it is published, (if it be the intention to do so,) you and I
and my brothers and sisters and others dear and devoted to the
memory of David, will feel each and all a personal interest
in it– but yet we will form but a small portion of the
number to whom it is addressed– That it may fall well
on all– and raise no rude question, or impertinent remark,
I will ask you so to alter or correct it, that it may
not be liable to these or other like objections–
In the paragraph where you say “He told me this,and
then raising the lid of a chest & pointing to a loaf & c.” I should wish
to have this cut out and some other sentence substituted,–because
many who will read the address will have hearts on which such a
trait in a youth’s character will not fall as kindly, as it did upon the
ears of the young friends who heard it –and besides, as Pierre was

his companion in this strait, (for it was a “strait”,) I doubt whether
it would not please him more to have the memoir altered in
the printed copy –“You are in the garret, you now see the larder”– I would
strike this out– It was not a garret–
In an other paragraph you say he travelled “after
the manner” of Goldsmith on foot”–, This is not strictly true–
He travelled about 100 miles, I believe on foot, on his journey
from Seville to Madrid – Suppose you altered it so as to
read “occasionally, on foot”–
You say (in the copy I have,) “about the 15^th
of July he came on board of the Cameo”–It was the 1 st
of July–and a few lines after you add the circumstance
of his death on the “fourth day at sea”–It was the 20 th
I make these corrections for you, in great
haste, in great kindness, and with as much freedom as I
would have made them to my best friend–I shall not write
you a business letter again– “But, using the measure of
confidence and of trust that I repose in you I shall hereafter
compare notes with you, in a spirit of entire freedom–I may give you
cogent reasons for the desire I have often expressed to emigrate, and
at the same time,excuse my apparent remissness in writing–
I ought to have written this letter, the very hour I received
your last, but the monument has taken all the time, which I had
to dispose of– The monument will be shipped, I think, by the
last of next week–
Excuse my haste, and believe me
Yours truly,
J Berdan
P.S. In relation to the extracts from my letters,
I have to say, that it is scarcely possible to make a
selection– They are all very long, circumstantial and
besides are So peculiarly a series that I cannot
separate them– By the next mail I will send you extracts
from a letter to Pierre giving a lively account of his visit to Montmorency

William H. Seward Esq.
Counsellor of Law
Auburn, N.Y.
NEW YORK
SEP 25