Excerpt from Millard Fillmore Papers, Vol. 2 The Southern tour, as the reader knows, was postponed until the following year. Then, although Mr. Kennedy urged Mr. Irving to join the party. The jaunt had little attraction for the aged author. I have no inclination, he wrote with characteristic pleasantry, to travel with political notorieties, to be smothered by the clouds of party dust whirled up by their chariot-wheels, and beset by the speech-makers and little great men and bores of every community who might consider Mr. Fillmore a candidate for another presi dential term. To Mrs. Kennedy he wrote (feb. 21, Heaven preserve me from any tour of the kind! To have to listen to the speeches that would be made, at dinners and other occasions, to Mr. Fillmore and himself [mr. Kennedy]; and to the speeches that Mr. Fillmore and he would make in return! I would as lief go campaigning with Hudibras or Don Quixote. To Mrs. Kennedy Mr. Irving could write with all the playfulness of a fond father. His allusion to Mrs. Fillmore, above quoted, was very likely a true surmise as to the origin of her fatal illness. Mr. Fillmore was much criticized for his participation in the Southern Commercial Convention of 1869, over which he presided. He was beyond doubt absolutely free from political aspirations in connection therewith. One outcome of this convention, which may be assumed as of advantage to our country, was the work of a com mission, appointed by Mr. Fillmore, which visited the great Russian fairs at St. Petersburg and Novgorod, and also the chief commercial cities of Europe, for the purpose of attracting immigration, and capital, to the South and West. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.