19 February 1868 • (2nd of 2) • Washington, D.C. (MS: DLC, UCCL 00195)
This is to duplicate a letter I wrote you today by the unreliable Overland Mail1explanatory note . Ⓐemendation—wherein was set forth that I shall have completed my book in the course of a couple of months or so, & then I would like to go with your Embassy as a dignitary of some kind or other, & privately on my own hook as Herald & Tribune correspondent. I want to be a mild sort of dignitary, though, particularly. Pray save me a place. Correspondents will hover about the Expedition anyhow, & so it will be best for the interests of China & the world, that one of them, at least, should be reliable.
With kindest regards to you my Ⓐemendation s Sandwich Islands acquaintances among your now exceedingly large family,2explanatory note I remain,
letter docketed: M. Twain, etc.
See the previous letter. Presumably this duplicate was sent by the slower but more reliable Pacific Mail Steamship line; it did, in fact, reach Burlingame, in whose papers it has survived.
Clemens makes a playful reference to the large size of Burlingame’s household staff, some of whom he apparently met in Honolulu. Burlingame’s current entourage numbered nearly thirty officials, servants, and translators (“Arrival of the Chinese Embassy,” San Francisco Alta California, 1 Apr 68, 1).
MS, Papers of the Burlingame Family, Library of Congress (DLC).
L2 , 187–188.
donated to DLC in 1955 by Roger Burlingame.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.