I was in hope that the new cabinet, in which I had a
warm personal friend in Judge Hoar, General Grant's attorney-general,
would assign me another post, knowing that the Turkish government was
so bitterly opposed to my remaining in Crete; but the new Secretary
of State, Hamilton Fish, was a friend of General King, my discomfited
superior at Rome, and he had persistently urged my dismissal as
demanded by the Sultan, though, owing to Hoar's opposition in the
cabinet this had not been accorded. But I was never forgiven by the
friends of King, and one day, when Judge Hoar was absent from a
cabinet meeting, Fish succeeded in getting my successor at Crete
appointed, and though the judge made an indignant remonstrance at the
next meeting, it was too late to help us, for Fish obstinately opposed
my having any other appointment, and, as he controlled all nominations
to consular posts, it was impossible for the judge to effect anything.
My troubles came to a crisis in the sudden death of my wife. The
anxiety and mental distress of our Cretan life, and her passionate
sympathy with the suffering Cretans, even more than our privations and
personal danger, had long been producing their effect on her mind,
and the weaning of the baby precipitated the change into a profound
melancholy, which became insanity accompanied by religious delusions
from which she sought refuge in a voluntary death.
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