Webster's solemn and reserved nature. It was the first great grief.
Mr. Webster wept convulsively as he stood beside the dead, and those who
saw that stately creature so wrung by anguish of the heart never forgot the
sight.
Thus the period which began at Portsmouth in 1807 closed in Boston, in
1817, with the death of the eldest born. In that decade Mr. Webster had
advanced with great strides from the position of a raw and youthful lawyer
in a back country town of New Hampshire. He had reached the highest
professional eminence in his own State, and had removed to a wider sphere,
where he at once took rank with the best lawyers. He was a leading
practitioner in the highest national court. During his two terms in
Congress he had become a leader of his party, and had won a solid national
reputation. In those years he had rendered conspicuous service to the
business interests of the nation, and had established himself as one of the
ablest statesmen of the country in matters of finance. He had defined his
position on the tariff as a free-trader in theory and a very moderate
protectionist when protection was unavoidable, a true representative of the
doctrine of the New England Federalists.
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