Note 1 — Chapter III · • Two Knickerbocker Romantics

Writing to his wife a month afterwards, Cooper said: “By the way, Mrs. Willing has let out the secret of Irving’s appointment. He wrote to Webster to remember him if any good thing offered. So that instead of not asking for the office, he asked for anything that was good. There has been more humbug practised concerning this man than concerning any other now living” (Cooper, Correspondence of James Fenimore-Cooper, Vol. II, p. 469).