Royal Visitors in America.

Attempts to Strengthen a Spirit of International Good-Feeling Have Been Responsible for the Coming of Some Princely Guests—Others Have Found an Asylum Here During Periods of Exile.

An original article written for The Scrap Book.

Many royalties have visited the United States since the first princeling landed here in 1782. Such visits were not very frequent in the early days, but they have so increased in number that now we might almost say that we welcome the coming even while we speed the parting royal guest.

The first royal visitor to the United States was William IV, son of George III, who came to us in 1782 as midshipman in a British line-of-battle ship, one of Admiral Digby's fleet sent over to conquer us as a rebellious colony. An attempt was made by Colonel Ogden, of the First New Jersey Regiment, to capture him while his vessel was lying off New York, but the scheme failed, and the prince lived to become King of Great Britain and uncle of Queen Victoria, who succeeded him in 1837.

Queen Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent, was a hasty guest of this country a little later on, while he was on his way to join his regiment, then stationed in Canada. He subsequently became Governor of Nova Scotia, and commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America. It was in his honor that St. John's Island changed its name, and has since been known as Prince Edward Island.

The Visit of Louis Philippe.

In 1796, Louis Philippe, accompanied by his two brothers, the Duc de Montpensier and Comte de Beaujolais, landed in Philadelphia, bearing letters of introduction from Gouverneur Morris, then American minister to France. He traveled very extensively over the country, and sailed for Havana, whence he intended sailing to Spain to see his exiled mother, but by orders from the Court of Madrid he was detained there some time.

He returned to the United States, whence he sailed for England in 1800, became the "citizen king" of France, and died in England two years after the revolution of 1848.

The Brothers of Napoleon.

In 1803, Jerome Bonaparte, nineteen years of age, arrived in New York. Visiting Baltimore, he fell in love with Miss Elizabeth Patterson, and was accepted by her, and married with great ceremony by the Catholic bishop of the diocese.

In 1805 he started for France, leaving his wife to follow. An order of the emperor prohibited her entering France at any place, and she saw her husband only once after his departure.

The First Consul had their marriage annulled by his council of state, and forced Jerome, who was his youngest brother, to marry the daughter of the King of Würtemberg. Six days after the ceremony the young prince was made King of Westphalia.

Joseph Bonaparte, a brother, one year older than the emperor, was by him invited—or, rather, compelled—to accept the kingdom of Naples in 1806, and the kingdom of Spain two years later.

After Wellington's victory at Waterloo, Joseph, with leave of his brother, quitted France, and coming to the United States as the Comte de Survilliers, he purchased an estate of fifteen hundred acres of land in Bordentown, New Jersey, and settled down to the life of an opulent gentleman and philosophical student. He also established a summer residence at Lake Bonaparte, in the Adirondacks. In 1832 he returned to France to aid in sustaining the pretensions of his nephew, Louis Napoleon, to the throne, and failing in this he went to Florence, where he died in 1844.

Three other Bonaparte princes who crossed the Atlantic were Charles Lucien, Pierre, and Antoine, sons of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, and nephews of the great emperor. Pierre—best remembered, perhaps, as the man who shot Victor Noir in a duel—and his brother Antoine were mere transient visitors, but Charles Lucien lived in Philadelphia for half a dozen years. He was a man of quiet tastes, and an enthusiastic student of bird-life. He devoted most of his time to the preparation of a revised and enlarged edition of Alexander Wilson's "American Ornithology." The work appeared in three volumes, from 1825 to 1833, with both Wilson's name and that of Charles Lucien Bonaparte upon its title pages. Before the third volume was issued the prince had returned to Europe, where the rest of his life was spent.

The Two Sons of Murat.

Two sons of Joachim Murat, who married the first Napoleon's sister, Caroline, and was proclaimed King of the Two Sicilies in 1808, settled in Florida a few years after their father was shot by the Neapolitans. Napoleon Murat was of a scientific turn of mind, and took great interest in our educational institutions. He married a grandniece of George Washington, and died in Tallahassee in 1847.

His brother, Napoleon Lucien Charles, came to America in 1825, and married a Miss Frazer, of Bordentown, New Jersey. He went to France in 1848, and received the title of a prince of the imperial family.

In 1836, Charles Louis Napoleon, the late Emperor of the French, was banished to the United States for attempting to gain the throne of his uncle, the first emperor, by revolutionary means. He landed at Norfolk in March, 1837, and then came to New York, where he remained until May, when he sailed for Switzerland to see his dying mother.

Two visits to this country were made by the Prince de Joinville, third son of Louis Philippe, and brother-in-law of the late Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil. On the first he arrived in New York in 1842, where he met with a reception due the son of a king of France, who had also been the custodian of the remains of the great emperor when they were brought from St. Helena to Paris.

On the second visit, made in 1861, the Prince de Joinville was accompanied by his son, the Duc de Penthièvre, and his nephews, the Comte de Paris and the Duc de Chartres. He placed his son in the naval service, and accepted for himself and nephews commissions on General McClellan's staff, as the Army of the Potomac was about to resume the march upon Richmond. After the removal of "Little Mac" the prince returned to France.

The Prince of Wales's Tour.

In September, 1860, the Prince of Wales, traveling as Baron Renfrew, with his tutor, the Duke of Newcastle, arrived at Detroit, after a tour through Canada. He received a most generous series of ovations in the United States, going as far west as Illinois, and while in Washington he was the special guest of President Buchanan.

Shortly after the departure of the Prince of Wales we had a visit from Prince Napoleon and his bride, the Princess Clothilde, daughter of Victor Emmanuel II, and aunt of the present King of Italy. This prince was a son of Jerome Bonaparte and his second wife, Catharine of Würtemberg. The couple made many friends during their brief sojourn.

Queen Emma, widow of a former king of the Sandwich Islands, landed at San Francisco in 1866, and, after making a thorough inspection of our religious and educational systems, she went to England via New York.

On January 21, 1870, Prince Arthur, third son of Queen Victoria, who is now the Duke of Connaught, arrived in New York from Montreal, whither he had been ordered on military service. Three days later he was introduced to President Grant by the British minister, and was honored with a grand ball in the Masonic Temple in Washington.

Early on the morning of November 19, 1871, the Grand Duke Alexis, son of the Czar Alexander II of Russia, appeared in his flagship in the lower bay of New York Harbor. His reception was of a dual character: first as an officer of the Russian navy, and then as the son of an imperial father.

Kings and Princes From Many Lands.

Kalakaua, King of the Hawaiian Islands, stepped ashore at San Francisco, in November, 1874, visited our chief ports, examined our industrial resources and capabilities, and endeavored to hasten the negotiation of a commercial treaty between his government and that of the United States.

The Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro, visited the United States in 1876, during the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

Queen Liliuokalani came to plead her cause after she was deposed from the Hawaiian throne, during President Cleveland's second administration.

The Comte de Paris, accompanied by his son, the present Duc d'Orleans, again came to the United States in 1890 to visit the grave of General McClellan, on whose staff he had served during our Civil War.

In 1893 the Princess Eulalia, daughter of the late Queen Isabella of Spain, and aunt of the present king, came to the United States as the official representative of the queen regent at the time of the World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago.

The Crown Prince of Siam, Somdetch Chowfa Maha Vajiravudh, with his brother, who is next in succession to the throne, visited this country on his way home from his ten years' college life in England, in 1902. In that same year the Grand Duke Boris, of Russia, cousin of the Czar, and Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of the German Kaiser, also visited us.

His Highness the Maharajah Gaekwar of Baroda, Hindu prince of the first rank, came to the United States in May of this year. He was chosen ruler when a boy of twelve, and he began at once the careful study of the needs of his state and people. Under his rule the slovenly Hindu town of Baroda became a fine modern city with colleges for men and women, and a technical school.