Excerpt from Diplomatic Services of George William Erving: Communicated to the Massachusetts Historical Society

His name as Minister to Spain has Often been confounded with that of Washington Irving, who succeeded him after many years at the Court of Madrid; and I have more than once found it misspelled in the published documents of Con gress and the State Department.1 James Madison had a marble bust of my kinsman in his library at Montpelier, Va, where I had the good fortune to visit him in 1832; and the bust is now in my own possession. Mr. Madison then told me that he never had a more capable and faithful minister in his service, during his Sixteen years' term as Secretary of State and as President of the United States, than George William Erving.

Mr. Erving was not so fortunate in winning the confidence and regard of John Quincy Adams, with whom he had a controversy during the period of the annexation of Texas, and who spoke somewhat harshly of him in his Diary. It chanced that during this annexation period a letter which Mr. Erving had written to General Jackson many years be fore, and which had been marked private, found its way into print, through the agency of some unscrupulous mis chief-maker, and greatly to Mr. Erving's surprise and chagrin. As it referred to some words or acts of Mr. Adams in any thing but an approving tone, I was requested by Erving to explain to Mr. Adams, with whom I was then in Congress, that the letter was an off-hand effusion, written in the midst of party controversies, and altogether private, and that it had now been surreptitiously published to his great regret. The message was kindly received by Mr. Adams, and I had hoped that there was an end of the matter. But Mr. Adams did not forget or forgive the letter, as was perhaps not to have been too confidently expected.

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