ruined, and all are crippled. My office, I fear, is in the former
category. We have lost between three and four hundred thousand dollars,
which is more than we can pay.

"This is a hard stroke for me. I was pleasantly situated with a moderate
support for my declining years, and now, 'Othello's occupation's gone.'"

But he met his reverses in a courageous manner, and in 1849 President
Taylor appointed him Naval Officer of the Port of New York, a place
which he held until his death.

As became his day, Hone was a good trencherman. In the index to the
Diary there are one hundred and sixteen pages marked as containing
reference of some kind to dinner parties. The old New York names appear
again and again. H. Brevoort, Chancellor and Mrs. Kent, Mr. and Mrs.
W.B. Astor, Bishop Hobart, C. Brugière and Miss Brugière, Robert
Maitland, Dr. Wainwright, Mr. and Mrs. Anthon, Judge Spencer, Judge
Irving, Dr. Hosack, Peter Jay, P. Schemerhorn. And only the formal
dinner parties are indexed. Aside from them there are scores of
allusions to where the diarist dined and who dined with him. Small
wonder that the passing of a cook of unusual abilities was an event to
be recorded. An early entry, that of February 17, 1829, reads: "Died
this morning, Simon, the celebrated cook. He was a respectable man, who
has for many years been the fashionable cook in New York, and his loss
will be felt on all occasions of large dinner and evening parties,
unless it should be found that some suitable shoulders should be ready
to receive the mantle of this distinguished _cuisinier_." When Hone was
not entertaining at his own home or being entertained at somebody
else's, he was trying out the fare at some one of the public hostelries.
Date of December 18, 1830, there is reference to a familiar name.