McLean) declines to order the office to be kept out of the fort, and thus, in effect, decides against the citizens. How very unimportant a citizen is 1000 miles from the seat of government! The national ægis is not big enough to reach so far. The bed is too long for the covering. A man cannot wrap himself in it. It is to be hoped that the Postmaster-General will live long enough to find out that he has been deceived in this matter.

29th. Mr. Conant, of New York, writes: "I hope you will not fail to prosecute your Indian inquiries this winter, getting out of them all the stories and all the Indian you can. I conclude you hear an echo now and then from the big world, notwithstanding your seclusion. The Creek Delegation is at Washington, unfriendly to the late treaty, and I expect some changes not a little interesting to the aboriginal cause. Mr. Adams looks at his red children' with a friendly eye, and, I trust, the men of his house,' as the Indian orator called Congress, will prove themselves so. I have been charmed with the quietude and coolness manifested in Congress in reference to the Georgia business."

And with these last words from the civilized world, we are prepared to plunge into another winter, with all its dreary accompaniments of ice and snow and tempests, and with the consoling reflection that when our poor and long-looked-for monthly express arrives, we can get our letters and papers from the office after duly performing our genuflections to a petty military chief, with the obsequiousness of a Hindoo to the image of Juggernaut.

CHAPTER XXVI.

General aspects of the Indian causeuse-Public criticism on the state of Indian researches, and literary storm raised by the new views-Political rumor— Death of R. Pettibone, Esq.-Delegate election-Copper mines of Lake Superior Instructions for a treaty in the North-Death of Mr. PettitDenial of post-office facilities-Arrival of commissioners to hold the Fond du Lac treaty-Trip to Fond du Lac through Lake Superior-TreatyReturn-Deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

1826. Feb. 1st. THE year opens with unfavorable symptoms for the Indian cause. The administration is strong in Congress, and the President favorable to the Indian view of their right to the soil they occupy east of the Mississippi until it is acquired by free cession. But the doctrine of state sovereignty contended for by Georgia, seems to be an element which all the States will, in the end, unite in contending for. And the Creeks may settle their accounts with the fact that they must finally go to the West. This is a practical view of the subject-a sort of political necessity which seems to outride everything else. Poetry and sympathy are rode over roughshod in the contest for the race. We feel nothing of this here at present, but it is only, perhaps, because we are too remote and unimportant to waste a thought about. Happy insignificance! As one of the little means of supporting existence in so remote a spot, and keeping alive, at the same time, the spark of literary excitement, I began, in December, a manuscript jeu d'esprit newspaper, to be put in covers and sent from house to house, with the perhaps too ambitious cognomen of "The Literary Voyager."

6th. The author of a leading and pungent critique for the North American Review, writes in fine spirits from Washington, and in his usual literary tone and temper about his review: "Dr. Sparks' letter will show you his opinion. He altered the manuscript in some places, and makes me say of what I do

not think and what I would not have said. But let that pass. I gave him carte blanche, so I have no right to find fault with his exercise of his discretion. W. is in a terrible passion. He says that the article is written with ability, and that he always entertained the opinion expressed in the review of Heckewelder's work. But he is provoked at the comments on's work, and, above all, at the compliment to you. Douglass, who is here, says this is merely Philadelphia versus New York, and that it is a principle with the former to puff all that is printed there, and to decry all that is not."

This appears to have been known to Gov. Clinton, and is the ground of the opinion he expressed of W. to Mr. Conant.

March 6th. Col. De Garmo Jones writes from Detroit that it is rumored that McLean is to leave the General Post-office Department, and to be appointed one of the United States Judges.

Mr. L. Pettibone, of Missouri, my companion in exploring the Ozark Mountains in 1818 and 1819, writes from that quarter that his brother, Rufus Pettibone, Esq., of St. Louis, died on the 31st July last. He was a man of noble, correct, and generous sentiments, who had practiced law with reputation in Western New York. I accompanied him and his family on going to the Western country, on his way from Olean to Pittsburgh. His generous and manly character and fair talents, make his death a loss to the community, and to the growing and enterprising population of the West. He was one of the men who cheered me in my early explorations in the West, and ever met me with a smile.

7th. My sister Maria writes, posting me up in the local news of Detroit.

9th. Mr. Trowbridge informs me that Congress settled the contested delegate question by casting aside the Sault votes. We are so unimportant that even our votes are considered as worthless. However that may be, nothing could be a greater misrepresentation than that "Indians from their lodges were allowed to vote."

14th. Col. Thomas H. Benton, of the Senate, writes that an appropriation of $10,000 has been granted for carrying out a clause in the Prairie du Chien treaty, and that a convocation of the Indians in Lake Superior will take place, "so that the coppermine business is arranged."

17th. Maj. Joseph Delafield, of New York, says that Baron

Lederer is desirous of entering into an arrangement for the exchange of my large mass of Lake Superior copper, for mineralogical specimens for the Imperial Cabinet of Vienna.

April 16th. A letter from the Department contains incipient directions for convening the Indians to meet in council at the head of Lake Superior, and committing the general arrangements for that purpose to my hands, and, indeed, my hands are already full. Boats, canoes, supplies, transportation for all who are to go, and a thousand minor questions, call for attention. A treaty at Fond du Lac, 500 miles distant, and the throwing of a commissariat department through the lake, is no light task.

27th. A moral question of much interest is presented to me in a communication from the Rev. Alvan Coe. Of the disinterested nature and character of this man's benevolence for the Indian race, no man knowing him ever doubted. He has literally been going about doing good among them since our first arrival here in 1822. In his zeal to shield them from the arts of petty traders, he has often gone so far as to incur the ill-will and provoke the slanderous tongues of some few people. That he should deem it necessary to address me a letter to counteract such rumors, is the only thing remarkable. Wiser, in some senses, and more prudent people in their worldly affairs, probably exist; but no man of a purer, simpler, and more exalted faith. No one whom I ever knew lives less for "the rewards that perish." Even Mr. Laird, whose name is mentioned in these records, although he went far beyond him in talents, gifts, and acquirements of every sort, had not a purer faith, yet he will, like that holy man, receive his rewards from the same "Master."

May 2d. Mr. Trowbridge writes me of the death of Wm. W. Pettit, Esq., of Detroit, a man respected and admired. He loaned me a haversack, suitable for a loose mineral bag, on my expedition in 1820.

8th. Difficulties between the military and citizens continue. The Postmaster-General declined, on a renewed memorial of the citizens, to remove the post-office without the garrison. He says the officers have evinced "much sensibility" on the subject, and denied that "any restraints or embarrassments" have been imposed, when every man and woman in the settlement knows that the only way to the post-office lies through the guard-house, which

is open and shut by tap of drum. Restraints, indeed! Where has the worthy Postmaster-General picked up his military information? June 6th. Definite information is received that the appropriation for the Lake Superior treaty has passed Congress.

10th. Mr. John Agnew, designated a special agent for preliminaries at Fond du Lac, writes of his prompt arrival at that place and good progress.

Gov. C. writes: "We must remove the copper-rock, and, therefore, you will have to provide such ropes and blocks as may be necessary."

22d. The citizens on this frontier, early in the season, petitioned the Legislative Council for the erection of a new county, embracing the Straits of St. Mary's and the Basin of Lake Superior, proposing to call it Chippewa, in allusion to the tribe occupying it. Maj. Robert A. Forsyth, of Detroit, M. C., writes of the success of the contemplated measure.

July 4th. The proposed treaty of Fond du Lac has filled the place with bustle for the last month. At an early hour this morning expectation was gratified by the arrival of His Excellency, Gov. Cass, accompanied by the Hon. Thomas L. McKenney, Commissioner of Indian Affairs. They reached the village in boats from Mackinac.

These gentlemen are appointed by the President to hold the conferences at Fond du Lac.

10th. Everything has been put in requisition for the last six days to facilitate the necessary embarkation. Jason could not have been more busy in preparing for his famous expedition to Argos. The military element of the party consisted of a company of the 2d Infantry, with its commissariat and medical department, numbering, all told, sixty-two men. It was placed under the command of Capt. Boardman. They embarked in three twelveoared barges, and formed the advance. The provisions, presents of goods, and subsistence supplies of the commissioners' table, occupied four boats, and went next. I proceeded in a canoe allége with ten men, with every appendage to render the trip convenient and agreeable. Col. McKenney, struck with "the coachand-six" sort of style of this kind of conveyance, determined to take a seat with me, and relying upon our speed and capacity to overtake the heavy boats, we embarked a day later. The whole expedition,