their defective provisions of responsibility have obviously placed at the command of treacherous public servants and leading ambitious partisans.

It has been wisely said that 'a citizen's life belongs to his country.' The American people expect every citizen to do his duty. For my part, I shall discharge mine to the best of my ability, under all circumstances. I have no fears; I owe no deference, and I ask no difference, in or out of office! When I made oath 'faithfully to discharge the duties of my office to the best of my ability, and to support the constitution of the United States,' I considered it as binding on me to give information of treason or misdemeanours, as to execute the details of official duty assigned me, even though the delinquent in treasonable designs or misdemeanours should be the head of the office, the department, or the President himself. Let every man adopt the same rule of uncompromising duty to the country of his allegiance, and she must be safe under all reverses.

That the foregoing parallel may be the more clearly perceived to run upon all-fours-nay, that the identity of the one case with the other may be recognized in the most palpable manner, I subjoin here a few more extracts from incontrovertible authorities. I repeat, their identity is the same; for it will be seen that many of the surviving confederates of Burr were the aiders and abettors of the conspiracy of Houston, and have been rewarded by General Jackson; that Burr had predicted that THIS THING and the dismemberment of the Union must take place at some future time, if not effected by him; that he urged the nomination of General Jackson for the presidency in opposition to Mr. Monroe, and that General Jackson's zeal in the matter, finally succeeded in his nomination, at his own commands by the legislature of Tennessee, it having been previously moved in the Grand Lodge of Tennessee, in consonance with a previous effort by another Masonic Lodge in Massachusetts, to nominate him for the Vice-Presidency, by the Rev. Joseph Richardson, a high priest in masonry. And it is worthy of note here, that with this secret association, Mr. Burr seems to have enjoyed a special favour, if the Ursuline Jesuits of New Orleans may be considered as having co-sympathies with the paternal stock of secret associations, and I believe history sufficiently establishes that fact, the evidence of which I shall endeavour to give some

Nay, more, one of the most active confederates of Aaron Burr was the first to recognize and proclaim, in his official capacity as collector of the port of New York, the independence of Texas, more than twelve months in advance of the government, by his protection of the Texian sloop of war Brutus, when anchored within his jurisdiction. In his answer of September 8, 1836, to the complaints of the Mexican consul, calling on him to say, 'upon what grounds his office acknowledged a FLAG that is not acknowledged by the United States,' he asserts, that 'it has been the practice of this port to treat with respect and courtesy the FLAGS of such nations as have declared themselves independent, and maintained their independence against the authority of the country from which they have seceded,' &c. See Annotations, No. 2.

rehearsal of in the Appendix to this work, where I shall have a wider scope at this and other subjects.

In the second volume of the Memoirs of Aaron Burr, published in New York, in the course of the last year, the editor observes:

Page 368. On the 30th April, 1805, Col. Burr and Gabriel Shaw, who had accompanied him from Philadelphia, left Pittsburg in their boat. At this period Col. Burr commences, for the amusement of his daughter, a journal of his adventures, which contains some interesting details explanatory of the then situation of the western country.'

The editor makes copious extracts from that journal, of a few of which I shall avail myself here, viz:

Page 369. Arrived at Cincinnati on the 11th of May, by the course of the river estimated to be 310 miles from Marietta. Meeting here with General Dayton and several old army acquaintances, remained the whole day. In the evening, started for Louisville. There it is proposed to take land to ride through part of Kentucky.

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'Arrived at Nashville on the 29th of May. One is astonished at the number of sensible, well-informed, and well-behaved, which is found here. I have been received with much hospitality and kindness, and could stay a month with pleasure; but Gen. JACKSON having provided us a boat, we shall set off on Sunday, the 2d June, to navigate down the Cumberland. We intend to make a rapid voyage down the Mississippi to Natchez and New Orleans.

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Left Nashville on the 3d of June in an open boat. Came down the Cumberland to its mouth about 220 miles, where our ark was in waiting. Reached Massac, on the Ohio, sixteen miles below, on the 6th. Here found General Wilkinson on his way to St. Louis. The General and his officers fitted me out with an elegant BARGE, sails, colours, and ten oars, with a sergeant and ten able, faithful hands. Thus equipped, I left Massac on the 10th of June, Shaw in company. 'On the twenty-fifth of June reached New Orleans." The inhabitants of the United States are here called Americans. I have been received with distinction. The mark of attention with which I have been most flattered is a letter from the holy sisters, the Ursuline nuns, congratulating me on my arrival. Having returned a polite answer to this letter, it was intimated to me that the saints had a desire to see me. The bishop conducted me to the cloister. We conversed at first through the grates; but presently I was admitted within, and I passed an hour with them greatly to my satisfaction. * * This city is larger than I expected. I have promised to return here next fall. I go on the 10th instant, (July,) by land, to Kentucky, and thence, probably, to St. Louis. A la Sante Madame Alston,' is generally the first toast at every table I have been. 'Arrived at Nashville on the 6th of August. * The hospitality of these people will keep me here till the 12th inst. when I shall partake of a public dinner given, not to the Vice-President, but to A. B. * * I am still at Nashville, (August 13th.) For a week I have been lounging at the house of General Jackson, once a lawyer, after a judge, now a planter; a man of intelligence, and one of those prompt, frank, ardent souls whom I LOVE TO MEET. * * To-morrow I move on towards Lexington.'

&c. &c.-(Page 372.)

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Page 392. During the years 1806 and 1807, Herman Blannerhasset kept a private journal, in which are recorded the principal incidents arising out of his connections with Colonel Burr. * * It appears that in December, 1805, Blannerhasset addressed a letter to Col. Burr, expressing a wish to participate in any speculation in the western country that might present itself to Burr. In August, 1806, in consequence of this overture, Burr visited Blannerhasset at his house on the Ohio. Blannerhasset tendered his services to Burr, generally.

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Page 398. October 8, 1807. I* called on Burr this morning, when he at last mentioned to me, during a short tête-a-tête, that he was preparing to go to England; that the time was now auspicious for him, and he wished to know whether I could give him letters. 'After Col. Burr's return to the United States from Europe, he received several letters from Blannerhasset; in two of them he refers to a SUIT which he had commenced against General ANDREW JACKSON, in Adams county, Mississippi territory, for a balance due Burr. In reply to an inquiry made on the subject, under date of the 4th of October, 1812, he says, 'I allude to an account between yourself and Andrew Jackson, in his own hand-writing, on which appears a balance in your favour of $1,726 62,' &c.

* BLANNERHASSET.

The following extracts throw some light upon the artifices early brought into requisition to procure the nomination of Gen'l Jackson to the presidency, probably to insure the accomplishment of Burr's abortive schemes.

Memoirs of Aaron Burr, vol. 2, page 433. Extract from Burr's letter to Joseph Alston, governor of South Carolina:

'NEW YORK, November 20, 1815.

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'A congressional caucus will, in the course of the ensuing month, nominate James Monroe for President of the United States, and will call on all good republicans to support the nomination. Whether we consider the measure itself, the character and talents of the man, or the state whence he comes, this nomination is equally exceptionable and odious. I have often heard your opinion of these congressional nominations. They are hostile to all freedom and independence of suffrage. A certain junto of actual and factitious Virginians, having had possession of the government for twentyfour years, consider the United States as their property, and, by bawling 'support the Administration,' have too long succeeded in duping the REPUBLICAN PUBLIC. The moment is extremely auspicious for breaking down this degrading system. The best citizens of our country acknowledge the feebleness of our Administration. They acknowledge that offices are bestowed merely to preserve power and without the smallest regard to fitness. If, then, there be a man in the United States of firmness and decision, and having standing enough to afford even a hope of success, it is your duty to hold him up to the public view: that man is ANDREW JACKSON. Nothing is wanting but a respectable nomination, made before the proclamation of the Virgina caucus, and Jackson's success is inevitable. If this project should accord with your views, I could wish to see you prominent in the execution of it. It must be known to be your work. Whether a formal and open nomination should now be made, or whether you should, for the present, content yourself with barely denouncing, by a joint resolution of both houses of your legislature, congressional caucuses and nominations, you only can judge. One consideration inclines me to hesitate about the policy of a present nomination-it is this: that Jackson ought first to be admonished to be passive; for, the moment he shall be announced as a candidate, he will be assailed by the Virginia junto, with menaces and with insidious promises of boons and favours THERE IS DANGER THAT JACKSON MIGHT BE WROUGHT UPON BY SUCH PRACTISES. If an open nomination be made, an express should be instantly sent to him,' &c. The following is taken from the Richmond Enquirer of March 15, 1825:

'GENERAL JACKSON.-In publishing the following extraordinary article from the NASHVILLE WHIG, (a paper not friendly to General Jackson,) we have to state that we have not the most distant suspicion of the name or character of the author. If the letter be not an absolute forgery, we have then to ask, who is this officer lately in the southern army, whose name begins with H, who had business with the War Department last fall, and who met General Jackson at Washington, state of Pennsylvania, in November last?' &c.

"GENERAL JACKSON'S PRIVATE OPINIONS -The following extract from a letter from an officer formerly in the Southern army, to a gentleman in this town, will, no doubt, interest our readers:

* 'For the last fifteen years I had been on terms of intimacy, and in the closest friendship with General Jackson. In November last, as I was returning west from the seat of government, to which I had been called by private business with one of the Departments, I met the General and his lady at a public house in Washington, Pennsylvania, where he had put up for the night, as he was journeying to the capital to take his seat in the Senate. I never had seen him so cheerful and happy. Various political subjects were introduced and discussed. I spoke of the presidential election, &c. 'I'll tell you how it is, my friend H- -,' he said. 'I now find myself urged on by a popular current; where it will leave me when the tide shall subside, I cannot tell, nor do I much care.' *

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I asked him if it was finally with his consent that the legislature of Tennessee nominated him as a fit person for the office, (the Presidency.) It was by my direction,' said he. A few days before the meeting of that body, I received a letter from a great leading character in New York, a personal friend, urging me in the most forcible and persuasive terms to make an immediate effort to arouse the west in my behalf, before another aspirant in that quarter, AN IMPLACABLE PERSONAL ENEMY, should, by uniting artifice with popularity, secure it to himself. Upon which, I directed my adherents in the Tennessee legislature, to pass the resolutions they did on that subject.'"' &c. &c.

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In conclusion, I must be permitted to reiterate my firm belief, rendered still more fixed and immoveable by this collation of the

diversified and irrefragable testimony which heretofore floated but loosely or less cohesively in my mind, that General Jackson was perfectly apprised of the conspiracy of General Houston, before the date of my communication of it to him; and that his strictly confidential letter to Mr. Fulton, affecting to institute an inquiry which its own injunctions rendered inoperative, denouncing to him withal, that his information was not sufficient to justify official proceedings-deserves to be regarded in no other light than as an illustrious example of that DUPLICITY which has so eminently characterized the 'Jacksonian diplomacy' throughout his eight years' administration of the federal government, both in its foreign and internal relations. At least, I have demonstrated that his information was unquestionably sufficient afterwards to have demanded of him the removal of the secrecy with which he had enveloped the whole plot; that upon every principle of public justice and executive duty, long before I knew a breath of his letter to Mr. Fulton, General Jackson himself ought to have been the agent to hand the documents over to the archives of the nation, and to have rendered them a subject of public action by all the various modes of proclamation, congressional communication, and general orders to the proper officers of the government, after the example of one of his illustrious predecessors in the like case, or even without example, had it indeed been the first instance of such an outrage upon international law, common justice, or good neighbourship. But, IN TRUTH, he intended no avowal in the case whatever. HE MEANT TO GIVE IT THE GO-BY-he meant to overlay it—and this was the ingenious, the disingenuous artifice by which it was to be consigned to its everlasting sleep, under a veil, which, if ever it should come to be lifted up, might be pleaded in extenuation, as disclosing honourable feelings and sentiments, however mistaken was his judgment in undervaluing the testimony of what was obviously in progress, and daily becoming more and more manifest till its consummation; while, on the contrary, he persisted in a disingenuous silence towards Congress, and in denying any knowledge of it in his communications with the Mexican minister through the secretary of state.

And I now appeal to public opinion, whether, under the circumstances of executive delinquency in the above course, when this letter to Mr. Fulton came into my hands, six years after its date, based upon my own statement of facts, denounced in it as not established, and as insufficient for official action, did this circumstance not only give me the most indubitable claims upon it personally to vindicate my statement thus impugned, but also impose on me a superadded obligation to lay it before the WORLD, constituting as it unquestionably does, an important link in the history of those unique times, which could not be but half understood without it? Indeed, to my mind it obviously 'belonged to

history, and whatever may be the decision of the present highly distorted party judgment upon the case, I feel sufficiently san. guine of the exculpatory decision of all impartial minds, and of the universal decree of posterity.

*To MY MIND IT OBVIOUSLY BELONGED TO HISTORY.-Without comment, I subjoin the following endorsements of the opinion above expressed, taken from the National Intelligencer, of the 12th and 15th of October last.

'TO THE EDITORS OF THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.

'Mount Carmel, Wabash Co. Ill. Sept. 17, 1838. "GENTLEMEN:-On reading your editorial remarks in your paper of the 5th inst. respecting Dr. Mayo's communications, I do most heartily concur with you in your sentiments. I rejoice that the era of investigation has now commenced. I hope you will admit of other communications of the same tenour; therefore, I enclose you the within documents. Your editorial remarks called them forth from a dusty shelf. As soon as I read your remarks, I sat down and copied them; the originals may be had if called for. I had no idea of ever calling up Mr. Madison's letter, but circumstances now justify its coming forth. The papers referred to were sent to him at Richmond, while in the Virginia convention, and acknowledged by forwarding to me in return, under his own frank, a copy of the first impression of the new constitution of Virginia.

If, gentlemen, John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart, could detect an Arnold's treason, let not the attempts of as many almost beardless boys of the west, who overturned the great western conspiracy, be buried in oblivion! The illustrious Madison very justly remarked, that they must merit preservation,' and the result is an auspicious pledge given by the genius of republican institutions and the spirit of a free people for future triumphs over dangers of every sort that may be encountered in our national career.'

As to myself, as I have stated before, I seek nothing. I act on this occasion, for posterity! Let our youths unite and save their country. TH. S. HINDE.

'Urbana, Champaign Co. Ohio, July 23, 1829. 'DEAR SIR: These lines are dictated under a strong, and, I may add, a powerful conviction of the critical state of our national affairs. It is neither vanity nor flattery that influences my mind on the present occasion. I am but an humble individual-a pioneer of the west from a lad, a personal friend of your relations in Kentucky, having a son in my family bearing the name of one, and, as for myself, an uniform supporter of your trying' yet 'triumphant' administration.

'I am pleased to find that you, sir, are about preparing to write a political history of our country. [The public journals had so asserted.] This history could not have fallen into better hands to perform the work: and, since I sat down hastily to address you this note, subjects in relation to this matter other than those I had in view when I began to write, have rushed upon the mind.

Your administration was one blended with so many eventful occurrences, that for a season the mind was led to view the whole history of that memorable period as a recurrence to a second revolution; and one would be often at a loss to know which should be most admired, the firmness of the people who supported you, or the untiring patience and fortitude with which the affairs of the nation were administered. To remark, too, the powerful opposition, and this opposition overpowered and overturned by moderation and forbearance!

But I fear that the day of our splendour and glory is like to be overcast by the cloud or vapour of a far different character. There is a want of forbearance that I fear will convulse the whole body politic, and in the end will settle down in party strife and animosity; therefore, if the information be correct that the contemplated political history may not see light till you are no more, it may be that this procrastination may prove injurious to your country.

At the close of your administration there was evidently, to superficial observers a kind of mist that rested upon many occurrences that bewildered the mind; but the rays of truth, as time advanced, have dissipated them all; and the faithful historian in after ages will place your administration on higher grounds than that of any other from the days of Washington. The great and good Jefferson had left you as a kind of executor to settle our affairs with foreign nations. Affairs in Europe necessarily