Let it not be inferred, from the tenour of these chapters and their quotations, that I have been hostile to the proceedings of the bona fide citizens of Texas to redress any real grievances they had suffered from the Mexican government anterior to the

rendered it so. I therefore hesitate not in declaring that the sentiments now expressed are cool and dispassionate convictions of my own judgment.

I have thus far expressed my mind freely, and as fully as I intended to do, without any design to solicit an answer. But the circumstance before hinted at was, that it either fortunately or unfortunately fell to my lot, when a youth, to become the organ of the first disclosure in the west of the plot for dismemberment of the Union, under Mr. Jefferson's administration. If, therefore, any facts in relation to that singular transaction be important, if requested, at a leisure time I will commit them to paper, and forward them to you.

I shall not be at all surprised if it again falls to the lot of the Old Dominion, (Virginia) to call back our national councils to the very serious consideration of first principles.

I hope, sir, that you will pardon the liberty I have taken, and accept the assurances of my sincere respect and esteem, as a citizen of this republic; and remain, Your obedient servant, TH. S. HINDE.

JAMES MADISON, Esq.

[REPLY.]

'MONTPELIER, August 17, 1829.

'Dear Sir-Your letter of July 23d, was duly received, but at the time when I was under an indisposition, remains of which are still upon me. I know not whence the error originated, that I was engaged in writing a history of our country. It is true, that some of my correspondences during a prolonged public life, with other manuscripts connected with important public transactions, are on my files, and may contribute materials for a historic pen. But a regular history of our country, even during its revolutionary and independent character, would be a task forbidden by the age alone at which I returned to private life, as requiring lights on various subjects which are gradually to be drawn from sources not yet opened for public use. The friendly tone of your letter has induced me to make these explanatory remarks, which being meant for yourself only, I must request, may be so considered.

The authentic facts which it appears you happen to possess, relating to the criminal enterprise in the west, during the administration of Mr. Jefferson, MUST MERIT PRESERVATION AS BELONGING TO A HISTORY OF THAT PERIOD; and if no repository more eligible occurs to you, a statement of them may find a place among my political papers. THE RESULT OF THAT ENTERPRISE IS AMONG THE AUSPICIOUS

PLEDGES 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.

'I cannot be insensible to the motives which prompted the too partial views you have taken of my public services, and which claim from me my good wishes, which I tender you. JAMES MADISON.

THOMAS S. HINDE, Esq. Urbana, Champaign county, Ohio.

WASHINGTON, October 12, 1838. Gentlemen:-No words are adequate to express to you the thrilling satisfaction with which I read in the Intelligencer of this morning the communication of Mr. Hinde, of Illinois.

When it fell to my lot to fire a cannon over our political waters, (denounced a temerity by some, indiscretion by others, and ill faith by the interested,) little did I anticipate that a living witness would hear the sound, repair to my support, and recount historical facts of point blank identity in justification of my course, though I did suppose that perchance some of the stifled testimonials might rise up to the surface, and confirm the suspicions so justly entertained of the agents concerned in their desecration. This hope, has in part, been realized by Mr. Hinde's communication, which will probably lead to further developments, both of the old conspiracy of BURR, and the new one of HOUSTON, to demonstrate, beyond the cavil of interested partisans, that they were cast in the same matrix by the re-union of identical and kindred spirits.

interference of General Houston; or to his subsequent course and that of the host of American citizens whose adventurous spirit he had seduced to follow him, though with hostile purposes-all of whose latter proceedings would seem to me to be commendable, in their private capacity, to afford succour to their deluded brethren in that region, after the indiscriminate slaughter of their advanced corps at the Brassos, &c. At least, I consider the achievements of San Jacinto have redeemed every previous law less or imprudent step of our misguided citizens, and of General Houston himself; yet, it is HIS SHEER GOOD FORTUNE and THE SUCCESS OF THE ENTERPRISE, that can plead any extenuation of General Jackson's connivance at it, in utter derogation of high official duties; for, only suppose an incident that was far the most likely to occur, that the whole of the forlorn band at San Jacinto had fallen victims to the same indiscriminate massacre of their advanced corps! how would General Jackson have ever answered the overwhelming grief and lamentations of their bereaved friends or the twinges of his own conscience for so much choice blood of his countrymen flowing in torrents under the special patronage of his derelict official duties-if, indeed, the success of the more fortunate can appease the just complaints of all other sufferers from this piratical enterprise, commenced and accomplished under his abused official patronage!! I have given the most unquestionable demonstration of my friendliness to the Texians, and even the conspirators, since the changed position of this whole question after my countrymen had been deluded, and deluded themselves into a situation from which they could not recede, BUT MUST GO THROUGH OR PERISH! I have been one of the most efficient advocates of their recognition by this government, by various personal exertions, calling meetings, preparing memorials, and obtaining signatures, presented to both Houses of Congress, WHEREUPON THE RECOGNITION WAS ACTUALLY MADE. The changed posture of affairs called for a new

The anticipation of such a course of further developments is justified by the solicitation of Mr. Hinde that you will continue to give place in your columns to similar communications. At any rate, the endorsation in advance, by Mr. MADISON, on the course I have felt myself bound in duty to my country and posterity to pursue, in relation to similar documents in a similar case, 'as belonging to a history of that period,' will stand me as a distinguished and irrefragible offset against the denunciations of an interested and sinister administration, who, falsely professing to pattern after those of Jefferson and Madison, have, under that cloak, perpetrated most of the political abominations which were discountenanced, interdicted, and prosecuted by those patriotic statesinen; and, among the rest, they have committed some of the very acts, with clamorous self-gratulation, which were considered and treated as treason in the purer times of their predecessors. But an enlightened public will yet convince these false patriots, that what was treason then is treason

now.

With my sincere thanks to Mr. Hinde, and gratitude to the shade of the immortal MADISON, I remain very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Messrs. GALES & SEATON.

*

ROBERT MAYO.

Preparing memorials, obtaining signatures, &c. whereupon the recognition was actually made. See Annotations, (No. 3.)

course of policy in these respects. Our seduced and misguided fellow citizens in Texas, were all destined to be slaughtered if not sustained. In that view I would go the lengths to waive and compromise the wrong they had committed against Mexico, in order to prevent the further effusion of blood, by the recognition of Texian independence, thereby placing her in a position of strength and national credit, which would elevate her above the casualties that might otherwise subject her to the reclamation of Mexico by exterminating war; and at the same time make head against another threatened mischief to the integrity of this Union, by placing her out of the pale of a possible constitutional annexation to the United States, which would inevitably have laid the foundation of a new empire of states south of the Potomac, by way of avenging certain southern feelings against our eastern brethren, and compassing various other odds and ends of speculation, political, agrarian, commercial, &c. &c. The recognition, did, accordingly pass the senate, but with totally different†

* OUT OF THE PALE OF A POSSIBLE CONSTITUTIONAL ANNEXATION TO THE UNITED STATES.-Mr. Jefferson addressed a letter dated the 12th of August, 1803, to Mr. Breckenridge, then a member of the senate, and afterwards attorney-general of the United States, on the acquisition of Louisiana by treaty just then negotiated with France, and to be submitted to congress at a called session to convene on the 17th of October. He frankly avowed to Mr. B. his opinion, that the purchase was an infringement of the constitution, and suggested an amendment of it, to sanction the acquisition. That opinion, however, was set at ease by the ratification of the treaty, and has been since set aside as erroneous, by a subsequent judicial exposition of the constitutional sovereignty of the federal government in regard to the treaty making power. I subjoin the opinion of Mr. Jefferson, and the judicial exposition, viz:

This treaty, must, of course be laid before both houses, because both have important functions to exercise respecting it. They, I presume, will see their duty to their country in ratifying and paying for it, so as to secure a good which would otherwise probably be never again in their power. But I suppose they must then appeal to the nation for an additional article to the constitution, approving and confirming an act which the nation had not previously authorized. The constitution has made no provision for our holding_foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union. The Executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country, have done an act beyond the constitution. The legislature, in casting behind them metaphysical subtleties, and risking themselves like faithful servants, must ratify and pay for it, and throw themselves on their country for doing for them unauthorized what we know they would have done for themselves had they been in a situation to do it. It is the case of a guardian, investing the money of his ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory; and saying to him, when of age, I did this for your good; I pretend to no right to bind you; you may disavow me, and I must get out of the scrape as I can; I thought it my duty to risk myself for you. But we shall not be disavowed by the nation, and their act of indemnity will confirm and not weaken the constitution, by more strongly marking out its lines.'-Jefferson's Writings, vol. iii, p. 512.

"The constitution of the United States confers, absolutely, on the government of the Union, the power of making war and of making treaties. Consequently that government possesses the power of acquiring territory, either by conquest or by treaty, [which power and right of acquisition are inseparably incident to the sovereignty thereby conferred.] 1 Peters, 542, Sup. Court, U. S. 1828.

BUT WITH TOTALLY DIFFERENT VIEWS.-It would be difficult to estimate the diversity of their views, either as to their degrees of reprehensibility or their praiseworthiness. It is, however, hardly questionable, that the interest of one of the senators from Mississippi, Mr. Walker, to the amount of about $40,000 in Texian lands, would vitiate his vote and zeal in the matter, particularly too, when he took advan

views of many of its advocates from the south, who considered it one step gained towards her annexation, and the consequent severment of the Union, by the accession of strength to the slave-holding interest. Deplorable indeed is that infatuation of the north, which compels the south to resort to unconstitutional tage of the absence of several senators, to bring the question up unexpectedly. These are some of the ambushes of legislation, behind which a trickish speculator frequently lays-wait to entrap an unguarded majority.

* DEPLORABLE INDEED IS THAT INFATUATION OF THE NORTH.-It is well known that the interference with the institutions of the south above alluded to, is not confined to our own brethren of the north. And I believe that the folly of their conduct towards the slave-holding portions of this Union cannot be more forcibly brought home to their understandings, than by a perusal of the following just rebuke given to their infamous colleague on the other side of the Atlantic, by Wm. H. Chase, Esq. while on a tour through England. The pragmatical abolitionists will be enabled to infer from the parity of reasoning it contains, that their white paupers are fast approximating to the condition of the paupers of England and Ireland: which will never be the case with the white population of the slave-holding states, nor with the slaves themselves. I rather incline to the opinion that it is invidiousness alone that actuates most of the abolitionists of the north, because many of them are not in as comfortable a condition as the slaves of the south, and therefore it is that they resort to this underhanded annoyance of their masters.

An unfortunate instance of the versatility of the human mind, may here be cited, in the case of the honourable member of the House of Representatives, from Massachusetts, who in one breath rightfully exposes the 'duplicity and hostility' of the federal executive, in its diplomacy towards a foreign power, and in its unwarrantable INTERFERENCE with her domestic concerns; while in another breath, nay in almost every speech he utters, he stimulates our brethren of the north, to the most outrageous interference with the state institutions and reserved constitutional rights of the slave-holding states; which has a more inevitable tendency to a dissolution of the Union, than any act of foreign injustice, received or inflicted, can possibly have. The right of petition applies only to the grievances of the petitioners, but cannot extend to an interference with the rights or grievances of their neighbours.

[From the National Intelligencer of Dec. 28, 1838.]

'PENSACOLA, Dec. 10, 1838. 'Messrs. GALES & SEATON :-In your paper of the 17th October, observe an extract from a letter of mine addressed to DANIEL O'CONNELL, Esq. member of Parliament, &c. signed 'An American.'

I wrote the letter from Liverpool, after a tour through England, and on the point of embarking for beautiful, but suffering Ireland. Whilst on the quay, I witnessed the landing, from a Dublin steamer, of a number of Irish labourers come over to the English harvest, and was induced by their wretched appearance, as well as by the recollection of the abuse heaped on my country by the unprincipled 'agitator,' to address him the letter alluded to, and which I offer to you entire.

Your correspondent from London most feelingly describes the condition of the miserable, deceived, but noble Irish people. The utter desolation of the poor is heart-rending. It is enough, indeed, to 'chill the very blood in your veins,' to behold thousands of wretches, from helpless infancy to imbecile age, wandering through the public streets and highroads, seeking for food without finding it: whilst thousands besides are living from day to day on the minimum of subsistence, without any thing to fall back upon, and where the intermission of a day's, aye, an hour's, labour brings with it hunger and despair! I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

'To DANIEL O'CONNELL, Esq. M. P. London:

WM. H. CHASE, Major of Engineers. 'LIVERPOOL, July 4, 1838.

'Sir :-America has come in for a share of the abuse which you are in the habit of heaping on every body and every thing not appertaining to yourself. As an American I prefer your enmity to your friendship. You have been pleased to denounce America as a nation of liars, since, with the Declaration of Independence in their mouths, they hold their fellowcreatures in bondage Is there, then, no bondage in England, in Ireland, in your colonies? Where are chains more firmly rivetted than in the dark dens and lanes of London, Leeds, Liverpool; of Manchester, Sheffield, Dublin? In the bogs and morasses of your own

remedies to counteract unconstitutional and superadded cruel interferences in their domestic institutions and reserved rights as demi-sovereign states-sovereign in this particular, and in the other particulars not delegated to the federal government.

The reader who cannot discriminate between this course, and that which I took upon the revival of Burr's conspiracy and the prosecution of it in its early stages, under the connivance and patronage of the official representative of this Union whose duty it is to maintain good faith in her foreign relations, is not an object of envy for his sagacity, but of pity for his utter obtuseness of discrimination.

country, and over the smiling fields of England? Read the Poor Laws Reports; an account of the Great Metropolis; England and the English, all written by your own people: and not only read, but seek out the dens of misery and crime in your large cities and rural districts, and then boast, without lying, if you can, of the liberties of the British people. Boast, I say, of your magna charta! Boast of the results of your own disinterested exertions for Ireland!

'Sir, I have seen with my own eyes, the distress, degradation, and despair of the British people, and I perceive the cause. It is this: that they are constantly deceived by those calling themselves their friends, and who promise reform, equal rights, &c. which serve, after all, only as watchwords in mounting to power. When an O'Connell arrives at power, spare me from its exercise; the tyranny of the Turk would be more bearable. "We own to slavery in America; it is a flourishing tree, planted by our humane ancestors, the English. I will, in this place, neither attack nor defend the system as it exists in the United States, but content myself with asserting that the physical and moral condition of the three millions of slaves in the United States, is, at this moment infinitely superior, in every respect, to the labouring classes in the British dominions. I will challenge you, or any other philanthropist of your stamp, to witness a hundredth part of the want of food and clothing in any section of the slave-holding states, which was exhibited this morning amongst one hundred and fifty of the finest peasantry in the world,' just landed from Dublin. The suffering of poor Ireland is great, but it is not confined to that beautiful country; the English labourer, in the hot and unhealthful dens of the manufactories, and in the smiling fields, is, at this time, in a state of suffering that an American would not believe on relation; he must see it with his own eyes. I have passed through twenty counties of England, and I have scarcely met a smiling face among the poorer classes; every one appeared dejected, with care-worn and haggard countenances. If I have seen such in England, what awaits my sight in Ireland, where white slavery exists in all its atrocity? Where the finest peasantry in the world' are removed but a degree from the brute race? You have been pleased to call the Americans liars because they preach what they do not practise. If such be liars, what term of mendacity sufficiently strong ought to be applied to yourself?

AN AMERICAN.'