\ r 
 
 w • 
 

 ■ <r v-Swf-V V-#-> V^> 
 
BIOGRAPHY 7 
 
 OF 
 
 GENERAL LEWIS CASS. 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 A yOICE FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 ^em ]1ork : 
 
 J. WINCHESTER, NEW WORLD PRESS, SO ANN STREET. 
 
 SUN OFFICE, CORNER FULTON' AND NASSAU: B7ECESS St STRINGER, 222 BROADWAY: J. C. WAD- 
 LEIGH, 459 BROADWAY : BRAINARD to CO. BOSTON ! ZIEBER & CO. P11IT.ADELHHIA: 
 WILLIAM TAYLOR, BALTIVORE ! GEO. JONES, ALBANY ! BRAVO fc 
 MORGAN. J. B. STEEL, NEW ORLEANS : AND BY 
 BOOKSELLERS AND TEKIODICAL AGENTS THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES.] . 
 
ALISON FOR ONE DOLLAR! 
 
 NOW READY, 
 
 AT THE NEW WORLD OFFICE, NO. 30 ANN STREET, IN 
 
 ONE LARGE AND SPLENDID VOLUME, 
 
 OF 5iS PAGES, OCTAVO SIZE, ON NEW LONG-PRIMER TYPE, 
 
 ALISON'S 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE, 
 
 FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE 
 
 FRENCH REVOLUTION IN 1789 
 
 TO THE 
 
 RESTORATION OF THE BOURBONS IN 1815. 
 
 ABRIDGED FOR THE USE OF THE GENERAL READER, AND ALSO FOR COLLEGES, 
 ACADEMIES, AND OTHER SEMINARIES OF LEARNING, 
 
 BY EDWARD S. GOULD. 
 
 Tins splendid volume will embrace the most complete, perspicuous, and comprehensive History of Eu- 
 rope, during trie sto~my period Iron, 17*5 to 181". which has ever heen given to the world. It is :i perfect abridge- 
 ment of Alison— hi> errors excepted— in elegant language and clear style ; and will prove far Dibit accepiahle 
 ti. the general render than the verbose original. 
 
 We need nut say to those who ha'.e read Harper's edition of Alison, that it abounds with cross errors. These 
 nre. tiir the most part, copied titrraliui el verbatim From the Eiujlisfa estit ■.■!■. winch is sown thick with them. 
 They are of such it character as not only to unp.-iii the value of the work, nil! [a render it, as u slnndaid. tu 
 which mi'iiite accuracy is indispensable, almost worthies. In our abridged edition, every mistake even ol" the 
 Hiosl trivial sort is corrected, and Mr. Alison is set right, ROt only with regard to the geography of places, hut 
 with regard to historical tacts, which he has sometimes n; the strangest manner perverted from their notorious 
 hearing ami character. Take, forexatnple, his ignorau' and preju luial account ol'otir war with Great Itritain. 
 Shall tliis he allowed in go abroad anion;.' the youth llf America to .lamp lhe:r patriotism and chill their ardor ? 
 
 The intelligent render need not he informed that it has always l*c-n usual tu issue Abridgement* of very long 
 and valuable histories ; ami that these abridgement), from their better adaptation tothe mass, have often taken 
 the place uf the original works. In Harper's Family Library are found volumes of ttiis kind. 
 
 We beg leave to assine our friends nnd the puohc, who ought to be our friends, that the book we shall Kivn 
 litem, « ill tie 1 1 i •_- 1 1 1 >■ creditable both to Ihe editor and publisher: and that it will contain cicru jnrt and inciitrnt 
 deluded by Alison, in us full, circumstantial and clenru manner its is necessary fur iIm full talisfucthnl uf the 
 reader, whether he be old or young, leiirnen orignorant. 
 
 Among the many commendatory loners in reference to our proposed Abridgement of litis great and faulty 
 work, we relcr with pleasure to one fnnu no less distinguished a personage than ihe Hon. lima.R Ml not Sukr- 
 man, if t lonneclictlt. Il is as follows, and singularly corroborative of the views which we a fortnight since, e.\- 
 - mi i!ie subject : 
 
 Fairkiki.u. Conn., Octobers, 1843. 
 
 " Mv Dear >ltt— I have taken all brit two o*" the 16numl>ersof Alison's history, and have read half uf It, It is 
 . i i.Ki) WITH TKPlots asp ISKt.Ess PKTAILS as okkaTLY TO I'tl'AIR its VALUE. The period i' embraces 
 • in the ami lis of the human race, and all the important lac's are given with fidelity. 
 Hut llicvaxl compilation "f facts, which arc neither interesting nor instructive, premits itl ecru genera/ pe- 
 rusal. 
 
 " I «.- much gratified to find by the Mew World ofSeplemlier23d, that " Edward S.Gould, Bso.."hnd abridged 
 the work, reducing it to one octavo volume, / will suspend mji. future an ntion ti tUr can wkieA I new have, 
 and airnit tltr arrival of l/ir nbri.lzrwrnt. A dollar is stated to be I he price. I enclose tint sum, and wish you 
 would have ihe goodness to procure the volume foi me. and send it by the first opportunity. 
 
 Very truly yours, 11. M SHERMAN." 
 
 The capitals ami italic. In the foregoing letter nrp, of course, onrown. We are proud to place Ihe name of the 
 venerated writer first among the purchasers ol our work— a nunc deny ton N lovers uf learning and true pat riots. 
 Mr. Slier in:, i '- lofty Standing and cbnrncnjrarebHl well known to need the record of our pea : but as he is among 
 
 Ihe great men ufn former a ntion, nnd hits ne\er miturled in the Dolii'cnl contests of the day. there may he 
 
 ihnse who ore ii p.t i nber oftlte bnr in Gonnecticut, and for mnny years held 
 
 tin nfflci ,i i .' . in the highest court iifthnt State. Appmvul from such a source is highly gratifying, and 
 counterbalances the faj — '. use ol i thousand such interested parties r.s Harper and Hruihers. 
 
 N ■ Yon:. Oeti l-er. 1*1!. J. WINCHESTER, 30 Ann-street, 
 
 

 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF 
 
 GENERAL LEWIS CASS. 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 Al voice from a friend 
 
 ^ NEW -YORK 
 J. WINCHESTER, NEW WORLD PRESS, 30 ANN-STREET. 
 
 1843. 
 

BIOGRAPHY OF LEWIS CASS. 
 
 The civil and military qualifications of Gen. Lewis Cass for the Presi 
 dency, and the distinguished services which he rendered his country, are 
 briefly set forth in the following sketch, the greater part of which was 
 written before Gen. Cass's name had been connected with the Presidential 
 question. It may, therefore, be justly regarded as a tribute, which the 
 impartial historian pays to the merits of a gallant soldier and distinguished 
 statesman. 
 
 Lewis Cass was born in Exeter, New-Hampshire. His ancestors 
 were among the first settlers of that part of the country, and his father 
 bore a commission in the revolutionary army, which he joined the day 
 after the battle of Lexington, and in which he continued until the close of 
 the war ; having participated in the memorable battles of Bunker Hill, 
 Saratoga, Princeton, Trenton, Monmouth, and Germantown. He was 
 afterward a major in Wayne's army. In 1799, he removed with his 
 family to Marietta, but eventually settled at Wackalomoka, in the vicin- 
 ity of Zanesville, in Ohio, where, after a life of honorable usefulness, he 
 died in August. 1830. 
 
 His son, Lewis Cass, was educated at the academy in Exeter, and 
 studied law at Marietta, under the late Governor Meigs. He was admit- 
 ted to the bar in 1802, and pursued the practice of his profession success- 
 fully during several years. 
 
 In 1806, he was elected a member of the Ohio Legislature. When 
 the enterprise of Colonel Burr began to agitate the country, he was 
 appointed on the committee to which the subject was referred, and 
 drafted the law which enabled the local authorities to arrest the men and 
 boats on their passage down the Ohio. This law, interposing the arm of 
 the State, baffled a project which was generally believed to have been 
 of a revolutionary character, and intended to divide the Western from the 
 Eastern States. The same pen drafted the address to Mr. Jefferson, which 
 unfolded the views of the Ohio Legislature on this momentous subject. 
 
 In 1807, Mr. Cass was appointed marshal of the State, which office he 
 resigned in 1813. In 1812, he volunteered his services in the force 
 which was called out to join the army under General William Hull, and 
 marched to Dayton, where he was elected colonel of the 3rd regiment of 
 Ohio volunteers. Having to break through an almost trackless wilder, 
 ness, the army suffered much on its route to Detroit, and it was necessary 
 
4 BIOGRAPHY OF LEWIS CASS. 
 
 that the officers of the volunteers should be exemplars in fatigue and pri- 
 vation.->, lest the men, unused to military discipline, should turn back in 
 discouragement. Colonel Cass was anions: the most urgent for an inva- 
 sion of the Canadian province immediately after the army arrived at 
 Detroit ; but General Hull did not cross the river until after the lapse of 
 several days, and thereby lost all the advantages of a prompt and deci- 
 sive movement. The advanced detachment was commanded by Colonel 
 Cass, and he was the first man who landed in arms on the enemy's shore, 
 after the declaration of war. Colonel Cass soon dislodged the British 
 posted at the bridge over the Canard's. There he maintained his ground, 
 in expectation that the army would advance and follow up the success, 
 by striking at Maiden ; but he was disappointed by the indecision of the 
 general, who ordered the detachment to return. 
 
 In all the timorous and inefficient measures which followed, Colonel 
 Cass had no responsible participation. His known disapprobation of 
 the course pursued, made him an unwelcome counsellor at head-quarters. 
 Colonel Cass immediately repaired to Washington, and made a report to 
 Government. In the following spring he was exchanged, and appointed 
 colonel of the 27th regiment of infantry, and soon after was promoted to 
 the rank of brigadier general. He joined General Harrison at Seneca, 
 and crossing Lake Erie with him. after Perry's victory, was present in 
 the pursuit of Proctor, and participated in the triumph at the Moravian 
 towns ; on which occasion (though a senior officer) he accompanied Col- 
 onel Johnson's mounted regiment, in the charge which ended in the total 
 route of the English army and their savage allies. The northwestern 
 campaign being happily terminated, General Cass was left in command 
 of Michigan, and the upper province of Canada. His head-quarters were 
 at Detroit, and he thus became the military guardian of a people over 
 whom he was soon (October 9, 1813,) called to preside as civil governor. 
 In July, 1814, he was associated with General Harrison in a commission 
 to treat (at Greenville, Ohio,) with the Indians who had taken part against 
 the United States during the war. A treaty of pacification was formed, 
 comparative tranquillity was restored to the frontiers, and a large body 
 of Indians accompanied Governor Cass to Detroit as auxiliaries. At one 
 period, Michigan was left with only one company of regular soldiers for 
 its defence ; and that, at the time, consisted of twenty-seven men. With 
 this inadequate force, and the local militia, the governor was, for a time, 
 left to defend the territory against the hostile Indians, who were constantly 
 hovering around Detroit. 
 
 In 1815, after the termination of the war. Governor Cass moved his 
 family to Detroit. Michigan had suffered greatly during the war; De- 
 troit exhibited a scene of devastation. Sea reely a family, when it resumed 
 its domestic establishment, found more than the remnants of former wealth 
 and comforts. Laws had become silent, and morals had suffered in the 
 general wreck ; and it required great prudence and an uncommon share 
 of practical wisdom, to lead back a people thus disorganized, to habits of 
 industry and order. The civil government was established, and such 
 laws enacted as could be most easily carried into effect. The legislative 
 power being placed in the hands of the governor and judges, rendered it 
 a delicate task to aid in the enactment of laws which were to be enforced 
 by the same will ; but it was performed with decision and enlightened 
 discrimination. 
 
BIOGRAPHY OF LEWIS CASS. 5 
 
 The Indian relations were likewise to be adjusted throughout the west- 
 ern frontier ; war had ruptured or weakened every tie which had pre- 
 viously connected the tribes with our Government. By decisive, but kind 
 measures, the hollow truce which alone existed, was converted into a per- 
 manent peace ; and they returned, by degrees, to their hunting grounds 
 and usual places of resort, with a general disposition to live in amity and 
 
 quiet. 
 
 During the same year, Governor Cass was associated with General 
 Mc Arthur to treat with the Indians at Fort Meigs. The northwestern 
 part of Ohio was acquired at this time. The following year he was en- 
 gaged in the same duty at St. Mary's, to carry into effect, with certain 
 modifications, the treaty of Fort Meigs, and for the acquisition of land in 
 Indiana. In 1819, he assisted in the treaty held at Sagano, by which 
 large relinquishments were obtained from the Indians in Michigan. In 
 all "these negotiations, Governor Cass acted on the principle of frankness 
 and fair reciprocity. 
 
 Two events occurred this year in Michigan, which gave a new aspect to 
 her hopes and promises of prosperity. One was, the privilege of electing 
 a delegate to Congress ; the other, was the sale of public lands within the 
 territory. No one exerted himself with more zeal to effect these improve- 
 ments than the governor, as he was convinced that the introduction of the 
 elective franchise among the people, would elevate their political charac- 
 ter ; and that, by the sale of the public land, the population and prosperity 
 of the country would be rapidly advanced. 
 
 In 1820, an expedition was planned by Governor Cass, under the sanc- 
 tion of Mr. Calhoun, then Secretary of war, the object of which was to 
 pass through Lake Superior, cross the country to the Mississippi, explore 
 ths sources of that river, and establish an intercourse with the Indians on 
 that extensive route. The party combined persons of science, who were 
 capable of ascertaining the physical character of the country, and of mak- 
 ing an instructive report, among whom were Mr. Schoolcraft, and Captain 
 Douglass, of the corps of engineers. A preliminary object was. to inform 
 the Indians of the Sault de St. Marie of the intention of Government to es- 
 tablish a military post at that point, and to determine the site. On his 
 arrival there, Governor Cass assembled the Indians and made known the 
 object in view. Being under the influence of a chief who was notoriously 
 disaffected toward the United States, they heard the proposition with evi- 
 dent ill-will, and broke up the council with every appearance of hostile 
 intentions. They returned to their encampment, immediately transported 
 their women and children over the river, and raised a British flag, as if 
 in token of defiance. Governor Cass at once adopted the only course 
 suited to the emergency. Taking only an interpreter with him, he ad- 
 vanced to the Indian encampment and pulled down, with his own hands, 
 the anglo-savage flag, directing the interpreter to inform the Indians that 
 they were within the jurisdiction of the United States, and that no other 
 flag than theirs must be allowed to wave over it. Having given this bold 
 and practical rebuke, he returned to his party, taking with him the flag, 
 and leaving the Indians to further reflection. The moral influence of this 
 opportune and seemingly perilous step, was immediately seen; new over- 
 tures were made by the Indians, which led to an amicable and satisfac- 
 tory adjustment. The course of the expedition, and most of its scientific 
 results, have been published in Mr. Schoolcraft's interesting journal. 
 
6 BIOGRAPHY OF LEWIS CASS. 
 
 In 1821, the services of Governor Cass were again brought into requi- 
 sition by the Government, to assist fn another treaty, to be negotiated at 
 Chicago. He embarked at Detroit, in a birch canoe, ascended the Mau- 
 mee, crossed into the Wabash, descended that river to the Ohio, went down 
 the Ohio to the Mississippi, and ascended that and the Illinois to Chicago. 
 By the treaty formed there, all the country in Michigan, not before ceded, 
 south of Grand river, was acquired. 
 
 In 1823, Governor Cass concluded an arrangement with the Delaware 
 Indians, by which thev oeded some valuable tracts on the Muskingum, in 
 Ohio. 
 
 In 1825, he proceeded to Prairie du Chien, where, in conjunction with 
 General Clark, a treaty of general pacification was concluded among the 
 north-westerlv tribes. In his tour of 1820, Governor Cass had observed, 
 that one abundant source of contention among the Indians arose from 
 uncertain or undefined boundaries. To remove this cause, asmany as 
 practicable of the tribes were collected at this time, in order toascer- 
 tain, by tradition and custom, and establish by general consent, the 
 limits of each dominion. Much difficulty attended this negotiation, as 
 each tribe apprehended a diminution of its own power, and an increase of 
 its neighbor's. But the objects of the treaty were, in part, attained. A 
 common acceptance of certain geographical or other known boundaries, 
 was obtained. The beneficial effects of this important treaty will be 
 accruing with each cominii; year. Although many may dissent from the 
 terms of the treaty, for a time, yei lines of separation, defined with so much 
 solemnity, and by such general consent, will at last be appealed to as 
 decisive^and become unalterably fixed. War will still prevail, but border 
 contests, the most inveterate and sanguinary, may be appeased. The 
 following year he again traversed the great lake to fulfill the benevolent 
 purposes of Government. A treaty was held, at Fond du Lac, with those 
 tribes who were too remote from Prairie du Chien, to have met there. 
 The great object of these treaties was to remove the causes of contention 
 between the tribes, by inducing them to accept of certain geographical or 
 other known boundaries, as the limits of each dominion. Colonel M*Kenny, 
 who was associated with Governor Cass on this occasion, has given a lively 
 and picturesque account of the excursion. Another treaty was concluded 
 on the Wabash, on their return from Lake Superior, by which the Indians 
 ceded a large tract of land in Indiana. 
 
 In 1827, treaties were negotiated at Green Bay and at St. Joseph's; 
 Governor Cass was an agent in both. On his arrival at Green Bay. instead 
 of finding the Winnebagoes, who were to have been parties in the nego- 
 tiation, he learned that thev were collecting in hostile bodies, for the pur- 
 pose of waging war against the whites. With his usual promptitude, he 
 adapted his course to the emergency. Kmbarking in a birch canoe, he 
 ascended the Fox river, crossed the Portage, and had partU' descended the 
 Wisconsin, when he perceived an encampment of Whmebagoes on its 
 bank. To show his confidence in them, he landed alone, and approached 
 the wigwams ; but ihe Indians refused to hold any communication with 
 him. "After much fruitless endeavor to conciliate, he returned toward his 
 canoe, when a young Indian snapped his rifle at his back. Whether the 
 piece was loaded, and missed tire ; or the act was an empty, but signifi 
 cant token ot enmity, is not known. 
 
BIOGRAPHY OP LP WIS <3 A S S . 1 
 
 Pursuing his course clown the river, he reached Prairie du Chien, and 
 found the settlement there in a state of extreme alarm. A large boat on 
 the Mississippi had been attacked by a numerous band, and escaped cap- 
 ture onlv l)V a gallant but bloody defence ; and a whole family had been 
 murdered and scalped, on the skirts of the village. Having organized the 
 inhabitants in the best manner, for their own defence, there being no gar- 
 rison there at the time, he descended the Mississippi to St. Louis, where 
 the means of defence were 1o be obtained, and at his suggestion a large 
 detachment of United States troops wr/ moved up the river, in time to 
 prevent further bloodshed. In the mean lime, Governor Cass returned to 
 the bay, in the same canoe, by the way of the Illinois and Lake Michigan, 
 having made a circuit of about eighteen hundred miles with unprece- 
 dented rapidity. His celerity of movement, and the alacrity with which 
 the United States troops seconded his call, probably averted a war that 
 might have embraced the whole northwest frontier. A negotiation fol- 
 lowed, which restored tranquillity. The apparent violence offered to him 
 by the Indian on the Wisconsin, 'is the only instance of that nature which 
 had occurred during his long and intimate intercourse with the Indians. 
 
 In 1828, another treaty was held by him at Green Bay ; and another at. 
 St. Joseph's, by which a cession was procured for Indiana. In these va- 
 rious treaties, Governor Cass had been instrumental in acquiring for the 
 United States, and rescuing from the wilderness, for the great agricultural 
 purposes of the country, many millions of acres of land ; and in a manner 
 which ought to leave no consciousness on his mind, that he has aggrava- 
 ted the lot of a single tribe of Indians. 
 
 The first council of Michigan met in 1822. This body relieved the 
 governor and judges of their legislative duties, and gave the government 
 of the territory a more republican form. Governor Cass's messages to 
 the several councils, convened under his administration, were always 
 written in a chaste and dignified style ; indeed, all the public documents 
 that came from his pen, while governor of the territory, may be regarded 
 as good specimens of executive composition, and exhibit a highly cultiva- 
 ted literary taste. But his literary reputation rests on a broader and 
 more appropriate basis than his gubernatorial writings. 
 
 Some time in the year 1825, John Dunn Hunter's narrative appeared, 
 which, at the time, attracted much attention. Governor Cass, in the 
 course of his tours through the West, had satisfied himself that this work 
 was an imposture. In determining to expose it to the world, his mind 
 was led to dwell on the ample subject of Indian character, language, and 
 condition, and he wrote the article which appeared in the fiftieth number 
 of the N»rth American Review. The subject was full of interest, and 
 written in a style uncommonly earnest and eloquent ; and the public was 
 gratified to find that a theme, so interesting and important, had engaged 
 the attention of so cultivated and liberal a mind. Another article of his, 
 presenting the Aborigines under new aspects, appeared in the fifty-fifth 
 number of the same periodical. This article, which was altogether of a 
 historical and statistical character, attracted equal attention with its pre- 
 cursor. 
 
 Some time in 1828, a historical society was formed in Michigan, of 
 which Governor Cass was elected the president. He delivered the first 
 address before it in 1S29. This address, embodying the early history of 
 Michigan, brings it down to the period when the United States came into 
 
8 BIOGRAPHY OF LEWIS CASS. 
 
 possession of it. Its publication excited a spirit of research and inquiry, 
 which has already produced the most beneficial results 
 
 In 1880, Governor Cass was invited by the alumni of Hamilton college, 
 New- York, to deliver an address at their anniversary meeting. He ac- 
 cepted the invitation, and in the address which he delivered, displayed an 
 affluence of reading and reflection which proved his habitual acquaintance 
 with most of the departments of human knowledge. From that college 
 he subsequently received the honorary degree of L.L.D. He had pre- 
 viously been admitted an honorary member of the American Philosophical 
 Society, in Philadelphia ; of the New-Hampshire, Rhode Island, and 
 Indiana Historical Societies; of the American Antiquarian Society; ami 
 the Columbian Institute. 
 
 In July, 1831, having been appointed Secretary of War by President 
 Jackson, Governor Cass resigned his office as Governor of the territory, 
 after having administered it for eighteen years. When he began his ad- 
 ministration, he found the country small in population, without resources, 
 and almost sunk under the devastations of war. He left it with a wide 
 spread population, and thriving with unprecedented prosperity. This 
 auspicious condition may not all be attributed to executive instrumentality ; 
 but an administration, impartial, vigilant, pervading, and intelligent, may 
 be fairly supposed to have shed a happy influence on all around. 
 
 As the period during which he presided over the War Department, is 
 not remote, it is unnecessary to go into a review of the principles and 
 measures he adopted. A few points, however, of general and perma- 
 nent interest, are worthy of a passing attention. Among these were 
 two questions of vital importance to the country, and involving the fun- 
 damental principles of the Constitution for discussion. In their progress, 
 they cast upon tbe Government a heavy responsibility, and great trouble 
 and labor, and were watched with a jealous solicitude by tbc whole com- 
 munity, which was divided in opinion respecting the points involved in 
 their solution. Happily, by the wisdom and firmness of the patriot then 
 at the head of the Government, and by the good sense of the nation, they 
 passed away, without leaving behind them any effects injurious to our 
 institutions. These controverted subjects are the questions which arose 
 in Georgia, respecting the relative rights of the Indians and of the States, 
 within whose jurisdiction they live, and that which arose in South Caro- 
 lina, respecting the power of the State Legislature to nullify an act of 
 Congress. 
 
 In 1836, General Cass left the Department of War. It is well known 
 that he enjoyed the full confidence of General Jackson, who was anxious 
 he*should retain his seat in the cabinet, till the expiration of the adminis- 
 tration. But his health having been broken down by his official labors, 
 he could not remain, and he retired, with the decisive proofs of the good 
 feeling and satisfaction of the President. One was a warm letter, thank- 
 ing him for his services, and expressive of the kindest sentiments toward 
 him personallv ; ami the other was the mission to France, to which he was 
 appointed. During his residence at Paris, arose the question of the quin- 
 tuple treaty, one of the most portentous subjects which has ever threat- 
 ened our honor or interest. England, from professed philanthropic — but 
 from really interested motives — was seeking to establish a new principle 
 of maritime police, by which she could search the vessels of all nations 
 traversing the ocean. By persevering efforts, she had obtained separate 
 
BIOGRAPHY OF LEWIS CASS. 9 
 
 treaties with various powers of Europe, some great and some small — for 
 nothing is too high or too low for human amhition — by which the right of 
 search was granted. She then said, through her secretaries, Lord Pal- 
 merston and Lord Aberdeen, that as she could not. execute these treaties 
 without searching the vessels of all nations, to ascertain to which they 
 belonged, she should assume that right, and stop and board the vessels of 
 the United States wherever they might be found. And to give more 4 
 moral weight to her pretensions, she projected another treaty with the 
 four great powers of Europe, embracing in it the right of search, and 
 intended to make it the law of the ocean. The treaty was signed before 
 public attention was much turned to it, but fortunately it was not ratified ; 
 and it was of vital importance to the United States, and all other powers 
 interested in the freedom of the seas, that it should not be ratified by 
 France. It was, of course, well known, that from the nature of their 
 governments, the ratifications of Russia, of Austria, and of Prussia would 
 not be withheld. But France being a constitutional monarchy, and public 
 opinion operating powerfully there upon the administration, it was hoped 
 the nation might be induced to act upon it, through the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties. And it was obvious, from the state of the maritime world, that if 
 France could be withdrawn from this confederacy, no new principle of 
 public law could be created, to which she and the United States should 
 refuse their sanction. A quintuple treaty would be dangerous; but a^ 
 quadruple treaty would be without the least effect or influence. To pro- 
 duce, therefore, this result, was an object of the highest importance ; and 
 the American Minister at Paris, finding himself without instructions from 
 his Government, had to depend upon his own resources, and to act upon 
 his own responsibility. His operations were two-fold. First, to operate 
 upon public sentiment, and then directly upon the Government. His 
 pamphlet upon the right of search, was the measure he adopted to effect 
 the first object, and his formal protest against the French ratification of 
 the treaty, the second. The pamphlet was published in English, in French, 
 and in German, and was distributed throughout Europe. Its effect is well 
 known, and we need not dwell upon it here. The appeal, by protest, to 
 the French Government, was successful. That paper has been published, 
 and our readers have, no doubt, perused it. We shall not quote it, but 
 briefly advert to its general spirit. It is a document truly American. 
 The rights of our country are upheld with a proper resolution. While 
 it insufficiently respectful, it plainly warns the French Government of 
 the position it will occupy if it sign the treaty. It remarks upon the 
 moral effect which the treaty is intended to produce upon the United 
 States, and observes, that it is not to be presumed that the five powers 
 meditate a direct attack upon their independence. " But," it continues, 
 " were it otherwise, — and were it possible they (the United States) might 
 be deceived in this confident expectation — that would not alter in one tittle, 
 their course of action. Their duty would be the same, and the same 
 would be their determination to fulfill it. They would prepare themselves, 
 with apprehension, indeed, but without dismay — with regret, but with 
 firmness — for one of those desperate struggles which have sometimes 
 occurred in the history of the world, but where a just cause and the favor 
 of Providence have gained strength to comparative weakness, and have 
 enabled it to break down the pride of power." 
 
 The conduct of General Cass has naturally brought down upon him the 
 
1Q BIOGKAPHY OF LEWIS CASS. 
 
 whole force of* the ferocious Tory Press of Great Britain. In the House 
 of Lords, he has been most violently abused by Lord Brougham. The 
 whole British influence will be most powerfully exerted against this 
 truly American Patriot. The coarse assaults of his enemies will only 
 ^render him more endeared to his countrymen. 
 
 " Strict and punctual in his business habits, plain and affable in his 
 manners, with powers of mind which grasp, as it were, by intuition, every 
 subject to which they are applied — united to various and extensive acquire- 
 ments ; we feel that we hazard nothing in the declaration that the measure 
 of his fame is not yet full.*' 
 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND- •, 
 
 In the present position of the Presidential question, and particularly 
 from the zeal with which the claims of some of the candidates are 
 pressed, great apprehension is entertained, that unless Gen. Cass should be 
 the candidate, defeat would again overwhelm the Democratic party as in 
 1840, when Mr. Van Buren was the unanimous nominee of the Balti? 
 more Convention. 
 
 The following essays appeared originally in the Richmond Enquirer, 
 in August last. They have been very extensively read, and have 
 attracted much attention, by the large and dispassionate views with which 
 they exhibit the approaching Presidential election. They are repub- 
 lished now, in their present more convenient form, with a view to a wider 
 circulation, and it is believed that the calmness and liberality with which 
 they are written, not less than their power, cannot fail to commend them 
 to the serious consideration of the Democratic party of the Union. 
 
 November, 1843. 
 
 To the Editors of the Enquirer. 
 
 Sirs : 1 was in favor of Mr. Van Buren, on both occasions, when he 
 ran for the Presidency, and supported him zealously to the last. Thus 
 much as introductory, it being my intention to say something on the Pres- 
 idential question, through your columns, if you think it worthy of them. 
 
 In one of the numbers of "the Federalist/'' Mr. Madison calls the elec 
 
 tion of Chief Magistrate the great test of popular government. It is 
 
 and I, for one, think that our trials, in this respect, are only beginning. 
 
 The election of 1840 marks an era in our country in this, among other 
 things — that the Presidential candidates then began, for the first time, to 
 electioneer openly for themselves. General Harrison literally stumped it 
 to get in — and, if candid, we must admit that Mr. Van Buren did the same 
 thing in effect, by answering almost any body's letters who chose to put 
 questions to him. 
 
12 A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 Since that time, candidates, in both parties seem, in one form or other, 
 to have entered the field in much the same spirit — and we have probably 
 seen, as yet, only the commencement of what the future is to unfold. One 
 candidate, a gallant son of Virginia, tried the experiment of a Circular to 
 #he Nation ; and it is not necessary to point to others who have traversed 
 through the country under circumstances to raise the suspicion that they 
 were personally in quest of the same object that the Circular had. 
 
 Now, Messrs. Editors, what woufd have been thought of General Wash- 
 ington's haranguing the people from the balcony of a tavern, or from a 
 cross-road, while a candidate for the Presidency ? or writing a Circular ? 
 or travelling about to gain proselytes ? The very supposition sounds like 
 profanity. But, as he towered abov©- all competitors, and had none, let 
 me ask what the public would have thought if the elder Adams had acted 
 in this way, or Mr. Jefferson, or Mr. Madison ? 
 
 Indulge me in another remark : 
 
 If, after each of these four Presidents had gone through his first term, 
 and was before the country for a second election, he had been publicly 
 called upon, during the canvass, to answer questions as to his political 
 creed, what would have been thought of that ? Does it enter your imag- 
 ination that, if any individual in the whole country, or any committee 
 man, had been bold enough to catechise either of them in that manner, he 
 would ever have got an answer ? It certainly does not mine. 
 
 1 am not blaming Mr. Van Buren, because he went into the newspa- 
 pers with answers to such questions, and into argumentation under them. 
 I desire at present to do no more than allude to the fact, as showing a 
 change in the times. He could scarcely, perhaps, have refused when he 
 saw that General Harrison was mounting the Presidential hustings, and 
 making elaborate speeches to the Whigs. If he had, it might have been 
 said that lie was cold, reserved, a little of the fox ; non-committalism 
 would have been charged upon him, and he might have lost ground in 
 comparison with what would then have been called the frank, open-hearted 
 course of his patriotic and soldierly competitor. 
 
 I once heard .Mr. Gallatin say, that, although intimate with Mr. Madi- 
 son, pending his first election, (both being of Mr. Jefferson's cabinet) and 
 conversing freely with him almost every day, upon all subjects, he never 
 once heard him speak upon that of his own election. If any body broached 
 it to him, he would put it aside,' saying'that it was in the people's hands ; 
 that he had nothing to do with it, and must be judged by liis past life. 
 
 Yet, I am not of the old man's code. Mr. Editor. 1 do not set down 
 all evil to the account of modern times, and all good to that of time past. 
 But society is in a state of constant transition, political society most espe- 
 cially. Think of the changes that come about in anyone century — the 
 one ending with last year for instance! Volumes would not recount the 
 half of them. Of those ohanges the most important have been within forty 
 years, or since Mr. Jefferson's first election; and the last ten, the most 
 prolific portion of the forty in producing them. 
 
 Hume, in his concluding reflections upon the reign of James I. remarks 
 that ' the system of English government received a total and sudden alter- 
 ation in the course of forty years.' Ours, in some respects, has received 
 a total alteration too, within a period not longer. 
 
 In the long run, mankind have gained immensely by the changes which 
 have been going on. 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 13 
 
 But in the item of President-making, we have not gained. We have 
 lost. We have lost in the standard of men for our Presidents, in the dig- 
 nity of their conduct while candidates, and in the means resorted to for 
 placing them in that exalted station, lias it or has it not already come 
 to be canvassed for, almost like a seat in the Legislature, or the post of a 
 constable ? And, for a certainty, has not the original maxim of the pure 
 and lofty minded Lowndes, that the Presidency was neither to be sought 
 nor declined, got so out of date as hardly to be now mentioned but with a 
 sense of the ludicrous ? 
 
 Immeasurably, too, have we, of this age in the United States, lost in the 
 general standard of public and social rectitude. We have, for the first 
 time, become the just opprobrium of Europe. Heretofore, we were de- 
 famed ; but over that we easily triumph. Now, the truth told of us makes 
 us blush; for, even if we have not openly repudiated, we have, in the 
 midst of peace and plenty, and a boasted prosperity under our institu- 
 tions, so broken all our bonds and promises, as to shock honorable minds 
 everywhere. Worse than this ! To escape from the stigma, we ransack, 
 as Sidney Smith has remarked, (I think it was he) the past history of Eu- 
 rope, in some of the worst times of their old monarchies, for every act of 
 questionable or dishonest legislation or conduct, to give countenance to 
 admitted and shameful immoralities committed in this young Republic! 
 
 The Whigs saw this condition of things, and made it the basis of their 
 conduct at the last Presidential election. It started hopes, suggested plans, 
 conjured up dreams of advantage, to the heated imaginations of cupidity 
 and ambition. •• In free states," says Palrymple, " men cannot have too 
 main terrors hung out to control them, because, as in such States the vir- 
 tues of men are greater, so also are their vices."' The Whigs saw thata 
 new field was opened to them in the United States, requiring only to be 
 entered upon boldly, and worked with the proper implements, to produce 
 its harvest. They saw that the country was demoralized ; that aggravated 
 breaches of faith, corporate and individual, were not confined to single 
 spots or cities, as Philadelphia, or Vicksburg, or Buffalo ; but had become 
 so common, that it was difficult to find a place in the whole Union that had 
 not witnessed them. They saw something which marked still more deci- 
 sively the general debasement. They saw that delinquency not only es- 
 caped punishment, but all effective odium in society. I am bul briefly 
 recording the truth, Messrs. Editors, painful as it is. The future historian 
 of these times will have to confirm and extend it, in his calmest moments. 
 
 Nay, more. He will have to record, also, that the very fust percep- 
 tion of wrong seemed extinguished in our legislative halls. What else 
 could have led so many of the State Legislatures, those of proud old 
 Virginia and the once, honest Pennsylvania among the rest, to legalize 
 the suspension of specie payments ? Conscience, like a high road, sa 
 one of the moralists, becomes hard by being frequently trodden upon. 
 So, in the gradual encroachments which banks had been making upon the 
 obligations of law, and all faith between man and man, it came ;it lengMi 
 to be forgotten that legislative sanctions of suspension, legalized breach of 
 promise ; legalized wrong to every holder of a bank note; legalized fraud 
 in the every day operations of life, operations especially numerous among 
 the laboring classes, whose votes so swell the polls — legalized, in effect, a 
 breach of the supreme law of the land, the Constitution of the Union 
 itself, which declared that the States should make nothing but gold and 
 silver legal payments. What an opening of the floodgates of vice was 
 
14 A VOICE PROM A FRIEND. 
 
 there in all this, diffusing its contaminations throughout the entire com- 
 munity ! It requires an effort of thought to carry us back to first prin- 
 ciples, and trace the wide space from them, to which our deplorable back- 
 slidings had carried us. Nor are we yet redeemed. Far otherwise. 
 
 The Whigs saw it all, and acted upon it. They had the master agency 
 in producing it all. They knew that the same people who had partici- 
 pated in it, and were hardened to it, could be operated upon to any need- 
 fid extent, by money and bribes sufficiently applied, at a great national 
 election. They hold, generally, the doctrine adverse to popular intelli- 
 gence or virtue; and the ever memorable result proves, that they did 
 apply both money and bribes in 1840, upon a scale fully adequate to the 
 end proposed. And will they not again 1 In my opinioa they will. 
 They have the means and cannot want the disposition. The banking and 
 other active capital of the country, is still essentially in their hands, and 
 they will be stimulated to its ample use a second time by the strongest 
 passions of human nature — their hopes and resentments ; the former dis- 
 appointed by Harrison's death, the latter inflamed by what they denomi- 
 nate Tyler's treason. The foreign creditors, with two hundred millions 
 of dollars at stake, will inevitably join them in the hope of assumption. 
 They will introduce into the election a power greater than the now pros- 
 trate" Bank of the United .States exercised in 1840 ; and let us not deceive 
 ourselves by supposing that this union of the English and American purse, 
 will be unable to entice into Whig ranks, any Democratic voters. Hun- 
 dreds, thousands, left us last time on the eve of the election. The moral 
 pestilence has fallen upon Democrats as well as Whigs. There is this 
 difference, indeed, that the Whigs defend the system, which is at the root 
 of the pestilence, and are mainly answerable for its effects by the magni- 
 tude and enormity of their operations under it, from the leviathan Hank 
 of the United States, which their spirit sustained and their favorite inan- 
 ag< d. down to that brood of corporate spawn w Inch its rottenness engen- 
 dered ; a system, the credit system, right in itself, but which in their hands 
 lias been abused to every woe; and it is out of reason to suppose, that 
 all Democrats will be too pure or too enlightened not to be again turned 
 aside from the polls, by the renewed seductions that will assail them. 
 Moral recovery cannot so soon take place, where the whole land has been 
 so deeplj tainted. I believe in final recovery, but not by "44. 
 
 I believe in the good and honest intentions of the people, and in their 
 intelligence, when the means of it are open to them — but I am startled at 
 observing, bj the last census, that there are more than five hundred thou- 
 and white persons over twenty years of age, throughout this Union, who 
 cannol read or write. I figure to myself the amount of deception that 
 Win- exertion will produce throughout this portion of our population. 
 Their active spirits will do the work of the party in such, and oilier elas- 
 ses. under all the guises of patriotism, and with twenty times as much 
 monej at command tor circulating publications, and taking all other steps 
 to mislead, as we shall have for counteracting them. With the utmost 
 3peed of steam, will their hand-bills, garbled documents, hired orators, 
 and bold demagogues, again fly through the land. Chariots of the wind 
 will hardly fly faster. Nor must we overlook the large amount of indi- 
 vidual respectability in the ranks of our opponents, any more than fail to 
 give the great bulk of them credit for desiring the welfare of the country 
 as much as we do ourselves ; and these considerations will be nothing 
 
 Fa 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 15 
 
 more than just means of influence on their side in the fierce and despe- 
 rate struggle that is before us. 
 
 They are full of confidence, under these and other anticipations, and I 
 wish I could think it wholly a rash confidence. Mr. Berrien, one of the 
 ablest among them, in lately addressing the Whig Convention of Georgia, 
 speaks of the '• great Whig party of the Union," as he terms it. •■ as stand- 
 ing to its arms, awaiting the termination of the armistice, limited by the 
 constitution, and eager for the renewal of the conflict." [ beiieve it. We 
 could have no better witness. If we wanted another, you, Messrs. Editors, 
 might be invoked. You remarked, I remember, after the Spring elections, 
 that you had too recently witnessed the Whig strength, to make light of 
 it, or words to that effect, as I quote from memory. I thought the remark 
 wise, and I thought it well-timed, because it came after victory. We got 
 the better ot them in Virginia, as we have been doing in almost all the 
 States, for a year and more, not forgetting our late triumph in Louisiana. 
 We did the same in '38 and '39, after the large ground we had lost soon 
 after Mr. Van Buren's first election. We said and believed ihen, that 
 the " sober second thought" of the people had returned. Nevertheless, 
 our more terrible defeat came in '40, and came when we least expected 
 it; came in the very midst of our vauntings to the contrary — up to the 
 last moment. Let us not falsify Bolingbroke's maxim, that history is 
 philosophy teaching by examples, by showing that, for us, it is a thing 
 written to be forgotten. 
 
 The Whigs counted with their host — toe without ours. They knew 
 what money, powerful at all times, could effect in the general corruption 
 I have called to your mind. Their coonskin mummeries would, other- 
 wise, have been simply ridiculous. In Mr. Jefferson's time they would 
 have been laughed to scorn, or rather never attempted ; but in 1840 they 
 told. Their money will tell again ; under what forms precisely I know 
 not; but it will tell. Their party organization will be more complete 
 through experience, perfect as it seemed then; and they will have, 
 through foreign subsidies, even more money, if they want it — that agent 
 of influence, the potency of which, when dexterously used in the present 
 state of our country, may be assumed with the certainty of one of Na- 
 ture's laws. It will not be the first time in history that popular govern- 
 ments have been wrought upon through foreign interference ; and as for- 
 eign creditors think themselves aggrieved, interference will seem to them 
 justifiable, and become resolute in proportion. It will be successful, too, 
 unless we* prepare for the contest with the greatest prudence and foresight 
 in every respect. 
 
 All this I believe. I believe that we of the Democratic party are ad- 
 ministering opiates to ourselves, that we are reposing in too much self- 
 security ; that we are not sufficiently awake, scarcely at all awake, to 
 the powerful impulses that will be roused when the contest is entered upon 
 by the Whigs and their foreign allies, in earnest; or to the fury with 
 which it will rage. This will not be till the summer of '44, when it will 
 be again concentrated upon the one grand question of the Presidency. The 
 foreign allies have not yet come forward. To them our State elections 
 seem of little account; provincial they term them. Who the Whig can- 
 didate is to be, nobody can now say with certainty. One thing only is 
 certain, that they will, at the last hour, fix upon the man in whose behalf 
 the money to be expended, and the artifices to be employed, will promise 
 to be most efficacious. 
 
16 A VOICE FROM A FRIEND 
 
 But, Messrs. Editors, as you may not think as I do, I will write no more 
 at present ; but pause, until I know if what I have so far written, gets a 
 place in your paper. I am sure you will agree that the subject is im- 
 portant, however inadequately I may handle it, involving in its issue the 
 destinies of our Republic for years, perhaps a long age to come; and, 
 therefore, demanding scrutiny and elucidation upon a broad scale, and in 
 dispassionate ways. The latter I can promise, and as amends for defi- 
 ciencies in all other respects, can only say, that what I send, should I send 
 you anything more, will at least be, as now, 
 
 A Voice from a Friend. 
 
 August i, 1843. 
 
 To the Editors of the Enquirer. 
 
 Gentlemen : I live in the country, and have my home concerns to at- 
 tend to, before I can send to the postoffice, which also is some miles from 
 my house ; so that I have been a little behindhand in receiving the 
 Enquirer of the 15th instant. 
 
 I perceive that you have honored my first letter with publication, and 
 still more by the notice you have been pleased to take of it. The result 
 of the elections in North Carolina and Tennessee, wholly unknown to me 
 when writing it, as the time when you received it must show, lends a 
 little confirmation to some of its doctrines. 
 
 Certainly, I am not for making light of the power of our opponents, 
 and am happy again to have your declarations to the same effect. Many 
 a one has fallen a sacrifice to such conduct, and most often when least 
 expecting it. 
 
 I have even some fear of their name. Since the world began, there 
 has been something in names, and the party name of the Congress of '76 
 Toes for something. You may beat it, but you can never kill it, as 
 Federalist has been killed. It has a vitality that cannot die, and a potency 
 thai can ever rally. It was not until 1840 that they got fast hold of this 
 renowned old name, though they began upon it in '36, and. 1 own, that I 
 somewhat fear it. It is a new element in our party contests, since the 
 overthrow of Federalism. There will probably be two hundred thousand 
 young men ready to come to the polls in "41, who were under voting age 
 in '40. Thinlc how many of these will have had but little time or op. 
 portunit) to examine our public questions, complicated as they often are, 
 while all will have heard of the revolution and the names that sanctify 
 iL — and how it will be rung into their ears thai Washington was a Whig, 
 Jefferson a Whig, Hancock a Whig, and Green, and Gates, and Marion, 
 and Montgomery, the l>e<\s, and IVfercer, and Laurens! — all who fell at 
 Germantown ami Guilford, all who triumphed at Saratoga and York- 
 town ! — and that Whigs have the same principles now, as they have the 
 same name. Will there be nothing in this ? If so, shrewd men of all 
 aucs are fools — so many of whom have said with Mirabeau, that names 
 are things. We. indeed, will proclaim aloud, how they desecrate the 
 name — hut amid the din of the polls, that short, immortal name, will too 
 often, I fear, by its quick associations of patriotism and glory, take the 
 vote captive, before the voter can he made to understand the desecration. 
 I am unable to divest myself of anxieties on this score. I, at least, set 
 it down as an item in their scale. 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 17 
 
 In the array I have been presenting of the sources of influence, new 
 and old, which our opponents will be able to command, is it to dishearten? 
 The very reverse. 1 desire only, that we should bo fully on our guard. 
 Let us have all our thoughts about us beforehand, and while there is still 
 time. Let us weigh them well. Should any seem to require reconsider- 
 ation, let us reconsider them. The issue is momentous. The struggle 
 will be desperate. Let us not be supine. Equally would I implore our 
 friends not to be too confident. In my first letter I endeavored to show 
 grounds for thinking that, united as our opponents will this time be in 
 object and movement, with rich and exasperated foreigners, smarting 
 under a deep sense of wrong, as they think it, the allied body will come 
 into the field in renovated strength in '44 ; and in proportion as I believe 
 that their ranks will be numerous, their discipline great, their spirit very 
 enterprising and bold, their means abundant as well as their talents, and 
 their practices unscrupulous, as those of all heated partisans are apt to 
 be, I sincerely desire that we should take with the greatest deliberation, 
 and take wisely, our most important step for meeting them. By doing so, 
 I believe we can conquer them with the good cause we have, and by be- 
 ing united in it. 
 
 But it is not always that a good cause can succeed on its merits alone. 
 History is full of other admonitions ; which brings me to the great point I 
 design to discuss : who shall be our candidate ? 
 
 Upon that, much, if not every thing, in my humble opinion, is to depend. 
 
 And I frankly confess, that I fear we should fail with Mr. Van Buren ; 
 and I say this with a full appreciation of all that is contained in the re- 
 marks made, with your usual fairness and strength, in the Enquirer of 
 the first of this month and since ; as well as in the articles from able 
 writers in your columns. 
 
 I said in the outset, that I voted for him and supported him to the last ; 
 as I did, zealously and unwaveringly. Again and again he had the poor 
 tribute of my pen, and always my voice. He was true to us, and I 
 would be true to him in all grateful respect and honor, as long as he lives. 
 
 But I fear to run him again ; and it is a fear that has come by the pre- 
 dominance of reflection over my first wishes. In the first paroxysms of 
 mortification at our overthrow, and under sympathy for him in his mar- 
 tyrdom, I was for running up his flag again instantly. He was cheated 
 out of his election, by buffooneries at least ; and I agree to what our 
 friends have so often said, that it would be a solid triumph to us to put 
 him back again, and a beautiful illustration of the principles of our Gov- 
 ernment if we could do it. 
 
 But this is an if to be examined ; and, for my part, I dread, the more 
 I examine it, to commit the safety of our party, our principles, and our 
 country, to its hazards. 
 
 With all Mr. Van Buren's firmness, consistency, integrity, ability, and 
 that steadiness and dignity of temper admired by all, he does not excel 
 in the qualities, inward or external, to stir up men's spirits, or excite fer- 
 vor at the polls. 
 
 He makes the better President on this very account, some may think. 
 It is the best texture for a President's mind. 
 
 Perhaps so. when once in; but not the best to get in when out, as he 
 is out; not the best to rally forces when once beaten; not the best to 
 breathe into whole phalanxes the assurance of victory ; not the best for 
 inspiring a brave confidence, when the charge is sounded and the clangor 
 
18 A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 neard ; and if the foe is to be at all as formidable as I have represented, 
 we shall have need of as much of all this, as we can possibly get. 
 
 Lei u • if ii centres in him ; or how much ; or, if little, what other 
 circum tances ihere are to give us strength, and hope, and stout hearts 
 under his banner. 
 
 Le1 us look at his characteristics and at his position. We must do so 
 candidly, while respectfully. There is no other way at arriving at safe 
 conclusions. Let us call upon our best reason to assist us in this emer- 
 gency. Let us take posts upon first elements ; upon things which have 
 been true in all time, but from which a too intense and cherished, though 
 honorable, political attachment to a man, may possibly have been with- 
 drawing us. A high duty is before us. Let us understand it if we can, 
 and then go wherever it may lead us, no matter what our former or pres- 
 ent partialities for Mr. Van Buren, or how our sensibilities rnav be 
 wounded, [t is to the country alone that we are to look, not to individu- 
 als, however meritorious. People who spend their lives in struggling for 
 men, says an eminent writer, "are on a wrong track ; for the common 
 destroyer will soon remove men, but principles remain to guide and bind 
 together generations." 
 
 Some say. that Mr. Jefferson ran, and successfully, after a first failure ; 
 as to be sure he did. 
 
 But the cases are not parallel — not at all. Mr. Jefferson failed to get 
 in, but was never turned out. The latter is the predicament in which 
 Mi'. Van Buren stand-. 
 
 Besides, the men are not alike. We must not be afraid to say so, but 
 say it frankly, that our judgments may be aided by instructive recollec- 
 tions and comparisons. Now else are Plutarch's best conclusions on the 
 human character drawn out? In Mr. Jefferson, genius and universal 
 knowledge, and political philosophy as a science, as well as knowledge 
 of practical politics, and a train of personal endowments, which were a 
 tower of strength in themselves, all combined with the fact and fame 
 of the authorship of the Declaration of the Independence, to form a pub- 
 lic character so splendid and commanding that he stands alone as a 
 statesman on the basis of his own first principles; alone, in the hold he 
 had upon the whole of the Democratic party of the nation ; whose affec- 
 tions were never for an instant divided, while he lived, with any other 
 man — the bare thought of which, as when Burr thought of it. •• betrayed 
 like treason." It were unsafe, wholly unsafe, to take him as a precedent 
 for running a defeated candidate. With all Mr. Jefferson's dignity and 
 forbearance, his name could put men's soul on fire. Devotion, and 
 enthusiasm, sprang up in his train. They were the spontaneous homage 
 to his supremacy, attesting how high and exclusively, he was enthroned 
 in e\ er\ I >emocratic heart. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson formed the Democratic party, and led it on, stage by 
 stage, to its glorious ascendanc\ in 1800. It was then that he ran for his 
 
 sond time. \lr. Van Buren found it ascendant in '36, when he went 
 into the Presidency — and left it prostrate in '40, when put out. It was 
 then that he ran for his second term. By the time Mr. Jefferson came to 
 run for his second term, the sway of his genius in our affairs, its mingled 
 energy and mildness, with often its bold originality, and always its high 
 tone of intellectual elevation, had so extirpated Federalism, as to leave it 
 no resting-places in the Union for rallying a vote against him. save Con- 
 necticut and iitile Delaware — while you, Messrs. Editors, 1 dare say, 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 19 
 
 may remember that Mr. Randolph described gentlemanly Joseph Lewis, 
 from the Loudoun district, as its sole representative left in Congress from 
 all Virginia — I believe his expression gather was. sole heir. There is no 
 parallel, therefore — no approximation in the two cases, but the strongest 
 imaginable contrast. 1 am saying this historically — not disparagingly of 
 Mr. Van Buren. He could not resist the combinations against him in '40. 
 He did his best. Hisdisaster was of the times. They swept him away. 
 The hurricane overwhelmed him. 
 
 Jackson's strength would have resisted it, or Jefferson's. And the ques- 
 tion is, whether, after that astounding overthrow, we shall now try Mr. 
 Van Buren again for a second term, and he run for a third time? 
 
 I confess that I start back from it. Human nature gives answers to 
 the question. They force themselves upon us. They come by instinct; 
 head and heart dictate them. No man can miss them. Defeat is always 
 an obstacle to the rekindling of confidence. It may be overcome, but still 
 it is an obstacle. We have not to scan human nature deeply for the causes. 
 They are on the surface. Observe those men returning from their day's 
 work at a brick yard — as many, from theirs' at a manufactory — a third 
 set from theirs' at a building. The question passes, " who do you vote 
 for to-morrow ?" and mark the fate of those who incline to the candidate 
 beaten, as Mr. Van Buren has been. Some wag in the group throws out 
 his jeers; then, as in the song of Moss and his mare, some other wight 
 helps them on by his responses; or, perhaps, some sly deputy from a 
 Whig camp hard by has slipped in among them, and he, as in duty bound, 
 takes care to humor the joke with new varieties. Thus the joke goes 
 along ; so that by the time the polls open in the morning, things are look- 
 ing rather blue for the cause of defeat. Its advocates are getting uneasy; 
 its moral beauties for the sake of merit aggrieved, and a principle to be 
 maintained, are beginning to fade ; " there may be merit in the man, but, 
 Smith, let me tell you, you and Bobbins and I had better think about it 
 before we give him our votes." 
 
 I use common words, Messrs. Editors; but I am coming to realities; if 
 we run Mr. Van Buren, however ably and faithfully he served us before, 
 every person can conceive occasions without number when former defeat 
 would be cast in our teeth. Strong-minded men would not care for it; 
 able writers, like those in your columns; deep thinkers; men who, like 
 Horace's firm and just man, are unmoved by frowns or storms of fortune. 
 But all our voters are not of this description, be they Democrats or Whigs ; 
 they are far too numerous, and many of the former who voted with us in 
 '46, would be apt to waver and fly otf as election day drew near, from se- 
 cret misgivings, notwithstanding their apparent or real assent to all the 
 pipe-laying frauds. Remember, that our large \i. in '40, of which we 
 justly boast, was given after we had succeeded with Mr. Van Buren in 
 '36, and expected, every one of us, to succeed again. It wasgiven under 
 the invigorating recollections of former victoi the damper of former 
 
 defeat. Defeat was not then of our vocabulary. Wo neither knew the 
 tcord nor the thing. The Democratic party had not before been defeated 
 in a Presidential election, candidate to candidate, in fori j ' This is 
 
 also an unfortunate fact belonging to the question of running Mr. Van 
 Buren again. The case of the broken down steed would be cited and re- 
 iterated against us, mitigate the calamity as we might by referring to the 
 jockeyships that produced it. 
 
20 A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 It is said to be a general rule with portions of the Germans in Pennsyl. 
 vania, never to vote for a candidate once beaten. They calmly remark, 
 " we voted for him before, and he vaush not elected, so we vote not for 
 him again." Let us take care how we risk the loss of any voters of a 
 race sprung from the land of printing and gunpowder. I greatly fear — 
 nay, fully believe — that this feeling, as old as mankind, to be shy of the 
 unlucky, would, under all the circumstances of the present occasion, lose 
 us votes when it came to the pinch, not by " units," to adopt your own good 
 language, Messrs. Editors, l>ut in " masses," if we take up Mr. Van Buren. 
 What a commentary we and our candidate would present, on the old classic 
 remark, ' ; You carry CaBsar and his fortunes." Alas ! we should carry 
 in the boat, not fortunes to make her buoyant, but weight to sink her. 
 We should have to rehearse the same old scenes of '40, in all that related 
 to our unsuccessful candidate, striving to resuscitate the body we could 
 not then keep in life — and which, by the dead weight of defeat, would lose 
 us the benefit we should have with a fresh candidate, of making the most 
 of our position — of holding up with spirit and animation, and effective power, 
 as might then be hoped, all the broken promises of the Whigs, since their 
 arrival at power. Is it prudent, is it patriotic, to expose our cause to all 
 this train of risks, by again placing ourselves under Mr. Van Buren ? 
 Let us remember that the phalanx who voted for him in '40, no longer 
 exists. Part of it has been swept away by death ; other parts have been 
 much scattered. This is the way of the world. The most efficient corps 
 of voters in '44, will be entirely new — young men full of ardor, a thirst 
 for glory, with minds yielding to quick, eager, ambitious sensations, rather 
 than prone to cold reflection, during the excitements and struggles of a 
 mighty election. Their cry will naturally be for something new and fresh, 
 rather than for a candidate who, they will be told, has had his day in the 
 Presidency. Novelty is now the genius of the age, it is always in the 
 aspirations of the young. 
 
 So much for one aspect of the case — and I hurry over it, without half 
 the illustration it would admit of, from the strong and painful apprehen- 
 sions with which it inspires me. Let me briefly present another aspect. 
 
 What fair ground can we have for hoping to regain any of those who left 
 us in '40, if we keep to the same candidate, compared to prospects that 
 might rise up before us, with a new one 1 Does it not become us to con- 
 sider this ? We ought to remember that men do not like to seem incon- 
 sistent in the eyes of others, who would twit them with it, although they 
 may be inwardly wishing for a good excuse in change. That a door 
 may be opened for all in this predicament, to come back again to our fold, 
 is a reason we hear given every day. why Mr. Van Buren should not be 
 run. That it is so common, shows how strongly it is felt. Like common 
 proverbs, it points to truth. 
 
 But what 1 believe would hurt us more with Mr. Van Buren than anj r - 
 thing else, is the one term principle. 
 
 Think how our opponents would bring the changes upon this. Think, 
 especially, how ihey would do it in connection with his running for the 
 third time f 
 
 Peals from our mere opponents on this ground, however loudly rung, I 
 would disregard, were it not that great numbers, confessedly of the Demo- 
 cratic faith, though not now among active partisans, would be staggered 
 by them. 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 21 
 
 This I entirely believe ; and believe that their numbers would be in- 
 creasing, from hour to hour, with the progress of the canvass itself. 
 
 In thus viewing this part of the question, I think I cannot be mistaken. 
 Let me give it a moment's examination. It is full of prospective import- 
 ance to us, vitally so it seems to me ; and I fear that we are not in the 
 habit of weighing it as it deserves. 
 
 Reflecting persons can hardly fail to perceive the coming changes of 
 opinion on this head. The causes lie deep, and are not to be salely 
 slighted. As the Democratic creed spreads, the tendency is to abridge 
 the duration of official power. Rotation comes more and more into favor. 
 General Jackson, we know, recommended an alteration of the Constitu- 
 tion, limiting the Presidency to one term ; although his own transcendent 
 popularity obliged him to yield to the call of the Democratic party to run 
 again; a call that was absolutely omnipotent in his case, humanly speak- 
 ing, from its universality throughout the Democratic ranks, North, South, 
 East and West. But he was the last of the second terms. An alteration 
 in the Constitution may never formally come about ; but public opinion 
 will stand in its stead. Gen. Washington, by his example, as completely 
 limited the Presidential service to eight years, as if the second article of 
 the Constitution had so settled it. 
 
 And now, since General Harrison, for the first time in our history, ran 
 on the one term principle, I believe, that, de facto, we shall never again 
 see the same man President longer than four years. Not General Har- 
 rison alone will have effected the change, the public mind had been 
 tending that way, though held back awhile by the resistless popularity of 
 General Jackson, which arrayed him, whether he would or not, against 
 his own precept ; but let us not commit the fatal error of confounding 
 Mr. Van Buren with him. General Jackson failed to get into the Presi- 
 dency in '24 ; but he was never ejected from it, any more than Mr. Jef- 
 ferson, and it is now violently probable that the one term principle which 
 he recommended, will henceforth prevail in practice, though he was 
 unable to enforce it in his own person. General Harrison and his friends, 
 seeing its advance in public opinion, and that it had the essential ma- 
 terials for popular predominance, took hold of it and established it. 
 Johnson says of Junius, that " finding the nation combustible, he was able 
 to inflame it. : ' The Whigs seeing in like manner how the one term 
 principle was taking root, planted General Harrison upon it. It was one 
 of the causes of his success. Many who voted for him, proclaimed that 
 as their ground ; and whoever expects in future to see the same man 
 elected twice, more especially over the impatient rivalry and ambition in 
 that large plurality of candidates which the increasing population of our 
 country now throws up every four years — an impatience not to be eradi- 
 cated from human nature — expects more than I do. Least of all do I 
 expect it in the person of Mr. Van Buren, under all the circumstance 1 
 have been weighing; and I pray that they may not be too hastily dis- 
 carded without consideration. The references to governors of states and 
 members of Congress, who have been elected after former defeats, are so 
 inapplicable, by their limited and local bearings, and the essentially dif- 
 ferent and complex elements otherwise entering into the Presidential elec- 
 tion, to say nothing of the one term principle, mat I will not lengthen this 
 letter by stopping to dwell upon them. It is as the great ocean to small 
 streams. You may stem a tide in the latter ; but the heavings of the 
 former defy and overwhelm you. 
 
22 A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 I will here close for the present ; but shall have to trespass further on 
 your valuable columns, so deeply does the discussion seem to me to in- 
 volve our highest prblic interest. 
 
 August 18, 1843. A Voice from a Friend. 
 
 To the Editors of the Enquirer. 
 
 Gentlemen : I am aware that in my last letter, the publication of 
 which there has not yet been time for me to see, though I will assume 
 it, I dealt with an ungracious topic. There are those in our ranks enti- 
 tled to all respect, who think, that as the people have found out the falla- 
 cy of Whig promises since their success in 1840, the member of the party 
 who talks of defeat next time, with Mr. Van Buren as our candidate, 
 now that we know what the practices of our opponents were, and have 
 had such intervening victories at the polls, must want zeal, or courage, or 
 both ; or not be able to see clearly into the future ; or even want sin- 
 cerity and faith in the good old Democrat cause. 
 
 As to the last, Messrs. Editors, I need not say to you. I trust, how wide 
 such a supposition would be of the truth. For the rest, I aimed at show- 
 ing, that the Whigs, with their foreign allies, will have, will use, prodi- 
 o-ous means for renewing in '44, their old practices, and may resort to 
 now ones that are worse ; and that although we are now apprised of the 
 old, and may be on the watch as to the new, we shall find it extremely 
 difficult to counteract them, no matter how we are forewarned ; and more 
 difficult with Mr. Van Buren, from the causes mentioned, than with a 
 new candidate. The Democratic prepossession in various parts of the 
 country, is so naturally with Mr. Van Buren from his faithful service, 
 and sympathies with him from having been turned out, that perhaps its 
 judgment hardly has the fair play, at first, on coming to consider how we 
 shall now better succeed without, than under his leadership. Thence it 
 is that I would fain hope for a candid consideration of the opinions 
 which, so far, I have expressed. It seems, with many, to have become a 
 political lwMi to consider Mr. Van Buren necessary to the party; but 
 habit it is known will sometimes master reason, unless an effort be made 
 
 to shake it off. 
 
 If I should nol look for success under his banner, I should dispair ol it 
 also under Mr. Calhoun's; although to the talents and noble spirit of this 
 
 distinguished son of the South, n le can yield more homage than I am 
 
 reads' to do. In him, also, are qualities to excite a high tone of ardent 
 am l chivalrou feeling ; but he has been less uniform in his course than 
 Mr. vr aD Buren. This in pari proceeded from the verj force and fertili- 
 ty of his intellect, and that* consequent self-reliance which has led him to 
 give the tone to others, rather than take it from them; contrary to the 
 more even tenor and staid characteristics of Mr. Van Buren's mind, 
 whnh include caution. What I describe in Mr. Calhoun,has not sprung 
 from any dictatorial spirit, but has been the irrepressible offspring of his 
 nature, in seeking to serve and exalt his country. Nevertheless, the 
 departure from uniformity, for I do not say consistency, to which I simply 
 (allude, without designing to go into any details, hurts his general popu- 
 
 vrity; although it may not impair, but enhance with portions of the 
 Mic, the independence and elevation of his character. Horace Wal- 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 28 
 
 pole says, that he never could rightly understand Mr. Gray's political 
 opinions, as sometimes he was on the side of authority, sometimns on that 
 of the people, adding, that this was natural to a candid and ingenuous, 
 mind ; for that, when the people (he spoke of England, of course,) 
 "showed gross vices of ignorance, one wishes the check of authority," 
 and when " Governors pursued wicked plans, one wishes for a spirited 
 opposition." 
 
 This reflection, appropriately modified, might suggest itself in consider- 
 ing Mr. Calhoun's long and brilliant career as an American statesman. 
 Some men seem destined to instruct mankind, rather than govern them ; 
 and, in the complication of human affairs and diversity of human fame, 
 perhaps it is a tax to be paid by an intellect of the amplitude and energy 
 of Mr. Calhoun's, mixed with what, sometimes borders on refinement in its 
 power and habit of analysis, that it is more apt to fail in gaining immedi- 
 ate popular assent to its conclusions and its objects, than can be com- 
 manded by minds less gifted. The grand, colossal mind of Burke was of 
 this texture. No one ever seems to have thought of him as prime minis- 
 ter ; yet he was able to instruct prime ministers of his own day and all 
 since, in maxims of political wisdom ; of which any single one of his 
 speeches, apart from all he wrote, will often afford the most profound and 
 beautiful illustrations. But Burke was not uniform in his career, any 
 more than Mr. Calhoun ; the fullness of his mind, its luxuriance, its heat, 
 its amazing compass, with the strength and pomp of his imagination, and 
 the latter was sometimes as philosophic as gorgeous, drawing him off into 
 eccentricities. In bringing Mr. Calhoun at all within the category of so 
 mighty a man, though but to supply an analogy, I attest the homage I 
 would pay to his parts ; and I would render not the less to his purity and 
 patriotism, though unable, on full consideration, to look upon him as a 
 safe candidate for us at present. 
 
 As little can I regard Colonel Johnson in that light, though joining in 
 every tribute to his patriotism, valor, philanthropy, long services, and 
 wounds; and to his time-honored fidelity and devotion to the Democratic 
 cause. 
 
 Nor Mr. Buchanan. None deny the talents, services or great respect- 
 ability of this eminent Pennsylvanian ; and all who know him, feel the 
 influence of his gentlemanly port and bearing, as all who read them ac- 
 knowledge the ability of his speeches in the Senate. But I cannot learn 
 that out of his native State, where he is naturally a favorite, there is any 
 sufficient indication of support to him to justify the expectation of a na- 
 tional selection in '44. He remains advantageously and prominently 
 before the nation. 
 
 I come now to General Cass — a name relatively new upon the list. By 
 all that I hear, his name is spreading in Ohi". Indiana and Michigan — 
 his early and long connection with the West and Northwest, having, in all 
 probability, laid foundations of attachment to him in those portions of t 1m- 
 Union. In Pennsylvania, after Mr. Buchanan, he seems to be looked to, 
 and in New Jersey has friends. Throughout the interior of Pennsylva- 
 nia, good accounts give the impression that Mr. Van Bunen has but feeble 
 support, though in Philadelphia many and highly prominent names range 
 on his side. It would seem, judging from the past, that he never had any 
 strong hold upon the Democracy of that State, having lost its vote for the 
 Vice Presidency when on the ticket with General Jackson, on the occask 
 when it was given to Mr. Wilkins in preference ; having received i* 
 
24 A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 only a slender majority when running the first time as President, though 
 then standing jji the immediate wake of Jackson's great name, and having 
 lost it again, when running a second time for the Presidency in 1840. 
 And now, as I have recently understood, the inclination of that State, in 
 the interior, after going for Mr. Buchanan in the first instance, is increas- 
 ing for General Cass. 
 
 I have brought myself to think, Messrs. Editors, on grounds which will 
 be stated, that the more the position of this relatively new candidate is sur- 
 veyed; the more does he seem to be the man most likely to enable us to 
 beat the Whigs. This we must look to, as much as to the character and 
 principles of our candidate. The latter, undoubtedly, must be above all 
 exception ; and it is my purpose to show, by the standard of his life and 
 actions, the high ground on which Gen. Cass, in all respects, stands. 
 The son of a revolutionary soldier, who fought in most of the hard battles 
 of the war, he has a claim, by his stock, to patriotic and courageous blood. 
 Having gone along, almost step by step, with that immense portion of his 
 country beyond the Alleghanies, which, since he came into life, has grown 
 into an empire of civilization of itself, it is only since his recent return 
 from an important mission, that the book of his life has been well opened 
 to his countrymen at large, and none who examine it can fail to perceive 
 how full of national service it is, both solid and brilliant, and always 
 attesting a high capacity for affairs. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable, that General Cass should have commenced 
 his public life, by being instrumental in crushing a conspiracy against his 
 country in one hemisphere, and have terminated it, so far, by defeating 
 one in the other. On first entering the Legislature of Ohio, where he was 
 a disciple of Mr. Jefferson, he took a leading part in measures for arrest- 
 ing Burr's conspiracy ; and lately, in France, he was the great moving 
 cause of putting down a conspiracy, or confederacy, whichever name may 
 be preferred, of European Potentates against the rights, interests, and 
 sovereignty of his country upon the ocean. Always of the Democratic 
 party ; always of unblemished integrity ; always true to his duty, what- 
 ever its nature or magnitude, or wherever its locality, whether on the 
 Wisconsin in his birch canoe, on the toilsome business of securing, through 
 treaties with the Indians, the territorial interests of his country, or using 
 the pen in Paris for her benefit, on questions of the greatest international 
 scope, while all Europe looked on; firm and fearless at all times, yet 
 uniting qualities alike necesary to high statesmanship, calm, prudent, and 
 conciliatory — these are some of the attributes and circumstances attach- 
 ing at first blush to General Cass's career. 
 
 I know not how it may have been with others, but, for myself, I never 
 saw, until last winter, that letter of his written from Paris to a committee 
 in Philadelphia, who had asked if he would consent to have his name used 
 as a candidate for the Presidency, though it had been written some eighteen 
 months before. After reading it, 1 thought it a paper the most sound in 
 doctrine and elevated in tone, of any of the kind that had before met my 
 eve in the whole range of candidaieship manifestoes, if so I may call them ; 
 tin- he too, as the latest comer, was necessarily drawn into the vortex of 
 them. It is truly modest : thus attesting, and not less by the beauty of its 
 composition and justness of its reflections, the qualities of a superior mind. 
 He avows in it, l)is conviction of the truth of the Democratic creed; yet, 
 > it is so liberal, so exempt from all narrowness, and mere partisan preju- 
 ^ce, that it is unspeakably refreshing to meet with such sentiments from 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 25 
 
 such a sourse, when we have been latterly so much used to both narrow- 
 ness and violence from men in high places, or those who are seeking them. 
 It recalls the principles and the tone in which they were ever inculcated, 
 by Jefferson and Madison. He forcibly quotes Mr. Jefferson, as an illus- 
 trious instance to show, that firmness does not mean violence; for that 
 although coming into the administration in the most excited state of feeling 
 that our country has, perhaps, ever experienced, he left it with the Repub- 
 lican party greatly augmented, and the principles it had contended for, firmly 
 
 established. 
 
 Now, it does strike me, that in these days, when the government is 
 falling off from some of its good characteristics in the Executive Depart- 
 ment, we want at its head some virtuous and competent citizen like this, 
 to check the downward course — and perhaps do it the better, from having 
 been much detached from the political arena of late, and, therefore, free 
 from entanglements of all sorts, which it is not irrational to suppose, may 
 have been, more or less, springing up among those most prominent in it. 
 
 What are the sufficient guarantees that General Cass is that man, it 
 may be asked ? 
 
 The very letter I am referring to is one — lor, he gives us to understand, 
 that Mr. Jefferson would be his model, and, above all, in interpreting the 
 Constitution — and after a life of honor and usefulness, such as he has 
 passed in a great variety of public trusts, we should, perhaps, be in little 
 danger if we confided in his own assurances. But we have, as we ought 
 to have, where the occasion is so momentous, full assurances beyond 
 words. We have high attestations from others, and his own high deeds. 
 The three Democratic Presidents. Mr. Madison, Mr. Monroe, and General 
 Jackson, gave repeated proofs of their abundant confidence in him — and 
 for his own deeds, I would be much disposed to say, without going further 
 in this present letter, though greatly more will afterwards be seen, that — 
 
 The man who, after Hull's surrender, threw himself into the breach, 
 and did more, by publications under his name, than any man in the nation 
 to turn aside the odium which, under that disaster, was rising against the 
 government, whose friends were in dismay, while its enemies were mad 
 with ferocious joy, in the double hope of getting into power, and stopping 
 the war ; publications which exposed him to fiery denunciations from the 
 Federal press, without parallel perhaps in our country, except in the case 
 of Mr. Madison himself, of whom it is said, (and let this go as a sample 
 of its ferocity) that every honest man ought to hare a whip in his hand to 
 lash the scoundrel round the world *) — the man who could face this tem- 
 pest in his country's cause, may be said to have moral resolution enough 
 for anything. 
 
 The man who, when at the Sault Saint Marie, to procure a cessation of 
 land for a military post for the United States, and finding himself sur- 
 rounded by hostile Indians three times the number of his own little party, 
 one of whom, a daring and turbulent chief, hoisted the British flag in the 
 Indian camp within our boundary, and hoisted it in defiance ; the man 
 who, as Schoolcraft relates, could then walk coolly over to the lodge of 
 the hostile chief, haul down the flag, and put his foot upon it. thus vindi- 
 cating in an instant the American honor and supremacy, by the terror he 
 inspired, though he did so at the risk of his life — that man has constitu- 
 tional courage, as well as patriotism enough to do anything. 
 
 (*) The Georgetown federal Republican. 
 
26 A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 The man who wrote that matchless protest (I so call his pamehlet) at 
 the Court of France, thereby exposing himself to the bitterness of the anti- 
 slavery fanaticism in that hemisphere, more especially in England, where 
 the fanaticism has the whole press as its organ, and other organs besides, 
 even to defamatory peers in Parliament, whose audience is Europe and 
 the world, as well as Britain — the man who does this, in a fearless and 
 enlightened vindication of the rights of his country, that man is likely, I 
 think, to have intellectual power and independence as well as patriotism 
 enough to do any thing which the national wants, interests and dignitv. 
 could ever demand at his hands in the Presidential office. 
 
 I call the protest referred to. matchless ; I must, therefore, as the term 
 is strong, ask to be indulged in a few remarks on this head. Surely it 
 was so, or it would never have provoked the matchless wrath of Lord 
 Brougham. That powerful, though prejudiced and passionate peer, and 
 furious Abolitionist, that " universal busy-body and intermeddler of the 
 age," as a spirited and accomplished writer in the Globe called him, be- 
 held in the sound reasoning and statesman-like tone of the protest, death 
 to his hopes of seeing perfected the ever-famous Quintuple Treaty. Had 
 that high-handed league reached its consummation, new. and a peculiarly 
 effective vigor would have been imparted to the principle of universal ab- 
 olition, the undoubted root of the league ; of which Lord Palmerstoirs 
 instructions to the English minister in Portugal, distinctlv avowing Eng- 
 land's determination to persevere in her plans of suppressing the slave- 
 trade, until slavery itself was extirpated from the world — is the proof. 
 What an avowal ? What an attack does it not involve on the do- 
 mestic institutions of independent nations ? Even the English embassa- 
 dor at, Constantinople, Lord Ponsonby, in writing to his Government, was 
 forced to shrink back from a principle so monstrous. How highly, then, 
 ought not the United States, especially the South, to estimate this service 
 in General Cass ? 
 
 The protest was matchless in another sense. He performed the service 
 on his own estimate of duty. By the exercise of talents of the first order 
 at the right moment, such as a great General will sometimes seize for de- 
 ciding a campaign and perhaps the destinies of a nation, he broke up one 
 of those dangerous confederacies among emperors and kings, to defeat 
 which is supposed, in the history of States, to call for the full interposi- 
 tion of national influence and authority, and is rarely, tf ever, effected 
 without it — seldom with it. unless broken to pieces by anus. The honor 
 to General Cassis therefore as signal as the service In' rendered : and the 
 conrliict of his ow 11 governmenl to'w a rd him, does bul augmenl his tame. 
 
 1 should gel beyond my limits, if I attempted to review all the deep 
 mischiefs thai lurked in the Quintuple Treaty, bul must not passthfemby 
 entirely. The whole eastern coasl of America, south of the thirty-second 
 degree ot north latitude, came within itsgigantic sweep. Novesselofthe 
 contracting parties could ever have been approaching Charleston, or Rich- 
 mond, or New York, with a cargo from any part of the world, South of 
 Savannah ; or have been going fromany of these ports to any part of the 
 world, south of Savannah, without risk of being searched for slaves by 
 British cruisers, the. voyage stopped, and the vessel ordered to some Brit- 
 ish ('our; idjudication. [ncredible as this may seem, 
 the words of the treaty prove it. The space lor British search, compre- 
 hended more than seventy degrees of latitude ! It might have been ex- 
 ercised upon all the vessels as above, in the very gulf of Mexico itself, 
 
VOICE FROM A FRIEND 
 
 27 
 
 going to ov from New Orleans. What a blow to our commercial interests 
 was therefore warded off— what a door foreclosed against British dominion 
 upon the seas — and against her anti-slavery fanaticism, working upon the 
 seas, that it might do its work more thoroughly and quickly upon the land. 
 Here is the key to Lord Brougham's rage— the defeat of that portentous 
 treatv by the talents, sagacity, and patriotism of General Cass. His at- 
 tack "upon him is without a parallel, since Wedderburne's attack upon Dr. 
 Franklin. It exceeded that in outrage, as Franklin was not then the re- 
 presentative of an independent nation. 
 
 Strange to say, General Cass was both exposed to indignity and injus- 
 tice from his own government for the noble part he acted in France. The 
 proof is on record, or we might want faith in such a charge. It is con- 
 tained in the correspondence between Mr. Webster and himself, carried 
 on mainly after his return from France; but never was retribution sooner 
 brought about, as far as the parties were concerned, though the public 
 will not soon forget to what an extent great principles were forgotten in 
 the treatment General Cass received. His own victory over Mr. Webster 
 was complete. No two judgments can differ about this — the lohole cor- 
 respondence being read. Let me give a single specimen. It forms an 
 item in our political history, memorable and instructive, considering the 
 distinguished actors in the scene. 
 
 General Cass had objected to the eighty gun squadron clause of the 
 treaty of Washington, that it had no provision renouncing the British claim 
 to search our vessels for slaves. Hereupon the Secretary of State mounted 
 upon stilts. He says, in reply, What! ask renunciation by treaty of 
 an unjust pretension"! no, I knew too well what I was about; the nation 
 doing that, would weaken its own cause ; it would be like asking a treaty 
 stipulation not to destroy our towns in time of peace, or to abstain from 
 any other enormity ; the United States stand upon their own rights and 
 power in all matters of that sort; they ask. they want no treaty stipula- 
 tion — fie, Mr. Cass, I should have thought better things of you ; O fie ! 
 Such was the purport of the official rebuke, and note the italics. 
 
 Now hear General Cass. He rejoins : Fowtalk so; you, Mr. Webster; 
 you, who in this very negotiation wanted Lord Ashburton to go into the 
 question of impressment ! you, who urged him to it, contrary to his wishes 
 and known determinations ; you, who made him write about it, and would 
 write yourself, although he did not desire to write; you, who wanted an 
 express treaty stipulation, yes, a renunciation, at this day of our pow- 
 er, against renewals of that outrage, an outrage (horror of horrrors) for 
 which, thirty years ago, we made her answer with her blood ! ! you assume 
 superior spirit and sagacity, you put on superior patriotism, you talk of 
 treaty stipulations ! 
 
 Such, in effect, was the retort. I do injustice to its language, wishing 
 to condense the whole passage in as few plain word- as possible. In ac- 
 knowledging the letter that contained it. Mr. Webster remarked, that he 
 had " hastily glanced at one or two of its first pages, but vould peruse it 
 more carefully ; and if he thought there was occasion, he would write to 
 him again. But he never wrote again. The whole letter had a power 
 of right reason in it. and right feeling, which it was impossible for Mr. 
 Webster, with all his admitted and great ability, to answer. Silence was 
 his only refuge. To this there could be no objection ; but with signal 
 injustice to General Cass, his letter was treated as private. It was not 
 put upon the files, and therefore not published by the Government, al- 
 
28 A VOICE moil A FRIEND. 
 
 though Mr. Webster's letter, which had so justly provoked this over- 
 whelming retort, was published, nor was it the only letter of the General's 
 not comprehended in the Government's publication of this remarkable 
 correspondence. Mr. Van Buren was not treated worse when the Senate 
 rejected him as Minister to England, than General Cass was treated by 
 the Government on getting back from the French Mission — not so bad. 
 Mr. Van Buren had rendered no illustrious service in England as Gen- 
 eral Cass had done in France, no opportunity having offered to him. 
 
 Where Mr. Webster was, and what doing, when England was lowering 
 her proud flag upon the ocean to our stars and stripes, as an atonement for 
 the unequalled outrage of impressment, a renunciation of which, by Trea- 
 ty, he begged from Lord Ashburton, without getting it, the journals of 
 Congress could tell. AVhere General Cass was, and what doing, our his- 
 tory can also tell, and tell with nothing but advantage and glory to him. 
 But I will proceed in my next letter to call attention to other parts of his 
 public service. 
 
 A Voice from a Friend. 
 
 August 22, 1843. 
 
 To the Editors of the Enquirer : 
 
 Gentlemen : If General Cass holds the Democratic creed as Mr. Jef- 
 ferson held it, and has given earnest by his actions, that he would be 
 likely to practice it as he did, without bigotry, but with firmness, as I have 
 been endeavoring to show, it is gratifying also to see in him things which 
 make an approach in other respects to that great model. 
 
 T here mean, in possessing stores of knowledge beyond mere politics. 
 This is attested by the various productions of his pen. One, as a sample, 
 comes under my eye while writing — his late address at Fort Wayne on 
 the completion of the Wabash and Erie Canal — which, for rich reflections 
 on the genius of our institutions, in comparison with those of the old world, 
 might have warmed the heart of Jefferson himself. The single remark 
 in it, that the Pyramids " tell no tale but the old tale of oppression," is beau- 
 tifully characteristic. Bonaparte exclaimed at the battle of the Pyramids, 
 " Soldiers! remember that twenty centuries are looking down upon you." 
 This was very fine, but denoted the conqueror warming up his men to a 
 new victory. General Cass's remark denoted the Republican sage. It 
 was Jeffersonian, by its classic brevity and truth. His account of the 
 campaign at New Orleans, published before he went to France, is a beau- 
 tiful piece of historical composition. Thoroughly distinct and analytical, 
 it is glowing also in its thoughts and style, yet free from exaggeration on 
 a subject tempting to it ; while it does ample justice to the glorious 
 achievements of that campaign, and to the great living Captain of our 
 country who planned and so triumphantly carried it through. 
 
 It would be but common-place to say, that the mind imbued with letters 
 has a better groundwork for statesmanship, than the one whose only food 
 is current politics. Where it is eminently practical, also, as with Gene- 
 ral Cass, we have materials for statesmanship of the first order. It was 
 a fine remark of Humboldt's when in our country, the great traveller and 
 author, (of whose renown in Prussia Mr. Wheaton is now telling us.) 
 who, after spending a day with Mr. Jefferson, while President, said, that 
 he had " never before seen so much power united in one man, with so 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 29 
 
 much knowledge;" adding "how advantageous to the world is such a 
 union." Gratifying tribute to our great Republican leader from so high 
 a source ! As we have not yet produced a second Jefferson, let us cher- 
 ish the men who would imitate him in his intellectual cultivation as well 
 as political opinions. The liberalizing influence of letters, is well calcu- 
 lated in a country where political passions are so fierce as in ours, to 
 soften the asperity of strife, and stop party from running into extremes. 
 This, in itself, would be a blessing if we had Cass at the head of the 
 government. As the spheres of duty increase with such men, new and 
 higher qualities are ever apt to be developed. So it was with General 
 Cass, when transferred from the home service to the court of France, 
 where he was enabled, by mental powers highly improved and disciplined, 
 to analyze and expose the mischiefs of one of the most deeply-laid schemes 
 against the maritime liberties and commercial interest, as well as, ulti- 
 mately, against the domestic institutions of his country, that could possi- 
 bly have been engendered by mingled craft, ambition and fanaticism, in 
 the Cabinets of Princes May not the anticipation be thence rationally 
 justified, that, if elevated to the highest sphere in which his country 
 could place him, he would be found to meet all its duties in the most en- 
 larged, dignified and successful ways ? We should at least have there a 
 man, who, reared in no narrow school of squabbling politics, has sought 
 wisdom at the fountains of knowledge, no less than through a wide expe- 
 rience in the great business of the world. 
 
 On existing, and leading questions, his opinions are satisfactory to the 
 Democracy of the Union at large. 
 
 In answers to inquiries from the Democratic State Convention of Indiana, 
 addressed by that body to all the candidates alike, he has said — First, that 
 he is against a National Bank — second, that he is against distributing the 
 proceeds of the public lands among the States — third, that he is against a 
 Tariff for protection — saying, that the revenue ought to be kept at the 
 " lowest point compatible with the performance of its Constitutional func- 
 tions," and that thus only " should incidental protection be afforded to such 
 branches of American industry, as may require it" — fourth, that he is 
 against altering the Constitution, by abolishing the Executive veto — fifth, 
 that he adheres to his original determination, not to let his name be used 
 as a candidate for the Presidency, unless nominated by the National Demo- 
 cratic Convention, and that he would give his support to the nominee of 
 that Convention. 
 
 I have caught an idea, that General Cass, while in the War Department, 
 was supposed to want decision, and was afraid of responsibility. Strange 
 idea ! As if General Jackson would have called to the head of that depart- 
 ment a man of this description — or have retained him a day after his quick 
 insight into men had discovered any such deficiencies, which could not 
 have escaped him had they existed — and not only retained him, but re- 
 tained the fullest confidence in him to the last, of which there is abundant 
 proof. Furthermore — as if his whole life did not contradict it — his long 
 Western and frontier service, so full of stirring and perilous incident — his 
 efficient share in concluding, while Governor of Michigan, more than 
 twenty Indian treaties, in regions, and under circumstances peculiarly 
 calling for decision of character, and involving responsibility — and by 
 which he obtained for his country, territory of great value and extent — as 
 if these things, not to repeat the evidences of a prompt and resolute spirit 
 in him, which my last letter afforded, as if all were not at war with the idea. 
 
ilO A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 Its existence may be accounted for. The War Department, of all others, 
 is burdened with a multitude of private claims. Not merely the business 
 of the army, proper, in its whole range of distance and service, but con- 
 tracts and occurrences, of endless variety and number, under stated agen- 
 cies or special acts of Congress, embracing Indian affairs, and other inte- 
 rests — the clearing out of rivers and harbors — erecting breakwaters and 
 other works, with everlasting claims for extra labor, and other things not 
 in the contract — surveys, national roads, militia claims from the States, 
 pensions — all these, with the business they create, are only part of what 
 falls on the Secretary of War. as his province, to look after and settle. In 
 most cases of this nature, it probably seems to the individual interested, 
 that his case is quite clear — he wonders anybody can doubt — it only re- 
 quires to have the papers looked at, to be allowed, and paid at once. This 
 he honestly thinks, perhaps, and so talks — not omitting complaints of the 
 indecision of the Secretary of War. But not so does the Secretary him- 
 self think. To his mind, most probably, the cases are not so very clear. 
 Perhaps he remembers what Lord Chancellor Eldon is reported to have 
 said, when the London papers were saying that he was too slow in coming 
 to his decisions, one of them remarking, that it was as easy to decide most 
 of his cases, as upon the difference of black and white. "Yes," said the 
 old Chancellor, ' ; if they were black or white — but I find most of them 
 gray/" So with General Cass. He probably found the most of his cases 
 no easier to decide off-hand, than this eminent Judge — but. on the contrary, 
 calling for careful investigation, to do justice between the Government 
 and the party. This, to the impatience of the latter, may have looked 
 like indecision — and it is no wonder, if occupied, also, with duties more 
 primary, because more national, amid the great complication and variety 
 of those that press upon the War Department, he could not always find 
 the time he may have wished for those private cases — and thus have left 
 a portion of them unsettled on leaving the department — as his predecessors 
 have, done before, and as his successors always will. 
 
 While in that department, his diligence is known to have been unaba- 
 ted ; and in handling questions of great magnitude and delicacy, his course 
 commends itself to the approbation of the whole nation ; 1 would add, em- 
 dhatically. to portions of the South. 
 
 I might instance nullification in Carolina, on which portentous occa- 
 sion, while his correspondence was forbearing, conciliatory, and scrupu- 
 lously mindful of State Rights, it was highly dignified and appropriate in 
 all other respects, ft is not loo much to say of it, that it comes well up 
 to the models of our foremost statesmen, being much like that of Mr. Mad- 
 ison in the Olmstead case, when resistance was threatened to a law of the 
 United States in Pennsyhania. and advanced to the eve of consummation. 
 
 I might instance the Indian question, the difficulties of which were 
 greatly augmented by the opinion of the Supreme Court, confirming the 
 Cherokees in their notion of independence, within the orbit of State au- 
 thority. The ability and discretion of General Cass were signally dis- 
 played on that occasion, in luminous and powerful i xaminations in the 
 Globe, of the doctrine of the Supreme Court, from which he dissented, not 
 as a factionist resisting authority, or as a sciolist unaMeto comprehend it, 
 but as a patriot, a jurist and a scholar ; and also in his masterly report 
 from the departnn In the end, General Jackson^ policy prevailed. 
 
 His Secretary of War had been its efficient, and. wi 1 may I add, its 
 learned and enlightened expounder and defender. Th< Indians were re- 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 31 
 
 moved, under every humane care, to places bettor fitted for their homes ; 
 the high claim of Georgia to be sovereign within her own borders was fully 
 vindicated against those disorganizing counter-principles, subversive of 
 the first elements of civilization, that would have denied it; and with such 
 an approving voice did that State regard the conduct of General Cass, that 
 she named a county after him. 
 
 I might instance the menacing aspect, at another time, of the case which 
 arose in Alabama, under an obligation the United States had contracted, 
 by treaty, to prevenl intrusion upon lands that had belonged to Indians 
 within that State, until they could be removed. Emigrants, nevertheless, 
 entered upon the lands ; and. under differences to which this led, the State 
 and Federal authorities were upon the point of collision. It was happily 
 warded off, and the public documents attesl the union of energy and pru- 
 dence in General Cass, throughout the whole exigency. His appropriate, 
 cogent, and lucid correspondence abundantly upheld the rights and dignity 
 of the State, yet threw over the Indians the shield to which the laws of the 
 Union entitled them. 
 
 He was in the War Department about five years, and it would be no 
 short work to recount all that he did while there, of public importance and 
 value. But I desire to compress the events of his public career, avoiding 
 too much detail : and, therefore, content myself with those more prominent 
 specimens, from which the well judging will make the right inferences, as 
 to his talents and principles. 
 
 For the same reason, I will not go into all that he did at the Court of 
 France, where he went, by General Jackson's confidence and selection, 
 after leaving the Department of War. No one has ever questioned the 
 ability with which he performed the whole range of high duty, direct and 
 incidental, attaching to the Minister Plenipotentiary at that conspicous 
 court; and 1 have already sufficiently alluded to the transcendant service 
 to his country, with which his mission closed. 
 
 There is something, however, which I will not silently pass over, in 
 connection with his public residence in France. I have heard it so much 
 said, as whispered, and shrugged, that, while there, he was a little of a 
 courtier! 
 
 Hardly do I know how to deal with such whisperers. They seem 
 scarcely to merit serious notice. General Cass a courtier ! He, who 
 was wont to paddle his birch canoe on the Wisconsin, Mississippi, and 
 Lake Superior ; he, who has worn his hunting shirt in company with the 
 buffalo, cut his piece of venison rib from the stake, and roasted it in the 
 woods ; the identical Lewis Cass, who was soused in Scioto Salt creek, 
 saddle-bags, horse, blanket and all, when a young fellow practicing law 
 in Ohio and Western Virginia, and afterward regaled himself on his 
 supper of bear's meat ; and who, at a later day, as Governor of Michi- 
 gan, often went through scenes akin to these ; that he, the same mortal 
 man, should, at this time of day, turn courtier, sounds, to say the least, a 
 little odd ! Lynchas was transformed into a rock, Lotis into a tree, and 
 the eyes of Argus into a Peacock's train; but the strangest metamorpho- 
 sis of all, would be General Cass into a courtier. 
 
 One may gnrss'at the rise of this notion. It probably came from the 
 article known to have been written by him. entitled - ; France, its' King, 
 Court and Government." which appeared a few years ago in the Demo- 
 cratic Review, published in Washington. As altogether "Desultory 
 Sketches," which that article purports alone to be, I can only say, that it 
 
32 A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 afforded me ; as one of its readers, great delight by the variety of its 
 anecdotes, descriptions and reflections. There is not a line in it adverse 
 to the rightful preference of the Government of his own country over all 
 other forms, but just the contrary, again and again. A large part of it is 
 devoted to personal anecdotes of Louis Philippe and his family; and per- 
 haps it is in the commendation which the writer so liberally bestows in 
 these quarters, that may have started the notion in question. 
 
 Now, Messrs. Editors, I cannot help regarding the subject in quite an 
 opposite light. The King of the French seems to me, pretty well entitled 
 to the praise he gets. We must not suppose, Democrats as we are, that 
 there can be no merit on the throne ; least of all where it is incumbent, 
 as in this instance, may be said in some respects to be a self-made man, 
 schooled in that school which has raised more men into greatness than 
 any other — misfortune. General Cass could not but foreknow, that this 
 article in all probability, would in some way or other, come under the 
 eye of Louis Philippe when in print. He, therefore, did well to carry 
 commendation as far as the truth would permit, as well as describe in 
 colors as attractive as they would bear, those court scenes which his taste 
 as a gentleman may have led him to admire in the royal palaces of 
 France, (belle France,) where official propriety obliged him to give his 
 attendance ; those same palaces, in one of which Burke some fifty years 
 ago, beheld a Dauphiness of France, "just above the horizen, glittering 
 like a star " — I will give no more of the magnificent passage; all, Messrs. 
 Editors, in the cavalier land of Virginia, will remmenber it. I will only 
 say, in passing, that our Jefferson himself, had been in those beautiful 
 scenes at the French court, and knew the same which Dauphiness Burke 
 has described in such splendid diction and in such a spirit of romantic 
 chivalry. Instead of conduct like the above, springing from any courtier 
 like motive in General Cass, I should carry it to another and very differ- 
 ent account — to that of sagacity in serving his country. Every minister 
 at a foreign court, performs a duty of no slight import in endeavoring, in 
 all ways fit and honorable, to excite toward himself personal good will 
 and esteem on the part of the Government and sovereign, where he 
 resides. It tends to give him a power ; and who can undertake to say 
 how far General Cass' success in propitiating the good-will of the French 
 court throughout its royal members, may have been among the causes 
 which enabled him to turn France aside from her first purpose of co-op- 
 erating with the great powers of Europe in the dangerous work to his 
 country, of the Quintuple treaty. 
 
 What a pretty remark we have in one of the pages of the article re- 
 ferred to, respecting the French King, when- it is said, after describing the 
 necessity he was once under, of carrying his own baggage on his back from 
 the head of Seneca lake to Tioga point, on the Susquehanna, while trav- 
 elling in our country, that "the load was no doubt hea\\ ," but. perhaps, 
 " not as much so as the burden he now bears." Take from another page 
 the following notice of Napoleon, which concludes with so happy an illus- 
 tration of the charm which bound his soldiers to him : " I have been more, 
 powerfully impressed than ever.'* says the General, " since my arrival in 
 France, with the prodigious force of Napoleon's character, and with the 
 gigantic scope, as well as the vast variety of his plans. I have often ques- 
 tioned the obi military veterans of the I fotel des Invalides, those living re- 
 mains of Jena and Wagram and Austerlitz, and a hundred other fields, 
 respecting him ; and it was easy to see by their sudden animation, and by 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 33 
 
 their narrative, how proud they were to recount any little incidents which 
 had connected them with him. His visit to their guard fire, and his accep- 
 tance of a piece of their campaign bread, constituted epochs in their lives, 
 to be lost only with the loss of reason or existence." 
 
 No, you cannot make General Cass out to be a courtier, while minister 
 in France, any more than when he was succeeding, by sterling sense and 
 sagacity, in negotiating good treaties for his country with the Indians. A 
 man of his mould knows how to deal with the most refined people, a8 
 with the red men of our forests — good combination in a President of the 
 United States. 
 
 Indulge me in one letter more, Messrs. Editors ; it will be my last. I 
 will aim at making it short, though I would fain hope it may not be wholly 
 unimportant. 
 
 August 24, 1843. A Voice from a Friend. 
 
 To the Editor of the Enquirer. 
 
 Gentlemen : I am now to present a recommendation of General Cass, 
 not hitherto gone into — his military career. I have spoken of him in 
 civil life, where his abilities, his sound principles, his patriotism, and the 
 enduring services he has rendered his country in some of its highest posts, 
 have been fully seen. His purity of character has been alike conspic- 
 uous. No man stands higher on that eround. His moral escutcheon is 
 without spot — no charge, no suspicion rests upon it. All this without 
 more, is a commanding front for a Presidential candidate to present to the 
 nation — and if you can add to it all, a name in arms, such a man, if taken 
 up, must run well. It is like any other first truth. 
 
 General Cass's military career has been marked, wherever the oppor- 
 tunity was afforded him, by honor, courage, and admirable service. In 
 the war of 1812, he was among the foremost to draw his sword. His 
 well remembered address — as Colonel of one of the Regiments of Ohio 
 Volunteers, when the hollow square was formed at Dayton — was truly 
 eloquent and inspiring. It ran through the Democratic press of the land 
 — the more quickly from being brief — admired by all — and stimulating 
 patriotic fervor in all. Arriving at Detroit, no man did more to prevent 
 Hull's surrender. Of all the officers, he was first in battle. His eager 
 courage made him the first to leap from his boat on the Canadian shore — 
 and the affair at Aux Canards which followed, and where the first blood 
 was shed, witnessed his triumph. The brave Colonel Miller was with 
 him, but Cass was in command — and there it was, at that bridge, though 
 he so modestly reports the affair, that the British troops, in conjunction 
 with their Indian allies, were first driven before the American arms. 
 Glorious priority ! to stand at the head of such a list — to have heralded 
 in, with the tap of his volunteer drum from Ohio, the train of splendid 
 victories which our gallant countrymen won upon the land and sea over 
 a foe so renowned, and in a war so just ! The first victory was his, a:<d 
 glory to it again. The first laurel was his, and be it ever verdant. Not 
 only did he afterward strive to prevent Hull's surrender, but, as stated in 
 a former letter, did more than any other man in the nation to uphold the 
 administration of Mr. Madison, of which he was a constant supporter, 
 before and after the war, against the incessant battering-rams with which 
 the Federalists sought to prostrate it under that disaster. 
 
34 A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 At the battle of the Thames, so decisive in annihilating the enemy in 
 that quarter, expelling him from our territory, and giving security to a 
 vast frontier, and where it was also that the brave Johnson acted so nobly, 
 Cass had no command ; but, always devoted to his country, ever burning 
 to serve her in all ways, he solicited a place as volunteer aid to the com- 
 manding General. His eager request was granted. Commodore Perry 
 acted in the same capacity on that memorable day. He was thus asso- 
 ciated in a station and in duty with that renowned naval officer, who, not 
 content with putting Lake Erie in a blaze of glory, by his victory over 
 the British fleet, desired to strike at the foes of his country on both ele- 
 ments. And need we other proof that Cass was to be found where the 
 shot flew thickest ? So, literally, it was. He galloped on in time to be 
 in that impetuous charge, led by Col. James Johnson, which so completely 
 routed Proctor and the British Regulars, while Col. R. M. Johnson routed 
 and slaughtered the Indians. General Harrison's report of the victory, 
 puts Cass and Perry in the same class of merit ; and none, surely, could 
 ever be higher. Other military services he rendered while temporarily 
 in command on the Northwestern frontier, after this greal victory, and 
 also whils he was Governor of Michigan — services, which I pass over 
 the details of, though they were sometimes of critical importance and 
 always of value. 
 
 Would all this go for nothing in the campaign of '44 ' If it would, our 
 own experience, and thai of the human race, go for nothing. But the point 
 is not to be reasoned. It is settled. It would be waste of words to reason 
 it. If we assume to be pure philosophers on this subject, we must keep to 
 our closets. The moment, we step into the world, its universal voice is 
 against us. Above all, we must keep away from the polls. Without re- 
 calling the thousand and one instances from history in which military fame 
 has, in all ages and countries, been chiefly looked up to, let us remember 
 that the only contested elections for our Presidency which ever resulted in 
 bearing the successful candidate into office as on the top of a rolling, roar- 
 ing wave, were in the cases of the two Generals, Jackson and Harrison. 
 The one attested how Democrats love this kind of glory. The other, that 
 Whigs love it more, as they were equally moved by a less portion of it. 
 The two in- tance taken together, attest, as b\ revelation itself, the aggre- 
 gate feeling of the whole country when roused by the excitements of a mil- 
 itary name. With all the transcendanl merit, all the towering statesman- 
 ship, all the acknowledged supremacy of Mr. Jefferson, in merely political 
 life, and immortal author of the Declaration of Independence as he was in 
 addition to it all, his majority over the rider Adams was as nothing to Gen- 
 eral Jackson's over the younger, or to General Harrison's over Mr. Van 
 Buren. These are facts, incontestible and unalterable. What an 1 we to 
 make of them all ? Turn away from them, shut our e\ es upon them, say 
 they are nothing; that human nature is going to change in '-14 for Mr. 
 Van Buren, that he is strong enough to reverse all history, all our own ex- 
 perience, even human nature itself, and run better than General Cass 
 would? We should have little right to be so sanguine, even if Mr. Van 
 Buren were the equal of Mr; Jefferson himself, instead of belonging to a 
 class of men obvioush inferior to the one in which that illustrious states- 
 man and sage ever stood, and stood at its head. 
 
 Although General Cass'scareer in arms does not match the extraordin- 
 ary splendor of Jackson's, and was less extended ihan General Harrison's, 
 there is full enough of merit and victory in it to lay a just basis of military 
 
A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 35 
 
 popularity. There are beautiful and brilliant streaks in it, and it was to 
 this part of his life among other things, thai I had allusion in expressing 
 the belief, in my third letter, thai we could brat the Whigs with him better 
 than with any other candidate. Let us remember, that the occasion is no 
 ordinary one, bul extremely critical. Against the formidable money power 
 which the Whigs will assuredly bring into the field in 1844, through sup- 
 plies furnished without stint by foreign bankers, and given out from their 
 own pockets, we should surely find it useful, when the tug comes, to have 
 the counteracting force of this strong military feeling. Surely, it would 
 operate as an additional stay to our cause. It is in itself a power. When 
 resting on patriotic and pure foundations, as in General Cass's <;a«e, and I 
 am not. impeaching the purity, but. only asserting the verily of its founda- 
 tions in the other two cases, it is a laudable power. At all events it is a 
 power. It can beat the money power when nothing else can. Its root is 
 not sordid, at least ; nor is it found alone, or chiefly, in uneducated or un- 
 enlightened nations or classes. Why, Messrs. Editors, in England, with 
 all their prodigious amount of civilization, and knowledge, and refinement; 
 how many monuments, of the numerous ones voted 1/ the House of Com- 
 mons in honor of public services, do you suppose, ure for civil services ? 
 Only two. in the long track of time!* while you cannot stroll into St. 
 Paul's or Westminster Abbey, without danger of running against the mar- 
 ble statues, reared to those who have fought batilos for England on land 
 or sea, so thick do they every where stand. 
 
 Let us not slight this universal feeling. Change it, we cannot. It is 
 irreversible. Strong in all ages and countries, it has been found espe- 
 cially and irresistibly strong in our country. Let us, by taking up Gen- 
 eral Cass, give our cause the benefit of it ; for well has he proved himself 
 the gallant and noble-minded soldier, not less (ban the eminent statesman. 
 Let us not, while we have this double resource in him, rest content on the 
 mere merit of the Democratic principle, sa\ ing we can do without any 
 other resource, on this peculiar ami menacing occasion, after all that has 
 happened in 1840. I have aimed al showing the too probable error of 
 such thoughts. Many a cause, let the sentiment be repeated from its vital 
 importance to us, has fallen a sacrifice to the flattering whispers of an un- 
 wise confidence, ever too ready to mislead, and but the more ready when 
 the cause is good. Let us not endanger ours in the least. Let us noi 
 throw it into any risk. Let us omil nothing that may help it ; and if 
 General Cass will run best, on the double ground of civil and military 
 merit, let us not throw away that double chance in our favor. He will be 
 likely to run the better also by relative exemption from something of par- 
 tisan violence operating against him, the accidental and fortunate effeol 
 of his few years' absence ; still more fortunate, in that he was enabled, du- 
 ring that absence, to be the instrument of incalculable good to his country. 
 
 Yes, in arresting the ratification of the Quintuple Treaty, he rescued 
 his country from search, and all its high-handed evils, apparenl and hid- 
 den — thus rendering her incalculable good — as I trust. I have shown. 
 Against imptessmerut, he was the first to use his sword victoriously, in- a 
 war undertaken to avenge it — vanquishing the enemies of his country, 
 who had perpetrated that outrage upon us — as he lately vanquished with 
 his pen a distingaished Secretary of State, who fell last asleep, and per- 
 mitted all his sensibilities to grow cold over the same outrage. And now, 
 
 * 1 think but two, but have not the document at hand at tins moment showing it. The disproportion is over- 
 whelming at any rate. 
 
36 A VOICE FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 here is another question — the Oregon — one of portentous omen. It is to 
 be feared that this is to be our next cause of war with England, or great- 
 est difficulty to settle. If so, who better for us in the Presidency than 
 General Cass ? Always prudent, always circumspect in council, as 
 brave in conduct — he is, on this subject, known to be decided, well in- 
 formed and inflexible — for ail of us must have seen his stirring and ad- 
 mirable letter to the " Oregon general committee of Ohio." This ques- 
 tion, I need scarcely add, is rapidly assuming intense interest — doubly so, 
 perhaps, from the determination believed to be now at last taken by Eng- 
 land, or from England, to have a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific 
 Oceans. 
 
 Let us, then, nominate this highly gifted citizen, whose name is con- 
 nected with his country's renown in both hemispheres, and, under every 
 rational anticipation, our cause will be crowned with full and triumphant 
 success. Then, will the principles of Democratic truth in Government 
 and public administration, necessary to the prosperity of our own times, 
 and which we hold in trust for after times, be saved from destruction — 
 then, will the Whigs be rebuked for abusing the sacred revolutionary 
 name they have usurped — then, will the public mischiefs, and private 
 woes, bound up with their false doctrines, be prevented — then, instead of 
 ruinous systems of finance, and stock-bubble speculations, under the indefi- 
 nite Whig phrase, " a sound national currency," intended to be kept 
 indefinite until they can perhaps, spring another Bank upon us, to rise 
 from the ashes of their defunct favorite in Philadelphia, we shall have the 
 honest currency of the Constitution, as established by General Washing- 
 ton's law of '89, and a wise and safe credit system be the result. Then 
 will the Constitution be saved from disruption in one of its fairest parts — 
 the veto power ; which Washington, the noblest of all Revolutionary 
 Whigs, approved, but which Whigs of our day condemn — after the prin- 
 ciples of the wildest Jacobins of revolutionary France. Then uiil 
 oppressive and prohibitory Tariffs case. Then, will the public domain 
 be saved; not wasted, as when the boy in the fable would have killed the 
 goose to get all the golden eggs at once. In short, then, will maxims of 
 good sense and honesty, of late yeavs so deplorably lost sight of in our 
 country, in its enormous business transactions at home and abroad, and 
 now indispensable to the restoration of public and social rectitude through- 
 out our land, as well as to the restoration of our character abroad and 
 solid prosperity a1 home, prevail over the missionary schemes of our 
 Whig politicians, who out-Herod Herod in the abuses of the English paper 
 system; and who, after all. fere the representatives in this age. with onl) 
 slighl dimunitions in error and folly, of the John Laws of a former age. 
 Thai the nomination of General ('ass by the Democratic National Con- 
 vention, will prove the most certain means of saving us from this train of 
 impending evils, and securing to us, in their stead, as full a share of pub- 
 lic blessings and private prosperity, as we could reasonably desire or 
 expeet, is, Messrs. Editors, my sincere belief. 
 
 These discussions are now closing. I entered upon them in the 
 anxious hope of doing good, not l>\ what I should say myself, but 
 through the possible effect they might have in drawing others into simi- 
 lar trains of thought ami discussion, better able to do justice to the whole 
 subject. 
 
 A Voice from a Friend. 
 
 August, 1843. 
 
 THE END. 
 
Books for the People," published by J. Winchester, 30 Ann-street, New-York. 
 
 NOW IN THE COURSE OF PUBLICATION, 
 
 A.ND WILL BE COMPLETED IN TEN CONSECUTIVE DOUBLE EXTRA. NUMBERS OT THE NEW WORLB 
 
 AT TWENTY-FIVE CENTS PER NUMBER, 
 
 SIR JOHN FROISSART'S 
 
 CHRONICLES 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES: 
 
 THE MOST RARE, VALUABLE, INTERESTING AND CELEBRATED WORK EVER PUBLISHED IN THE WORLD I 
 ELEGANTLY PRINTED ON SUPERFINE WHITE PAPER, AND SPLENDIDLY ILLUSTRATED WITH OVER 
 
 ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ENGRAVINGS, 
 
 REPRESENTING THE SCENES, COSTUMES, SIEGES, BATTLES, NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS AND TOURNAMENTi 
 
 OP THE MIDDLE AGES, ENGRAVED AT A COST OP 
 
 ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. 
 
 " Did you ever read Froissart V " No," was Morton's answer. " I have half a mind," said Claverhouse, 
 " to contrive you should have six months' imprisonment in order to procure you that pleusure. His chapters 
 inspire me with more enthusiasm than even poetry itself."— Old Mortality. 
 
 "Whoever has taken up the Chronicles of Froissart must have been dull indeed if he did not find himseif 
 transported back to the days of Cressy and Poictiers."— Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 The works of Sir John Froissart have been celebrated by poets, historians and novelists, for more 
 than four centuries. For many years after their first publication they were circulated only through the 
 medium of manuscripts, and they were deemed presents worthy of kings and princes. These manuscripts 
 were frequently embellished with illustrations of a gorgeous description. They were done in bright 
 colors on the broad margins of the parchment pages: hence they have been said to be illuminated. The 
 edition which we present is a reprint of that which appeared in London but three years since, and which is by 
 far the best and most satisfactory that has ever been published. It is profusely illustrated with engravings on 
 wood, representing scenes, customs, costumes and figures of the olden time, executed expressly for us in the 
 moil careful and elegant manner. 
 
 The language in this edition will be found perfectly modernized, and therefore ensily understood by all read- 
 ers. In quaintness and simplicity of style, it is almost scriptural. The interest of the story increases greatly as 
 you read; it is the very romance of history. From this source, the most copious and abundant ever discovered, 
 have the best modern novelists and dramatists drawn their supplies. The original of many a chivalrous and 
 many a tender scene in Scott, and James, and their contemporaries, will be recognized m the vivid pages of 
 " old Froissart." 
 
 The Chronicles extend from 1326 to 1400. They comprehend every considerable affair which happened during 
 that period in France, England, Scotland, Ireland and Flanders. They include also a vast number of particu- 
 lars relative to the aifairs of Koine and Avignon ; of Spain. Germany, Italy ; even of Russia, Hungary, Tur- 
 key, Africa— in short, of almost the whole known world. 
 
 Froissart has always been deemed by scholars an indispensable pre-requisite to the reading and right compre- 
 hension of modern history. " I rejoice you have met with Froissart," wrote the poet Gray to one of his friends, 
 •' he is the Herodotus of a barbarous age. * * His locomotive disposition, (for then there was no other way 
 of learning things,) his simple curiosity, his religious credulity, were much like those of the old Grecian." 
 
 From the New- York Tribune. 
 These Chronicles have stood the test of five centuries, and, from the time they first appeared, have been the 
 admiration of genius in every country of Europe. Who can add to the praises of St. Palaye, of Montaigne, ot 
 Gray, and Sir Waller Scott 7 Froissart— " the Herodotus of a barbarous age, with his simple curiosity and 
 religious credulity, " has been the delight forages, of all who love lo read 
 
 " Of bold men's bloody combating and gentle ladies' tears." 
 He has presented a living picture of Europe in its boisterous sprin:: tune, with all its tumultuous pleasures, its 
 I chivalrous glories, and its magnificent superstition-. He h;is given us a type both of the splendor and the 
 ', decline of the heroic world. Be has transmitted to posterity brilliant examples of dauntless heroism, and 
 1 perfect models of reproachless chivalry. 
 
 I With the sympathy and spirit of an eye-witness, and with the frankness of an old priest anxious to entertain 
 ' bis noble patron with as good a story as was consistent with truth, he has detailed the must interesting periods 
 I of English history, and one of the most exciting epochs in the progress of civilization. He has described, with 
 a most charming simplicity, even with dramatic power, all that can excite curiosity in the usages ot warfare, 
 I in the lives and fortunes ot nobles, in the squabbles of priests, and the amusements of that class with whom he 
 I associated. 
 
NEW WORK ON MEXICO 
 
 NOW IN PRESS, 
 
 AND WILL BE PUBLISHED IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER, COMPLETE IN ONE 
 
 LARGE OCTAVO VOLU3IE, AT NO. 30 ANN-STREET, A BEAUTIFUL 
 
 AND ELEGANT WORK. ENTITLED 
 
 MEXICO: 
 
 AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS, 
 
 BY BRANTZ MAYER, 
 
 LATE SECRETARY OF LEGATION TO MEXICO. 
 TO BE EMBELLISHED WITH 
 
 ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ENGRAVINGS, 
 
 EXECUTED IN THE MOST FINISHED MANNER, ON WOOD, BY BUTLER, FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS 
 AND DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR, ILLUSTRATING THE 
 
 RUINS, ANTIQUITIES, COSTUMES, PLACES, CUSTOMS & CURIOSITIES 
 
 OF T H £ 
 
 ANCIENT AND 1I0DEKN MEXICANS- 
 
 PRICK TWO DOLLARS— ELEGANTLY BOUND AND GILT. 
 
 Is announcing tins work, which lias been for several months in preparation, the Publishers need hardly assure 
 the public, that it is executed with eminent ability— since, so well known is Mr. Mayer throughout the Union, 
 :i- a gentleman of great and varied talent, that bis name alone is warrant for its high character and interest. 
 That the present work will attract quite as much favor as the Narratives of Mr. J. L. Stephens, there can be no 
 doubt; since the Ruins and Antiquities described have never heretofore been visited or mentioned by any travel- 
 ler, and will be new as well as surprising to all classes of readers. I 
 
 It will give a complete account of the present Social and Political Condition of Mexico: a view of its Ancient 
 Civilization; a description of Antiquities in the Musouin of Mexico, and of the ancient Remains, strewn from 
 California to Odjaca ; which will be copiously illustrated. It will also furnish a record of the author's journeys 
 to TezcocO, and through the tirrra-caliente ; a full account of the Agriculture, Manufactures, Commerce «■■ 
 sources. Mines, Coinage, and Statistics of Mexico ; and, added to till this, there will be a complete view of the 
 pa i :ind present history of the country , and M will he mora replete with all interesting information concerning 
 Mexico, than any work which has appeared since the days of Humboldt. 
 
 THE ENGRAVINGS 
 
 Are more numerous, and the subjects more interesting and valuable, than have ever been given in works of a 
 imilai nature. Many of them occupy full pages, and will he printed on extra line paper, separately from the 
 text, ami compare with any others for fineness and beauty. These embellishments are executed al a COS! of over 
 TWELVE ill IDRED DOLLARS; and, in all respects, il is the intention of the Publisher to issues hook, which 
 shall bethe most valuable and 
 
 ELEGANT HOLIDAY PRESENT 
 
 thutenn be found during the coming season. The following notice- of this work have already appeared in 
 the papers, though no prei ious announcement has been made by the publishers, not wishing to advertise it until 
 its progress was such a- to authorize us to promise its speedy appearance : 
 "Mr. Mayer's Work oh Mexico.— Our townsman, firantz Mayer, Esq., who resigned his appointment 
 retan of Legation to Mexico, in April last, has since then been engaged in preparing a work on that 
 country, which, we believe will comprise very full details of its social condition, antiquities, agriculture, com- 
 merce, and manufactures, The book, we learn, will be published about the middle of November in New \ ork, 
 and be illustrated with more than one hundred and fifty engravings. In all probability, it will be among the 
 most tasteful works ever published in our country, and cannot fail, «•■ are confident, justly to attract the atten- 
 tion of our citizens."— I Baltimore Patriot. 
 
 ' An illustrated work on the Ruins of Mexico is nearly complete for publication, at the press of Winchester, by 
 Mr. Mayer, whose beautiful drawings we had the privilege, some months ago, to inspect It will be in octavo 
 form, and doubtless will attract great at i cut ion. "—I Democratic Review. 
 
 "Mr. Mayer possesses a sparkling, polished, and nervous style , and as he enjoyed excellent opportunities 
 of study and observation, we feel assured lii- work « ill be n valuable contribution to American ln> rature. The 
 readers of the ' New World ' have had some foretaste of it in the admirable letter- from Mexico ( .Inch he fur- 
 nished to that journal a year ago. The engravings « ill be from draw ings made by himself; and line whole me- 
 chanical executiun, we understand, is to be marked with unusual elegance, Mr. Mayer honored his country, 
 when abroad in a diplomatic character ; and we have no doubt that his exertions in the republic of letters will 
 be attended with a success most gratifying to his numerous fuends,"— [Nashville paper. 
 
 (CT Booksellers. Agents, and Periodical Dealers, are requested to give their orders early. A discount of 25 
 per cent, to the trade. Address J. WINCHESTER, 30 Ann street. 
 
LETTER XV. 
 
 REVOLUTION. WAX-FIGURES. VISIT TO THE MUSEUM. ANTIQUITIES. 
 
 It was just after the conclusion of the Revolution of 1841, which re- 
 sulted in placing General Santa Anna at. the head of the Government, 
 that I arrived in the city of Mexico, and found the marks of the struggle 
 that took place on that memorable occasion, yet visible in the streets. 
 For a month the city had been in a state of siege ; General Bustamante, 
 the Constitutional President, occupying the National Palace, and holding 
 possession of portions of the town with his troops, while General Valencia 
 controlled the citadel, from which he cannonaded and threw shells into the 
 city. During all this time the work of slaughter went on; but the chief 
 injury was inflicted on harmless non-combatants, who happened at times 
 to pass exposed places, or to cross streets which were raked by the artil- 
 lery. Numbers of poor laboi-ers, and laborers' wives, bringing them food, 
 were thus destroyed ; and during the whole of the period I remained in 
 the Capital, the scars and indentations made by the balls and bullets 
 in the walls of the Calle Refugio, were never repaired. From the tops of 
 houses, too, death was dealt by the insurgents. Screening themselves 
 behind the parapet walls of azoteas, and frequently in church-towers, they 
 shot down, indiscriminately, all who passed, and made the sureness of 
 aim a matter of boast and joke. In the Revolution or fmeutc of the pre- 
 vious year, General Valencia had thus well nigh fallen victim to some 
 reckless marksman. As he passed along one of the streets, at the head 
 of his troops — at a moment, too, when no attack was meditated — a solitary 
 rifleman sent a ball from a steeple through his chapeau. The General 
 keeps the hat as a sort of military trophy. 
 
 Upon the azotea of the house occupied by the Prussian Charge d'Aflaires, 
 a man was slain early one morning, by a shot from the azotea of the op- 
 posite convent of the Profesa ; yet, so incessant was the firing, that the 
 family was prevented from coming to his succor or removing the body for 
 several hours. 
 
 Thus did that fearful struggle degeuerate into murder within the city 
 walls, while the horrors of civil war were enhanced by a bombardment 
 and cannonade from the citadel, under a commander who, until within a 
 few days, had enjoyed the highest confidence of the Constitutional Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 It is sincerely to be hoped, that the lesson taught at this epoch has dis- 
 gusted the nation with these bloody turmoils. There appears among the 
 6 
 
82 
 
 MEXICO 
 
 people a general desire for peace ; and the wise, just, and thoughtful 
 of all parties, can surely agree upon some plan to satisfy the common 
 interests, to quell the inordinate passions of military chieftains, and, in 
 fine, to terminate for ever these dreadful scenes. In treating hereafter of 
 the political condition of Mexico, I shall have occasion to refer again to 
 this subject, and shall then do so more fully. 
 
 These ideas struck me as I went for the first time to the University, 
 and saw even the front of that edifice, which should naturally be sacred 
 to learning and peace, pierced with cannon balls and bullets. The walls 
 only, I believe, were injured. Indeed, from the' appearance of the houses 
 throughout the city, I am inclined to think that the Mexicans were either 
 exceedingly bad marksmen, or, that they aimed high (if they aimed at 
 all,) to prevent carnage. The plaster and stones, and the poor non-combat- 
 ants were evidently the greatest sufferers, while the soldiers seem to have 
 had an amiable compassion for each other ! 
 
 The University is a fine old monastic building, erected around a court- 
 yard of large dimensions, in the centre of which is now placed the colos- 
 sal bronze statue of Charles IV., cast in the city of Mexico by Tolsa, a 
 Mexican artist. This really beautiful work formerly stood in the 
 great square fronting the Cathedral, where its huge mass was more in 
 proportion to the surrounding space and objects. 
 
 STATt'E OF CHARLES IV 
 
MEXICAN ARTISTS. 88 
 
 The statue is Equestrian. The monarch is represented in Roman cos- 
 tume, his brow bound with a wreath of laurel, and in the act of curb- 
 ing his horse with his left hand, while his right extends a truncheon. 
 An antique sword rests on his thigh, and an imperial robe flows in easy 
 folds from his shoulders covering the haunches of the horse, who is mov- 
 ing forward, and trampling on a quiver of arrows. The face of Charles 
 was not remarkable for dignity or command, so that, in order to preserve 
 the resemblance, the artist has been obliged to throw all the power of 
 his work into the figure. But the result has been a statue of great ma- 
 jesty, and worthy of the most, judicious praise. Although the model 
 of the horse is certainly good, and the dimensions well preserved in the 
 colossal size, yet it is quite evident that the artist had only the Mexican 
 animal in his mind's eye when he moulded his masterpiece. The chief 
 defects, as well as I was able to judge in its present unfavorable position, 
 were disproportions in the neck and haunches; the former being entirely 
 too thick and large, while the latter are too heavy and small, both for 
 the legs of the animal and the figure they support. The drapery of the 
 sovereign, the saddle-cloth, sword, bridle, a Medusa head on the mar- 
 tingale, and all the accessories, are admirably finished in the highest 
 style of art. One of the most severe and tasteful critics who ever saw 
 it, compares this work of the native Mexican with the famous statue of 
 Marcus Aurelius at Rome, which has so frequently been the theme of 
 praise by the most learned sculptors of the Old World. 
 
 Indeed, the art of imitating nature in statuary, is a talent perhaps no- 
 where more common than in Mexico. I do not mean by this, that fine 
 sculpture is common there ; but I know of few places where there is 
 more talent to produce it. 
 
 The moment a stranger arrives hi Mexico he is besieged by a host of 
 wax-figure makers, with small statues of the costumes and trades of the 
 country. These, it is true, are cast in moulds, but the talent is not the 
 less remarkable. They are admirably executed. Dress, feature, de- 
 meanor, action, are all caught and faithfully depicted to the very life, 
 and no collection can be more worthily adorned than by a series of these 
 figures. You can obtain them of any size, or any subject ; and although 
 the materials are frail, they may be safely transported from the Capital 
 to the coast. If these statuettes are wonderful, their makers are not les* 
 • so. You would be astonished to see the artist, who produces a gem of a 
 figure which in Europe would command a couple of doubloons. \ little 
 room up two pairs of ricketty stairs, just large enough to turn in, where 
 his wife cooks and sleeps with two or three children in one corner; while 
 he, with his lump of wax and his portable furnace, stands working, mould- 
 ing and dressing his figures in another. Such is the atelier., while the 
 man himself, is scarcely distinguishable from the commonest I&peros. 
 
ioo 
 
 MEXICO. 
 
 warraia 
 
 
 
 The two figures in the left-hand corner are Cortez and Dona Marina, 
 as the mottoes above indicate. Marina holds a rosary in her hand, while 
 the Marquis appears to be in the act of speaking and perhaps giving 
 order for the execution represented beneath, where a Spaniard is seen in 
 the act of loosening a blood-hound, who springs at the throat of an Indian. 
 In the original copy all the colors are given. The hair of the victim is 
 erect with horror, his eyes and mouth are distended, and Ins throat is 
 spotted will s blood, as the fangs and claws of the ferocious beast are driven 
 through his flesh. 
 
 Aptly placed just below this curious picture is another of the last of 
 
 the Kings of Tezcoco, of which I shall have occasion to speak hereafter; 
 
 and beneath that again, on a stand, in the midst of a number of hideous 
 
 idols carved in stone, are two Funeral Vases of baked clay, found some 
 
 a1 St. Jago TlalteloJco, the northern suburb of the city. 
 
NATIONAL MUSEUM. 101 
 
 This is really one of the most beautiful relics in the Museum, and is 
 very accurately represented on the opposite page. It was discovered 
 about nine feet below the surface of the ground ; the upper portion of it 
 was filled with skulls, while the lower contained fragments of the rest 
 of the human frame. There appears to have been no bottom to the vase, 
 but it was covered with the circular top delineated in the engraving. 
 The whole vessel is one foot ten inches high, by one foot three and a half 
 inches in diameter. 
 
 This vase, besides being remarkable for the ornaments in relief upon 
 it, presents all t he colors with which it was originally painted, in high 
 preservation and brilliancy. Immediately below the rim is a ichtged 
 head, with an Indian dress of plumes. The eyes are wide and fixed, 
 and the mouth is partly opened, displaying the teeth. The handles are 
 oddly shaped, and depending from the tips of the wings is a collar formed 
 of alternate ears of corn and sunflowers. The colors of the body of this 
 vase are a bright azure ; the upper rim is a brilliant crimson, and the next 
 a light-pink. The head and the ends of the wings, with the stripe in the 
 middle, are painted a light-brown. The circular ornament in the centre 
 is crimson, and the figures on it yellow. The sunflowers are also yel- 
 low, while the two outer ears of corn are red, and the centre one blue. 
 The band below these is brown, similar to the head and wings. 
 
 The head on this vase is very remarkable in its expression. There is 
 a fixed, intense, stony stare in the eyes, and a pinched sharpness about 
 the mouth, which denote its character. It was evidently the idea of an 
 Angel of death, while the full blown sunflower, and the ripe and stripped 
 ears of corn, denote the fullness of years. 
 
 In one of the cases are a series of interesting objects, of which the fol- 
 lowing designs will give the reader some idea. 
 
 This is a rattle, made of baked clay, finely tempered, containing a 
 small ball, the size of a pea. 
 
102 
 
 MEXICO 
 
 The next figures are specimens of "household gods; ;; some of the 
 originals of which are now in my possession. 
 
 Like the ancient Romans, the Mexicans had their Penates, tailed by 
 ihem Tepitoton. The sovereigns; and great lords always had six of them 
 in their dwellings; the nobles four, and the common people two ; and it 
 is related by Clavigevo. that these gods were to be found everywhere in 
 their streets. 
 
 [U O jai S 
 
 [U m [H [13 g 
 
" Books for the People" published by J. Winchester, 30 Ann street, New-York. 
 
 THE 
 
 IRISH SKETCH-BOOK, 
 
 BY MR. M. A. TITMARSH. 
 
 WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD, 
 
 FROM THE AUTHOR'S DESIGNS. 
 
 PRICE 3714 CENTS— THE USUAL DISCOUNT TO THE TRADE. 
 
 We copy the following notices of this capital work from late English papers. They speak truly. A better 
 work has not appeared for a long time. It will take rank with the Sketch-Book of our own Irving : 
 
 " Michael Angelo Titmarsh is precisely the writer who should sketch Ireland as it is. In the volumes before 
 us, he has caught the very characteristics of the clime, and his narrative runs on amid sunshine and tears, alter- 
 nating between gay and grave, with a never-failing interest, which leaves one no chance, having once opened 
 the book, but to read it to its very last page— ay, and to profit by it, too. 
 
 " The pencil sketches of Titmarsh are extremely clever."— [Morning Chronicle. 
 
 "One of the most valuable books of travelling sketches that has been published for many a day; and, ex- 
 cepting ' Inglis,' it presents the best idea of Ireland and the Irish that we have met with The reader 
 
 has set before him a graphic picture of Irish manners, character, and modes of living Taken as a 
 
 whole, the book is capital."— (Spectator. 
 
 " A ramble through Ireland, in which everything is taken as it comes— character and wit are in all the draw- 
 ings. We think the book uncommonly clever, humorous, and kindly."— [Examiner. 
 
 " Evidently the work of a man of acute observation, of warm sympathies, and excellent humor."— [Akis- 
 worth's Magazine. 
 
 "The style is witty, humorous, epigrammatic, and original. In addition to this, the author, who is a quick 
 and clever draughtsman, has interspersed his volumes with many characteristic sketches, which convey faithful 
 and stirring representations of what he witnessed ; and his eminent abilities as an artist have enabled him, as far 
 as print and paper will go, to present some of the most glowing descriptions which we have yet read o p Irish 
 scenery. Taking it altogether, it is u valuable and faithful record of the country."— [ Atlus. 
 
 MARMADUKE WYVIL 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE MAID'S REVENGE. 
 
 2ln fjistoriral ftomauce. 
 BY H W. HERBERT, ESQ., 
 
 A.UTHOR OF " CROMWELL," "THE BROTHERS," ETC, ETC., ETC 
 
 PRICE 37>£ CENTS — THE USUAL DISCOUNT TO THE TRADE. 
 
 This admirable historical romance has met with almost unprecedented favor from the public. Marmaduke 
 Wyvil is a tale of the Commonwealth, abounding with Cavnlieis and Roundheads, and filled with the most 
 stirring action and varied interest. Alice Selby, the heroine, is one of the most touching and beautiful portraits 
 of which prose fiction can boast. Mr. Herbert has won for himself an enduring reputation by this delightful 
 work. We observe that the London literary journals, received by the Columbia, are unanimous in its praise. 
 The "New Monthly Magazine" for July, Bays 
 
 " Suffice it that the power and interest of the work rises at every step, and thnt the last volume i* by tar the 
 most stirring and effective of the three, and that in which all the -ympalhies of the reader 'to whatever clas. h» 
 may belong) are most effectually appealed to. And tins is especiully true in regard to those render* from whom 
 a writer like Mr. Herbert can alone be supposed to look for his reward. In fact, the concluding scenes of this 
 romance rise to a tragic and poetical interest which places 'hem very far above tho-e which may by many be 
 conceived to surpass them in artistical skill and graphic power." 
 
 " A still better work than ' Oliver Cromwell.' "— { Athenseuni. 
 
 "The production of a man of genius."— [John Bull. 
 
 "Decidedly one of the ablest novels that the present season has produced."— [Sun. 
 
 " In this very clever story, the spirit of the time is sketched in a manner almost equal to the masterly ' Wood- 
 stock.' "—(Weekly Chronicle. 
 
 " A work of absorbing interest. It is fully equal to, if it does not actually surpass anything of the kind that 
 has appeared since the days of the Great Wizard of the North."— (Sunday Times. 
 
Books for the People:' published by J. W inclvester , 30 Ann street, New-York. 
 
 FREDERIKA BREMER'S NOVELS. 
 
 i. 
 
 THE HOME; 
 
 OR 
 
 FAMILY CARES AND FAMILY JOYS. 
 BY FREDERIKA BREMER. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY MARY HOW ITT. 
 Price 12)^ Cents — 10 copies by mail for $1. 
 
 11. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 BY FREDERIKA BREMER. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY MARY HOWITT. 
 Price 12)£ Cents— 10 copies by mail for $1. 
 
 NINA: 
 
 % Sqtiel to \\)t " JJroBitent's ©attgijUrs" 
 
 BY FREDERIKA BREMER. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY MARY HOWITT. 
 
 Price 12}^ Cents — 10 copies by mail for $1. 
 
 '' The universal popularity of Miss Bremer's novels, reminds us of the days of Waverly and the Red Rover. 
 She is the most exact delineator of character now living : her pictures are finished with all the elaborate nicety 
 of a French painting. No novelist has at all approuched her in the interest with which she invests home-scenes 
 and incidents of e very-day life, which, in her hands, assume an interest rivalling the more romantic and dignified 
 events of Soon'., romances."— (National Magazine. 
 
 "Tut HoHB, or Family C'arks and Family Joys.— Another of Fredenka Bremer's delightful novels, 
 translated li\ Harj Howitt, one of the bed and pleasantest writers of the English tongue, has been issued in a 
 Newl tra. To any one who hoi Mad ' The Neighbors,' by the some author and translator, it will be 
 
 needless to recommend this new work. If there be any who have not enjoyed thai pleasure, we would advise 
 them to procure both, « ith as little delay as possible. These volumes are among the most delightful books ever 
 ir p deep and unflagging interest, and withal perfectly free from objection in a moral point of 
 view. They tend to confirm and strengthen the social affections, to purify the heart, and elevate the under- 
 standing. Miss Bremer is one of those rare geniuses to whom nature has given both the ability and will to do 
 good in this world, and she duos it. Her writings have all the vigor and freshness of Bulwer, with a sweeter 
 vein of sympathy, a deeper tone of pathos, and a more refined and delicate air of sentiment. There ir nothing 
 1a her books that can give offence, bul much thai is beautiful and true, and calculated to improve; and they 
 are in every way interesting ami agreeable."— [.Messenger, Buffalo. 
 
 " Frf.dkrika Brkmek.— This lady is deservedly destined to great eminence in the literary world. Her books 
 are gems, « ritten « ith a heart full of love, and abounding in genius. They are not high-wrought stories of un- 
 real i, ery minute painting, they delineate all the finer faculties of our nature in the most delicate and 
 pleasing form, 'i hey possets an elevated moral tone, and, as pictures of domestic life, «re inimitable. We 
 cheerfully reco:i.mend them to every mother and father— to every daughter and son— as works that cannot fail 
 trebly to repay the reading. 'The Home,' which we are now reading, has awakened in us new sensations of 
 wonder and delight."— (Doily Gazette, Detroit. Mich. 
 
, ., .. , .. » ... ■■ ■■ --.,.. . - - - — --. ■■ ." ■ '.. J 1. -IU. ~ f 
 
 " Books for the People," published hi/ J. Winchester, 30 Ann street, New-York. 
 
 PRICE 35 CENTS. 
 
 THE BIBLlTlN SPAIN; 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 JOURNEYS, ADVENTURES AND IMPRISONMENTS 
 
 OF AN ENGLISHMAN, 
 
 IN AN 
 
 ATTEMPT TO CIRCULATE THE SCRIPTURES IN SPAIN. 
 
 BY GEORGE BORROW, 
 
 A ITT HO R OF THE '"GIPSIES OF SPAIN." 
 
 This work has been pronounced by all the recent leading Reviews in Great Britain ofthe highest critical 
 authority, the most charming production of the day. In a late London Quarterly, it is commended in the 
 raosl cordial terms, and largely extracted from. It is, indeed, a spirit moving and enthralling book— written in 
 a style of the most perfect ease and elegance, and full dfrecountab of thrilling adventures and picturesque 
 descriptions. Though instinct with genuine feeling, there is nothing of a religious or sectarian character in this 
 work : but it is rather a narration of the author's residence and travels in all parts of Spain, during live years in 
 which he was the agent of the English Bible Society for the circulation of the Scriptures in the Spanish Penin- 
 sula. We subjoin a few extracts from the London press: 
 
 " We conceive Mr, Borrow has m these pages come out as an English author of high rank. Considering the 
 book merely as one of adventures, it seems to us about the most extraordinary one that has appeared in our 
 own. oi indeed in any other language, lor a long time past. Indeed, we are more frequently reminded of 'Gil 
 Bias' in the narrative of this pious, single-hearted man, than in the perusal of almost any modern novelist's 
 "— (London Quarterly Review. 
 1 is a most remarkable book. Highly as we praised the ' Gipsies of Spain,' much as we had reason to 
 expect from any subsequent effort of the writer, we were certainly not prepared for anything so striking as this. 
 Apart from its adventurous interest, its literary merit is extraordinary. Never was book more legibly impressed 
 with the uninistakeable mark of genius."— [Examiner. 
 
 " There is no taking leave of a book like tins. Better Christmas fare we have never hud it in our power to 
 oiler our readers."— [Athenamm. 
 
 The following is from the Boston Bulletin ; 
 
 "Borkow's Bibli: in Spain, just published in a cheap form, at the New World office, is unquestionably the 
 richest, raciest, most interesting book of travels which the reading world have had placed before them for a long 
 time. Issued in London at two guineas, or ten dollars, we believe, it is now within the reach of the American 
 reader for twenty-five cents. We know not how it can be afforded at such a price. It i* really the cheapest of 
 all cheap books, as it is among the best that the press has recently sent forth." 
 
 PRICE 23 CENTS. 
 
 THE ZINCALI; 
 
 OR, AN ACCOUNT OF 
 
 THE GIPSIES OF SPAIN. 
 
 WITH AN 
 
 ORIGINAL COLLECTION OF THEIR SONGS AND POETRY. 
 
 BY GEORGE BORROW, 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE " BIBLE IN SPAIN," ETC. 
 
 livery reader of that delightful book— tkepriie book of the season— "The Bible in Spain''— will hail the | 
 appearance of another work by the author, in the same cheap and commodious form, with feelings of sincere 
 pleasure. Nothing can be more exciting and interesting than this picturesque and vivid narrative of the cu< 
 loins, habits, and dwellings of those wild, strange, and gregarious people. They are more wonderful than the j 
 Egyptians of old, or the wandering hordes of Asia and Africa. Mr. Borrow lived among them till they fancied 
 bim one of themselves; and the reader may well be subject to the same illusion, on account of the perfect 
 knowledge which the author displays, withal] the romintic incidents and adventures of these Lhmaelites o f 
 modem days- ,.„, 
 
 85" Both these works have gone through several editions, thus proving their great popularity. They are pub- 
 lished in E.xtra numbers of the New World, and may be sent by mail to any port of the country. Five copies 
 of each fcr one dollar. 
 
2?ooits /or Me People," published by J. Winchester, 30 Ann street, New-York. 
 
 KATE 
 
 IN SEARCH OF A HUSBAND. 
 
 21 Domestic Komance. 
 
 BY A LADY CHRYSALIS 
 
 One of the most popular works of fiction that has ever proceeded from the American press. In four months 
 from the day of publication, over twenty thousand copies were sold. 
 
 By land and sea. in city and country, in fashionable and in humble life, Kate seeks a. husband— and finds 
 him. Young ladies in like search may learn something from her experience; and young gentlemen who 
 sought and would be found, may read with profit. 
 
 Price LH cents ; Ten copies for One Dollar. 
 
 aie 
 
 PHILIP 
 
 IN SEARCH OF A WIFE. 
 
 % Sequel to " Kate in Searri) of a tiusbanb." 
 
 BY A GENTLEMAN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 This is a sparkling and delightful story. The author, who is distinguished in the literary world, sketches, with 
 a lively and graphic pencil, characters, scenes, and incidents of tiishionable hie in New-York, which, btmz 
 oundcd on facts, will be enjoyed and recognized by many ladies and gentlemen. "Kate in ScARCH oi a 
 HUBS \nd" showed the ladies how to manage their affairs of the heart, and the present work is full of informa- 
 tion equally pleasing and important to gentlemen, and interesting to the ladies. Therefore, all who have read 
 " Kate," will not fail to >ee what " Philii'" ha> to say about Love, Courtship, and Matrimony. 
 itCT P"ce l-'J cents ; Ten copies for $1 ; $8 per bundled. 
 
 WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 2ln JtyiBtorical Uomaucc. 
 
 BY W. H. AINSWORTH, ESQ., 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE " MISER'S DAUGHTER," THE "TOWER OF LONDON," ETC., ETC. 
 
 Tins is a romance of the days of bluff Harry the Eighth, and his splendid Court, in which Anne Boleyn. Jane 
 Beymour, Catharine of Arragon. Mabel Lyndwood. Cardinal Woolsey, Heme the Hunter, &c, figure conspi- 
 cuously. ' The tale possesses a thrilling. interest, being singularly wild and romantic. 
 
 Price 124 cents ; Ten copies for One Dollar. 
 
 FAMILIAR 
 
 LETTERS ON CHEMISTRY. 
 
 AND ITS RELATION TO 
 
 COMMERCE, PHYSIOLOGY, AND AGRICULTURE. 
 
 BY JUSTUS LIEBIG, M. D . Ph. D. F . R. S., 
 
 PROCESSOR OK CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OE GEISSEN, AUTHOR OF "ANIMAL CHEMISTRY," M., fcC 
 
 K new work on Chemistry, written in a popular <tyle. and intended lor Schools, Academies, fee., will be 
 hailed with delight by every Wend of learning and icieuoe. The i I ttei i embrace some ol the most important 
 
 pontsr.Vscienceofl-hem.-Mv,,,, their a P1 ation ... Natural Phi pby, Physiology. Agriculture, and 
 
 Commerce Thev were written for the especia.1 purpose of exciting the attention oi Governments and an en- 
 
 {Eedpublictotb icessitj of. 3 » ' rChemistry and of promoting, by every means die 
 
 ,tudy Of a Msii nee 10 i ti "-■ >•'""»»-• •»* "' !1 1 ""'^" t .nodern cmh/.ed nations. 
 
 Published in »1 octavo form, Ian e type, at .I"' low price ol 6j cents ungft-M ■ hundred. 
 
BOOKS FOR THE PEOPLE, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 J. WINCHESTER, NEW WORLD TRESS, 30 ANN STREET, NEW YORK, 
 
 TO WHOM ALL ORDKUS SHOULD BE ADDRESSED. 
 
 .Many a bunk, which is abandoned to the waters, in wafled to some remote shore, and there proves a blessing 
 and a comfort to millions who are ignorant from >r,irncr il came.— Borrow'* Bible in Spain. 
 
 MARMAOUKE VVYVIL: or. the Maid's Re- 
 venue. A Historical Romance. By H. VV. Her- 
 bert, Esq., authorof "Cromwell," '"I'he Brothers," 
 &c. '1'lie most popular original romance pub- 
 lished this season. Second edition. 37) cents. 
 
 THE IRISH SKETCH-BOOK. By M. A. Ttt- 
 nviish, Esq. With numerous dhisl rat ions on wood. 
 
 LETTERS FROM THE SHORES OF THE 
 BALTIC. With i characteristic illustration*. By 
 a lady. Very instructive njnl interesting. 12) cents. 
 A VOYAGE TOWARD THE NORTH i'OLE. 
 performed in her Majesty's ships Dorothea and 
 Trent, and published hy command of the British 
 Lords of the Admiralty. A pleasant work. 124 els. 
 Irawn hy the author— " Decidedly the most en- (DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES FORGENB- 
 tertaming hook I hat has been written lor the lasts RAL CIRCULATION. Cheap edition. An ex- 
 twelve months; full of originality, quaint humor. ( traoidinary book, having created an iinmensesen- 
 drollery, nnd piquant wit."— i Bust. Trnv. 37* cents. \ nation by its remarks upon the men and manners 
 TOE VILLAGE INN, and other Tales of Love ) of this country. G) cents. 
 and Chivalry. By II. VV. Herbert, author of )EDWIN 'I'HE FAIR. A new nnd beautiful tragedy, 
 " Mauuailiilie Wyvil, "&.c. 12k cents. I by Henry Taylor, author of " I'hilip Van Arlc- 
 
 i'HE HIIII.E IN SPAIN ; or, The Journeys. Ad- r 1 velde." 6J cents 
 ventures, and Iinprisonments ol'nn Englishman. 'FRANKLIN EVANS; or, the Merchant's Clerk: 
 in mi attempt to circulate the Scriptures In Spain. ( A Tale of the Times. An original novel of great 
 By George Borrow, author of the "Gipsies in ( merit, and full of IdI 
 
 spam. 
 
 Seventh edition. 25 cents. 
 
 THE ZINCALI : or, an Account of the Gipsies of 
 Spain. By George Borrow, author of tins " Bible 
 in Spain." Sixth edition. 23 cents. , 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT; Her Monuments. Hierogly-, 
 pines, and History. By George R. Giidilon, late , 
 U. S. Consul al Cairo. A most curious and valu- ( 
 able original work, embracing all the modern dis- 
 coveries in unveiling the hidden mysteries of the 
 
 interest. 12) cents. 
 (THE CONSPIRATOR. A Tale of Burr's Conspi- 
 racy, and one of the best original American novels 
 ever published. By a Lady. 12) cents. 
 
 FRANCIS OF VALOIS; or, the Sports of a King. 
 By Edmund Fiagg, Esq., author of the " Duchess 
 of Ferr.ira," &e. 12j cent'. 
 
 CARRERO: or, the Prime Minister: A Tale of the 
 Downfall of the Spanish Monarchy. By Edmund 
 Flagg, author of " Francis of Valois," &c. 12) cts. 
 
 land of the I'baranhs. With 200 hieroglyphictil STHE WOMEN OF FRANCE. By Mrs. Bush. 
 
 illustrations 2i cents. 
 METEOROLOGY; Comprising a description of 
 the Atmosphere and its Phenomena. &c, &c, &c. 
 With thirteen engravings. By Samuel For-y, M.D.. 
 author of "The China to of the United States and 
 its Endemic Influences." 25 cents. 
 
 Embracing the lives of over one hundred and fifty 
 Queens and royal favorites. 121 cents. 
 THE HOME: or, Family Cares and Family Joys. 
 By Fredenka Bremer, auihoress of "The Neigh- 
 bors," &.o. Translated by Mary Howtlt. An ex- 
 cellent work. 121 cents. 
 
 I, HE AND EXPLOITS OF THE DUKE OF THE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTERS. By Frede- 
 
 WELLINGTON. Illustrated with -H handsome { nka Bremer, authoress of "The Neighbors," "The 
 
 eogravings. The l:c.-t life of the Duke. 25 cents. ^ Home," tec. Translated by Mary liowitt. 12) et-«. 
 MKiiEDI'l II. A Novel. By the Countess of Bles- SNINA. A Sequel to the "President's Daughters." 
 
 sington. authoress of the " Lottery of Lile," &c:. ) By Frederikn Bremer, authoress of " The Netgh- 
 
 Poimed. graphic pin \ ful and sentimental. 25 cents. / bors," tec. Translated by Mary liowitt. 12) cents. 
 LECTURES ON MOBRRN HISTORY. By /PAULINE : A Tale of Normandy. By Alexandre 
 
 Thomas Arnn'd, D.D., late Regius Professor of / Dumas, author of "Travelling Sketches,'' Ace. 
 
 History in -he University of Oxfbid. With nn/ Translated by Ed went S.Gould, Esq. 12) cents. 
 
 original Preface by .I.G. Cogswell. Esq. 18i cents. (KATE KIMBALL AND HELEN GOULD. A 
 THE MAN (Jl'TIIE I'Ei il'LE: A Romance of the ( Novel, vividly portraying the " Lights and Shn- 
 
 Freucli Revolut on. By Capt. Rosenbeig, author ', dows of Factor) Life in Ne v England." 12) cents. 
 
 of "The Prime-Duke and tic Page." 18; cents. 1 WINDSOR CASTLE: a Historical Romance. By 
 MORLEY ERNS'I EIN, or Tne Tenants of The S Vf. H. AiuMVOrth, author of the "Miser's Duugh- 
 
 Heart. By G. P. R. James. Esq., o ill Lor of) ter." " Towerof London," &c. 12) cents. 
 
 "Forest Lay-," " Arroli Neil, or The Times of,' KATE IN SEARCH OP A HUSBAND. By « 
 
 "Id. I'he Jacquerie," he. 18} cents. { Lndy Chrysalis. This counterpart to "Crplebs in 
 
 FOREST DAYS: A Tale ofi Hi! Times. By G. °. (J Search nf a Wife," contains much stirring inc.i- 
 
 U. .hv-ies, E-u., author of " Morley Ernstein," ( dent. 12 : cents. 
 
 •• The Jacquerie," fee., fee. 12) cents. (PHILIP IN SEARCH OF A WIFE. DyaGen- 
 
 LIEUIC'S ANIMAL CHEMISTRY : <V. Organic > tleman Butterfly. A sequel to " Kate in Seurch 
 
 OKarnktry, m its application to PI ysii logy and Pa- ) ofo Husband." A sparkling and delightful story- 
 I'hird eilnion. 15,000 copies son) 12) cents. ' 12\ cents. 
 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY.- CHRONICLES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, 
 linn. An i.i valuable wotk for agricul- j SPAIN". AND THE ADJOINING COUN- 
 
 d gardeners. 12i cents 
 
 VIET. A translation of the Scientific 
 
 t the eelehmted French Astronomer, M. 
 
 tpon the nature nnd influence of Cornels, 
 
 ,11 acctiunl of the splendid Comet of 1SI3. 
 
 ?■' with 13 engravings, 12) cents. 
 
 1IIN. One of Bulwer's early romances. 
 
 i TIMES, during the Middle Ages. By Sir John 
 Frnissurt Now publishing in ten numbers, at 25 
 ( cents cm h, or S2 M complete. 
 EMAG1C AND MESMERISM. A story of the 
 ' eighteenth century, IS) cents. 
 {M VRY AND M \UTIIA The Two Friends. By 
 I Mis. Kiln, authoress of "The Women of Eng- 
 » Innd." &c. 12) cents. 
 fr The above works (excepting the first two.) arc subject to periodical postage only. 
 
" Books for the People,* published by J. Winchester, 30 Ann street, New-York. 
 
 mystekieTof PARIS. 
 
 BY EUGENE SUE. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY 
 HENRY C. DEMLNG-. 
 
 We do not hesitate to pronounce this work to be among the most extraordinary romances of modern times 
 Its nublication in Paris produced a greater sensation than any other work ever issued in the French metropolis. 
 T'.e novel certainly excites the most intense and startling interest. As the tale proceeds, the reader is introduced 
 to every diversify of scene, from the most harrowing to Hie most touching— to every variety of character, (rum the 
 most degraded to the most spiritual. The task- for the horrible, and the taste for the raiined, will find in it a 
 source of gratification. A powerful intellect is displayed in the plot; and no one can foresee from the commence- 
 ment what is to be tiie end. The moral bearing of the work is unexceptionable. Indeed, the chief design of the 
 author appears to be to illustrate the unhappy condition of the lower classes in Fiance, and to eject its melio- 
 ration by means of Association, which rapidly-spreading doctrine he advocates with a powerful pen. Lessons 
 cf charity, forgiveness end mercy are inculcated in the most eloquent manner. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 From the New-York Evening Post— Edited by Wm.C. Bryant 
 " One of the mostly iuteresting and thrilling works that has been published in many years,* 
 
 From the Albany Evening Journal. 
 "It is a very interesting work, full of thrilling scene* and startling incidents. In its descnVJor of u;<= hai:nt« 
 arid hnbitsol someof the ruffians who prowl aboutParis.it bears a strong resemblance to po-titus :,• Olivet 
 Twist;' and with tnese ' shadows ' are mingled the • lights ' of Parisian Lie with a truth l.. utare Uai DicLei:s 
 has rarely surpassed in his best moods." 
 
 From the Boston Daily Mail. 
 " After reading only a small portion of this extraordinary work, by Winchester, of New-Y Drtr. we can readily 
 
 account for the enthusiasm created by its appearance in the city of Paris. Though a tale ol a ere • uim, it has 
 
 nothing in common with the stories of the ago. Its scenes, though located in the heart or the old world, are 
 entirely new. Its characters are such as seldom see the light and rarely figure on the page of the noveli.u In 
 the first part of his work, Eugene Sue plunges from the light of day and the Irequented parts of the ci>y ol Paris, 
 into those fearful and dark abodes, where w;ir.t, folly, and crime hold eternal reign, and where the only sem- 
 blance of enjoyment is the frightful carnival hekl by successful villainy and triumphant vice. Here and there are 
 scattered scenes and characters of a different and higher order, which give the reader a hint that he is ascending 
 in the scale of society, and that beginning on the lowest round of the ladder, he will finally rise, as the author 
 intimates to the broad level of high refinement and civilization. Eugene Sue is a writer of wonderful imaguia- 
 tion-and is already well-known to lame. The present work seems to be the crowning effort ofhis pen. 
 
 From the New-York Sun. 
 " This attractive novel seems destined to ns great popularity in this country as it enjoys in France. It gives a 
 perfect Daguerrotype view of life in Paris in ail iu various lights n:;d shades, its scenes of gayoiy and splenc.or. 
 of misoty nrd vice. The history of literature furnishes no parallel hi the enthusiasm with which each successive 
 chapter was received by the whole Parisian public. Sue's descriptions are wonderfully spirited : u!l lull of 
 nbrvk in their language and picturesque truth in detail. The spirit of theohginal is admirably preserved in this 
 translation which is made from the pagasof the Journal des Debate, where the work was orieinally published. 
 IVehaoe never read a more thrilling and exciting romance; unlike most French novels, its morality is unex- 
 ceptionable." From the New-York Daily Tribune-Edited by Horace Greeley. 
 
 "We have been somewhat interested by the war of the publishers with regard to it :. ami h"in B hear,' both 
 „!.,. are satisfied that WINCHESTER'S k not only THE ORIGINAL AMERICAN BUT [M-O^PAK/ ' . 
 Ill Y THE MOST FAITHFUL TRANSLAT10N-IN PACT. THE ONLY ONE THAT HAS AN 
 J£sT CLAIM I TO BE CONSIDERED AN ENGLISH VERSION OK EUGENE BUB'S WORK. 
 Whoever desire* to cabch the. spirit end intent of Die author should read Otis edition. 
 
 Prom the Troy Daily Whig. 
 " M71TXMK9 or Paris. New World EnmoN.-Tlus translation, as we have before observed is REMARK; 
 
 ABLEFOR1TS ELEGANCE AND FIDELITY. aad IS IMMEASURABLY SUPERIOR Til THAI 
 PUIll (SHED BY THE HARPERS. The first is the work of on elegant scholar, who enters thoroughly uim 
 intuitively into the spun of all the brilliant conceptions of his original: the latter that ol a mill-horse ilruiljje. 
 who, with dictionary in hai.d. dial Hupidly and meclmnically into the rich mine which IS opened lielure Him. 
 
 Price Ono Dollar. The usuai discount to the fade. Address 
 
 J. WINCHE3TBB,30 Ann street. New.York 
 
 -z=rz 
 
 = 
 
 t» o 
 
 w 
 
L 
 
 !> 
 
*b\? 
 
 ^o« 
 
 w* #& v* .-ate' v** #& v* 
 
 
 a « 
 
 
 *<l 
 
 "*o aV t .^/, *** r 0* oil 
 
 
 

 
 N \ ? g| 
 
 
 
 " 4 I>^ 
 
 
 
 ♦* ** 
 
 ♦Z* \* v > \V *i» ^ ^C*