LETTER
TO THIE
HON. MILLARD FILLMORE,
President of the United States.
IN REPLY TO CHARGES OF
PROF. R. S. M'COLLOH,
BY JAMES C. BOOTH,
Melter and Refiner in the U. S. Mint.
Printed by King & Baird, Sansom Street, Philadelphia.








Philadelphia, January 17th, 1853.
SIR:When charges of a serious chaarcter, and from  an apparently reliable source, are presented against a subordinate officer, it may become necessary for him to make a statement of
the facts involved, to his official superiors, in order that they
may judge how far such charges are sustained, and whether
they should or should not withdraw their confidence and support from him. Such charges having been recently made
against the undersigned by R. S. McCulloh, Professor in Princeton College, and my predecessor in office, I solicit your consideration to the following simple statement of facts, and
cheerfully submit myself to your judgment upon the subject.
Mr. McCulloh having invented a process for refining gold,
and having experimented to some extent upon it, while Melter
and Refiner of the Mint, took out a caveat for the same within
a few days after his accounts in the Mint had been closed.
When I entered upon the office, the influx of California gold
began to swell the monthly dbposites of the Mint, and finding
from actual trial the inadequacy of the then arrangements for
refining the increasing deposites, I was incessantly employed
from month to month for more than a year in increasing the
capacity and expediting the process of refining, in order that
depositors might not be inconvenienced by having the payment
of their deposites too long withheld.
Being by profession a chemist, and having been previously
occupied in refining other metals, I was naturally led to devise
other means of refining gold, if possible, more expeditious and
advantageous than the method usually followed. I contrived
one by the use of zinc, which I afterward discovered to have
been the process patented by Mr. McCulloh, and finding the
first stages of the process to work with remarkable facility, even
on a large quantity of gold, I spoke in enthusiastic terms to
him of the process. Upon continuing the operations through'.-i].




2
subsequent stages, the extreme difficulty I experienced in obviat.
ing brittleness in the gold thus refined, induced: me immediately to resort to another process, the main features of which
were drawn from my experience in refining cobalt, in which I
had been previously engaged. After making such experiments
in a small way, as my means would permit, and with remarkable success, I took out a patent for the same in August, 1850,
in conjunction with Prof. C. -Morfit, of Baltimore, who had
assisted me in the investigation.
Since neither the process of Mr. McCulloh nor our own had
been tried on a working scale, the only true test of their value,
both parties agreed to unite their interests to procure an appropriation from Congress for any new and better method of refining gold. That body having seen fit to appropriate $25,000
for such new process, as should, in your estimation, prove superior to the one now in use, I was instructed by the late Director,
Dr. R. {M. Patterson, to test the practicability of both the
patented processes. I accordingly experimented on them at
frequent intervals, with all the time, labor and knowledge I
could command, so as not to interfere with the essential business of the Mint, during many months, reporting to the Director from time to time, the progress of the experiments. In
February, 1851, I reported upon both processes, having overcome the brittleness of gold resulting from the use of zinc, and
recommended the adoption of Mr. McCulloh's at the Philadelphia
Mint, and of my own as the cheapest, most capable of variation
according to means of refining, and therefore best adapted to
the wants of California, if required there.
The experiments hitherto made having in view only the relative economy and convenience of the new processes compared
to the old, and none having been instituted to determine relative wastage, the Director requested me to test this point,
especially with Mr. McCulloh's process, which I had recommended. As I was an interested party, I requested the Director and his son, Mr. R. Patterson, to supervise the experiments,
after I had given the requisite instructions to the workmen,
who had previously conducted the process under my more
immediate charge. The four experiments, which were tried,




3
proved unsatisfactory, generally exhibiting an unusual loss.
The metal having been toughened by melting it in a reverberatory furnace, where the current of air might have caused loss
by volatilization, in a fifth experiment, it was melted in a covered black lead crucible, but the same disproportionate waste
was observed. Since the wastage, therefore, appeared greater
by Mr. McCulloh's, than by the usual process, from volatilization of gold with zinc, or from some other cause, the Director,
after reporting the experiment to the Treasury Department,
disapproved of the introduction of the new method into the
Mlint.
Mr. McCulloh, disbelieving all representations made to him
that I had experimented upon his process, and being fully convinced of its value, intimated to me through his father that he
wished to separate our joint interests in the two patents.
Knowing his to be defective and mine to be really a good process, I acceded to his request. Immediately after this, in the
spring of 1851, he issued a pamphlet of 80 pages, embracing
all our correspondence since we had thought of uniting our
patented interests. As my letters were written hurriedly, in
the midst of the pressing duties of my office, and to Mr. Me
Culloh, as a friend, in which light I had always regarded him,
I confess that I felt not a little grieved that he should have
deemed it proper to publish private and friendly letters, written
at a time when, in the midst of onerous duties, I was robbing
myself of the little leisure that remained to me, in the vain endeavor to make his process available by the Mint.
In August, 1851, he embraced, in a letter to yourself, severe
charges against me, but I cannot imagine to this day how he
could have allowed suspicion to fester in his mind, and result
in such charges, because they are either entirely groundless, or
arise from false inferences and unjust suspicion, although they
sometimes appear to be actual misstatements.  Dr. Eckert
having been about the same time appointed Director of the
Mint, the charges were forwarded to him by the Department
for investigation.  He entered at once upon this duty, and
made the fullest inquiries of those who had witnessed or had
personal knowledge of the steps taken by me in testing Mr.




4
McCulloh's process. The result of that investigation has been
laid before you, wherein he not only exculpates me entirely
from the charges, but speaks in such commendatory terms of
the manner in which my official duties are performed, that I
would not allude to the fact, except as a part of this narrative.
The exculpation is the stronger, because Dr. Eckert had no
personal acquaintance with me prior to his appointment to the
Mint, and could therefore have had no prejudices in my favor.
On the other hand, if it were possible to poison his mind with
unjust suspicions, I may believe that Mr. McCulloh did not fail
to make the attempt in the interviews which he sought with Dr.
Eckert both before and after his induction into office.
In the fall of 1851, Mr. McCulloh obtained permission from
the Department to try his process under his own supervision,
a proceeding which I had urged upon Dr. Eckert immediately
after his entering upon his official duties. The construction
of furnaces and other arrangements were made during the
whole of January, the experiments were tried by Mr. McCulloh in February, and the complete returns from the whole series
of operations, upon about $250,000 of gold, were made by the
1st of April. The results of these experiments, made entirely
under his own direction, and with all the appliances of the Mint,
showing a greater wastage than the older process, even according to his own representation, the Director reported the same
to the Department, and could not therefore recommend the
adoption of Mr. McCulloh's process as superior or equal to the
one at present employed.
Having thus presented a concise, historical sketch of the
facts involved, I now propose to examine some of the charges
which Mr. McCulloh has dragged out of those facts.
I would first however, observe, that while the utmost circumspection should be used in making statements, which may seriously
affect the interests of others, either for good or for evil, it demands
deeper consideration, when charges of unskilfulness or wastefulness are urged against an officer, whose duties demand the
exercise of an unusual degree of skill and care. How much
more grave it becomes when such charges are designed to affect




5
his moral character, the richest treasure of every man, and an
essential requisite for the position I occupy. Does the individual making such charges aim solely at truth? Then every
statement should be deliberately weighed, and its exact truth
and bearing thoroughly ascertained, or else he who charges has
recklessly robbed another of his treasure, and of that reputation
on which his success in life depends. The simple desire for
truth demands that the statements of others should be cautiously
sifted and examined, lest he who charges be accused of a reckless disregard of truth and reputation, by giving opinions for
facts. Truth requires that nothing more than the facts be
given, to avoid prejudicing the reader's mind with matters unconnected with the subject. Nor should less than a full statement of facts be presented, because a sound judgment cannot
be passed upon a partial view of facts, and erroneous inferences
may be drawn from them. Besides, where more or less than
the exact truth is given, the person making charges may be
justly suspected of desiring to produce a particular impression
rather than searching after truth.  It is hardly necessary to
say that facts should not be wilfully misstated, for it implies
too great a disregard of moral principle. If the individual
making charges against another's moral character, do not carefully sift every fact and weigh every word, so as to be safely
within the preceding postulates, the danger is that the charges
will recoil with dishonor upon his own head. If the charges
are urged upon mere suspicion, such an attempt to blight the
fair reputation of another is at least a harsh transgression of
the common law of charity; while the nobler law of Christian
charity demands an earnest endeavor, if possible, to attribute
good motives to actions. Where, however, more or less than
the truth is given, where the statements of others are incautiously received and urged as truths, where the facts given have
not been cautiously examined, where facts and opinions are
arranged to produce a prejudicing effect, where mere suspicion
of motives is made the groundwork of inference and action, and
where matters wholly foreign to the question at issue, such as
charges against others than the one aimed at, are introducedin such a case, we may well question, not merely the charitable




6
feelings, but the moral views and motives of the individual who
makes such charges.
At the same time, it is perhaps prudent for the reader of
charges to know some other circumstances connected with the
individual making charges against another, to ascertain if possible, whether he could have any other motives than those he
alleges for bringing forward such charges. If they are made
against a public officer, do they spring from a sincere desire
for the public welfare? Can no private motives have possibly
had their influence? The violence of a charge, if not most
surely ascertained and well founded, leads those, who know
human nature, at once to the conviction, that not the public
weal, but some real or fancied private grievance has impelled
the author of the charges. In the present instance, it cannot
be kept out of view, that an appropriation of $25,000 lay in
the public treasury, for a method of refining gold better than
the one now followed; and that Mr. McCulloh believed or
affected to believe that he had invented such a method; that I,
as an officer appointed to try this method, although interested
to one-half in the process, could not bring it to a successful
issue; that two Directors of the Mint, although fully desirous
of employing a better method, if one could be found, were also
obliged to pronounce against it; that Mr. McCulloh, after trying his own process himself, failed signally to prove its equality
with the present method; that Mr. McCulloh had therefore
failed to obtain $25,000, which he thought within his grasp,
by the failure of his process in his own hands, as well as in that
of others; and that therefore, after speaking in such unqualified
terms of praise of his process, he should feel deep mortification
and wounded pride, and seek for some object whereon to vent
his feelings.
Mr. McCulloh's charges against me are embraced under
several heads,-that I did not try his process fairly; that I was
disingenuous when we divided interests in our respective patents,
knowing mine to be worthless and his own to be good; that as an
officer in the Mint, I am unskilful, wasteful, habitually regartless of the public good, and more devoted to my private interests; and beyond me, as the fittest target, he hurls his arrows




7
against two successive Directors of the Mint, and against other
officers and individuals, whom he supposed to have been in a
remote degree connected with the trial of his process.
I. Mr. McCulloh alleges that I did not try his process fairly,
but " with ill-devised modifications of his process, and not according to the manner requested by him, and specified in his
patent, and that I destroyed a furnace then existing in the
Mint suitable for his purpose."
To this I reply,-1. That the present Director, immediately
after entering upon the duties of his office, before he was personally well acquainted with me or my operations in the Mint, but
better acquainted with the views of Mr. McCulloh, who sought
interviews with him beforehand,-made full enquiries of officers
who had witnessed my operations, and examined the men who
had experimented on his process, agreeably to my directions;
and the testimony, as the Director observed, "showed that the
experiments were made with every care, that they were directed
by me, the then Director personally supervising the operations,
and that the Director and myself seemed anxious that the experiments should succeed;" that "the impression left on the
minds of these witnesses was, that nothing requisite to the
success of the experiments was left undone." The Director
further expressed " his conviction that the proceedings of the
late Director, and of the melter and refiner relative thereto,
were influenced by a sincere desire to test its merits, and that
every facility, towards ensuring its success, appears to have
been afforded."  This surely ought to carry conviction to the
mind of even Mr. McCulloh himself, that every thing was done
that could have been done. And in proof that such conviction
was forced on his mind, I may state that after Mr. McCulloh
had been in the Mint a short time to try his process himself, in
Jan. 1852, and had conversed withthe foremen, he expressed
himself satisfied that more had been done to try his process,
than he had been made aware of, and that he had been misinformed by others. Now as his charges against me had been
made in August, 1851, his acknowledgment shows that he had
not been careful to make them from certain knowledge, but
either from false report by others, or from  mere suspicion.




8
In either case he holds the reputation of another too lightly to
suppose that a generous solicitude for the public welfare was his
impulse. There is only one other view of the case, that he
preferred dissembling his feelings, while engaged in using the
Mint appliances in trying his experiments, but I am unwilling
to believe him capable of such duplicity, because it further
involves an untruth. Moreover, in my letter to him of Jan. 23d,
1851, I urged him to come to the Mint to satisfy himself by
personal inspection, because I had no leisure for lengthened
correspondence; which he refused to do, under plea of delicacy
of feeling, although he was several times in Philadelphia. What
delicacy of feeling could prevent a man from attending to his
interest when respectfully invited so to do?
2.  The ill-devised modifications which he accuses me of
using, were such as he had himself suggested to me, nor did he
ever suggest any method, which I did not try; nor did the
caveat which he exhibited to me in 1850 say anything on the subject, as far as I recollect, except that it alluded to well known
methods. That he afterwards devised a better method of granulating the metal is true, and no one can be more ready than
myself to acknowledge the value of an improvement. That this
method was an afterthought, he acknowledged in the presence
of the present Director and myself. But if he designs to affirm
that he had contrived such method originally, then why did he
not communicate it to me, when he knew I was engaged in trying his process, while he himself was urging me to go on experimenting and directing me how to proceed, as he did in a
letter to me? (No. 24, page 25 of his large Memorial.) In
such case, he either did not wish me to succeed, or he wished
to gain experience at my expense and that of the government,
in carrying out his process. I prefer the more charitable view,
that he subsequently conceived of the method, after learning
from my experiments the liability. of his process to unusual
wastage.
3. Frequent reference is made in his correspondence to my
culpable delay in testing the process, and as a part of the same
charge, he blames me for tearing down a test furnace in the
cellar, where his process might have been tested in a short time.




In regard to that furnace, the space was needed for working
the rapidly increasing deposites of gold, and I would not allow
our private interests to interfere with the important interests
of the government and the depositors of gold, as stated to him
in my letters of November 25, 1850, and January 4 and 14,
1851. He has asserted in his letter of January 10, 1851,
(Memorial, appendix p. 45) that his process " could be shown
in forty-eight hours to be all that is needed." But yet in trying it himself in 1852, with all the conveniences of the Mint,
and after gaining my experience, he occupied one month in
preparing for the trial by building furnaces and making other
arrangements, and nearly two whole months in carrying it out
to completion. His two days expanded into two months, and
yet after all, the Director was compelled to declare his process
inferior to the present one. From the moment I entered the
Mint (December, 1849,) until January, 1852, there never had
occurred a period when there was less work than during January and February, 1852, when he was trying his process, and
never up to the fall of 1851, had our facilities for refining been
fully equal to the demand, without loss of time in paying depositors immediately after the value of deposites had been ascertained. Now had I abstracted three weeks instead of two or
three months for testing the processes in 1850, when our most
strenuous exertions could scarcely keep pace with the deposites
of gold, a violent clamor would have been justly raised against
us by depositors, and we would have incurred the just censure
of the government and the public.
4. It appears from Mr. McCulloh's letter to the Director,
September 29, 1851, (letter to Secry. Treas., p. 19,) that after
making the charges against me of unfairness towards him, &c.,
in his letter to yourself, he had obtained a copy of my report to
the then Director, (February, 1851,) recommending his process,
which report he has published in his report to the Secretary of
the Treasury, (p. 43.) In other words, after charging me with
unfairness, he finds I had been so fair at least towards him as
to recommend his process in preference to my own. Surely, if
the natural desire of reputation involved in my own invention,
be duly compared with my expressing a public preference for
2




10
his, this, together with my repeated and earnest endeavors to
make his process work successfully, will outweigh every imputation of unfairness. After making the above charges, he discovered that, so far from being unfair to him, and that I " would
certainly adopt my own process, if I could make it work," (Letter to Secry. of Treas., Feb. 28, 1851,) he has found by documents that I had worked at his process again and again, in the
endeavor to make it successful, while but little time had been
devoted to my own.
5. Mr. McCulloh endeavors to exhibit me as trying his
method either unfairly or unskilfully, by quoting the experiments of Mr. Bonzano, of the New Orleans Mint, to whom he
had written requesting him to try his process; saying that
"that disinterested [the words are italicised by Mr. McCulloh
himself,] melter and refiner, had found no great difficulty in
promptly proving the practicability of the plan." Entertaining a
high opinion of Mr. Bonzano, I wrote to him on the subject, and
in his reply he says that he "made several unsuccessful experiments with the McCulloh's process."  HIe then toughened four
lots in sand crucibles, which I had already done in November,
1850. Upon Mr. McCulloh's request to try it on a large scale,
he did so, and wrote to me of this experiment, that he "failed
in every attempt to toughen the gold," and that he "was nearly
discouraged." These difficulties experienced by so able an officer as Mr. Bonzano, might at least be urged as a palliation of
my long continued want of success, and shows that he did find
great difficulties in carrying out the process, which he has the
ingenuousness to acknowledge. Mr. McCulloh informed the
Secretary of the Treasury that Mr. Bonzano found no great difficulty, and 5Mr. Bonzano said himself that he did;-which is
right? Mr. Bonzano finally succeeded in toughening the gold,
and so did I, although in a different manner. But when asked
whether he had tried how much wastage the gold had suffered in
refining, he replied that he had not tested the process with that object in view, and could not say how much it was. Now it was because of a larger amount of wastage than usual that the late
and present directors have both been obliged to condemn Mr.
McCulloh's process. It is, therefore, clear that he cannot show,




1i
through MIr. Bonzano, either my unfairness or unskilfulness,
and that, in attempting to do so, he has misrepresented Mr.
Bonzano.
It appears, then, that I performed experiments on Mr. McCulloh's process by methods suggested by himself, either verbally or by letter, as well as by methods of my own-that while
I tried them faithfully and without success for some time, although subject to much interference by paramount duties, yet
that he was engaged in the same for three months without interference, and yet unsuccessfully-that Mr. Bonzano, of the
New Orleans Branch Mint, after repeated failure, had succeeded
in toughening gold refined by zinc, but had not tried for wastage,
which was the sole point on which that process was condemned
-that I reported in favor of Mr. McCulloh's invention in preference to my own, before the question of wastage had been
broached-and that the present director, after a bare introduction to me, thoroughly investigated the charges of Mr. McCulloh,
and was convinced that every thing had been fairly tried to
render the process successful.  How can Mr. McCulloh, in the
face of all this, which is known to him, assert that the slightest
unfairness was felt or exhibited towards him?
II. Mr. McCulloh charges that I sought to acquire and did
acquire an interest in a valuable grant (his patent,) by assigning him an interest in my alleged invention, while knowing it
to be destitute of efficacy and value; " a transaction," he says
" to which I shall not apply the term that would most aptly
designate it." That I "manifested want of integrity in failing
to demonstrate my alleged invention to be such as I had professed it to be, when I was bargaining for an interest in his."
He further says that I cannot "escape from  the discredit
which my acts in this matter have fastened upon me, or
recover, in the esteem of honorable men, from the position in
which these acts have placed me."  These, sir, are severe
expressions, but not too severe for the motives imputed to me,
if they were true. But before using them, the author should
have used extreme care to know whether the facts were such as
he represents, whether there could not possibly have been other
motives, and above all, he should be extremely careful not to




misrepresent facts in the slightest degree. IIe deals fire and
death, who wantonly assails reputation, without certain knowledge, and on mere suspicion.
1. Assuming for the moment that I was bargaining for an
interest in his patent, I will first examine how far we were then
acquainted with the true practical value of each process.
Mr. McCulloh, in a letter to me of July 16, 1850, (large
memorial, Appendix p. 10,) says that he succeeded perfectly
"upon a small scale," and was " confident " that he would
" do the same with entire ease upon any scale," although he
did not possess the facilities to make a trial.  At that time,
then, he had not tried his process on a true working scale, but
he believed it would be successful.  In another letter to me,
August 14, 1850, he says " The difficulty of brittleness (in
gold refined by zinc,) may readily be overcome, if my experiments on a small scale can be relied upon." It is clear that
he had not up to the middle of August, 1850, tried his process
on a working scale, but believed it would be a good one, if his
small experiments were to be relied on. In other words, some
doubts of the value of his process then lingered in his mind.
I had just then evolved my own process with Mr. Morfit, but
only on a small scale, and as it worked perfectly, we were as
sanguine that it would work on a large scale, as Mr. McCulloh
was of his, although Mr. Morfit and myself were too well aware
of the difference between small experiments and manufacturing
processes, to declare that we were absolutely certain that our
process would be equally successful when applied to the huge
operations of the mint.
It is a universally received opinion among manufacturers,
and the result of long and sad experience, that until newly devised processes are carried out on a working scale, no positive
opinion on their success and adaptation to the object in view
can be formed. It appears from written documents, and it was.
often remarked by each party in relation to our processes, when
we united our interests, that we had full confidence in their successful execution on a large scale. But this confidence was a
belief, based upon small operations, not the absolute confidence
resulting from an actual manufacturing trial, but a confidence




13
notoriously characteristic of inventors, and which all capitalists who have tried new machines and processes thoroughly
understand, often through severe loss. Mr. McCulloh did not
know the manufacturing value of his proceeds by the middle of
August; he left Princeton for Washington the latter part of
August; we agreed to unite our interests early in September,
and that union was consummated on the 12th of September.
There was not sufficient time for him to try his process practically for rapidity, economy and wastage between the time, when
he acknowledged he had not tried it and knew not how it would
work on a large scale, and the time when we united our
patented interests.  At the time, therefore, of our union, we
were both on the same footing, each sanguine of the successful
issue of his invention, and neither dreaming that his could
prove to be a mere "alleged invention, destitute of efficiency
and value." While I "was bargaining for an interest in his,"
Mr. McCulloh did not know how his process would work
on a large scale, and yet he accuses me of want of integrity in
obtaining one-half interest in his invention, while I knew mine
to be valueless. Since he did not know its value then, and as
it has since proved valueless, even in his own hands, I might
with equal justice accuse him of want of integrity in bargaining
for an interest in my invention when he certainly did not know
the true worth of his own, but I would be ashamed to throw
such aspersions upon another's character, least of all upon one
whom I had ever esteemed.
2. Mr. McCulloh has stated in a letter to the Secretary of
the Treasury of January 23, 1851, (large memorial, p. 55,)
that our " union was based upon my averments, that my process of refining was more efficient and economical than any
other known method." That it was more economical and very
efficient, I certainly believed and stated, precisely as Mr.
McCulloh believed and had stated in his memorial to Congress,
of July 5th, in relation to his own method, but both of us believed the same from our experiments on a small scale.
Moreover, if he believed my statement that mine really was
more efficient and economical, even than his own, then he must
have believed that his process was inefficient and valueless




14
compared with mine, and he was clearly " bargaining for an
interest in mine, knowing his own to be destitute of value. If
he did not believe mine to be better than his, why did he wish,
and why was he anxious to unite with me?  He is welcome to
either view of the subject.
3. But the facts of the case are very different from what he
states or leads others to infer.  So far from bargaining for an
interest in his invention, I yielded to his solicitations to unite
with him, against the wish of Mr. C. Morfit, a party interested
in my patent, and against the urgent desire of his father, HI.
M. Morfit, Esq.  Mr. C. Morfit had experimented on our process, and knew it to be good and perfect on a small scale, while
he doubted the value of Mr. McCulloh's process.  I informed
the latter in a letter August 13, (large memorial, Appendix p.
13,) that Mr. Morfit and myself had been working out another
process, in reply to which he says (letter, August 14th,) " If
Morfit and yourself have fallen on a method entirely different
from  either of mine, (Mr. McCulloh had another process
besides that with zinc,) might it not be well for us to perfect
and unite the whole. Should either of them be used in preference, as the most perfect, the others have still value protectively."  This first suggestion of union of interests came
from Mr. McCulloh himself, and not only so, but he evidently
did not know which process would be preferred, and proposed
uniting, even if any two of the processes should fail.  He
therefore bargained for an interest in mine, fearing lest mine
should be preferred.
I yielded to his solicitations to unite with him, although
believing mine to be the better process, because he had
occupied the field before me-because he had already expended
time and means on his patent-because we could not know
which would be successful on a manufacturing scale-and especially because I harbored the kindest feelings towards Mr.
McC., and believed I was benefitting him by the union. From
this view of the case, it could not but surprise and grieve me,
that he should torture my good intentions into a want of integrity, and that he should allow such a suspicion to sway his
actions, as to induce him to exert himself in giving publicity
to a groundless charge against me.  But when this charge




15
is based upon an untrue statement, (for he was the first
to bargain, not I,) my surprise is changed to regret that any
motive could have such power over him as to lead him to make
a misrepresentation.  Surely the desire of truth cannot lead
to untruth, but some other motive, and a powerful one, must
have been the impelling power.
4. He adduces as a sort of proof that I knew my process
valueless, that, upon his demanding a mutual release of interests
in our patents, I yielded it upon such demand. Why should I
do otherwise when I had tried his process and found it valueless, while my own proved superior to his?
5. A word more in relation to my process. Mr. McC. says
that I admitted, and that the late Director reported the results
of my experiments with my process to be such as demonstrated
my invention to be destitute of efficiency, and therefore of no
value. (Pp. 9, 10, Letter to Sec'y Tteas'y.)  But as he has
published, in his Report to the Secretary, (Report, p. 43,) my
Report on both processes, made February 6, 1851, to the Director, I assume that he must have read the latter. After
speaking of the advantages of my process, I say, " Since, however, its use would not be a gain of the time required for refining, over the present process, and its introduction would require
a total change of apparatus and arrangements in order to carry
it out most successfully, attended with loss of time in making
such change, I do not recommend its adoption in the Philadelphia Mint." I then recommended it as the best process for
California, on account of peculiar advantages it presents in
economy of material, &c. Does this demonstrate its want of
efficiency? It only demonstrates that I held my public duties
superior to my private interests, and nothing more can be tortured out of it by any one desirous of knowing and giving the
simple truth. At the time of making this Report, the accumulating deposites of California gold urged the energies of every
officer, and stretched the working capacity of the Mint to the
utmost. To have recommended a change of apparatus then,
would have been almost madness on the part of one of the
officers.
To show the value of my process by facts, I here present




16
the results of an experiment made with it in October 1852, at
the request of the Director, to ascertain the adaption of different processes for California.
Ounces.     Fineness.    Pure Gold.
Deposit No. 8227,       1209.29       883.3        1068.166
"    "' 8178,          853.62       901.5         769.539
Delivered,      1837,705
Returned Bar,           1422.57       991.5        1410.478
Residue grains and sweep,                           424.801
1835.279
Loss, (1.32 thousandths.)                      2.426
The loss in this experiment is within the legal wastage, but
still far above wastage, by the usual process. It should be
observed, however, that no special pains or arrangements were
adopted for trying it, excepting a wooden tub, and covers for the
porcelain pots. As these covers were lined with sheet-zinc, it
was afterwards found that so much zinc had entered the gold,
as to account for the wastage in melting. But even with this
wastage, the cost of refining is reduced to so low a rate, the
chemical materials costing only 1{ cents per ounce refined,
that the expense of wastage and material taken together, is
about the same, or rather less than the wastage and material
together of the process we usually employ. Therefore, although
the experiment was attended by an accident causing unusual
wastage, yet it compared favorably with the best process.
In another respect, my process is superior to any other
known, because the smallest amount of oil of vitriol is required
for it. In my process, oil of vitriol is used to develope nitric
and muriatic acid for dissolving gold; in the present mint process, it is used for preparing nitric acid to dissolve silver; and
in Mr. M'Culloh's, it is directly used to dissolve zinc.  Reducing the whole to oil of vitriol, in order to compare them
together, the following are the quantities required by each process for the same quantity of gold:Gold.            Oil of Vitriol.      Process
For 2001b.              3001b.           MIy own.
"  200                450               Mlint.
200                900               M' Clloh's.




17
If, therefore, acid is to be transported to California, the mint
process requires 50 per cent. more acid to be shipped than
mine, and Mr. M'Culloh's 200 per cent. more. Even. if acid
is to be made in California, mine presents the same proportionate advantages, because of the greater cost of labor in that
country. Surely, then, my process is not only not inferior in
economy to the best, but it presents peculiar advantages, which
must give it a claim above all others for refining gold in California.
III. Mr. M'Culloh has repeatedly asserted in his pamphlets,
that I am habitually regardless of the public good, and more
devoted to my private interests, spending the greater part of
my time in a private laboratory, and being engaged in manufacturing cobalt.
1. If neglect of the business of my office, in the mint, be designed by the assertion, it may easily be shown to be untrue
by the resulting workings of the refining and melting operations
under my charge.
There were refined
By Mr. M'Culloh from Jan. 1, to Oct. 31, 1849,  $4,042,000
By myself from Nov. 1, 1849, to Dec. 31, 1850,  34,345,000
By myself from Jan. 1, 1851, to June 30, 1851,  20,406,000
"r   "(   Aug. 1, 1851, to July 31, 1852.  51,424,000
These amounts are far greater than have ever been refined
in any establishment, it is verily believed, in the whole history
of gold refining in the world, and in the last year, probably five
times as great. It is scarcely possible to suppose that a neglect of duty has been the means of expanding the refining of
our gold five times beyond what the world has witnessed.
2. But further, Mr. M'Culloh was aided in the performance
of his duties by a young gentleman of signal ability, Mr. J. B.
Reynolds, whose untimely decease we have since had cause to
lament. Upon entering my official duties, I was solicitous also
to retain his services on the same footing, while Mr. M'Culloh




18
urged me to desire his appointment as a regular assistant. The
Director, Dr. Patterson, objected to the creation of a new office
by the retiring melter and refiners properly prefering that I
should determine, after becoming acquainted with the duties of
my office, the necessity of having an assistant. Under the advice of Mr. M'Culloh, Mr. Reynolds declined any position less
than that of assistant, and I was therefore obliged to perform
entirely alone, all the duties of my office, although the deposits
of California gold were more than double the largest amount
received by Mr. M'Culloh.  This surely does not savor of neglect in the performance of my duties at the mint. At that
period, in fact, I frequently spent days together at the mint,
from 6 or 7 A. M., until 10 or 12 P. M. Then, however, the
duties became so onerous as to demand some relief, and I accordingly asked and obtained permission to employ Mr. J. HI.
Taylor, to aid me in my office duties. I did not ask for an
assistant, although authorized to do so by the mint law.
3. If by neglect is meant merely devotion to other pursuits, I will acknowledge I have been engaged in them. I
have found time to act as a Trustee, Manager, &c., in various
scientific, literary, and useful institutions, and even for writing
and publishing what I believe to be useful works, none of which
have ever remunerated me for a tenth part of the time spent
in or upon them. I do not, however, suppose Mr. M'Culloh
meant such engagements by his assertion, for if he had acted
on the principle of exclusive devotion to his duties at the mint,
the world would have been deprived of the result of his valuable researches on Hydrometers, with their calculated tables,
and of his valuable and voluminous reports on Sugars.
4. Before he charged me with spending my time in refining
cobalt instead of refining gold at the mint, and thus attempting
or designing to throw odium upon my official course, he ought to
have been very sure that I was really and actively engaged in
the same. If I had had capital invested in it, upon entering
the mint, and then gave no time to it, this could no more be a
ground of complaint than if I owned property, and went several times in the year to collect the rent. There could be no




19
more harm simply in being interested in such manufacturing property, than in Mr. M'Culloh's ordering a large lot of glass hydrometers from Germany, through me, for private sale, after he
had recommended the use of such hydrometers to the Government, in his Report on the subject. I am far from finding
fault with him for such a course, that he would derive emolument from it in addition to his salary in the mint, because I
know it would not interfere with his official duties. But the
truth is, I left all active participation in the cobalt works, full
eighteen months before I entered the mint. That I have since
felt an interest in those works, was natural enough, because I
first commenced them, and because they were the first works
of the kind in the United States, and I felt a degree of pride
in opening a new source of national wealth.  I am not at all
interested pecuniarily in those works, and since I have been in
the mint, (during three years,) I have visited them not more
than six or seven times, at the farthest, and then not more than
an hour at a time, and then always in the afternoon after mint
hours. Mr. McC's endeavor to depreciate my services at the
mint should have been more carefully based than upon mereconjecture or vague information.
5. His only remaining ground for a charge of neglecting official duties is that I have a private laboratory in which I receive
business. I have such a laboratory, and if I regarded my
pecuniary interest alone, I would at once abandon it, because
it has already, in the three years of my connection with the
Mint, cost me above $1000.
Any one acquainted with chemistry knows full well, that a
practical chemist cannot even retain the position and reputation
already gained, much less keep pace with the advancement of
the science, without a laboratory in which he frequently experiments. A laboratory to the chemist is what his library is to the
lawyer, and experiment his most important volume of reference.
Mr. McCulloh himself acknowledged its importance, for he
states (Report p. 8) as a reason for his absence from the mint,
during his own trial of his process, that he was " attending to
analyses of the materials employed by him, which he made in
the laboratory of his friend Dr. C. Wetherill." BMoreover, while




20
he was melter and refiner at the mint, he obtained the consent
of the then Director to purchase apparatus and materials for a
laboratory, which he found necessary. It is inconceivable why
he should suppose a laboratory necessary for himself and not
for me, unless some singular motive, other than the public good,
may have moved him.  Before entering upon my duties, as
his successor, I engaged an assistant, to take entire charge of
my private laboratory, where there was every convenience for
experimenting. As soon as I found that the influx of California gold demanded all the space in the mint, and no room was
left in it for chemical experiment, I determined to retain my
private laboratory, as subservient to my position as melter and
refiner; but as the cost of maintaining it would have absorbed
the greater part of my salary, I designed, and have endeavoured, to retain only such an amount of business, executed by my
assistant alone, and not myself, as would pay the cost of its
maintenance. I have, however, been so rigid in this respect,
that its actual cost to me has considerably exceeded $1000. I
have made it subservient to my office; for not only have I used
it for experiment to retain and advance my general chemical
knowledge, which I am bound to do from the nature of my
office, as melter and refiner, but I have frequently employed it
for mint purposes, for analysis of sweep, slag, metal, crucible,
&c. &c., as well as for investigations to ascertain where and
what improvements could be made in the operations of refining
gold and silver. That I have been in general successful in
these researches, the results of my operations as melter and
refiner abundantly testify, not so much in the enormous
amounts of gold refined, as in the saving of tens of thousands
of dollars to the Government, as will be subsequently shown.
It would appear then, that so far from neglecting public
duties for my private affairs, I have elevated the refining capacity of the the mint manifold beyond that of any other establishment in the world, —that I did this with less assistance than
Mr. McC. enjoyed,-and that I have made my private laboratory, sustained at my own cost, subservient to the interests of
the mint, and by the saving introduced, have rendered it greatly
advantageous to the government and the public.




21
IV. In numerous passages in his pamphlets, Mr. McCulloh endeavours to throw discredit on my operations as melter and refiner of the mint, by asserting my want of skilfulness and care
in conducting them; and although he puts prominently forward
the injury entailed upon the goverment and depositors of gold,
yet a minuter inspection and comparison of such charges,
whether direct or inferential, naturally leads one to perceive
that he imputes his loss of the $25,000, appropriated by Congress, to my carelessness and unskilfulness. If he has thus
suffered through me, there might be sufficient reason for such
charges, provided he make a fair and exact representation of
facts, which an analysis of them will determine.
1. Mr. McCulloh dissuaded me from seeking the position of
melter and refiner, after his resignation, but finding at length
that I had resolved to apply for the same, and knowing that my
recommendations of qualification were of the strongest character, from many individuals of all parties, he himself wrote a
letter of recommendation to his father, in Washington, from
which the latter inferred and urged my extraordinary fitness
for the office. He subsequently acknowledged me to have sufficient skill to appreciate and retain the apparatus for parting,
he introduced into the mint, in preference to the former
system. Again, he acknowledged that I improved that arrangement. After conceding so much, when he found it suitableto his purpose to disparage my operations, he averred
that I merely extended his arrangements to work a larger
quantity of gold, without introducing any improvements.
Since he has claimed much credit for these improvements,
while throwing some blame upon other officers of the mint for
not immediately consenting to this introduction, it may not be
amiss to examine what those improvements are. In parting or
refining by nitric acid, it was usual to melt 1 lb of gold with 3
lbs silver, to put several lbs of this mixed metal into a glass flask,
pour upon it pure nitric acid, and heat the flask on a sand-bath
in order to extract the silver. Mr. McCulloh, used lib of gold to
21 lbs silver, thereby diminishing the cost of acid -, and introduced the metal and acid into stone-ware and porcelain jars,




22
which were heated by steam, in a water-bath. This is the
whole substance of his improvements, which I was, however, so
far from depreciating, that I retained, enlarged, and improved
them. As to their novelty, this arrangement is one of the most
common in other chemical manufactures, which was the source
whence he derived them. I had used almost precisely the same
arrangement in refining cobalt and nickel, for two years before
he applied it to gold, and in conversation with him at the cobalt works in 1849, I urged him to use steam heat in the mint.
Being therefore well acquainted with such arrangements from
long practice, I was not willing to abandon them, when I became his successor in the mint, until they had been fully tried.
I tried them, enlarged and improved them, as I will presently
show from the results. But that the other officers would have
hesitated to introduce a new and untried method in place of
one well known and approved of, when the influx of California
gold was constantly on the increase, and when the older method
was capable of doing all the work up to that time, and could
have easily been extended to do more, displays in strong colours
their prudence and desire of the public welfare.
2. He has stated that by the older method the refining capacity
of the mint was $100,000, per month. There are documents in
the mint, prepared by me in December, 1849, at the request
of the Director, three weeks after I had entered upon my
duties as melter and refiner, in which the comparative value of
the older apparatus and Mr. McCulloh's were given from actual
workings. By the old apparatus, which he tore down to introduce his own, 5 hands in 7 working hours per day could in one
month (of only 20 working days) refine $330,000.* By more
rapid work (at 20 instead of 30 minutes) they could have worked $500,000, per month. There was room to have trebled the
then apparatus, so that there might have been refined $1,500,
000 per month, with three times as many hands or less. It is
not at all surprising that the officers objected to his new and
untried arrangements, with such well-known data before them.
* The other elements of the calculation are, 4 flasks containing 51 lbt mixed
metal, worked off every twenty to thirty minutes.




23
3. By introducing his new arrangements, Mr. McCulloh
claims that he did not interrupt the refining operations, (Memorial, p. 4.) The following table will show how far they were
interrupted:
DEPOSITES OF GOLD TO BE REFINED, RECEIVED IN 1849.
OLDER PROCESS.
January,                 $34,000        Prompt payment.
February,                 30,000           " 
DMarch,                  114,000
April,                   326,000
May,                     500,000
June,                    743,000
INTRODUCING NEWER PROCESS.
July,                   $326,000       Delay of 10 days.
August,                  475,000           "    10  "
September,               701,000           "    12
October,                 793,000           "    20
I commenced working the deposites of November in December, after his accounts had been closed. I do not blame him
for these delays, because they are necessary accompaniments
of alterations and new arrangements, but surely he cannot
assert that he did not interrupt the refining operations.
4. To give the public an exalted idea of the extent of his
improvements, Mr. McCulloh asserts that "the refining capacity of the Mint was thereby increased at once to $1,500,000
per month." (Memorial, p. 4.) Those documents prepared by
me at the Director's request, in December, 1849, show, from
the daily operations of Mr. McCulloh's own apparatus, precisely as he left it, that it would only refine $1,000,000, or more
accurately $972,000 in 20 working days, estimated from 13
days of actual trial. The only way that I can account for his
estimate of $1,500,000, is by supposing that he makes his
actual working in October the basis of his calculation. But
this is unfair, because he overworked the men, often keeping
them on duty until ten, twelve, and one o'clock in the night, and




24
giving them so large an amount of double wages, that the Director
objected to it on principle.  To compare the improvements he
made with the older process, they must be compared for equal
times, because the latter could have been kept up all night, as
well as his own. We have seen that the older process could in
the usual working hours refine from $336,000 to $500,000 per
month, and that his process, as he worked it, could refine about
$1,000,000, or only double or treble the amount, instead of
fifteen times the amount, as he claims. Lest I be misunderstood, I must repeat, that I am not attempting to depreciate
his apparatus, because I had long before used it for refining
other metals, and valued it; but when he endeavors to vaunt
his improvements in order to contrast them with my insufficiency
and inability, it is reasonable that I shofild inquire how far he is
just in his assertions. I regret that the inquiry he has forced
upon me, has resulted so unfavorably to his accuracy of statement.
Since Mr. McCulloh has endeavored to depreciate my services in the Mint, by asserting that he arranged his apparatus
when he left so as to need only enlargement, and that I had
merely done so, without improving it, I am unwillingly necessitated, in self-defence, to speak of my improvements, although I
do not do so boastingly. Excepting the use of the porcelain
and stoneware jars, and a steam heat in the parting process,
there is scarcely any thing in the refining department remaining as he left it. Every thing else has since been arranged
with a view to expedite the process, and to diminish the cost of
material and amount of labor. Even in the melting department, the improvements he introduced were abandoned because
they would not work well. One result of this has been, that
whereas he employed fourteen hands to refine at the rate of
$11,000,000 per annum, and could not do more except by night
work, I have refined $51,500,000 in the last year with thirtyfive hands; i. e., with two and one-half times as many hands,
I have refined about four and three-fourths times as much gold.
Beside this, we have had at times a good deal of leisure, and
the same number of hands I now have (calculated as I have
done the estimate of $11,000,000 for him,) in the same appa



25
ratus which I now have, could readily refine $80,000,000 per
annum. I need hardly go further to show that my alterations
of his apparatus are not a mere enlargment.
6. I may, however, go a step further, and show numerically
the value of some improvements made by me. Mr. McCulloh
employed 21- lbs. of silver to 1 lb. gold, for parting, and required 6.129 lbs. nitric acid to extract the silver, so as to bring
the gold to 990 m. fine, as ascertained from thirteen working
days of December, 1849, when 35,000 oz. ($630,000) were
refined. I employ 2 lbs. of silver to 1 lb. gold, and only 5.068
lbs. of nitric acid for that amount, to bring the gold also to 990
m. fine, as ascertained from the working of 226,800 oz. (more
than $4,000,000,) in October, 1852. If we now estimate the
cost of nitric acid for refining the $51,000,000, which I did
from June, 1851, to July, 1852, at the present rate of 7k cts.
per lb, (reduced from 8 cents within a year,) Mr. McCulloh's
operations woul dhave cost $102,180, and mine $88,192,
making a difference in favor of my improvements of about
$14,000, actual saving. Add to this the larger amount of silver his mode of operating would have requi;ed, $8375,000 instead of $300,000, the greater amount of fuel and labor to
melt the metals, the larger amount of salt, zinc and oil of vitriol,
in each case about twenty-five per cent. more than I employ,
and the numerical value of my improvements over his amounts
to at least $16,000 in one year.
In his letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, he states, (p.
8.) that he had employed with his apparatus 2 lb of silver to
i lb of gold, and that he could only bring the gold to a fineness
of 985, leaving li per cent silver in it. I find but one record
of his experiments, in a letter to the Director of Oct. 3, 1849,
where he says he brought up the gold to the fineness of from
968 to 983. I however, do now, with the same proportion of
metals, bring the gold to 990, saving a full i per cent. silver
more than he did, and at less cost. Assuredly I may claim
some improvement in the refining operations.
Further, comparing the cost of labor for refining his $11,000,000 with what it would have cost to refine $51,500,000,
the amount is $33,000, while upon the same basis of calcula4




26
tion, (an average of $500 per man,) it has cost me $17,500,
which is again a saving of $15,000, consequent upon my improvements.  The two items of parting and labor amount to
$30,000, which I have saved, as compared with Mr. McCulloh's
refining.
7. One of the most striking evidences of the improvements
(not mere enlargements) I have introduced into the operations
of my department, lies in the wastage exhibited upon the settlement of my accounts. I present the following table from the
accounts of the Institution, comparing the three settlements of
my accounts with that of Mr. McCulloh's last year, in which
alone he worked California Gold, and which, therefore, can only
be taken for the comparison.
Ey.    Date of Settlement.  Am't in Stand. Oz..   Waste, oz.  Ratio.
Mr. Mc0. Nov. 30, 1849,   672,586,981,    238,823,.00035
J. C. B. Dec. 31,1850,  3,084,378,210,    688,773,.00022
9" June 30, 1851,  2,554,748,442,     635,167,.00025
"    July 31, 1852,  5,073,576,770,   1,246,578,.00025
In the first place, if we compare his ratio with my highest,
we observe a diminution of wastage of.0001; and if this be
calculated for the amount of gold charged to me from June,
1851, to July, 1852, equal to more than 5,000,000 oz. standard, his excess of wastage over mine is 507T oz., or more than
$9,000. In other words, I have at least saved 9,000 from
actual wastage.
In the second place, the melters and refiners before me
melted the depositps of gold themselves, and the grains derived
therefrom diminished their apparent wastage, or marked its
actual amount. But from the moment of my entering into the
office, the melting of deposites was put under charge of the assay
department, and only the sweep, and a portion of the grains
were allowed for the benefit of my first wastage account. Yet
my wastage was lower than Mr. McCulloh's by.00013. His
ratio calculated to the same amount as charged to me, Dec. 31,
1850, would have occasioned a loss of 1079.532 oz., instead of
the 688.773 oz. actually returned. My improvement that year,
was therefore, above $7270. It will be observed that the ratio of my wastage, at the second and third settlements was.00025, a slight increase over my first, but the reason is, that
I received no benefit fiom the grains of depositeliielting.




Mr. McCulloh has quoted the value of grains from deposits
meltings, in his Report to Secretary of Treasury, (p. 15); and
had I received the benefit of these grains during the last year,
my wastage account would have been reduced almost to nothing.
In other words, comparing my wastage with that of Mr. McCulloh's last year, I have saved an absolute waste or loss of
gold during the last year of $30,000.
The means of diminishing the wastage are not accidental, but
were adopted by me with this express object in view. This is
assuredly not enlarging or extending his apparatus, but a positive improvement, having no reference or relation to his improved arrangements.
In view of the facts exhibited above, it is not surprising that
Mr. McCulloh, when making inquiries on these matters during
the progress of his experiments in the Mint in the beginning of
1852, should have been startled by the results, and should have
devoted six pages of his Report to an investigation of wastage.
I can readily imagine how much mnore he will be astonished,
when he learns that, although I received no benefit whatever
from the deposite grains at the two last settlements, my ratio of
wastage should have been so much lower than his.
Now, by putting together all the items of saving, fromlabor,
materials, and wastage, we find that during the past year I have
expended $60,000 less than Mr. McCulloh would have done,
compared with his own working and data. I wish to be distinctly understood, that in thus speaking, I do not design to
express a vainglorious boast of my superiority, but simply to
show, by numerical data, derived from actual observation, that
his assertions relative to my inability and want of skill and care,
are utterly without foundation.
8. One ground brought forward by Mr. McCulloh, as evidence of my incapacity, is the large amount of the bullion fund,
designed to meet payments of deposites, immediately after tho
value of a deposite has been ascertained. That fund was
$1,000,000 during his last year, and was quite sufficient to
meet the payments, although the table given at p. 23 shows
that payment was not punctual by from ten to twenty days,
when the deposites to be refined averaged less than $600,000




28
per month. We now have a bullion fund of nearly $5,500,000,
and the deposites are about $5,500,000 per month. But now,
it is deemed advisable to retain nearly a million on hand in
small gold coin to meet the wishes of the public, beside a
large amount of silver for making three-cent pieces, so that
our available fund is less than $4,000,000.  Besides, we
now pay depositors within one or four days of the time of making
their deposites, a time barely sufficient to determine, by assay
and calculation, the value of each deposite; and if we were to
postpone payments for from ten to twenty-five days, as Mr. McCulloh caused in his last half year, we would not really require
more than $2,000,000 as a bullion fund. For our actual refining, executed with facility, is $600,000 in ten days,
$2,400,000 in seventeen days, and so on, adding $600,000 for
every two days. If we were driven to work rapidly, by the
magnitude and rapid succession of deposites, we could refine
$800,000 or even a million in ten days, $2,500,000 in fourteen
days, and $7,000,000 in a month.
Now as it would require only from four to six days to coin
$2,500,000, it follows, that in twenty days we could pay the
deposites of the largest arrivals of gold yet received, without
any bullion fund at all. The object of the bullion fund then,
is merely to accommodate depositors by paying them after they
have deposited their gold, as soon as the value of their deposite
is ascertained, without waiting for the refining of the same lot
of gold which they have deposited. Mr. McCulloh, understood
the whole of this subject perfectly, and should not therefore
have allowed himself to make a charge of unskilfulness, when
he well knew that such a charge could only be believed by those
who are unacquainted with the operations of the Mint, and
where he knew that a like energy had not been witnessed in
the whole history of refining gold. If he did not know it, then
he was very ignorant of his duties as melter and refiner in the
Mint. In either case I regret that he should have exposed himself unnecessarily.
Mr. McColloh has charged in his letter to the Secretary of
the Treasury, that a strong evidence of my unskilfulness lies
in the fact that there was left at one time 5 per cent. silver in
the gold, and for a long time 2 per cent, while he was allowed




29
to leave only 1 per cent in it; this was done by the officers of
the Mint " to obviate the necessity of additional transfers of
public money to the mint (to the bullion fund;) and to screen
the inefficiency of the melting and refining department."
A sufficient answer to this, on my part, might be, that I was
ordered to do so, and that, as Mr. McCulloh knows, the law of
Congress of 1837, expressly allows the per centage of silver to
reach 5 per cent, and further, that the charge of refining is fixed
by the Director and the Secretary of the Treasury. I wish
however, to say a little more on the subject.
The amount of 5 per cent silver was left in during a short
period, simply because the influx of gold was too rapid for the
then refining capacity of the Mint, and depositors and the
public would have been clamorous at the delay in payment, if
we waited to refine the gold to the full extent of which we were
capable. Mr. McCulloh has ingeniously put together the whole
amount of silver left in the gold coin from November, 14, 1850,
to April 1, 1851, exhibiting the large amount lost to depositors
to be $34,207, while it might have been only $8,582, accoring to his own and my present working. This looks enormous
in the aggregate, but let us examine how it affected an individual depositor. A large number of deposits were 100 oz. or
less. Suppose one of 100 oz. standard, and with value of $1873,
including the silver parted. Mr. McCulloh would have left in
the refined gold, $1.29 of silver, as I do now; but we did leave
in it at that period $5.16 more, being -3 of one per cent, on
the value of the deposite. But on the other hand, had we persisted in the close refining, which Mr. McCulloh insists upon
as our duty, we should have been compelled to delay the payments of our depositors for a time, which would have cost the
bullion holder, in loss of interest, a sum far exceeding the silver
left as alloy, perhaps twice the amount. It was therefore manifestly for the public interest that we pursued the course, which
was adopted. The remarks I have made upon the 5 per cent silver
left in the gold, apply with greater force to the 2 per cent left in it.
But why was I unable to continue refining to the closeness,
which is generally desirable, and which has of late years been
customary, except in the interval referred to? The explanation
is simple. It was because the deposites accumulated faster




30
than it was possible to refine them fully in the space allotted
to my department. In order to secure that space (which I had
to take from the chief coiner) an enlargement of the mint was
necessary, and an appropriation by Congress for the purpose.
The appropriation being secured, the alterations were immediately commenced and pressed through day and night, but they
were accompanied by vexatious delays on the part of masons
and carpenters, for which no officer of the Mint was responsible.
Indeed such delays seemed naturally incident to new constructions, as many persons to their disappointment have experienced. It was not until the beginning of 1851, that the capacity
of the refining department became fully equal to the current
demands upon it. The Director of the mint in his annual report, dated January 27, 1851, (See Ex. Doc. No. 50, H. R.
31st Congr. 2nd September,) satisfactorily explained the nature
of the delay.
The following table of monthly deposits of gold to be refined,
from the time of my commencing refining operations, will show,
clearly why the Treasury department and the director adopted
the temporary expedient of leaving more silver in the gold.
VALUE OF MONTHLY DEPOSITS OF GOLD TO BE REFINED.
1849.
November,      747,000
December,   1,669,000
1850.                       1851.
January,     1,005,000     January,     5,017,000
February,    1,979,000     February,    2,904,000
March,       1,396,000     March,       2,849,000
April,       1,603,000     April,       2,818,000
May,         2,349,000     May,         3,224,000
June,        2,003,000     June,        3,594,000
July,        2,576,000     July,        3,088,000
August,      3,275,000     August,      4,054,000
September,   3,285,000     September,  3,987,000
October,     3,443,000     October,     4,687,000
November,   4,436,000     INovember,   5,449,000
December,   4,579,000      December,   5,577,000
The refining capacity being only $1,000,000 per month,




31
when I entered upon my duties as melter and refiner, and the
deposits of December, 1849, being beyond that amount, I enlarged it in January, 1850, to work $1,500,000, all the officers
supposing that it would not exceed that sum. But the deposits
of February surpassing our estimate, again an alteration had
to be made, in order to refine two millions. Again, the deposits of May being about two and a half millions, the refining
capacity was further extended to meet this demand. The same
improvements and enlargement took place in September to
meet the unexpected increase in August. I thus continued extending the refining capacity of my department as far as it was
possible in the space then allotted to me; but, as I have
already mentioned, it was too contracted for the purpose,
until, by the new addition to the Mint, new apartments were
freed for my use. As soon as that took place, (at the close of
1850,) I commenced those improvements and alteration, by
means of which the capacity of my department was made so
far to exceed the demands upon it, that we were enabled, not
only to pay off our arrear of debt to depositors, and to resume
prompt payment on all future deposits, but to return to the
former rate of alloy, in which state of efficiency we have ever
since continued. These improvements were gradually carried
forward during a part of 1851, without interfering with the
refining operations. The latest improvements were commenced
under the present director, in the fall of 1851, and have been
extended to the present time, having been only interrupted
during the three first months of 1852, while Mr. McCulloh was
trying his process under his own supervision. The alterations
contemplated, not so much the extension of the capacity of
the Mint, which was already large enough, as the general improvement of the process of refining gold, especially in rapidity
and economy of work. Their successful issue, in economy of
time, labor, materials and wastage, has been sufficiently shown
above.
Let us suppose that a manufacturing establishment, capable
of doing a certain amount of work, is unexpectedly called upon
to do 50 per cent. more, which it dare not refuse. Some delay
would not be considered unreasonable while making the requi



32
site alterations. Again and again it is required to increase its
manufacturing capacity, which it does not hesitate to do.
Could any one reasonably object to its making the goods cost
-Y of one per cent. more than before, when their non-delivery
within a specified time would cost the receiver perhaps one per
cent. more? Such was the case with the mint; and instead
of casting blame upon the Secretary of the Treasury and the
officers of the Mint, their earnest endeavors to favor the public,
and their untiring energy to make the Mint surpass in its capacity Iany establishment in refining gold the world ever saw,
should receive congratulation and praise. As the American
people can justly boast that their Mint is not surpassed by any
similar establishment in the world in the beauty and excellence
of its machinery, in the accuracy and integrity of its assays, so
have they now just cause to feel a pride in its capacity to perform whatever work is demanded of it; and any one disposed
to find fault with it, is not favored with proper national pride.
I may be permitted to make here one remark touching a certain improvement, which Mr. McCulloh claims as a part of his
zinc process. In the Fall of 1851, Dr. Eckert, the present
Director, suggested our trying to improve the method of granulating the metal by raising the crucible out of the fire. I
happened to be trying the experiment when Mr. McCulloh was
present in Feb. 1852, by pouring the melted metal through a
cullendered crucible. Ile complained of this to the Director
as an infringement of his patent, and although we were fully
aware that he could not claim this, which is a most ancient
method of granulating, yet the Director forbore pressing the
experiments in order to allow Mr. McCulloh to try his own
process fully and leave him no ground of complaint. Raising
the crucible from the fire is practised in the British Mint, and
pouring melted metal through a cullender has been long known
and practised, and neither can be claimed by the recent process of Mr. McCulloh.
10. Another point which Mr. McCulloh charges as evidence
of my unskilfulness is, my returning more gold in one or more
experiments than I had received. Mr. McCulloh himself, in
one of his experiments, returned 0.25 oz. more than he ought,
and however he may attempt to explain the result, still the
naked fact is there. (See p. 54 of his Report.) Further, he




33
knows full well that a small increase often occurs and is only
apparent. An experiment made by me with gold assayed as
usual for depositors, where fractions less than I a thousandth
are not reported, is quoted by Mr. McCulloh, (Report, p. 13,)
to show that the experiments with the usual process cannot tle
relied on any more than with his; and he asserts that the
cause of apparent increase could not be explained, unless the
assayer's report had omitted more than the. thousandth.
It is evident that Mr. McCulloh has hazarded this statement
without making the calculation; for if -1ths of a thousandth
were unreported, this would have constituted an addition to the
amount chargeable of 2.070 oz.; if it were only y3,ths, the
addition would have been 1.552, which amounts were more
than sufficient, "( not only to annul the apparent gain, but to
compensate for such actual wastage as must have occurred."
In the first case the wastage would have been #?o0oths of a thousandth, in the second Tooths.  It may be added that in this
experiment no assay was made for gold in the silver employed
for granulation, a precaution which subsequent experience
has shown to be indispensable. There were eleven or twelve
thousand ounces of silver used for that purpose, and a mere
trace of gold would have sensibly affected the result.  On reviewing the circumstances of this experiment, I see no proof
of carelessness, but a demonstration of the importance of an
assay to minute fractions, where accurate results are desired.
11. The last point I shall notice, adduced by Mr. McCulloh
as evidence of my unskilfulness, is my leaving 17 oz. of gold
in the trial furnace, whereby the loss I experienced in trying
his process was explained. It is true that he lays the blame
upon the officers of the Mint generally, but as I performed the
experiments, I wish to take the whole blame, if there be any,
upon myself. Many experiments were tried in that furnace,
the sole object of which was to toughen the gold derived from
his zinc process, by some of the very plans which he suggested
to me, and no special pains were taken to remove the last particles of gold of each previous experiment.
When the Director urged me then to experiment upon wastage by this process, I directed the hearth to be thoroughly
cleaned; but as the experiment showed an increase in gold,
possibly remaining from the trials for toughening, I directed a
5




34
new hearth to be laid, without taking out the old one, because
Mr. McCulloh urged me to experiment rapidly.  These experiments showed unusual wastage, and if gold had been volatilized
in the earlier experiments, it could not have affected the results
of the trials made after the new floor was laid, and these were
undoubtedly accurate. But in order to determine the question
of wastage still more conclusively, the next lot of gold refined
with zinc, &c. was not put in that furnace at all, but was
melted in crucibles, and it was this experiment, carefully conducted throughout, and unattended by accident, but exhibiting
more than usual wastage, that chiefly determined the Director
to report against that process. Mr. McCulloh was informed of
these facts at the Mint in March, 1852, and yet in August,
1852, he asserts that the 17 oz. of gold, found in that furnace,
prove that the experiments were incorrect, and that the gold
cc had not escaped up the chimney, in conformity with their (the
officers,) hypothesis of wasteful volatilization."  He was told
that the principal experiment relied on for wastage had not
been conducted in that furnace, and yet he asserts that the 17
oz. of gold found in that furnace explained the wastage by
which his;process was condemned.  This certainly does not
look like the candid expression of one seeking the truth and
desirous of expressing it.
That accidents should occur in the manifold handling of
melted metal and its subsequent treatment by acid, was so well
known to Mr. McCulloh, that he only touches upon the subject
lightly, by attempting to throw discredit upon all my experiments, because in one, I instituted to determine wastage, more
gold was obtained than had been subjected to experiment.  I
have stated the cause of Lthis, that gold may have remained
from our previous experiments on toughening, in spite of our
care; or that more gold was experimented on than we estimated,
because it had notfbeen assayed to fractions of a thousandth.
Were Mr. McCulloh's experiments free from accident? He
performed three experiments on his process, as he rightly
states, acknowledges accidents to have occurred in two of the
three, and uses these as arguments to show why those two out of
three results should not be depended on. Is it not singular
that'he should find fault with another forobtaining unreliable
results in a few cases out of many, when he acknowledges that




35
his own results were defective and unreliable in two out of
three experiments?
Acd what was the nature of the first accident he met with?
Hie has stated it himself in his Report, p. 4.  That he melted
gold in one crucible and zinc in another, and when both were
in fusion,"that he poured the melted gold into the melted zinc;
that as the alloy appeared to be chilling, he permitted the
workman who held the crucible of melted gold to pour it more
rapidly into the zinc.  I must make a simple correction here
-he not only permitted, but directed the workman to do so.
Now gold melts at 2200~ Fahr. and zinc at 700~, and we might
suppose, a priori, as some of us who were present did suppose,
that a consequence of thus rapidly pouring a metal at 22000
into one at 700~ might be the generation of vapor of zinc with
explosive violence. A series of explosions did take place,
which MIr. McCulloh explains as the ", too rapid increase of
temperature, uniting with the effect of exposure to the air,
causing combustion of the zinc to take place, and with such intensity at first, that some of the hot metal was projected from
the crucible, and scattered in drops or grains upon the floor and
various surrounding objects." (Report, p. 4.) A chemist would
have been very apprehensive of explosion, to say the least, in
pouring melted gold rapidly into melted zinc. A chemist knows
full well that the simple act of combustion of zinc in a crucible
would not project the metal from the crucible. He further says
-cc One of these grains coming in contact with the adjacent
woodwork of the Mint, rendered very combustible by saturation
with nitre from the refining operations, it took fire," &c. (Report, p. 4.) The force of the explosion may be estimated from
the fact, that the ", adjacent woodwork" was the ceiling, at a
height of 15 feet from the floor where the experiment'was made.
It is rather surprising that the drops were not projected on
some of the adjacent numerous lookers on. The projected metal
had so penetrated the ceiling that, although the latter was
quickly deluged with'water, it again exhibited fire several hours
after, and in order to extinguish it, holes were bored in the
floor above and water freely applied.
Mr. McCulloh has stated, (Report, p. 4,) that the wastage
in this experiment was only 11 thousandths, which any one
who witnessed it knows impossible. Some of the drops, be



36
side reaching the "adjacent" ceiling, were projected into a pan
containing ashes from one of my furnaces. Upon sifting out
these grains, I pointed out to him some grains of silvery gold
in addition to his zincous gold, and he acknowledged them to be
so, but as the quantity was small, I allowed the whole to pass
as his own. These grains are sufficient to account for the
smallness of wastage, when the experiment was accompanied
by an explosive projection of particles of metal.
ri. IV. Mr. McCulloh has made, in his pamphlet and letters, repeated allusions of a condemnatory character to other officers
connected with the Mint.  These gentlemen are fully able to
sustain themselves against such aspersions, but as they have
been cast at them over me, I regret that I should be the unintentional cause of their suffering, and feel much more indignant than at the attempts to cast a shade upon my own reputation.
He first presumes to attack Dr. R. M. Patterson, who, for
sixteen years, had faithfully presided over the institution, and
fully contributed his share towards maintaining the exalted
station which the Mint of the United States has held, in comparison with those of the rest of the world.
Mr. McCulloh states, in his letter to yourself, sir, of February
5, 1851, (Memorial append. p, 67,) that he has good reason to
believe the Director of the Mint to be influenced by hostility
to him. He has asserted, (Memorial, p. 10,) that I stated to
him "c that the officers of the Mint were hostile to him, though
the Director might probably be less so than others;" and
again, in a letter to the present Director, September 29, 1851,
(Letter, p. 19,) he makes it appear that I had stated Dr. Patterson to be hostile to him. Such a charge against Dr. Patterson is based on his recollection of a conversation held with
me in September, 1850, and stated six months afterwards. I
now declare his recollection to be erroneous, for instead of my
asserting that hostility of Dr. Patterson, I reminded Mr. McCulloh of what he had stated to me previous to my application
for the office of Melter and Refiner, when he spent many hours
with me on several successive days, urging me not to accept
the position, because intercourse with the officers was so disagreeable, and that the hostility they exhibited towards him




37
would be shown towards me. So cogent were his arguments
against my applying for the office, that although I was well
acquainted with the officers personally, I declined being a candidate for the office. Mr. McCulloh then took active measures to
get the late Mr. J. B. Reynolds appointed, but upon my hearing the more correct representations of the officers of the Mint
I did apply for the office, and being personally well known
to the IHon. Win. M. Meredith, the Secretary of the Treasury,
as possessed of the requisite knowledge, skill and integrity,
I received the appointment forthwith. Mr. McCulloh was disappointed at my acceptance of the office, although he made the
best of it by favoring my appointment, and I could not for a
long time divine the secret springs of his movements.  These
have since appeared. Mr. Reynolds was acquainted with the
zinc process, and had made some experiments in relation to it
in my laboratory, in 1849, and if appointed as melter and refiner, he was to have improved that process, and would have been
called upon to report upon it, and as Mr. McCulloh supposed,
favorably. Being foiled in his plan for the appointment of Mr.
Reynolds, he then urged the necessity of my having an assistant,
knowing that I would take Mr. Reynolds as such. I would have
done so gladly, but as the other officers assured me that the
business did not really require it, and that the office would be
a mere sinecure with an assistant, I could not conscientiously
ask for one. Excuse my here offering, in passing, a tribute
to the memory of the late Mr. Reynolds, a rising young man
of high integrity and ability, already distinguished in the
Franklin Institute and the University of Pennsylvania, very
generally known and universally esteemed, and had his life
been spared, destined to occupy a prominent position in his
country's history. He had as high an opinion of the process
of Mr. McCulloh as I had; but I can assertfrom my knowledge
of him, that as melter and refiner, he would not have suffered
his conscience to upbraid him for declaring in favor of it, unless it had really proved in all respects superior to the one in
use.
I am compelled by subsequent events to point to this my
conscientious course of action as the first period when Mr.
McCulloh began to entertain a feeling of distrust towards me.
He has alluded to the above facts slightly in his letter to the Se



38
cretary of the Treasury, (p. 7,) where he speaks of my first
declining, and again appearing as a candidate for the office,
as " inconsistent conduct," which he says was only explicable
from my having informed him, that Dr. Patterson ", promised
me,.that I should not be required to devote my time to the duties (of the office) to such an extent as to impair my private
business."  The apparent inconsistency was caused by his misrepresenting the officers. Did such a charge only affect myself,
I would simply say that his recollection was inaccurate, but since
it affects one for whom I have ever entertained a warm esteem, I
declare Mr. McCulloh's assertion to be an untrue representation.
When Dr. Patterson called upon me and wished me to present
myself as a candidate for the office, as he thought I had a better
knowledge of chemistry than Mr. Reynolds, who had devoted
himself chiefly to physics, I told him that if the duties of the
office would debar me from further experiment in general
chemistry, I did not desire it.  In reply, he stated that although the duties were then more onerous than they had been,
yet he believed I would find ample time for general experiment in my laboratory, as he was aware a chemist, desirous of improvement, should do, and that my advancing skill,
as well as the laboratoryitself, could be made subservient to my
duties as melter and refiner at the Mint. This is the substance
of our conversation. Mr. McCulloh's recollection is of what
I informed him; mine of what actually took place. If I told
Mr. McCulloh what he has represented in his letter, (p. 7,) I
clearly told him an untruth. But I must deny his assertion altogether. I further told Dr. Patterson that I would procure an
assistant to take charge of the business part of the laboratory,
and so hasty was I in this respeet, that I am afraid I incurred
the displeasure of Professor A. D. Bache, by too urgently
calling for one of his assistants, who had long been desirous
of studying chemistry more fully.
It thus appears that the two charges against Dr. Patterson
prove wholly groundless, being based either upon an inaccurate
recollection of conversations, or upon wilful misrepresentation.
In either view, the character of Dr. Patterson will shine the
brighter through the shadow attempted to be cast upon it.  To
the charge of disregarding the instructions of the Secretary of
the Treasury, Dr. Patterson has himself made full and satisfactory answer.




39
2. Mr. McCulloh has charged that I devolve my duties at the
Mint ", chiefly upon workmen, though in part upon a young
substitute, who does not possess the scientific and metallurgic
attainments, which are requisite in the person holding the office of melter and refiner." (Letter, p. 7). As far as regards
my system, I only say that I devolve upon my foremen and
workmen such work as I think they can perform, precisely as
my predecessor did, in whose path I follow, except perhaps
that I have less suspicion of the integrity of others. Whether
correct or not, this principle of trusting others I hold to be a
true Christian injunction, and believe that want of integrity is
most frequently generated and fostered by suspicion.
In regard to my men, they are well qualified and ever ready
to do all the work enjoined upon them; and as my special instructions for experiment and alteration in work and apparatus are issued only to my foremen, or are supervised by myself
personally, I do not know how Mr. McCulloh can find fault with
that, because he praises these very men, and calls upon them
to express public opinions on his process, (letters 4 & 6 in his
Report.) While he confided a great deal to them, he blames
me for doing so. But such is my knowledge of them and my
confidence in them, that I shall continue to bestow the same
regard upon them which I have ever done.  Mr. McCulloh's
public opinion of the men is apparently different from his private
one, for in a letter to me of August 14, 1850, he says he does
not wish any modus operandi of his tried at the Mint, except
under his own or my guidance, because "c in new matters trifling difficulties are magnified into insuperable obstacles by
ignorant and unskilful men." Again, while experimenting in
the Mint, in February, 1852, he informed the men that his.
process required the same amount of labor as the present,
while in his Memorial and Letter, he asserts that it was
much more econormical in labor. Again, the strict watch he
placed over his experiments by persons not belonging to the
Mint, does not indicate very strong confidence in our workmen
or foremen. I leave Mr. McCulloh to reconcile these contradictions.
The attack upon my ", substitute" was wholly uncalled for
and most unjustifiable, and I feel indignant at it. Why could
Mr. AcCulloh not be content with endeavoring to heap odiumn




40
upon me, instead of uttering what I can ascribe to no other
source than maliciousness, since it affects those who had done
him not the slightest real or fancied injury.
The gentleman who aids me in the discharge of my duties,
Mir. John H. Taylor, is in every way well qualified for the duties which he performs, and for much higher. He has been
most attentive and faithful to his duties, ever since he was appointed in the spring of 1850, and my only regret in relation
to him is, that he is not in such a post as his ability, industry
and integrity warrant.
I cannot pass over the subject without offering well merited
praise to my aid, foremen and men generally, that my intercourse with them has been of the most pleasant character, and
that they are characterized by an unusual degree of fidelity,
integrity and zeal for the interests of the institution and the
government.
What other assistants and officers in the institution have
suffered of reproach or contumely on my account, I regret
extremely, and equally do I regret that Mr. McCulloh should
have thought it necessary to make his devastation so wide-spread,
for I am afraid it may recoil upon him. Every individual of the
officers and assistants, and others, who have been obliged to
touch any part of the operations relating to his process, has
been obliged to undergo a severe rebuke; and yet I am sure
that each one has faithfully performed his duty to the best of
his ability, without the slightest reference to the $25,000 appropriated by Congress. That he should wish to attack some
one is a natural consequence of disappointment.  That I
should be singled out as the main object of his thunderbolts,
while others only feel the lateral shock, is the natural consequence of my having been interested with him and appointed
to try his process, and yet having the independence to declare
that neither it nor mine was equal in value to that which is
now followed. I trust, sir, that the consciousness of having
acted with integrity in all my relations to him and his process
will ever enable me to hold his maledictions lightly-very
light, indeed, in comparison with my regard for truth and
perfect integrity of purpose.
In presenting the preceding, perhaps too lengthened, exposition of the facts involved in the charges of Mr. McCulloh,




41
you will please to observe, sir, that I have abstained from
every species of personality, which is offensive to refined taste
-that I have presented rebutting evidence of his charges,
drawn either from his own writings or publications, from documents in the Mint, or, in a very few instances, from recollection, as his own were-that I have presented facts capable of
proof and not inferences of motives, which are too liable to
error-that I have frequently abstained from any remarks or
arguments upon the facts presented, preferring the simple
enunciation of truth, and that I have acted wholly on the
defensive, although I might have wielded weapons of offence.
I did not choose to avail myself of what is generally regarded
as the vantage ground gained by carrying the war into Africa,
because I have no predilection for such warfare, my sole object
and aim being to present the simple truth in all its clearness.
I think it has been clearly shown that Mr. McCulloh in his
charges, direct or indirect, has violated all the postulates with
which I commenced the investigation. He has sometimes
given more than the exact truth, and again has presented less
than the full truth. I think the evidence clearly shows that
he has in some cases made a misrepresentation of facts, but
whether designedly or not, I cannot certainly say; although
I would fain believe not with intent to misrepresent. If not
so, then the misstatements are either due to incorrect information from others, or from suspicion. If derived from others,
what value does he set upon reputation, who is willing to blast
it by the breath of other people? If from suspicion, I feel a
sincere sorrow for the pain that bosom feels that suffers suspicion to gnaw upon it.
And now, it may be asked, what feelings sway my breast in
relation to Mr. McCulloh. I trust, sir, that while I am ready
to defend my character from aspersions cast upon it, from a
thorough conviction of their untruth, I am equally ready to
pardon their author, because I know well the general tendency
of our common nature to err, and would wish the same leniency
extended towards myself. I have forborne speaking on the
subject of his charges against me for more than a year, having
hoped that time would dispel the misty perceptions of his
mind, and develope my integrity in all that related to him.
But since I have learned that he was industriously employed
5




42
in giving the greatest publicity to his charges, by presenting
copies of his publications to every member of Congress, to the
members of the departments at Washington, to numerous persons in Philadelphia and New York, and elsewhere, (how far I
know not;) and that he has caused extracts from these' publications to be inserted in several journals, at different times, presenting views and statements designed to injure my character;
and since my friends have only rebutted the insinuations thrown
out, from their personal knowledge and confidence in me, without
their being able to reply in consequence of their not knowing
all the facts,-because a portion of the press has drawn false
deductions from his statements, relating as they do to technical operations, which are not generally understood, and has
impeached the accuracy of the Mint accounts, and the integrity
of its issues;- I have therefore made the present reply to
Mr. McCulloh's writings and publications generally, in relation
to the subject, and I believe, in accordance with my intentions
at the outset, in a deliberate and temperate manner. I still
entertain kind feelings towards him, which no actions or writings of his can shake; and in closing my remarks, I express
a sincere and earnest wish that he may one day perceive he
has done me injustice, and be willing, as I shall ever be, to
cast the mantle of oblivion over all that has passed.
I have the honor to be, dear sir,
Your obedient servant,
JAMES C. BOOTH.
HON. MILLARD FILMORE,
PRESIDENT OF THE U. S.