LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 21 



authorized at the first session of the last Congress, yow, tJie Hon. 

 Mahlon Dickerson, Secretary of the Navy, ridiculed the very- 

 idea of undertaking to explore high latitudes south ! To give an 

 instance, sir. In your office, on one occasion, while in conversa- 

 tion with a gentleman of unimpeachable veracity, you said it ivas 

 all nonsense to talk about going to regions near the South Pole ; 

 and, to use your own, not very classic, language, that " none 

 but a d — d fool would think of it ! ! ! ! !" And yet, for some 

 mysterious and inscrutable purpose, it now suits your pleasure 

 to pretend that this is the great leading aim and object of the en- 

 terpise ! 



Thus do you stand, sir, before the American people — an official 

 spectacle, such as has been rarely, if ever, before looked upon. It 

 is no fancy sketch ; would to Heaven, for your own sake and that 

 of our common country, that it were. I have charged you before 

 the tribunal of the public with dereliction of duty ; with having 

 misrepresented the objects of the expedition in your instructions 

 to the naval board ; and with having intended, by such misrepre- 

 sentation, to draw from that board a report, to be used as a pre- 

 text for reducing the force authorized by law to be employed in 

 the enterprise. Whether I have not fully and triumphantly made 

 out my case, I appeal to the intelligence of the community ; to 

 the members of Congress who authorized the outfit ; to the late 

 executive, and those members of his cabinet who took an interest 

 in it ; and to the conductors of the public press in whose columns 

 the great national purposes of the expedition have been so often 

 discussed and so generously supported. 



You will hear from me again. 



Very respectfully, 



Your obedient servant and fellow 



CITIZEN. 



New-York, July 8, 1837. 



