36 LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 



VI. 



To the Honourable Mahlon Dickerson, Secretary of the Navy. 



Sir, 



The portion of your report to which I purpose calling your at- 

 tention in this letter reads as follows : " From several learned and 

 philosophical societies, as well as from distinguished individuals, 

 I have received the most ample and satisfactory communications, 

 embracing all the various subjects which it would be necessary 

 to give in charge to the gentlemen who are to conduct the scien- 

 tific researches which form the most important objects of the ex- 

 pedition." 



With a superficial observer, this sentence is calculated to gain 

 you credit, because it conveys something like an expression of 

 liberality. I regret that I cannot award to you the meed of praise 

 due to such a feeling. I cannot persuade myself that you de- 

 serve it. Connected with this subject, I do not consider that your 

 prejudices will permit the indulgence of liberal sentiments ; yet 

 I have no idea that the sentence quoted came from your pen by 

 accident. It is full of meaning, if not of design. Like your state- 

 ment that to approach as near as possible to the South Pole was 

 the object of the enterprise, it is, to say the least, an evasion of 

 the true purposes designed to be accomplished. The induce- 

 ment to make such a statement will become manifest if it be rec- 

 ollected that a portion of the public men in this country entertain 

 the opinion that the government of the United States has no 

 power under the Constitution to send out an expedition solely for 

 scientific purposes. Stripped of its commercial character, separ- 

 ated from all objects of immediate and palpable utility, thrown for 

 support upon its abstract merits as a medium of scientific re- 

 search, you knew full well the quarter whence opposition to the 

 undertaking might be anticipated, and from what quarter it would 

 have come had you not overrated the weight of your ofl[icial influ- 

 ence. Here, then, we have a key to tlio otherwise inexplicable 

 mystery, that expressions of such seeming liberality should owe 

 paternity to you. 



No man can appreciate more fully than I do the high objects 



