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LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 



your capacity for the high office you hold ; and I have often won- 

 dered you did not gratify the whole community by retiring from 

 duties you must find so difficult to perform, by seeking that re- 

 pose and quiet generally so grateful to man in the ninth septen- 

 v nial of human life. 



I never heard a sentence from your lips, or read a paragraph 

 from your pen, that gave me the impression that the compass of 

 your mind, on public measures, was not better adapted to razee 

 or to cut down than to build up and adorn ! Still I thought that 

 you would adhere strictly to the discharge of your duties, particu- 

 larly where the responsibility of devising was taken from your 

 shoulders, and rested in other quarters able to bear it ; but in this 

 T was unfortunately disappointed. 



When you came into office, if you had looked over the files of 

 papers in the department, you must have known that, ten years 

 ago, as you have said, in the days of Madison, a plan was devised 

 for an expedition to the South Seas ; that memorials, petitions, 

 and representations had come into Congress from all quarters, and 

 seized strongly upon the attention of the enlightened members of 

 that body, and that steps had been taken by them for such an un- 

 dertaking. If the plan suggested was, from many circumstances, 

 suffered to sleep a while, you know it was revived with fresh ar- 

 dour in Congress, and acts passed for carrying the project forth- 

 with into effect. 



Your opposition to such an expedition was, I confess, undis- 

 guised. During the sessions of 1834 and 5 you were opposed 

 to it in every shape and form ;. when the bill passed the Senate, 

 you did all in your power to have it defeated in the house ; rec- 

 ommending to members " Strike it out, strike it out !" 



But you often declared that you should feel under obligations 

 to carry into effect whatever Congress determined in regard to 

 the subject. Have you done it ? Are you doing it ? These are 

 questions I have a right to ask ; and they may be asked by an au- 

 thority which will require an answer T 



More than a year ago the expedition was authorized, and the 

 navy commissioners stated in their report to the president in 

 January, 1836, that the Macedonian could be got ready for sea in 

 nirety days; and how is it that she is now only ready to receive 

 her men in June, 1837 ? 



oH 



