LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 405 



I should not have written, as I feel no pride in a triumph over 

 you. It is sufficient for my purpose that you have at length been 

 driven to abandon the position assumed in your famous report of 

 April 16, and subsequently maintained in your instructions to the 

 naval board, with both of which the annexed extract from your 

 last letter appears in amusing contrast. 



" Five sixths of the time of the cruise the squadron will be 

 in lower latitudes and milder climates, making surveys and explo- 

 rations ; discovering islands, rocks, reefs, and shoals ; ascertaining 

 latitudes and longitudes ; affording aid and protection to our mer- 

 chants and whalers ; rescuing wrecked mariners ; and performing 

 a variety of other duties," &c., &c. 



This is rational ; this is what the friends of the expedition have 

 uniformly declared; but just what you have never, until now, 

 admitted. Go on, then, as you are now doing, to the end. De- 

 spatch the expedition with a just and enlightened liberality ; aban- 

 don all efforts to defeat, retard, or cripple its efficiency ; claim 

 credit for good intentions ; protest that you never wished to de- 

 stroy it, and you may yet receive, if not entire forgiveness for the 

 past, at least a glorious oblivion for the future ! 



A " Citizen" fully agrees with you in the importance you at- 

 tach to the examination of high latitudes south. He has never 

 maintained other opinions ; but he regards it as one object, not 

 the great objects of the enterprise. Nor has he ever used any 

 language in reference to the attainment of ninety degrees south 

 which he is not willing again to repeat. In the very document, 

 and in the very pages you have turned over, he has said " That 

 the ninetieth degree, or South Pole, may be reached by the navi- 

 gator, is our deliberate opinion (unless intercepted by land), which 

 all that we have seen and known has tended to confirm. That 

 an expedition should be despatched from this country for the sole 

 purpose of ascertaining the practicability of attaining it is not, per- 

 haps, to be expected ; but that the effort should be allowed to be 

 made in connection with the other great objects of the enterprise, 

 is perfectly in accordance with the most prudential policy. We 

 shall not discuss, at present, the probability of this result, though 

 its possibility might be easily demonstrated. If this should be 

 realized, where is the individual who does not feel that such an 

 achievement would add new lustre to the annals of American 



