LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 483 



might hope to ride a seesaw with the tremendous odds against 

 you ; but, as they are not, you will be compelled to tilt up, like 

 dust in the balance against pure and refined gold. What do you 

 think, sir, at present of Palaeontology ? 



Very respectfully, your obedient servant and fellow 



CITIZEN. 



XIX. 



To the Honourable Joel R. Poinsett, Secretary of War. 



SIR, 



If proof were needed of the low estimation in which you held 

 your own conduct, as well as of the contemptuous opinion which 

 you feared, and rightly, would be entertained of it by others, it 

 would be found in your manifest anxiety to escape the responsibil- 

 ity of your own acts. But escape, sir, is impossible. Your at^-_ 

 tempt, as will be seen, to screen yourself beneath the wing of your 

 commander, was as clumsy a ruse as that of the hunted ostrich, 

 which sticks its head into a heap of sand, while its carcass remains 

 exposed to view. You will comprehend the force of the compari- 

 son, and the public, ere I have done, shall understand it also. 

 You cannot, sir, thus hide yourself not that you are so large, but 

 that the wing is too small. 



Until within a few days of the sailing of the expedition, the 

 members of the scientific corps were kept in a state of painful un- 

 certainty. True, they had heard, in common with their country- 

 men, that the expedition, in your plastic hands, was to be made " al- 

 together scientific," and " entirely divested of its military charac- 

 ter ; >J but the latter they had already seen was a downright de- 

 ception practised upon the navy and the country, and their previ- 

 ous apprehensions that all was not fair, and frank, and honourable 

 towards themselves were now confirmed. You had not only failed 

 to observe the common decency of consulting with them, but they 

 themselves, and the sciences to which they had devoted years of 

 intense study, were rudely aspersed by your commander, who was 

 clothed with unlimited authority, whose views you and the presi- 

 dent sanctioned, and who was now in charge of this " altogether 

 scientific expedition." 



