left it. I haven't felt like more than half a governor since you left. I have succeeded, however, in getting a very clever fellow, Joshua H. Bell, to take the office of secretary. He has written me that he would be here to-day. And it is quite necessary he should be, as from the last days of June, when your resignation was entered, there has been an interregnum, and will be till his arrival. By the intelligence which you and Thomas gave us from Washington, we have set it down as certain that Letcher is to have a mission, and most probably that to Mexico. As to what you say of my friend, General W. Thompson, I had heard about the same through a letter from Thomas, with whom also Thompson had conversed, and to about the saine effect I received a letter from himself on the day that your last reached me. Fearing that Thompson might think that I had brought about the collision and competition between him and Letcher, I wrote to him immediately on the receipt of Tom's letter, expressing my regret at the competition; that the object of Letcher's friends was to obtain a mission for him, not caring as to what mission it was, and that if it was the wish of the administration to confide to him the mission to Mexico, that Letcher's friends and I would undertake to say Letcher himself would willingly waive any preference he might have for that mission, provided there should be given to him either the mission to Berlin or St. Petersburg. I wrote this not only to acquit myself with Thompson but to place the responsibility where it ought to rest, or at least to throw it off my own shoulders. The truth, I suppose, is that the administration cannot well give one of the first-rate missions to South Carolina after the disposition of other offices which it has made; and not being able to give one to my friend Thompson, are explaining away his disappointment as well as it can be done. That does not concern me; but I do not wish to appear to have gotten up the rivalry between Letcher and Thompson, and to be chargeable, of course, with the disappointment of one of them. We Letcher's spirits have evidently improved greatly under the influence of the letters of Thomas and yourself; and we all congratulate ourselves on the certainty of his success. shall hold you not a little responsible for the mission to Mexico, Prussia, or Russia. And I don't believe Letcher cares a pin which. But, by Jupiter, I wonder at my own disinterestedness! I am wishing good offices for all my friends here and aiding in getting them,-offices which will carry them far away from me. I shall then be left solitary and alone, and what is to become of me? You stand in need of no lessons from me. Just be yourself and follow your own natural bent and character, and all will be right. Be not jealous of the "Satraps ;" be respectful and give them all due deference and honor upon the proper occasions, but show no anxiety to seek or avoid them. Let old Zack be the rock on which you build,-that is the proper position for you, and all the "Satraps" will soon seek you. Clayton is a noble fellow; he may have faults and imperfections, but still he is a noble fellow. I want to hear that you are good and confidential friends. You must try and break down the barrier that seems to divide Bullitt from the administration. Between the editor of such a paper and the President and cabinet there ought to be an unreserved communication. It used to be so in old times. There was hardly a day in the administration of Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and Monroe that the editor of the Intelligencer did not visit the President just to hear what he had to say and to imbibe the spirit of the administration. It ought to be so again. Tell Bullitt that his paper is still too much on the defensive. He does not show forth old Zack enough, his plainness, his integrity, his patriotism, and that therein lies the hostility of old Ritchie and that whole breed of politicians. These are all mad with the people for electing him. Old Ritchie, for instance, is mad to the amount of ten to twenty thousand dollars annually that has been taken from this old feeder in the treasury. These are the gentlemen that are making all the outcry against old Zack, and they, to conceal themselves and their "private griefs," affect to represent and speak in the name of the Democratic party. I would take the ground that the people of that party honored and reverenced old Zack, and that it was the partisans only who live on party warfare and its plunder that were abusing and making war on him; that he was emphatically the people's President and not the President of office holders and of Mr. Ritchie. And to illustrate all this, I would signalize Mr. Ritchie's case,-show how he was fattening on the spoils, how he had been cut off from those spoils by the people's President, and what good cause he had to be mad with the people and old Zack for all this. But Bullitt, I think, will soon bring all this right. You must hold on to your office for a time at least, and let me know all that is going on at Washington. O. BROWN, Esq. Your friend, J. J. CRITTENDEN. P. S.-Buckner's district is doubtful; but I think you may be confident that we will send you eight Whig representatives at least from Kentucky. J. J. C. (John M. Clayton to J. J. Crittenden.) WASHINGTON, July 11, 1849. MY DEAR CRITTENDEN,-Letcher will be appointed Minister to Prussia or Mexico as soon as your Kentucky elections are over, and so you may tell him. He understands me, and when he returns you must go in his place. Tell him I try to do as he says I should do, "have winning ways;" but if I am kind in manner to some men, they take occasion to construe that into a promise of office. The President says that it has now come to such a pass that if he does not kick a man down-stairs he goes away and declares he promised him an office. You never wrote a more sensible letter in your life than that in which you gave me your lessons in diplomacy. I agree with you in everything, and you will see by-and-by that I have sent an agent to recognize the independence of Hungary on the first favorable indication. The agent (at present unknown) is Dudley Mann, now in Paris. The same policy (sympathy with the advance of republican principles) will characterize all my course, if the President will allow me. On this subject do you write to me to give me a loose rein. Some of my colleagues (who are noble fellows) are somewhat young and tender-footed. We must keep up with the spirit of the age. Preston got it into his head that our "Sir John Franklin expedition" was like Mason's Dead Sea expedition, and so his department defeated us, by holding the matter under consideration until it was too late to do anything. My mortification has been extreme about the failure of it, especially as the British Parliament and the Royal Society received the intelligence of the President's intention to send out the expedition with applause absolutely enthusiastic. It was a pretty feather in the President's cap, and lost by the opposition of the navy. Oh, if you could see what a fine letter the "Lady Franklin" sent me in reply to the one the President wrote to her, and what a jewel of a letter I was preparing in reply to it! But, alas! we were blown sky-high by the navy after the President had ordered them to prepare the expedition. Many here blame the old Commodores Smith, Warrington, etc., the committee to whom the matter was referred, and who reported that we had not a ship in the navy fit to go. These old commodores are all behind the age. The spirit of progress ought to be ours. We must keep up or be distanced. Our friend Collamer is behind; he is a glorious fellow, but too tender for progress. He has been often indeed at his wit's end, frightened about removals and appointments, but I cry courage to them all and they will go ahead, all, by-and-by! Taylor has all the moral as well as physical courage needed for the emergency. I know Brown; he is at first sight a trump—“ the king if not the ace." Your son Thomas has gone to Liverpool as happy as a lord. I had to recall Armstrong; he refused to resign. If you will come here and take my office I will give it up to you with pleasure, and with a proviso to stand by you all my life. I have not had a day's rest for nearly five months. The honor of serving the man I now serve is the only reward I can offer you. That is indeed an honor. I have never met with a man who more justly deserved the respect and devotion of his friends and of all good men. Tell Letcher I am willing to be hung if this administration fails. Letcher has, in a letter to me, sworn to hang me if it does. Remember me kindly to Letcher. I mean to instruct him gloriously. He shall know a thing or two. Faithfully your friend, Hon. J. J. CRITTENDEN. JOHN M. CLAYTON. CHAPTER XXVII. 1849-1850. Letters from J. Collamer, Crittenden, and Letcher-Extracts from Crittenden's Message to the Legislature of Kentucky in 1849-Letters of Crittenden to Letcher and Thomas Metcalf. (Hon. J. Collamer to J. J. Crittenden.) WASHINGTON CITY, July 14, 1849. EAR SIR,-I have before me your letter of the 9th inst., frankly expressing your feelings of dissatisfaction at my apparent neglect of your recommendation of Dr. Alexander as local mail agent at Louisville. Many persons were recommended, and Russell had many leading men for him, including the member Mr. Duncan. Alexander had no paper on file, but your letter, that would have been very potent with me. In this state of things I received charges enough against Pilcher for his removal. The President having made his own selection for postmaster, then handed me a line addressed to me, but which had been inclosed to him, signed J. S. Allison, recommending the appointment of Russell as agent, and as being most desired at Louisville. The President expressed to me his desire that I should follow the recommendation of Captain Allison. This I regarded as law for me. I am but a subaltern, and obey, but it seems that in so doing I must lose all the personal attachment and respect of those whose respect I value. It seems to me that even in this matter I have done no wrong, nor have I deferred your wish to anything but what I regarded as imperative upon me. Respectfully, but afflictedly, yours, I should be pleased to send my respects to Mrs. Crittenden, but I hardly think they would be at present well received. J. C. His Excellency J. J. CRITTENDEN. (J. J. Crittenden to Orlando Brown.) FRANKFORT, July 26, 1849. DEAR ORLANDO,-I learn from your letter to Letcher that you are becoming better reconciled to Washington. The few |