the happening of a certain anticipated possibility, (which it was deemed expedient and necessary not to refer to specifically in the order,) had directed that hostilities should be suspended upon the receipt of a requirement from a secret and confidential agent of the government; even in this case, a genuine, as contradistinguished from a merely verbal or formalry "respect" for the authority of the constitution, would be likely to suggest to any commander receiving such order and habitually entertaining such genuine sentiment, at least to abstain from all premature determinations to treat it as a nullity. He might, through love of country and forgetfulness of self, make up his mind, should the order take effect under circumstances rendering it destructive of the public weal, then to disobey it. But he would scarcely show haste to make a parade of this determination, or to set to his army an example of insubordination by any unnecessary disclosure of even this contingent intention before those circumstances had become matter of fact and of positive knowledge, and whilst they had as yet not ceased to be the coinage of an imagination ready to impute to the chief magistrate elected by our country-aided in his deliberations by the eminent citizens whom he had called around him for the purpose-a course of proceeding so imbecile as to awaken surprise that the bare possibility of its having ever been contemplated by them should suggest itself to any sane mind.

With regard to the choice made by the President of the person to be charged with the measures dictated by him for bringing about the state of things whereof notice is thus to be given, I, sir, do not entertain a doubt but that far better selections might have been made; and that it has fallen upon myself solely in consequence of the peculiar circumstances of the juncture. Among these far better selections, the best of all, perhaps, would have been the present. commander of our land forces in Mexico. This would have been attended with one advantage, at least, that of precluding all danger of this attempt to restore peace being rendered abortive by collis sions in regard to "military rank." But if the President has proved himself not duly sensible of this consideration, added to the many others, which should doubtless have weighed with him in favor of the appointment now referred to; and should he hereafter have cause to repent that he did not make it, no part of the blame can ever attach to me, for he knows that the sin thus committed by him was not in any way participated in by me, except so far as my consent, in reply to his own spontaneously expressed wish, no less undesired than unsought on my part, may have made me one of the guilty.

My instructions (which, as has already been stated, I am authorized to make known to you, and had intended to exhibit to you) show that no ground exists, either for the supposition you have made, that the object for which I have been sent here is, to "petition" the enemy to" concede an armistice," or for the apprehension which you express, that the communication from the Secretary of State of the United States of America, to the Mexican Minister of foreign relations, may be of a nature to "commit the honor of" the gov

ernment of our country; although this patriotic solicitude, most assuredly cannot fail to be duly appreciated by that country, and most especially by all sticklers for military subordination within the army, and for the strict enforcement of the respect due from the military to the civil authority. Equally groundless will be found to be the supposition that "the chief clerk of the Departof State" can have been taken from his desk, and sent to the seat of war in the heart of the enemy's country, "clothed with military rank over" the senior officer of the army of the United States! The propriety of its finding a place in the reply of that senior officer to the communication which, in the discharge of the duties confided to me, I found it necessary to address to him, is a point which does not call for remark from me. The merits of this jeu d'esprit, as a specimen of delicate and refined irony, so peculiarly appropriate, too, in reply to a letter so offensive as mine, I wil lingly leave to the good taste and good feeling of our country men. They will not fail to do justice to it also, as a model of the respect due by all public servants to the office and the authority of the President of the United States.

The communication from the Secretary of State to the Mexican minister, in regard to which you express surprise, (or perhaps indignation may be the meaning of your note of exclamation,) that it should have been enclosed to you for transmission "sealed," was so sealed because it was deemed proper that it should bear the seal of the Department of State of the United States; and in this there is no departure from the established practice in similar cases. It was intended, however, that you should be made acquainted with its contents, as well as with every thing else relating to the subject, by means of the copy in my possession; and I had supposed that this intention was sufficiently expressed in my former letter,though from the haste in which it was written and despatched, (and which did not allow me to retain a copy,) it was doubtless very imperfect in more than one particular. But, had no such intimation been given, and had no such intention existed, the doctrine which should deny to the government of the United States the right to send to its agents or officers abroad, civil or military, for transmission to foreign governments, any communications which it might be deemed necessary to make, and in such state, sealed or unsealed, as it might be deemed appropriate to the occasion, such a doctrine would, so far as my very limited knowledge extends, be a most extraordinary innovation in the conduct of public affairs. Nothing is more common than to send naval commanders, of any and every rank, to sea with "sealed orders;" which, although addressed to themselves, and relating to public interests entrusted exclusively to them, they are required not to open for weeks or months thereafter, or not at all, except upon the occurrence of a certain contingency. And if this be considered as not affecting their honor, and as not giving them the right to take their government to task, either by the device of notes of exclamation or by less condensed modes of expression, it strikes my poor judgment as following, a fortiori, that no such right can arise from the transmission, through them, of a

sealed note to a foreign government, upon matters totally distinct from their own professional duties.

The haste in which the communications for the Mexican minister of foreign relations was despatched to you, arose from the utter uncertainty in which I found myself, whether the state of things. then existing in the interior might not be such as to present a crisis, rendering it of the highest importance to our country, and to Mexico likewise, that the moment should be seized for the delivery of that communication. It was the President's intention, when I left Washington, that it should be delivered immediately upon my arrival in this country, and that it should forthwith be placed in the hands of the general-in-chief of our forces for this purpose. By transmitting it to you, and making the intention of the President known, my duty in regard to it is fulfilled. At the same time, had. I been aware that the circumstances of the moment were decidedly unpropitious for its delivery, I should have deemed it my duty, perhaps, to retain it, or at any rate to recommend, at the moment of placing it in your hands, that its transmission should be delayed until a favorable change should occur, or at least until further instructions could be received.

Under this view of the subject, I do not regret that its transmission has been delayed until I shall have reached Jalapa; although I cannot, I must confess, assent to the correctness of the ground upon which your determination thus to delay it is placed. It is impossible for me to perceive how it could have been inferred from the extreme anxiety evinced by me to transmit that communication to you at the earliest possible moment, that it was contemplated by the instructions under which I so acted, that you were to retain it until my arrival at "the moveable head-quarters."

[No. 6.]

SIR:

[Extract.]

Mr. Trist to Mr. Buchanan.

PUEBLA, June 3, 1847

On my arrival here I received a letter from General Scott, to which I shall make no reply, (as I informed the aid, Lieutenant Hamilton, who handed it to me,) and which I will transmit at some other time. No other communication has reached me from him; and, as was stated at the beginning of this letter, it was through accident only that I became informed of the opportunity for writing afforded by the train for Jalapa to-morrow morning.

*

Hon. JAMES BUCHANAN,

Secretary of State.

I refer to

It will be perceived that, in my last letter to the corroboration afforded by Mr. to what I had inferred from a few Mexico newspapers, in regard to the opportuneness of the period when your communication to the minister of foreign relations reached the hands of General Scott for its delivery to the Mexican government. Mr. stated that the loss of this opportunity was much to be regretted, and he mentioned several facts showing how favorable it had been. The most striking of these was that Mr. had been applied to, on the part of a high personage, (named,) to know if he would write to General S., asking whether he would entertain a proposal for the suspension of his advance, as a measure preliminary to an offer to enter into negoti ations. The motive, too, was stated; it was, that the troops (doubtless the means also) which it would otherwise be requisite to draw from the States, for the defence of the capital, might be kept there to give strength to those who would sustain the government in

such offer.

Hon. JAMES BUCHANAN,

Secretary of State.

[Extract.]

Mr. Buchanan to Mr. Trist.

[No. 2.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, June 14, 1847.

SIR: Your despatch of the 21st ultimo, which you have numbered 4, was received on the 3d instant. None of a later date from you has yet come to hand.

The original letter from General Scott to yourself, dated at Jalapa, May 7, 1847, which you have transmitted with your despatch, is certainly of a most extraordinary character. It was well calcu lated to wound your feelings and excite your indignation. This letter surely never would have been written, had he awaited your arrival at his head-quarters and read the instructions and the projet of a treaty with Mexico, which you were authorized to communicate to him confidentially. The perusal of these documents must have put to flight the unfounded suspicions, in regard to your mission, which seem to have pre-occupied his mind and influenced his

conduct.

You were entrusted with no further agency in regard to my communication of the 15th April last, addressed to the Mexican minister for foreign relations, after it was placed in the hands of General Scott. Your whole duty respecting it was then performed. If he has either refused or negleted to transmit that important document to the minister to whom it was directed, and thus violated a military order of the President, issued to him through the Department of War, he has incurred a heavy responsibility; but for this he is neither answerable to the Department of State nor the commissioner to Mexico. The question belongs exclusively to the military branch of the government.

You might safely have relied upon the government here for the vindication of your character and conduct. Indeed General Scott's letter to you had upon its face placed him so clearly in the wrong that no commentary upon it, however able, which you may have written, can have made the case plainer. Some days before the arrival of your despatch, the War Department had received a despatch from the general, enclosing a copy of his letter to you; and a judicious and appropriate answer, dated on the 31st of May, was returned to him by the Secretary of War.

Whilst our armies are in the country of the enemy, and our minister of peace is at the head quarters of the commanding general, this is no time for personal altercations between them, if these can possibly be avoided. Under such circumstances, the greater the sacrifice of private griefs, however well founded, which you may make upon the altar of your country, the more will this redound to your honor hereafter. You have been despatched to Mexico by your government as a minister of peace; and, to accomplish the great object of your mission, a hearty co-operation between the general and yourself may be indispensable. Under these considerations, I am directed by the President, in case amicable relations shall not, in the mean time, have been restored, to instruct you to call upon General Scott and offer to communicate to him, confidentially, the instructions and the projet of a treaty with which you have been entrusted, and to report to this department, without delay, the circumstances and the result of your interview.

Governor Marcy has again written to General Scott by the messenger who will bear you this despatch. Yours, very respectfully,

N. P. TRIST, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

[No. 3.]

[Extract.]

Mr. Buchanan to Mr. Trist.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, July 13, 1847.

SIR: A duplicate of your No. 4, dated 21st of May, 1847, 'together with a copy of the first ten pages of your letter to General