The advance was, in fact, as I have reason to believe, a mere bagatelle, but the chairman of the Indian Committee in the Senate was rather on the lookout for something, or anything, to embarrass or disoblige General Jackson and his agents, having fallen out with him, and being then, indeed, a candidate for President of the U.S. himself, at the coming election.  If I had not heard the pointed expressions of Hon. Hugh L. White, on more than one occasion, in which my three treaties were before him, in relation to this matter of not affording the presidential incumbent new sources of patronage, &c., I should not deem it just to add the latter remark.  He was a man of strong will and feelings, which often betrayed themselves when subjects of public policy were the topics.  And, so far as he interfered with the principles of the treaties which I had negotiated with the Lake Indians in 1836, he evinced an utter ignorance of their history, character, and best interests.  He violated, in some respects, the very principle on which alone two of the original cessions, namely, those of the Ottawas and Chippewas and of the Saginaws, were obtained; and introduced features of discord, which disturb the tribes, and some of which will long continue to be felt.  And the result is a severe caution against the Senate’s ever putting private reasons in the place of public, and interfering with matters which they necessarily know but little about.

16th.  Dr. Samuel George Morton, of Philadelphia, makes an appeal to gentlemen interested in the philosophical and historical questions connected with the Indians, to aid him in the collection of crania—­to be used in the comprehensive work which he is preparing on the subject.

26th.  Hon. J. B. Sutherland expresses the wish to see an Indian lexicography prepared under the auspices of the Indian Department, and urges me to undertake it.

30th.  Mozojeed, or the Moose’s Tail, an Ojibwa chief of Ottawa Lake, in the region at the source of Chippewa River of the Upper Mississippi, dictates a letter to me.  The following is an extract:—­

“My Father—­I have a few remarks to make.  Every morning of the year I wish to come and see you.  As soon as I take up my paddle I fall sick.  It is now two years since I began to be sick.  Sometimes I am better—­sometimes worse.  I am pained in mind that I am not to see you this summer.

“Since you gave me the shonea nahbekawahgun (silver medal) I think I have walked in your commands.  I have done all I could to have the Indians sit still.  Those that are far off I could not sway, but those that are near have listened to me.”

His influence to keep the Indians at peace, and the reasons which have hindered the influence in part, are thus, partly by symbolic figures, as well expressed as could be done by an educated mind.  I have italicised two sentences for their peculiarity of thought.