13th.  Submitted, in a letter to the department at Washington, A PROJECT of an expedition to the North-west, during the ensuing season, in order to carry out the views expressed in the instructions of last year, to preserve peace on the western frontiers, inclosing the necessary estimates, &c.

16th.  Mr. W. H. Sherman, of Vernon, N.Y., communicates intelligence of the death of my mother, which took place about ten o’clock on the morning of this day.  She was seventy-five years of age, and a Christian—­and died as she had lived, in a full hope.  I had read the letters before breakfast, and while the family were assembling for prayers.  I had announced the fact with great composure, and afterward proceeded to read in course the 42d Psalm, and went on well, until I came to the verse—­“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?  Hope thou in God:  for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”

The emotions of this painful event, which I had striven to conceal, swelled up in all their reality, my utterance was suddenly choked, and I was obliged to close the book, and wait for calmness to go on.

28th.  The initial steps were taken for forming an association of persons interested in the cause of the reclamation of the Indians, to be known under the name of the Algic Society.  Connected with this, one of its objects was to collect and disseminate practical information respecting their language, history, traditions, customs, and character; their numbers and condition; the geographical features of the country they inhabit; and its natural history and productions.

It proposes some definite means of action for furthering their moral instruction, and reclamation from the evils of intemperance and the principles of war, and to subserve the general purposes of a society of moral inquiry.  The place was deemed favorable both for the collection of original information, and for offering a helping hand to missionaries and teachers who should visit the frontiers in carrying forward the great moral question of the exaltation of the tribes from barbarism to civilization and Christianity.

28th.  Instructions are issued at Washington, consolidating the agencies of St. Mary’s and Michilimackinack—­and placing the joint agency under my charge.  By this arrangement, Col.  Boyd, the agent at the latter point, is transferred to Green Bay, and I am left at liberty to reside at St. Mary’s or Michilimackinack, placing a sub-agent at the point where I do not reside.

This measure is announced to me in a private letter of this day, from the Secretary of War, who says:  “I think the time has arrived when a just economy requires such a measure.”  By it the entire expenses of one full agency are dispensed with—­the duties of which are devolved upon me, in addition to those I before had.  By being allowed the choice of selection, two hundred dollars are added to my salary.  Here is opened a new field, and certainly a very ample one, for exertions.