7th. My sister Maria writes, posting me up in the local news of Detroit.
9th. Mr. Trowbridge informs me that Congress settled the contested delegate question by casting aside the Sault votes. We are so unimportant that even our votes are considered as worthless. However that may be, nothing could be a greater misrepresentation than that "Indians from their lodges were allowed to vote."
14th. Col. Thomas H. Benton, of the Senate, writes that an appropriation of $10,000 has been granted for carrying out a clause in the Prairie du Chien treaty, and that a convocation of the Indians in Lake Superior will take place, "so that the copper-mine business is arranged."
17th. Maj. Joseph Delafield, of New York, says that Baron Lederer is desirous of entering into an arrangement for the exchange of my large mass of Lake Superior copper, for mineralogical specimens for the Imperial Cabinet of Vienna.
April 16th. A letter from the Department contains incipient directions for convening the Indians to meet in council at the head of Lake Superior, and committing the general arrangements for that purpose to my hands, and, indeed, my hands are already full. Boats, canoes, supplies, transportation for all who are to go, and a thousand minor questions, call for attention. A treaty at Fond du Lac, 500 miles distant, and the throwing of a commissariat department through the lake, is no light task.
27th. A moral question of much interest is presented to me in a communication from the Rev. Alvan Coe. Of the disinterested nature and character of this man's benevolence for the Indian race, no man knowing him ever doubted. He has literally been going about doing good among them since our first arrival here in 1822. In his zeal to shield them from the arts of petty traders, he has often gone so far as to incur the ill-will and provoke the slanderous tongues of some few people. That he should deem it necessary to address me a letter to counteract such rumors, is the only thing remarkable. Wiser, in some senses, and more prudent people in their worldly affairs, probably exist; but no man of a purer, simpler, and more exalted faith. No one whom I ever knew lives less for "the rewards that perish." Even Mr. Laird, whose name is mentioned in these records, although he went far beyond him in talents, gifts, and acquirements of every sort, had not a purer faith, yet he will, like that holy man, receive his rewards from the same "Master."
May 2d. Mr. Trowbridge writes me of the death of Wm. W. Pettit, Esq., of Detroit, a man respected and admired. He loaned me a haversack, suitable for a loose mineral bag, on my expedition in 1820.
8th. Difficulties between the military and citizens continue. The Postmaster-General declined, on a renewed memorial of the citizens, to remove the post-office without the garrison. He says the officers have evinced "much sensibility" on the subject, and denied that "any restraints or embarrassments" have been imposed, when every man and woman in the settlement knows that the only way to the post-office lies through the guard-house, which is open and shut by tap of drum. Restraints, indeed! Where has the worthy Postmaster-General picked up his military information?
June 6th. Definite information is received that the appropriation for the Lake Superior treaty has passed Congress.
10th. Mr. John Agnew, designated a special agent for preliminaries at Fond du Lac, writes of his prompt arrival at that place and good progress.