"A Court of Inquiry!—proofs, and all riglar—upon oath?" exclaimed Sim Travers.
"I'm blest if I go before any court!" said Tom Crop.
"By blazes, I won't!" said Billy Goodlack. "There's something in this here thing—else why don't the President go smack forward on the letter?"
"I'm no prosecutor," said Eliphalet Fox.
"I'm not a persecutor, nother," said Tom Crop. "By blood! I scorn it."
"I'm not going to put my hand on the book, upon it," said Sim Travers. "If a man can't lodge a complaint without being hauled into court, the party's broke: a fig for the money! who cares about it?"
"That's my identical sentiment!" said Billy Goodlack. "By blazes, I'm no prosecutioner!"
The committee was certainly thrown into great consternation. The cause of this is said to have been that in representing the case of Sergeant Trap to the President by letter, upon which they expected an immediate order dismissing the offender from service, they had charged him with a long list of misdemeanors against the welfare of the Great New-Light Democratic Party; which they knew, in the first place, had no sort of foundation in fact, and therefore might be found extremely difficult of proof; and the attempt to investigate which, in the second place, they were aware might bring the True Grits into collision with each other in a manner not very conducive to the harmony of the party. They were, therefore, not a little thrown aback when they were apprised of the President's determination to make the charges a subject of inquiry.
We cannot sufficiently commend Mr. Van Buren's caution in this matter, and the sound New-Light Democratic view he took of the subject. Here was a grave charge preferred against one of his own servants, imputing to him a disposition to deal with Whigs—nay, an actual dealing with them, when there was a New Light to be found in the same town capable of furnishing the same commodity. Doubtless, upon this nefarious transaction being fully proved, Mr. Van Buren, like a genuine, unadulterated Quod, as he is, would dismiss the offender from service, or even inflict on him other punishment, if it fell in his way. But in so serious a case he was determined not to be premature in his action: he would not proceed—unless, indeed, the offender had been a civil officer—upon such testimony as the confidential letter of a committee. He takes the only just course—(in this I have reason to believe he was fully seconded, perhaps even prompted, by our sagacious representative, the Hon. Middleton Flam)—and that is a formal, solemn, judicial inquiry into the conduct of Sergeant Trap, to ascertain whether he really had purchased liquors to the prejudice of the Great New-Light Quodlibetarian Democratic Party. Truly have we reason, day by day, to rejoice in a President of such magnanimity, such justice, such innate republicanism, and withal such dignity!