from the mass of oral and
documentary evidence contained in the proceedings, and thus a most
important part of the duty assigned to the court remains unexecuted.
Had the court stated the facts of the case as established to its
satisfaction by the evidence before it, the President, on comparing
such state of facts found by the court with its opinion, would have
distinctly understood the views entertained by the court in respect to
the degree of promptitude and energy which ought to be displayed in a
campaign against Indians--and one which the President's examination of
the evidence has not supplied, inasmuch as he has no means of knowing
whether the conclusions drawn by him from the evidence agree with those
of the court.

The opinion of the court is also argumentative, and wanting in
requisite precision, inasmuch as it states that "no delay _which it
was practicable to have avoided was made by Major-General Scott_ in
opening the campaign against the Creek Indians," etc.; thus leaving it
to be inferred, but not distinctly finding, that there was some delay,
and that it was made by some person other than Major-General Scott,
without specifying in what such delay consisted, when it occurred, how
long it continued, nor by whom it was occasioned. Had the court found
a state of facts, as required by the order constituting it, the
uncertainty now existing in this part of the opinion would have been
obviated and the justice of the opinion itself readily determined.

That part of the opinion of the court which animadverts on the letter
addressed by Major-General Jesup to F.P. Blair, esq., bearing date the
20th of June, 1836, and which presents the same as a subject demanding
investigation, appears to the President to be wholly unauthorized by the
order constituting the court, and by which its jurisdiction was confined
to an inquiry into the causes of the delay in opening and prosecuting
the campaign against the hostile Creeks and into such subjects as were
connected with the military operations in that campaign. The causes of
the recall of Major-General Scott from the command and the propriety
or impropriety of the conduct of General Jesup in writing the letter
referred to were not submitted to the court as subjects of inquiry. The
court itself appears to have been of this opinion, inasmuch as no notice
was given to General Jesup of the pendency of the proceedings, nor had
he any opportunity to cross-examine and interrogate th