s. Samuel, the day before your letter
was received, expressed his opinion, that 'it would go hard with you.' A
dog when he supposes himself unnoticed in the act of stealing, looks
mean, but when he is _discovered_ in the act, he looks meaner still. And
I know of no better comparison than _this_ clique, and _that_ dog."

_24th_. Hon. Andrew Stevenson, American Minister in London, responds to
my inquiries on certain historical points, respecting which he has
kindly charged his agent to institute inquiries.

_Sept. 5th_. I reached the agency at Mackinack about the beginning of
September. Facilis, a young man of equally ready and respectable
talents, writes me, from Detroit, under this date, expressing a wish to
be employed in the execution of some of the fiscal duties of the
superintendency during the season. "I write to you," he adds, "as a
friend. Times are hard, and every little that is directed to aid one in
his efforts to stem the current of life, possesses an incalculable
value." I yielded the more readily to this request from the chain of
circumstances which, however favorable, had hitherto disappointed his
most ardent aims and the just expectations of his friends.

_11th_. Joanna Baillie, the celebrated authoress, who has spent a long
life in the most honorable and deeply characteristic literary labors,
writes from her residence at Hampstead (Eng.), as if with undiminished
vigor of hope, expressing her interest in the progress of historical
letters in this (to her) remote part of the world. How much closer bonds
these literary sympathies are in drawing two nations of a kindred blood
together, than dry and formal diplomatics, in which it is the object, as
Talleyrand says, of human language to conceal thought!

_Oct. 16th_. Wisconsin is slowly, but surely, filling up with a healthy
population, and founding her moral, as well as political institutions,
on a solid basis. Rev. Jer. Porter, my old friend during the interesting
scenes at St. Mary's, in 1832 and 1833, writes me, that, after passing a
few years in Illinois, he has settled at Green Bay, as the pastor of a
healthful and increasing church. "I have recently," he writes, "made an
excursion on horseback, in the interior of the territory. I traveled
about 400 miles, being from home sixteen days. I went to meet a
convention of ministers and delegates from Presbyterian and
Congregational churches, to see if we could form a union of the two
denominations in the te