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.,