ded for permission being granted to individuals to work them
at their own expense. There is no intention of doing anything on public
account." This, it will be perceived, was the view presented (ante) by
Mr. Dox, in his able letter to me on the subject, several years ago.
Congress will not authorize the working of the mines. It is a matter for
private enterprize.

_July 14th_. WHISKY AMONG THE INDIANS.--Mr. Robert Stuart, Agent to the
American Fur Company, writes from Mackinac, that some of the American
Fur Company's clerks are not inclined to take whisky, under the general
government permit, _provided their opponents take none_. This tampering
with the subject and with me, in the conduct of the agent of that
company, whose duty it is rigidly to exclude the article by every means,
would accord better, it should seem, with the spirit of one who had not
recently taken obligations which are applicable to all times and all
space. Little does the spirit of commerce care how many Indians die
inebriates, if it can be assured of beaver skins. The situation of any
of its agents, who may acknowledge Christian obligations, is doubtless
an embarrassing one; and such persons should seek to get out of such an
employment as soon as possible. The true direction, in all cases of this
kind, is, to take high moral grounds. The department, by granting such
permits, violates a law. The agent of the company who seeks to exclude
"opponents" in the trade, errs by attempting to throw the responsibility
of the minor question upon the local agent, over whose head he already
shakes his permits from a superior power. Now the "opponents," be it
understood, have no such "permits," and the agent can give them none.

This subject of ardent spirits is a constantly recurring one in every
possible form; and no little time of an agent of Indian affairs, and no
small part of his troubles and vexations, are due to it. The traders and
citizens generally, on the frontiers, are leagued in their _supposed_
interests to break down, or evade the laws, Congressional and
territorial, which exclude it, or make it an offence to sell or give it.
If an agent aims honestly to put the law in force, he must expect to
encounter obloquy. If he appeals to the local courts, it is ten to one
that nine-tenths of his jury are offenders in this very thing. So far as
the American Fur Company is concerned, it is seen, I think, by the
course of the managers, that it would conduce to