ose of the mind cannot be unimpaired, had I not still
better proofs. Every year counts by increased debility, and departing
faculties keep the score. The last year it was the sight, this it is the
hearing, the next something else will be going, until all is gone.
Of all this I was sensible before I left Washington, and probably my
fellow-laborers saw it before I did. The decay of memory was obvious:
it is now become distressing. But the mind, too, is weakened. When I
was young, mathematics was the passion of my life. The same passion has
returned upon me, but with unequal powers. Processes which I then read
off with the facility of common discourse, now cost me labor, and time,
and slow investigation. When I offered this, therefore, as one of the
reasons deciding my retirement from office, it was offered in sincerity
and a consciousness of its truth. And I think it a great blessing that
I retain understanding enough to be sensible how much of it I have lost,
and to avoid exposing myself as a spectacle for the pity of my friends;
that I have surmounted the difficult point of knowing when to retire. As
a compensation for faculties departed, nature gives me good health, and
a perfect resignation to the laws of decay which she has prescribed to
all the forms and combinations of matter.

The detestable treason of Hull has, indeed, excited a deep anxiety
in all breasts. The depression was in the first moment gloomy and
portentous. But it has been succeeded by a revived animation, and a
determination to meet the occurrence with increased efforts; and I have
so much confidence in the vigorous minds and bodies of our countrymen,
as to be fearless as to the final issue. The treachery of Hull, like
that of Arnold, cannot be matter of blame on our government. His
character, as an officer of skill and bravery, was established on the
trials of the last war, and no previous act of his life had led to doubt
his fidelity. Whether the Head of the war department is equal to his
charge, I am not qualified to decide. I knew him only as a pleasant,
gentlemanly man in society; and the indecision of his character rather
added to the amenity of his conversation. But when translated from
the colloquial circle to the great stage of national concerns, and the
direction of the extensive operations of war, whether he has been able
to seize at one glance the long line of defenceless border presented by
our enemy, the masses of strength which we hold o