LEWIS CASS.

Gen. H. Atkinson, Jefferson Barracks, Missouri.

In the report of the Secretary at War which has just been referred to,
there is the following statement of the causes which led to this
contest. "The recent hostilities, commenced by the Sac and Fox Indians,
may be traced to causes, which have been for some time in operation, and
which left little doubt upon the minds of those acquainted with the
savage character, that they were determined to commit some aggression
upon the frontier. The confederated tribes of the Sacs and Foxes have
been long distinguished for their daring spirit of adventure and for
their restless and reckless disposition. At the commencement of the
eighteenth century, one of these tribes made a desperate attempt to
seize the post of Detroit; and during a period of forty years,
subsequent to that effort, they caused great trouble and embarrassment
to the French colonial government, which was only terminated by a most
formidable military expedition, sent by that enterprizing people into
their remote regions west of Green Bay. During the last war with Great
Britain, this confederacy entered zealously into the contest, and was
among the most active and determined of our enemies. After the peace
their communication with the Canadian authorities was preserved; and, in
every year, large parties of the most influential chiefs and warriors
visited Upper Canada, and returned laden with presents. That this
continued intercourse kept alive feelings of attachment to a foreign
power and weakened the proper and necessary influence of the United
States, is known to every one who has marked the progress of events and
conduct of the Indians upon the north western frontier. The tribes upon
the upper Mississippi, particularly the Sacs and Foxes and Winnebagoes,
confident in their position and in their natural courage, and totally
ignorant of the vast disproportion between their power, and that of the
United States, have always been discontented, keeping the frontier in
alarm, and continually committing some outrage upon the persons or
property of the inhabitants. All this is the result of impulse, and is
the necessary and almost inevitable consequence of institutions, which
make war the great object of life. It is not probable, that any Indian
seriously bent up on hostilities, ever stops to calculate the force of
the white man, and to estimate the disastrous consequences w