"I have the
honor to receive your letter in reply, but not in answer to mine of
yesterday, handed in this morning. The General Order is too clearly
expressed on its face to admit of any doubt in regard to papers, and,
in public military opinion, in regard to persons. The object of my
letter, as I endeavored clearly to express, was to seek to know
distinctly, and with a view to further measures to protect myself, if,
as is supposed, I was one of the persons referred to. Regretting the
necessity for intrusion, I am compelled again respectfully to solicit
an answer to that question. I ask it as an act of simple justice,
which it is hoped will not be denied."

To this General Scott replied through his assistant adjutant general
[H.L. Scott], November 14, 1847, "that he [General Scott] can not be
more explicit than in his reply through me already given; that he has
nothing to do with the suspicions of others, and has no positive
information as to the authorship of the letters alluded to in General
Orders No. 349. If he had valid information he would immediately
prosecute the parties before a general court-martial."

The correspondence on this subject was terminated by General Worth in
the following letter:

"HEADQUARTERS FIRST DIVISION,

"MEXICO, _November 14, 1847_.

"SIR: It is due to official courtesy and propriety that I
acknowledge your letter No. 2, in answer to mine of this date; and
in doing so, and in closing this correspondence with the
headquarters of the army, I beg permission to say, and with regret,
that I have received no satisfactory answer to the just and
rightful inquiries which I have addressed to the general in chief;
but inasmuch as I know myself to be deeply aggrieved and wronged, it
only remains to go by appeal, as I shall do through the prescribed
channels, to the constitutional commander in chief.

"The general in chief is pleased to say through you that he has
nothing to do with the suspicion of others, and that he has no
positive information as to authorship, etc., granted. But has not
the manner in which the general in chief has been pleased to treat
the case established--whether designedly or not remains to be
seen--an equivocal public sentiment on the subject? There are always
enough of that peculiar pestilential species who exist upon the
breath of authority to catch up the whisperings