Senator's recollection is clear on these points, I will not dispute them at all with him; for in those days I was ever glad to see him to walk with him, and hear his conversations; and, as I have felt from the beginning great solicitude on the subject of Texas, I may have been the first to advert to it. But I again aver, that there was no such premeditation or design on my part, as he gratuitously attributes to me. But all this is not the question. Did I seek out that conversation, at the instance of any other person, and in the way of an "enterprise" on Colonel Benton? That is the precise question which I sought to meet by an unequivocal denial. I adverted to some facts which I supposed would confirm that denial, and convince Mr. Benton that he had done me injustice in the suspicion. But he is incredulous, and I am indifferent. He says (after naming the different lights in which he then and still views this Texas movement) that he answered abruptly and warmly, "he may tell what." I have already stated that his manner was vehement and denunciatory of the President and those under whose influences he supposed him to have been acting. But I did not suppose, of course, that any portion of all this was either aimed at General Jackson for writing his letter, or at me for corresponding with him on the subject; but to have been aimed entirely at others in the South, who might be supposed to be connected with the public dinner in Virginia. But I repeat, in justice to him, that he said nothing, now remembered, which he either has not since repeated, or might well be willing for anybody to know.

The Senator is mistaken (if he ever can be mistaken) when he supposes that I have anywhere said that his and my Van Burenism were the same. I only spoke in the positive, never in the comparative degree. My Van Burenism, I thought, at all times, was good; but I would have admitted, at any time, if he desired it, that his was better. Mine evaporated when I thought my duty to Democracy demanded it. His, I hope, has not lasted any longer than that. Col. Benton closes his card by saying: "The General Jackson letter always appeared to me to have been vicariously obtained." I have already stated the circumstances connected with the correspondence between

myself and General Jackson, and self-respect will allow me to make no further allusion to it for Col. Benton's satisfaction.

No man who knows anything of either my personal or political history, could be made to believe that I either could, or would, be willing to practice on General Jackson, under any sort of vicarious agency.

Beside this, it is now nearly eighteen months since that cor respondence took place. General Jackson has followed it up by many letters to others. He has seen all that some of his best friends (Col. Benton among the number) have said, and can say, and yet he complains of no vicarious practices upon him. He can discover no insidious schemes, with all their miserable pretexts-no indelible stains of national dishonor, in these efforts to acquire the noblest country upon this continent. Having embarked in this great work, he is going on bravely with it. He would have been glad, I know he would, if Col. Benton could have thought it right to co-operate with him. But whilst he has never pretended to arraign Colonel Benton's motives for the course which he has doubtless felt it his duty to pursue, he and those friends who do co-operate with him are entitled to a like exemption from censure.

TO THE PUBLIC AT LARGE,

And to the Constituents of the Hon. John Quincy Adams in particular

The apology for this address is to be found in the speeches of Mr. Adams at Boston, at Weymouth Landing, and att Bridgewater, in the State of Massachusetts. In these speeches he has assailed me with a wantonness and bitterness which can find no justification in any conduct of mine towards him.'. Whether addressing the young men of Boston, chiefly against General Jackson, or his constituents at Weymouth Landing against Mr. Charles J. Ingersoll, or at Bridgewater against t President Polk, he repeats his abuse of me with a frequency and malignity, altogether discreditable to any man of his age and station in society. No language which the smallest degree of self-respect will allow me to use, can even approximate the grossness of the epithets which he has been pleased to employ on all the occasions to which I have referred. These speeches were so carefully prepared, and have been so extensively cir-culated through the public press, that I do not feel willing to let them pass off as the ravings of an irritable old man, whose infirmities are rather to be pitied than resented.

Mr. Adams is, indeed, venerable for his years; but he has not and will not retire from the strife of public affairs. He remains within the arena, a knight in full armor, clutching his spear, and assailing, with fiendish malignity, all who come near him. What right, then, has he to expect infirmities of senility to protect him from the blows and wounds of the tournament?

But I proceed at once to Mr. Adams's complaints against me.

This seems to be the publication of General Jackson's letter to me of February, 1843, in favor of the annexation of Texas. In his Boston address he sets out the whole letter; but takes the greatest exception to the following extract from it:

"Soon after my election in 1829, it was made known to me by Mr. Erving, formerly our Minister at the Court of Madrid, that, whilst at that court, he had laid the foundation of a treaty with Spain for the cession of the Flor idas, and the settlement of the boundary of Louisiana, fixing the western limit of the latter at Rio Grande, agreeably to the understanding of France; that he had written home to our government for powers to complete and sign the negotiation; but that, instead of receiving such authority, the negotiation was taken out of his hands and transferred to Washington, and a new treaty was there concluded, by which the Sabine, and not the Rio Grande, was recognized, and established as the boundary of Louisiana. Finding that these statements were true, and that our government did really give up that important territory, when it was at its option to retain it, I was filled with astonishment. The right to the territory was obtained from France. Spain stood ready to acknowledge it to the Rio Grande, and yet the authority asked by our Minister to insert the true boundary was not only withheld, but in lieu of it, a limit was adopted depriving us of the whole vast country lying between the two rivers."

Mr. Adams, in commenting on this part of General Jackson's letter, inquires, "in what language of composure and decency, can I say to you that there is, in this bitter and venomous charge, not one single word of truth; that it is, from beginning to end, grossly, glaringly, and wilfully false?" What terrible words! and what a towering fit of passion seems to come over him at once! Surely this must be an entirely new and unexpected charge-one which Mr. Adams had never heard of before, and now hearing, is filled with honest and just indignation! But no such thing. It had been made against him as far back as 1820, and published to the world more than fifteen years before Gen. Jackson's letter was either written or published: not made against him then by Gen. Jackson, but by that man that once foisted him into the Presidency against the will of a betrayed and insulted people-by Mr. Clay, whose election he was trying to secure by these very speeches. From a letter written at Washington by Mr. Clay, dated 16th April, 1820, to a then friend in Kentucky, and published in the United States Telegraph of August 2d, 1828, I make the following extract:

"There is a rumor in the city which will astonish you, in regard to the conclusion of that (the Florida) treaty. It has been asserted by a member of Congress, as coming from high authority, that prior to the conclusion of the treaty, it was known to Mr. Adams that we could have obtained more than was conveyed to us-that is, that the Spanish negotiator was allowed by his in tructions to grant us more, but that less was taken, because the Spanish Minister declared, if he went up to his instructions, he should be afraid of some personal i jury upon his return home. What will you in the west think of the wisdom of that policy which which consents to surrender an important part of our territory from such a motive?"

Here is the first charge made against Mr. Adams for surrendering up Texas in that negotiation. It was made by Mr. Adams's most especial friend-that friend to whom he stands solely indebted for the highest office which he ever filled. It was published in 1828; and Mr. Adams's eyes have doubtless met it a thousand times. Does he deny it? Did he get up at Boston and deny it-at Weymouth Landing, at Bridgewater, or anywhere else? No, never, that I have heard of. Did he give Mr. Clay the lie for uttering it, as he has done General Jackson? Mr. Clay was then his Secretary of State, living daily on his bounty. Did he send for him and say to him, You have slandered my good name-you have ruined the inheritance of my children, and you must leave my cabinet immediately? No such thing. This new cause of quarrel, like the old question of veracity, was adjourned over to some period more propitious to calm investigation.

Mr. Clay, then, was Mr. Adams's first accuser of dereliction of duty in the negotiation of the Florida treaty. He accuses him by name on the authority of a member of Congress, who is said to have got it from one high in authority. He states in his letter that it was known to Mr. Adams that we could have obtained more than was conveyed to us. He was writing on other subjects, but stepped aside to denounce Mr. Adams for surrendering an important part of our territory from improper motives.

Contrast the time and circumstances under which General Jackson alluded to the same dereliction of duty. He was writing on the re-annexation of Texas; the manner in which it had been lost lay directly in his way. Mr. Adams's name is not mentioned, and the whole matter is alluded to with a forbearance not to be observed at all in Mr. Clay's letter.