The effect on my mind
was a sense of literary humility, and a desire to prove myself in any
future attempts of the kind in some measure worthy of them. Literary
candidates are not ever, perhaps, so much pleased or gratified by those
who render them exact justice, of which there is always some notion, as
by warm, liberal, or high-minded thoughts and commendations, which are
incentives to future labors.
_May 22d_.--General Cass had, before leaving Detroit, offered me the
situation of Secretary to the Commissioners appointed to confer with the
Indians at Chicago in the summer of 1821, with a view, primarily, to the
interesting and circuitous journey which it was his intention to make,
in order to reach the place of meeting. This offer, as the time drew on,
he now put in the shape of a letter, which I determined at once to
accept, and made my arrangements to leave the city without loss of time.
It was proposed to be at Detroit the 1st of July. The tour would lie
through the valleys of the Miami of the lakes, and the Wabash, which
interlock at the Fort Wayne summit; then across the Grand Prairie of the
Illinois to St.
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