It denotes much labor on the part of the two gentlemen who
have had it in hand, and will be productive of improvement. I should
have liked a bolder course, and not so careful a respect all along, for
what has previously been done. Congress requires, sometimes, to be
instructed, or informed, and not to be copied in its attempts to manage
Indian, affairs.
Every paper brings accounts of removals and appointments under the new
administration; but nothing, so far as I can judge, that promises much,
in this way, of material benefit to Indian affairs. The department at
head-quarters has been, so far as respects fiscal questions, wretchedly
managed, and is over head and ears in debt, and the result of all this
mal-administration is visited on the frontiers, in the bitter want of
means for the agents, sub-agents, and mechanics, and interpreters, who
are obliged to be either suspended, or put on short allowance.
Doubtless, Gen. Jackson, who is a man of high purpose, would remedy this
thing, if the facts were laid before him.
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