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ries, something upon which the judgment can rest. But now we can only meet these general charges by as broad and general denials, and support such denials by calling the attention of the Senate to what the Secretary has done. To this, without reading copious extracts from the documents on your files, I shall briefly advert.

Soon after he entered upon the duties of his office, he received from Gen. Jessup intelligence that the war in Florida was over, unless renewed by the imprudence of the inhabitants. This hope proved like similar hopes previously indulged-illusory. In the August following, propositions were again made by several of the chiefs for peace; but the Secretary, as the correspondence and public documents abundantly show, was not turned aside for a moment from his purpose of terminating the war in the campaign of 1837-38, if a strong force, abundant supplies, munitions promptly furnished, and all the facilities for prosecuting the campaign with vigor and effect, could accomplish the object. As early as September, arrangements had been made for six hundred volunteers from Tennessee, six hundred from Louisiana, six hundred from Missouri, with three hundred riflemen, spies, and an Indian force, to co-operate with the Florida militia, and the strong regular corps of artillery, infantry, and dragoons, already at the disposal of the commanding General.

Although the Secretary had always manifested

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the strongest desire to spare the further effusion of blood, and to save that deluded, faithless and cruel people from extermination, he still declared, from the first, that his only hope was in an active and vigorous prosecution of the war. When the Cherokee delegation went to Florida, with the avowed purpose of persuading the Seminoles to the treaty terms, General Jessup was expressly advised that the mission was not to delay for a moment military operations. There was, on the part of the Secretary, no procrastination, no delay. Munitions of war were transmitted in season; supplies were forwarded in abundance, and the troops were in the field, ready for active operations, at the time proposed. General Jessup was at the head of about ten thousand men, and his force was certainly sufficiently diversified in character. There were regulars and militia, artillery, infantry, dragoons, marines, and riflemen, spies, and Indians; and with this strong, and as was at that time supposed, wellappointed force, the General commenced his campaign, to the event of which the country looked with hope and confidence. He attempted, as the Senator from South Carolina would express it, to drag the territory as with a net; and with what success? Our hopes withered, and our hearts sickened at the result. The commanding General, I believe, put forth all his energies, and his troops furnished to him no ground of complaint; but he shared the fate of his predecessors. The foe was neither caught,

conquered, nor killed. I institute no comparisons between the different Generals who have commanded in Florida. They have been alike triumphant whenever they have met the foe, and alike unsuccessful in expelling him from the country. These failures are, and will continue to be, attributed to different causes. I find the paramount obstacles in the climate, the nature of the country and the character of the enemy; and my belief is that unless you make Florida passable in every direction, and can march a column extending from the gulf on the one side to the ocean on the other, this process of sweeping the Territory, as with a net, must prove fruitless. It is a very easy thing to discourse here of sweeping a country, embracing forty-five thousand square miles, situated in the tropical regions, with a climate genial to the savage, but deadly to the white man-portions of it, still unexplored, abounding in provisions suited to the habits of the Indian, and furnishing secure retreats, known and accessible to him alone-but to do it is an impossibility. Experience proves it to be so; it has been tried again and again, with regular troops, and militia, with infantry, with mounted men, with Indians, and with one uniform result. Twenty thousand men, for such a purpose, in the then state of the Territory, would have been no more effectual than five hundred. But gentlemen will perceive, by glancing at the face of the country, as delineated on this map, that although all has not been accomplished,

much has been done to make the provisions of the bill under consideration operative and effectual. You will observe that our troops, at different times, under the different Generals, in various columns, and in almost every direction, have marched the entire length of the peninsula, from Okeefenoke Swamp to the Big-water, at the head of the Everglades; but while they were passing down, the Indian was stealthily threading his way up; and while they were beating up the marshes, and searching for his trail in the region of Kissimmee river, murder and rapine announced his presence in the fertile and settled Alachua country. At the close of 1838, such had been the results. The Secretary of War had testèd the inefficiency of mounted men-they could not operate in that country; the enormous expense of the militia had been abundantly demonstrated, and the total failure of the whole was painfully obvious. Under these circumstances what were the duties of the head of the Department? This is a question which I shall answer only by stating, further, what was his action, and leave the country to judge of its propriety. When Gen. Jessup was permitted to return to his appropriate staff duties in this city, all the troops which could be spared from our exposed and unsettled frontiers in other quarters, were left in the Territory under the command of that vigilant, energetic, and able officer, General Taylor.

In prosecuting any campaign, it is well known

that much must, of necessity, be left to the judgment and military genius of the commander, to be exercised on the spot. In October, 1838, the Secretary gave Gen. Taylor general instructions as to the manner in which the succeeding campaign should be conducted. In those instructions the protection of Middle Florida against the incursions of the Seminoles was made the first object. To attain this, the establishment of an interior and exterior line of posts, to extend across the peninsula, from the Gulf to the Ocean, was recommended. These and various other suggestions contained in the letter of the Secretary, of October 8th, 1838, formed the basis of Gen. Taylor's instructions for that campaign. Unfortunately, the great and first object of the Secretary was not secured, and the exposure encountered, and the immense labor performed by the columns of the army, under the direction of Gen. Taylor and Col. Davenport, were crowned with no better success than that which had attended similar attempts before. In the mean time the wisdom of Congress interposed. Military operations were suspended, and negotiations substituted in their place; not upon any suggestions of the Secretary, be it remembered, but against his known and expressed opinions. The result of the negotiation is written in blood. The obligations of the treaty were not regarded for a moment; they were not intended to be observed on the part of the Indians at the time of its execution, as is proved by the burnings, robbe

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