due weight to the crudities of the daily press, and as to the press of this country in particular, a good portion of the hostility it has manifested to myself, is so plainly stamped with its origin, that it never gave me any other uneasiness, than that which belongs to the certainty that it must be backed by a strong public opinion, or men of this description would never have presumed to utter what they have. The information on which I act is derived from sources entitled to more respect than the declamations of the press. I confess I have come to this decision with reluctance, for I had hoped to be useful in my generation, and to have yet done something which might have identified my name with those who are to come after me. But it has been ordered differently. I have never been very sanguine as to the immortality of what I have written, a very short period having always sufficed for my ambition; but I am not ashamed to avow, that I have felt a severe mortification that I am to break down on the question of distinctive American thought. Were it a matter of more than feeling, I trust I should be among the last to desert my post. But the democracy of this country is in every sense strong enough to protect itself. Here, the democrat is the conservative, and, thank God, he has something worth preserving. I believe he knows it, and that he will prove true to himself. I confess I have no great fears of our modern aristocracy, which is wanting in more of chivalry than the accolade.

Had I not been dragged before you rudely, through the persevering hostility of one or two of the journals, this duty to myself would have been silently performed. With the ex, ception of the extract of the letter published by Mr. Morse, this is the only instance, during the many years that we have stood to each other in the relations of author and reader, in which I have ever had occasion to trouble you, either directly or indirectly, with any thing personal to

myself, and I trust to your kindness to excuse the step I have now taken. What has here been said, has been said frankly, and I hope with a suitable simplicity. So far as you have been indulgent to me, and no one feels its extent more than myself, I thank you with deep sincerity; so far as I stand opposed to that class among you which forms the public of a writer, on points that, however much in error, I honestly believe to be of vital importance to the well being and dignity of the human race, I can only lament that we are separated by so wide a barrier as to render further communion, under our old relations, mutually unsatisfactory.

J. FENIMORE-COOPER.

POSTSCRIPT.

THIS letter was already written and sent to press, as mentioned in the introductory notice, when the condition. of trade caused the bookseller to hesitate about publishing. The writer was also averse to appear before the public at a moment so gloomy, with matter that was necessarily of a personal nature. With this double motive, the pamphlet has been kept back till now.

Hasty writing and hasty printing (for the work was pushed while it was actually proceeding) have occasioned a few inadvertences of style, most of which will be attributed by the reader to their true causes. There are, however, one or two of these mistakes that call for correction. "Grateful for the compliment," should be "gratified by the compliment"-page 15, line 22.

By insinuating that the foreigners who have attacked the writer in this country, were guilty of ingratitude to the latter, there is no intention of identifying the interests of the two; the idea has been imperfectly expressed. It was meant to say that the writer has been thus assailed by these men, because he has presumed to defend the interests of his native land against those of their own.

The delay in publishing induced the writer to destroy more than half of what he had originally written, in order

to illustrate his position by events of more notorious and recent occurrence, such as those connected with the removal of the deposites.

Since the letter has been printed, the writer has received a communication from General Lafayette, on the subject of the finance controversy. In alluding to Mr. Rives, there was a delicacy of saying more than was already public, but it is due to that gentleman now to say, that General Lafayette, in his name, has informed the French people that Mr. Rives did not say what M. Perier attributed to him. The writer was privy to the fact that Mr. Rives authorized General Lafayette, after some delay, to say this much in the chambers, and that it was not done on account of the illness and subsequent death of M. Perier. But the point on which Mr. Rives and the writer are at issue, is that the former owed it to the country not to permit any foreign minister to quote him against the action of its system, without promptly and effectually causing it to be contradicted. General Lafayette was merely authorized to do that which the writer thinks Mr. Rives should have taken care was done with great promptitude. In consequence of the delay or indecision of Mr. Rives, this country presented the singular spectacle of its secretary of state (Mr. Livingston) calling upon all the governors for facts to disprove the statements of the Revue Britannique, in the interests of free institutions, while the American minister at Paris was openly quoted by the French premier, in the chamber of deputies, as giving an opinion directly on the other side of the question!

The tone of many Americans in Europe was often the subject of discussion between General Lafayette and the writer. The latter knew that some of his countrymen were among the most bitter deriders of the venerable patriot when in reverses, and that most of these men crowded about him in the hour of his triumph, in a way

even to exclude his true friends. While this country has manifested, at home, its attachment to the venerable patriot, it has not always respected his feelings, or observed that delicacy which was due to his eminent and disinterested services. The manner in which he has been spoken of in the memoirs of some of his revolutionary contemporaries might have been spared, for, while it could do no good, it has furnished his enemies with materials of attack. There are two sides to every question. The opinion of Mr. Gouverneur Morris is known, and it may be well now to hear what can be said in answer. The following is an extract from General Lafayette's last letter to the writer. It is scarcely necessary to say that the allusion is to Mr.

Morris:

"I have read the memoirs of a distinguished statesman, to whose memory I am bound by the seal of an early friendship, and an affectionate gratitude for the great services he rendered in the most dangerous times to my wife and children; yet I cannot deny that his communications with the royal family, representing me as an ultrademocrat and republican, even for the meridian of the United States, were among the numerous causes which encouraged them in their opposition to my advice and to the side of public opinion. For my part, I have, in the course of my long life, ever experienced that distance, instead of relaxing, does enliven and brace my sentiments of American pride."

It is time that this country took more care that its public agents abroad do not at least misrepresent public opinion at home. Neutrality is a duty, but it is not neutrality to compromise a principle when there is a just occasion to speak; nor is it neutrality for an agent of this country to be "howling against reform," as the conduct of one was described to the writer by a distinguished English liberal -not a whig. This country owes it to itself to strip the