bill provided that, whenever there was more than four millions on deposit, the money so hoarded should be used in the purchase of stock.

The merits of this bill of Mr. Wright were very fully discussed by both sides.

Mr. Webster presented his views on the thirty-first of January. He was very severe on the remark of the President, that the Government should provide a sound currency for its own use, and leave the rest to the States and the people. He said, of all Governments, the present Administration had least excuse for withdrawing its care from the currency, for it is to its interference that the country owes its present disasters. He was for having one currency, and that a good one, both for the people and the Government. In the course of his remarks he said: "We are in danger of being over whelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold or silver; no, Sir, representing nothing but BROKEN PROMISES, BAD FAITH, BANKRUPT CORPORATIONS, CHEATED CREDITORS, and a RUINED PEOPLE."

--

Mr. Hubbard, of New Hampshire, defended the bill, and was followed by Mr. Talmadge, of New York, in opposition to it.

Mr. Rives, of Virginia, was also opposed to it. In assailing the bill, he defended himself from the imputation of being the friend of the banks, and of change of party. He said "he stood now where he stood then," when he voted with those whom he now opposed.

Mr. Webster made a second argument against the bill, much longer, and it was thought much abler than his first.

Mr. Calhoun spoke in support of the bill. He was opposed to Mr. Rives's substitute, and was severe in his

remarks on that member's course on the subject of the safe keeping of the public money.

Mr. Clay spoke against the bill, on the nineteenth of February, 1838.

The bill finally passed, on the twenty-sixth of March, by twenty-seven votes to twenty-five.

In the discussion on the sub-treasury bill, much feeling was called forth in the Senate, and there was more of personality and want of courtesy than was usual in that body. Mr. Calhoun, having then quitted those with whom he had previously associated, first exposed himself to the charge of inconsistency. In Mr. Webster's second speech, while answering the charge of a change of policy of himself and others, of Massachusetts, on the subject of the tariff, he was particularly severe on Mr. Calhoun for his unsteady, wavering course in politics. Mr. Calhoun replied to this, after having spoken twice before in the same debate, and taunted Mr. Webster in turn, not merely on his change of policy from free trade to protec tion, but hinted at his course respecting the war. this Mr. Webster made an indignant reply on the spot, defying Mr. Calhoun to point out any part of his course in which he was not faithful to the country and to the Union. He had not thought the embargo a wise measure, but he had done nothing to oppose the war.

Το

Judge White, of Tennessee, was another of the members of the Senate who spoke against the sub-treasury scheme.

The death of Mr. Cilley, of New Hampshire, in a duel with Mr. Graves, of Kentucky, both members of the House of Representatives, caused a bill to be introduced, at this session, against duelling, by which the punishment of death is inflicted on all concerned in a duel in which death ensues; and confinement in the peniten

tiary, from five to ten years, on all concerned in giving or receiving a challenge; and from three to seven years for assault, defamation, or abuse, for refusing a challenge.

There was, at this time, a great riot in Philadelphia, in consequence of lectures delivered at a place called Pennsylvania Hall, on the subject of abolition, by Garrison and others. The mob first attacked the building with stones and other missiles, and then dispersed; but collecting again the next day, in spite of all the efforts of the Mayor and the civil authorities, they set fire to the building, and it was destroyed. Besides the opposition of the more intelligent and respectable portion of the community against the abolitionists, it is believed that the great mass of the laboring Irish were prejudiced against the colored population, who are regarded as their rivals as day-laborers and domestics. The firemen, with their accustomed alacrity, hastened to the fire, but were not permitted by the mob to use their engines.

Further disturbances on the Northern frontier continued to take place. The British steamer Sir Robert Peel, while in the American waters, was attacked and destroyed by a party of armed men from the American side; and the American steamer Telegraph, at Brockville, in Upper Canada, was also destroyed. These acts formed subjects of mutual complaint and explanation to the two Governments.

In the House of Representatives, the sub-treasury bill was rejected on the engrossment - the twenty-fifth of June by one hundred and twenty-five votes to one hundred and eleven; and the next day the motion. to reconsider the vote of rejection was negatived by two hundred and two votes to twenty-one.

A substitute for the sub-treasury bill was offered, in

the Senate, by Mr. Buchanan, which provided for making special deposits of the public money in banks; which was discussed by members on both sides, and was finally rejected.

Another bill was then introduced by Mr. Wright, which removed all the restrictions in the previous bills, and left the Secretary of the Treasury at liberty to select what banks he pleased as depositories of the public money. It passed the Senate by twenty-seven votes to twenty-two, seemingly by a strict party vote. In the House it was carried by a large majority.

On the seventh of July, Mr. Howard, from the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the House of Representatives, made a report on the relations between the United States and Mexico; to which Committee several messages of the President, and other documents, had been referred.

After an historical review of the causes of complaint by the United States against Mexico, and the course pursued by the Administration of the former, the report thus concludes:

"They will, therefore, only express a hope that the Government of Mexico is at last influenced by a more friendly spirit towards the United States than that which has characterized its deportment for many years past; and that it will approach the negotiation of the proposed convention with such a temper, and upon such terms, that the President of the United States can resume, permanently, the exercise of those powers which he had heretofore found insufficient to protect the honor of the Government, and the rights of the people of the United States."

On the ninth of July Congress adjourned, having, in a session of more than seven months, done little more. VOL. IV.-22

than discuss the subjects of finance and currency, without adopting any scheme for the purpose of supplying the country with a sound circulation, or the nation with a safe, practical system of finance. The only public measures of any importance were an act for increasing the military establishment, by an addition to the infantry, and engineers, military and topographical, pursuant to the recommendation from the President; with one to authorise commissioners to make inquiry into the subject of steam boilers, and to make experiments to test the usefulness of inventions to improve and render safe those boilers; and one to modify the last clause in the deposit act of June, 1836, by which modification, the issuing of any note under five dollars before October, 1838, was no disqualification for any bank to be used by the Secretary of the Treasury as a depository of the public money; but the issuing of any note under that denomination was to disqualify after that date.

The banks had now agreed to resume cash payments in August, and business, in commerce and manufactures, was gradually resuming its accustomed channels; but the Administration seemed not to have regained much, if any, of its lost popularity. The disturbances in Canada were looked to with anxiety, as threatening the peace of the United States, in consequence of the collisions that were so likely to take place between the British authorities in Canada and the people of the United States near the border, from their actual or supposed sympathy with the Canadian insurgents.

During this session of Congress, the war with the Florida Indians was at length brought to a close, and particulars of its termination were detailed in a letter from General Jessup to the Secretary of War, which the President, in conformity with a resolution of the Senate,