than art can produce. All that those pictures require is, that you rub from them the stain of this unmerited penalty; and that, they do not entreat, but demand at our hands. He did not say illegal penalty, but unjust and unmerited penalty. The bill did not say either illegal, or unjust, or unmerited penalty, in language; but its passage will say a penalty which his country, and not its faithful officer, should bear. He incurred it by the performance of acts necessary for the defense of that country, at a period of imminent peril; and the simple repayment of the money, in the manner proposed by the bill, will say to him, and to all who may come after him, and be charged with their country's defense in time of war, that if the performance of their responsible duties shall bring upon them legal penalties, neither their private fortunes nor their hard-earned reputations shall suffer in consequence; but that such penalties shall be upon the country they faithfully serve, not upon its faithful servants.

Does this bill, in its present form, propose to say more than this? Not one word. It does not say that the law was not technically violated; that the penalty was not legally imposed; or that the judge was not honest in his proceedings but simply that the General acted as, in his conscience, he believed it was his duty to act; that he acted wisely for the object he had in view the defense of an important and exposed section of the country against a powerful invading enemy; and that any penalties incurred by him, in the proper discharge of that responsible service, should be paid by the public treasury, and not by himself. Are not all ready to say this much in reference to transactions. upon which the judgment of the country has been distinctly known, and known to be entirely favorable to the General, for a period of almost thirty years? Shall we not, then, pass this bill in its original form; and thus simply pay back this money and the interest, and avoid all these technical questions, upon which no Senator, as a mere lawyer, may desire now to pass?

(Being part of the speech delivered in the United States Senate, May 18, 1842.)

Chinese Mission.

By THOMAS H. BENTON, of North Carolina.

(Born 1782, died 1858.)

HAT there is no necessity for a treaty with China is proved by the fact that our trade with that country has been going on well without one for a century or two, and is now growing and increasing constantly. It is a trade conducted on the simple and elementary principle of "here is one" and "there is the other "- all ready-money, and hard money, or good products no credit system, no paper money. For a long time this trade took nothing but silver dollars. At present it is taking some other articles, and especially a goodly quantity of Missouri lead. This has taken place without a treaty, and without an agent at forty thousand dollars expense. All things are going on well between us and the Chinese. Our relations are purely commercial, conducted on the simplest principles of trade, and unconnected with political views. China has no political connection with us. She is not within the system, or circle, of American policy. She can have no designs upon us, or views in relation to us; and we have no need of a Minister to watch and observe her conduct. Politically and commercially the mission is useless. By the Constitution, all the Ministers are to be appointed by the Senate; but this Minister to China is to be called an agent, and sent out by the President without the consent of the Senate; and thus, by imposing a false name upon the Minister, defraud the Senate of their control over the appointment. The enormity of the sum shows that the mission is to be more expensive than any one ever sent from the United States; and that it is to be one of the first grade, or of a higher grade than any known in our country. Nine thousand dollars per annum, and the same for an outfit, is the highest compensation known to our service; yet this forty thousand dollar mission may double that amount, and still the Minister be only called an agent, for the purpose of cheating the Senate out of its control over the appointment. The bill is fraudulent in relation to the compensation to be given to this ambassadorial agent. No sum is fixed, but he is to take what he pleases for himself and his suite. He and they are to help themselves; and, from the amount allowed, they may help

themselves liberally. In all other cases, salaries and compensations are fixed by law, and graduated by time; here there is no limit of either money or time. This mission goes by the job-forty thousand dollars for the job without regard to time or cost. A summer's work or a year's work, it is all the same thing: it is a job, and is evidently intended to enable a gentleman, who loves to travel in Europe and Asia, to extend his travels to the Celestial Empire at the expense of the United States, and to write a book. The settlement of the accounts is a fraud upon the treasury. In all cases of foreign missions, except where secret services are to be performed, and spies and informers to be dealt with, the accounts are settled at the Treasury Department, by the proper accounting officers; when secret services are to be covered, the fund out of which they are paid is then called the contingent foreign intercourse fund; and are settled at the State Department, upon a simple certificate from the President, that the money has been applied according to its intention. It was in this way that the notorious John Henry obtained his fifty thousand dollars during the late war; and that various other sums have been paid out to secret agents at different times. To this I do not object. Every government, in its foreign intercourse, must have recourse to agents, and have the benefit of some services, which would be defeated if made public; and which must, therefore, be veiled in secrecy, and paid for privately. This must happen in all governments; but not so in this case of the Chinese mission. Here, secrecy is intended for what our own Minister, his secretary, and his whole suite, are to receive. Not only what they may give in bribes to Chinese, but what they take in pay to themselves, is to be a secret. All is secret and irresponsible! And it will not do to assimilate this mission to the oldest government in the world, to the anomalous and anonymous missions to revolutionary countries. Such an analogy has been attempted in defense of this mission, and South American examples cited; but the cases are not analogous. Informal agencies, with secret objects, are proper to revolutionary governments; but here is to be a public mission, and an imposing one - the grandest ever sent out from the United States. To attempt to assimilate such a mission to a John Henry case, or to a South American agency, is absurd and impudent; and is a fraud upon the system of accountability to which all our missions are subjected.

The sum proposed is the same that is in the act of 1790, upon which the bill is framed. That act appropriated forty thousand dollars; but for what? For one mission? One man? One agent? One by himself, alone? No. Not at all. That appropriation of 1790 was for all the missions of the yearof every kind public as well as secret; the forty thousand dollars in this bill is for one man. The whole diplomatic appropriation in the time of Washington

is now to be given to one man; and it is known pretty well who it is to be. Forty thousand dollars to enable one of our citizens to get to Pekin and to bump his head nineteen times on the ground, to get the privilege of standing up in the presence of his majesty of the Celestial Empire. And this is our work in the last night of this Congress. It is now midnight; and, like the midnight which preceded the departure of the elder Adams from the Government, the whole time is spent in making and filling offices. Providing for favorites and feeding out of the public crib is the only work to those whose brief reign is drawing to a close, and who have been already compelled by public sentiment to undo a part of their work. The bankrupt act is repealed by the Congress that made it; the distribution act has shared the same fate; and if they had another session to sit, the mandamus act against the States, the habeas corpus against the States, this Chinese mission, and all the other acts would be undone. It would be the true realization of the story of the queen who unraveled at night the web that she wove during the day. As it is, enough has been done, and undone, to characterize this Congress to entitle it to the name of Ulysses' wife - not because (like the virtuous Penelope) įt resisted seduction,- but because, like her, its own hands unraveled its own work.

(Being part of a speech delivered in the United States Senate in 1843.)