NATHAN HALE THE MARTYR SPY

(Date missiug.)

Your two favours of May 14th & June 8th I received soon after the date of the last. They were no less pleasing than they were unexpected. The first gave me concern where it informed me of your impared State of health but it was more than removed when I found you was recovering by the last, I cannot convey to you the grateful emotions excited by the tender concern you express for me when in danger. The risque I had run was not trifling-My escape demanded the most heartfelt gratitude.

Your Journey to Weathersfield-an opportunity of seeing your friends & particularly Mrs. Buck must have been (as far as your health would admit) agreeable. I am always glad to hear from Mr. Tallmadge, but more so to see him, which, thank God I have now the happiness frequently to do.

LETTERS OF GEN. WILLIAM SMALLWOOD

Camp Middlebrook, N. J., Jan. 1, 1779. I have since rejoined the army at this Post, obtained an order from his Excellency General Washington for Ten Thousand Dollars to be advanced to such of our Nine months' men as may enlist our soldiery are generally Healthy, warm, and well clad & I hope in a few days will be comfortably hutted, tho' they have suffered extremely in the late snowstorms and severe weather when on the March over the Mountains from the Neighborhood of New Windsor and Fort Clinton, near which they had been posted to guard the passes over the Mountains to prevent the desertion, cover the route and escort of Burgoyne's Army which may Account for their late arrival and being later in hutting than the other troops at this post.

DANIEL BOONE TO MR. "JACUB COHNS"

An interesting letter from this illiterate though great man; the letter is in reference to surveying lands belonging to Mr. Cohen, in which he says:

April 28, 1784.

I will Bee acountable for any money put into his hands inless kild by Indians: the hale a mount I think it 22£. 81-2 on your Land Lyes

on Licking River on the South Side a bout 50 Miles from the ohigho by water and a bout 20 by land Large boats may Come up to your Doore Sir pleas send 3 or 4 quire of paper by the bearer Samuel

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Grant, if he will bring it.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS TO W. B. BARNEY

Regretting his inability to attend the meeting of the Society of the Cincinnati of Maryland, in commemoration of the death of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

Washington, Nov. 19, 1832.

I have received in duplicate since Saturday last, your note as Secretary of the Cincinnati Society of Maryland, dated on the 16th inst. and inviting my attendance at the house of the President of the Society, General Smith, to join with them the funeral procession of the illustrious Patriot, till now the last surviving Signer of the Great Charter of Mankind, the Declaration of Independence. I had been to my great regret, under the necessity of declining a similar invitation with which I had been honored by the City Council of Baltimore. In acknowledging now the receipt of your note I have to add to the repeated expression of that regret, my sensibility to the kindness of the Society, in tendering to me the opportunity of uniting with them, in the last tribute of respect to the mortal remains of their associate in the cause to which his and their Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honors were alike devoted," &c.

DAVID CROCKETT TO CHARLES SHULTZ

An interesting political letter denouncing General Jackson, in which he says:

Washington, Dec. 25, 1834.

The time has Come that men is expected to be transferable and as negotiable as a promisary note of hand, in these days of Glory andJackson, reform & Co.-Little Vann Sits in his Chair and looks as sly as a red fox, and I have no doubt but that he thinks Andrew Jackson has full power to transfer, the people of these United States at his will, and I am truly afraed that a majority of the free citizans of these united States will submit to it and say Amen, Jackson done it, and is right. If we judge by the past we can nake no other calculations. I have almost given up the Ship as lost; I have gone so far as to declare that if he, martin vanburen, is elected that I will leave the united States-for I never will live under his Kingdom: before I will submit to his Govern

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ment I will go to the wildes of Texas-I will consider that government a paradise to what this will be Our Republican Government has dwindled almost into insignificancy, our bosted land of liberty have almost Bowed to the Yoke of Bondage * there is more Slaves in New York and Pennsylvania than there is in Virginia and South Carolina, and they are the meanest kind of Slaves," &c. &c.

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HORACE GREELEY TO W. E. ROBINSON

He gives his opinion of Fourth of July orations.

"They are mainly gas.'

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Washington, June 10, 1850.

I'll tell you what I consider the Progressive ideas of our time: I. Land Reform. The right of every man to land so long as there is any which has no private owner, and a careful foresight that there shall be such by restricting the area of available land which any person may henceforth acquire. II. Labor Reform, a legal definition and termination of a day's work, so that a man who hires by the day, week, month or year, may know just how long he is to work, and a positive prohibition of working persons under eighteen years of age beyond ten hours per day, even with their own consent. 3. Law Reform. The simplification of all legal processes and papers so as to render justice cheaply, prompt and easily accessible to all. 4. Protection to Labor. so that our country shall supply her own wants and employ her own hands at such prices as our institutions require and justify, not subjecting a part to a baneful competition with the-labor of Europe, but calling the laborers here to share with us the blessings of Freedom and Plenty. 5th Cheap Postage, no franking privilege, but the widest possible diffusion of the benefits or the inexpensive diffusion of Truth and thought."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO GOV. O. P. MORTON

An important unpublished historical war letter, in relation to arms and conduct of the War. A good specimen of the President's clearsightedness and homely common sense. He once characterized Morton as "a good fellow, but the skeeredest man I know." Morton having requested reinforcements for Louisville, Ky., the President has this to say:

Executive Mansion, Washington, Sept. 29, 1861.

As to Kentucky, you do not estimate that State as more important than I do, but I am compelled to watch all points: while I write this,

I am if not in range, at least in hearing of cannon shot, from an army of enemies more than a hundred thousand strong; I do not expect them to capture the city; but know they would, if I were to send the men and arms from here to defend Louisville, of which there is not a single hostile armed soldier within forty miles, nor any force known to be moving upon it from any distance. It is true the army in our front may make a half circle around southward, and move on Louisville, but when they do we will make a half circle around the northward, and meet them, and in the meantime we will get up what forces we can from other sources also to meet them. I hope Zollikoffer has left Cumberland Gap (though I fear he has not) because if he has, I rather infer he did it because of his dread of Camp Dick Robinson, reinforced from Cincinnati, moving on him, than because of his intention to move on Louisville. But if he does go around and reinforce Buckner, let Dick Robinson come around and reinforce Sherman, and the thing is substantially as it was when Zollikoffer left Cumberland Gap. I state this as an illustration, for in fact, I think if the Gap is left open to us, Dick Robinson should take it and hold it, while Indiana and the vicinity of Louisville in Kentucky can reinforce Sherman faster than Zollikoffer can Buckner.

You requested that Lt. Col. Wood of the Army should be appointed a Brigadier General; I will only say that very formidable objection has been made to this from Indiana.

Yours, A. LINCOLN.

LETTERS OF THOREAU, WITH JOHN BURROUGHS' CHARACTERIZATION

OF HIM.

The extracts here given depict the eminent New England naturalist by the equally eminent New York naturalist.

Doubtless the wildest man New England has turned out since the red aborigines vacated her territory (and) a man in whom the Indian re-appeared on the plane of taste and morals .. His whole life was a search for the wild, not only in nature, but in literature, in life and in morals. Thoreau was of French extraction and every drop of his blood seems to have turned toward the aboriginal as the French blood has so often done in other ways in this country. He envied the Indian, he coveted his knowledge, his arts, his wood craft . . . In his 'Week' he complains that the poetry is only white man's poetry. In his journal, parts of which have been published under the title of 'Early Spring in Massachusetts,' he makes a long entry about arrow-heads . .

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His genius itself is arrow-like and typical of the wild weapon he so loved . Indeed Thoreau was a kind of Emersonian or transcendental red-man going about with a pocket glass . . . he was always searching for something he did not find. This search of his for the transcendental, the unfindable, the wild that will not be caught he has set forth in a beautiful parable in 'Walden'

The Thoreau letters which we quote herewith amply justify Burroughs, phrase "A transcendental wild man."

HENRY D. THOREAU TO H. G. O. BLAKE

A most characteristic letter emphasizing his idealism and love of nature.
Thoreau begins his letter with a severe criticism of the newspapers:

Concord, May 28, 1850.

"I never found any contentment in the life which the newspapers record anything of more value than the cent which they cost. Contentment in being covered with dust an inch deep! We who walk the streets and hold time together are but the refuse of ourselves and that life is for the shells of us—of our body and our mind-a thoroughly scurvy life. It is coffee made of coffee-grounds, the twentieth time, which was only coffee the first time-while the living water leaps and sparkles by our doors. I know some who as their charity give their coffee-grounds to the poor! We demanding news, and putting up with such news! Is it a new convenience, or a new accident, or rather a new perception of the truth that we want.'

About answering letters he says humorously:

"I wonder that you think so much about it, for not writing is the most like writing in my case of anything I know."

Thoreau then proceeds to moralize on dreams, ending with

"so do the frogs dream. Would that I knew what. I have never found out whether they are awake or asleep-whether it is day or night with them."

Thoreau's famous letter to his sister Sophia, describing Emerson's quarters on board the Washington Irving packet on his first trip to Europe. Concord, October 24, 1847.

I went to Boston the 5th of this month to see Mr. Emerson off to Europe. He sailed in the Washington Irving packet ship-Mr. E's