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of the laws. The Mayor rejoined briefly, declining to discuss any
point at issue, remarking that the responsibility was with me, a
fact which I had well considered from the first, and had resolved
to bear with me to the end.

The measures which had been set on foot, progressed during
Friday and Saturday, the 30th and 31st October, and reports were
made to me from time to time. From these had no difficulty in
gathering the conviction, that whatever effort might be made by
the military officers to embody the proposed force, the result would
be unsatisfactory and inadequate. This was of course a sufficient,
cause of official embarrassment, and a result entirely at variance
with what I had been led to expect.

Misrepresentation and voluble abuse from the press, together
with the assiduous diffusion of the most erroneous sentiments re-
specting the Executive authority, and the proceeding I had taken,
no doubt, had their effect upon the public mind. There was
moreover and had been for so long a time, a peculiar tolerance of
the lawless element to be subdued; and a species of infatuation
pervading a large portion of the community, which affected or
amounted to, a morbid ignorance of its true character; in conse-
quence of which, the class of citizens from whom military service
was mainly to be expected, exhibited first, indecision, and at last
unwillingness to respond to the call which had been made upon
the community.

I need hardly say, that however a portion of the people, or of
the press found cause to rejoice in this state of things, and its ob-
vious consequences, I was made painfully sensible of a total per-
version of political sentiment, and an indifference to the security
of equal rights, wholly inconsistent with the spirit of our institu-
tions. I had been invited to exert the extreme Executive authori-
ty, in a community notoriously without sufficient or effective mu-
nicipal power for the protection of its citizens against outrage and
violence, and for the execution of its own laws; and when in obe-
dience to my own sense of duty, I assumed the unwelcome task,
I found a complaining people more willing to submit to the griev-
ances which oppressed them, to the lawlessness which disfranchis-
ed them, to the terrors which overawed them, than to rally in their
strength, and vindicate their outraged rights, and insulted honor.
Justly and truly indignant at such a result, 1 resolved to maintain
my own, and pursue the purpose I had undertaken. In this re-
solve I was sustained by a few gallant, earnest, and faithful men,
and by the spirit with which one, at least, of the military officers
was responded to in the district assigned to him. In this case
there was an enrollment of volunteers, prompt, earnest and effec-
tive. And so long as there was but a maniple of true men, will-
ing to stand for their rights and honor, I determined that they
should at least, have the full sanction of what 1 had done, and
my personal interest in the matter until the emergency wast past.