Gen. Eaton, the former incumbent, goes out as minister to Spain.  The most important aspect is, perhaps, that we shall have a new governor, under whose rule we shall be happy, if he does not rashly derange Indian affairs in a too eager zeal to mend them.  For a long and eventful era Gen. Cass has presided as an umpire between the Indian tribes and the citizens.  His force and urbanity of character have equally inspired the respect of both.  He has equally secured the confidence of every class of citizens in a wise civil administration of affairs.  He has carried the territory from a state of war and desolation, which it presented at the close of 1815, when the whole population was less than three thousand souls, to a state of sound prosperity, which, in a few years, will develop resources that must class us one of the first of the Lake States.

July 26th.  The Rev. Absalom Peters, Sec.  Home Miss.  Society, holds out the prospect of bringing our remote position, at the foot of Lake Superior, within the pale of the operations of that society.  He views and describes a graduate of Dartmouth College, who may, probably, be induced to venture himself on this frontier.  He asks:  “Please to say whether you desire such a man as I have described?  Will it be best for him to go this fall, or wait until next spring?  How much can you raise for his support?  How much will be necessary to sustain him and his family with suitable economy?  What will be his peculiar trials?”

Aug. 23d.  It is announced that Mr. Geo. B. Porter, of Lancaster, Penn., is to be the new governor.

Oct. 4th.  The last mail brings me a letter from an early and esteemed friend, a Prof. in the Med.  Col. at New York, offering me congratulations on the moral stand recently taken by me.  Approvals, indeed, of this act reach me from many quarters.  The way seemed open, with very little exertion on my part, to run a political course.  But my impressions were averse to it.  There is so much of independent honest opinion to be offered up by politicians—­such continual calls to forsake the right for the expedient—­such large sacrifices to be made in various ways to the god of public opinion, that a political career is rather startling to a quiet, unambitious, home-loving individual like myself, one, too, who is largely interested in other studies and pursuits, the rewards of which are not, indeed, very prompt, very sure, nor very full; but they are fraught with gratifications of a more enduring kind, and furnish aliment to moral conceptions which exalt and purify the soul.