21st.  The St. Louis papers are dressed in mourning, on account of the death of Gen. William Clarke.  Few men have acted a more distinguished part in the Indian history of the country.  He was widely known and respected by the Indians on the prairies, who sent in their delegations to him with all the pomp and pride of so many eastern Rajahs.  Gen. Clarke was, I believe, the second territorial governor of Missouri, an office which he held until it became a state, when Congress provided the office of Superintendent of Indian Affairs for him.  He contributed largely, by his enterprise and knowledge, to the prosperity of the west.  The expedition which he led, in conjunction with Capt.  Meriwether Lewis, across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, in 1805 and 1806, first opened the way to the consideration of its resources and occupancy.  Without that expedition, Oregon would have been a foreign province.

24th.  Letters from Florida indicate the war with the Seminoles to be lingering, without reasonable expectation of bringing it soon to a close.  Etha Emathla, however, the chief of the Tallasees, is daily expected to come in, his children being already arrived, and he has promised to bring in his people.

But what a war of details, which are harassing to the troops, whose action is paralyzed in a maze of swamps and morasses; and how many scenes has it given birth to which are appalling to the heart!  A recent letter from a Mr. T.D.  Peurifoy, Superintendent of the Alachua Mission, describes a most shocking murder in his own family, communicated to him at first by letter:—­

“It informed me,” he says, “that the Indians had murdered my family!  I set out for home, hoping that it might not prove as bad as the letter stated; but, O my God, it is even worse!  My precious children, Corick, Pierce and Elizabeth, were killed and burned up in the house.  My dear wife was stabbed, shot, and stamped, seemingly to death, in the yard.  But after the wretches went to pack up their plunder, she revived and crawled off from the scene of death, to suffer a thousand deaths during the dreadful night which she spent alone by the side of a pond, bleeding at four bullet holes and more than half a dozen stabs—­three deep gashes to the bone on her head and three stabs through the ribs, besides a number of small cuts and bruises.  She is yet living; and O, help me to pray that she may yet live!  My negroes lay dead all about the yard and woods, and my everything else burned to ashes.”

Oct. 1st.  Mr. Palfrey, Editor of the North American Review, requests me (Sept. 20th) to notice Gen. Harrison’s late discourse on the aboriginal history, delivered before the Ohio Historical Society.  The difficulty in all these cares is to steer clear of some objectional theory.  To the General, the Delawares have appeared to play the key-note.  But it has not fallen to his lot, while bearing a distinguished part in Indian affairs in the west, to examine their ancient history with much attention.