A council was recently held to consult in relation to the laws to be adopted by the united nation in their present country, there being some essential differences between the code by which that portion of the nation recently emigrated from the east had been governed, and the laws adopted by the old settlers in the west. Each party contended for the adoption of its own code, and neither would concede to the other, and the council finally broke up without being able to come to any understanding on the subject. On his way from this council, Ridge was murdered. Ridge, although a recent emigrant, we understand agreed with the old settlers in regard to the adoption of their laws, while Ross contended for those of the old nation east.
After the murder of Ridge, General Arbuckle, the commander of the United States forces on this frontier, sent a detachment of dragoons to Ross, with a request that he would come to the garrison, who declined unless he could be allowed to bring with him some six or seven hundred of his armed partisans, and take them into the garrison with him. This, of course, could not be allowed, and so the detachment returned to the garrison, and after that the murders subsequent to that of Ridge were committed. One of them was perpetrated within the bounds of Washington County, in this State, and we hope the necessary steps will be taken by our authorities to secure and bring to trial the murderer, and thus preserve inviolate the jurisdiction of our State over her own soil. “We learn that a council was called of the whole nation, to be held yesterday, with a view of settling the existing difficulties, and we hope it may result in establishing peace among them.”
3d. I received a letter introducing Mr. and Mrs. Kane, of Albany. We love an agreeable surprise. I recognized in Mrs. K. the daughter of an old friend—a most lady-like, agreeable, and talented woman; and deemed my time agreeably devoted in showing my visitors the curiosities of the island.
6th. The business of my superintendency calls me to Detroit. Fiscal questions, the employment of special agents, the collection of treasury drafts, the payment of annuities; these are some of the constant cares, full of responsibilities, which call for incessant vigilance. I reached the city in the steamer “Gen. Wayne,” at 8 o’clock, in the morning.
8th. John A. Bell, and Sand Watie, Cherokee chiefs, publish in the Arkansas Gazette, an appeal to public justice, on the murder of the Ridges and Boudinot, which took place on the 22d of June previous.
13th. Rev. Mr. Duffield informs me of some geological antiquities, reported to have been recently discovered in Ohio, made in the course of the excavations on the line of the canal, between Cleaveland and Beaver.
15th. The Board of Regents of the University of Michigan inform me, by their secretary, of my having been placed on a committee, as chairman, to report “such amendments to the organic law of the University, as they shall deem essential, with a view to their presentation to the next legislature.”