1822.  At length Congress passed an act, which left Mr. Calhoun free to carry out his intentions respecting me, by the creation of a separate Indian agency for Florida.  This enabled him to transfer one of the western agencies, namely, at Vincennes, Indiana, where the Indian business had ceased, to the foot of the basin of Lake Superior, at the ancient French village of Sault de Ste. Marie, Michigan.  Had not this act passed, it would have been necessary to transfer this agency to Florida, for which Mr. Gad Humphreys was the recognized appointee.  Mr. Monroe immediately sent in my nomination for this old agency to the Senate, by whom it was favorably acted on the 8th of May.  The gentleman (Mr. J.B.  Thomas, Senator from Illinois) whose boat I had been instrumental in saving in my descent of the Ohio in the spring of 1818, I believe, moved its confirmation.  It was from him, at any rate, that I the same day obtained the information of the Senate’s action.

I had now attained a fixed position; not such as I desired in the outset, and had striven for, but one that offered an interesting class of duties, in the performance of which there was a wide field for honorable exertion, and, if it was embraced, also of historical inquiry and research.  The taste for natural history might certainly be transferred to that point, where the opportunity for discovery was the greatest.  At any rate, the trial of a residence on that remote frontier might readily be made, and I may say it was in fact made only as a temporary matter.  It was an ancient agency in which General Harrison had long exercised his superior authority over the fierce and wild tribes of the West, which was an additional stimulus to exertion, after its removal to Lake Superior.

I called the next day on Mr. Calhoun, to express my obligation, and to request instructions.  For the latter object, he referred me to General Cass, of Detroit, who was the superintendent of Indian affairs on the North-Western frontier, and to whom the policy of pushing an agency and a military post to that point is, I believe, due.

I now turned my face to the North, made a brief stay in New York, hurried through the western part of that State to Buffalo, and ascended Lake Erie to Detroit.  At this point I was attacked with fever and ague, which I supposed to have been contracted during a temporary landing at Sandusky.  I directed my physician to treat it with renewed doses of mercury, in quick succession, which terminated the fever, but completely prostrated my strength, and induced, at first tic douloureux, and eventually a paralysis of the left cheek.

The troops destined for the new post arrived about the beginning of July.  They consisted of a battalion of the 2d Regiment of Infantry, under Colonel Brady, from garrison duty at Sackett’s Harbor, and they possessed every element of high discipline and the most efficient action, under active officers.  Brady was himself an officer of Wayne’s war against the Indians, and had looked danger steadily in the face on the Niagara frontier, in the Late War.  In this condition, I hastily snatched up my instructions, and embarked on board the new steamer “Superior,” which was chartered by the government for the occasion.  It was now the 2d of July.