by the rising of the Mormons in arms should be thrown away.  There was none of the bloodthirsty excitement in the camp which was reported in the States to have prevailed there, but there was a feeling of infinite chagrin, a consciousness that the expedition was only a pawn on Mr. Buchanan’s political chess-board; and reproaches against his folly were as frequent as they were vehement.  Had he excepted from the amnesty the Mormon leaders, who alone had been indicted, the Proclamation might have been considered an act of judicious clemency; for that exception would have accomplished every object that could be desired.  As it was, it annihilated all that had been gained by the enormous expenditures and the toils and sufferings of the past year, and it sentenced the army to an indefinite term of imprisonment in an American Siberia.  For the sake of ridding the Administration of immediate trouble, it turned the Church leaders loose again upon the community, purged of all offence, and postponed to a future day a terrible issue, the ultimate avoidance of which is impossible.  “After us the deluge,” was still the motto of the President and his Cabinet.

At the camp the Commissioners remained only three days, which they employed in obtaining accurate information concerning the transactions of the last three months; for when they started from Missouri, no news of the result of Mr. Kane’s mission had reached the frontier.

On the 2d of June, they started for the Valley, intending to summon the leading Mormons to an interview, and receive their formal acceptance of the terms of the Proclamation,—­of which, of course, there could be no doubt.  They were accompanied by the postmaster of Salt Lake City, with the mails for the Mormons, which had been detained at the camp since the commencement of the rebellion.  The Governor and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs followed them the next day.  The rest of the Federal officers refused to join the party, or to make any movement based on a supposed capitulation of the Mormons, until their submission should be perfected.  There were many circumstances attending the departure of the Governor which showed that he was doubtful of the stability of the positions he had been led by Mr. Kane to assume.  He expressed himself distrustful of the cooperation of the Commissioners in his plan for pacifying the Territory; and he protested vehemently against allowing persons to accompany the party in order to report for the press the proceedings at the expected conferences.  Every day made it more and more evident that he had committed himself to the Mormons farther than he cared to acknowledge.