I now conclude this letter, and close this correspondence, by repeating once more the expression of the President’s regret that you should have commenced it by your letter of the 3d of October.

It is painful to him to have with you any cause of difference.  He has a just appreciation of your character and your public services at home and abroad.  He cannot but persuade himself that you must be aware yourself, by this time, that your letter of October was written under erroneous impressions, and that there is no foundation for the opinions respecting the treaty which it expresses; and that it would have been far better on all accounts if no such letter had been written.

I have, &c.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

LEWIS CASS, ESQ., Late Minister of the United States at Paris.

THE HUeLSEMANN LETTER.

[As the authorship of this remarkable paper has sometimes been imputed to another person, it may be proper to give the facts respecting its preparation, although they involve nothing more important than a question of literary interest.

Mr. Webster, as has been stated, arrived at Marshfield on the 9th of October, 1850, where he remained for the space of two weeks.  He brought with him the papers relating to this controversy with Austria.  Before he left Washington, he gave to Mr. Hunter, a gentleman then and still filling an important post in the Department of State, verbal instructions concerning some of the points which would require to be touched in an answer to Mr. Huelsemann’s letter of September 30th, and requested Mr. Hunter to prepare a draft of such an answer.  This was done, and Mr. Hunter’s draft of an answer was forwarded to Mr. Webster at Marshfield.  On the 20th of October, 1850, Mr. Webster, being far from well, addressed a note to Mr. Everett,[1] requesting him also to prepare a draft of a reply to Mr. Huelsemann, at the same time sending to Mr. Everett a copy of Mr. Huelsemann’s letter and of President Taylor’s message to the Senate relating to Mr. Mann’s mission to Hungary.[2] On the 21st Mr. Webster went to his farm in Franklin, New Hampshire, where he remained until the 4th of November.  While there he received from Mr. Everett a draft of an answer to Mr. Huelsemann, which was written by Mr. Everett between the 21st and the 24th of October.

Soon after Mr. Webster’s death, it was rumored that the real author of “the Huelsemann letter” was Mr. Hunter,—­a rumor for which Mr. Hunter himself was in no way responsible.  At a later period, in the summer of 1853, the statement obtained currency in the newspapers that Mr. Everett wrote this celebrated despatch, and many comments were made upon the supposed fact that Mr. Everett had claimed its authorship.  The facts are, that, while at Franklin, Mr. Webster, with Mr. Hunter’s and Mr. Everett’s drafts both before him, went over the whole subject, making considerable changes in Mr. Everett’s draft, striking out entire paragraphs