Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1847-05-29

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communication between the Executive and the
People, has so far msused the confidence reposed
in It that it is no longer infallible as an index
or interpreter of the views and purposes of the Ad
ministraiion In regard to one subject ii has indeed,
until lately, faithfully foreshadowed coming events.
Its Editor had not been week installed in his
present official station before he began to foretel
the existing with Mexico, the of which, by
his influential agency in the Texas Annexation
scheme he has had more to do with infcting upon
the country than any other person whatever, not
excepting President TYLER himself, OF the specua-
tors in Texan stocks and lands by whom he was
surrounded, counseled, and impelled to that unwise
measure. At its first start, the new government
organ disclosed the purpose to quarrel with Mexico,
and, jumping at once to its conclusion, transported
its readers, in imagination, to the Halls of Monte
yuma which were to be occupied by an invading
army from the United States, as the browning act
OF "a second Conquest of Mexico" We, and not
we only, but the whole world-for the information
was specially addressed to the leading press of Eu-
rope-were moreover informed how this conquest
was to be accomplished the tocsin being sounded,
Volunteers were to flock from the whole West TO
the scene Of action, and they were to carry every
thing before them. The government organ, also
at first so communicative Of all that it knew or
concelved-gave to understand, when but four
months old, hoW the war was to be brought on
which was to lead to this conquest 1t foresaw, by
many months, the march Of our army to the Rio
Grande; loresaw that the Mexican forces might
cross the Rio Grande, (heir own river,) and that,
if they did, blood would be shed, land that War must
ensue. And so it did, exactly as the seer had fore
told. But at this point the government organ
seems to have lost not only its faculty of dvination
and its gilt of prophecy, but its power of ascertain
ing and explaining, either currently or in advance,
the purposes of the President and his Cabinet. Its
later revelations, in very important matters, though
in semofficial shape have been any thing but au-
thentic They have been in many instances such
signal failures very much to lessen the reliance
at first placed upon them. For exemplifcation, we
need only refer 10 two or three instances: the
most important being the claim set up to g the
whole or none" of Oregon, accompanied with de-
nunciaons of the Editors Of this paper, and all
other persons who were willing to stop short OF
ffty-fourforty," traitors and something worse,
at the very moment that our Minister at London
was under instruction by the Executive to consent
to line, afterwards established by the Treaty,
further south than we had ever limited at. Again,
in the of the arrangement or understanding
with SANTA ANNA, for assisting his return to
Mexico, so fully avowed since by the President
himself to Congress, the government paper not only
denied il after it had taken place, but ntmated thai
the Executive would consider itself dishonored by
any arrangement of the kind And, again, so re-
Gently that il is fresh in every ones mind, the
retracton and utter dsavowal not for the President
but for every Member of the Government, Of the
proposition, formally made week before by the
government paper itself, TO sequester the property
Of the Mexican Churches disavowa accompanied
by declaration for the Government of lis determi.
nation to adhere 10 the terms Of its early Procla.
nations to the Mexicans, which terms it has itself
in several instances already entirely departed from
and especially and most formally in the case of the
famed "Order in Council " imposing system OF
forced contributions on the People of Mexico.
Thus frequently misled by the government
paper-not, we believe, intentionally, but whether
from the anomaly Of its relations with the Executive
or from want OF good understanding between them,
VI iohi VI WISHING W
public affairs, we unable to say-it has become
matter Of necessity, rather than of inclination on our
part, resort to such other sources Of information as
equally open to all, to ascertain what are from time
to time, the "views and purposes of the Admin
istraon. These sources we have accordingly
now and then drawn upon. The Union" says
that the presses to which we have in this way had
| recourse are obscure or unworthy" To which
it is sufficient answer, that we have never quoted
as authority, even as far as it went-leaving to our
readers always to judge for themselves of the de-
gree of its credibility-any press which has not
been over and again quoted at large by the govern
ment paper in support of the Administration, or
which is not directly and VIGOROUSLY the mouth
piece Of the Administration party in the city in
which it is published. The paper from which we
most frequently obtain information of this sort is
the Journal OF Commerce, over which we presume
the government paper will hardly claim for itself any
particular pre-eminence. The etter-writers for the
papers which quote from are, far as we know,
gentlemen as well as scholars and, were they not,
are persons sufficiently in the confidence of the
officers Of the government in this city to entitle
their communications TO all the respect that they
have received from us. We must say for them,
further that at the worst, their statements of public
affairs do not yield, either in accuracy or intel-
gence, to the general of like publications,
quasi official, in the Official paper ITSELF