It was believed by a large number of persons both in and out of the army that considerations of public good had not in themselves caused the President to relieve General Scott from command of the army. It was well known that his political opinions were not in harmony with the Administration, while those of his successor were. There had been anything but that amenity which should exist between a commissioner to negotiate a treaty of peace and the commanding general. General Scott did not think that Mr. Trist treated him with the consideration his position required--rejecting all overtures on the part of the general. General Scott ascribes Trist's conduct to sickness, which is throwing the mantle of charity over a series of slights amounting almost to insults, which a general less solicitous for the cause he was engaged in, and less regardful of his country's good, would have resented in a manner that would have produced a crisis detrimental to the interests of the Government. General Scott, commander in chief, being the accuser, and Pillow, Worth, and Duncan the defendants, the duty devolved upon the President to appoint the court, which he did, composed of Brigadier-General Nathan Towson, paymaster general, Brigadier-General Caleb Cushing, and Brevet Colonel William G. Belknap, with Captain S.C. Ridgely, judge advocate and recorder. The court organized and adjourned to the City of Mexico, where it met March 16, 1848, all the members present, the judge advocate and recorder. General Pillow was also in attendance. No objection being made to any member of the court, they were duly sworn. General Scott then read a paper, from which the following extracts are made: "Having, in the maintenance of what I deemed necessary discipline, drawn up charges and specifications against three officers then under my command, I transmitted the papers November 28, 1847, to the Secretary of War, with a request in each case that the President, under the act of May 29, 1830, would appoint a general court-martial for the trial of the same. This court of inquiry is the result. I am stricken down from high command; one of the arrested generals is pre-acquitted and rewarded, and of the other parties, the judge and his prisoners, the accuser and the accused, the innocent and the guilty, with that strange exception, all thrown before you to scramble for justice as we may. "In the case of Major-General Pillow I preferred two charges: the first with one specification, respecting a prohibited publication in the newspapers of the United States, and the second embracing a great number of specifications.