"Yours very truly, "HIRAM KETCHUM." TILDEN TO JOSEPH S. FAY "NEW YORK, _March 24, 1864_. "MY DEAR SIR,--An absence from the city and the occupations preparatory to it have deferred my acknowledgment of your letter longer than I intended. "In respect to the first topic of your letter, although we both agree in considering it practically past, the desire I have that the real state of facts should be completely understood by you induces me to add a word to our former discussions. "As nearly as I can now recollect, the misunderstanding occurred about the time, I think even before, my action in respect to the Peninsula was decided. The false relation between Mr. Ogden and you with the impressions which such of our friends as occasionally met Mr. Parsons derived from him repelled overtures to you. Mr. O. always said that he thought he could satisfy you, but doubted and deferred. "There never was a moment when I did not desire to communicate with you; but my acquaintance was so slight that I thought it necessary to wait for others, until at last I forced a breaking of the ice, and our interview took place. "But enough of this. I should not recur to the topic if I had not a great respect for you. The past is gone. We can deal only with the present. That is within our powers. I do not think that, on the whole, we cannot now do nearly as well as if we had done what was best at first. For myself, I have so often felt your reproach for having omitted to promote our understanding, so capable of benefits to both sides, that I am determined as to the present and the future, which alone are in our power--that the boot shall be on the other leg. "Coming now to what is the really important part of your letter--put after the fashion of the ladies in the P. S.--it must be admitted that if you should meditate anything more than a mere _sale_ on the best security--anything approaching in part to a sharing of the common joys and sorrows of the adventure--the future policy of Peninsular company, in the particulars mentioned by you, would be an important matter. "I think that policy will be, whether in your society or out of it, _conservative_ to your heart's content. "It would, no doubt, be very desirable to have the terminus of the Peninsular at Escanaba or Sand Point connected with Green Bay by rail. What we can do on that point, and what we cannot, has been definitely announced to Mr. Ogden and others by me assuming to speak for the very solid gentlemen who are the principal owners of the Peninsular. "If the Northwestern will build that road we shall be glad. We do not believe the difficulty of operating it in the winter is any more real than it was supposed to be from Boston to Albany or from Piermont to Dunkirk twenty years ago; or as much so as on the Chicago and St. Louis in 1856. There will be a telegraph to Marquette in a few months. An all-rail line to that point would revolutionize the region.