"MY DEAR SIR,--I have received your letter of yesterday, which is much more acceptable than your personal presence. Indeed, I suppose that your intelligence from Albany would have changed the design, even if you had entertained it, of coming here. _I_ did not expect you to start before Mon. morning.[10] "As far as your personal position is concerned, it is sustained by your renewed declension--perhaps uttered, although that it did not need. For be assured that nothing has been done to bring in question the sincerity and reality of your declension, as well as the good faith of your grounds, but everything to satisfy both. It, however, does lessen our right, or _apparent_ right, to complain of the precipitancy of Mr. Polk's action before the receipt of Mr. Van Buren's letter. "I judge from your letter that every time the excitement of the particular motive operating on your mind for the moment to accept any department, subsides, your aversion returns and strengthens. This shows that it is the predominant and settled conviction, which ought not to be, without imperative necessity, disregarded, and applies even in the case of a _recast_. In this connection, I should add to the hasty view of the affair I yesterday gave you that Bancroft thinks that if you had accepted the War a recast could have been had, and intimates the possibility as if from the President. This may be so--others have thought so the whole time--but I doubt, for reasons I will explain when I see you. "Last evening we had an interview with the President. Representations had been made to him which were repeated by us and which he said _convinced_ him of his error, but it was now too late to retract if the Heavens and the Earth came together. He assured us that he had acted from misinformation, and with the best intentions--that he would do all he could to counteract the consequences of his error--that he should be President himself, although not coming in with the same personal strength as some of his predecessors, and would protect us from any malign influences--that in regard to the important appointments in N. Y. he would rely on his old friends and act with the concurrence of V. B. and W. He has repeatedly and to different persons pledged himself as to the Collector. His asseverations of attachment, fidelity, and fair dealing towards N. Y. were earnest and strong, almost passing dignity, yet with an air of sincerity which made a strong impression as to mere personal intentions.