President Polk and his party, in compelling the war with Mexico, meant one thing. The Almighty intended something different. Politicians and slave-holders brought on a war to extend the area of human servitude. Providence meant it to be a war for freedom, and the expansion of a people best fitted to replenish and subdue the new land. At the right moment, the time-locks on the hidden treasuries of gold drew back their bolts, and a free people entered to change a wilderness to empire. There is now no slavery in either the new or the old parts of the United States. CHAPTER XXVI. RESULTS OF THE WAR. GOLD AND THE PACIFIC COAST. FROM his home at the “Moorings” by the Hudson, Perry gave his attention to the curiosities and trophies brought home from Mexico. Ever jealous for the honor of the navy, he noted with pain a letter written by General Scott to Captain H. Brewerton, superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point, which was published in the newspapers October 16th, 1848. General Scott had presented sections of several Mexican flag-staffs captured in the campaign that commenced at Vera Cruz and terminated in the capital of Mexico. Three of them were thus inscribed:— 1. “Part of the flag-staff of the castle of San Juan d’Ulloa taken by the American army March 29th, 1847.” 2. “Part of the flag-staff of Fort San Iago, Vera Cruz, taken by the American army March 29th, 1847.” 3. “Part of the flag-staff of Fort Conception, Vera Cruz, taken by the American army March 29th, 1847.” The four other staves from Cerro Gordo, Perote, Chapultepec, and the National Palace of Mexico, were in truth “taken by the American army” without the aid of the navy. Perry believing that the statements in the paragraphs numbered 1, 2, and 3, were not strictly true, protested in a letter dated Oct. 19th, 1848, to the editors of the _Courier and Inquirer_. He maintained that the city and castle of Vera Cruz “surrendered not to the army alone, but to the combined land and naval forces of the United States.” Appealing to the facts of history concerning the bombardment of the city by the squadron, the service of the marines in the trenches, and of the ship’s guns and men in the naval battery, he continued:— “Negotiations for the capitulation of the city and castle were conducted on the part of the squadron by Captain John H. Aulick, assisted by the late Commander Mackenzie as interpreter, both delegated by me, and as commander-in-chief at the time, of the United States naval forces serving in the Gulf of Mexico acting in co-operation with, but entirely independent of the authority of General Scott, I approved of and signed jointly with him the treaty of capitulation.”