I confess that the present letter of Mr. Sawin increases my doubts as to the sincerity of the convictions which he professes, and I am inclined to think that the triumph of the legitimate Government, sure sooner or later to take place, will find him and a large majority of his newly-adopted fellow-citizens (who hold with Dædalus, the primal sitter-on-the-fence, that _medium tenere tutissimum_) original Union men. The criticisms toward the close of his letter on certain of our failings are worthy to be seriously perpended, for he is not, as I think, without a spice of vulgar shrewdness. As to the good-nature in us which he seems to gird at, while I would not consecrate a chapel, as they have not scrupled to do in France, to _Nótre Dame de la Haine_, Our Lady of Hate, yet I cannot forget that the corruption of good-nature is the generation of laxity of principle. Good-nature is our national characteristick; and though it be, perhaps, nothing more than a culpable weakness or cowardice, when it leads us to put up tamely with manifold impositions and breaches of implied contracts, (as too frequently in our publick conveyances,) it becomes a positive crime, when it leads us to look unresentfully on peculation, and to regard treason to the best Government that ever existed as something with which a gentleman may shake hands without soiling his fingers. I do not think the gallows-tree the most profitable member of our _Sylva_; but, since it continues to be planted, I would fain see a Northern limb ingrafted on it, that it may bear some other fruit than loyal Tennesseeans. A relick has recently been discovered on the east bank of Bushy Brook in North Jaalam, which I conceive to be an inscription in Runic characters relating to the early expedition of the Northmen to this continent. I shall make fuller investigations, and communicate the result in due season. Respectfully, Your obedient servant, HOMER WILBUR, A.M. P.S. I inclose a year's subscription from Deacon Tinkham.