Toward the end of last February, as in July, I had to go to Washington to arrange the accounts of our Indian missions among the Potawatomies and Osages. Since the outbreak of the war and the great expenditures which it occasions, the Government is necessarily delayed in the payment of its contracts with the Indian tribes, the motto for to-day being " the expenses of the war before everything else." A sum of over eighteen [thousand?] dollars was due the missions. I presented my request to the superintendent of Indian affairs, with the remark that a refusal or delay on the part of the Government, of its debt and promise, would singularly disarrange the ideas of our Indians, who have thus far been loyal and attached to the Union side; that if we were obliged by lack of means to send some 400 children back to their poor parents, they would conclude " that their Great Father, President Lincoln, had taken the money that ought to have gone to the support of their children, and used it for other purposes," and that they might be led in consequence to lend a favorable ear to the secessionists. This all-but casus belli made the superintendent smile and pleased him greatly, and he promised to do his utmost to satisfy our good savages. He gave me also some good advice and indicated several influential persons who might aid me in my just demand upon the Government.
During my short stay in the capital I had the honor of being presented to President Lincoln, and of talking with him about the present state of our Indians and our missions. He showed himself very affable and very well disposed toward us, and promised me that he would favor and aid us in our efforts to ameliorate the unhappy lot of the Indians. The Secretaries of the Interior and Treasury and the Attorney and Postmaster-General were likewise very favorable to me. I succeeded in obtaining a sum of over $11,000, with the promise that the balance due the missions should be forwarded at an early date.
I called several times on the Belgian ambassador, Mr. Blondeel Van Cuelenbroeck, who seems very much attached