These words were, "Before this
letter reaches you [a proposed letter by me to President Davis], Sumter
will have been evacuated." The commissioners who received those
communications conclude they have been abused and overreached. The
Montgomery Government hold the same opinion. The commissioners have
supposed that my communications were with you, and upon the [that]
hypothesis were prepared to arraign you before the country, in
connection with the President. I placed a peremptory prohibition upon
this, as being contrary to the terms of my communications with them. I
pledged myself to them to communicate information, upon what I
considered as the best authority, and they were to confide in the
ability of myself, aided by Judge Nelson, to determine upon the
credibility of my informant.
I think no candid man, who will read over what I have written, and
considers for a moment what is going on at Sumter, but will agree that
the equivocating conduct of the Administration, as measured and
interpreted in connection with these promises, is the proximate cause of
the great calamity.
I have a profound conviction that the telegrams of the 8th of April, of
General Beauregard, and of the 10th of April, of General Walker, the
Secretary of War, can be referred to nothing else than their belief that
there has been systematic duplicity practiced on them through me. It is
under an impressive sense of the weight of this responsibility that I
submit to you these things for your explanation.
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