# Frederick Bates to Richard Bates, St. Louis, 14 July 1809 (the quarrel with Governor Lewis)

CITATION: Thomas Maitland Marshall, ed., The Life and Papers of Frederick Bates (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society, 1926), vol. 2, pp. 67-72 (letter begins p. 67; the Lewis passage is on pp. 68-69; the rest of the letter concerns Judge Lucas and C. B. Penrose and is included for completeness through the end of the printed page 72 segment). The 15 April 1809 extract (vol. 2, p. 65) is prefixed.
URL fetched: https://archive.org/download/lifepapersoffred02bate/lifepapersoffred02bate_djvu.txt (Internet Archive item lifepapersoffred02bate, Missouri Historical Society scan)
DATE FETCHED: 2026-09-14
TRANSCRIPTION: OCR of the 1926 printed edition (a scholarly transcription of the Bates Papers, Missouri Historical Society). Marshall printed the Bates letterbook copies. Footnote numbers (e.g. 194, 195) are the edition's.

---- VERBATIM TEXT (OCR of the scan; line breaks and page headers as in the scan; runs of spaces collapsed; OCR errors NOT corrected) ----

EXTEACT FROM A LETTER TO RICHARD BATES 

Dear Richard: APril 15> 1809 

I have spoken my wrongs with an extreme freedom to 
the Governor. — It was my intention to have appealed to 
his superiors and mine; but the altercation was brought 
about by a circumstance which aroused my indignation, and 
the overflowings of a heated resentment, burst the barriers 
which Prudence and Principle had prescribed. We now 
understand each other much better. We differ in every 
thing; but we will be honest and frank in our intercourse. 

I lament the unpopularity of the Governor; but he has 
brought it on himself by harsh and mistaken measures. He 
is inflexible in error, and the irresistable Fiat of the People, 
has, I am fearful, already sealed his condemnation. Burn 
this, and do not speak of it. 

TO JAMES ABBOTT 

Dear Sir, St- Louis AP 20- 1809 

• ••••••

[... p. 65-67 omitted: letters to James Abbott, etc. ...]

TO RICHARD BATES 

St. Louis July 14, 1809. — 

When yr. Friend Stuart194 arrived in town he called at 
the Land Board before the usual hour of the meeting of 
the commissioners & left yr. letter with the clerk. I waited 

is* Alexander Stuart was a Virginian. He practiced law at Kaskaskia 
as early as 1806. He was an intimate friend of Governor Lewis and was 
one of the three executors of his estate. 

68 The Life and Papers of Frederick Bates. 

on him in the afternoon of that day & on the following- 
morning, pressed him to call on me and in fact tendered to 
him all those civilities which were due to yr. request and 
to his merits. Notwithstanding which I was not favored 
with a visit until yesterday. We live indeed in different 
parts of the town & at considerable distance from each 
other. Besides which I have attached myself to the French 
circles into which he appears to avoid an introduction. 
The Seat of the Illinois Government (Kaskaskia) is no 
more than 60 miles from this place, on the other bank of 
the river. The Judge has procured apartments in our 
town, and appears to be permanently settled among us. — 
He will get office here as soon as he can. 

Gov Lewis leaves this in a few days for Phila. Washingn 
&c. He has fallen from the Public esteem & almost into 
the public contempt. He is well aware of my increasing 
popularity (for one scale sinks as the other rises, without 
an increase of gravity except comparative) and has for 
some time feared that I was at the head of a Party whose 
object it would be to denounce him to the President and 
procure his dismission. The Gov: is greatly mistaken in 
these suspicions; and I have accordingly employed every 
frank & open explanation which might have a tendency to 
remove that veil with which a few worthless fellows have 
endeavoured to exclude from him the sunshine. He called 
at my Office & personally demanded this explanation. It 
was made with that independence which I am determined 
shall mark my conduct on all occasions; and accompanied 
with an assurance that the path of life, which I had long 
since prescribed to myself did not admit of prevarication. 
As a Citizen, I told him I entertained opinions very dif- 
ferent from his, on the subject of civil government, and 

The Regime of Governor Lewis. 69 

that those opinions had, on various occasions been 
expressed with emphasis; but that they had been unmixed 
with personal malice or hostility. I made him sensible that 
it would be the extreme of folly in me to aspire above my 
present standing: that in point of Honor, my present 
Offices were nearly equal to the government and greatly 
superior in emolument — And that the latter could not, 
from any motives of prudence be accepted by me, if offered 
by the President. 'Well' said he 'do not suffer yourself 
to be separated from me in the public opinion; When we 
meet in public, let us, at least address each other with cor- 
diality.' My very humanity yielded a prompt assent to 
this Eequest, and for this I am resolved to take every oppor- 
tunity of convincing the People that however I may have 
disapproved & continue to disapprove the measures of the 
Governor, that as a man, I entertain good opinions of him. 
He used me badly, but as Pope says 'Twas when he knew 
no better' — In one particular case when he had deter- 
mined to go to Washington (tho' he did not go) he left 
certain Executive Business to be performed by Genl. Clark; 
tho' the Laws have expressly provided for his absence. I 
waited on His Excellency & demanded that the General 
should be called in. The Gentlemen were then told that 
I would suffer no interferences &c. &c. &c. — How unfor- 
tunate for this man that he resigned his commission in the 
army: His habits are altogether military & he never can 
I think succeed in any other profession — 

When I sat down to write this letter, I intended that it 
should have been a very short one; but since I have gone 
so far into a relation of my misunderstandings with the 
Governor, I will briefly state to you those contests which 
for the last 11 months I have been obliged to maintain 

70 The Life and Papers of Frederick Bates. 

with my colleague Judge Lucas.195 You have heard of this 
man : He was formerly a member of Congress from Pitts- 
burgh & a Judge of one of the circuit courts of Pennsyl- 
vania. He was never my friend, since I began to gain a 
little credit at Washington; and commenced his attacks 
(in business I mean & shielded by his official character) 
on my return from the lower districts, last year. It was 
imagined by the whole country that I had done my duty 
faithfully — & this good word was sufficient to excite all 
the angry malignity of the Judge. He attacked my Report 
which was contained in three quires of Paper, & which was 
no doubt, in many respects defective with so much precipi- 
tance, as not to discover its vulnerable points, and it had 
the good fortune to triumph, at length, over all his cen- 
sures. Foiled in this object he commenced a system of 
poignant pleasantry at some times, and of sarcasm at 
others by which he has frequently raised a storm from 
which he has been willing enough to retreat. A winter 
campaign was carried on with vigilance & activity on both 
sides — but at length the People so unanimously took part 
with me as to reduce the Judge to silence, except at long 
intervals. — He is indeed a man of superior order, but so 
completely the child of passion the creature of impulse, as 
to run every hour into the grossest & most palpable incon- 
sistencies. He has absolutely no attachments & his ani- 
mosities are immortal. He is capable of the darkest & 
most desperate intrigues, yet a skilful antagonist may, at 
all times develope his machinations & draw him from his 
ambitions by playing on those passions which have of late 
become too strong for his Control. 

195 About three thousand claims were decided by the commissioners. 
For these decisions and the votes of the commissioners, see American 
State Papers, Public Lands, II, 388-603. 

The Regime of Governor Lewis. 71 

C. B. Penrose, the other Commissioner, as he has been 
always accustomed to lean on some body, rests for the 
present on Lucas, from whom he fears to differ in opinion, 
on any question of moment. P. is, indeed a man of sense, 
but too weak minded & versatile to be entrusted with the 
transaction of important business. When Lucas & myself 
quarrel, as we had the indecorum to do last winter, before 
crowded Audiences of Claimants, Penrose had the good 
sense to hold his tongue. He is however a willing Dupe & 
shares with Lucas the public execrations. These two men 
have treated the People with so much harshness & travelled 
out of their own sphere with so little dignity, that the most 
respectable individuals of the country have been on the 
point of compelling them to cross the Mississippi. Their 
insolence of Office is boundless; their usurpation of power 
unparalelled. The U. States have counsel at the Board a 
Lawyer by profession and in all respects worthy of the 
trust reposed in him: Yet they take the business out of 
his hands ; they plead the cause & pronounce the doom of 
affluence or poverty afterwards. They voted the necessity 
of the commissioners personally making a survey when the 
U. States have surveyors196 (very intelligent ones too) 
regularly appointed for that object : But on my refusal to 
accompany them, they shrunk from the ridicule of such 
wanton and illegal interference and rescinded the order. — 

i9« By act of congress of February 28, 1806 the surveyor general was 
given authority to have surveys made of the United States lands in the 
Territory of Louisiana to which Indian title had been or might be extin- 
guished. It was his duty to appoint skilled surveyors as his deputies, 
one of whom was to be designated as the principal deputy. The principal 
deputy was to reside in and keep an office in the territory, and under 
the general superintendence of the surveyor general, was to cause sur- 
veys authorized by law, as might be directed by the commissioners, to 
be made. U. S., Statutes at Large, II, 352-353. 

72 The Life and Papers of Frederick Bates. 

Lucas is a man of the finest fancy & most brilliant imag- 
ination with whom I was ever acquainted, and when he 
chuses to be pleasant, his conversations are obsolutely 
fascinating. But (as I think) he wants judgment, he wants 
principle & will one day become, in the opinions of all a 
designing old Euffian. I am myself astonished at the suc- 
cess with which I have repelled the protean like attacks 
of this crafty old Cerberus.197 I was once on the brink of 
despair, but animated by a consciousness of right & by 
the popular support, I have at length obliged him to grind 
his teeth in silence. A circumstance, besides has lately 
transpired, as much for me, as against my Colleagues, and 
I really feel so triumphant on the occasion that I cannot 
forbear mentioning it to you. The People had appointed 
a committee of correspondence on the subject of their 
claims to Lands depending before the commissioners. A 
part of the business of this committee was to procure, if 
possible an amelioration of those principles by which the 
Board have been heretofore governed; & for this purpose 
the gentlemen addressed themselves to certain members 
of the Senate who replied that 'the opinions of Mr. B if in 
favour, would have great weight in inducing government 
to grant the Petition, ' — I had, indeed, no doubt, that 
those liberal & concilitory constructions which I had placed