. The fact
above mentioned at once overcame his reluctance to engage in the
controversy. Accordingly in December, 1831, appeared a "Letter to
General Lafayette," preceded by a letter from Lafayette to himself,
dated the 22d of November. This was a pamphlet of fifty pages, in which
he went into the subject of the cost of the United States government. It
produced an immediate reply from M. Saulnier, who went over the ground
again, and with a fine air of candor affected to revise his previous
statements. As a result he made the cost of the American government a
little larger than he had done before. To this Cooper replied in a series
of letters published in the "National." The controversy would (p. 113)
have ended sooner than it did, had it not been for the appearance
of a fresh actor on the scene. This was a certain Mr. Leavitt Harris. He
nominally belonged to New Jersey, but a large share of his life had been
spent in Russia, and his political notions had apparently become
acclimated to that region. He wrote an article on the subject in the
shape of a letter to M. Francois Delassert, the vice-president of the
Chamber of Deputies. In it he took ground opposite to that taken by
Cooper, controverted his facts, and denied his inferences. So great
weight was attached to it by the French government party that it was
published as a supplementary number of the "Revue Britannique." Mr.
Harris had once been left as _charge d'affaires_ at St. Petersburg
during the absence of John Adams at the peace negotiations at Ghent. His
letter was accordingly dwelt upon as the production of an American who
had been intrusted by his government with high diplomatic position. We
who know out of what stuff our foreign agents are sometimes made, would
not be likely to attach much weight to the mere fact. But to a foreign
nation the opinion of an official seemed naturally more trustworthy than
that of a private citizen.

To the letter of Mr. Harris, Cooper replied on the 3d of May, 1832. This
closed the discussion, at least so far as he was concerned.[1] But the
controversy was followed by circumstances of a mortifying character. After
the return to America of the United States minister, William (p. 114)
C. Rives, Mr. Harris was nominated by the President, and confirmed by
the Senate early in March, 1833, as _charge d'affaires_; and this office
he held until the arrival of Edward Livingston, who was appointed
minister on the 3d of May of