Letters of J. Downing, major, Downingville militia, Second brigade, to his old friend, Mr. Dwight, of the New-York daily advertiser

[We publish to-day Major Downing's letter acknowledging
the receipt of the Axe from Messrs. Starks & Co, which was
noticed some time since in our paper. The effect produced
upon the company in the President's Chamber, when the Major
made his appearance at the door with that implement of husbandry
upon his shoulder, shows that either his prowess is
well established at head-quarters, or that conscious guilt makes
men cowards without any real cause of fear. On any other
ground it is difficult to account for the sudden retreat from the
“presence-chamber” of their master, upon the mere appearance
of the Downingville hero, with such a peaceable and
harmless instrument in his hand as an axe.

The mistake which the President fell into respecting the
identity of the worthy principal of the Carthage manufactory in
the first place, and the Government Bank Director in the second,
is not to be wondered at. Old Gen. Starks generally made a
good deal of scampering whenever he appeared with a weapon
in his hand; and the Government Bank Director, like his renowned
name-sake of London (the Philadelphia of England)
has rode a strange tilt lately, and appears to have “lost both
hat and wig” in his career. Probably the Hero would have
been led into another more classical mistake than those just
mentioned, if Messrs. Starks & Co. had not fortunately given
in their letter a geographical caution against such an error, by
an express declaration that the Carthage where they make
axes is not the city built upon the coast of Africa by Dido, but
a modern village upon the Black River, in this State. The exact
position of it may probably be found in Spafford's Gazetteer.
If any doubt shall remain, after the foregoing explanation,
upon Dr. Jackson's mind, respecting the identity of the manufacturer

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of axes, and the hero of Bennington, we take the liberty
to refer him for further information, on this or any other subject,
to the honourable Mr. Senator Hill, from New-Hampshire—the
State that claims the honour of having given birth to General
Starks.—Eds.]

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