The opinion of the court is also argumentative, and wanting in
requisite precision, inasmuch as it states that "no delay _which it
was practicable to have avoided was made by Major-General Scott_ in
opening the campaign against the Creek Indians," etc.; thus leaving it
to be inferred, but not distinctly finding, that there was some delay,
and that it was made by some person other than Major-General Scott,
without specifying in what such delay consisted, when it occurred, how
long it continued, nor by whom it was occasioned. Had the court found
a state of facts, as required by the order constituting it, the
uncertainty now existing in this part of the opinion would have been
obviated and the justice of the opinion itself readily determined.
That part of the opinion of the court which animadverts on the letter
addressed by Major-General Jesup to F.P. Blair, esq., bearing date the
20th of June, 1836, and which presents the same as a subject demanding
investigation, appears to the President to be wholly unauthorized by the
order constituting the court, and by which its jurisdiction was confined
to an inquiry into the causes of the delay in opening and prosecuting
the campaign against the hostile Creeks and into such subjects as were
connected with the military operations in that campaign.
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