10 APRIL 1847, Page 2

The advices from the United States involve a puzzle for

the contemporary historian. Mr. President Polk offered to appoint Mr. Benton a Major-General in the army against Mexico, with powers to open negotiations. Mr. Benton declined to accept the appointment without the supreme command and powers to con- clude a peace : Mr. Polk refused that double condition,—saying that he had not authority to grant it : and Mr. Benton definitively gave up the appointment. Whether it was the preeminency or the peace which Mr. Polk disliked to accord, does not distinctly appear ; whether Mr. Benton declined on the score of the preemi- nency or the peace, is equally obscure.