Daily Richmond Whig

The following article from the Petersburg Old Dominion, announcing the discovery of a defalcation on the part of the late Collector of that port, conveys in an authentic shape, what rumor has for some time bruited, but what we hoped was not true.

The pecuniary injury sustained by the government is the least deplorable of the consequences of official delinquency. It throws a stigma on the morals of the government, and however undeservedly, re-acts upon all those with whom the delinquent may chance to be politically associated. We have seen the mercenaries of this administration, already, in the case of Watkins, deriving from his delinquency, an argument of justification for that extensive proscription, resorted to as the instrument of political reward and punishment. We have seen them indiscriminately branding the removed with suspicion, hoping that the discrimination of the ignorant and the heated, was unequal to detect the fallacy of inferring the guilt of all, from the guilt of one. It is to persons standing in this relation—it is to the cause of the country, the genius of whose institutions is outraged by the high handed tyranny of Andrew Jackson and his minions—that the conduct of the late Collector of Petersburg, assuming the annexed statement to be true, operates the most cruel injury and injustice.

We congratulate the mercenaries upon the argument which this defalcation supplies. They will no doubt make the most of it.

From the Old Dominion.

DEFALCATION.

The public have long been apprised of the removal of Col. James Robertson from the office of collector of the port of Petersburg, and that we gave it as our opinion, that he owed his removal to his extreme political violence. We now learn with regret, that Col. R. is a defaulter to a considerable amount, process having been served upon him, some time last week, at the suit of the United States, for about twenty-five thousand dollars. We forbear commenting on this unpleasant subject.