145 



Department a duplicate of it, and says I was at liberty to publish it 

 or not, as it might suit my feelings and interests. Mr. Russell is 

 not so ignorant of the duties of a Secretary of State as not to know 

 that, in the usual course of business, the resolution of the House 

 was referred by the President to the Department of State for a 

 report, and that when once his letter had been delivered by himself 

 at the Department, it was my indispensable duty to report a copy 

 of it to the President for communication to the House. Had it di 

 rectly charged me with treason to my country, as it indirectly did 

 little less, my only and inflexible duty as Secretary of State was, to 

 report it to the President for communication to the House. By the 

 terms of the resolution of the House, the President indeed might 

 have withheld it from the House, if in his judgment the communi 

 cation would be injurious to the public interest : but of that, the 

 President, and not I, was the judge. Suppose even that the Presi 

 dent, in forming his judgment, had thought proper to consult my 

 opinion upon it, with what face could I advise that it should be 

 withheld ? If the letter was not a tissue of misrepresentations, the 

 Secretary of State, and the Minister of the United States in France, 

 were men unfit to hold any station whatever in the service of their 

 country ; and that was the impression evidently intended to be pro 

 duced by the letter, at least throughout the largest and most grow 

 ing section of the Union. Upon what pretence could / have advis 

 ed the President to withhold the communication as injurious to the 

 public interest ? If there was truth in the letter, its contents could 

 not be too soon known to Congress and to the nation. It was fitting 

 that the conspirators against the peaceful and unoffending inhabit 

 ants of the Western Country, should be unmasked before the pub 

 lic, and that the world of the West should be apprized of the whole 

 extent of their obligations to the great contider in their valour and 

 in God. 



On receiving the paper, therefore, my only duty was to report a 

 copy of it to the President, for communication to the House, in an 

 swer to their call. On perusal of it, I found that it was marked 

 duplicate, but not private, and that it bore date &quot; Paris, 11 Febru 

 ary, 1822.&quot; 



My first impression certainly was, that the error of this date was 

 in the time, and not in the place. I supposed it an inadvertency, 

 such as not unfrequently happens in copying papers of date other 

 than the current year, which in the hurry of writing is substituted 

 unconsciously for the date of the original. I did not then perceive 

 that the word copy had been written close at the side of the word 

 duplicate, and scraped out. The erasure had been made with a 

 cautious and delicate hand ; its attenuation of the texture of the pa 

 per, was not perceptible to an unsuspecting eye ; and in the fresh 

 ness of the ink when performed, must have appeared to be com 

 plete. In the progress of blackening, incidental to ink after it has 

 been some days written upon paper, the traces of the word soon 

 became perceptible, and are now apparent upon its face. Both the 



