110 



rise to surmises of special motives for veiling from the eye of Con- 

 gress, and of the nation, the discovery of that fact. As Mr. Rus- 

 iell was upon the spot, and a member of the House, I determined 

 to mention the letter to him, and place it at his option whether it 

 should be communicated to the House or not. I did so, at my 

 house, as he has stated ; and it was on the 26th of January. But 

 Mr. Russell did not say that he had no distinct recollection of the 

 letter, to which 1 alluded, and that he wished to see it before he 

 gave his consent to its publication. I had not asked his consent to 

 its publication. I had told him there was such a letter ; and left 

 it at his option whether it should be communicated in the answer 

 to the call of the House of Representatives, or not. His first re- 

 ply was, that he thought it was a private letter, which it would be 

 improper to communicate to the House ; but, after a pause, as if 

 recollecting himself, he said he wished to see the letter, before giv- 

 ing a definitive answer. To this I immediately assented. Mr. 

 Russell accordingly repaired to the office, and saw his letter ; not 

 in my presence, or in the room occupied by me, but in that of Mr. 

 Bailey, the clerk who has charge of the diplomatic documents. 

 Mr. Russell then desired to examine the whole of the correspond- 

 ence relating to the Ghent negotiation, and afterwards twice in suc- 

 cession requested to be furnished with copies of one paragraph of 

 the instructions to the commissioners, of 15th April, 1813. That 

 paragraph is the one which, in the duplicate, is cited so emphatic- 

 ally, and with so many cumulative epithets, in support of the charge 

 against the majority of the mission, of having violated both the let- 

 ter and the spirit of their explicit and implicit instructions. After 

 all these exammations, and after a request to be furnished with a 

 copy of this most pregnant paragraph, in all of which he was in- 

 dulged to the extent of his wishes, he told me that he saw no ob- 

 jection to the communication to the House of his separate letter 

 of 25th December, 1814 ; with the exception of a part of it, not 

 relating to the negotiation. He was informed that the pari only in- 

 dicated by himself would be communicated ; and accordingly that 

 part only was communicated. Mr. Russell then added, that there 

 was another letter, written at Paris, conformably to the indication 

 in that of 25th December, 1814, and containing his reasons therein 

 alluded to ; and which he wished might also be communicated with 

 the rest of the documents, to the House. This was the first intima- 

 tion I had ever received of the existence of the letter of 11th Fe- 

 bruary, 1815; and I told Mr. R-ussell that, if it could be found up- 

 on the files of the Department, it should be communicated with 

 the rest. I directed, accordingly, that search should be made, and 

 afterwards that it should be repeated, among all the files of the 

 Department, for this letter. It was not to be tound. After a delay 

 nf several days, for repeating these ineffectual searches, I deemed 

 it necessary to report, in answer to the call of the House ; and the 

 documents Were all sent, .including that portion of his letter of 25th 

 December. 1814, whichhe himself had marked for communication. 



