142 



he had not suggested to me himself. I, therefore, did not ask him 

 to furnish, liimself, a copy of his letter from Paris, to be communi- 

 catpd to the House ; but, On the 21st of February, reported to the 

 President, for communication to the House, all the other docu- 

 ments, embraced by their call of the 17th January preceding. 



The message from the President to the House, communicating 

 the documents, TV'as dehvered on the 23d of February, and was or- 

 dered to be laid on the table. 



On the 19th of April, the following resolution was adopted hy the 

 House, having been first moved the day before: 



*^ Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to cause ta 

 be communicated to this House, if not injurious to the publir good, any letter, 

 or communication, which may have been received from Jouatharr Russell, Esq. 

 one of the INIinisters of the United States who concluded the Treaty of Ghent, 

 after the signature of that Treaty, and which was written in conformity to the 

 indications contained in said Minister's letter, dated at Ghent, <ioth December, 

 1814;' 



It will be observed, that nearly two months had intervened be* 

 tween the report of the Ghent treaty documents to the House, and 

 this second call, which Mr. Russell has admitted was made at hig 

 suggestion. 



On Saturday, the 20th of April, the day after the adoption of the 

 resolution of the House, and even before it had been officially re- 

 ferred to the Department for an answer, Mr. Daniel Brent, the 

 chief clerk of the Department, without consulting me, but knowing 

 the anxious desire that I should feel, of being enabled to report 

 the paper called for by the House, knowing also that it was not 

 upon the files of the Department, called upon Mr. Russell, at his 

 lodgings, and inquired of him whether he could' furnish the letter 

 desired ; and was told by Mr. Russell that he could, and would de- 

 liver it to the President. Mr. Brent, it seems, suggested that it 

 would be better that it should be delivered as a duplicate than as 

 a copy, to which Mr. Russell assented. This distinction, which has 

 reference chietly to the forms of office, would not have occurred to 

 me. Between a copy, marked as such by the writer, signed by him, 

 and ail in his own hand-writing, and a duplicate, furnished as such 

 also by the writer, I can perceive no difference of substance, 

 though, as evidence in a court of justice, or as a document in the 

 public archives, one might bear the character of an original paper, 

 and the other only of a cop^y. Mr. Brent had too much respect for 

 Mr. Russell, to imagine it possible, whether he gave the paper as 

 a copy or as a duplicate, that he should give it other than as the let- 

 ter originally written, and called for by the resolution of the 

 House. 



Mr. Russell, however, did assent to the suggestion of Mr. Brent, 

 and, with his own hand, wrote the word " duplicate" on the p-aper, 

 which he had already prepared to deliver, to be reported in answer 

 to the call of the House. He did more : he erased with a scraper 

 the word "copy," which he had previously written in its stead, 

 and the traces of which are &till discernible on the paper. 



