WASHINGTON, _March 28, 1850_.
_To the Senate of the United States:_
In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 22d instant,
requesting the President of the United States to communicate to that
body a copy of the instructions given to the agent of the United States
who was employed to visit Hungary during the recent war between that
country and Austria, and of the correspondence by and with such agent,
so far as the publication of the same may be consistent with the public
interest, I herewith transmit to the Senate a copy of the instructions
to A. Dudley Mann, esq., relating to Hungary, he having been appointed
by me special agent to that country on the 18th day of June last,
together with a copy of the correspondence with our late chargé
d'affaires to Austria referred to in those instructions and of other
papers disclosing the policy of this Government in reference to Hungary
and her people. I also transmit, in compliance with the resolution of
the Senate, but in a separate packet, a copy of the correspondence of
Mr. Mann with the Department of State. The latter I have caused to be
marked "_executive_"--the information contained in it being such as will
be found on examination most appropriately to belong to the Senate in
the exercise of its executive functions. The publication of this
correspondence of the agent sent by me to Hungary is a matter referred
entirely to the judgment and discretion of the Senate.
It will be seen by the documents now transmitted that no minister or
agent was accredited by the Government of Hungary to this Government at
any period since I came into office, nor was any communication ever
received by this Government from the minister of foreign affairs of
Hungary or any other executive officer authorized to act in her behalf.
My purpose, as freely avowed in this correspondence, was to have
acknowledged the independence of Hungary had she succeeded in
establishing a government _de facto_ on a basis sufficiently permanent
in its character to have justified me in doing so according to the
usages and settled principles of this Government; and although she is
now fallen and many of her gallant patriots are in exile or in chains, I
am free still to declare that had she been successful in the
maintenance of such a government as we could have recognized we should
have been the first to welcome her into the family of nations.