_Washington, July 14, 1837_.
Hon. ROBERT P. DUNLAP,
_Governor of the State of Maine_.
SIR: Your letter of the 3d instant has been received. The surprise you
express that the information contained in the letter of Mr. Greely which
accompanied your former communication was not considered sufficient
to enable the President to make a formal application to the British
Government for his release has probably arisen from your not having
adverted particularly to the defects of his statement. It was not
expressly mentioned for what offense the arrest was made nor where it
took place--upon the territory in dispute between the United States and
Great Britain or beyond it. The character of the charge and the place at
which the offense was committed might have been inferred from what was
stated, but you must perceive the impropriety of a formal complaint
from one government to another founded upon inference when the means of
ascertaining and presenting the facts distinctly were within the power
of the party complaining; but although this Department felt itself
constrained by these considerations to delay a formal application to
the British Government for the release of Mr. Greely, it lost no time,
as has been already stated, in procuring the interference to that
end of the British minister near this Government; and I have now the
satisfaction to inform you that I have learnt from him that he has
opened a correspondence with the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick,
which it is expected will lead to the release of Greely from confinement
without waiting for the decision of His Britannic Majesty's Government
on the whole question.
The information communicated to the Department since the receipt of
your letter of the 3d instant is sufficiently explicit, and a note
founded upon it has been, by direction of the President, addressed to
Mr. Stevenson, instructing him to demand the immediate liberation of
Mr. Greely and indemnity for his imprisonment.