_Washington, June 18, 1835_.
The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:
I have the honor to present, for the examination of the President, three
letters received at the Department from ----, dated at Paris, the 19th,
23d, and 30th of April. The last two I found here on my recent return
from Georgia. They were received on the 9th and 10th of June; the
last came to my own hand yesterday. Several communications have been
previously received from the same quarter, all of them volunteered; none
of them have been acknowledged. The unsolicited communications to the
Department by citizens of the United States of facts that may come to
their knowledge while residing abroad, likely to be interesting to
their country, are always received with pleasure and carefully preserved
on the files of the Government. Even opinions on foreign topics are
received with proper respect for the motives and character of those
who may choose to express them.
But holding it both improper and dangerous to countenance any of
our citizens occupying no public station in sending confidential
communications on our affairs with a foreign government at which we have
an accredited agent, upon subjects involving the honor of the country,
without the knowledge of such agent, and virtually substituting himself
as the channel of communication between that government and his own, I
considered it my duty to invite Mr. Pageot to the Department to apprise
him of the contents of Mr. ----'s letter of the 23d of April, and at the
same time to inform him that he might communicate the fact to the Duke
de Broglie that no notice could be taken of Mr. ---- and his
communications.
The extreme and culpable indiscretion of Mr. ---- in this transaction
was strikingly illustrated by a remark of Mr. Pageot, after a careful
examination of the letter of 23d April, that although without
instructions from his Government he would venture to assure me that
the Duke de Broglie could not have expected Mr. ---- to make such
a communication to the Secretary of State. Declining to enter into
the consideration of what the Duke might have expected or intended,
I was satisfied with the assurances Mr. Pageot gave me that he would
immediately state what had occurred to his Government.
All which is respectfully submitted, with the hope, if the course
pursued is approved by the President, that this report may be filed
in this Department with the letters to which it refers.