It will be seen that there is an unexplained deficiency in the accounts which have been rendered at the Treasury of the fees received at the office, amounting to $4,290, and that precautions have been provided to guard against similar delinquencies in future.  Congress will decide on their sufficiency and whether any legislative aid is necessary upon this branch of the subject referred to in the report.

ANDREW JACKSON.

January 26, 1830. To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I find it necessary to recommend to Congress a revision of the laws relating to the direct and contingent expenses of our intercourse with foreign nations, and particularly of the act of May 1, 1810, entitled “An act fixing the compensation of public ministers and of consuls residing on the coast of Barbary, and for other purposes.”

A letter from the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury to the Secretary of State, herewith transmitted, which notices the difficulties incident to the settlement of the accounts of certain diplomatic agents of the United States, serves to show the necessity of this revision.  This branch of the Government is incessantly called upon to sanction allowances which not unfrequently appear to have just and equitable foundations in usage, but which are believed to be incompatible with the provisions of the act of 1810.  The letter from the Fifth Auditor contains a description of several claims of this character which are submitted to Congress as the only tribunal competent to afford the relief to which the parties consider themselves entitled.

Among the most prominent questions of this description are the following: 

I.  Claims for outfits by ministers and charges d’affaires duly appointed by the President and Senate.

The act of 1790, regulating the expenditures for foreign intercourse, provided “that, exclusive of an outfit, which shall in no case exceed one year’s full salary to the minister plenipotentiary or charge d’affaires to whom the same may be allowed, the President shall not allow to any minister plenipotentiary a greater sum than at the rate of $9,000 per annum as a compensation for all his personal services and other expenses, nor a greater sum for the same than $4,500 per annum to a charge d’affaires.”  By this provision the maximum of allowance only was fixed, leaving the question as to any outfit, either in whole or in part, to the discretion of the President, to be decided according to circumstances.  Under it a variety of cases occurred, in which outfits having been given to diplomatic agents on their first appointment, afterwards, upon their being transferred to other courts or sent upon special and distinct missions, full or half outfits were again allowed.