TH.  JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 20, 1808.

To the House of Representatives of the United States: 

Some days previous to your resolutions of the 13th instant a court of inquiry had been instituted at the request of General Wilkinson, charged to make the inquiry into his conduct which the first resolution desires, and had commenced their proceedings.  To the judge-advocate of that court the papers and information on that subject transmitted to me by the House of Representatives have been delivered, to be used according to the rules and powers of that court.

The request of a communication of any information which may have been received at any time since the establishment of the present Government touching combinations with foreign agents for dismembering the Union or the corrupt receipt of money by any officer of the United States from the agents of foreign governments can be complied with but in a partial degree.

It is well understood that in the first or second year of the Presidency of General Washington information was given to him relating to certain combinations with the agents of a foreign government for the dismemberment of the Union, which combinations had taken place before the establishment of the present Federal Government.  This information, however, is believed never to have been deposited in any public office, or left in that of the President’s secretary, these having been duly examined, but to have been considered as personally confidential, and therefore retained among his private papers.  A communication from the governor of Virginia to President Washington is found in the office of the President’s secretary, which, although not strictly within the terms of the request of the House of Representatives, is communicated, inasmuch as it may throw some light on the subjects of the correspondence of that time between certain foreign agents and citizens of the United States.

In the first or second year of the Administration of President Adams Andrew Ellicott, then employed in designating, in conjunction with the Spanish authorities, the boundaries between the territories of the United States and Spain, under the treaty with that nation, communicated to the Executive of the United States papers and information respecting the subjects of the present inquiry, which were deposited in the Office of State.  Copies of these are now transmitted to the House of Representatives, except of a single letter and a reference from the said Andrew Ellicott, which, being expressly desired to be kept secret, is therefore not communicated, but its contents can be obtained from himself in a more legal form, and directions have been given to summon him to appear as a witness before the court of inquiry.

A paper on “The Commerce of Louisiana,” bearing date the 18th of April, 1798, is found in the Office of State, supposed to have been communicated by Mr. Daniel Clark, of New Orleans, then a subject of Spain, and now of the House of Representatives of the United States, stating certain commercial transactions of General Wilkinson in New Orleans.  An extract from this is now communicated, because it contains facts which may have some bearing on the questions relating to him.