In communicating this ordinance to the Government of the United States that of Norway has requested the benefit of a similar and reciprocal provision for the vessels of Norway and their cargoes which may enter the ports of the United States.

This provision being within the competency only of the legislative authority of Congress, I communicate to them herewith copies of the communications received from the Norwegian Government in relation to the subject, and recommend the same to their consideration.

JAMES MONROE.

WASHINGTON, May 1, 1822.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

I transmit herewith to Congress copies of letters received at the Department of State from the minister of Great Britain on the subject of the duties discriminating between imported rolled and hammered iron.  I recommend them particularly to the consideration of Congress, believing that although there may be ground for controversy with regard to the application of the engagements of the treaty to the case, yet a liberal construction of those engagements would be compatible at once with a conciliatory and a judicious policy.

JAMES MONROE.

WASHINGTON, May 4, 1822.

To the House of Representatives of the United States: 

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 19th of April, requesting the President “to cause to be communicated to the House, if not injurious to the public interest, any letter which may have been received from Jonathan Russell, one of the ministers who concluded the treaty of Ghent, in conformity with the indications contained in his letter of the 25th of December, 1814,” I have to state that having referred the resolution to the Secretary of State, and it appearing, by a report from him, that no such document had been deposited among the archives of the Department, I examined and found among my private papers a letter of that description marked “private” by himself.  I transmit a copy of the report of the Secretary of State, by which it appears that Mr. Russell, on being apprised that the document referred to by the resolution had not been deposited in the Department of State, delivered there “a paper purporting to be the duplicate of a letter written by him from Paris on the 11th of February, 1815, to the then Secretary of State, to be communicated to the House as the letter called for by the resolution.”

On the perusal of the document called for I find that it communicates a difference of opinion between Mr. Russell and a majority of his colleagues in certain transactions which occurred in the negotiations at Ghent, touching interests which have been since satisfactorily adjusted by treaty between the United States and Great Britain.  The view which Mr. Russell presents of his own conduct and that of his colleagues in those transactions will, it is presumed, call from the two