JAMES BUCHANAN.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE,

Washington, December 15, 1858.

Hon. JAMES L. ORR,

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

SIR:  In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 13th instant, requesting the President of the United States, if not inconsistent with the public interest, “to communicate all information in his possession, or which may shortly come into his possession, respecting the reported recent acts of visitation by officers of the British navy of American vessels in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico,” I transmit the accompanying reports from the Secretaries of State and the Navy.  The report from the Secretary of State is not in strictness embraced by the terms of the resolution, but I deem it advisable to communicate to the House the information therein contained.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, December 20, 1858.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 7th of January last, calling for all the official dispatches and correspondence of the Hon. Robert M. McLane and of the Hon. Peter Parker, late commissioners of the United States in China, with the Department of State.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, December 20, 1858.

To the Senate of the United States: 

The Senate will learn from the thirty-five naval nominations herewith submitted the result of my investigations under the resolutions of Congress of March 10 and May 11, 1858.  In compliance with these resolutions, I have carefully examined the records of the courts of inquiry in fifty-eight cases, and have arrived at the conclusion that twenty-three of the officers ought to remain in the positions where they have been fixed by the courts of inquiry.

The records are very voluminous and the labor of examination, in which I have been materially assisted by the Secretary of the Navy, the Attorney-General, and the Commissioner of Patents, has consumed much time.

Under the act of January 17, 1857, the courts of inquiry were directed to investigate “the physical, mental, professional, and moral fitness” of each officer who applied to them for relief.  These investigations it was my duty to review.  They have been very extensive and searching, as the Senate will perceive from an examination of the records, embracing in many instances almost the entire professional life of the individual from his first entrance into the service.