Permit me, sir, to add my confident belief that the President on this presentation of the facts relative to this outrage upon the national as well as the State rights will not fail to demand the immediate release of Ebenezer S. Greely and to interpose suitable claims of indemnity for the wrongs so wantonly enforced upon him.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ROBERT P. DUNLAP.

[Footnote 2:  Omitted.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, July 14, 1837.

Hon. ROBERT P. DUNLAP,

Governor of the State of Maine.

SIR:  Your letter of the 3d instant has been received.  The surprise you express that the information contained in the letter of Mr. Greely which accompanied your former communication was not considered sufficient to enable the President to make a formal application to the British Government for his release has probably arisen from your not having adverted particularly to the defects of his statement.  It was not expressly mentioned for what offense the arrest was made nor where it took place—­upon the territory in dispute between the United States and Great Britain or beyond it.  The character of the charge and the place at which the offense was committed might have been inferred from what was stated, but you must perceive the impropriety of a formal complaint from one government to another founded upon inference when the means of ascertaining and presenting the facts distinctly were within the power of the party complaining; but although this Department felt itself constrained by these considerations to delay a formal application to the British Government for the release of Mr. Greely, it lost no time, as has been already stated, in procuring the interference to that end of the British minister near this Government; and I have now the satisfaction to inform you that I have learnt from him that he has opened a correspondence with the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, which it is expected will lead to the release of Greely from confinement without waiting for the decision of His Britannic Majesty’s Government on the whole question.

The information communicated to the Department since the receipt of your letter of the 3d instant is sufficiently explicit, and a note founded upon it has been, by direction of the President, addressed to Mr. Stevenson, instructing him to demand the immediate liberation of Mr. Greely and indemnity for his imprisonment.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

JOHN FORSYTH.

P.S.—­The papers asked for in your letter of the 27th ultimo will be sent to you.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, July 19, 1837.

Hon. ROBERT P. DUNLAP,

Governor of Maine.