location or plan, although it is believed that the convenience of the public business would be promoted by including in the building the proposed accommodations for the two other Departments just mentioned.  The report of the architect shows the supposed difference of the expense that would be incurred in the event of the construction of the building with wings, in taking down the edifice now occupied by the Department of State, or repairing it so as to render it fireproof and make its outside conform to the other parts of the new building.

I also transmit statements from the heads of the several Departments of the number and size of the rooms that are necessary for their respective Departments for office business and for the deposit of records.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, December 22, 1837.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I herewith transmit to the Senate a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to their resolution of the 16th of October last.

M. VAN BUREN.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

WASHINGTON, December 22, 1837.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: 

The Secretary of State, to whom has been referred the resolution of the Senate of the 16th of October last, requesting the President of the United States to communicate to that body “at the next session of Congress (if not inconsistent with the public interest) any correspondence between the Government of the United States and any foreign government relative to the occupation of the territory of the United States west of the Rocky Mountains and bordering on the Pacific Ocean, and whether any, and, if so, what, portion of the said territory is in the possession of any foreign power,” has the honor to report to the President that no correspondence between this and any foreign government on the subject referred to has passed since the negotiation of the existing convention of 1827 with Great Britain, by which the provisions of the third article of the convention of the 20th of October, 1818, with His Britannic Majesty, leaving the territory claimed by either power westward of the Rocky Mountains free and open to the citizens and subjects of both, were extended and continued in force indefinitely, but liable to be annulled at the will of either party, on due notice of twelve months, at anytime after the 20th of October, 1828, and that the papers relating to the negotiation to which allusion has just been made were communicated to the Senate in confidence in the early part of the first session of the Twentieth Congress.