It will be seen by the correspondence with the charge d’affaires of France that a dispatch to him from the Duke de Broglie was read to the Secretary at the Department in September last.  It concluded with an authority to permit a copy to be taken if it was desired.  That dispatch being an argumentative answer to the last letter of Mr. Livingston to the French Government, and in affirmance of the right of France to expect explanations of the message of the President, which France had been distinctly and timely informed could not be given without a disregard by the Chief Magistrate of his constitutional obligations, no desire was expressed to obtain a copy, it being obviously improper to receive an argument in a form which admitted of no reply, and necessarily unavailing to inquire how much or how little would satisfy France, when her right to any such explanation had been beforehand so distinctly and formally denied.

All which is respectfully submitted.

JOHN FORSYTH.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, June 18, 1835.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: 

I have the honor to present, for the examination of the President, three letters received at the Department from ——­, dated at Paris, the 19th, 23d, and 30th of April.  The last two I found here on my recent return from Georgia.  They were received on the 9th and 10th of June; the last came to my own hand yesterday.  Several communications have been previously received from the same quarter, all of them volunteered; none of them have been acknowledged.  The unsolicited communications to the Department by citizens of the United States of facts that may come to their knowledge while residing abroad, likely to be interesting to their country, are always received with pleasure and carefully preserved on the files of the Government.  Even opinions on foreign topics are received with proper respect for the motives and character of those who may choose to express them.

But holding it both improper and dangerous to countenance any of our citizens occupying no public station in sending confidential communications on our affairs with a foreign government at which we have an accredited agent, upon subjects involving the honor of the country, without the knowledge of such agent, and virtually substituting himself as the channel of communication between that government and his own, I considered it my duty to invite Mr. Pageot to the Department to apprise him of the contents of Mr. ——­’s letter of the 23d of April, and at the same time to inform him that he might communicate the fact to the Duke de Broglie that no notice could be taken of Mr. ——­ and his communications.

The extreme and culpable indiscretion of Mr. ——­ in this transaction was strikingly illustrated by a remark of Mr. Pageot, after a careful examination of the letter of 23d April, that although without instructions from his Government he would venture to assure me that the Duke de Broglie could not have expected Mr. ——­ to make such a communication to the Secretary of State.  Declining to enter into the consideration of what the Duke might have expected or intended, I was satisfied with the assurances Mr. Pageot gave me that he would immediately state what had occurred to his Government.