be withheld from them, and if not so granted it becomes theirs.  Considering the relations in which the Indians stand to the United States, it appears to me just to exercise their supervisory authority.  It has been done in more than one instance, and as its object in this case is to ascertain whether any fraud exists, and if there does to correct it, I consider such a ratification within the proper scope of the treaty-making power.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, January 22, 1834.

To the Senate: 

I transmit to the Senate a report[2] from the Secretary of State, containing the information requested by their resolution of the 9th instant, with the documents which accompany that report.

ANDREW JACKSON.

[Footnote 2:  Relating to presents from foreign governments to officers of the United States.]

WASHINGTON, January 25, 1834.

To the House of Representatives of the United States: 

I transmit herewith to the House of Representatives a letter from the Secretary of State, together with the accompanying papers, relating to a claim preferred to that Department, through the British legation at Washington, for indemnification for losses alleged to have been sustained by the owners of the ship Francis and Eliza, libeled at New Orleans in 1819, and condemned and sold by the sentence and decree of the district court of the United States for the district of Louisiana, but afterwards restored upon an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, that such legislative provision may be made by Congress in behalf of those interested as shall appear just and proper in the case.

ANDREW JACKSON.

FEBRUARY 4, 1834.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I deem it my duty to communicate to Congress the recent conduct of the Bank of the United States in refusing to deliver the books, papers, and funds in its possession relating to the execution of the act of Congress of June 7, 1832, entitled “An act supplementary to the ’Act for the relief of certain surviving officers and soldiers of the Revolution.’” The correspondence reported by the Secretary of War, and herewith transmitted, will show the grounds assumed by the bank to justify its refusal to make the transfer directed by the War Department.  It does not profess to claim the privilege of this agency as a right secured to it by contract, nor as a benefit conferred by the Government, but as a burden, from which it is willing to be relieved.  It places its refusal upon the extraordinary ground that the corporation has a right to sit in judgment upon the legality of the acts of the constituted authorities in a matter in which the stockholders are admitted to have no interest, and it impedes and defeats, as far as its power will permit, the execution of a measure of the Administration, because the opinion of the corporation upon the construction of an act of Congress differs from that of the proper officers of the United States.