I have, Sir, to tender you, on behalf of the President, his most cordial good wishes, and am, &c.

FLETCHER WEBSTER,
Acting Secretary of State.

LEWIS CASS, ESQ., &c., &c., &c.

* * * * *

Mr. Webster to General Cass.

Department of State, Washington,
November 14, 1842.

Sir,—­I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of the 3d of October, brought by the “Great Western,” which arrived at New York on the 6th instant.

It is probable you will have embarked for the United States before my communication can now reach you; but as it is thought proper that your letter should be answered, and as circumstances may possibly have occurred to delay your departure, this will be transmitted to Paris in the ordinary way.

Your letter has caused the President considerable concern.  Entertaining a lively sense of the respectable and useful manner in which you have discharged, for several years, the duties of an important foreign mission, it occasions him real regret and pain, that your last official communication should be of such a character as that he cannot give to it his entire and cordial approbation.

It appears to be intended as a sort of protest, a remonstrance, in the form of an official despatch, against a transaction of the government to which you were not a party, in which you had no agency whatever, and for the results of which you were no way answerable.  This would seem an unusual and extraordinary proceeding.  In common with every other citizen of the republic, you have an unquestionable right to form opinions upon public transactions, and the conduct of public men; but it will hardly be thought to be among either the duties or the privileges of a minister abroad to make formal remonstrances and protests against proceedings of the various branches of the government at home, upon subjects in relation to which he himself has not been charged with any duty or partaken any responsibility.

The negotiation and conclusion of the treaty of Washington were in the hands of the President and Senate.  They had acted upon this important subject according to their convictions of duty and of the public interest, and had ratified the treaty.  It was a thing done; and although your opinion might be at variance with that of the President and Senate, it is not perceived that you had any cause of complaint, remonstrance, or protest, more than any other citizen who might entertain the same opinion.

In your letter of the 17th of September, requesting your recall, you observe:  “The mail by the steam-packet which left Boston the 1st instant has just arrived, and has brought intelligence of the ratification of the treaties recently concluded with Great Britain.  All apprehensions, therefore, of any immediate difficulties with that country are at an end, and I do not see that any public interest demands my further residence in Europe.  I can no longer be useful here, and the state of my private affairs requires my presence at home.  Under these circumstances, I beg you to submit to the President my wish for permission to retire from this mission, and to return to the United States without delay.”