I have considered the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 9th instant, by which I am requested "to cause to be furnished to that House an account of all payments made on President's certificates from the fund appropriated by law, through the agency of the State Department, for the contingent expenses of foreign intercourse from the 4th of March, 1841, until the retirement of Daniel Webster from the Department of State, with copies of all entries, receipts, letters, vouchers, memorandums, or other evidence of such payments, to whom paid, for what, and particularly all concerning the northeastern-boundary dispute with Great Britain." With an anxious desire to furnish to the House any information requested by that body which may be in the Executive Departments, I have felt bound by a sense of public duty to inquire how far I could with propriety, or consistently with the existing laws, respond to their call. The usual annual appropriation "for the contingent expenses of intercourse between the United States and foreign nations" has been disbursed since the date of the act of May 1, 1810, in pursuance of its provisions. By the third section of that act it is provided-- That when any sum or sums of money shall be drawn from the Treasury under any law making appropriation for the contingent expenses of intercourse between the United States and foreign nations the President shall be, and he is hereby, authorized to cause the same to be duly settled annually with the accounting officers of the Treasury in the manner following; that is to say, by causing the same to be accounted for specially in all instances wherein the expenditure thereof may in his judgment be made public, and by making a certificate of the amount of such expenditures as he may think it advisable not to specify; and every such certificate shall be deemed a sufficient voucher for the sum or sums therein expressed to have been expended. Two distinct classes of expenditure are authorized by this law--the one of a public and the other of a private and confidential character. The President in office at the time of the expenditure is made by the law the sole judge whether it shall be public or private. Such sums are to be "accounted for specially in all instances wherein the expenditure thereof may in his judgment be made public." All expenditures "accounted for specially" are settled at the Treasury upon vouchers, and not on "President's certificates," and, like all other public accounts, are subject to be called for by Congress, and are open to public examination. Had information as respects this class of expenditures been called for by the resolution of the House, it would have been promptly communicated.