The experience of every nation on earth has demonstrated that emergencies may arise in which it becomes absolutely necessary for the public safety or the public good to make expenditures the very object of which would be defeated by publicity. Some governments have very large amounts at their disposal, and have made vastly greater expenditures than the small amounts which have from time to time been accounted for on President's certificates. In no nation is the application of such sums ever made public. In time of war or impending danger the situation of the country may make it necessary to employ individuals for the purpose of obtaining information or rendering other important services who could never be prevailed upon to act if they entertained the least apprehension that their names or their agency would in any contingency be divulged. So it may often become necessary to incur an expenditure for an object highly useful to the country; for example, the conclusion of a treaty with a barbarian power whose customs require on such occasions the use of presents. But this object might be altogether defeated by the intrigues of other powers if our purposes were to be made known by the exhibition of the original papers and vouchers to the accounting officers of the Treasury. It would be easy to specify other cases which may occur in the history of a great nation, in its intercourse with other nations, wherein it might become absolutely necessary to incur expenditures for objects which could never be accomplished if it were suspected in advance that the items of expenditure and the agencies employed would be made public. Actuated undoubtedly by considerations of this kind, Congress provided such a fund, coeval with the organization of the Government, and subsequently enacted the law of 1810 as the permanent law of the land. While this law exists in full force I feel bound by a high sense of public policy and duty to observe its provisions and the uniform practice of my predecessors under it. With great respect for the House of Representatives and an anxious desire to conform to their wishes, I am constrained to come to this conclusion. If Congress disapprove the policy of the law, they may repeal its provisions. In reply to that portion of the resolution of the House which calls for "copies of whatever communications were made from the Secretary of State during the last session of the Twenty-seventh Congress, particularly February, 1843, to Mr. Cushing and Mr. Adams, members of the Committee of this House on Foreign Affairs, of the wish of the President of the United States to institute a special mission to Great Britain," I have to state that no such communications or copies of them are found in the Department of State. "Copies of all letters on the books of the Department of State to any officer of the United States or any person in New York concerning Alexander McLeod," which are also called for by the resolution, are herewith communicated.