so far as formally to acknowledge the independence of Hungary, although, as the result has proved, it would have been a precipitate step, and one from which no benefit would have resulted to either party, it would not, nevertheless, have been an act against the law of nations, provided they took no part in her contest with Austria. But the United States did no such thing. Not only did they not yield to Hungary any actual countenance or succor, not only did they not show their ships-of-war in the Adriatic with any menacing or hostile aspect, but they studiously abstained from everything which had not been done in other cases in times past, and contented themselves with instituting an inquiry into the truth and reality of alleged political occurrences. Mr. Hülsemann incorrectly states, unintentionally certainly, the nature of the mission of this agent, when he says that " a United States agent had been dispatched to Vienna with orders to watch for a favorable moment to recognize the Hungarian republic, and to conclude a treaty of commerce with the same." This, indeed, would have been a lawful object, but Mr. Mann's errand was, in the first instance, purely one of inquiry. He had no power to act, unless he had first come to the conviction that a firm and stable Hungarian Government existed. "The principal object the President has in view," according to his instructions, "is to obtain minute and reliable information in regard to Hungary in connection with the affairs of adjoining countries, the probable issue of the present revolutionary movements, and the chances we may have of forming commercial arrangements with that power

favorable to the United States." Again, in the same paper, it is said: "The object of the President is to obtain information in regard to Hungary, and her resources and prospects, with a view to an early recognition of her independence, and the formation of commercial relations with her." It was only in the event that the new Government should appear, in the opinion of the agent, to be firm and stable, that the President proposed to recommend its recognition.

Mr. Hülsemann, in qualifying these steps of President Taylor with the epithet of "hostile," seems to take for granted that the inquiry could, in the expectation of the President, have but one result, and that favorable to Hungary. If this were so, it would not change the case. But the American government sought for nothing but truth; it desired to learn the facts through a reliable channel. It so happened, in the chances and vicissitudes of human affairs, that the result was adverse to the Hungarian Revolution. The American agent, as was stated in his instructions to be not unlikely, found the condition of Hungarian affairs less prosperous than it had been, or had been believed to be. He did not enter Hungary, nor hold any direct communication with her revolutionary leaders. He reported against the recognition of her independence, because he found she had been unable to set up a firm and stable government. He carefully forbore, as his instructions required, to give publicity to his mission, and the undersigned supposes that the Austrian government first learned its existence from the communications of the President to the Senate.

Mr Hülsemann will observe from this statement that Mr. Mann's mission was wholly unobjectionable, and strictly within the rule of the law of nations, and the duty of the United States as a neutral power. He will accordingly feel how little foundation there is for his remark, that "those who did not hesitate to assume the responsibility of sending Mr. Dudley Mann on such an errand, should, independent of considerations of propriety, have borne in mind that they were exposing their emissary to be treated as a spy." A spy is a person sent by one belligerent to gain secret information of the forces and defences of the other, to be used for hostile purposes. According to practice, he may use deception, under the penalty of being lawfully hanged if detected. To give this name and character to a confidential agent of a neutral power, bearing the commission of his country, and sent for a purpose fully warranted by the law of nations, is not only to abuse language, but also to confound all just ideas, and to announce the wildest and most extravagant notions, such as certainly were not to be expected in a grave diplomatic paper; and the President directs the undersigned to say to Mr. Hülsemann, that the American Government would regard such an imputation upon it by the Cabinet of Austria, as that it employs spies, and that in a quarrel none of its own, as distinctly offensive, if it did not presume, as it is willing to presume, that the word used in the original German was not of equivalent meaning with "spy" in the English language, or that in some other way the employment of such an opprobrious term may be explained. Had the Imperial

Government of Austria subjected Mr. Mann to the treatment of a spy, it would have placed itself without the pale of civilized nations; and the Cabinet of Vienna may be assured that if it had carried, or attempted to carry, any such lawless purpose into effect, in the case of an authorized agent of this Government, the spirit of the people of this country would have demanded immediate hostilities to be waged by the utmost exertion of the power of the Republic, military and naval.

Mr. Hülsemann proceeds to remark that "this extremely painful incident, therefore, might have been passed over, without any written evidence being left on our part in the archives of the United States, had not General Taylor thought proper to revive the whole subject, by communicating to the Senate, in his message of the 18th [28th] of last March, the instructions with which Mr. Mann had been furnished on the occasion of his mission to Vienna. The publicity which has been given to that document has placed the Imperial Government under the necessity of entering a formal protest, through its official representatives, against the proceedings of the American Government, lest that Government should construe our silence into approbation, or toleration even, of the principles which appear to have guided its action and the means it has adopted." The undersigned reasserts to Mr. Hülsemann, and to the Cabinet of Vienna, and in the presence of the world, that the steps taken by President Taylor, now protested against by the Austrian Government, were warranted by the law of nations and agreeable to the usages of civilized States. With

respect to the communication of Mr. Mann's instructions to the Senate, and the language in which they are couched, it has already been said, and Mr. Hülsemann must feel the justice of the remark, that these are domestic affairs, in reference to which the Government of the United States can not admit the slightest responsibility to the Government of his Imperial Majesty. No State, deserving the appellation of independent, can permit the language in which it may instruct its own officers in the discharge of their duties to itself to be called in question, under any pretext, by a foreign power. But, even if this were not so, Mr. Hülsemann is in an error in stating that the Austrian Government is called an "Iron Rule" in Mr. Mann's instructions. That phrase is not found in the paper; and in respect to the honorary epithet bestowed in Mr. Mann's instructions on the late chief of the Revolutionary Government of Hungary, Mr. Hülsemann will bear in mind that the Government of the United States can not justly be expected, in a confidential communication to its own agent, to withhold from an individual an epithet of distinction of which a great part of the world thinks him worthy, merely on the ground that his own Government regards him as a rebel. At an early stage of the American Revolution, while Washington was considered by the English Government as a rebel chief, he was regarded on the continent of Europe as an illustrious hero. But the undersigned will take the liberty of bringing the Cabinet of Vienna into the presence of its own predecessors, and of citing for its consideration the conduct of the Imperial Government itself. In the year 1777, the war of the