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 fa