rican 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. Huelsemann 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 odious
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 have been expected in a grave
diplomatic paper; and the President directs the undersigned to say to
Mr. Huelsemann, 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 employmen