t of such an
opprobrious term may be explained. Had the Imperial government of
Austria subjected Mr. Mann for 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. Huelsemann 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 representative, 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. Huelsemann, 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. Huelsemann must feel the justice of the remark, that
these are domestic affairs, in reference to which the government of the
United States cannot 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. Huelsemann is in an error in stating
that the Austrian government is called an "iron rule" in Mr. Mann's
instructions. That phrase is no