nts to
convince them of the disgrace and danger of permitting their most
confidential servants to be necessitous in a foreign country.

I will with their approbation, concert with the Superintendent of
Finance, the means of supplying our Ministers, Agents, and
Secretaries. But to facilitate these means, and convince the powers to
whom we are indebted for money, that we know the value of their aids,
I would humbly submit to Congress the propriety of practising the
strictest economy, as far as it may be consistent with their honor,
and the justice due to those they employ. That Congress may determine
the more readily whether their establishment will admit of any
reduction, or devise the most effectual means of defraying the expense
of it, I take the liberty to lay before them the annual amount of the
salaries of their servants now abroad.

If I am well informed, it is usual to distinguish the allowances to
Ministers by the expenses of the country in which they live, and the
character they are obliged to support. Such a rule would be
productive of great saving to us, whose policy it is to have agents
without any acknowledged public characters, at Courts which refuse to
receive our Ministers. How far so important a station as that of
Secretary to an Embassy might be supplied by private secretaries with
moderate salaries, at least till the existence of the Embassy was
acknowledged, must be submitted to the wisdom of Congress. Certain it
is, that foreigners who may not be acquainted with the dignified
characters of those we employ abroad as secretaries, will be surprised
to find their emoluments equal, if not exceeding those allowed by the
richest potentates in Europe, and that too, when the great object of
the mission is to represent our wants, and solicit supplies for civil
and military establishments at home.

Perhaps, too, from the ground on which the successful issue of this
campaign has placed us, Congress may see it improper to solicit
Courts, who are so little disposed to serve us as those of Petersburg
and Lisbon, or to expend additional sums of money on agencies to
Russia or Portugal.

Another part of the despatches referred to me, are those that relate
to John Temple, to which Congress alone are competent to give
directions. The reports currently circulated in England relative to
his first mission, his coming by way of New York, his return to
England, his abode there, his present visit to America, render him a