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merely by the collector of a custom-house. ln order lo arrive al such a result, an Executive would, from respect to itself, have first weighed carefully the merits of the case, and have examined previous circumstances and engagements; while the collector of a custom-house might act improperly in so serious a matter, either from weakness, or from ignorance, or from being notoriously identified, by his opinions and his interests, with those who display the new flag. Finally, the collector tells the consul that the armed vessels of Texas have been, for some months past, admillcd lo New Orleans without any opposition on the part of that custom-house, and without any complaint, so far as he had been advised, 011 the part of the Mexican consul residing there. Those who have told the collector so deceived him; and the best reply to his last assertion, which destroys, also, the whole value of the precedent allempled lo be established, is to be found in the subjoined copy (C) of a communication from the Mexican consul al New Orleans himself to the acting Secretary of Relations of Mexico. In that communication the Secretary of State will see that the consul did perform his duty, by addressing the collector of the custom-house directly, in order lo inquire under what flag he had admilled the first Texas armed vessel which entered that port on the 1st of January of this year. The Secretary of State will also see, in the same document, that the only answer received from the collector was the declaration given, indirectly, that he had determined not to answer the consul at all. Now, what more could the poor consul do, when he was thus not even allowed to obtain evidence of the fact on which his first complaint was lo be based? Or what was the use of addressing his complaints, in the subsequent cases, lo a collector who had already adopted the magnanimous resolution of giving no answer to any question which might be put lo him? Such, then, so futile and so partial, were the reasons by which the collector of the New York custom-house has been guided on this occasion. The undersigned, after this exposure of them, has no doubt that the President of the United States will view them in the same light, and that he will adopt, without delay, such measures as he may judge most efficacious, for manifesting his entire disapprobation of the official acts of that individual. With regard lo the principles by which the United Stales have hitherto been always governed in similar cases, they arc
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