Daily National Intelligencer

FOR THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.

The publication of Gen. Turreau's letter to Mr. Robert Smith, is a fortunate circumstance for the administration. The whole tenor of it is exceedingly honorable to Mr. Jefferson and to Mr. Madison, and exculpates the republican party from the foul imputation of a bias to French politics. In that view alone, it is a document of inestimable value. But if we consider it in other lights, how infinitely precious does it appear to the true friend of his country.

For my own part, I am ready to admit that the French minister merited, for the impertinence of that letter, a sharp and written reprimand. And the only question, as I conceive, which can arise in the mind of any man on that point, is, from whom ought the reprimand to have proceeded? Gen. Turreau, with a shrewdness peculiar to the French diplomatic school, cautiously guards himself against the possibility of an official admonition from the American government, by expressly stating to Mr. Smith, in the letter itself, that it is a simple, unofficial communication: Indeed, whoever peruses it with the slightest attention, will perceive that the letter is a personal appeal to Mr. Smith, by Gen. Turreau, from the impartial conduct of Mr. Madison and his predecessor. It is an effort, on the part of the Minister of France, to procure, through the agency of Mr. Smith, a change in the councils of America, less friendly to Great Britain, and less hostile to the French empire. This light, in which every intelligent and candid citizen will necessarily see the production, enables us to determine who ought to have written the reprimand which it called for. It is Mr. Smith himself that should have answered it. He, and not the administration was insulted. The letter of Gen. Turreau distinctly applies to the "loyalty" of Mr. Smith in behalf of France, against a presumed partiality in Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison for England. This application clearly supposes, on the part of Gen. Turreau, a belief that Mr. Smith was secretly devoted to French politics, and that he would be willing to become, in the council of which he was a member, an instrument to stir up dispositions more favorable to France than the General knew to prevail there. It is this supposition, so degrading to the personal dignity of Mr. Robert Smith, that he ought to have resented by an indignant reply in writing. He, more especially, was bound to do so, because the government was barred. Mr. Madison, had he even read Gen. Turreau's communication, could not have directed an official answer to an unofficial letter; as that, in form and effect, would have been to let down the administration from its governmental respectability to the private level of General Turreau.

Whether Mr. Smith ever did make a written reply, he best can tell. That he owed it to himself and to his station to do it, every one will agree. We are now certain that the French original of the letter was returned to the Minister. The return being the act of the government, did, of itself, preclude an answer in an official shape; or, in diplomatic correspondence, that which is returned to the writer is always understood to be unworthy of notice.
The case of Mr. Jackson, which is attempted to be made a parallel to that of Gen. Turreau, is very widely different. Mr. Jackson's was an official letter: It was received as an official letter; and, in the first instance, before he was discarded, he was admonished to cease. It was not, in truth, for the first nor the second letter, that Mr. Jackson was dismissed. It was for persisting to justify the insult, that he was suspended and sent home. Gen. Turreau took care, after the return of his letter, not to repeat it. If he had, he would have been sent home too.

What could have led Gen. Turreau to select Mr. Smith, as the member of the American Executive Council most friendly to France, I do not know. Mr. Wagner's paper in the year 1809, it is well known, attributed to Mr. Smith and to all his connections, an unbounded devotion to Napoleon; and it was, perhaps, from that print that the General received the impression.

In what manner Mr. Wagner got possession of the translation in Mr. Graham's hand-writing, will now be no question. But when we look at that circumstance in all its baseness, the veil which has hitherto concealed certain cabals from the public eye, is no longer sufficient to hide the vindictive spirit that excites them.

CATO.