Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

COMMUNICATION.

Mr. FENNO,

I consider myself bound in justice to Mr. Smith of South Carolina to contradict the false statement, in Bache's paper of yesterday, of his observations concerning the presence of Foreign Ministers in Congress.

I was present through the whole of the debate and can therefore attest the following to be a true account of the matter:

Mr. Dayton, the Speaker, had censured Mr. HARPER, (Mr. Smith's colleague) for making certain observations respecting Foreign nations in the presence of their Representatives. Mr. Smith in answer animadverted on Mr. Dayton for expressions which tended to restrict the privileges of the members. He did not justify or condemn any thing his colleague had said, "but wished merely to vindicate the rights of the house, which he thought attacked by Mr. Dayton's censure. Mr. Smith said that no member ought to feel himself restrained from expressing his opinions freely and disclosing such sentiments as he thought pertinent to the debate, on account of the presence of any foreign minister, that while the member was in order, and so allowed to be by the Chair, the presence of a foreign minister ought to have no influence whatever on him, and that a contrary idea would be repugnant to the protection afforded the members by the constitution, which declared "that they should not be questioned in any other place for any speech or debate in the house." Mr. Smith I aver did not employ the coarse language ascribed to him by Bache's correspondent; he only said; in polite terms, that, "While the members were solemnly deliberating on the great affairs of the nation they should consider themselves as entirely among themselves, and not as addressing their observations to the bystanders, that the house did not invite the audience nor foreign ministers to hear their debates, and that if they attended and heard unpleasant things, the members were surely not to blame; he should be sorry for his part that any foreign ministers should be in that disagreeable predicament, but it nevertheless ought not to check any member from freely delivering those sentiments, which, in his opinion the good of his country required."

As I was, along with many others near me, much pleased with those manly and patriotic sentiments, so proper to be inculcated at this critical period, and could not see without disgust, the impertinent reflections of some meddling Foreigner (the evident writer of the piece in question) I have pleasure in paying my tribute of gratitude and justice to an independent member whose exertions for the good of his country were sure to be rewarded with the execrations of its Enemies.

A FRIEND TO TRUTH.