6385. PAPERS, Executive.—[continued].
When the request goes
to “copies of the orders issued in relation to
Colonel Burr, to the officers at Orleans, Natchez,
&c., by the Secretaries of the War and Navy
Departments”, it seems to cover a correspondence
of many months, with such a variety of
officers, civil and military, all over the United
States, as would amount to laying open the
whole executive books. I have desired the
Secretary of War to examine his official communications;
and on a view of these, we May
be able to judge, what can and ought to be done,
towards a compliance with the request. If the
defendant alleges that there was any particular
order, which, as a cause, produced any particular
act on his part, then he must know what
this order was, can specify it, and a prompt
answer can be given.—
To George Hay. Washington ed. v, 95.
Ford ed., ix, 55.
(W.
June. 1807)
