Mr. M'Rae answers to Mr. Burr's note of this morning, that his knowledge of the circumstances under which Mr. Burr left the United States renders it his duty to decline giving Mr. Burr either a passport or a permis de séjour. If, however, the opinion Mr. M'Rae has formed and the determination he has adopted on this subject be erroneous, there is a remedy at hand.
Although the business of granting passports and permis de séjour generally is confided to the consul, the chargé des affaires unquestionably possesses full authority to grant protection in either of those forms to any person to whom it may be improperly denied by the consul.
TO MR. RUSSELL.
Paris, November 1, 1810.
On receipt of Mr. Russell's note, Mr. Burr applied to the consul; a copy of his reply is herewith enclosed. It cannot be material to inquire what are the "circumstances" referred to by the consul, nor whether true or false. Mr. Burr is ignorant of any statute or instruction which authorizes a foreign minister or agent to inquire into any circumstances other than those which tend to establish the fact of citizen or not. If, however, Mr. Russell should be of a different opinion, Mr. Burr is ready to satisfy him that no circumstances exist which can, by any construction, in the slightest degree impair his rights as a citizen, and that the conclusions of the consul are founded in error, either in point of fact or of inference. Yet, conceiving that every citizen has a right to demand a certificate or passport, Mr. Burr is constrained to renew his application to Mr. Russell, to whom the consul has been pleased to refer the decision.
FROM MR. RUSSELL.
Paris, November 4, 1810.
Without subscribing to the opinion of Mr. M'Rae with regard to the appeal that lays from the erroneous decisions of the consul to the chargé d'affaires, Mr. Russell has no objection to judging the case which Mr. Burr has presented to him.
The man who evades the offended laws of his country, abandons, for the time, the right to their protection. This fugitive from justice, during his voluntary exile, has a claim to no other passport than one which shall enable him to surrender himself for trial for the offences with which he stands charged. Such a passport Mr. Russell will furnish to Mr. Burr, but no other.
In the winter of 1810 and 1811, being cut off from remittances from America, it appears from his journal that he suffered sad privations from the want of money.