Your communications to this Department, of the 17th, 23d, and 25th instant, have been received. The first is a report on one branch only of the business instrusted to you. It is altogether silent with regard to the state of the negotiation for the claims of our citizens upon the Mexican Government; and, as this Department is not in possession of your correspondence with that Government, and your despatches do not furnish as full information upon the subject as is desired, you will also make a report, as much in detail as may be practicable, relative thereto. The Department is at present unable to answer the inquiries that are frequently addressed to it concerning claims on Mexico.

In a letter from the consul of the United States at Matamoras, dated the 1st of July last, this Department was first informed that, by a law of the Mexican Congress, passed on the 24th of October, 1833, and which went into operation on the 24th of April, 1834, it was provided that all effects and merchandise conveyed from foreign nations to the ports of the Mexican republic in national vessels built within the Mexican States or Territories, would be entitled to a reduction of a fifth part of the import duties. As your letters furnish no intelligence upon this subject, this Department would be gratified to know whether the representation of Mr. D. W. Smith is correct.

The Department may be able to provide the volumes of Niles's Register, which you say are wanting to complete the set in the library of the legation at Mexico; but it is not usual to furnish our diplomatic agents with maps, or works on public law.