ANDREW JACKSON.
POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT,
_December 20, 1836_.
The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
SIR: On the morning of the 15th instant I performed the painful duty
of reporting to you orally the destruction of the General Post-Office
building by fire, and received your instructions to inquire into the
cause and extent of the calamity, for the purpose of enabling you to
make a communication to Congress.
A few hours afterwards I received, through the chairman of the Committee
on the Post-Office and Post-Roads of the House of Representatives, an
official copy of a resolution adopted by that House, instructing the
committee to institute a similar inquiry, and the chairman asked for
such information as it was in my power to give. The investigation
directed by you was thus rendered unnecessary.
The corporation of the city of Washington with honorable promptitude
offered the Department the use of the west wing of the City Hall, now
occupied by the mayor and councils and their officers and the officers
of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. The proprietors of the medical
college also tendered the use of their building on E street, and offers
were made of several other buildings in the central parts of the city.
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