[Extract of a letter from Mr. Adams (No. 1) to Mr. Sheldon, dated Department of State, Washington, August 13, 1823.]

I have had the honor of receiving your dispatches Nos. 1 and 2, the latter dated the 10th of June.  Mr. Gallatin arrived with his family at New York on the 24th of that month.

I inclose herewith copies of the recent correspondence between the Count de Menou, the charge d’affaires of France, and this Department on various subjects highly interesting to the relations between the two countries.

With regard to the Count’s note of the 11th of July, the President received with great satisfaction the testimonial of the Viscount de Chateaubriand to the candor and ability with which Mr. Gallatin has performed the duties of his official station in France.  The proposal to renew the negotiation in behalf of the well-founded claims of our citizens upon the French Government in connection with a claim on the part of France to special privileges in the ports of Louisiana, which, after a very full discussion, had in the views of this Government been proved utterly groundless, could neither be accepted nor considered as evidence of the same conciliatory spirit.  The claims of our citizens are for mere justice; they are for reparation of unquestionable wrongs—­for indemnity or restitution of property taken from them or destroyed without shadow or color of right.  The claim under the eighth article of the Louisiana convention has nothing to rest upon but a forced construction of the terms of the stipulation, which the American Government considered, and have invariably considered, as totally without foundation.  These are elements not to be coupled together in the same negotiation, and while we yet trust to the final sense of justice of France for the adjustment of the righteous claims of our citizens, we still hope that their unquestionable character will ultimately secure to them a consideration unencumbered with other discussions.  You will respectfully make this representation to the Viscount de Chateaubriand, with the assurance of the readiness of this Government to discuss the question upon the Louisiana convention further if desired by France, but of our final conviction that it is not to be blended with the claims of our citizens for mere justice.

Count de Menou to Mr. Adams.

[Translation.]

LEGATION OF FRANCE TO THE UNITED STATES,

Washington, July 11, 1823.

The Honorable SECRETARY OF STATE: 

His Excellency the Viscount de Chateaubriand, in announcing to me that Mr. Gallatin was about to leave France, expresses his regret at his departure in such terms that I should do him injustice were I not to use his own expressions.  “My correspondence with this minister,” he remarks to me, “has caused me to appreciate his talents, his ability, and his attachment to the system of friendship that unites the two powers.  It is with regret that I suspend my communications with him.”