has arisen between the two countries; that this misunderstanding is founded on a mistake; that it never entered into its intention to call in question the good faith of the French Government nor to take a menacing attitude toward France." And he adds:  "If the Government of the United States does not give this assurance we shall be obliged to think that this misunderstanding is not the result of an error." In the letter marked No. 6 the French minister also remarks that "the Government of the United States knows that upon itself depends henceforward the execution of the treaty of July 4, 1831.”

Obliged by the precise language thus used by the French minister to view it as a peremptory refusal to execute the treaty except on terms incompatible with the honor and independence of the United States, and persuaded that on considering the correspondence now submitted to you you can regard it in no other light, it becomes my duty to call your attention to such measures as the exigency of the case demands if the claim of interfering in the communications between the different branches of our Government shall be persisted in.  This pretension is rendered the more unreasonable by the fact that the substance of the required explanation has been repeatedly and voluntarily given before it was insisted on as a condition—­a condition the more humiliating because it is demanded as the equivalent of a pecuniary consideration.  Does France desire only a declaration that we had no intention to obtain our rights by an address to her fears rather than to her justice?  She has already had it, frankly and explicitly given by our minister accredited to her Government, his act ratified by me, and my confirmation of it officially communicated by him in his letter to the French minister of foreign affairs of the 25th of April, 1835, and repeated by my published approval of that letter after the passage of the bill of indemnification.  Does France want a degrading, servile repetition of this act, in terms which she shall dictate and which will involve an acknowledgment of her assumed right to interfere in our domestic councils?  She will never obtain it.  The spirit of the American people, the dignity of the Legislature, and the firm resolve of their executive government forbid it.

As the answer of the French minister to our charge d’affaires at Paris contains an allusion to a letter addressed by him to the representative of France at this place, it now becomes proper to lay before you the correspondence had between that functionary and the Secretary of State relative to that letter, and to accompany the same with such explanations as will enable you to understand the course of the Executive in regard to it.  Recurring to the historical statement made at the commencement of your session, of the origin and progress of our difficulties with France, it will be recollected that on the return of our minister to the United States I caused my official approval