mportant advice
should be received at such an hour in the day as would give a courier
an advance of some hours over the estafette, that a special messenger
should be dispatched with it.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, sir, your most obedient
servant,

EDW. LIVINGSTON.

_Mr. Livingston to Mr. Forsyth_.

No. 71.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

_Paris, January 14, 1835_.

Hon. JOHN FORSYTH.

SIR: The intended conference with the minister for foreign affairs of
which I spoke to you in my last (No. 70) took place yesterday morning. I
began it by expressing my regret that a communication from the President
to Congress had been so much misrepresented in that part which related
to France as to be construed into a measure of hostilities. It was, I
said, part of a consultation between different members of our Government
as to the proper course to be pursued if the legislative body of France
should persevere in refusing to provide the means of complying with a
treaty formally made; that the President, as was his duty, stated the
facts truly and in moderate language, without any irritating comment;
that in further pursuance of his official duty he declared the different
modes of redress which the law of nations permitted in order to avoid
hostilities, expressing, as he ought to do, his reasons for preferring
one of them; that in all this there was nothing addressed to the French
nation; and I likened it to a proceeding well known in the French law
(a family council in which the concerns and interests are discussed),
but of which in our case the debates were necessarily public; that a
further elucidation of the nature of this document might be drawn from
the circumstance that no instructions had been given to communicate it
to the French Government, and that if a gazette containing it had been
delivered it was at the request of his excellency, and expressly
declared to be a private communication, not an official one. I further
stated that I made this communication without instructions, merely
to counteract misapprehensions and from an earnest desire to rectify
errors which might have serious consequences. I added that it was very
unfortunate that an earlier call of the Chambers had not been made in
consequence of Mr. Serurier's promise, the noncompliance with which was
of a nature to cause serious disquietude with the Government of the
United States. I found immediately that this was the part of the
mess