the result should be received it would be made
the subject of a special communication.

In execution of this design I now transmit to you the papers
numbered from 1 to 13, inclusive, containing among other things the
correspondence on this subject between our charge d'affaires and the
French minister of foreign affairs, from which it will be seen that
France requires as a condition precedent to the execution of a treaty
unconditionally ratified and to the payment of a debt acknowledged by
all the branches of her Government to be due that certain explanations
shall be made of which she dictates the terms. These terms are such as
that Government has already been officially informed can not be complied
with, and if persisted in they must be considered as a deliberate
refusal on the part of France to fulfill engagements binding by the laws
of nations and held sacred by the whole civilized world. The nature of
the act which France requires from this Government is clearly set forth
in the letter of the French minister marked No. 4. We will pay the
money, says he, when "_the Government of the United States is ready on
its part to declare to us, by addressing its claim to us officially in
writing, that it regrets the misunderstanding which 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