e and censure would
have been complete. Having delivered your letter of the 13th of February
to the French government, and having received the President's
approbation of that proceeding, it is most manifest that you could be in
no degree responsible for what should be done afterward, and done by
others. The President, therefore, cannot conceive what particular or
personal interest of yours was affected by the subsequent negotiation
here, or how the treaty, the result of that negotiation, should put an
end to your usefulness as a public minister at the court of France, or
in any way affect your official character or conduct.

It is impossible not to see that such a proceeding as you have seen fit
to adopt might produce much inconvenience, and even serious prejudice,
to the public interests. Your opinion is against the treaty, a treaty
concluded and formally ratified; and, to support that opinion, while yet
in the service of the government, you put a construction on its
provisions such as your own government does not put upon them, such as
you must be aware the enlightened public of Europe does not put upon
them, and such as England herself has not put upon them as yet, so far
as we know.

It may become necessary hereafter to publish your letter, in connection
with other correspondence of the mission; and although it is not to be
presumed that you looked to such publication, because such a presumption
would impute to you a claim to put forth your private opinions upon the
conduct of the President and Senate, in a transaction finished and
concluded, through the imposing form of a public despatch, yet, if
published, it cannot be foreseen how far England might hereafter rely
on your authority for a construction favorable to her own pretensions,
and inconsistent with the interest and honor of the United States. It is
certain that you would most sedulously desire to avoid any such
attitude. You would be slow to express opinions, in a solemn and
official form, favorable to another government, and on the authority of
which opinions that other government might hereafter found new claims or
set up new pretensions. It is for this reason, as well as others, that
the President feels so much regret at your desire of placing your
construction of the provisions of the treaty, and your objections to
those provisions, according to your construction, upon the records of
the government.

Before examining the several objections suggested