n to the claims of numerous citizens of
the United States upon the justice of the French Government.

I inclose herewith a copy of the report of the Committee on Foreign
Relations of the House of Representatives upon several petitions
addressed to that body at their last session by some of those claimants
and a resolution of the House adopted thereupon.

The President has deliberately considered the purport of M. de
Chateaubriand's answer to your note of the 28th of April upon this
subject, and he desires that you will renew with earnestness the
application for indemnity to our citizens for claims notoriously just
and resting upon the same principle with others which have been admitted
and adjusted by the Government of France.

In the note of the Viscount de Chateaubriand to you of 7th May it is
said that he is authorized to declare a negotiation will be opened with
you upon the American claims if this negotiation should also include
French claims, and particularly the arrangements to be concluded
concerning the execution of the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty.

You are authorized in reply to declare that any just claims which
subjects of France may have upon the Government of the United States
will readily be included in the negotiation, and to stipulate any
suitable provision for the examination, adjustment, and satisfaction
of them.

But the question relating to the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty
is not only of a different character--it can not be blended with that of
indemnity for individual claims without a sacrifice on the part of the
United States of a principle of right. The negotiation for indemnity
presupposes that wrong has been done, that indemnity ought to be made,
and the object of any treaty stipulation concerning it can only be to
ascertain what is justly due and to make provision for the payment of
it. By consenting to connect with such a negotiation that relating to
the eighth article of the Louisiana convention the United States would
abandon the _principle_ upon which the whole discussion concerning
it depends. The situation of the parties to the negotiation would be
unequal. The United States, asking reparation for admitted wrong, are
told that France will not discuss it with them unless they will first
renounce their own sense of right to admit and discuss with it a claim
the _justice_ of which they have constantly denied.

The Government of the United States is prepared to ren