f unfriendly prejudices to which former events
naturally gave rise concurred to present this as a fit period for
renewing our endeavors to provide against the recurrence of causes of
irritation which in the event of war between Great Britain and any other
power would inevitably endanger our peace. Animated by the sincerest
desire to avoid such a state of things, and peacefully to secure under
all possible circumstances the rights and honor of the country, I have
given such instructions to the minister lately sent to the Court of
London as will evince that desire, and if met by a correspondent
disposition, which we can not doubt, will put an end to causes of
collision which, without advantage to either, tend to estrange from each
other two nations who have every motive to preserve not only peace, but
an intercourse of the most amicable nature.

In my message at the opening of the last session of Congress I expressed
a confident hope that the justice of our claims upon France, urged as
they were with perseverance and signal ability by our minister there,
would finally be acknowledged. This hope has been realized. A treaty has
been signed which will immediately be laid before the Senate for its
approbation, and which, containing stipulations that require legislative
acts, must have the concurrence of both Houses before it can be carried
into effect. By it the French Government engage to pay a sum which, if
not quite equal to that which may be found due to our citizens, will
yet, it is believed, under all circumstances, be deemed satisfactory by
those interested. The offer of a gross sum instead of the satisfaction
of each individual claim was accepted because the only alternatives were
a rigorous exaction of the whole amount stated to be due on each claim,
which might in some instances be exaggerated by design, in others
overrated through error, and which, therefore, it would have been both
ungracious and unjust to have insisted on; or a settlement by a mixed
commission, to which the French negotiators were very averse, and which
experience in other cases had shewn to be dilatory and often wholly
inadequate to the end. A comparatively small sum is stipulated on our
part to go to the extinction of all claims by French citizens on our
Government, and a reduction of duties on our cotton and their wines has
been agreed on as a consideration for the renunciation of an important
claim for commercial privileges under the construct