paper, nor was it delivered in pursuance of instructions, nor in my official character.  I thought it, for obvious reasons, necessary to be very explicit on this point, and he properly understood me, as he had not yet read the message.  Little more passed at the interview, and I thought of it, but not immediately, to seek another.  I shall probably, however, see him to-night, and shall then appoint some time for a further conference, of which I will by this same packet give you the result.

Mr. Middleton has just arrived from Madrid with the inscriptions for the Spanish indemnity and a draft for the first payment of interest.  His instructions are, he says, to leave them with me, but as I have heard nothing from the Department I shall advise the depositing them with Rothschild to wait the directions of the President.

The importance of obtaining the earliest intelligence at this crisis of our affairs with France has induced me to direct that my letters should be sent by the estafette from Havre, and that if any important 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