“It is referred to, I presume, in order to shew that it was produced by a desire on the part of His Majesty’s ministers the better to assure the passage of the law.  Of this, sir, I never had a doubt, and immediately so advised my Government, and informed it, as was the fact, that I perfectly acquiesced in the delay.”

Thus it must be evident, not only that no offensive charge of ill faith is made in the message, but that, as is expressly stated in the first extract, full justice was done at Washington to the intentions of the French Government.  While the delay is complained of us a wrong, no improper motives are attributed to the Government in causing it.  Again, sir, the whole tenor of that part of my letter which relates to the inexecution of the promise made by M. Serurier, while it asserts the construction put upon it by the President to be the true one, and appeals to facts and circumstances to support that construction, yet it avoids charging the French Government with any intentional violation, by attributing their delay to an erroneous construction only; for in the letter (I again quote literally) I say: 

“I have entered into this detail with the object of showing that although the ministers of the King, under the interpretation they seem to have given to M. Serurier’s promise, may have considered themselves at liberty to defer the presentation of the law until the period which they thought would best secure its success, yet the President, interpreting that promise differently, feeling that in consequence of it he had forborne to do what might be strictly called a duty, and seeing that its performance had not taken place, could not avoid stating the whole case clearly and distinctly to Congress.”

Thus, sir, the President, in stating the acts of which he thought his country had reason to complain, does not make a single imputation of improper motive, and to avoid all misconstruction he offers a voluntary declaration that none such were entertained.

The part of the message which seems to have caused the greatest sensation in France is that in which, after a statement of the causes of complaint, it enters into a consideration of the measures to obtain redress which in similar cases are sanctioned by the laws of nations.  The complaint seems to be that, in a discussion it was impossible to avoid, of the efficacy and convenience of each, a preference was given to reprisals, considered as a remedial, not as a hostile, measure, and this has been construed into a menace.  If any explanations were necessary on this head, they are given in the message itself.  It is there expressly disavowed, and the power and high character of France are appealed to to shew that it never could be induced by threats to do what its sense of justice denied.  If the measure to which I have more than once alluded should be resorted to, and the humiliation attending a compliance with it could be endured; if it were possible under such circumstances to give