an explanation, what more could be required than that which is contained in the message itself that it was not intended as a menace?  If the measure to which I alluded should be adopted and submitted to, what would His Majesty’s Government require?  The disavowal of any intent to influence the councils of France by threats?  They have it already.  It forms a part of the very instrument which caused the offense, and I will not do them the injustice to think that they could form the offensive idea of requiring more.  The necessity of discussing the nature of the remedies for the nonexecution of the treaty, the character and spirit in which it was done, are explained in my letter so often referred to, and I pray your excellency to consider the concluding part of it, beginning with the quotation I have last made.  But if I wanted any argument to shew that no explanation of this part of the message was necessary or could be required, I should find it in the opinion—­certainly a just one—­expressed by His Majesty’s ministers, that the recommendation of the President not having been adopted by the other branches of the Government it was not a national act, and could not be complained of as such.  Nay, in the note presented by M. Serurier to the Government at Washington and the measures which it announces (his recall and the offer of my passports) the Government of His Majesty seem to have done all that they thought its dignity required, for they at the same time declare that the law providing for the payment will be presented, but give no intimation of any previous condition and annex none to the bill which they present.  The account of dignity being thus declared by this demonstration to be settled, it can not be supposed that it will again be introduced as a set-off against an acknowledged pecuniary balance.  Before I conclude my observations on this part of the subject it will be well to inquire in what light exceptions are taken to this part of the message, whether as a menace generally or to the particular measure proposed.  In the first view, if every measure that a Government having claims on another declares it must pursue if those claims are not allowed (whatever may be the terms employed) is a menace, it is necessary, and not objectionable unless couched in offensive language; it is a fair declaration of what course the party making it intends to pursue, and except in cases where pretexts were wanted for a rupture have rarely been objected to, even when avowedly the act of the nation, not, as in this case, a proposal made by one branch of its Government to another.  Instances of this are not wanting, but need not be here enumerated.  One, however, ought to be mentioned, because it is intimately connected with the subject now under discussion.  While the commerce of the United States was suffering under the aggressions of the two most powerful nations of the world the American Government, in this sense of the word, menaced them both.  It passed a law in express terms declaring