A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 542 pages of information about A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents.

A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 542 pages of information about A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents.
payment.  For yourself, you will, if the bill of indemnity is rejected, follow Mr. Livingston to the United States.  If the money is placed at the disposal of the King, conditionally, by the legislature of France, you will await further orders from the United States, but maintain a guarded silence on the subject of the indemnity.  If approached by the Government of France, directly or indirectly, you will hear what is said without reply, state what has occurred in full to the Department, and await its instructions.  It is the desire of the President that you will make not even a reference to the subject of the treaty in your intercourse with the French Government until the course intended to be pursued is definitely explained to the United States.  Whatever may be said to the Messrs. de Rothschild it will be their duty to report to you as well as to the Treasury Department, and whenever they converse with you they must be reminded that it is expected that they will wait for express notice from the Government of France that it is ready to pay before an application for payment is made.

The course adopted by Mr. Livingston has been fully approved, and the hope is indulged that his representations have had their just influence on the counsels of the King of France.  However that may be, the President’s determination is that the terms upon which the two Governments are to stand toward each other shall be regulated so far as his constitutional power extends by France.

A packet from the Treasury, addressed to the Messrs. de Rothschild, and containing the instructions of the Secretary, accompanied by a special power appointing them the agents of the United States to receive the payments due under the treaty of 1831, is forwarded herewith.  The copy of a letter from this Department to M. Pageot is also inclosed for your perusal.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

JOHN FORSYTH.

No. 2.

Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Barton.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, September 14, 1835.

THOMAS P. BARTON, Esq., etc.

SIR:  So much time will have elapsed before this dispatch can reach you, since the passage of the law by the French Chambers placing at the disposition of the King the funds to fulfill the treaty with the United States, that it is presumed the intention of the French Government will have been by that period disclosed.  It is proper therefore, in the opinion of the President, that you should receive your last instructions in relation to it.  It has always been his intention that the legation of the United States should leave France if the treaty were not fulfilled.  You have been suffered to remain after the departure of Mr. Livingston under the expectation that the Government of France would find in all that has occurred its obligation to proceed forthwith to the fulfillment of it as soon as funds were placed in its hands.  If this expectation is disappointed, you must ask

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