that neither constitutional impediment nor stern, inflexible usage prevented such a call of the Chambers as would have complied with the letter of Mr. Serurier’s engagement.  Since I have alluded to the actual meeting of the Chambers on the 1st of December, it is but candid to allow that even this period would not have enabled the President to have attained one of his objects—­the presenting of the result of their deliberations to Congress in his opening message.  But even that slight concession, if it had been made to my unceasing applications, might have given an opportunity of conveying their decision to Congress before the 4th of March, when they must adjourn, because, had that day been then determined on, everything would have been ready to lay before the Chambers on the opening of the session; but a meeting a month or six weeks earlier would have given ample time for deliberation and decision in season to have it known at Washington on the 1st of December.

The necessity of giving time to the new members to inform themselves of the nature of the question and the old ones to recover from the impression which erroneous statements had made upon their minds I understand to be the remaining motive of His Majesty’s ministers for delaying the meeting; but this was a precaution which, relying on the plain obligation of the treaty, the President could not appreciate, and he must, moreover, have thought that if a long discussion was necessary to understand the merits of the question it was an additional reason for hastening the meeting where those merits were to be discussed.  The delay that occurred between the meeting of the Chambers and the 1st of January need not have entered into the discussion, because, not long known at Washington, it could not have had any influence on the message.  It is referred to, I presume, in order to show 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; first, because of the circumstance to which you allude; secondly, because the statements originally intended to be ready by the 1st of January were not yet prepared.  There is a slight error in this part of your excellency’s letter; the delay was not made at my request, but was fully approved of, for the reasons which I have stated.

I have entered into this detail, sir, not for the purpose of recrimination, which, in most cases useless, would in this be worse, but with the object, as was my duty, of showing that although the ministers of the King, under the interpretation they seem to have given to Mr. 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