he is in error, and acting upon this known error seeks to impose it upon Congress and the world as truth.  In this sense it is a direct attack upon the integrity of the Chief Magistrate of the Republic.  As such it must be indignantly repelled; and it being a question of moral delinquency between the two Governments, the evidence against France, by whom it is raised, must be sternly arrayed.  You will ascertain, therefore, if it has been used by the authority or receives the sanction of the Government of France in that sense.  Should it be disavowed or explained, as from the note of the Count de Rigny to you, written at the moment of great excitement, and in its matter not differing from M. Serurier’s, it is presumed it will be, you will then use the materials herewith communicated, or already in your power, in a temper of great forbearance, but with a firmness of tone not to be mistaken, to answer the substance of the note itself.

Mr. Serurier to Mr. Forsyth.

[Translation.]

WASHINGTON, February 23, 1835.

Hon. JOHN FORSYTH,

Secretary of State.

The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of His Majesty the King of the French at Washington, has received orders to present the following note to the Secretary of State of the Government of the United States: 

It would be superfluous to say that the message addressed on the 1st of December, 1834, to the Congress of the United States by President Jackson was received at Paris with a sentiment of painful surprise.

The King’s Government is far from supposing that the measures recommended in this message to the attention of Congress can be adopted (votees) by that assembly; but even considering the document in question as a mere manifestation of the opinion which the President wishes to express with regard to the course taken in this affair, it is impossible not to consider its publication as a fact of a most serious nature.

The complaints brought forward by the President on account of the pretended nonfulfillment of the engagements entered into by the King’s Government after the vote of the 1st of April are strange, not only from the total inaccuracy of the allegations on which they are based, but also because the explanations received by Mr. Livingston at Paris and those which the undersigned has given directly to the Cabinet of Washington seemed not to leave the slightest possibility of misunderstanding on points so delicate.

It appeared, indeed, from these explanations that although the session of the French Chambers, which was opened on the 31st of July last in compliance with an express provision of the charter, was prorogued at the end of a fortnight, before the bill relative to the American claims, announced in the discourse from the throne, could be placed under discussion, this prorogation arose (tendit) entirely from the absolute impossibility of commencing at so premature a period the legislative labors belonging to the year 1835.