necessary that you should explain to the Mexican minister for foreign affairs, or to the authorized agents of the Mexican Government, the reasons which have influenced the Senate in adopting these several amendments to the treaty.  This duty you will perform as much as possible by personal conferences.  Diplomatic notes are to be avoided unless in case of necessity.  These might lead to endless discussions and indefinite delay.  Besides, they could not have any practical result, as your mission is confined to procuring a ratification from the Mexican Government of the treaty as it came from the Senate, and does not extend to the slightest modification in any of its provisions.

The commissioners were sent to Mexico to procure the ratification of the treaty as amended by the Senate.  Their instructions confined them to this point.  It was proper that the amendments to the treaty adopted by the United States should be explained to the Mexican Government, and explanations were made by the Secretary of State in his letter of the 18th of March, 1848, to the Mexican minister for foreign affairs, under my direction.  This dispatch was communicated to Congress with my message of the 6th of July last, communicating the treaty of peace, and published by their order.  This dispatch was transmitted by our commissioners from the City of Mexico to the Mexican Government, then at Queretaro, on the 17th of April, 1848, and its receipt acknowledged on the 19th of the same month.  During the whole time that the treaty, as amended, was before the Congress of Mexico these explanations of the Secretary of State, and these alone, were before them.

The President of Mexico, on these explanations, on the 8th day of May, 1848, submitted the amended treaty to the Mexican Congress, and on the 25th of May that Congress approved the treaty as amended, without modification or alteration.  The final action of the Mexican Congress had taken place before the commissioners of the United States had been officially received by the Mexican authorities, or held any conference with them, or had any other communication on the subject of the treaty except to transmit the letter of the Secretary of State.

In their dispatch transmitted to Congress with my message of the 6th of July last, communicating the treaty of peace, dated “City of Queretaro, May 25, 1848, 9 o’clock p.m.,” the commissioners say: 

We have the satisfaction to inform you that we reached this city this afternoon at about 5 o’clock, and that the treaty, as amended by the Senate of the United States, passed the Mexican Senate about the hour of our arrival by a vote of 33 to 5.  It having previously passed the House of Deputies, nothing now remains but to exchange the ratifications of the treaty.

On the next day (the 26th of May) the commissioners were for the first time presented to the President of the Republic and their credentials placed in his hands.  On this occasion the commissioners delivered an address to the President of Mexico, and he replied.  In their dispatch of the 30th of May the commissioners say: