As you appeared at that time not to be acquainted with the provisions of the treaty, it was inferred that your desire to return home proceeded from the conviction that, inasmuch as all apprehensions of immediate differences with Great Britain were at an end, you would no longer be useful at Paris.  Placing this interpretation on your letter, and believing, as you yourself allege, that your long absence abroad rendered it desirable for you to give some attention to your private affairs in this country, the President lost no time in yielding to your request, and, in doing so, signified to you the sentiments of approbation which he entertained for your conduct abroad.  You may, then, well imagine the great astonishment which the declaration contained in your despatch of the 3d of October, that you could no longer remain in France honorably to yourself or advantageously to the country, and that the proceedings of this government had placed you in a false position, from which you could escape only by returning home, created in his mind.

The President perceives not the slightest foundation for these opinions.  He cannot see how your usefulness as minister to France should be terminated by the settlement of difficulties and disputes between the United States and Great Britain.  You have been charged with no duties connected with the settlement of these questions, or in any way relating to them, beyond the communication to the French government of the President’s approbation of your letter of the 13th of February, written without previous instructions from this department.  This government is not informed of any other act or proceeding of yours connected with any part of the subject, nor does it know that your official conduct and character have become in any other way connected with the question of the right of search; and that letter having been approved, and the French government having been so informed, the President is altogether at a loss to understand how you can regard yourself as placed in a false position.  If the character or conduct of any one was to be affected, it could only be the character and conduct of the President himself.  The government has done nothing, most assuredly, to place you in a false position.  Representing your country at a foreign court, you saw a transaction about to take place between the government to which you were accredited and another power, which you thought might have a prejudicial effect on the interest of your own country.  Thinking, as it is to be presumed, that the case was too pressing to wait for instructions, you presented a protest against that transaction, and our government approved your proceeding.  This is your only official connection with the whole subject.  If after this the President had sanctioned the negotiation of a treaty, and the Senate had ratified it, containing provisions in the highest degree objectionable, however the government might be discredited, your exemption from all blame