your letter of the 3d of October, which, however it may appear to you, the President cannot but consider as a remonstrance, a protest, against the treaty of the 9th of August; in other words, an attack upon his administration for the negotiation and conclusion of that treaty.  He certainly was not prepared for this.  It came upon him with no small surprise, and he still feels that you must have been, at the moment, under the influence of temporary impressions, which he cannot but hope have ere now worn away.

A few remarks upon some of the points of your last letter must now close the correspondence.

In the first place, you object to my having called your letter of October 3d a “protest or remonstrance” against a transaction of the government, and observe that you must have been unhappy in the mode of expressing yourself, if you were liable to this charge.

What other construction your letter will bear, I cannot perceive.  The transaction was finished.  No letter or remarks of yourself, or any one else, could undo it, if desirable.  Your opinions were unsolicited.  If given as a citizen, then it was altogether unusual to address them to this department in an official despatch; if as a public functionary, the whole subject-matter was quite aside from the duties of your particular station.  In your letter you did not propose any thing to be done, but objected to what had been done.  You did not suggest any method of remedying what you were pleased to consider a defect, but stated what you thought to be reasons for fearing its consequences.  You declared that there had been, in your opinion, an omission to assert American rights; to which omission you gave the department to understand that you would never have consented.

In all this there is nothing but protest and remonstrance; and, though your letter be not formally entitled such, I cannot see that it can be construed, in effect, as any thing else; and I must continue to think, therefore, that the terms used are entirely applicable and proper.

In the next place, you say:  “You give me to understand that the communications which have passed between us on this subject are to be published, and submitted to the great tribunal of public opinion.”

It would have been better if you had quoted my remark with entire correctness.  What I said was, not that the communications which have passed between us are to be published, or must be published, but that “it may become necessary hereafter to publish your letter, in connection with other correspondence of the mission; and, although it is not to be presumed that you looked to such publication, because such a presumption would impute to you a claim to put forth your private opinions upon the conduct of the President and Senate, in a transaction finished and concluded, through the imposing form of a public despatch, yet, if published, it cannot be foreseen how far England might hereafter rely on your authority for a construction favorable to her own pretensions, and inconsistent with the interest and honor of the United States.”