_Chargé d'Affaires, etc._
SIR: I had yesterday the honor to receive your note of the 1st instant,
with the accompanying paper, purporting to be a copy of a letter
addressed under date of the 17th of June last by His Excellency the
Duke de Broglie, minister of foreign affairs of France, to yourself.
After referring to what occurred in our interview of the 11th September
in regard to the original letter, and expressing your regrets at the
course I then felt it my duty to take, you request me to place the copy
inclosed in your letter under the eye of the President.
In allowing you during that interview to read to me the Duke de
Broglie's dispatch, which I cheerfully did, you were enabled to avail
yourself of that informal mode of apprising this Department of the views
of your Government in the full extent authorized by diplomatic usage.
The question whether or not I should ask a copy of that dispatch was
of course left, as it should have been, by your Government exclusively
to my discretion. My reasons for not making that request were frankly
stated to you, founded on a conviction that in the existing state of the
relations between the two countries the President would think it most
proper that every communication upon the subject in difference between
them designed to influence his conduct should, before it was submitted
to his consideration, be made to assume the official form belonging to
a direct communication from one government to another by which alone
he could be enabled to cause a suitable reply to be given to it and to
submit it, should such a step become necessary, to his associates in the
Government. I had also the honor at the same time to assure you that any
direct communication from yourself as the representative of the King's
Government to me, embracing the contents of this dispatch or any other
matter you might be authorized to communicate in the accustomed mode,
would be laid without delay before the President, and would undoubtedly
receive from him an early and just consideration.
It can not have escaped your reflections that my duty required that
the circumstances of the interview between us should be reported
to the President, and that the discovery of any error on my part in
representing his views of the course proper to be pursued on that
occasion would without fail have been promptly communicated to you.
That duty was performed. The substance of our interview and the reasons
by which my course in it had been guided were immediately communicated to
and entirely approved by him. I could not, therefore, have anticipated
that after so long a period had elapsed, and without any change in the
condition of affairs, you should have regarded it as useful or proper
to revive the subject at the time and in the form you have seen fit to
adopt. Cordially reciprocating, however, the conciliatory sentiments
expressed in your note, and in deference to your request, I have again
consulted the President on the subject, and am instructed to inform
you that the opinion expressed by me in the interview between us,
and subsequently confirmed by him, remains unchanged, and I therefore
respectfully restore to you the copy of the Duke de Broglie's letter,
as I can not make the use of it which you desired.
I am also instructed to say that the President entertains a decided
conviction that a departure in the present case from the ordinary and
accustomed method of international communication is calculated to
increase rather than to diminish the difficulties unhappily existing
between France and the United States, and that its observance in their
future intercourse will be most likely to bring about the amicable
adjustment of those difficulties on terms honorable to both parties.
Such a result is sincerely desired by him, and he will omit nothing
consistent with the faithful discharge of his duties to the United
States by which it may be promoted. In this spirit I am directed by him
to repeat to you the assurance made in our interview in September last,
that any official communication you may think proper to address to this
Government will promptly receive such consideration as may be due to its
contents and to the interests involved in the subject to which it may
refer.
As the inclosed paper is not considered the subject of reply, you will
allow me to add, for the purpose of preventing any misconception in this
respect, that my silence in regard to its contents is not to be
construed as admitting the accuracy of any of the statements or
reasonings contained in it.