_Washington, March 5, 1835_.
EDWARD LIVINGSTON, Esq.,
_Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, Paris_.
SIR: In my note No. 49 you were informed that the last letter of
M. Sérurier would be made the subject of separate and particular
instructions to you. Unwilling to add to the irritation produced by
recent incidents in our relations with France, the President will not
take for granted that the very exceptionable language of the French
minister was used by the orders or will be countenanced by the authority
of the King of France. You will therefore, as early as practicable after
this reaches you, call the attention of the minister of foreign affairs
to the following passage in M. Sérurier's letter:
"Les plaintes que porte M. le Président centre le prétendu
non-accomplissement des engagemens pris par le Gouvernement du Roi à
la suite du vote du 1er avril 1834, ne sont pas seulement étrangé par
l'entière inexactitude des allégations sur lesquelles elles reposent,
mais aussi parceque les explications qu'a reçues à Paris M. Livingston,
et celles que le soussigné a données directement an cabinet de
Washington semblaient ne pas laisser même la possibilité d'un
malentendu sur des points aussi délicats."
In all discussions between government and government, whatever
may be the differences of opinion on the facts or principles brought
into view, the invariable rule of courtesy and justice demands that
the sincerity of the opposing party in the views which it entertains
should never be called in question. Facts may be denied, deductions
examined, disproved, and condemned, without just cause of offense; but
no impeachment of the integrity of the Government in its reliance
on the correctness of its own views can be permitted without a total
forgetfulness of self-respect. In the sentence quoted from M. Sérurier's
letter no exception is taken to the assertion that the complaints of
this Government are founded upon allegations entirely inexact, nor upon
that which declares the explanations given here or in Paris appeared,
not to have left even the possibility of a misunderstanding on such
delicate points. The correctness of these assertions we shall always
dispute, and while the records of the two Governments endure we shall
find no difficulty in shewing that they are groundless; but when M.
Sérurier chooses to qualify the nonaccomplishment of the engagements
made by France, to which the President refers, as a _pretended_
nonaccomplishment, he conveys the idea that the Chief Magistrate knows
or believes that 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. Sérurier'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. Sérurier 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 (_votées_) 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.
It also appeared that the motives which had hindered the formal
presentation to the Chambers of the bill in question during the first
space of a fortnight originated chiefly in the desire more effectually
to secure the success of this important affair by choosing the most
opportune moment of offering it to the deliberations of the deputies
newly elected, who, perhaps, might have been unfavorably impressed by
this unusual haste in submitting it to them so long before the period
at which they could enter upon an examination of it.
The undersigned will add that it is, moreover, difficult to comprehend
what advantage could have resulted from such a measure, since it could
not evidently have produced the effect which the President declares that
he had in view, of enabling him to state at the opening of Congress that
these long-pending negotiations were definitively closed. The President
supposes, it is true, that the Chambers might have been called together
anew before the last month of 1834; but even though the session had been
opened some months earlier--which for several reasons would have been
impossible--the simplest calculation will serve to shew that in no case
could the decision of the Chambers have been taken, much less made known
at Washington, before the 1st of December.
The King's Government had a right (_devait_) to believe that
considerations so striking would have proved convincing with the
Cabinet of the United States, and the more so as no direct communication
made to the undersigned by this Cabinet or transmitted at Paris by
Mr. Livingston had given token of the irritation and misunderstandings
which the message of December 1 has thus deplorably revealed, and as
Mr. Livingston, with that judicious spirit which characterizes him,
coinciding with the system of (_ménagemens_) precautions and temporizing
prudence adopted by the cabinet of the Tuileries with a view to the
common interests, had even requested at the moment of the meeting of
the Chambers that the presentation of the bill in question might be
deferred, in order that its discussion should not be mingled with
debates of another nature, with which its coincidence might place it
in jeopardy.
This last obstacle had just been removed and the bill was about to be
presented to the Chamber of Deputies when the arrival of the message, by
creating in the minds of all a degree of astonishment at least equal to
the just irritation which it could not fail to produce, has forced the
Government of the King to deliberate on the part which it had to adopt.
Strong in its own right and dignity, it did not conceive that the
inexplicable act of the President ought to cause it to renounce
absolutely a determination the origin of which had been its respect for
engagements (_loyauté_) and its good feelings toward a friendly nation.
Although it does not conceal from itself that the provocation given
at Washington has materially increased the difficulties of the case,
already so great, yet it has determined to ask from the Chambers an
appropriation of twenty-five millions to meet the engagements of the
treaty of July 4.
But His Majesty has at the same time resolved no longer to expose
his minister to hear such language as that held on December 1. The
undersigned has received orders to return to France, and the dispatch
of this order has been made known to Mr. Livingston.
The undersigned has the honor to present to the Secretary of State the
assurance of his high consideration.