Hon. J. FORSYTH, etc.
SIR: The wind being unfavorable, I hope that this letter may arrive in
time for the packet.
By the inclosed semiofficial paper you will see that a law has been
presented for effecting the payment of 25,000,000 francs capital to the
United States, for which the budgets of the six years next succeeding
this are affected, and with a condition annexed that our Government
shall have done nothing to affect the interests of France. It would seem
from this that they mean to pay nothing but the capital, and that only
in six years from this time; but as the law refers to the treaty for
execution of which it provides, I presume the intention of the ministry
can not be to make any change in it, and that the phraseology is in
conformity to their usual forms. At any rate, I shall, notwithstanding
the situation in which I am placed in relation to this Government,
endeavor to obtain some explanation on this point.
The packet of the 16th arrived, but to my great regret brought me no
dispatches, and having received none subsequent to your No. 43, and that
not giving me any indication of the conduct that would be expected from
me in the event of such measures as might have been expected on the
arrival of the President's message, I have been left altogether to the
guidance of my own sense of duty under circumstances of much difficulty.
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