"
By the terms of your report I am made to have continued thus:
"In the dispatch to M. Pageot we gave the views of our Government on
this question. Mr. Forsyth not having thought proper to accept a copy of
that dispatch, and having said that the Government of the United States
could not receive the communication in that form," etc.
That was not what I said, because such was not the language of Mr.
Forsyth to M. Pageot. On refusing the copy offered to him by that charge
d'affaires Mr. Forsyth gave as the only reason _that it was a document
of which he could make no use_, and that was the phrase repeated by me.
Mr. Forsyth made no objection to the form which I had adopted
to communicate to the Federal Government the views of the King's
Government; in fact, not only is there nothing unusual in that form,
not only is it employed in the intercourse between one government and
another whenever there is a desire to avoid the irritation which might
involuntarily arise from an exchange of contradictory notes in a direct
controversy, but reflection on the circumstances and the respective
positions of the two countries will clearly show that it was chosen
precisely in a spirit of conciliation and regard for the Federal
Government.
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