To urge the obligation of the treaty, to
prepare His Majesty's Government for the serious consequences that must
result from its breach or an unnecessary delay in executing it, was my
duty, and it has been faithfully and unremittingly executed. To my own
official representation on the 26th I added on the 29th July last the
precise instructions I had received, to inform His Majesty's Government
that "the President could not avoid laying before Congress on the 1st of
December a full statement of the position of affairs on this interesting
subject, or permit the session to end, as it must do on the 3d March,
without recommending such measures as the justice and the honor of the
country may require."
In this alone, then, there was sufficient, independently of my numerous
applications and remonstrances, to prepare His Majesty's Government
for the just complaints of the United States and for the "impression"
they ought to produce, as well as for the "_mode_" in which they were
communicated, a mode clearly pointed out in the passage I have quoted
from my note of the 29th of July--that is to say, by the annual message
from the President to Congress, which, as I have already had occasion
to observe, His Majesty's ministers have erroneously considered as
addressed directly to them, and, viewing it in that light, have
arraigned this document as containing groundless complaints, couched in
language not called for by the occasion, and offering for consideration
means of redress offensive to the dignity of France.
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