This decision of His Majesty's Government, contained in your
excellency's note to me of the 7th August, was duly transmitted to the
President, and it naturally produced upon his mind the impressions which
I anticipated in my letters to your excellency that it would produce.
He saw with the deepest regret that a positive assurance for convening
the Chambers as soon as the constitution would permit was construed to
mean only a disposition to do so, and that this disposition had yielded
to objections which he could not think of sufficient force to justify a
delay even if there had intervened no promise, especially as the serious
consequences of that delay had been earnestly and repeatedly brought to
the consideration of His Majesty's Government. In fact, sir, what were
those objections? I do not speak of those which were made to presenting
the law in the session of July last, for although no constitutional
impediment offered itself, yet it was not strongly insisted on, because
an early session in the autumn, would have the same effect; and the
President, for the same reason, says that it might have been overlooked
if an early call of the Chambers had been made.
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