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. I have endeavored to shape my course through them in such a way as to maintain the dignity of my Government and preserve peace, and, if possible, restore the good understanding that existed between the two countries. From the view of the motives of the President's message contained in the answer of the Globe to the article in the Intelligencer I am happy in believing that the representations I have made to the Comte de Rigny, as detailed in my No. 71, are those entertained by the Government, and that I have not, in this at least, gone further than it would have directed me to do had I been favored with your instructions. I have no answer yet to my note to the Comte de Rigny, a copy of which was sent by my last dispatch, nor can I form any new conjecture as to the event. The inclosed paper contains a notice that I had been received by the King. This is unfounded, and shall be contradicted. I shall not in the present state of things make my appearance at court, and only in cases where it is indispensable have any communication with the minister. I have the honor to be, with great respect, your obedient, humble servant, Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Livingston. EDWARD LIVINGSTON, Esq. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, February 13, 1835. SIR: To relieve the anxiety expressed in your late communication to the Department of State as to the course to be pursued in the event of the rejection by the Chamber of Deputies of the law to appropriate funds to carry into effect the treaty of 4th July, 1831, I am directed by the President to inform you that if Congress shall adjourn without prescribing some definite course of action, as soon as it is known here that the law of appropriation has been again rejected by the French Chamber a frigate will be immediately dispatched to Havre to bring you back to the United States, with such instructions as the state of the question may then render necessary and proper. I am, sir, etc., Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Livingston. EDWARD LIVINGSTON, Esq., No. 49. JOHN FORSYTH. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. SIR: Your dispatches to No. 73 have been received at the Department-No. 73 by yesterday's mail. Nos. 70, 71, 72 were delayed until this morning by the mismanagement of the young man to whose care they were committed by the captain of the packet Sully in New York. In the very unexpected and unpleasant position in which you have been placed I am directed by the President to say to you that he approves of your conduct as well becoming the representative of a Government ever slow to manifest resentment and eager only to fulfill the obligations of justice and good faith, but at the same time to inform you that he should have felt no surprise and certainly would have expressed no displeasure had you yielded to the impulse of national pride and at once have quitted France, with the whole legation, on the receipt of the Count de Rigny's note of the 13th of January. M. Sérurier, having received his orders, has terminated his ministerial career by the transmission of a note, a copy of which and of all the correspondence had with him is herewith inclosed. M. Pageot has been presented to me as charged with the affairs of France on the recall of the minister. The note of the Count de Rigny having no doubt, according to your intention, received from you an appropriate reply, it is only necessary for me now to say that the Count is entirely mistaken in supposing that any explanations have been given here by M. Sérurier of the causes that have led to the disregard or postponement of the engagements entered into by France after the rejection of the appropriation by the last Chamber of Deputies, and of which he was the organ. No written communication whatever has been made on the subject, and none verbally made of sufficient importance to be recorded, a silence with regard to which could have been justly the foundation of any inference that the President was satisfied that the course of the French administration was either reconcilable to the assurances given him or necessary to secure a majority of the Chamber of Deputies. The last note of M. Sérurier will be the subject of separate instructions, which will be immediately prepared and forwarded to you. In the present position of our relations with France the President directs that if the appropriation to execute the treaty shall be or shall have been rejected by the French legislature, you forthwith quit the territory of France, with all the legation, and return to the United States by the ship of war which shall be in readiness at Havre to bring you back to your own country. If the appropriation be made, you may retire to England or Holland, leaving Mr. Barton in charge of affairs. Notify the Department of the place selected as your temporary residence and await further instructions. SIR: I have just received orders from my Government which make it necessary for me to demand of you an immediate audience. I therefore request you to name the hour at which it will suit you to receive me at the Department of State. I have the honor to be, with great consideration, sir, your obedient, humble servant, SÉRURIER. M. SÉRURIER, Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Sérurier. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Envoy Extraordinary, etc., of the King of the French: Official information having been received by the President of the recall of Mr. Sérurier by his Government, and the papers of the morning having announced the arrival of a French sloop of war at New York for the supposed object of carrying him from the United States, the undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, tenders to Mr. Sérurier all possible facilities in the power of this Government to afford to enable him to comply speedily with the orders he may have received or may receive. The undersigned avails himself of the occasion to renew to Mr. Sérurier the assurance of his very great consideration. JOHN FORSYTH. Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Sérurier. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, informs M. Sérurier, in reply to his note of this instant, demanding the indication of an hour for an immediate audience, that he is ready to receive in writing any communication the minister of France desires to have made to the Government of the United States. The undersigned has the honor to offer M. Sérurier the assurances of his very great consideration, JOHN FORSYTH. Hon. JOHN FORSYTH, Mr. Sérurier to Mr. Forsyth. Secretary of State. [Translation.] WASHINGTON, February 23, 1835. SIR: My object in asking you this morning to name the hour at which it would suit you to receive me was in order that I might, in consequence of my recall as minister of His Majesty near the United States, present and accredit M. Pageot, the first secretary of this legation, as chargé d'affaires of the King. This presentation, which, according to usage, I calculated on making in person, I have the honor, in compliance with the desire expressed to me by you, to make in the form which you appear to prefer. I thank you, sir, for the facilities which you have been kind enough to afford me in the note preceding that now answered, also of this morning's date, and which crossed the letter in which I demanded an interview. I have the honor to renew to you, sir, the assurance of my high consideration. SÉRURIER. To the Senate of the United States: WASHINGTON, February 28, 1835. I transmit to the Senate of the United States a report* of the Secretary of State, to whom was referred the resolutions of that body passed on the 2d and 17th days of the present month, together with such portion of the correspondence and instructions requested by the said resolutions as could be transcribed within the time that has elapsed since they were received and as can be communicated without prejudice to the public interest ANDREW JACKSON. *Relating to the treaty of indemnity with Spain of February 17, 1834. To the Senate: VETO MESSAGE. WASHINGTON, March 3, 1835. I respectfully return to the Senate, where it originated, the "act to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to compromise the claims. allowed by the commissioners under the treaty with the King of the Two Sicilies, concluded October 14, 1832," without my signature. The act is, in my judgment, inconsistent with the division of powers in the Constitution of the United States, as it is obviously founded on the assumption that an act of Congress can give power to the Executive or to the head of one of the Departments to negotiate with a foreign government. The debt due by the King of the Two Sicilies will, after the commissioners have made their decision, become the private vested property of the citizens of the United States to whom it may be awarded. Neither the Executive nor the Legislature can properly interfere with it without their consent. With their consent the Executive has competent authority to negotiate about it for them with a foreign government-an authority Congress can not constitutionally abridge or increase. ANDREW JACKSON. PROCLAMATION. [From Statutes at Large (Little, Brown & Co.), Vol. XI, p. 781.] BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A PROCLAMATION. Whereas by an act of Congress of the United States of the 24th of May, 1828, entitled "An act in addition to an act entitled 'An act concerning discriminating duties of tonnage and impost' and to equalize the duties on Prussian vessels and their cargoes," it is provided that, upon satisfactory evidence being given to the President of the United States by the government of any foreign nation that no discriminating duties of tonnage or impost are imposed or levied in the ports of the said nation upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country, the President is hereby authorized to issue his proclamation declaring that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the said foreign nation and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported into the United States in the same from the said foreign nation or from any other foreign country, the said suspension to take effect from the time of such notification being given to the President of the United States and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States and their cargoes, as aforesaid, shall be continued, and no longer; and Whereas satisfactory evidence has lately been received by me from His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Mechlenberg Schwerin, through an official communication of Leon Herckenrath, his consul at Charleston, in the United States, under date of the 13th April, 1835, that no discriminating duties of tonnage or impost are imposed or levied in the ports of the Grand Duchy of Mechlenberg Schwerin upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country: Now, therefore, I, Andrew Jackson, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the Grand Duchy of Mechlenberg Schwerin and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported into the United States in the same from the said Grand Duchy or from any other foreign country, the said suspension to take effect from the 13th day of April, 1835, above mentioned, and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States and their cargoes, as aforesaid, shall be continued, and no longer. Given under my hand at the city of Washington, the 28th day of April, A. D. 1835, and of the Independence of the United [SEAL.] States the fifty-ninth. By the President: JOHN FORSYTH, ANDREW JACKSON. Secretary of State. SEVENTH ANNUAL MESSAGE. WASHINGTON, December 7, 1835. Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: In the discharge of my official duty the task again devolves upon me of communicating with a new Congress. The reflection that the representation of the Union has been recently renewed, and that the constitutional term of its service will expire with my own, heightens the |