mark our intercourse with foreigo powers, we have every reason to feel proud of our beloved country.

The general state of our FOR LIGN RELATIONS has not materially changed since my last amuual message.

In the settlement of the question of the Northeastern boundary, little progress has been made. Great Britain has declined acceding to the proposition of the United States, presented in accordance with the resolution of ihe Senate, unless certain preliminary conditions were admitted, which I deemed incompatible with a satisfactory and rightful adjustment of the controversy. Waiting for some distinct proposal from the Government of Great Britain, which has been invited, I can only repeat the expression of my confidence, that with the strong mutual disposition which I believe exists, to make a just arrangement, this perplexing guestion can be settled with a due regard to the well-founded pretensions and

pacific policy of all the parties 10 it. Events are frequently occurring on the Northeastern frontier, of a character to impress upon all the necessity of a speedy and defiuitive termination of the dispute. This consideration, arded to the desire common to both, to relieve the liberal and friendly relations so bappily existing between the two countries from all embarrassinent, will, no doubt, have its just influence upon both.

Our diplomatic intercourse with Portugal has been renewed, and it is expected that the claims of our citizens, partially paid, will be fully satisfied as soon as the coudition of the Queen's Government will permit the proper attention to the subject of them. That Government has, I am happy to inform you, manifested a determination to act upon the liberal principles which have marked our commercial policy;ibe hap piest effects upon the future trade between the United States and Portugal are anticipated from it, and the time is not thought to be remote when a system of perfect reciprocity will be established.

The instalments due under the convention with the King of the Two Sicilies, have been paid with that scrupulous fidelity by which bis whole conduct has been characterized, and the hope is indulged, that the adjustmeut of the vexed question of our claims will be followed by a more extended and mutually beneficial intercourse between the two countries.

The internal contest still continues in Spain. Distinguished as this struggle has unhappily been, by incidents of the most sanguinary character, the obligations of the late treaty of indemnification with us, have been, nevertheless, faithfully executed by the Spanish Government.

No provision having been made at the last session of Congress, for the ascertainment of the claims to be paid, and the apportionment of the

funds, uvder the convention made with Spain, I invite your early aitention to the subject. The public evidences of the debt have, according to the terms of the convention, and in the forms prescribed by it, been placed in the possession of the United States, and the interest, as it fell due, has been regularly paid upon them. Our commercial intercourse with Cuba stands as regulated by the act of Congress. No recent information has been received as to the disposition of the Government of Madrid on this subject, and the lamented death of our recently appointed Minister on his way to Spain, with the pressure of their affairs at home, render it scarcely probable that any change is to be looked for during the coining year. Further portions of the Florida archives have been sent

to the United States, although the death of one of the Commissioners, at

a critical moinent, enibarrassed the progress of the delivery of them. The higher officers of the local Government have recently shown an anxious desire, in compliance with the orders from the parent Government, to facilitate the selection and delivery of all we have a right to claim.

Negotiations have been opened at Madrid, for the establishment of a lasting peace between Spain and such of the Spanish American Goveroments of this hemisphere, as have availed themselves of the intimation given to all of them, of the disposition of Spain to treat upon the basis of their entire independence. It is to be regretted, that simultaneous a ppointments by all, of ministers to negotiate with Spain, had not been made ; the negotiation itself would have been simplified, and the longstanding dispute, spreading over a large portion of the world, would have been brought to a more speedy conclusion.

Our political and comnjercial relations with Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, stand on the usual favorable basis. One of the articles of our treaty with Russia in relation to the trade on the Vorthwest coast of America having expired, instructions have been given to our Minister at St. Petersburg to negotiate a renewal of it. The long and unbroken amity between the two Governments gives every reason for supposing the article will be renewed, if stronger motives do not exist to prevent it than, with our view of the subject, can be anticipated here.

I ask your attention to the message of my predecessor at the opening, of the second session of the nineteenth Congress, relative to our commercial intercourse with Holland, and to the documents connected with that subject, communicated to the House of Representatives on the 10th of January, 1825, and 18th January, 1827. Coinciding in the opinion of my predecessor, that Holland is not, under the regulations of her present system, entitled to have her vessels and their cargoes received into the United States on the fooring of American vessels and cargoes, as regards duties of tonnage and impost, a respect for his reference of it to the Legislature has alone prevented me from acting on the subject. I should still have waited, without comment, for the action of Congress, but recently a claim has been made by Belgian subjects to admission into our ports for their ships and cargnes, on the same sooting as American, with the allegation we could not dispute, that our vessels received in their ports the identical lieatment shown to them in the ports of Holland, upon whose vessels no discrimination is made in the ports of the United States. Giving the same privileges, the Belgians expected the same benefits-benefits that were in fact enjoyed when Belgium and Holland were united under one government. Satisfied with the justice of their pretension to be placed on the same rooting with Holland, I could not, nevertheless, without disregard to the principle of our laws, admit their claim to be treated as Americans; and at the same time a respect for Congress, to whom the subject had long since been referred, has prevented me from producing a just equality, by taking from the vessels of Holland privileges conditionally granted by acts of Congress, although the condition upon which the grant was made has, in my judgment, failed since 1822. I reconimend, therefore, a review of the act of 1824, and such a modification of it as will produce an equality, on such terms as Congress shall thiok best comports with our setiled policy, and the obligations or justice to two friendly powers.

With the Sublime Porle, and all the Governments on the coast of Barbary, our relations continue to be friendly. The proper steps have been taken to renew our treaty with Morocco.

The Argentine Republic has again promised to send, within the cur. rent year, a Minister to the United States.

A convention with Mexico for extending the time for the appointment of commissioners to run the boundary line has been concluded, and will be submitted to the Senate. Recent events in that country have a wakened the liveliest solicitude in the United States. Aware of the strong temptations existing, and powerful inducements held out to the citizens of the United States, to mingle in the dissensions of our immediate neighbors, instructions have been given to the distict attorneys of the United States, where indications warranted it, to prosecute, without respect to persons, all who might attempt to violate the obligations of our neutrality :

while, at the same time, it has been thought necessary to apprize the Government of Mexico that we should require the integrity of our territory to be scrupulously respected by both parties.

From our diplomatic agents in Brasil, Chile, Peru, Central America, Venesuela, and New Granada, constant assurances are received of the continued good understanding with the Governments to which they are severally accredited. With those governments upon which our citizens have valid and accumulating claims, scarcely an advance towards a settlement of them is made, owing mainly to their distracted state, or to the pressure of imperative domestic questions. Our patience has been, and will probably be still further severely tried; but our fellow citizens whose interests are involved may confide in the determination of the Government to obtain for them, eventually, ample retribution.

Unfortunately, many of the nations of this liemisphere are still selftormented by domestic dissensions. Revolution succeeds revolution, injuries are committed upon foreigners engaged in lawful pursuits, much time elapses before a Government sufficiently stable is erected to justify expectations of redress—Ministers are sent and received, and before the discussions of past injuries are fairly begon, fresh troubles arise ; but too frequently new injuries are added to the old, to be discussed together, with the existing Government, after it has proved its ability to sustain the assaults made upou it, or with its successor, ifoverthrown. If this unhappy condition of things continues much longer, other nations will be under the painful necessity of desiding whether justice to their suffering citizens does not require a prompt redress of injuries by their own power, without waiting for the es'ablishment of a Government competent and enduring enough to discuss and to make satisfaction for them.

Since the last session of Congress, the validity of our claims upon France, as liquidated by the treaty of 1831, has been acknowledged by both brancbes of her Legislature, and the money has been appropriated for their discharge ; but the payment is, I regret to inform you, still withheld.

A brief recapitulation of the most important incidents in this protracted.controversy, will show how utterly untenable are the grounds upon which this course is attempted to be justified.

On entering upon the duties of my station, I found the United States an unsuccessful applicant to the justice of France, for the satisfaction of claims, the validity of which was never questionable, and has now been most solemnly admitted by France herself. The antiquity of these claims, their high justice, and the aggravating circumstances out of which they arose, are too familiar to the American People to require description. It is sufficient to say that, for a period of ten years and upwards, our commerce was, with but little interruption, the subject of constant aggressions ou the part of France-aggressions, the ordinary features of which were condemnations of vessels and cargoes under arbitrary decrees, adopted in contravention, as well of the laws of nations as of creaty stipulations; burnings on the high seas, and seizures and confiscations, under special imperial rescripts, in the ports of other nations occupied by the arınies, or under the control, of France.

Such, it is now conceeded, is the character of the wrongs we suffered wrongs, in many cases, so flagrant, that even their authors never denied our right to reparation. of the extent of these injuries, some conception may be formed from the fact, that after the burning of a large amount at sea, and the necessary deterioration, in other cases, by long detention, the American property so seized and sacrificed at forced sales, excluding what was adjudged to privateers, before or without condemnation, brought into the Freuch treasury upwards of twenty-four millions of francs, besides large custom-house duties.

The subject had already been an affair of twenty years' uniuterrupted negotiation, except for a short time, when France was overwhelmed by the military power of united Europe. During this period, whilst other nations were extortiog from her payment of their claims at the point of the bayonet, the United States intermitted their demand for justice, out of respect to the oppressed condition of a gallant people, to whom they felt under obligations for fraternal assistance in their own days of suffering and of peril. The bad effects of these protracted and unavailing discussions, as well upon our relations with France as upon our national

character, were obvious; and the line of duty was to my mind equally so. This was, either to insist upon the adjustment of our claiins within a reasonable period, or to abaudon them altogether. I could not doubt, that by this course, the interests and honor of both countries would be best consulted Instructions were therefore given in this spirit to the Minister who was sent out once more to demand reparation. Upon the nieeting of Congress, in December, 1829, I felt it my duty to speak of these claims, and the delays of France, in terms calculated to call the serious Attention of both countries to the subject. The then French Ministry took exceptiou to the message, on the ground of its containing a menace, under which it was not agreeable to the French Government to negotiate. The American Minister, of his own accord refuted the construction which was attempted to be put upon the message, and, at the same time called to the recollection of the French Ministry, that the President's message was a communication addressed, not to foreign Governments, but to the Congress of the United States, in which it was enjoined upon him, by the constitution, to lay before that body information of the state of the Union, comprehending its foreign as well as its domestic relations, and that if, in the discharge of this duty, he felt it incumbant upon him to sunnon the attention of Congress, in due time, to what might be the possible consequences of existing difficulties with any foreign Government, he might fairly be supposed to do so, under a sense of what was due from him, in a frank conmunication with another branch of his own Government, and not from any intention of holding a menace over a foreign power. The views taken by him received my approbation: the French Government was satisfied, and the negotiation was continued. It terminated in the treaty of July 4, 1831, recognizing the justice of our claims, in part, and promising payment to the amount of twenty-five millions of francs, in six annual iusta!ments.

The ratifications of this treaty were exchanged at Washington, on the 2d of February, 1832, and in five days thereafter it was laid before Congress, who immediately passed the acts necessary, on our part, to secure 10 France the commercial advantages conceded to her in the compact. The treaty had previously been solemnly ratified by the King of the French, in terms which are certainly not mere matters of form, and of which the translation is as follows: “We, approving the above “convention, in all and each of the dispositions which are contained in it, " do declare, by ourselves, as well as by our heirs and successors, thai il " is accepted, approved, ratifier, and coufirmed; and by these presents, "s signed by our hand, we do accept, approve, ratify, and confirm it; “ promising on the faith and word of a King, to observe it, and to cause “ it to be observed inviolably, without ever contravening it, or suffering “ it to be contravened, directly or indirectly, for any cause, or under “ any pretence whatsoever."

Official information of the exchange of ratifications in the United States reached Paris whilst the Chambers were in session. The extraordinary, and to us injurious, delays of the French Gorerument, in their action upon the subject of its sulfilment, have been heretofore stated to Congress, and I have no disposition to enlarge upon them here. It is sufficient to observe that the theo pending session was allowed to expire without even an effort to obtain the necessary appropriations ; that the two succcèding ones were also suffered to pass away without any thing like a serious attempt to obtain a decision upon the subject; and that it was not until the fourth session, almost three years after the conclusion of the treaty, and more than two years after the exchange of ratifica. tions, that the bill for the execution of the treaty was pressed to a vote and rejected.

In the mean time, the Government of the United States, having full confidence that a treaty entered into and so solemnly ratified by the French King, would be executed in good faith, and not doubting that provision would be made for the payment of the first instalment, which was to become due on the second day of February, 1833, negotiated a draft for the amount through the Bank of the United States. When this draft was presented by the holder, with the credentials required by the trealy to authorize him to receive the money, the Governineut of France allowed it to be protested. In addition to the injury in the non. payment of the money by France, conforınably to her engagement, the United States were exposed to a heavy claim on the part of the Bank, under pretence of damages, in satisfaction of which that institution seized upon, and still retains, an equal amount of the public moneys.