The Secretary expressed the President's unfeigned regret upon learning the decision of His Majesty's Government not to agree to the proposition made on the part of the United States without a precedent compliance by them with inadmissible conditions. He said that the views of this Government in regard to this proposal of His Majesty's Government had been already communicated to Sir Charles R. Vaughan, and the President perceived with pain that the reasons upon which these opinions were founded had not been found to possess sufficient force and justice to induce the entire withdrawal of the objectionable conditions, but that, on the contrary, while His Majesty's Government had been pleased to waive for the present six of the seven opinions referred to, the remaining one, amongst the most important of them all, was still insisted upon, viz, that the St. John and Restigouche should be treated by the supposed commission as not being Atlantic rivers according to the meaning of those terms in the treaty. With reference to that part of Sir Charles's communication which seeks to strengthen the ground heretofore taken on this point by the British Government by calling to its aid the supposed confirmation of the arbiter, the Secretary felt himself warranted in questioning whether the arbiter had ever given his opinion that the rivers St. John and Restigouche can not be considered according to the meaning of the treaty as rivers falling into the Atlantic, and he insisted that it was not the intention of the arbiter to express the opinion imputed to him.