GENTLEMEN: In my message at the opening of your session I informed you that our chargé d'affaires at Paris had been instructed to ask for the final determination of the French Government in relation to the payment of the indemnification secured by the treaty of the 4th of July, 1831, and that when advices of the result should be received it would be made the subject of a special communication. In execution of this design I now transmit to you the papers numbered from 1 to 13, inclusive, containing among other things the correspondence on this subject between our chargé d'affaires and the French minister of foreign affairs, from which it will be seen that France requires as a condition precedent to the execution of a treaty unconditionally ratified and to the payment of a debt acknowledged by all the branches of her Government to be due that certain explanations shall be made of which she dictates the terms. These terms are such as that Government has already been officially informed can not be complied with, and if persisted in they must be considered as a deliberate refusal on the part of France to fulfill engagements binding by the laws of nations and held sacred by the whole civilized world. The nature of the act which France requires from this Government is clearly set forth in the letter of the French minister marked No. 4. We will pay the money, says he, when "_the Government of the United States is ready on its part to declare to us, by addressing its claim to us officially in writing, that it regrets the misunderstanding which has arisen between the two countries; that this misunderstanding is founded on a mistake; that it never entered into its intention to call in question the good faith of the French Government nor to take a menacing attitude toward France."_ And he adds: _"If the Government of the United States does not give this assurance we shall be obliged to think that this misunderstanding is not the result of an error."_ In the letter marked No. 6 the French minister also remarks that _"the Government of the United States knows that upon itself depends henceforward the execution of the treaty of July 4, 1831_."