The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, has had the honor to receive the note of the 27th ultimo of Mr. Charles Bankhead, His Britannic Majesty's chargé d'affaires, offering to the Government of the United States the mediation of His Britannic Majesty's Government for the settlement of the differences unhappily existing between the United States and France. That communication having been submitted to the President, and considered with all the care belonging to the importance of the subject and the source from which it emanated, the undersigned has been instructed to assure Mr. Bankhead that the disinterested and honorable motives which have dictated the proposal are fully appreciated. The pacific policy of His Britannic Majesty's cabinet and their efforts to heal dissensions arising among nations are worthy of the character and commanding influence of Great Britain, and the success of those efforts is as honorable to the Government by whose instrumentality it was secured as it has been beneficial to the parties more immediately interested and to the world at large. The sentiments upon which this policy is founded, and which are so forcibly displayed in the offer that has been made, are deeply impressed upon the mind of the President. They are congenial with the institutions and principles as well as with the interests and habits of the people of the United States, and it has been the constant aim of their Government in its conduct toward other powers to observe and illustrate them. Cordially approving the general views of His Britannic Majesty's Government, the President regards with peculiar satisfaction the enlightened and disinterested solicitude manifested by it for the welfare of the nations to whom its good offices are now tendered, and has seen with great sensibility, in the exhibition of that feeling, the recognition of that community of interests and those ties of kindred by which the United States and Great Britain are united.