If circumstances did not render it certain, it would have been obvious from the language of Mr. Bankhead's note to the undersigned that the Government of His Britannic Majesty, when the instructions under which it was prepared were given, could not have been apprised of all the steps taken in the controversy between the United States and France. It was necessarily ignorant of the tenor of the two recent messages of the President to Congress--the first communicated at the commencement of the present session, under date of the 7th of December, 1835, and the second under that of the 15th of January, 1836. Could these documents have been within the knowledge of His Britannic Majesty's Government, the President does not doubt that it would have been fully satisfied that the disposition of the United States, notwithstanding their well-grounded and serious causes of complaint against France, to restore friendly relations and cultivate a good understanding with the Government of that country was undiminished, and that all had already been done on their part that could in reason be expected of them to secure that result. The first of these documents, although it gave such a history of the origin and progress of the claims of the United States and of the proceedings of France before and since the treaty of 1831 as to vindicate the statements and recommendations of the message of the 1st of December, 1834, yet expressly disclaimed the offensive interpretation put upon it by the Government of France, and while it insisted on the acknowledged rights of the United States and the obligations of the treaty and maintained the honor and independence of the American Government, evinced an anxious desire to do all that constitutional duty and strict justice would permit to remove every cause of irritation and excitement. The special message of the 15th January last being called for by the extraordinary and inadmissible demands of the Government of France as defined in the last official communications at Paris, and by the continued refusal of France to execute a treaty from the faithful performance of which by the United States it was tranquilly enjoying important advantages, it became the duty of the President to recommend such measures as might be adapted to the exigencies of the occasion. Unwilling to believe that a nation distinguished for honor and intelligence could have determined permanently to maintain a ground so indefensible, and anxious still to leave open the door of reconciliation, the President contented himself with proposing to Congress the mildest of the remedies given by the law and practice of nations in connection with such propositions for defense as were evidently required by the condition of the United States and the attitude assumed by France. In all these proceedings, as well as in every stage of these difficulties with France, it is confidently believed that the course of the United States, when duly considered