If this letter had proposed any reasonable terms of reconciling our difficulties with France—if it had laid any foundation on which a rational hope might have rested that it would become the means of producing a result so desirable, it would have been the duty of Mr. Forsyth to request a copy. Upon much reflection, however, I must declare that I cannot imagine what good could have resulted from it in any contingency; and it might have done much evil. Had it prevented the President from speaking as he has done in his last message, concerning France, it might have involved the country in a much more serious misunderstanding with that power than existed at the present moment. I should be glad to say no more of this despatch, if I could do so consistently with a sense of duty. Mr. Pageot did not rest satisfied with Mr. Forsyth’s omission to request a copy of it, as he ought to have done. He deemed it proper to attempt to force that upon him which the despatch itself had left entirely to his own discretion. Accordingly, on the 1st of December last, he enclosed him a copy. On the third, Mr. Forsyth returned it with a polite refusal. On the fifth, Mr. Pageot again addressed Mr. Forsyth, and avowed that his intention in communicating the document, “was to make known the real disposition of my government to the President of the United States, _and through him to Congress and the American people_.” Thus it is manifest that his purpose was to make the President the instrument by which he might appeal to the American people against the American Government. After he had failed in this effort, what is his next resort? He publishes this despatch to the people of the United States through the medium of our public journals. I now hold in my hand the number of the _Courier des Etats Unis_ of the 20th of January, a journal published in New York, which contains the original despatch in the French language. In a subsequent number of the same journal, of the 24th January, there is an editorial article on the subject of the President’s special message to Congress, and of this despatch, of a part of which I shall give my own translation. It is as follows: “Our last number contained the despatch of M. the Duke de Broglie to the chargé d’affaires of France at Washington, concerning which the Senate had demanded such explanations as were in the power of the executive. On the same day, the late message of the President of the United States, which had been expected with so much impatience and anxiety, arrived at New York. To this document are annexed many letters of the Duke de Broglie, of Mr. Forsyth, and of Mr. Pageot, which will be read with great interest. We give a simple analysis of the least important, _and an exact copy of those which have been written originally in French_.”