The circumstances to which I have referred appeared to me to be significant. I conversed with the President fully and freely on each of the three questions, viz: The reciprocal trade, the fisheries, and that of Central America; and endeavored to convince him of the necessity of settling them all together. He seemed to be strongly impressed with my remarks, and said that he had conversed with a Senator then in Washington, (I presume Mr. Toucey, though he did not mention the name,) who had informed him that he thought that the Senate would have great difficulty in ratifying any treaty which did not embrace all the subjects pending between us and England; and that for this very reason there had been considerable opposition in the body to the ratification of the Claims Convention, though in itself unexceptionable. The President said nothing from which an inference could be fairly drawn that he had changed his mind as to the place where the negotiation should be conducted; and yet he did not speak in as strong and unequivocal terms on the subject as I could have desired. Under all the circumstances, I left Washington, on the 31st of May, without accepting my commission, which had been prepared for me and was in the State Department. On the 5th of June I received a letter from Governor Marcy, dated on the first, requesting me to put on paper my exposition of the Clayton and Bulwer treaty. In this he says nothing about my instructions on any of the questions between this country and England, nor does he intimate that he desires my opinion for any particular purpose. On the 7th of June I answered his letter. In the concluding portion of my letter, I took the occasion to say: “The truth is that our relations with England are in a critical condition. Throw all the questions together into hotchpot, and I think they can all be settled amicably and honorably. The desire of Great Britain to establish free trade between the United States and her North American possessions, and by this means retain these possessions in their allegiance, may be used as the powerful lever to force her to abandon her pretensions in Central America; and yet it must be admitted that, in her history, she has never voluntarily abandoned any important commercial position on which she has once planted her foot. It cannot be her interest to go to war with us, and she must know that it is clearly her interest to settle all the questions between us, and have a smooth sea hereafter. If the Central American question, which is the dangerous question, should not be settled, we shall probably have war with England before the close of the present administration. Should she persist in her unjust and grasping policy on the North American continent and the adjacent islands, this will be inevitable at some future day; and although we are not very well prepared for it at the present moment,