that immediately after the signing of the present convention, a copy of it shall be communicated to the government of the United States, that that government shall be invited to accede to it.... But, as the high contracting parties would expose themselves, in making any delay in carrying into effect articles one and two of the present convention, to fail in the end which they wish to attain, they have agreed not to defer, with a view of obtaining the accession of the government of the United States, the commencement of the above-mentioned operations beyond the period at which their combined forces may be united in the vicinity of Vera Cruz.[204] The advisability of inviting the cooperation of the United States had been the subject of considerable discussion and difference of opinion among the three European governments. England and France had urged the cooperation of the United States, while Spain had opposed it. In compliance with the fourth article the convention was submitted to the government of the United States by a note dated November 30, 1861, signed jointly by the representatives of Spain, France, and Great Britain at Washington. Mr. Seward's reply conveying the declination of the United States to the invitation to cooperate with the three allied European powers in the demonstration against Mexico was dated December 4, 1861. After reviewing the substance of the convention, he said: First. As the undersigned has heretofore had the honor to inform each of the plenipotentiaries now addressed, the President does not feel himself at liberty to question, and he does not question, that the sovereigns represented have undoubted right to decide for themselves the fact whether they have sustained grievances, and to resort to war against Mexico for the redress thereof, and have a right also to levy the war severally or jointly. In the second place, Mr. Seward expressed the satisfaction of his government that the allied powers had clearly repudiated in the convention all idea of carrying on the war for their own ambitious ends and all intention of exercising in the subsequent affairs of Mexico any influence of a character to impair the right of the Mexican people to choose and freely to constitute the form of their own government.