The Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of War are of opinion, that it is expedient that immediate measures should be taken provisionally for establishing a battery on Mud Island, under cover of a party of militia, with direction that if the brig Sarah should attempt to depart before the pleasure of the President shall be known concerning her, military coercion be employed to arrest and prevent her progress. The Secretary of State dissents from this opinion. _Reasons for his Dissent._ I am against the preceding opinion of the Secretaries of the Treasury and War, for ordering a battery to be erected on Mud Island, and firing on the Little Sarah, an armed vessel of the Republic of France: Because I am satisfied, from what passed between Mr. Genet and myself at our personal interview yesterday, that the vessel will not be ordered to sail till the return of the President, which, by a letter of this day's post, we may certainly expect within eight and forty hours from this time. Because the erecting a battery and mounting guns to prevent her passage might cause a departure not now intended, and produce the fact it is meant to prevent. Because were such battery and guns now in readiness and to fire on her, in the present ardent state of her crew just in the moment of leaving port, it is morally certain that bloody consequences would follow. No one could say how many lives would be lost on both sides, and all experience has shown, that blood once seriously spilled between nation and nation, the contest is continued by subordinate agents, and the door of peace is shut. At this moment, too, we expect in the river twenty of their ships of war, with a fleet of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty of their private vessels, which will arrive at the scene of blood in time to continue it, if not to partake in it. Because the actual commencement of hostilities against a nation, for such this act may be, is an act of too serious consequence to our countrymen to be brought on their heads by subordinate officers, not chosen by them nor clothed with their confidence; and too presumptuous on the part of those officers, when the chief magistrate, into whose hands the citizens have commited their safety, is within eight and forty hours of his arrival here, and may have an opportunity of judging for himself and them, whether the buying and carrying away two cannon, (for according to information, the rest are the nation's own property,) is sufficient cause of war between Americans and Frenchmen.