My respectful salutations to Mrs. Madison, and cordial friendship to yourself.
P. M. A message to both Houses this day from the President, with the following communications.
March 23. Pickering's letter to the Envoys, directing them, if they are not actually engaged in negotiation with authorized persons, or if it is not conducted bonâ fide, and not merely for procrastination, to break up and come home, and at any rate to consent to no loan.
April 3. Talleyrand to Gerry. He supposes the other two gentlemen, perceiving that their known principles are an obstacle to negotiation, will leave there public, and proposes to renew the negotiations with Gerry immediately.
April 4. Gerry to Talleyrand. Disclaims a power to conclude anything separately, can only confer informally and as an unaccredited person or individual, reserving to lay everything before the government of the United States for approbation.
April 14. Gerry to the President. He communicates the preceding, and hopes the President will send other persons instead of his colleagues and himself, if it shall appear that anything can be done.
The President's message says, that as the instructions were not to consent to any loan, he considers the negotiations as at an end, and that he will never send another minister to France, until he shall be assured that he will be received and treated with the respect due to a great, powerful, free and independent nation.
A bill was brought in the Senate this day, to declare the treaties with France void, prefaced by a list of grievances in the style of a manifesto. It passed to the second reading by fourteen to five.
A bill for punishing forgeries of bank paper, passed to the third reading by fourteen to six. Three of the fourteen (Laurence, Bingham and Read) bank directors.