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 JAOKSONVILLE COURIER
 PUBLISHED ONCE A WEEK BY
 L. CURRIER.
 TwRMs-$4 per year, payable half year
in advance.-Single papers 12 cents.
 SAdvertisements inserted, and contract
made for yearly advertising, on reasonabt
terms. No advertisement will be inserted
unless paid for in advance.
 All communications by mail may be ad
-dressed to L. CURIERt, Publisher of the Coa
rier,-postage in all cases, to be paid.
 AoGENTS FOR THE COURIER.
 FLORIDA..
 NJewMnansille--Joseph-R.-Sanchez.
 'pring Orow-J. Garrison, Esq P.M. /
 fanrin--E. A. Cohen, Esq.P. M.
 GEORGI.A. /
 St. Mary's-A. Doolittle, Esq. P.-.
 Savannah-S. Philbrick, Esq.,
 Macon-Edmund Russell.
 THE THORN.
 The field was damp with lirpid dews,
 SWhere fair Maria stray'd;
 And sought an unoffending rose,
 That wanton'd pn the glade:
 But while she tore it from the waste,
 Her bosom to adorn,
 The rose repror'd her cruel haste,
 And pierc'd her with a' Thorn.


He thinks her pure as sunless dews,
 Which grace the verdant lawn,
 He thinks to seize a fragrant rose,
 But grasps a venom'd Thorn.
 THERE IS A STAR.
There is a star no gloom can shroud-
 A hope n .woe can sever-
A ray that through the darkest cloud


 Saiines smilingly forever.
 'When nature spreads the shades of nig .g 7
 With scarce one hope of morrow,.
 'That star shall shed serenest light,
 To gild the tear of sorrow.
 When melancholy's silent gloom
 SEnshrouds the heart with sadness,
 That ray will issue from the tomb,
 To fill the breast with gladness.
 Then humble Christian, fearless go,
 Though darkest woes assail thee;
 Though dangers press and troubles flow,
 This hope shall never fail thee.
 c i-EDIUCATION.-A better safeguard for liberty
han a standing army.


'I


t


VOLUME 1. JACKSONVILLE, EAST FLOOR DA, DECEMBER 24, 1835.
 W&<U~OL& J* .


t


NUMBER 44.


The views taken by hb received my ap-
probation, the French Government was t
satisfied, and the negotiation was continu- t
ed. It terminated in tOe treaty of July 4, e
1831, recognizing the jttice of our claims, (
in part, and promising payment to the (
amount of twenty-five millions of frances, I
in six annual instalment. t
 The ratifications of tis treaty were ex- I
changed at Washingtoion the 2d of Feb- t
ruary, 1832, and in fiv days thereafter it t
was laid before Congres who immediate- I
ly passed the acts neces ary, on our part,
to secure to France the commercial advan- I
tages conceded to her ig t compact. The t
treaty had previously ieen solemnly ratifi- I
ed by the King of th/e'French, in terms t
which are certainly net mere matters of
form and of which the tanslatioL is as fol-
lows: We, approving the above conven-
tion, in all and each of the dispositions
which are contained in it, do declare, by
ourselves, as well as by our heirs and suc-
cessors, that it is accepted, approved, rati-
fied, and confirmed; and by these presents,
signed by our hand, we do accept, approve,
ratify, and confirm it; promising, on the
faith and word of a King, to observe it, and
to cause it to be observed inviolably, with-
out ever contravening it, or suffering it to
be contravened, directly or indirectly, for
any cause, or under any pretence whatso-
ever."
 Official information of the exchange of
ratifications of the United States reached
Paris whilst the Chambers was in session.
The extraordinary, and to use injurious,
delays of the French Government, in their
action upon the subject of its fulfilment,
have been heretofore stated to Congress,
and I have no disposition to enlarge upon
them here. It is sufficient to observe that
the then pending session was allowed to
expire without even an effort to obtain the
necessary appropriations; that the two strc-
ceeding ones were also ,suffered to pass
away without any thing like a serious at-
tempt to obtain a decision upon the sub-
ject ; and that it was not until the fourth
session, almost three years after the conclu-
sion of the treaty, and more than two years
after the exchange of ratifications, that the
bill for the execution of the treaty was
passed to a vote and rejected
 In the meah time the government of the
 United States, having full confidence that a
 treaty entered into and so solemnly ratifi-
 ed by the French King, would be executed
 in good faith, and not doubting that pro-
 vision would be made for the payment of
 the first instalment, which !was to become
 due on the second day of February, 1833,
 negotiated a draft for the amount through
 the Bank of the United States. When this
 draft was presented by the holder, with the
 credentials required by the treaty to au-
 thorize him to receive the money, the gov-
 ernment of France allowed it to be protest-
 ed. In addition to the injury in thpe non-
 payment of the money by France, con-
 formably to her engagement, the United
 States were exposed to a heavy claim on
 the part of the Bank, under pretence of
 damages, in satisfaction of which that in-
 stitution seized upon, and still retains, an
 equal amount of the public monies. Con-
 gress was in 'session when the decision of
 the Chambers reached Washington; and
 an immediate communication of this appa-
 rently final decision of Frarce, not to ful-
 fil the stipulations of the treaty, was the
 course naturally to be expected from the
 President. The deep tone of dissatisfac-
 tion which pervaded the public mind, and
 the correspondent excitement produced in
 Congress by only a general knowledge of
 the result, rendered it more than probable,
 that a resort to immediate measures of re-
 dress would be the consequence of calling
 the attention of that body to the subject.-
 Sincerely desirous of preserving the pacif-
 ic relations which had so long existed be-
 tween the two countries, I was anxious to
 avoid this course, if I couM be satisfied
 that by doing so, neither the interest nor
 the honor of my country would be compro-
 mitted. Without the fullest assurances


upon that point, I could not hope to ac-
quit myself of the responsibility to be in-
curred, in suffering Congress to adjourn
without laying the subject before them.-
Those received by me were believed to be
of that character.
 That the feelings produced in the Unit-
ed States by the news of the rejection of
the appropriation, would be such as I have
described them to have been, was foreseen
by the French government, and prompt
measures were taken by it to prevent thd
consequences. The King, in person, ex-
pressed through our Minister at Paris his
profound' regret at the decision of the"
Chambers, and promised to send, forth-
with, a national ship, with despatches to
his Minister here, authorizing him to give
such assurances as would satisfy the Gov-1
ernment and people of the United States,
that the treaty would yet be faithfully exe-
cuted by France. The national ship ar-


rived and the Minister received his instruc-
ions. Claiming to act under the authori-
y derived from them, he gave to this gov-
ernment in the name of bis, the most sol-
emn assurances, that as soon after the new
elections as the charter would permit, the',
French Chambers would be convened, and '
he attempt to procure the necessary ap-
propriations, renewed ; that all the consti-
utional powers of the King and his Minis-
ers should be put in requisition to accom-
plish the object; and he was understood,
and so expressly informed by this Govern-
ment at the time, to engage, that the ques-
ion should be pressed to a decision ata,.
period sufficiently early to permit informa-
tion of the result to' be communicated to
Congress at the commencement of their
next session. Relying upon these assur-
ances, 1 incurred the responsibility, great
as I regarded it to be, of suffering Con-
gress to separate without communicating
with them upon the subject.
 The expectations justly founded upon
the promises thus solemnly made to this
Government by that of France, were not
realized. The French Chambers met on
the 31st of July, 1834, soon after the elec-
tion; and although our Minister in Paris
urged the French Ministry to bring the
subject before them, they declined doing
so. He next insisted that the Chambers,
if prorogued without acting on the subject,
should be reassembled at a period so early
that their action on the treaty might be
known in Washington prior to the meet-
ing of Congress. This reasonable request
was not only declined, but the Chambers
were prorogued to the 20th of December,
a day so late that their decision, however
urgently pressed, could not, in all proba-'
bility, be obtained in time to reach Wash-
ington before the necessary adjournment
of Congress by the constitution. The rea-
sons given by the Ministry for refusing to
convoke the Chambers at an earlier period,
were afterwards shewn not to be insupera-
ble, by their actual convocation on the 1st
of December, under a special call, for do-
mestic purposes-which fact, however, did
not become known to this Government
until after the commencement of the last
session of Congress.
 'Thus disappointed in our just expecta-
tions, it became my, imperative duty to
consult with Congress in regard to the ex-
pediency of a resort to retaliatory measures,
in case the stipulations of the treaty should
not be speedily complied with : and to re-
commend such as in my judgment, the oc-
casion called for. To this end, an unre-
served communication of the case, in all
its aspects, became indispensable. To have
shrunk, in making it, from saying all that
was necessary to its correct understanding,
and that the truth would justify, for fear of
giving offence to others, would have been
unworthy of us. To have gone, on the'
other hand, a single step further, for the
purpose of wounding the pride of a Gov-
ernment and people with whom we had
so many motives for cultivating relations of
amrniity and reciprocal advantage, would
have been unwise and improper. Admon-
ished by the past of the difficulty of mak-
ing even the simplest statement of our
wrongs without disturbing the sensibilities
of those who had, by theif position, be-
come responsible for their redress, and
earnestly desirous of preventing further
obstacles from that source, I went out of
my way to preclude a construction of the
message, by which the recommendation
that was made to Congress might be re-
garded as a menace to France, in not only
disavowing such design, but in declaring
that her pride and her power were too well
known to expect any thing from her fears.
The Message did not reach Paris until
more than a month after the Chambers
had been in session ; and such was the in-
sensibility of the Ministry to our-rigltutll
claims and just expectations, that our Min-
ister had been informed that the matter
when' introduced would not be pressed as
a cabinet matter.
 Although the message was not officially
 communicated to the French Government,


and notwithstanding the declaration to the
contrary, which it contained, the French
Ministry decided to consider the condi,
tional recommendation of reprisals, a me-
nace and an insult, which the honor of the
nation made it incumbent on them to re-
sent. The measures resorted to by them
to evince their sense of the supposed in-
dignity, were, the immediate recall of their
Minister at Washington, the offer of pass-
ports to the American Minister at Paris,
and a public notice to the Legislative
Chambers that all diplomatic intercourse
with the United States had been sus-
pended.
 Having in this manner vindicated the
dignity of France, they next proceeded to
illustrate her justice. To this end a bill
was immediately introduced into the Cham-
ber of Deputies, -proposing to make the
appropriations necessary to carry into ef-


feet the treaty. As this bill subsequently
passed into a law, the provisions of which
now constitute the main subject of difficul-
ty'between the two nations, it becomes my
duty, in order to place the subject before
you in a clear light, to trace the history of
its passage, and to refer, with some par-
ticularity, to the proceedings and discus-
sions in regard to it. The Minister to,
France, in his opening speech, alluded to,
the measures which had been adopted to
resent the supposed indignity, and recom-
mended the execution of the treaty as a
measure required by the honor and justice
of France. t-,astae orgatnoft e Maisis-
try, declared the message, so long as it had
not received the sanction of Congress, a
mere expression of the .personal opinion
of the President, for which neither the
Government nor People of the United
States were responsible, andL that an en-
gagement had been entered into, for the;
fulfilment of which the honor of France;
was pledged. Entertaining these views,
the single condition which the French
Ministry proposed to annex to the payment
of the money, was, that it should not be
made until it was ascertained that the
Government of the United States had done
nothing to injure the interests of France;
or, in other words, that no steps had been,
authorized by Congress of a hostile char-
acter towards France.
 What the disposition or action of Con-
gress might be, was then unknown to the
Frerch Cabinet. But, on thel4th of Jan-
uary, the Senate resolved that it was, at
that time, inexpedient to adopt any legis-
lative measure in regard to the state of af-
fairsbetween the United States and France,
and no action on the subject had occurred
in the House of Representatives. These,
facts were known in Paris prior to the
28thiof March, 1835, when the committee,
to whom the .bill of indemnification had
beei referred, reported it to the Chamber
ofDpeuties. That committee substantially
re-e4hoed the sentiments of the Ministry,'
declared that Congress had set aside the
proposition of the President, and recom-
mended the passage of the bill, without
any other restriction than that originally
proposed. Thut. was it known to the
French Minisitry and Chambers, that if the
position assumed by them, and which had
been so frequently and solemnly announc-
ed as the only one compatible with the
honor of France, was maintained, and the
bill passed as originally proposed, the mo-
ney would be paid, and there would be an
end of this unfortunate controversy.
 But this cheering prospect was soon de-
 stroyed by an amendment introduced into
 the bill at the moment of its passage, pro-
 viding that the money should not be- paid
 until the French Government had receiv-
 ed satisfactory explanation of the Presi-
 dent's message of the 2d December, 1834 ;
 and what is still more extraordinary, the
 President of the Council ofMinisters adopt-
 ed this amendment, and consented to its
 incorporation in the bill. In regard to a
 supposed insult which had been formally
 resented by the recall of their Minister, and
 the offer of passports to ours, they now, for
 the first time, proposed to ask explanations.
 Sentiments and propositions, which they
 had declared could not justly be imputed
 to the Government or People of the Unit-
 ed States, are set up as obstacles to the
 performance of an act of conceded justice
 to that Government and People. They
 'had declared that the honor of France re-
 quired the fulfilment of the engagement in-
 to which the King had entered, unless
 Congress adopted the recommendations of
 the message.' They ascertained that Con-
 gress did not adopt them, and yet that ful-
 filment is 'refused, unless they first obtain
 from the President explanations of an opin-
 ion characterized by-thamselves as person-
 al and inoperative.
 The conception that it was my intention
 to menace or insult the Government of
 France, is as unfounded as the attempt to
 extort from the fears of that nation what
 her sense of justice may Zteny would be
 vain and ridiculous. But the constitution


of the United States imposes on the Presi-
dent the duty of laying before Congress
the condition of the country, in its foreign
and domestic relations, and ofrecotnmend-
ing such measures as may, in his opinion,
be required by" its interests. From the
performance of this duty he cannot be de-
terred by the fear of wounding the sensi-
bilities of the people or Government of
whom it may become necessary to speak;
'and the American People are incapable of
submitting to an interference by any Gov-
ernment on earth, however powerfuifl, with
the free performance of the domestic du-
ties which the constitution has imposed on
their public functionaries. The discussions
which intervene between the several de-
partments of our government belong to
ourselves; and for any thing said in them,
.our public servants a0e only responsible to
their own constituents and to each other.-


 PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE..
 Our latest papers from the North, brought
us the President's Message. Not having
room in our columns for a Document of such
length, we give only that portion of it which
relates to our affairs with France. The whole
Message is a most able State paper, and we
regret that we cannot lay the whole of it be-
fore our readers.
 Since the last session of Congress, the
 validity of our claims upon France, as li-
 quidated by the treaty of 1831, has been
 acknowledged by both branches of her
 Legislature, and the money has been ap-
 propriated for their discharge; but the pay-
rmentis, I regret to inform you, still with-
held.
 A brief recapitulation of the most imra
 portant incidents in this protracted contro-
 versy, will show how utterly untenable are
 the grounds upon which this course is at-
 tempted to be justified.I
 On entering upon the duties of my sta-
 tion,I found the United States an unsuc-
 cessfitl applicant to the justice of France,
 for the satisfaction of claims, the validity of
 which was never questionable, and has
 now been most solemnly admitted by
 France, herself. The antiquity of these
 claims, their high justice, and the aggravat-
 ing circumstances out of which they arose,
 are too familiar to the American People to
 require description. It is sufficient to say
 that, for a period of ten years and upwards,
 our commerce was, with but little inter-
 ruption, the subject of constant aggressions
 on the part of France-aggressions the or-
 dinary features of which were condemna-
 tions of vessels and cargoes under arbitary
 decrees, adopted in contravention, as well
 of the laws of nations as of treaty stipula-
 tions ; burnings on the high seas; and seiz-
 ures and confiscations, under special im-
 perial receipts, in the ports of other nations
 occupied by the armies, or under the con-
 trol of France. Such, it is.now conceded,
 is the character of the wrongs in many cas-
 es, so flagrant, that even their authors nev-
 er denied our right to reparation. Of the
 extent of these injuries, some conception
 may be formed from the fact, that after the
 burning of a large amount at sea, and the
 necessary deteriora-ion, in other cases, by
 long detention, the American property so
 seized and sacrificed at forced sales, exclud-
 ing what was adjudged to privateers, be-
 fore or without condemnation, brought in-
 to the French treasury upwards of twenty-
 four millions of frances, besides large cus-
 tom-house duties.
 The subject had already been an affair
 of twenty years, uninterrupted negotiation,
 except for a short time, when France was
 overwhelmed by the military power of
 united Europe. Duringthis period, whilst
 other nations were extorting from her pay-
 ment of their claims at the point of the bay-
 onet, the United States intermitted their de-
 mnand for justice, out of respect to the op-
 pressed condition of a gallant people, to
 'whom they felt under obligations for fra-
 ternal assistance in their own days of suf-
 fering and of peril. The bad effects of
 these protracted and unavailing discussions,
 as well upon our relations, with France as
 upon our national character, were obvious;
 and the line of duty was to my mind equal-
 ly so. This was, either to insist upon the
 adjustment of our claims within a reason-
 able period, or to abandon them altogether.
 I could not doubt, that by this course, the
 interests and honors of both countries
 would be best consulted. Instructions
 were therefore given in this spirit to the
 Minister sent out once more to demand re-
 paration. Upon the meeting of Congress,
 in December, 1829, I felt it my duty to
 speak of these claims, find the delays of
 France in terms calculated'to call the se-
 rious attention of both countries to the sub-
 ject. The then French Ministry took ex-
 ception to the message, on the ground of
 its containing a menace, under which it
 was not agreeable to the French govern-
 ment to negotiate. The American Minis-
 ter, of whose own accord refuted the con-


struction which was attempted to be put
upon the message, and at the same time,
called to the recollection of the French
Ministry, that the President's message was
a communication addressed, not to foreign
Governments, but to the Congress of the
United States, in which it was enjoined up-
on im, by the constitution, to lay before
th(t body information of the state of the
Uniqun, comprehending its foreign as well
as its domestic relations; and that if, in the
discharge of this duty, he felt it incumbent
upon him to summon the attention of Con-
gress, in due time, to what might be the
pogsiblsje consequences of existing difficul-
ties *Mt'any foreign government, he might
Al.y: b9 supposed to do so, under a sense
ofb'et was due from him, in a frank com-
munication with another branch of his own
government, and not from any intention of
holding a menace over a foreign power.-


Arid while the blood oozed from the wound,
 And left a crimson stain,
She cast the flower upon the ground,
 And sighed and wept with pain :
And said while her bright eyes reveal'd
 The withering glance of scorn,
'Who would have tho't such sweets concealed
 An envious rankling Thorn?"
Maria, bid thy sorrows cease,
 And smooth thy clouded brpw;
For, lovely girl,*you may from this
 A useful lesson know;
 How many, crush'd with nameless woes,
 Range through the world forlorn;
 And stead of pleasure's magic rose,
 Find disappointment's Thorn
 The belle pursues her heedless way,
 To answer fashion's call,
 And shines amongst the vainly gay,
 Who grace the crowded hall:
 She thinks to reach the rosy bower,
 Where happiness was born,
 She strives to pluck the blushing flower,
 But finds, instead, a Thorn.
The rural nymph, who longs to shine
 Upon a loftier stage,
 And yields her blooming charms divine,
 To affluence and age ;
Too late she finds the promised prize
 Of pure delight is gore,
And grasps, instead of tranquil joys,
 A life destroying Thorn.
Yon weeping girl, with broken heart,
 Bows low at sorrow's shrine;
Pale victim of the damned art,
 Of some gay libertine;
Who robbed her of her fame and rest,
 And left the wretch to mourn-
Who stole contentmepc from. her breast,
 To plant a festering Thorn.
The youth unversed in bland deceit,
 By love's soft passion led,
In luckless hour unites his fate,
 To some ill-tempered maid;


F.


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