Diplomacy

Since the last adjournment of Congress the Executive has relaxed no effort to render indestructible the relations of amity which so happily exist between the United States and other countries.

It is by such acts of good will by one to another of the family of nations that fraternal feelings are nourished and the blessings of permanent peace secured.

I have much pleasure in saying that the Government of Brazil has adjusted the claim upon that Government in the case of the schooner John S. Bryan.

While, therefore, the Executive would deplore any collision with Mexico or any disturbance of the friendly relations which exist between the two countries, it can not permit that Government to control its policy.

The country, I feel assured, would be represented at Paris in the person of Mr. Wise by one wholly unsurpassed in exalted patriotism and well fitted to be the representative of his country abroad.

A copy of the instructions from the Department of State to the minister of the United States at Mexico relative to the convention and of the dispatches of that minister to the Department is also communicated.

I can not forego the expression of my regret at the apparent purport of a part of Lord Aberdeen's dispatch to Mr. Fox.

This correspondence will show the general grounds on which the Spanish minister expresses dissatisfaction with the decision of the Supreme Court in that case and the answers which have been made to his complaints by the Department of State.

The examination or visitation of the merchant vessels of one nation by the cruisers of another for any purposes except those known and acknowledged by the law of nations, under whatever restraints or regulations it may take place, may lead…

It is far better by other means to supersede any supposed necessity or any motive for such examination or visit.

Events appear likely to break down and soften this spirit of nonintercourse and to bring China ere long into the relations which usually subsist between civilized states.

She has agreed in the treaty with England that correspondence between the agents of the two Governments shall be on equal terms--a concession which it is hardly probable will hereafter be withheld from other nations.

In the present state of the correspondence and of the relations between the two Governments on these important subjects it is not deemed consistent with the public interest to communicate the information requested.

It has been thought highly important, therefore, to provide for the whole case by a proper treaty stipulation.

I have the satisfaction to communicate to the Senate the results of the negotiations recently had in this city with the British minister, special and extraordinary.

If this treaty shall receive the approbation of the Senate, it will terminate a difference respecting boundary which has long subsisted between the two Governments.

With all the powers of the world our relations are those of honorable peace.

Copies of the arrangement entered into between the governor of Maine and Sir John Harvey, lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, through the mediation of Major-General Scott, in the month of March last (1839),