If this conjecture should be right, the present head of that department could not be an agreeable organ of intercourse with the President.

He then took a view of the modern usages of European courts, which, he said, favoured the practice he recommended of permitting foreign ministers to make their communications directly to the chief of the executive.

"He then presented a letter," says the President in his private journal, "which he termed confidential, and to be considered as addressed to me in my private character, which was too strongly marked with an intention, as well as a wish, to have no person between the Minister and President, in the transaction of business between the two nations." In reply to these observations, the President gave the most explicit assurances that, judging from his own feelings, and from the public sentiment, there existed in America a reciprocal disposition to be on the best terms with France.

That whatever former difficulties might have occurred, he was persuaded the secretary of foreign affairs had offered no intentional disrespect, either to the minister, or to his nation.

Without undertaking to know the private opinions of Mr.Jay, he would declare that he had never heard that officer express, directly or indirectly, any sentiment unfavourable to either.
Reason and usage, he added, must direct the mode of treating national and official business.