treaty, while the United States were to make cer-
tain reductions in the duties on French wines.
Congress promptly passed a law accordingly. The
treaty was ratified on February 2, 1832: the first
French payment was therefore due on February 2,
1833. A draft was drawn upon the French gov-
ernment, and presented to the French Minister of
Finance at Paris. But payment was refused on
the ground that the French Chambers had made
no appropriation for that purpose. There was at
the time no American Minister at Paris. Edward
Livingston, whom we have met as Secretary of
State, vacating that office for McLane, was sent,
with strong instructions, to fill that position. King
Louis Philippe promised to do his best with the
Chambers, but the appropriation failed again. The
French king is said then to have confidentially in-
timated to Livingston that an earnest passage in
the President's next message might serve to induce
the French Chambers to give attention to the sub-
ject. Livingston reported something like this to
his government. For earnest passages Jackson
was the man. He put a paragraph into his annual
message of December, 1834, in which, after recap-
itulating the whole story, he bluntly recommended
that "a law be passed authorizing reprisals upon
French property, in case provision shall not be
made for the payment of the debt at the approach-
ing session of the French Chambers."

That was undoubtedly more earnestness than
King Louis Philippe had meant to suggest. What

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