I find on my Table this morning your letter of the 2d instant.1

As you ground the proposition, it contains on a conversation with me, I conclude there has been some misapprehension. I can recollect nothing, but what, as I understood it, had reference merely to some matter of form, which you had omitted and which you were desirous of having adjusted in a different mode in relation to the forms of accountability prescribed by the Treasury of France; which I declared myself ready to facilitate. But it was no part of my meaning that this was to operate as a new advance by liberating an equal sum of three millions. This not being within any arrangement heretofore approved by the President, cannot be adopted by this Department.2

With great respect & consideration   I have the honor to be   Sir Your obedt Servt