French and British Governments that the authority vested in the
Executive to renew commercial intercourse with their respective nations
would be exercised in the case specified by that act.

Soon after these instructions were dispatched it was found that the
British Government, anticipating from early proceedings of Congress at
their last session the state of our laws, which has had the effect of
placing the two belligerent powers on a footing of equal restrictions,
and relying on the conciliatory disposition of the United States, had
transmitted to their legation here provisional instructions not only to
offer satisfaction for the attack on the frigate _Chesapeake_, and
to make known the determination of His Britannic Majesty to send an
envoy extraordinary with powers to conclude a treaty on all the points
between the two countries, but, moreover, to signify his willingness in
the meantime to withdraw his orders in council, in the persuasion that
the intercourse with Great Britain would be renewed on the part of the
United States.

These steps of the British Government led to the correspondence and the
proclamation now laid before you, by virtue of which the commerce
between the two countries will be renewable after the 10th day of June
next.

Whilst I take pleasure in doing justice to the councils of His Britannic
Majesty, which, no longer adhering to the policy which made an
abandonment by France of her decrees a prerequisite to a revocation of
the British orders, have substituted the amicable course which has
issued thus happily, I can not do less than refer to the proposal
heretofore made on the part of the United States, embracing a like
restoration of the suspended commerce, as a proof of the spirit of