The extract from Mr. Johnson's report will show you that under his direction all this property would have been delivered to Mr. Couture if he had not declined to accept it for reasons specified by him in a letter to Mr. Johnson. Upon his thus declin bonds were delivered by Major-General Butler, under Mr. Johnson's directions, to Mr. Forstall, as agent for Messrs. Hope & Co. A copy of his receipt for the same is herewith transmitted to you, and the original will be handed to you or given to whomsoever you may indicate. The other articles named in said statement Numbers 2. will be delivered, by Major-General Butler or other officer commanding at New Orleans, to Mr. Couture, unless you shall designate some other person to receive them.

In your note of the 28th of July last you informed me that your Government shared the satisfaction which you had expressed when on a previous occasion I announced to you that the President and Government of the United States viewed the conduct of the military authorities at New Orleans, in regard to the transactions in which Mr. Couturie, the consul of the Netherlands, was concerned, as a violation of the law of nations, and that they disapproved of it, and disapproved the sanction which had been given to it by Major-General Butler. You added, however, that your Government flattered itself that the Untied States would go further, and that in the view of the Government of the Netherlands the gravity and publicity of the outrage (as you were pleased to call these transactions) demand that the Government of the United States give public evidence of its regret, for example, by manifesting by some public act its dissatisfaction with Major-General Butler.

You further add that the Government of the Netherlands, considering, until proof is made to the contrary, that Mr. Couture, its consul, has acted in good faith, expects that the Government of the United States will not refuse to do likewise, and that it will please consequently to invite the consul, who, on the avowal of the American Government itself, has been very ill-used, to resume his consular functions.

I cannot avoid thinking that these requests were made by your Government under a mistaken idea that the United States, for some reason, desired in some way to cover or conceal from the world the proceedings which they have taken in regard to these questions. If this be true, your Government has fallen into a serious error. The whole of these proceedings have been direct, frank,and unreserved. The United States,as you are aware, did not only express their regret for the transaction, and their dissatisfaction with General Butler in the premises, in the language you have quoted, but they also sent an agent to ascertain the extent of injuries which were complained of, to the end that they might promptly be redressed, and that restitution might be made. That redress has now been made, and that restitution, ordering immediately upon the facts on which it depended, having been established. Moreover, you were advised in my formed communication that, simultaneously with the appointment of Mr. Johnson as commissioner, Major-General Butler was relieved of his functions as military governor of New Orleans, and Brigadier-General Shepley was appointed military governor of that city. The military authorities were at the same time directed to invite Mr. Couture to resume his consular functions. Their proceedings fully appear in the official correspondence which has taken place between yourself and this Department. This correspondence is not a private