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Rh On the last day of the session congress appropriated money for the salary of a minister to Mexico, to be appointed "whenever, in the opinion of the president, circumstances will permit a renewal of diplomatic intercourse honorably with that power." The president, though nothing had occurred since December to invite a renewal of relations, appointed a minister, Powhatan Ellis, himself, being the individual chosen. It was pretended that they wished to conciliate Mexico, and so they sent thither her most unprincipled enemy. He was not, however, despatched at once to his destination. A messenger or courier of the department of state went in his stead with a budget of grievances, old and new, now swelled to fifty-seven, which he was to place in the hands of the Mexican minister of foreign affairs, allowing him one week in which to study their merits and return an answer.

The Mexican congress, however, had anticipated such a step. Knowing only of the eighteen claims presented by Minister Ellis, it had passed an act authorizing the executive to submit those claims to the award of a friendly power. The foreign office, on the 29th of July, 1837, replied, giving assurances of the desire of the Mexican government to settle the claims upon the principles of justice and equity.