40 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



calculated with General Oudinot that this interval 

 would enable me to receive from Paris a telegraphic 

 reply at all events to my first despatches. 



But the Executive replied to me on the same day 

 that the reason why the promised counter proposition 

 had not been officially transmitted was that fresh 

 bases of negotiation had within the last two days been 

 the subject of verbal communications between the 

 President of the National Assembly, General Oudinot, 

 and the United States Minister. I inquired as to the 

 truth of this of General Oudinot. and he sent me the 

 following reply : 



"The United States Ambassador (Mr. Cass, son 

 of the general), came to my head-quarters yesterday 

 and expressed his anxiety to assist, unofficially, in 

 making the Eoman Government see the necessity of 

 averting the calamities which are impending over the 

 population." 



General Oudinot, in expressing his regret that 

 the step which had been taken by Mr. Cass, the son 

 of the American Ambassador, a step to which he had 

 not attached any importance, should have been seized 

 as an excuse for the delay of the Triumvirs to reply 

 to my ultimatum, said he remembered the American 

 agent leaving a paper with him which he had scarcely 

 looked at. This paper was handed to me, and it 

 embodied the following proposals : 



" Article I. The Eoman Eepublic, accepting the 

 deliberations of the French Assembly which authorise 



