If by means of this feature in this best of all as yet established

Governments, a degree of inaptitude, not to be matched perhaps in the

worst European Government in existence can be produced, some practiced

proof may perhaps be regarded as exhibited of the inutility, to say no

worse, of this part of the structure of the Government. In the

year 1802, the United States had a "public Minister" at Paris— at

the Court of Bonaparte— French is not only the language of that

Country, but the diplomatic language of Europe. This public Minister by

whom, not to speak of the expected intrigues, conferences were to be

carried on necessarily with the appropriate functionaries in that Country,

but incidentally with those of every other— who was he? A man

who could neither speak nor understand a word of French, and to whom

conversation, even in his own language, was rendered difficult by

deafness.

If at this or that Court, the Union has public Ministers of the same or

different ranks more than one, what might be expect is that at least

some one of them should be able to converse in French. This expectation

would not in every instance be fulfilled.