/ Confidential /

Washington, January 29th 1844.

My dear Van Zandt.

I have to acknowledge the receipt

of your several notes, but the want of time and the in-

disposition of my family have prevented me until now,

from replying. At all times it affords me pleasure

to hear of and from you. Congress, being in session, has

engrossed much of my time.

No definitive action has yet taken place

in relation to our position towards the United States so

far as Congress has been concerned. What they will do, I

cannot pretend to say—their session will soon terminate.

The Secretary of State and myself have this

moment had a conversation. He will communicate

with you in a day or two on the subject of it. In the

mean time I will state to you, that the instructions

to suspend negotiations on the subject of annexation

will be reworked, leaving the matter open as it had

before been. Should the indications on the part of the

Congress of the U.S. justify the course, you will promptly

open negotiations and conduct them with the most pro-

found secrecy. We must keep our eye to this fact that

should the U.S. not be willing to consummate the policy

of annexation, it might with other nations be a serious com-

promittal to us, and prove greatly prejudicial to our

future negotiations with them. My opinion is, that your

situation will enable you to ascertain from circumstances

every day occurring with that Government, the Congress being

in session, whether reasonable hopes can be entertained of

the success of such a measure. Before this can reach you,

if it is the intention of the U.S. Congress to take up the

subject at all, it will have received an impulse and

direction so far as to enable you to judge correctly of the

course necessary to be pursued for its effectuation[.] If

there is no probability of its success or the political parties

in that country should be predisposed to pass it by