Mr. Hay to Mr. de Margerie.

Sir: Referring further to your note of the 24th ultimo, I have now the honor to inform you that the Secretary of the Treasury wrote, on the 4th instant, that the Bureau of Navigation of his Department had invited the attention of the authorities at Oakland, San Francisco, and Portland to the Franco-American convention of February 23, 1853, pointing out especially the provisions of that convention regarding deserters and those forbidding the boarding of vessels by unauthorized persons.

Mr. Gage hopes that that action will obviate further complaints on the part of French consular officers at the places named.

I have not yet received a reply to my letters to the governors of California and Oregon.

Accept, etc.,

John Hay.