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It is possible, however, that a groundwork for some sort of understanding between the British and French Governments may be found in the assurance given by the Duc Decazes in this answer, that the jurisdiction, and some of the other objectionable privileges conferred by the Commercial Treaty on French Agents in Annam, are intended to be only temporary, and to disappear when other nations have established Consuls of their own in the country. At any rate it seems worth considering what the position of affairs would be if this assurance were rendered binding in some more formal manner, and if the wording of the Treaty were, if necessary, altered; or, at all events, valid security taken that it would be always interpreted in this sense.
I have, &c.
(Signed) LYONS.
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