E. B. Washburne to Count de Bismarck, January 19, 1871

[Untitled]

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your two letters, both under date of the 15th instant, relating to matters connected with the transmission of the United States dispatch-bag to and from this city. One of those letters incloses extracts from those letters said to have been addressed by persons residing in Paris to correspondents abroad, such letters haying been sent out in a balloon which was captured by your men.

There is no doubt but the facilities for correspondence which the legation of the United States at Paris has had are known in London and elsewhere, and that certain persons have sought to abuse those facilities, and, in order to accomplish their purposes, have attempted to make an unwarrantable use of this legation. A good many letters have found their way to our legation here. Many have been sent by your excellency, some by Count Solms, and some by Count d’Hatzfeldt. These letters having, as I have assumed, passed through your hands, I considered that I had a sufficient guarantee that they contained nothing compromising to either belligerent, and I caused them all to be delivered to the parties to whom they were addressed, without examination.

Of the letters that have found their way into my dispatch-bag, coming from London, some were addressed to my compatriots who have been detained in Paris. Such letters, after having been examined and found to contain no allusion to military or political matters, have been delivered.

A very few letters have come to me addressed to people of nationalities other than French, and after examining them and finding that they contained no allusion to military events, I caused them also to be delivered. Perhaps in half a dozen cases I have delivered some very brief notes to French people well known to me, but only after the most scrupulous examination which showed them to contain absolutely nothing but reference to family matters. And I may say that nine out of ten of the small number of letters I have received through my dispatch-bag have not been delivered by me at all, as I considered that it was not in accordance with your understanding of what the bag might contain. I have to remark, therefore, that no letters, received through my dispatch-bag from London, have ever gone out of this legation which contained anything in regard to military or political events, or containing anything in the least degree compromising to either of the belligerents; and I beg to say further, that I have equally guarded the contents of my outgoing bag.

In this connection permit me to observe that you will find inclosed herewith an envelope, containing certain letters addressed to persons in Paris, and which you sent to me by the last parlementaire. I know nothing of these persons, and I know no reason why I should deliver the letters. I therefore have the honor to return them to you.

As you suggest that the extracts of the balloon letters prove that Colonel Hoffmann was expected to lend a helping hand to the epistolary correspondence, I am authorized by him to state that he has no idea of the parties who wrote two of the letters in which his name has been used, and he denies in the most emphatic manner that they could have been authorized to use his name in any way. As to the other party, Mrs. Chandor, an American lady, whom he says he found in great distress on account of the sickness of her children with the small-pox, in Brussels, he consented to have information sent to him in regard to them. He had no conception that this act of pure kindness would be taken advantage of to get in a letter to the gentleman therein named, whom he had never heard of. I make haste to speak of Colonel Hoffmann as a gentleman of the most unquestioned loyalty and honor, a man who thoroughly appreciates his duties and obligations, and holds to a most rigorous observance of them. I have no idea who the writer of the letters is who speaks of receiving news by the “intermediary of Mr. Washburne,” but I do know that he never had any authority from me to use my name in that way, and in doing so was guilty of a gross impertinence and a gross outrage.

I beg to thank your excellency for your prompt transmission of my bag to London, in accordance with the request of my letter of the 13th instant.

In relation to the suggestion which your excellency makes, that my dispatch-bag shall be sent directly to Washington, not to be opened in London, I have to state that such an arrangement would deprive me of communicating with the United States legation in London, and through that legation, in case of need, with the Washington Government by telegraph.

In regard to sending my dispatches from Washington in a bag made up there to be transmitted directly to me here, its practical operation at the present time would be to deprive me of all communication from my Government. My weekly dispatches from Mr. Fish for the last four weeks are now on their way from Washington to Paris. If I am deprived of a bag from London, those dispatches, therefore, could not reach me under the seal of my Government, which is the only way that I would feel authorized to receive them. Independent of that, it will take between three and four weeks for me to get a letter to Washington, requesting that the bag may be made up there directly for Paris. In the mean time, dispatches to me would be coming weakly to London, with the expectation that I should receive them in the usual manner. And further, after my letter should have finally reached Washington, requesting that the bag should be made up there for Paris, it would take the contents of such bag three or four weeks more to reach me.

Hence, your excellency will perceive that if I should receive no bag from London I should be deprived of hearing from Mr. Fish for a period of some three months.

With a knowledge, therefore, of the views of my Government on this subject, and its opinion that it has a right to promptly communicate with me as its representative near the government of France, it is impossible for me to acquiesce in the arrangement which you have done me the honor to recommend. I have concluded, therefore, to send you by the parlementaire, which I hope to obtain for Tuesday next, my dispatchbag addressed in the usual way to the United States dispatch agent in London. If you should feel constrained to decline sending it forward without an unreasonable delay, I will thank you to return it to me here by the first parlementaire. And also, if you should feel constrained to retain my bag sent to you from London to Versailles beyond a reasonable time, I will thank you to return it to London.

Out of respect, due alike to myself, as well as to the Government which I have the honor to represent, I should feel compelled to decline receiving or transmitting any dispatch-hag or any communications through your military lines upon terms and conditions which might be construed as implying a distrust of my good faith and of the loyal manner in which I have discharged my duty toward both belligerents and to my own Government, to which I am alone responsible for my official action.

Before closing this communication, I trust your excellency will pardon me a further observation. For the period of six months I have been charged with the delicate, laborious and responsible duty of protecting your countrymen in Paris. Of the manner in which those duties, having relations to both belligerents, have been performed, I do not propose to speak; I am content to abide by the record made up in the State Department at Washington. But I can state that there has never been a time when these duties have involved graver consequences and responsibilities than at the present moment. As I have expressed to you before, I have been astonished at the number of Germans who, as it turns out, were left in the city when the gates were closed. Having exhausted their last resources, and finding themselves in a state of the most absolute destitution, they have applied to me for protection and aid, which I have so far been enabled to extend to them from the funds placed in my hands by the royal government. The number of these people amounts to-day to two thousand three hundred and eightyfive (2,385,) and it is certain, had there not been some one here to protect and aid them, many must have inevitably perished of cold and starvation. My position in relation to these people, and to your government, is known to the people of Paris, and as the siege wears on and the exasperation is intensified, I now find myself exposed to the hostility of a certain portion of the population of the city. While your military authorities seem to be agitated by the gravest fears in relation to my dispatch-bag, I am daily violently assailed by a portion of the Paris press as a “Prussian representative,” and a “Prussian sympathizer,” and a short time since it was proposed in one of the clubs that I should be hung—rather a pleasant diversion in these dreary days of siege through which we are passing.

I will only add that, so long as I am the diplomatic representative of ray country in Paris, I shall discharge every duty, even to the end, and in the face of every circumstance, that I owe to my own Government, and every duty that I have by its direction assumed towards the subjects of the North German Confederation.

I have, &c.,