Mr. Dayton to Mr. Seward, April 24, 1863

Mr. Dayton to Mr.
Seward

Sir: In pursuance of the written request of Mr.
Drouyn de l’Huys, I called at the foreign office yesterday, and
immediately learned that the French government made grave and serious
complaint against us by reason of the late certificate, or, as they
choose to call it, the “laissez passer” which Mr. Adams gave, as they
allege, to Messrs. Howell and General Zirman, the Mexican agents in
London. They assume that the cargo was arms, and that Mr. Adams knew it.
I suggested that there was nothing on the face of the papers to indicate
anything of the kind, and told Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys that, in giving the
paper or certificate in question, I did not believe Mr. Adams had had
the slightest thought or reference to France and her relations with
Mexico, as Matamoras was not, I thought, blockaded by France. That he,
Mr. Adams, had a difficult part to play in England, and, do what he
would, he was sure to be found fault with there. I told him I much
regretted that anything had occurred there to wound the sensibility of
the government of the Emperor, and I was sure it was not intended. It
was not so much, as it seemed to me, the fact that Mr. Adams had given
the certificate in question that he complained of, as the terms or
phraseology in which he had clothed it; and, assuming that the cargo was
arms for the Mexicans, with whom France is at
war, and that Mr. Adams knew it, it was perhaps justly subject to a part
at least of the criticism which he placed upon it. He went on to add,
too, that Mr. Adams’s desire to facilitate “neutral commerce” (being
arms, as he said, to kill the French) was much at variance with the
action of our government at New York and New Orleans, which forbade the
shipment of mules, or free laborers, and even of timber for the use of the French in Mexico. I told him that I
knew nothing of this, and that the correspondence between yourself and
Mr. Romero, the Mexican minister at Washington, indicated a policy
directly the reverse of this. That while the Secretary of the Treasury
had refused to interfere, on the application of Mr. Romero, to prevent
the exportation of wagons, &c., for the French, he had at once
stopped the exportation of 37,000 stand of muskets purchased in New York
for the Mexicans, and that the Mexican minister had, in consequence,
felt himself justified in making the unpleasant intimation that our
government had discriminated unjustly and unfairly against Mexico and in
favor of France. He wished me to send him an extract of this
correspondence for the Emperor, and I have this morning sent him the
correspondence itself, with the parts marked to which I desired
particularly to call his attention. Before leaving this part of the
subject, however, he said that he thought, in the first place, there had
been some such liberty of export allowed; that even General Butler had
permitted this; but that General Banks, who, it was thought, was to be
less severe than his predecessor at New Orleans, had been more exacting
or less liberal upon these matters than even General Butler. That most
serious complaints had come to him from the army and navy department here of the
great inconvenience to which they had been subject by his orders
limiting the export of such articles. I told him that I knew of nothing
further on this subject than appeared in the published correspondence,
and that if any such orders were made, they must have grown, I thought,
out of some existing want or emergency of our own; but in this he did
not agree with me. He said if the war in Mexico were unpleasant to us,
we must remember that our war, too, was unpleasant and injurious to
them; and, adverting again to Mr. Adams’s certificate, he said that they
had at no time, by word or act, said or done an unkind
thing towards us; that their leaning had been rather in our
favor than against us throughout, and yet here is a certificate given by
a distinguished official of the United States government abroad, stating
that “it gives him pleasure” to distinguish this adventure of sending a
shipment of arms to their enemies as an honest and fair enterprise and
for a creditable purpose, &c, (being, as he said, to kill them
with!) and that he therefore “cheerfully” gave the certificate in
question. That this language was calculated to excite the French people,
and he should, as far as possible, keep its translation out of the
French newspapers; and he hoped for something kind very shortly from the
government of the United States to relieve the painful impression it had
made.

In illustrating his views of the certificate, he said its manifest
tendency was to encourage Mexico, and to induce the belief that if she
held out the United States would, perhaps, in the end help her. He
added: “Suppose Baron Gros (the present minister of France at London)
had given to the owners of a ship full of arms going to the
confederates, who are at war with us, such a paper, directed to the
commander of the French squadron on our coast, what would our government
have thought of it?” But he said that the paper was much opposed to the
views you had yourself expressed very recently to Mr. Mercier, as to the
purposes of our government in regard to the war of France in Mexico; and
he read to me part of a despatch from Mr. Mercier, dated, I think, as
late as the third of this month, on that subject. He wished me to say
again to you that France had no purpose in Mexico beyond asserting her
just claims against her, obtaining payment of the debt due, with the
expenses of the invasion, and vindicating, by victory, the honor of her
flag. He again said, expressly, that they did not mean to colonize in
Mexico, or to obtain Sonora or any other section permanently, and that
all such pretences, propagated through the newspapers, were untrue. In
return, I assured him that all your correspondence with me, public and
private, assured me that our government had no purpose to interfere in
any way with the war between France and Mexico.

After this general conversation Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys said that he had,
for greater certainty, put in writing the substance of his remarks as to
the paper given by Mr. Adams to the Mexican agents, which he would leave
with me, not as a formal communication, but as informal memoranda only
of what he had said on that subject. I told him I should be happy to
have the paper if I was permitted to translate and send it to my
government. To this he assented. I received it without reading, and
herewith send you a translation. I shall likewise send another copy to
Mr. Adams. The sound judgment and great discretion which have so
uniformly characterized his service in London will dictate to him
whether it calls for any action on his part.

Before closing this despatch, I ought to add that I am informed that Mr.
Drouyn de l’Huys has expressed himself to another person, on the subject
herein before referred to, in terms more decided even than to me,
closing, as he did, with the
remark, that if the United States aided or encouraged their enemies in
Mexico, France would aid and encourage our enemies in the United
States.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

Translation of informal memoranda of Mr.
Drouyn de l’Huys’s remarks to Mr.
Dayton on the 23d of April

The government of the Emperor has not been able to read without
painful surprise the document emanating from the minister of the
United States at London, to which the English press have just given
a publicity perhaps unexpected. A deliberate feeling only of
hostility towards France can have induced Mr. Adams to deliver to
the Mexican agents, who had informed him as to their projects, the
strange certificate destined to facilitate the execution of them. If
a doubt were possible in this respect, the terms in which is
conceived the “laissez passer,” addressed to the commandant of the
federal fleet, would suffice to indicate with what disposition the
representative of the United States in England was unfortunately
inspired on this occasion.

The government of the Emperor admits perfectly that the American
cruisers should abstain from molesting and seizing the vessels which
have not violated, towards the United States themselves, the duties
of neutrality.

But there is no necessity for setting forth the difference which
exists between an abstention conformable to the attitude imposed
upon every belligerent towards neutrals whose conduct does not
furnish it with direct motives of complaint, and the formal
assurance given to a third party engaged in operations infected with
an illegal character towards another belligerent, that they will not
in any way disturb their operations. There is guaranteed to these
parties in this last case a security upon which they ought not to
count; there is removed from them in advance certain perils which
might compromise success; fears are dissipated which would perhaps
have stopped them. If there is not there an effective participation
in acts condemned by the right of nations, is it not, nevertheless,
very evidently to accord to them an unusual guarantee, a quasi
protection; and is it not, therefore, morally to associate one’s
self with them? In giving to M. M. Howell and Zirman the attestation
which they solicited of him, and the effect of which must be to
assure to them, in spite of the character of their merchandise, a
free passage through the American cruisers, Mr. Adams could not be
mistaken as to the concurrence which he had lent to a transaction of
contraband of war, which he knew to be undertaken against us. There
would then have been occasion for asking one’s self by what
inadvertence the minister of a friendly power had been induced thus
to favor acts openly directed against France, if the tenor of the
certificate signed by him did not state that it is intentionally,
and because he approved of it, that Mr. Adams wished to cover them
with an exceptional immunity. The expressions employed by M. the
minister of the United States do not leave room for any ambiguity.
It is with pleasure that he learns the end of the proposed
operation. The sending of arms and ammunitions, which might have
called for the most severe censure, the most rigorous repression, if
they had been destined for the enemies of the federal government, assumes an entirely
different character and becomes legitimate as soon as it is to the
profit of the enemies of France.

The government of the Emperor refuses to believe that such sentiments
have drawn their inspiration from Washington. It is well convinced
that Mr. Adams has, in this matter, only expressed opinions
altogether personal.

It is easy to understand, however, that the language of the minister
of the United States at London borrows, necessarily, from its
diplomatic character, a particular importance, and formed as they
have been, his appreciations authorize us to suppose that views
hostile to France are held also by his government. The cabinet of
Washington will not be astonished, then, that the government of the
Emperor should see in the procedure of Mr. Adams an act gratuitously
malevolent towards France, and by which it has a right to feel
itself wounded. One would seek in vain a motive for excuse of the
conduct of the American representative.

Nothing made it obligatory upon him to furnish to the Mexican agents
a paper which was equivalent to a veritable safe-conduct, which,
even had it not been a question of the transportation of contraband
of war, would have contrasted with the suspicious and excessive
surveillance exercised over all shipments leaving, England for the
same point, but which, in the form and with the conditions on which
it was given, became a mark of sympathy and an altogether voluntary
encouragement accorded to illegal manœuvres prejudicial to a
friendly power. The government of the Emperor cannot, then, conceal
the regretable impressions which it has experienced. It must think
that the federal government will itself have anticipated it, and
confiding in the security of the assurances of entirely another
nature which it has often received from it, it believes itself
authorized to expect of it an explicit disavowal of the attitude and
of the language of its minister at London.