Watson Webb to Senhor Martin Francisco Ribeiro Andrada, Councillor to his Imperial Majesty the Emperor, August 21, 1866

Mr. Webb to Mr. Andrada.

The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from the United States, has the honor to inform his excellency Senhor Martin Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada, counsellor to his imperial Majesty the Emperor, minister and secretary of state for foreign affairs, that he has read with great care and attention the despatch of his predecessor to the late Chargé d’affaires of the United States, in explanation of the extraordinary proceedings of Brazil and her allies in preventing the minister of the United States duly accredited to the republic of Paraguay, and for many years resident at Asuncion, from returning to his post of duty, after a temporary absence therefrom by consent of his government.

The despatch referred to offers in defence of an act so unfriendly to the United States, and so utterly at variance with a well understood principle of international law, a letter addressed by the President of the Argentine Republic to the United States minister to Paraguay, in which he peremptorily refuses to permit the United States minister to pass the blockade of the Paraguay river established by Brazil and the republics of Uruguay and the Argentine, in their war with Paraguay. That letter the undersigned has read with great attention, and with an earnest desire to find in it the explanation which it was made the duty of the late Chargé d’affaires, in the absence of the undersigned, to demand of the imperial government. But he is compelled to say that, in his judgment, the letter of President Mitre is more remarkable for its special pleading than for its friendly character or logical conclusions; and its intrinsic merits are in no manner changed by the fact, that the government of Brazil has indorsed its reasoning and adopted its conclusions, so deliberately unfriendly to the United States, and in such palpable repudiation of a well established international right. Neither the despatch, therefore, of your excellency’s predecessor, nor the letter enclosed from President Mitre to Minister Washburn, are satisfactory to the undersigned, because he well knows that they will not be satisfactory to his government. He is consequently, under the disagreeable necessity of saying to your excellency that in his opinion the demand for explanations which he was directed to make remains unanswered, by reason of its having been evaded in part, and in part offensively replied to, if, as the undersigned reads the despatch, it is intended to justify the conduct of the allies in refusing to permit a duly accedited minister of the United States to return to his post of duty, or if it be intended to convey to the undersigned the determination of Brazil to adhere to the wrong-doing of which the United States complains, as not only unfriendly, but absolutely offensive and wanting in respect to her nationality.

Under the circumstances and in pursuance of his instructions in such a contingency, the undersigned renews, in the most formal and urgent manner of which he is capable, his demand for an explanation of Mr. Washburn’s treatment by the agents and representatives of Brazil in the river Plate and its vicinity; and also, he is instructed definitively to inquire, and to insist upon an early answer to the inquiry, whether it is or is not the intention of Brazil to persist in refusing Mr. Washburn permission to pass the blockading squadron of the allies near the mouth of the Paraguay; thus obstructing and hindering his return to his post of duty and the discharge of his functions at Asuncion as the duly accredited minister of the United States since 1861.

The undersigned avails himself of this occasion to convey to your excellency the assurances of his distinguished consideration.