United States to the States and peoples who have chosen me to preside over their government, in which letters you command these chiefs and their clergy to exhort the people and the authorities in the exercise of charity and the love

of peace.

I am deeply sensible to the Christian charity and sympathy which have inspired your Holiness in the reiterated appeal made to the venerable clergy of the Catholic church, to induce it to use all its authority in behalf of the restora tion of peace and tranquillity.

I therefore deem it my duty to express to your Holiness personally, and in the name of the people of the Confederate States, that we are deeply sensible of the sentiments of love and of Christian charity which have guided your Holiness on this occasion, and to assure you that this people, threatened, even within its very hearthstones, by a cruel oppression and by a fearful carnage, desires now, as it has always fervently desired it, the termination of this impious war; that we have manifested in our prayers, addressed to our Heavenly Father, the same sentiments as those with which your Holiness is animated; that we do not wish any evil to our enemies; that we do not covet any of their possessions; but that we only contend that they may cease to desolate our country, to shed the blood of our people, that they permit us to live in peace under the ægis of our institutions and of our laws, which protect every one, not only in the enjoyment of his temporal rights, but also in the free exercise of his worship.

I therefore pray your Holiness to accept, on my part, and on that of the people of the Confederate States, our sincere thanks for your efforts in behalf of peace. May the Lord prolong the days of your Holiness, and have you in His holy keeping.

JEFFERSON DAVIS, President of the Confederate States of America.

[Translation.]

The Pope has made the following reply to President Jefferson Davis: Illustrious and honorable president, greeting:

We have just received with all the proper benevolence the persons sent by you to deliver to us your letter under date of the 23d September last. We have experienced no ordinary pleasure on learning from those persons, and through this letter, with what sentiments of joy and gratitude you have been animated, illustrious and honorable president, so soon as you had knowledge of our letters to our venerable brothers, John, archbishop of New York, and John, archbishop of New Orleans, under date of the 18th of October of the last year, and in which we have, with all our power, excited and exhorted these venerable brothers to the end that, in their piety and their episcopal solicitude, they should endeavor, with the most ardent zeal, and in our name, to put an end to the fatal civil war which has broken out in those countries, in order that the American peoples should finally come to a common peace and concord, and to love one another charitably.

It has been particularly agreeable to us to learn that you, illustrious and honorable president, and these same peoples, are animated with the same desires of peace and tranquillity which we have, in our letters hereinbefore referred to, inculcated upon our aforenamed venerable brothers. May it at the same time please God that the other peoples of America, and their directing powers, considering seriously how grave a civil war is, and how great are the evils it entails, may be willing finally to listen to the inspirations of a more calm spirit, and adopt resolutely the cause of peace.

As to ourselves, we shall not cease to address the most fervent prayers to the all-powerful God, that he may bestow upon all the peoples of America a spirit of peace and charity, and that he may withdraw them from the very great evils which afflict them.

We supplicate at the same time the good and merciful God to bestow upon you the lights of His grace, and to attach you to us by a perfect union. Given at Rome, at Saint Peter, this 3d of December, 1863, in the 18th year of our pontificate.

PIUS IX.

No. 451.]

Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, January 3, 1864.

SIR: By a despatch of the 18th of last month, Thomas H. Dudley, esq., informs me that with a view to the successful prosecution of parties concerned in the preparation of the iron-clad rams at Birkenhead for the insurgents, it is important to procure evidence of the connexion of the house of Messieurs Bravay & Co. with the insurgents. I will therefore thank you to use your best endeavors for the promotion of that object.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

SIR: Your despatch of December 11, No. 384, is the latest which has been received here, and an acknowledgment of it has been delayed by reason of my short absence from this city.

Your proceedings in the case of the Rappahannock are approved.

I have communicated to the Secretary of the Navy the information you gave me concerning the Florida and the Georgia. Mr. Mercier has returned to France for the winter. I have reason to believe that he has left us with kind and liberal sentiments towards the United States. Certainly he bears with him the respect and good wishes of this government. The beginning of our unhappy civil war found him in close and intimate relations with the leaders of the insurrection. This could not well be a cause of surprise or of reasonable complaint on the part of this government, for those leaders were, until a very late hour in Mr. Buchanan's term, directors of the administration of this government itself. We had no right to expect greater loyalty from a foreign minister than was exhibited by the cabinet of Mr. Buchanan. It is believed that Mr. Mercier has been slower than most of the representatives of foreign states residing here in accepting the conclusion that the Union would be saved from the appalling dangers with which he has seen it combating. Nevertheless his bearing and his interviews with the government are believed to have been frank and honorable. He is therefore commended to your kind and respectful consideration. He will inform you that just when the President had acceded to the wishes of the French government for a permission to export the tobacco which it has stored at Richmond, upon the express ground that it had been bought and paid for before the blockade was laid upon the southern ports, it was discovered that

the French government had been in error as to the fact of the alleged early purchase and payment so far as five or six thousand hogsheads of the tobacco were concerned. On this mistake being brought to the knowledge of the President, he at once consented to authorize the exportation of the 1,500 hogsheads, which it was still understood had been bought and paid for before the blockade, and said that he would review the subject as to the 6,500 hogsheads which it would appear had not been thus early purchased and paid for. When this decision was made known by Mr. Mercier to Mr. Paul, the French agent in Richmond, that gentleman then for the first time discovered, or at least made known the fact, that even the 1,500 hogsheads referred to were not paid for until after the blockade was established. This statement became known to Mr. Mercier just when he was on the eve of departing, and when I was at New York, and not at this capital, so that it could not be made a subject of correspondence between us. I therefore recommended to him, under the circumstances, to submit the altered state of the case to M. Drouyn de l'Huys. This government is satisfied that the imperial government is disposed to practice not only strict neutrality in our civil war, but also to extend to this government all the comity that shall be consistent with that relation.

The President is therefore by no means inclined to insist rigorously on the condition of its concession concerning the tobacco in question. At the same time it is to be remembered that a waiver by Great Britain of a right to object to the relaxation of the blockade, so as to permit the exportation of this tobacco, was deemed necessary before those concessions were made, and that Great Britain made the waiver upon the direct application of the French government, and upon the express ground that the tobacco involved had been actually bought and paid for before the blockade was established. You will bring this important fact to the recollection of Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys, who may, if he shall deem it expedient, apply to her Majesty's government for a renewal of its original assent upon the now corrected state of facts. If the difficulty which I have thus stated shall be removed, the President will reconsider the case in the same spirit of liberality and comity towards France which has governed the previous proceedings of this government.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM L. DAYTON, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

No. 454.]

Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, January 4, 1864.

SIR: Mr. Adams, by a despatch of the 17th ultimo, informs me that he has transmitted to you copies of papers relating to the case of the Victor, now called the Rappahannock, and whose arrival at Calais was announced in your No. We are awaiting with much solicitude the course of the French government in the matter.

382.

SIR: Your despatches Nos. 446, 447, 448, and 449 are duly received.

*

Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys said that he and the minister of marine had already consulted on the subject of the use of their ports, with a view to adopt some general rules, as England had done, and it was probable that such rules would be framed and notice of them given, but they were not yet prepared.

I took occasion again to inform him that at least seventy persons had recently been sent from England to ship on some one of the three vessels now lying in French ports, and that a portion of these, at least, were intended for the Rappahannock ; that this vessel at least could not claim, as the Florida did, ‘a right to renew her crew while lying in a neutral port, for, in point of fact, she brought no crew in. She was sent over or brought over from the English side of the channel by mechanics, engineers, and firemen, who were on board of her temporarily only. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys seems to agree with me altogether as to this vessel, and says the minister of marine agrees with him, but they do nothing. The vessel is not, however, ready to leave port, although I am informed that the Florida and Georgia are ready. The Kearsarge is yet off the port of Brest.

These vessels will be accompanied to sea, as is stated in public journals, by a French ship-of-war, with the view, of course, to prevent any violation of the rules of international law.

SIR: Your despatch No. 393 has been received. It is hoped that the insurgent vessel Rappahannock will be arrested as you anticipate.

The remarks of Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys in his note to you of the 23d ult., in. regard to complaints of French subjects against the United States, are somewhat surprising. Most of the claimants are believed to have been residents of insurgent territory. France, by recognizing the insurgents as belligerents, may be expected to have accepted all the responsibility of that measure, and to be content to regard her subjects domiciled in belligerent territory as identified with belligerents themselves. There can be no question as to the applicability of this rule to domiciled merchants, and the reasons for its applicability to that class seem to be sufficient for it to embrace all aliens who reside in an enemy's country for the purpose of carrying on business of any kind. Waiving for the present, however, any further consideration of this point, the fact that we have long since proposed to the French government a convention for the adjustment of the claims of their subjects, and that this proposition is still pending, would seem to have made untimely reference to the matter in connexion with the case of the Rappahannock. It will also have been noticed that the President, in his last annual message, has recommended the establishment of a special tribunal for the settlement of claims of foreigners which have originated since the commencement of the war in this country. It is expected that the measure will receive full effect at the hands of Congress.

Your obedient servant,

WILLIAM L. DAYTON, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

WILLIAM H.. SEWARD.

No. 457.]

of

Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, January 13, 1864.

SIR: Your despatch of December 25, No. 390, has been received. In one my late communications I informed you of a new discovery that had occurred to delay the shipment of the tobacco of the French government at Richmond. M. Mercier, whose arrival at Paris will have anticipated this despatch, will, I trust, have made known to M. Drouyn de l'Huys the singular difficulties in regard to the matter which have arisen out of a misapprehension by all parties of an important fact in regard to the time when the tobacco was purchased and paid for by the French government. The discovery of this error is deemed to render a new presentation of the question to her Britannic Majesty's government necessary. While this representation is being made, I renew with pleasure the assurance that the President remains favorably disposed upon the subject.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM L. DAYTON, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

No. 459.]

Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, January 14, 1864.

SIR: Your despatch of the 25th ultimo, No. 389, is received, and the explanations of Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys therein recited are regarded by the President with much satisfaction.

SIR: I have at length received from Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys, a reply in refer ence to the Rappahannock, now at Calais.

It would seem that upon inquiries made by their own agents they are led to believe that the visit of the Rappahannock was casual and of necessity, and that they feel constrained, therefore, to treat this vessel like other vessels in distress only. I am quite sure, from the facts in my possession, that she made her escape from English waters by night, and came into the port of Calais in an unfinished condition; that she is now using that neutral port for the purpose of completing such equipment I think there is no doubt. From the fact, too, that twelve or fourteen men were there waiting her arrival, and, after a signal shown, attempted to get on board of her by a ruse, it is evident that she was expected in that port. I am by no means satisfied with the course of action which this government has adopted in reference to these vessels, and more especially in reference to the Rappahannock. I have already given them to understand that we shall consider them responsible for all damages which may accrue to us by reason of any future depredations committed by this vessel.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

WILLIAM L. DAYTON.

Secretary of State, &c., &c., &c.