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pressed by it. That portion of the English press which has been so pertinaciously opposed to the north is trying to destroy the favorable effect of this action of the federal government upon the public mind of Europe, by commenting upon it as impracticable and futile under existing circumstances; but the great fact of the recommendation and the prompt action of Congress upon it remains. That it will influence favorably in our behalf the minds of the Christian world is not to be doubted.

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SIR: Your despatch of March 4 (No. 124) is received. It brings a casual conversation with which you were favored by his Majesty the Emperor. While it was unquestionably proper that the President should be informed of the conversation, it will be for Mr. Thouvenel to decide whether he will entertain my comments upon it.

It is a pleasure to say that the remarks of his Majesty on that occasion, like the other communications which he has personally made to you, are manifestly sincere, grave, and earnest.

The substance of those remarks is, that he is very solicitous for an early termination of our domestic difficulties, because they are producing effects very injurious to the prosperity, and even calculated to disturb the tranquillity, of the French empire.

We have not been inattentive observers of recent occurrences in France, and thus we have become aware of the distress which prevails in many of the districts of that country, and of the popular movements which it has produced. While his Majesty would probably admit that other circumstances have combined with our unhappy civil strife in producing that distress, I am not at all disposed to deny that a large share of it is justly attributable to the latter cause. I can also very easily understand how naturally those classes of the French population which are most immediately affected trace all their troubles to that cause alone.

In behalf of the President, I can say, with the utmost frankness and sincerity, that he has not indulged a sentiment or a feeling during all our troubles that was not earnestly generous and friendly towards all foreign states, and especially so towards the government and the people of France. Indeed, it could not have been otherwise; for we have learned by painful and anxious experience that the first interests of every state are security and peace. Moreover, although the policy of France during our trials has not always been such as in the great straits through which we have passed we could entirely approve, yet, on reviewing the events of the year, I am able to admit that that policy was not unnaturally regarded by the Emperor as necessary under the aspect which our affairs assumed abroad. I can recall not one instance of disingenuousness or unkindness towards us in the intercourse which has taken place during that period between the two countries. Moreover, revolutions are epidemical; and, although we deem

our own country to be now on the return to a condition of order and repose, we are not sure that new distractions would not befall us if revolutions should break out in Western Europe. The United States are thus bound to desire the peace of all other nations. The. Emperor may, therefore, rest assured that this government is not merely not indifferent to the wishes he expresses, but is desirous so to direct its proceedings as to meet and gratify them.

His Majesty mentioned to you two subjects of anxiety: the first, whether we shall be able speedily to open cotton ports; the other, whether, even if such ports shall be so opened, cotton will come. It is hazardous, as his Majesty well knows, to speculate on the probable course of military operations. In regard to this strife, I have been sanguine of only one, and that the cardinal point, namely: that the national forces would prevail, and the Union be thus maintained. But how, and when, and where the intervening victories would be won, and the unavoidable disasters and disappointments would occur, I have not undertaken to predict, because such knowledge is never vouchsafed to rulers or to statesmen. Perhaps before this paper shall have reached you, possibly even before it shall have left this place, there may be reverses here which will essentially modify the favorable expectations which, in common with all our countrymen, we are now indulging with a high degree of confidence.

These expectations, however, I give you for the information of the gov ernment of France. We have already, with a strong hand, recovered the control of nearly all of the coast of the insurrectionary States, and we have recaptured four of the great ports which were wrested from us by the insurgents, or betrayed into their hands before the government assumed its attitude of self-defence. While doing this we have effected a release of all our land and naval forces from the sieges in which they were held by the rebels. All these forces are, as is supposed, safely acting aggressively. Our means are ample, our forces numerous, our credit sound, and our spirit buoyant and brave. The reverse of all this is the true condition of the insurgents. They are reduced from aggression to defence. Distracted between many exposed points, they have consumed most of their resources; their credit is nearly prostrate; their forces, always exaggerated, are now very feeble; and they are considering, not so much how they shall carry on the war they so recklessly began, as how they shall meet and endure the calamities it is bringing upon them. It is under these circumstances that our army of the Potomac, under General McClellan, to-day is descending that river, an hundred thousand strong, to attack and carry Norfolk and Richmond; that another army, under General Frémont, is moving upon Cumberland Gap, to cut off the communication of the insurgents with the more southern States; that a third army, under General Halleck, equal in numbers and efficiency with that of the Potomac, is descending both banks of the Mississippi, flanking what has hitherto proved to be an irresistible naval force, which is making its way upon the river itself to New Orleans; while a fourth column of land and naval forces, under General Butler and Captain Porter, deemed adequate to any emergency, is already believed to be ascending the river from the Belize to attack New Orleans. Burnside has really left nothing to be done to rescue the ports between Norfolk and Charleston. Charleston cannot long hold out; and the fall of Savannah is understood to be only a question of days, not of weeks. Mobile cannot stand after the fall of these and of New Orleans, and all the ports between those cities are already in our possession.

This summary of our military situation encourages us to believe that the insurrectionary government must very soon fall and disappear.

The second question upon which his Majesty expressed his anxiety is,

whether cotton will come, even after the government shall have opened the ports.

Upon this point you may safely assure him that all apprehensions are, in our view, groundless. The American people, in the southern as well as in the northern States, are a civilized, industrial, considerate, and Christian people, and therefore they are a practical people. A seditious faction has induced the southern people to appeal from the constitutional decision by ballot, upon a question of administration, to the unconstitutional test of arms. They, like ourselves, are obliged by the laws of our social condition to submit to the decision of arms when it is made. Of course reckless leaders threaten, in advance of the decision, that it shall not be respected, and, of course, some of them will attempt to prevent acquiescence in it after it shall have been made. They could succeed, however, only by instigating a guerilla war, and that form of warfare would find no support in any part of this country.

You will reassure the French government of the disposition and purpose of the President to remove the extraordinary restraints which have been laid upon commerce, just so far and so fast as it can be done compatibly with the attainment of the sole object of the contest on our part, namely: the re-establishment of the Union.

The

It would be disingenuous to close this communication without adding that now, as heretofore, it is the firm opinion of the President that it is in the power of the Emperor of France himself to render it absolutely certain that the efforts this government is thus making for the pacification of the insurgent region shall be crowned with immediate and complete success. insurgents, hemmed in on all sides, without possessing a port or any other egress, and ruined and demoralized, as they are, are not any longer, even if at any previous time they have been, entitled to the forbearance of foreign powers as a public belligerent. Their persistence in resisting the government of their country depends on the groundless hope of foreign intervention which they indulge. So long as they are regarded by foreign nations as a belligerent, they will not relinquish all expectation of such intervention. This view, however, has been already submitted to his Majesty more than once, and it is therefore unnecessary to enlarge upon it, or to re-enforce the arguments in support of it heretofore advanced. A new argument, however, offers itself at the moment when I am closing this despatch. Information comes from Florida that the people of that State, whose ports and harbors have an importance in regard to commerce only inferior to their value in regard to naval defence, are already taking the incipient measures for a renunciation of disunion and a complete restoration of the authority of the United States.

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Your communications to Mr. Mercier in respect to opening a way for the transmission of letters to New Orleans, &c., from French houses, have, I

think, been made known to this government. They seem to feel an interest in the accomplishment of this purpose, but subordinate altogether to the question of cotton. That is now the great and leading point of interest between them and us. The changed condition of things at home has driven out of mind (or at least out of our political conferences here) all questions as to the efficiency of the blockade as now maintained. The French government has come to the conclusion, I think, that we will get possession of the cotton ports, but they seem now to be troubled with grave doubts whether in that event, even, cotton will be forthcoming. This suggestion, as I have already said, was made by the Emperor, and afterwards was repeated by Mr. Thouvenel. I told Mr. Thouvenel that it was possible that foreign purchasers might find it necessary to send their agents into the interior for the purpose of buying directly of the producer, instead of their factors at the seaports, but that I did not doubt that cotton enough would remain undestroyed in the southern country to supply existing wants. I again called his attention to the propriety of his government's retracing its steps in regard to its concession to the insurrectionists of belligerent rights, referring him to the considerations in reference thereto stated in your despatches. He gave me no reason to suppose they would at present comply with this request. On the contrary, he said that it would scarcely be worthy of a great power, now that the south was beaten, to withdraw a concession made to them in their day of strength. I asked him, in reply, how long this concession was to last? How far it was expected we should go in crushing out this rebellion before it would be withdrawn? I said that it might well happen that, even after the southern ports were in our hands and their armies subdued, that bodies of men-brigands and guerillas-might be found in arms in some sections of the country, and I begged to know whether they were then yet to be considered as a "belligerent power?" Whether their flag was yet to be respected? He said it was impossible to answer these questions without conference with England. That they had acted in these matters upon an understanding throughout. But, he said, if we took possession of the ports, the war would be altogether internal, and France would have nothing to do with it; that if we had the ports in our possession, no southern cruisers could get out, and the recognition of their flag would practically be a matter of no importance. I told him that some cruisers were already out-the Sumter for instance. "Oh!" said he "she is fast; she can't move." I then told him that, aside from foreign ports, from sundry points upon our own coast, (not ports by law,) small armed craft might steal out to prey upon our coasting trade, if their right to do so was recognized by maritime nations. This fact, together with the countenance and moral support which the concession of belligerent rights gave to the rebellion, made it most desirable to the government of the United States that it should be ended. He seemed to think that we attached an undue importance to this. He said that their own consuls reported to them that the south were very much dissatisfied with France; that they complained that they had been badly treated, and threatened even to send their consuls and citizens out of the country. He said, furthermore, that we knew very well that all the sympathies of France and her people had been with the north from the beginning, and we could yet see how these sympathies tended from the mode in which the commissioners of the south had been received here.

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Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.

No. 136.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, April 1, 1862.

SIR: Your despatch of March 18 (No. 127) has just been received. I have anticipated the chief subject presented by you in a previous communication, No. 133.

New Orleans, and all the other southern ports which have not yet fallen into our hands, are not now left to a mere blockade, but are in a state of siege, during the continuance of which correspondence and commerce of course are suspended. The result of the siege will probably transpire while this paper is on the way to its destination.

We expect success, and after it we shall seek to restore commerce.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,

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SIR: Your despatch of March 19 (No. 128) has been received. It is a source of much pleasure to us that the European maritime powers are engaged in discussing among themselves the defects of the law of neutral rights in maritime war. We are not ambitious to enter into these debates so long as our divisions shall continue to impair our national prestige. If we succeed soon in healing those divisions, as we now expect, then our interests will more than ever be found moving in the line of the liberal principles which we have so constantly advocated and maintained. In any case, I think it cannot be long before some of the continental maritime states will be brought by their own embarrassments to see how deeply they themselves are interested in our resumption of our former preponderating influence in favor of neutral rights.

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SIR: Your despatch of March 25 (No. 129) has been submitted to the President.

It relates to a conversation which you held with the Emperor on the 25th of March last.

The President is pleased with the fact that you have had an opportunity, under favoring circumstances, to submit his opinion concerning the desirableness of a revocation of the imperial decree by which the insurgents were recognized as a public belligerent.

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