The treaty and laws of the United States recognize these relations, and confer on the consul authority to arrest, hold, and detain, try and punish, or send home for trial and punishment any American citizen, when he may deem such a proceeding necessary to the ends of justice at home or abroad. The treaty with Morocco authorizes the consul to apply to the Moorish authorities for military aid to enable him to execute these powers, and obliges these authorities unquestioningly to grant it. On the first impression of the case the point under consideration would seem to be disposed of satisfactorily, by stating that the Moorish authorities granted the aid required by the consul, and that they have made no complaint concerning the transaction, either to the consul or directly to this gov ernment. But some who sympathize with the arrested parties have naturally claimed to speak in behalf of Morocco as a powerless State, and to complain in her behalf. They say that, because the prisoners were political offenders, Morocco ought not to have been called upon to deliver them up to the consul. If the objection were well taken, then, manifestly, the fault will be found in the treaty, not in the proceedings under it. But the treaty is in exact harmony with the treaties made by all Christian nations with Morocco. The President, therefore, is not obliged to hear these complaints. Nevertheless he is not disposed to disregard them. The complainants assert that when Mr. De Long requested of the Moorish minister of state a military guard to enable him to effect the arrest, he suppressed the fact that the crimes of the accused were of the class of cases known as political offences. But, it may be asked, has any one of the Christian nations stipulated to except that class of offences from the operation of its treaty with Morocco? Has any one agreed that Morocco shall be made by revolutionists a base for piratical or other hostile expeditions against such power itself? If Christian nations treating with each other do agree to except political offenders from the liabilities to extradition, it is because they trust that the state under whose protection they are found will not allow them to abuse that authority to carry on hostile operations against the other contracting nation, or against society at large. If any Christian state has shown itself willing thus to trust the empire of Morocco, the treaty which reposes that confidence can be produced. The utmost that in this respect can be pretended is, that some Christian nations, including the United States, have informally manifested their approval of the extension of the right of asylum granted by the Sultan of Turkey to the Hungarian refugees in the late civil war in Austria. But they were no longer combatants; their attempted revolution was ended, and the refugees were demanded by Austria, not on the ground of apprehensions of danger from the continued hostility, but to punish them for the treason which she alleged they had committed. Assuming the facts as reported, the offenders in this case were not held or sheltered in Tangier as exiles, or as refugees in asylum, but they were taken in the very act of war against this government. It is unnecessary, however, to exhaust this argument. The record shows that, at the instance of the prisoners, their true character was made known to the Moorish governor, and he nevertheless thereafter still acquiesced in their being held in custody, and subsequently, on the application of the consul, opened the gates of the port and granted a new guard to aid him in conveying the prisoners to the ship which conveyed them from Tangier. To this answer the complainants reply that this last act of acquiescence on the part of the Moorish minister was obtained through intimidation exercised by the American consul. The facts, as reported, do not sustain this reply. On the day when the transfer of the prisoners from the consulate to the vessel was to take place, a mob of Europeans-or Franks, as they are there called-of various countries gathered about the American consulate, and, closing the gates of the port, or causing them to be closed, declared their purpose and made the attempt to set the prisoners free by combined and unlawful force, subversive of the peace and order of the Moorish empire. This was an act of intimidation practiced upon the Moorish authorities. It was on this occasion that the American consul required that the gates should be opened, and that a guard should be detailed to enable him to overcome the mob, saying that if these demands should not be granted he would strike his flag and leave the country. If this could be regarded as the language of menace, it was justified by a reasonable apprehension that the Moorish minister might deny a national American right under the intimidation of a foreign mob. Certainly no one should complain of it who is not prepared also to insist that international transactions of Christian powers in Morocco shall be conducted not, as now, by responsible agents of the states concerned, but by irresponsible, tumultuous, and violent assemblies of all the Franks in the public market-place. The President will, however, carefully reconsider the subject if the Emperor of Morocco or any sympathizing foreign state shall in any way express an opinion adverse to the conclusions at which I have arrived. He authorizes me to declare in advance his willingness to put the empire of Morocco on the same footing by treaty as any Christian state. Thirdly. How is the case affected by the friendly relations which exist between the United States and France? We have a mutual extradition treaty with that power, and it exempts political offenders from extradition. Moreover, France has pronounced the insurgents a public belligerent, and has conceded to them belligerent rights, a position in which the United States have not acquiesced, although they have conceded to France the exemption of her vessels from all molestation except when carrying contraband of war. The French government has, in very friendly and courteous manner, asked us to consider whether the prisoners, while on shore at Tangier, were not to be regarded by construction as still being on board the Ville de Malaga, and therefore entitled to the protection of the French flag. The question is an interesting one, and the President, if he could be satisfied that when conceding the position to France he could secure the assent of other maritime powers, might be disposed to yield it, because it would be an enlargement of the privileges of neutral commerce, an interest as dear to this country as it is to France. It would be found, however, very difficult to carry into practice the principle involved. If Myers and Tunstall were to be deemed still under the tri-colored flag of the Ville de Malaga when no longer on shipboard and while actually sauntering at their pleasure through the streets of Tangier, are they not much rather to be regarded as entitled to British protection at the same time, because they had entered Gibraltar in their own vessel, and had only left her deck on a ship's errand of a day to Cadiz? Does a French subject enjoy in London the protection of his own government to the exclusion of British authority when he leaves Calais in the morning by the French steamer and visits the British capital by rail at noon, with the purpose, all the time, of returning by British railroad and the same French steamer to Calais in the evening? A different rule has obtained here. The captures of the Amistad were proclaimed free, under the operation of American law, by the Supreme Court of the United States, although they had been found on board a Spanish vessel forced by distress into American waters. In the same manner we hold, with Great Britain, that the British soldier is subject to British authority while he remains on the north side of the Niagara, and that he falls under the exclusive authority of the United States when, for any cause, under whatever flag, he has crossed to the south side of that river. The American slave becomes a freeman the moment he steps upon the soil of the islands or colonies of Great Britain. If this view is correct, it will be unnecessary to consider whether the protection which France, as a neutral, claims a right to extend to Americans, when sailing under her flag, covers persons who, in the language of the law, are called "military people," namely, soldiers, seamen, and privateersmen. Fourthly. The rights and duties of the United States as they are affected, independently of treaties, by the law of nations. It seems to have been imagined that the proceedings of the consul in making the arrest in this case were inconsistent with the principles hitherto maintained by the United States, as illustrated in the dispute between this government and that of Austria in regard to Martin Koszta. It has been assumed that in that instance the United States not only demanded impunity everywhere for all persons who were engaged, under any circumstances, in armed hostility to their own government, but even assumed a cosmopolitan championship for them. But this is very erroneous. Koszta had indeed been a revolutionist in Austria, and he was delivered by the United States authorities from the hands of Austrian agents in Smyrna, a province of Turkey, which is a Mahometan power whose relations to Christian states are the same as those of Morocco. But the facts were that the civil war in Austria was at an end. Martin Koszta was a Hungarian by birth, and was a refugee; he had fled, and had been decreed an outlaw by Austria. He had taken asylum in America and had, under our laws, become domiciled and nationalized as an American, and as such was held entitled to the protection of this government under its treaty with the Sultan of Turkey. He held a guarantee of protection from our consul at Smyrna, a protection which was in conformity with the treaty and with our own laws. The agents of the Austrian government seized him and undertook to carry him away by force, against the remonstrances of our consul, and in defiance of the authorities of Turkey, and to subject him to arbitrary punishment as a subject of a state from which he had been transferred to the United States. It is not easy to understand how the proceedings of this government in that case can be deemed to commit it to tolerate revolution against itself by our own disloyal citizens. If apprehensions of severe and cruel treatment by this government towards the two Sumter prisoners have produced any influence in exciting the discontents in the present case, those apprehensions may be expected to give way before the statement that, although this government has stood in its present constitutional form more than seventy years, with some experience of foreign war, and with one year's painful experience of civil war, no person has yet forfeited his life for its maintenance, except as a volunteer in the battle-field; no citizen has been banished; every person captured in war at home or abroad has been either freely dismissed, with or without parole, or has been exchanged or offered in exchange for another prisoner of class and character similar to his own. It remains to say that the President disapproves of the circular letter written by the consul, Mr. De Long, to the representatives of France and other Christian powers at Tangier, in relation to the proceedings which has been reviewed. That letter was, doubtless, written under high excitement, and was inspired by motives eminently loyal and patriotic; yet its tone was improper, and the consul should, moreover, have left it to this government to make a complaint, if any were to be made. Nor does the President find any sufficient grounds for the complaints of the consul in the conduct of those representatives on the occasion which elicited them. These views will be made known to our consuls, and they will receive instructions not to repeat the discourtesy which Mr. De Long committed in this case. I am, sir, your obedient servant, JESSE H. MCMATH, Esq., &c., &c., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. No. 9.] Mr. De Long to Mr. Seward. CONSULATE OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I have the honor to inform you that previous to the Moorish minister having taken any active steps, the viceroy, Prince Muley Abbas, on hearing of the tumult at the American consulate on the 26th of February last, immediately, and of his own free voluntary act, sent his lieutenant governor with soldiers to suppress the mob, and with instructions to render me all the assistance in his power. Not hearing from my government, I felt it my duty, upon the receipt of this information, to tender to the prince my thanks; which I did in person and by letter, copy of which is herewith enclosed. In my interview with him I spent over an hour, which time was unusual, but he detained me making inquiries about our civil war and the country generally. The prince left next day for Tetuan, and from his camp near that place addressed me an autograph letter; a translation of which, made by one of the first oriental scholars in this country, is herewith enclosed. The perusal of this document will, I trust, prove as satisfactory to my government as it is grateful to my feelings, and that it will tend to convince them tha the statements so unscrupulously made by Mr. Layard, in the English Parliament, and reported in some of the European papers, were as unfounded as they were untrue. I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient and humble servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. CONSULATE OF THE UNITED STATES OF America, Tangier, April 19, 1862. HONORED AND Esteemed FrieND: I was yesterday informed, for the first time, that on the 26th of February last, when the armed mob of Europeans, of my own race and religion, surrounded the United States consulate to offer an indignity and insult to the American flag, you promptly ordered soldiers, accompanied by your lieutenant governor, to come to my relief and to sustain the honor of our national ensign. For which act, done by you without solicitation upon my part, I therefore embrace the earliest opportunity after the receipt of this information, to tender to you on behalf of the President of the United States, as well as on my own account, our highest consideration and regard. This, together with other acts of kindness that have been extended to me by the authorities and subjects of his Majesty, your worthy brother, the Emperor of Morocco, since my arrival here, has planted in my bosom feelings of attachment for yourself and your people which neither time nor distance can eradicate from my mind, and which feelings I shall carry with me to the grave. And it would give me great pleasure and satisfaction if time and opportunity would permit you to visit the United States; thus enable you to see the growing greatness of our country, and to receive the hospitality of our people. I am proud to say that for seventy-six years, being the period of our first treaty, relations between your government and that of the United States have been of the most friendly character, trusting in the providence of God that it may always so continue. In conclusion, I avail myself of this opportunity to wish your highness health and happiness, and at the same time with hearty prayers for the prosperity of your country. I have the honor to be your royal highness's most obedient and humble ser To the clever and wise gentleman, consul general for the American nation, James De Long, esq., which premised: We continue to make inquiries regarding your welfare, and praying God that you are well. We are deeply penetrated with the expressions of gratitude made use of at your interview with us, as well as in the communication addressed to us in your own name, as well as on behalf of your government for the aid and assistance we rendered you in removing the insults offered to you by the christian subjects who surrounded the consular residence, thus offering insult and indignity to the American flag. Such aid on our part is no more than an act of duty, and one of right, arising out of the uninterrupted reciprocity of friendship which has existed between the two nations from the time of our ancestors. We dislike that any one should be insulted in our country, and when within our power to protect, we protect them till it results with satisfaction to themselves as well as with maintenance to their honor. Our officers in rendering you this assistance, and in protecting the United States consulate, have but followed the same line of friendly conduct hitherto exercised towards your government. We desire not that either injury or insult should accrue to you or the American nation, a nation known and acknowledged as she universally is for her goodness, as well as remembered by ourselves for the close intimacy and peculiar friendship once existing between her and our ancestors. It gives me satisfaction to add that you, in virtue of your office, have conducted this affair with a clearness of judgment and honesty of purpose, and at the same time with such firmness and moderation as to have contracted honor for your country. Persons like you deserve to be the representatives of their nation. The good man is he who acknowledges the goodness done to them by others. I can say that from the first day we had intercourse with you we failed not to remark your wisdom and refinement, and considered you in the highest degree characterized by firmness, truth, and honesty. We request you to express to your government our sentiments of good will towards them, and to assure them that the friendship once so intimately existing between us, not only still exists and continues, but on our part has become confirmed and consolidated by time, and that we heartily wish them the victory (victorious as they always are) over those who have rebelled against them and peace. Written (at Tetuan) on the 14 "Dalkahada," year 1278, (corresponding to May 14, 1862.) EL ABBAS, May he rest in glory. |