No. 190.] Mr. Perry to Mr. Seward. [Extract.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Madrid, April 21, 1865. SIR: The news of the battle in which Lee's army was defeated before Petersburg, and the subsequent entrance of our forces into Richmond, was received here, at first, with incredulity, on the 13th instant. I had, however, a telegram from our consul at Queenstown, and immediately ordered the flag of the Union to be displayed from the balcony of the legation, in the principal street of this capital, and posted a telegram in the messenger's room, which was then reproduced by all the evening papers. I also addressed a circular by telegraph to the consuls and consular agents in the following cities: Barcelona, Valencia, Alicant, Carthagena, Malaga, Algeciras, (Gibraltar,) Cadiz, Seville, Vigo, Corunna, Ferrol, Santander, and Bilbao, repeating in substance the telegram from Queenstown, as follows: "Richmond taken-Lee's army annihilated-the rebellion ended-praise God! Display the flag of the Union for three days over that consulate. PERRY." The responses I have received from every quarter, some by telegram, some by letter, are heart-stirring. I sent a copy of the Queenstown telegram, confidentially, to the Duke of Valencia, in a private note, also to Mr. Benavides. It was the hour when Alcalá Galiano was being publicly buried with the highest funeral honors known to such occasions in Spain. As soon as the duke returned from that ceremony he replied in the note of which I enclose a translation. The president of the council of state, the Marquis of Vilenna, formerly prime minister and president of the senate, has also called on me, expressing his sincere congratulations. General Prim, Marquis of Castillejos, was among the first to call and make known his joy. General O'Donnell, Duke of Tetuan, who has just lost a brother, and, according to social custom here, makes no visits out of his own house, sought me, nevertheless, in the senate and offered his felicitations. The president of the senate, the Marquis of Duero, was among the first to compliment me upon the occasion. Mr. Banuelos, sub-secretary of state, has manifested sincere satisfaction. Mr. Benavides has been impeded by illness. But they who are really and truly glad, and whose joy is visible in every feature, are the people. Sad as is their appearance in the streets of Madrid, since the events of the 10th instant, their faces light up as they gaze on the flag of the republic, and learn its meaning to-day, with an expression which no words of mine can transmit to that department, and which, nevertheless, it would be well if the department could understand. An address to the President which I have just received from Elche (the city of the palms) is a reflex of the same light I saw on the faces of this brave people as they passed and repassed under the great flag on the 16th instant, never stopping to gather into a crowd nor make any demonstration. I beg this paper may be placed in the hands of the President, and you will find one paragraph translated, there not being time to do the whole. The "Comercio" of Barcelona appears in gala dress and devotes an entire page to the shout of victory! An address to the President numerously signed is being prepared, and will be sent directly from that city. The appearance of our national colors just at the present juncture of affairs in Madrid has been rendered the more notable because they have not been seen before since 1861, when, by your order, I took charge of this legation. The three days they have floated now amply repay me for all the sacrifices which here, as well as at home, the faithful have patiently endured. I beg to congratulate you and kiss the native soil on which this great battle of humanity has been fought and won. God's holy name be praised! With sentiments of the highest respect, sir, your obedient servant. Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, Washington. [Translation.] APRIL 15, 1865. MY MUCH-ESTEEMED FRIEND: I have just received your welcome note of to-day, and thank you, not only for giving me the news, but because you consider that it is satisfactory to me. In effect, I have had a great pleasure in receiving it and in the result of the events which it communicates; and as I cannot do otherwise than rejoice at every triumph of the principles of government and of justice in all countries, I congratulate you upon that which has been obtained in yours, repeating myself your most affectionate friend and faithful servant, Q. B. S. M., Mr. HORATIO J. PERRY. THE DUKE OF VALENCIA. Translation of part of an address to President Lincoln by the citizens of Eclhe, in Spain. Now, when unfortunate Spain is plunged in a frightful reaction; now when the enemies of liberty among ourselves occupy the places of power, and regain one by one those difficult conquests which were made in the turmoil of a devastating civil war which has thus become unproductive for the cause of the people; now, when the great orators of liberty find the path to the rostrum blocked; now that science groans under blows dealt in the face of most worthy men; now that the press is muzzled violently; now that again are repeated among us scenes only witnessed when a foreign soldiery dishonored our soil and spat in the face of the honest and brave Spanish people: now, it is highly consolatory for us who have faith and hope in the future, and who do not doubt the justice of God, to see that liberty does not succumb, that progress goes on and makes its daily journey, and that to our lot it has fallen to see the destruction of barbarian slavery, and that it is a people democratically governed which has carried to its close the greatest enterprise in history. The people and the army which have made such sacrifices in so just a cause have merited well of humanity. And the President of the republic, called by Providence to guide so great a people in moments decisive and supreme, will live always in the memory of coming generations, who shall bless his name so long as justice lives upon the earth. No. 93.] Mr. Hunter to Mr. Perry. DEPARTMENT of State, Washington, April 22, 1865. SIR: Your despatches, No. 180 of the 26th ultimo and Nos. 181 and 182, both dated the 1st instant, have been received, and have been submitted for perusal to the Secretary of the Navy. Your energetic proceedings relative to the rebel ram Stonewall, during her stay at Ferrol, are approved. I am, sir, your obedient servant, HORATIO J. PERRY, Esq., &c., &c., Madrid. No. 193.] W. HUNTER, Acting Secretary. Mr. Perry to Mr. Seward. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Madrid, April 29, 1865. SIR: Thank God we are permitted still to address you. A telegram from Queenstown informs me at this moment that Mr. Seward and his son are likely to recover." It is a relief from the suspense which has kept my hand bound since the evening of the 26th, when Mr. Adams's telegram informed me of the tragedy in Washington. Pray accept for yourself, dear sir, the expression of my horror and my grief at the foul crime of which you have been the victim; and say also to the As sistant Secretary of State that I associate myself with him in sympathy for all his sufferings. The death of President Lincoln by the hand of an assassin at the moment when the great work with which his name is indissolubly connected for all time touched the term of success, when the greatest insurrection known in history, striking for human slavery and at the life of the republic, succumbs at last to the valor of our democratic armies, and the persistent virtue of our people, led by the President of their own choice twice elected, and set up before friends and foes as their executive; the death of this Chief Magistrate, elevated by force of great events to a place in history not less than that of every other human name which the annals of the race record, and filling that broad place worthily, occurring at such a moment and in such a way, has sent a shock of horror through Europe. The Spanish people have been thunderstruck. I have heard ordinary men, ignorant that an American was listening, offer to lose a right hand if only this news might not be true. Men were rushing into this office until one o'clock at night, unwilling to believe, unable to control the emotion this news had stirred, and an unfeigned grief got the better of all form and etiquette in the manifestation of the sympathy of this generous-hearted people for the loss of President Lincoln. Your name, sir, was also on every lip, but men hoped against hope, and God has permitted this yearning of the universal heart of men to plead for you. I felt it would be be so; I cannot tell you how or why, but in spite of the desolating sweep of the first telegrams, something stirred within me with the consciousness that Mr. Seward still lived and would live. Heavy as the pall of grief closed over the loss of Lincoln, we have refused to mourn for you, and now we know that your work was not yet finished. How should it be, if it is now precisely, when the military triumph is gained, and the political and diplomatic questions, generated by the war, are up for settlement, that the sage counsel, the long-experienced and the steady hand of William H. Seward is needed in America and relied upon in Europe? We mourn for our President. But after all let an American speak, for whom the 3,000 miles of distance which separate him from the turmoil and distraction of that scene serve, perhaps something as the lapse of time will serve to his countrymen at home, to enable him to see events in their general form and purport as they will stand in history. The triumph of the American democracy in saving the second great republic, attacked by a slaveholding oligarchy, stands parallel in the world's record with the triumph of the Roman democracy when they destroyed the first great republic, attacking that slaveholding oligarchy. Abraham Lincoln and Julius Cæsar are names which henceforth personify the throes of men for liberty in two supreme epochs of history, which can be compared only the one with the other. An emperor was the result of the efforts of the Roman democracy, as it has since been of other people. A citizen President, equally triumphant over the slaveholding patrician element, but himself obedient to law, is the result of our peoples' virtue and his own. The singular parity of incident which closed the career of these two men, when the triumph was assured, will grave eternally on the memory of the generations the contrast of the result established, the immense advance of humanity since Cæsar fell. God's instrument in a work which makes his name immortal, Lincoln died at a glorious moment; success was assured, and if he had been ambitious he could not have chosen another death. His work was done! We call out for his tenacity in doing right, his steady honesty in executing justice tempered with mercy; but these are qualities of our northern people, and he was great only as he typified these. The people remain, and I doubt not will find their representative. Meantime, what do we know of the divine purposes to be served by this crowning crime which sets the everlasting seal on the forehead of this rebellion? What is the position to-day of those men who rose against the republic for the perpetuation of human slavery? Speaking from Europe, I may say already that assassin blow has done more to finish up the sympathies of men for the defenders of slavery and oligarchy than all that has happened before since the war began. Though the military power of the rebels is broken, men still paid their tribute of respect to the valor of their soldiery, the skill of their generals, and the political decision of their leaders; and these sentiments have great sway over the minds of men, and impede them from discerning the deformity of the principles for which those armies and those leaders fought. But the night of April 14, 1865, has dispelled forever the mistaken sympathies which the audacity of April 13, 1861, generated, and has left the enemies of human progress naked before the world, with only such moral support henceforth as those decidedly of their own kind can give them. This in Europe. I ought to forbear from speculating upon its effects in America, but I will say that I do not suppose the men who have made their names illustrious in a bad cause had any personal connexion with a deed so foul; their errors have not clouded the moral faculties of the leaders of the rebellion to such an extent as this, nor are the southern people generally to be charged with immediate complicity in this infamy. It is precisely because I do not believe this that I wait to see a reaction in the south itself against the cause which can prepare such instruments, and give rise, even incidentally, to such a deed. God's hand shall work in the hearts of the south itself through the martyrdom of Lincoln and the steadfast magnanimity of that great people whose principles he represented, and which I do not look to see belied even under this last provocation. Thus I do not doubt the moral death of the rebellion in the south itself will date from the day Lincoln was murdered. And I shall be greatly mistaken if the political work of pacification and reconstruction of the great democratic republic, homogeneous and united as never before, shall not be found to be notably facilitated by the very events which might seem at first to disturb its course. Such is my faith; pardon its expression. I have not waited instructions to order mourning in this legation, and recommend the same in all our consulates in this jurisdiction for thirty days. You will find copy of my telegraphic circular enclosed; also copy of the note in which I announced this event, and the accession of President Johnson officially to the Spanish government. The popular newspapers appeared in mourning yesterday The members of the foreign diplomatic corps and many eminent men have called to express their sympathy. No manifestation has yet been received from the Queen's government, nor the chambers now in session. The interior condition of affairs in Spain is at a point so critical that hardly anything else can be expected to be thought of by this government. The minister of state is ill, and retires from Madrid. His substitute ad interim, the minister of grace and justice, is also ill and confined to his chamber. Once more, sir, I grasp your hand in respectful sympathy. Your obedient servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, HORATIO J. PERRY. Secreyraoft State, Washington. [Translation.-Circular telegram.] To the Consuls of the United States in Barcelona, Valencia, Alicant, Mahon, Denia, Carthagena, Malaga, Gibraltar, Cadiz, Vigo, Corunna, Ferrol, Santander, Bilbao and Seville. MADRID, April 27, 1865. President Lincoln has been assassinated. Vice-President Johnson has taken possession of the presidency. This legation wears mourning for thirty days. PERRY, Chargé d'Affaires. [Translation.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: The minister of the United States at London sends me the following telegram under date of yesterday: "I am directed to inform you that the President was assassinated while in his box at the theatre in Washington. "Mr. Seward was also attacked in his chamber on the same evening, and his recovery is doubtful. "The Vice-President, Mr. Johnson, was at Washington and assumed the functions of President" In making known to your excellency this sad event, I have the honor to inform you that, in my opinion, it can in no way alter the march of public affairs. This legation will put on mourning for thirty days. I avail myself of the occasion to renew to your excellency the assurance of my most distinguished consideration. His Excellency the MINISTER OF STATE of H. C. M. HORATIO J. PERRY. No. 194.] Mr. Perry to Mr. Seward. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: After my despatch No. 190 was written, on the 29th ultimo, I received an official visit from the Duke of Valencia, president of the cabinet of ministers, attended by his aids, who came to say to me, in the name, and by special order of the Queen, how great was the horror and the grief with which her Majesty had learned the news of the assassination of President Lincoln, and her Majesty begged me to be pleased to make known to President Johnson her profound and sincere sympathy with him and with the American nation for the loss we had sustained in the person of our late most worthy and illustrious President. I thanked the duke, and begged him to convey provisionally to her Majesty the expression of my own gratitude for her Majesty's warm manifestation of sympathy in the grief of my government and nation, which I would not fail to sransmit immediately to Washington. Yesterday I received the official note from the minister of state ad interim, Sr. Arrazola, dated on the 27th instant, and which the Duke of Valencia had also announced in his visit on the 29th instant was being prepared to be sent to me. Sr. Arrazola is ill and confined to his chamber, and Sr. Banuelos, assistant secretary of state, informed me this was the only paper he had signed for a number of days past. The duke also informed me that Mr. Tassara, Spanish minister at Washington, would be instructed to make a similar manifestation to you personally in Washington. |