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No. 211.]

Mr. Dayton to Mr. Seward.

PARIS, October 14, 1862. SIR: I was yesterday evening officially notified that Mr. Thouvenel retires from the ministry of foreign affairs, and Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys takes his place. You may recollect that some months since, the withdrawal of Mr. Thouvenel was spoken of, and I reported it to you. It was then supposed that it would originate in the fact that he differed from the policy of the Emperor in maintaining the existing status in Italy, and this seems to be admitted as the principal cause operating now. So little, however, was it anticipated at the present moment, outside of the official circle, that the Patrie, a leading journal here (strongly in favor of the south, by the way) which once had, and still affects to have, semiofficial relations with the government, made an announcement the very morning following the change, in reference to the subject of a cabinet conference the day preceding, which must obviously have been at direct variance with the fact.

The France, a journal started a few weeks since, only, (strongly opposed to us,) and generally understood to be semi-official, announces this difference on the Italian question as the specific cause of Mr. Thouvenel's resignation, and says that it will be followed by the return of the present French minister from Rome. I regret the retirement of Mr. Thouvenel from the foreign department. We lose a friend at an important point. What may be the views of Monsieur Drouyn de l'Huys in respect to our affairs I do not know. He is a gentleman of the highest character, and is universally recognized as one of the ablest statesmen of France. He has heretofore held, as you know, the department of foreign affairs, and acquired much reputation while there. He first discharged its duties temporarily from December 19, 1848, to the 2d of January, 1849, when he was succeeded by the Comte de Tocqueville; again from the 9th of January, 1851, to the 24th of the same month, when he was succeeded by Monsieur Breuier, and, lastly, from the 28th of July, 1852, to the 3d of May, 1855, when he was succeeded by Comte Walewski. Since that time he has been, I believe, in private life.

I should add that he has served as minister of France in England; is well known to the statesmen of that country, and speaks the language with ease and fluency. I have the pleasure of an acquaintance with Monsieur de l'Huys, and have no doubt that our personal relations will be entirely agreeable. His perfect knowledge of our language will, to a certain extent, facilitate our official

intercourse.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

His Excellency WILLIAM H. Seward,

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

WM. L. DAYTON

Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.

No. 237.]

Department of STATE, Washington, October 20, 1862. SIR: Your despatch of the 2d of October (No. 202) has been laid before the President. It is desirable that the views I am now to express should be understood as official, and that, with such reserve as your discretion may deem proper, they may be made known to the French government.

For this reason I do not

draw under review the unofficial conversation with Mr. Thouvenel which you

have related, but I base these intimations upon information of a general character which has reached this department.

The effect of this information is that Great Britain and France are seriously considering the question of recognizing the insurgents of this country as a sovereign state. Of course, the grounds of such a proceeding must involve a conclusion that the insurgents have shown their ability to maintain a national independence. We now know, although it was for a time studiously concealed from this government and the American people, that so early as the reverses which befel our army in front of Richmond, the insurgent leaders projected and began to prepare a campaign with the very comprehensive purpose of invading the loyal free States by armies which should occupy and permanently establish themselves in the loyal border States of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. In this way Philadelphia and New York were to be menaced, while Baltimore and New Orleans were to be captured, and this capital was to be reduced to capitulation. We know also that the project of this campaign was confidentially communicated to parties in Europe who sympathized with the insurrection, and who became active in furnishing aid, arms, and supplies for its execu

We know further that from a natural impulsiveness, if not from deep design, the emissaries of the insurgents excited very sanguine expectations of the success of their proposed campaign in the principal European cabinets. We have learned further that, besides enlisting under the influence of that excitement many persons of assumed importance as advocates of a recognition of the insurgents, a great pecuniary speculation in cotton was opened to others who might be moved by mercenary inducements to lend their aid to the same conspiracy against the United States. Chimerical as this scheme seemed to calm observers here while it was being developed through the manœuvres of the insurgents, it nevertheless borrowed a certain measure of probability of success from the surprise it excited, from inaugural military advantages gained in the region of Manassas, and from a seeming, though unreal, dilatoriness of the loyal States in sending forward the new levies for which the President had called. The apparent depression thus manifested here of course was observed in Europe, and doubtless it went far to fortify the sanguine expectations of the success of the anticipated campaign which prevailed there. Those expectations thus reached such a height that all Europe was seen actually looking for nothing less than the surrender of Washington and the dissolution of the Union, when it received, through the telegraph, the very different intelligence of the defeats of the insurgents at South Mountain and Antietam. In view of these facts, this government was not at all surprised when it heard, through the despatches of its representatives in the European capitals throughout the months of August and September, that confident expectations were prevailing there of an early recognition of the independence of the insurgents, and that European statesmen, assuming that recognition to be imminent, were benevolently engaged in considering what substitute they could propose to the United States for the loss of their venerated and invaluable federal Union. It does, however, surprise the President that the expectations of a recognition of the insurgents are still lingering in European capitals, in view of the disappointment and failure of the campaign, which by its successes was to prepare them for that hostile measure.

Waiving the temptation to bring military events singly into a tedious review, it will be sufficient on this occasion to say that the military and political situations in this country are in perfect contrast with the imaginary ones which were expected to win the advantages of European intervention. Instead of being in possession of or threatening Philadelphia and New York, and occupying Čincinnati, Louisville, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Washington, the invading armies of the insurgents in the east, in the west, and in the south, are in retreat before the national forces, and as rapidly as possible evacuating all the loyal border States. On the first of July last the government had retained from the

first the entire occupation of all those portions of the Union which had not been in the beginning betrayed into the secession movement; and it had also regained so many of the forts, rivers, and positions, which were thus at first betrayed, that, by the general consent of all observers, the revolt was deemed as practically suppressed. The projected insurgent campaign has been put into a train of military execution, and although that train is perhaps not yet ended, enough has occurred to prove the entire failure of all its objects. Not one important strategic point which the government held in July last has been lost. It is still in possession or in control now, as it was then, of the coasts, the rivers, the lakes, the marts, and the forts of the country, and, except by luck and adventure, no enemy of the United States can leave the country, and no ally of the insurgents can enter it. Such is the military situation now.

What are the prospects of the insurgents? Their credit and resources are practically exhausted. With a floating debt of four hundred millions, represented by paper which is at a discount of seventy-five per cent., they have neither received, nor have they the means of raising, a revenue equal to ten millions, in any form, applicable either to the defraying of present expenses or the payment of interest on existing or future obligations. Their armies were raised by conscription, which left them no reserves. Those armies, wasted like our own by the casualties of war, are reduced to a condition of ineffectiveness, and cannot be renewed. Want and distress, hitherto unknown within the political jurisdiction of the United States, are already disclosing themselves in fearful forms throughout the entire region occupied by the insurgents. Industry has ceased, and thrift is lost. Do the leaders even propose a new campaign to retrieve the failure of the one that is approaching its end? No; they are looking out for winter quarters, and are calculating on the chances that foreign intervention may secure for them a peace which they are as yet unwilling to ask, although unable to conquer.

What, on the other hand, is the condition of the government and the loyal people, whose cause it is defending. It has a revenue available in the precious metals of more than a hundred millions applicable to present expenses, and the interest on a national debt of five hundred millions. It is as punctual in all its payments and as solvent as any government now existing or that ever has existed. Its second army, just now entering the field, is larger than the first; and it has a third and even a fourth army, as large as the present one, in reserve, if there shall, unhappily, be occasion for it. The marine force which has hitherto been employed with so much effect was not even a miniature or a model of the navy which is now going forth from its navy yards. Our mines are yielding gold more rapidly than foreign trade can withdraw it from us; and after supplying our own population, including our armies, with bread, we are shipping a surplus which silences the alarms of famine in Europe. Is the national mind unsteady or its tone unsound? Let its alacrity in sending the new levies of six hundred thousand strong into the field in a period of two months answer this question. The people do, indeed, desire peace and repose, as they all along have desired these objects; but the first voice has yet to be raised in demand for peace at such a cost as a loss of the Union, or even of an acre of the broad foundation that it covers. Since the European ideas of the failure of the government were formed a new political event has occurred, which has too much significance to be overlooked. The President, practically with the consent of the American people, has given notice to the insurrectionary slave States that if they refuse after the first day of January next to resume their constitutional relation to their sister States, and persevere in this desolating war, slavery shall, from and after that day, cease within their borders; and national armies and navies are now going forward to make that announcement, if it shall become necessary, a fact. It may be true, as European statesmen so constantly insist, that the slave masters inhabiting the region in insurrection will not submit.

Human nature, on the other hand, will teach those statesmen that, though the masters may persist in refusing the Union, the slaves will not reject their offered freedom. If one needs aid to find out how this new but necessary operation of the war will work, he has only to look at the map of the insurrectionary region, and see that that part of the Mississippi which it embraces is inhabited by a population of whom an average of twenty per centum are white men and all the rest are African slaves. Without design on the part of the government against its most benevolent efforts, the slave masters of the insurrectionary States have brought their system of African slavery directly into conflict with the government in its struggle to maintain and preserve the American Union. They have done this under the influence of a reckless and desperate ambition. If they persist, after the reasonable and ample warning they have received, they must lose the factitious social condition which has been the sole spring of their disloyalty and treason. Are the enlightened and humane nations Great Britain and France to throw their protection over the insurgents now? Are they to enter, directly or indirectly, into this conflict, which, besides being exclusively one belonging to the friendly people of a distant continent, has also, by force of circumstances, become a war between freedom and human bondage? Will they interfere to strike down the arm that so reluctantly but so effectually is raised at last to break the fetters of the slave, and seek to rivet anew the chains which he has sundered? Has this purpose, strange and untried, entered into the counsels of those who are said to have concluded that it is their duty to recognize the insurgents? If so, have they considered, further, that recognition must fail without intervention; that intervention will be ineffectual unless attended by permanent and persisting armies, and that they are committing themselves to maintain slavery in that manner among a people where slaves and masters alike agree in the resolution that it shall no longer exist? Is this to be the climax of the world's progress in the nineteenth century?

The European impulses favorable to recognition of the insurgents are due chiefly to the earnestness with which they have announced their resolution to separate. In this respect they can surpass us. We, the loyal people of this Union, are less demonstrative. We are necessarily so. Time works against the insurgents and in our favor. Reason and conscience are on our side; passion alone on theirs. We have institutions to preserve, and responsibilities worldwide and affecting future ages to discharge; they have none. They are at liberty to destroy, and trust to future chances to rebuild; we must save our institutions, not only for ourselves, but even for them. I trust, however, that, even if the early operations of the government left room for any misapprehension on the subject, the decision and the energies which this government and the loyal people have put forth within the last three months will satisfy Europe that we are not only a considerate but a practical and persevering people. It is time that we should be understood, there. In one sense-a generous one-it is true, as Earl Russell has said, that we are fighting for empire. But the empire is not only our own already, but it was lawfully acquired, and is lawfully held. Extensive as it is, none the less in every part our own. We defend it, and we love it with all the affection with which patriotism in every land inspires the human heart. It has the best of institutions-institutions, the excellence of which is generously and even gratefully conceded by all men, while they are endeared to ourselves by all national recollections, and by all the hopes and desires we so naturally cherish for a great and glorious future. Studying to confine this unhappy struggle within our own borders, we have not only invoked no foreign aid or sympathy, but we have warned foreign nations frankly and have besought them not to interfere. We have practiced justice towards them in every way, and conciliation in an unusual degree. But we are none the less determined for all that to be sovereign and to be free. We indulge in no menaces and no defiances. We abide patiently and with composure the course of events and the action of

the nations, whose forbearance we have invoked scarcely less for their sakes than for our own. We have not been misled by any of the semblances of impartiality or of neutrality which unfriendly proceedings towards us in a perilous strife have put on. When any government shall incline to a new and more unfriendly attitude, we shall then revise with care our existing relations towards that power, and shall act in the emergency as becomes a people who have never yet faltered in their duty to themselves while they were endeavoring to improve the condition of the human race.

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SIR: I have nothing of importance to communicate at this moment, beyond what you will see more fully stated in the public journal. It is now conceded on all hands that Mr. Thouvenel retired from the department of foreign affairs because the Emperor was unwilling to change the statu quo in Italy, and that Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys takes office because his views upon that question better conform to those of the Emperor. It is supposed by many of the journals that this change in the cabinet is merely preliminary to one more extensive. It is said that Messrs. Persigny, Fould, Rouher, and perhaps others of the cabinet, participate in the views of Mr. Thouvenel on this question, and that they, too, must retire; but this last is doubtful. The Emperor will be very loath to part with these men. Comte Persigny is now and has been his personal friend for many years-a friendship commencing in the day of adversity and trial. Mr. Fould is recognized, as you are aware, as the great financier of the empire. His retirement would at once seriously affect the Bourse. When the deficit in the treasury appeared, and was apparently insurmountable, the Emperor last year accepted the plan of Mr. Fould, and placed him at the head of the department of finance. The late report of this minister shows that, notwithstanding the Mexican war, this deficit will not be increased this year. His administration of the finances seems thus far to have been considered successful, and it may be doubted if the Emperor would so soon part from an assistant so useful. Mr. Rouher was the French minister who aided so essentially in the negotiation of the late commercial treaty between France and England-a treaty upon which, it is said, the Emperor greatly prides himself. Still, notwithstanding these matters, it is possible that some of these changes, or others, may be made. The construction of this government is such that little leaks out, with any assurance of certainty, in advance; and for the simple reason that the Emperor (reticent as he is) is the sole controlling power.

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As long, therefore, as he says nothing, there is little known of what is likely to follow.

Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys received the diplomatic corps to-day for the first time. He said he was not yet prepared to discuss any general questions. The members of the corps, therefore, who had business, left with him papers or made suggestions which he said he would examine and answer in future. I told him it would give me pleasure to converse upon the affairs of our country, and left with him to be read your circular or despatch No. 204, and likewise a copy of your late circular, dated September 22, with the President's proclamation. The first of these papers I had not shown to Mr. Thouvenel, because in the course of our conversations his attention had been called to most of the sugges

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