Page images
PDF
EPUB

In 1851-2, inquiries were instituted and details demanded from each mission, as to how far the salary fell short of the necessary expenditure. With one exception, they all declared that it was wholly inadequate. He who was contented with his humble income, has since been removed from the northern court where he managed, by strict economy, to transmit to his relatives a portion of his earnings. Had he known how soon his political career of usefulness was to be cut short, we doubt if his arithmatic would not have brought a different answer.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 4, 1851.

SIR: I have the honor to inform you that, on the 31st of January last, the Senate of the United States adopted a resolution in the following words:

"Resolved, That the Secretary of State be requested to communicate to the Senate any information which he may possess touching the expediency of adopting a graduated scale of diplomatic salaries,' based upon the combined considerations of the importance of themission and the expenses of residence."

I have accordingly to request that you will, at your earliest convenience, transmit to this department a statement of the expenses incident to your residence in your official character at London. It is desirable that the information should be specific and accurate, in order that the department may form a correct opinion on the subject.

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

ABBOTT LAWRENCE, Esq., &c.

DANL. WEBSTER.

[The same, mutatis mutandis, to all of the diplomatic representatives of the United States in foreign countries.]

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
London, Dember 10, 1851.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your circular despatch of the 4th November last, communicating to me the resolution of the Senate that the Secretary of State be requested to communicate to that body any information which he may possess touching the expediency of adopting a graduated scale of diplomatic salaries, based upon the combined considerations of the importance of the mission and the expenses of residence.

You request me, in accordance with that resolution, to transmit to you a statement of the expenses incident to my residence in my official capacity in London. You are perhaps aware that, possessing private means, I have not been as exact in my expenses as I should have been had I been obliged to measure them by the amount of my outfit and salary.

The house I occupy is in a situation central and convenient for a legation. It was furnished when I took it, with the exception of plate, linen, and cutlery, all which I was obliged to purchase, together with some glass and china. The same would be the case, probably, with any house that might be taken by a foreign minister. I have esteemed it my duty to entertain my countrymen to a moderate extent, and to maintain the hospitable courtesies of the great country which I have the honor to represent. But while I have endeavored to perform these offices without ostentation, and with an eye to judicious economy, I am free to confess that my expenses in these particulars should not be taken as a guide in fixing the salary for this mission. Therefore, without troubling you with them, I will only say, that after carefully examining the items of my expenditure, with a view to ascertain the cost of living in London in the position which the minister of the United States is obliged to occupy, I am decidedly of the opinion that the present salary is inadequate.

The rent of a furnished house in London, in a convenient and proper location, would not be less than from £700 to £900 a year. Horses and carriages would cost from £225 to £250 a year. And to meet properly these and all the other expenses growing out of the position, would require, in my judgment, an annual salary of twenty thousand dollars. I deem it proper to add that my own expenses have exceeded these sums.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER,

ABBOTT LAWRENCE.

Secretary of State, Washington, D.C.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
Paris, November 7, 1850.

The diplomatic representative of England here receives an annual salary of £10,000, with a large furnished hotel, and an additional allowance of £4,000 very three or four years, to renew the furniture, or to be expended in some cher way, at the discretion of the incumbent. Without aiming at so high a standard of external representation, ought not the minister of the United States to have an annual allowance of one third, at least, of that amount, to enable him to maintain a reciprocal social intercourse with the members of the government and of the diplomatic corps, in a style of manly and becoming republican hospitality, equally removed from the meanness of parsimony on the one hand, and the ostentation of extravagance on the other ?

The United States have now taken rank with the most powerful nations of the earth, and the just pride of the country requires that its equality should be recognised by some of the more usual outward and conventional signs of national influence and power, as well as by its intrinsic and dormant energies. Feeling how much its weight abroad, in all questions whether of general or particular interest, would be increased by a greater regard to these considerations, I have been urged by a sense of public duty, and an earnest desire to see the dignity and character of the country suitably upheld in all respects, to bring this subject to your notice as one of permanent and national interest, and in the full persuasion that, if you should take the same view of the question as I have done, a measure of great and generally acknowledged importance to the public service will at last receive its consummation under the auspices of an enlightened and responsible recommendation that cannot fail to attract the attention due to it.

It would seem, in view of the vicissitudes to which our relations with

other powers are more or less necessarily exposed, to cultivate, by a constant exchange of kindly offices, the friendship of our ancient ally. I have the honor to be, with great respect, your most obedient servant, W. C. RIVES.

Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER,

Secretary of State.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
Madrid, March 26th, 1852.

SIR: My constant and urgent occupations at this legation have prevented an earlier reply to your dispatch, No. 46, on the subject of the expenses incident to a residence in an official character at this court. I have now the honor to transmit herewith the statement of these expenses, as requested in that communication. It will be seen, that with an economy scarcely compatible with the great interests of the United States to be maintained at this now most important court, the present allowance to a minister plenipotentiary is barely sufficient to meet the necessary expenditure of his official residence at this mission. Having endeavored to live with my family here, in a becoming style, and to support a fit establishment creditable to the government and country I have the honor to represent, and desirous by social intercourse, and all other proper means, to secure and preserve that personal consideration among all ranks, without which the highest functionary will fail in that just influence at court, so indispensable to his successful mission, I can declare, that without a reliance to a considerable extent on my own private funds, I should not have been able thus far, with my mere official pay, to meet the expenses and liabilities incurred by my residence in this city, and yet I do not conceive that I have been extravagant. The fact is, that this is unquestionab one of the dearest capitals in Europe; even the necessaries of life are extremely high in price. The great distance from the coast in every direction, and the universal want of the means of good internal communication, added to the barrenness of the immediate locality, contribute greatly to this state of things; the peculiar habits of the nation, so far behind the spirit of improvement in this age, their general prejudice against everything foreign, their indifference and even content with the stationary condition of their country, have all had a most pernicious influence against the facility of procuring at cheap rates even the necessaries, much more the comforts and luxuries of life. Water even, which is here carried on men's shoulders to the habitations of all, is very dear; wood, so often indispensable in the peculiar and extraordinary coolness of the winter monthe, and which can with great difficulty be procured at all in this treeless tableland, is near one cent per pound, for it is all sold by weight; so of coal and oil, the latter in such universal use here for lights, and indeed of every thing else which is consumed in this capital, and whose intrinsic cost, dear enough from the distance at which they can only be obtained, and the enormous rates of transportation, generally on mules' backs, is greatly enhanced by the onerous system of gate duties universally prevalent in Spain. As an illustration of the immense cost of internal transportation, I will mention that the amount of the expenses of transport of a carriage purchased for me by order in New York from Cadiz to Madrid, was three hundred dollars; yet this was the lowest sum for which this service could be obtained, though the cost of such transport from New York to Cadiz was only fifty dollars.

The rates of transport are nearly in the same proportion from Paris, and still higher from London. Horses, too, that are fit to be driven, are very dear, and their maintenance very expensive. I have the honor to be, with great respect,

HON. DANIEL WEBSTER,
Secretary of State.

Your obedient servant,
D. M. BARRINGER.

Acting upon the suggestions received Congress made some small additions, but accompanied by a reduction of outfit which made the change more apparent than real. With a credit unexampled amongst the nations of the earth, with a revenue more than sufficient to resist the annual plunder to which it is subjected, and an indefinite capacity for increasing it, why should we permit those to be ridiculous who are the delegated representatives of our country, and whose house, equipage, and person are supposed to be in accordance with the wealth of the nation? Ambassadors are considered to be the social equals of princes, and princes lose their dignity when they lay aside the insignia of rank. If the universal fitness of things requires a lavish expenditure at our hands, why allow the economy commendable in a New England village to make us objects of ridicule in the salons of the Tuileries and Buckingham Palace! Well may the hidalgo of old Spain smile when he sees him who proposes to purchase Cuba by an advance of $30,000,000, return in his miserable equipage to his obscure lodgings, in some unfrequented portion of Madrid. The city of Mexico is the scene of constant revolutions, and were our mission there established on a first-class footing, it would be the quarter to which all parties would look for moral support, and give us an opportunity, without intruding on the sacred right of a nation to choose its own rulers, of turning the scale of power to suit our future views of territorial expansion. During the last administration Congress established a mission to Persia. This legation has never been filled, nor do our relations with Persia, distant as she now is, seem to require it, but should the railroad to the Pacific coast be carried out, a line of steamers to China would make San Francisco the great depôt for that commerce of the East, which has in succession enriched each great commercial nation of the world. The vast continent of Asia would be opened up to us, and not being willing to abandon the field to European nations, we would be well satisfied to have a representative to watch our growing interests. It has been proposed to strike out the mission to Rome, on the ground that England has there no representative; but England is the head of a rival church, and the bigotry of the nation would render it unsafe for a ministry to propose to establish direct diplomatic relations, whilst the vicinity of their legations at Naples and Tuscany enables them to derive from those quarters all the solid advantages they require. Should Italy ever resume her place amongst the rest of nations, the Eternal City must be her capital. And should the temporary spirit of economy in Congress pass away, it will probably be found that we are sufficiently interested to be there represented. In proposing a restriction of our embassies to only a few great powers we are rather desirious of facilitating the maintenance of national intercourse with proper dignity, by an advantageous concentration of a limited fund, than of advocating a policy of reduction, could it be avoided. Many of the despatches received at Washington may be tedious, and partially useless, yet in the aggregate a mass of information is obtained which prevents our statesmen from growing rusty in the knowledge of passing events, and matters now uninteresting may soon become of vast import. There are some instances in which diplomacy passing into the hands of the soldier or sailor, as a final remedy, has struck out a new path, and carrying the sword in one hand, and the olive branch in the other, has brought to a speedy termination griefs of long standing, or solved questions perplexing to the law of nations. The dictates of justice require an overt act of hostility to justify an attack, yet England in her war with France demanded a surrender of the Danish fleet, and on refusal destroyed it in its own harbor, for fear of its being employed against her. Napoleon violated the neutral territory of Baden to seize the Duke d'Enghien, an act of which Talleyrand said, "it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder." We put an end to the predatory outrages of the Barbary states by a welltimed bombardment, and gave a more liberal construction to the doctrines of mare clausum and mare librum, by refusing to pay a perpetual toll when traversing the northern seas; more recently still we forced the exclusive inhabitants of Japan to receive our compulsory friendship, and gave an example to France and England, which they enlarged upon in the Celestial Empire. The advantage to be obtained by us in gaining the sympathy of European powers, by sending ministers capable of acquiring the friendship of their rulers, and allaying the fears caused by our supposed aggressive policy, is clearly proved whenever we have occasion to pay a compliment to a neutral prince, by referring to him our differences with some other power. The king of the Netherlands, our umpire in the boundary question with England, rather leaned to the side of our adversary; and in the discussion of the affair of the General Armstrong, where we made reclamations from Portu

« PreviousContinue »