Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: Your despatch of the 25th of September (No. 226) has been received.
The President is gratified by the tribute you have paid to the prudence and fidelity of Mr. Dayton.
Mr. Dayton has given me an account of an informal and unofficial conversation with which he was lately favored by Mr. Thouvenel, which indicates a harmony between him and Mr. Mercier in despondency concerning the success of the Union arms, but not any sentiments of hostility or of unfriendliness to this government.
I learn, also, from Mr. Sanford that Baron Talleyrand, on his recent return from Paris to Brussels, informed Mr. Sanford that Mr. Thouvenel had said to him that business was suspended at Paris until the return of the Emperor from Biarritz, after which they should take up the Italian and the American questions.
This government has nothing to say concerning the first of these subjects.
In regard to the latter, it is certain that the aspect of the case for the enemies of the Union, when the time for that consideration shall have come, [Page 209] will be found to have changed much for the worse from what it was when Mr. Thouvenel was conversing with Baron Talleyrand. Recent events indicate a loss by the insurgents of even more than the prestige they won by their desperate attempt to invade and subjugate the loyal States of the republic. The Emperor of France is extensively regarded in European circles as an arbitrator among nations; but we are not aware that he has ever affected so important and hazardous a trust. We do him no such injustice as to suppose him hostile to the United States or disposed to do them a wrong.
However the case may prove in this respect, we do no such injury to our cause and no such violence to our national self-respect as to apprehend that the Union is to be endangered by any foreign war that shall come upon us unprovoked and without excuse. However public opinion, either here or in foreign countries, may veer with the varying chances of war, it must be understood by all the representatives of the United States abroad that the President indulges no apprehensions of a failure of the people in their determined purpose of maintaining the federal Union.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.