Mr. Dayton to Mr. Seward.
Sir: Your despatch to me No. 192 and your confidential despatch to Mr. Adams, No. 322, of which you send me a copy, treat, so far as France is concerned, of the same matter, to wit: the probabilities of the Emperor interfering in the affairs of our country. I have taken occasion to inform you heretofore that I feel myself justified in relying upon the friendly feeling of this country until I shall have some official intimation to the contrary. It is true that at a court where there is a power—a thinking, acting power—behind the minister with whom one communicates, we can never feel quite sure of our position; yet I cannot permit myself to be disturbed by the alternation of rumors referred to in the extract from Mr. Adams’s confidential despatch, No. 197. I listen to all such reports with the utmost distrust. Paris is full of emissaries, or rather emigrants, (if I may call them so,) male and female, from the south; most of them have come to Europe or remain in Europe to avoid the danger of a residence at home. But while careful to absent themselves, they apparently think of nothing else, and speak of nothing else, but the war, and the certain success of the south. They mix in society, and pick up every rumor afloat on its surface, magnify it, reproduce it, and finally themselves, I have the charity to suppose, believe it. Even Mr. Slidell, as early as last winter, gave to a gentleman in Paris of the highest character, the most distinct assurance, founded, as he said, upon certain knowledge, that the south would be recognized in 60 or 90 days, and advised him to make his business arrangements accordingly; yet at that period, notwithstanding the talk in a certain official coterie, there was not even a chance of recognition. The very fact that these rumors of intended interference upon the part of the Emperor are afloat should make us distrust their truth; the Emperor does not do things in that way; he does not take counsel of the world before he acts. His very reticence and the reticence of Mr. Thouvenel, in the midst of these newspaper statements, have sometimes made me uneasy, and I have therefore wished to know what was said by Mr. Mercier at Washington. But there has been at no time, in my judgment, just ground for believing, as reported to you, “that the Emperor has directed Mr. Slidell to instruct Mr. Mason to make another formal appeal to Earl Russell preliminary to his own separate and exclusive action.” The very form of the proposition is to my mind evidence of its falsity.
You say (in despatch No. 192) there has not been a week since the war commenced that somebody has not conveyed to you statements implying hostile designs upon the part of the Emperor; this I can well understand. Our citizens, and sometimes even officials, transiently in Paris, who should know better, pick up these rumors, become excited, hurry first to the legation, then write to the department. It is a singular fact that every American citizen abroad thinks himself entitled to know everything that has ever passed between our government and the Emperor, and is very much dissatisfied unless I at once make a clean breast of it. No reliance at all is to be placed upon reports transmitted to you from such quarters; if right at all, they are so by accident.
Nothing has occurred here of any official character, not already reported, to justify the belief that the Emperor intends to interfere with us.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
His Excellency William H. Seward, &c., &c., &c.