Mr. Seward to Mr. Mercier.
Sir: I have carefully considered the suggestions concerning the artificial obstacles made in Charleston harbor, presented by you in the conversation which occurred between us last Monday at an interview which you had solicited under an instruction of Mr. Thouvenel, of which you have kindly given me a copy.
[Page 412]Before that interview I had already given to Lord Lyons what I have no doubt ought to be satisfactory explanations on the subject. I had also instructed Mr. Dayton, if he should find it profitable, to make the same explanations to the imperial government. It seems unnecessary to add to the explanation further than to say that Mr. Thouvenel seems to have been misled into the grievous error of supposing that we had initiated a proceeding to permanently ruin the harbors of our commercial cities temporarily occupied by the insurgents, and that the placing of artificial obstructions in channels which lead to Charleston harbor was only the beginning of that work of universal and unsparing destruction. On the contrary, all that has been, at any time, intended, has been merely the temporary obstruction of some, not all, of the channels leading to Charleston harbor, leaving others free, except as closed by the blockade.
I might have been disposed to complain that Mr. Thouvenel has listened too favorably to exaggerations upon the subject, but I am prevented from doing so by the fact that in his instructions to you he expressly reserved himself for more authentic information, and that while he has directed you to converse with me upon the subject, he has generously refrained from requiring you to make any formal complaint to this government. The President appreciates the friendly spirit manifested in this prudent forbearance, as he does also the marked propriety which has distinguished your own proceedings in the question.
I believe, sir, that the reaction which I have so constantly promised you against the insurrection which has threatened to us so much danger and inflicted upon friendly nations so many evils has begun. If Europe, instead of believing what the traitorous emissaries of that insurrection report to our prejudice, and lending its sympathies to their unreal grievances, shall come to recognize the simple fact that the federal Union, while adhering to all its obligations and its treaties, is safely surmounting all its dangers, there will not be a port left in the hands of the insurgents a month after the hopes of foreign aid shall have been thus disappointed.
The speeches of his Majesty the Emperor of France and the Queen of Great Britain. to the legislatures of their respective countries show a constancy in their purposes not to be drawn unnecessarily into this unhappy domestic contention; and therefore they cannot but exert a very salutary influence in the direction I have indicated. The administration of the Emperor cannot be an obscure one. It is already illustrated by the influence he has made France exert upon events having important bearings on the progress of society in Europe. It probably is yet to enjoy other triumphs of the same kind. But I venture to say that what will be regarded in after times as the crowning evidence of his wisdom and his virtue will be the magnanimity with which, resisting ephemeral though powerful political influences, he withheld his country from contentions beyond the ocean, which she could not heal, and into which she could not enter without convulsing human society to its centre and obstructing the course of civilization for centuries.
I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to you, sir, the assurance of my high consideration.
Mr. Henry Mercier, &c., &c., &c.