Mr. Van Limburg to Mr. Seward.
Sir: I have had the honor to receive the letter, under date of the 4th of this month, through which you have been pleased to inform me that instructions would be given immediately to return to Mr. Amedee Conturié the eight hundred thousand dollars in coin. With respect to the question of ascertaining to whom the other articles seized at his house should be restored, I have the honor to request you, sir, to be pleased to cause them also to be returned to Mr. Conturié, whom I have invited to receive them, as well as the $800,000.
I beg you, sir, to be pleased to accept my thanks for the explanations which you have been pleased to give me with respect to the protraction of the civil functions of Major General Butler in New Orleans, and from them I am inspired with the hope that the justice of the President and government of the United States will hereafter exempt the foreign consuls from official relations with him. I would be happy to be enabled to thank you for it, and to find in it a new bond for the maintenance of the relations for so long a period sincerely friendly between our two countries.
I have already communicated your last letter to the government of the King, from whom I await further instructions, which, meeting with favorable dispositions on the part of the government of the United States, will enable us, I trust, to terminate this deplorable affair in such a manner as we both had hoped we ;should at our first interview upon this subject.
I have the honor, sir, to renew to you the assurances of my high consideration.
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State of the U. S, of America.