[Translation ]
Mr. Van Limburg to Mr. Seward.
Sir: I have had the honor to receive your two notes, dated the 30th of last month, one of which related to the enrolment of the consul of the Netherlands at Philadelphia for drafting, and the other was in regard to the interference of a judicial authority of New York in a question of internal order in regard to a Netherlandish vessel.
As heretofore, in the absence of formal stipulations, a reciprocity of proceedings which were sincerely benevolent had presided over the treatment of consular agents and affairs in the two countries, which mutually took pleasure in giving proofs to each other of consideration and obligingness, I believed myself sufficiently authorized, even without special instructions, to ask, in the two cases referred to, the treatment of consuls of other nations which have concluded conventions with the United States in this regard. I thought myself so much the more authorized to do so, as the terms of the exequaturs granted by the President to our consuls seemed to guarantee expressly a privileged treatment.
Supposing that the United States would prefer that their consuls, even when not Americans, should be exempt in the Netherlands from military service, and having read an official letter of Attorney General Cushing to Secretary of State Marcy, cited by Wheaton, and communicated to the various consuls of the United States, that consuls “are privileged from political or military service” I did not think that the government of the United States would wish to reserve to itself the power of judging whether it suited or not to subject a consul of the Netherlands, even though not a Netherlander, to military service.
Believing that the United States would prefer that questions of internal order in regard to their merchant vessels should be, in foreign ports, subordinated to the judgment of American consuls, I flattered myself that a reciprocal exemption from the interference of the American judicial authority would be accepted as a general rule, and particularly in regard to Netherlandish vessels.
You have done me the honor to inform me, sir, that our captains or consuls who think themselves aggrieved by the interference of a judicial authority of a State have the power to resort to an appeal—that is to say, to a long and costly proceeding which would little serve towards a clear exemption of American captains from the judicial intervention of the Netherlandish authorities in questions of internal order, like that which I have now the honor of discussing with you.
I shall, therefore, sir, hasten to communicate to the government of the King my notes and your replies concerning the two questions raised, and I have the honor, sir, to renew to you the assurances of my high consideration.
Hon. Mr. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States of America, &c., &c., &c.