Mr. Seward to Mr. Sanford.
Sir: Your despatch of the 12th of May, No. 68, has been submitted to the President. The thrift and sagacity of the people of Belgium are not more universally esteemed than the skill of their government in financial administration. Your very elaborate and complete analysis of their revenue system will be submitted to Congress, and I am sure it will be accepted as a valuable contribution in a branch of knowledge not less important at this crisis than the science of arms itself.
It will please you, and it may correct some errors abroad, when I inform you that our revenue system, so recently established, is excelling the most sanguine expectations of its framers, and that our national credit seems rather to improve than to decline, notwithstanding the vast expenditures which are necessarily made in converting a commercial nation into a self-defensive military and naval power.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Henry S. Sanford, Esq., &c., &c.,&c., Brussels.