Mr. Seward to Mr. Wood.
Sir: Your despatch of February 3 (No. 41) has just been received.
The sadness and despondency with which you, on that so recent day, surveyed our condition and traced its supposed hopelessness to assumed errors of the administration in directing the conduct of the conflict come up now in strange contrast with the observances which the government and [Page 778] the whole people are making in honor of the memory of the father of our country, endeared to us now more than ever by the indications that that country is, through the policy which is thus questioned, emerging safely from its sea of troubles, foreign as well as domestic, with reassurances of an immortal existence.
Will you avail yourself of this auspicious change to represent to the government of Denmark, in a courteous manner, that we look to its liberal administration with much confidence for an early revision of the decrees which so unwisely recognized our now failing insurgents as a formidable belligerent power, and thus produced embarrassments of commerce injurious to both countries, and especially prejudicial to the United States, the first and fastest friend of commercial freedom in the world.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Bradford R. Wood, Esq., &c., &c., Copenhagen.