Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys to Mr. Mercier.
Sir: Mr. Dayton, who exhibits in his relations with me a great confidence, and a rectitude to which I am pleased to bear testimony, has been moved at certain rumors, propagated with a design which I have not now to inquire into, but which appear lately to have obtained some credit at Paris, and he has [Page 837] come to converse with me about them. According to these reports, too inconsiderately accepted, the Emperor’s government has decided to recognize the States of the south, and a treaty has even been already signed, according to which the new confederacy is to cede to France, either for herself, or that she may make a retrocession of them to Mexico, Texas and a portion of Louisiana.
At the moment in which Mr. Dayton was imparting to me this information, I was exactly in a position to offer him information for information, and, before answering the questions which he addressed me, I asked him if, among the alarming symptoms for the maintenance of the good relations of the two countries, he had not, like myself, received other news, likewise diffused in public, such as, for instance, the transmission by him to me of a protest from his government against our expedition to Mexico and its consequences; the conclusion of an alliance, offensive and defensive, between the United States and Russia; the appearance of a federal fleet before Vera Cruz, &c., &c.
In regard to the protest, after remarking to me that I, better than any one else, knew that he had not transmitted to me any, Mr. Dayton said to me that, under the promptings of the general tenor of the correspondence of Mr. Seward, and of the knowledge which he himself had of the inclinations of his fellow-citizens, he had been able to speak to me of the painful impression produced on public opinion in his country by the preponderant intervention of a European power in an American republic, and by the creation of a monarchical establishment in a country adjacent to the United States; but that from that to a protest, or to any intention whatever of comminatory intermeddling, was very far, and that nothing in his instructions authorized him to overleap that distance. He knew nothing, on the other hand, of the alleged alliance of his government with Russia, and he had every reason to disbelieve it. As to the presence of a federal fleet before Vera Cruz, this news did not seem to him even to merit the honor of a contradiction.
I told Mr. Dayton that I had never attached any importance to the reports which I had pointed out to him, and that, in speaking to him of them, my object was much less to call forth explanations on his part, than to warn him against rumors of a different character; but having probably the same origin of which he had spoken to me, I could, however, contradict them categorically. In regard to the recognition of the States of the south, the intentions of the Emperor’s government were known to him, and this question was still at the point where our late conversations had left it. We had not, therefore, recognized the south, and, much more, we had not signed with it any treaty for the cession of Louisiana and Texas. With respect to this, I could repeat to him, what I had so often said to him already, that we neither sought for ourselves, nor for others, any acquisition in America. I added that I trusted that the good sense of the people of the United States would do justice to exaggerations and false suppositions, by the aid of which it was endeavored to mislead and sour public opinion; and that I relied on his co-operation in trying to render prevalent a more equitable appreciation of our intentions and of the necessities which our policy obeyed.
I have thought, sir, that it was well that you should be informed of the particulars of this conversation, in order that you might, on your part, communicate it to Mr. Seward, and receive the precise words of it, in order to rectify around you false opinions and unjustifiable anticipations.
Accept, sir, assurances of my high consideration.
Mr. Mercier, Minister of the Emperor at Washington, D. C.