Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of your despatch of the 2d of July (No. 323) in which you have related a conversation which you have just before held with Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys upon several subjects affecting our relations with France.
Your proceeding in making the explanations concerning the action of Mr. Corwin in regard to the protection of French subjects in Mexico is approved.
I have submitted to the President Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys’s observations concerning the reported conversation held between his Majesty and Messrs. Roebuck and Lindsay, at Fontainebleau. I am allowed the pleasure of approving your proceeding and observations relating to that subject; also to say that Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys’s replies harmonize with the views of the imperial conversation which I had taken when the contradictory and irreconcilable accounts of it reached me. I did not doubt that the remarks of the Emperor, whatever they were, were casual, unstudied, and informal utterances, not intended or expected to be made the basis of diplomatic movements or proceedings in England or elsewhere, and at the same time complaisantly, in some degree, accommodated to the taste and temper of his visitors. You were altogether right in correcting the strange misapprehension which assumed that the British government had disloyally shown to me confidential despatches of Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys. The moment I saw that statement I caused a correction of it to be published, of which I send you a copy, to be communicated to Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys. I have read in the Moniteur what is understood to be an authorized explanation by the Emperor of his aforementioned conversation. The statement [Page 755] relieves it of some points that could not but excite sensibility in the United States. But there yet remains in the transaction evidence of misapprehension, on the part of his Majesty, concerning the civil war in the United States, which this government perceives with regret, and not without surprise, in view of the perfectly direct and frank expositions which, under the directions of the President, you have heretofore given to the Emperor’s minister for foreign affairs. I reserve further discussion of the subject, however, until I shall have learned the final proceedings of the British government upon the motion instituted in the House of Commons by Mr. Roebuck, with which proceedings those of the Emperor are so singularly connected.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
William L. Dayton, Esq.