Mr. Kreismann to Mr. Seward.
Sir:Herr Von Thile, under-secretary of state, on behalf of the minister of foreign affairs, desires me to express to you the gratification of his government at the flattering terms in which you have alluded to the high esteem and respect in which his Prussian Majesty’s minister at Washington, Baron Yon Gerolt, is held, not only by the President, but by the people of the United States. The baron has arrived in Europe, by the steamer Hansa, but has not yet visited Berlin. When he does so, I shall not fail to wait upon him and offer him my services and attention to any extent he may feel pleased to accept them.
Herr Von Bismarck is still absent from Berlin; but while his sovereign, King William, has proceeded to Gastein, in the Tyrol, he has gone to Vienna to attend in person the conference now held there between Austria and Prussia and Denmark, [Page 220] to settle the preliminaries and agree upon terms of peace. Hostilities were suspended, and the blockade of the Prussian ports raised on the 20th instant, to continue until the end of the month, by which time it is expected that arrangements will have been made between Herr Von Bismarck, Count Rechberg, and the Danish representative, Herr Von Quaade, for an armistice, with an accepted basis for peace. So far as Prussia is concerned, Herr Von Bismarck will agree to nothing short of a total and absolute surrender of the three duchies, Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg, by the Danish crown; and there is no doubt that Austria will sustain that demand. Moreover, Prussia and Austria will allow the federal Diet no share or participation in arranging the terms and concluding peace. The duchies must be surrendered to them; and they will remain in Schleswig until the question as to who shall be designated as ruler shall have been settled to their satisfaction. And so it may yet appear that it was much easier to conquer and defeat Denmark than to agree upon a final disposition of the conquered territory among themselves.
The public journals here lately reported that two confederate officers, by special permission of the King, were at the Prussian headquarters in Jutland, where they were receiving great attention. I took upon myself to make inquiries into the truth of the report at the Foreign Office, and ascertained that it was not so. The following broad denial has appeared in the official Staats Anzeiger:
“The Vossiche Zeitung, of the 12th instant, reports from Flensburg, July 10, that two officers of the confederate army were staying at the headquarters of the allies at Apemade by permission of his Majesty the King. This report is entirely unfounded. No officers of that army have arrived there. Nor could an application for permission to remain at the headquarters of the allies have received his Majesty’s assent, since the confederate governments of the North American Union have not been recognized by Prussia as independent states.”
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I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, &c., &c., &c.