Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward
Sir: The Corps Legislatif is to open on the 15th instant. This announcement is a notorious breeder of rumors. Among them is one that an effort is afoot to make England and France unite in recognizing the southern confederacy, on condition that they will emancipate and arm their slaves. I mention this rumor not out of any respect for it, but to show to what silly shifts the partisans of rebellion here are driven to keep one another in countenance, and of what contortions the wounded carcase of secession is capable in its expiring agonies. The speech of Milner Gibson in England yesterday will probably bring this canard to an untimely end, but it will be replaced by another equally or more absurd, that will have its day on the bourse. You will find in the Moniteur of the 25th an article written apparently in the interest of those who extract comfort from the above rumor. It purports to be a letter from New York, dated the 10th instant, and is designed to show that the fate of slavery in the United States is sealed, and by implication that its abolition ought no longer to be regarded as the starting-point of a French or English policy in our country. Slavery has always been the stumbling-block of European disunionists, [Page 209] whenever they have attempted to invoke intervention. Now they are des perate enough to imagine that if they can show that slavery, the perpetuation of which was the only pretext for rebellion, is practically extinct, or in process of rapid extinction, foreign powers will come to their rescue, and extend to them in their despair the hand which was refused to them when they were formidable. There are many so infatuated as to find pleasure in reading and hearing such stuff as this, and they are represented in the editorial management of the Moniteur, as well as in less important administration journals. * * *
I am, sir, with great respect, your very obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, &c., &c., &c.