[Extract]
Mr. Pike to Mr. Seward
Sir: I am without any of your favors to acknowledge, excepting your private notes.
It is vacation time in Europe, when everybody spends a month away from home.
[Page 396]There are no topics of commanding interest in the political world.
The cholera, now menacing Europe from the shores of the Mediterranean, is regarded with solicitude, but hopes are entertained that the season is sufficiently far advanced to prevent its ravages in the north of Europe, during this season at least.
The rate of money is low, but the market is feverish. This arises, in part, from the uncertainty in regard to the crops, and partly from considerations connected with the prospective supply of the great staple of cotton. This article is again entering into commercial and financial affairs as a disturbing element. Our stocks feel the influence of this state of things, besides having to carry weight on their own account, and they thus continue to fall, being now at a lower point than they have been since the close of the war. Another thing that influences them unfavorably is the hostility to the Mexican empire which appears to animate the people of the United States, and which, it is feared, may yet involve us with France.
The apparent failure of the Atlantic telegraph cable is a great disappointment to very confident expectations. It is long since any subject has excited greater public interest than the daily progress of the Great Eastern, up to the period when communication was suddenly suspended.
A cattle plague has appeared in England to an extent which excites great alarm, since the price of butchers’ meat had already risen there to an unwonted height. It is alleged, in the discussions upon the subject, that it was imported from the continent, and especially from Holland; but there is nothing of the sort in this country.
Holland has no grievances, and steadily progresses in the paths of political quiet and pecuniary prosperity.
I have the honor to be, with great respect, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State,