Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, &c., &c., &c.
[Enclosure No. 2.—Translation.]
Last November Mr. Dayton communicated to the Emperor’s minister of
foreign affairs a despatch in which the United States consul at
Acapulco complained that the commander of the French forces in that
city had ordered the seizure of the mail addressed to that consul.
Positive information since received on the subject by the imperial
government enables it to present this incident in its true light. It
is necessary to state, in the first place, the exact position
occupied by Mr. Ely, then consul of the United States, after the
French troops had taken possession of Acapulco. That agent, by
abstaining from any visit or official communication in writing
asserting his quality to Admiral Bonet upon the latter’s arrival,
authorized the supposition that his exequatur having been granted
not by Mexico, but by the local government of the state of Guerrero,
he considered his mission to be interrupted by the new state of
things. Admiral Bonet, therefore, considered Mr. Ely as having no
longer any attributions beyond those of a purely commercial agent.
Such was also the opinion of the commander of the United States
sloop Narragansett, as evidenced in his search for a deserter from
that vessel, as well as the opinion of Admiral Bell himself. This
view of the subject appears to be also confirmed by the fact of the
federal government giving only the title of commercial agent to the
person appointed since as the successor of Mr. Ely. Here, now, are
the facts concerning the seizure of the United States mails as they
occurred:
Acapulco, previous to its being taken possession of by the French
forces, had no regularly organized postal service. Letters from
abroad were brought there by the packets of the Panama Steamship
Mail Company in three separate bags. The one addressed to the
company’s agent contained letters relative to the affairs of that
concern; the second, the mails intending to go on farther; and the
third, the correspondence for Acapulco and the interior of Mexico.
This latter bag, for want of a regular postal agent, was addressed
to the American consul, where the letters
were delivered to the parties concerned and the postage collected.
Complaints had occurred about deficiencies in the system of delivery
of private letters, but, aside from that consideration, it was
impossible to permit this state of things to continue from the
moment that Acapulco was to follow the system adopted every where
else by the Mexican government. Where taxes were to be levied it
evidently belonged to a Mexican administration only to fulfil that
office. The officer commanding at Acapulco had, therefore, decided
on appointing a temporary postmaster, and his choice for this office
fell upon the vice-consul of France, M. Dupuy. This gentleman,
therefore, upon the, arrival of the packet from San Francisco, on
the 30th of September, caused the three mail bags, previously
mentioned, to be delivered to himself. The one addressed to the American consul was open, and its contents
proved that, as we have already stated, it was not a mail addressed
by the government of the United States to their consul at Acapulco,
but simply an ordinary letter bag. This decision, however, called
forth some opposition at the hands of the commander of the federal
sloop Cyane, who, whilst acknowledging that Mr. Ely no longer had
any right to demand that the bag addressed to the American consul should be delivered to him, asked that it
should be given to himself, who, as an officer of the United States
navy, was the legal representative of his government. After
explanations on the subject had passed between the commander of the
Cyane and the commander of the French naval forces, these two
officers, equally desirous of maintaining the friendly relations
existing between the navies of the two countries, agreed that the
bag should be delivered to the post office of Acapulco, and there
opened in the presence of an officer of the United States sloop, who
would thus ascertain that it was only a public mail, and not an
official correspondence of the government of the United States.
This question had thus been disposed of in the most satisfactory
manner, when subsequent events prevented this arrangement being
carried out. M. Dupuy, the postmaster appointed,
[Page 391]
having seen fit to resign that office,
and the evacuation of Acapulco having been resolved upon, things
were put back in their former position. This, nevertheless, shows
that the measures adopted at the time when the French forces took
possession of Acapulco were fully justified both by the irregularity
of the process of delivery of private correspondence and by the
absence of any real right of Mr. Ely to demand that the system
should be continued.
Paris,
April 12, 865.
