Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward
Sir: At my interview with Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys to-day, and after disposing of the matters referred to in my despatch of this date, marked “confidential,” I alluded to the unhappy consequences of M. Rouher’s attempt in the corps legislatif to quote from a conversation which had passed between Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys and myself in reference to Mexico. I expressed my regret that I had not then availed myself of his offer to make a correction in the Moniteur of the minister of state’s statement, and then remarked that the speech in question had given such importance to our correspondence as to render it necessary for you to define with greater precision than I, in a somewhat desultory conversation, had deemed it necessary to do, the attitude which the United States occupied in reference to France and Mexico. I then read to him your despatch No. 187.
Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys said, by way of comment, that France neither asked nor expected from the United States anything more than neutrality in reference to Mexico—at least for the moment; that you had insisted that Mr. Davis, though occupying a large territory with a large army, was not a belligerent; and you now insist that Juarez, without an army and without a government [Page 412] that any one could find, represented the sovereign power of Mexico. He did not agree with you on either of these points, but he could not object to your holding these views. As long as we observed the neutrality promised in your despatch, he felt that we were doing all they had a right to require of us. In regard to your letter, he said he did not see that it differed materially from what I had represented; that I had never pretended that the people of the United States were not more partial to a republican than to a monarchical form of government, nor had he ever supposed the contrary, but he could not suppose that we would prefer to perpetuate brigandage and misrule, under the name of republicanism, rather than have order and security in Mexico, even under a monarchical form of government.
Here, owing to the lateness of the hour and an interruption, it was necessary to bring our interview to a rather premature close, to my regret. There were several points raised in the course of his conversation to-day on which I would have liked to return, but must trust to some future opportunity for that satisfaction.
Meantime I remain, sir, your very obedient and very humble servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington.