Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward
Sir: Nothing has come from the other side of the Atlantic since my residence in France which has given more general satisfaction than the President’s recent address to the delegates from the southern States. The Moniteur published it at length. The Constitutionnel of the 30th September devotes an article to the address, which commences as follows:
“President Johnson has set out boldly in a path whither the sympathetic encouragements of every sincere and enlightened friend of the United States cannot fail to follow him.”
In the concluding paragraph the writer says, that “after the terrible trials which the United States have experienced, and which it was impossible for a nation always friendly as France has been not to feel, it is a special good fortune for the Americans, we might almost say providential, to be ruled by a man who has known how to withdraw himself so promptly from pernicious influences and to rise to the height of one of the greatest situations that can be imagined.”
La France publishes the speech, and characterizes it as a very remarkable speech. I send by this mail a copy of The France of the 22d September, in which will be found an article devoted to our President, in which the writer says apropos of the President’s speech, published in its columns the day previous, “It is a model of benevolence, uprightness, and good sense.”
I also send a copy of the Avenir Nationale of the 2d October, which appreciates the speech in a like friendly spirit.
[Page 419]The Moniteur of the 30th says: “A Vienna correspondent announces that enrolments for Mexico would be resumed soon in Austria, but these enrolments would be made for the national (Mexican) army, and not for the foreign legion.
A number of officers have already inscribed themselves. A knowledge of the Spanish language is required for admission. The troops will meet at Layback.”
I yesterday met the Austrian chargé d’affaires at the ministry of foreign affairs, who told me that the soldiers who enlisted were expected to become Mexicans, but that the officers would not cease to be Austrians. He promised to procure for me copies of the articles which they respectively were to sign, if he could.
Your letter to Mr. Adams in reference to the debt of the Confederate States is also the subject of general discussion. In addition to what will be found in papers taken by the Department of State, I send you a copy of La France of the first instant, in which it is said that “the federal government in refusing to recognize this loan was incontestably in the right.”
The Debats of the 1st instant, and in subsequent numbers, vindicates your course without reserve.
In the same spirit is an article in the Avenir Nationale, which I forward today, of the date of October 4.
I send these notes merely to aid you a little in gleaning such French newspaper impressions of our affairs as may interest you.
I have only to add that President Johnson’s praises are now in every one’s mouth here.
I am, sir, with great respect, your very obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State.