Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward
Sir: I waited upon his excellency M. Drouyn de Lhuys on Tuesday, the 17th instant, at his request, and among the matters brought under discussion was your despatch No. 264, of the 20th September, in reference to recruiting in Egypt for Mexico, which I read to him on Thursday last. His excellency said that the Emperor entertained no doubt of his perfect right to avail himself of the courtesy of an ally to strengthen his army, whenever and wherever he had occasion to do so; that the Pacha had placed at his disposition already some of his soldiers, who stood the climate of parts of Mexico better than Europeans, and had promised him more. There was no treaty nor written engagement between them on the subject—simply a verbal understanding. It so happened, however, that in consequence of an insurrection which has broken out in the Soudan, the Pacha has need of all his troops, and therefore the project of recruiting in his dominions is for the present arrested. His excellency repeated his previous statement that the Emperor did not mean by this explanation to countenance any doubt of his right to enter into any arrangements with any foreign power for military aid when he had need of it.
I then asked if the purpose of taking troops from Egypt was finally and definitively abandoned. He said no, he could not say it was definitively abandoned, though the government had no definite intention of renewing it. It was one of those prerogatives which, while they claimed the right, they had no present intention to exercise.
I then observed that the question raised by my government in your despatch was not the Emperor’s abstract right to recruit his army from among the subjects of his allies, if they invited him to do so, but whether he would practically insist upon taking Egyptian slaves, in the uniform of soldiers, to do military or other service in Mexico. I remarked that it was represented to our government that the troops in question were not levied upon any equitable system of enrolment, but were seized by soldiers of the Pacha, dragged away so far from their homes as to be unable to find their way back, pressed into the army where they had no civil or political guarantees whatsoever, and, in point of fact, were taken for the Pacha’s army in the same way, and by the same means, that the King of Dahomey uses to stock his slave market. Such, said I, is the popular impression, and such seems to be the impression left upon the mind of the President, as it certainly was on mine, by the communication received from our consul general at Alexandria. His excellency said that he did not know how the soldiers were levied by the Pacha, but should inquire about it; that his army was composed of men of different colors and nationalities; that all governments required more or less of involuntary military service in time of war, and that men thus impressed hardly deserved to be called slaves. I said that was a question of fact; that you did not say absolutely that the service of the Pacha’s troops levied for Mexico was servile, but that such was reported to you to be the [Page 421] fact; and such, I added, was the presumption; that we, as a nation, had suffered bitterly from the institution of slavery, and that we naturally could not contemplate with composure the possibility of its being planted in a neighboring country, under any disguise whatever. Waiving, therefore, the abstract right asserted by the Emperor, which I had no occasion to discuss, even if I found myself unable to agree with his Majesty, I begged his excellency to inform me, in case it should appear that the troops levied by the Pacha for the Emperor were seized without any enrolment and without any recognition of their civil state and rights as citizens, whether France, the first to set the example to the world of emancipating her slaves, would accept them? He replied promptly, “By no means. The government of the Emperor will have nothing to do with the propagation or encouragement of slavery.” He added that he should for his own information—the practical question you had presented to him having been disposed of by events, and therefore not requiring him to inquire officially—take steps to ascertain how the troops of the Pacha were levied for Mexico.
I said I would thank him to do so, and that I should also endeavor myself to obtain more precise information upon the subject. I concluded by saying that I should have pleasure in informing you—
First, that the levy of Egyptian troops referred to in your letter was not to be used in the re-enforcement of the French army in Mexico.
Second, that the Emperor at no time contemplated the enrolment of slaves into his army in Mexico, or elsewhere.
This communication will be submitted to Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys before it is posted.
I am, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State.