Mr. Seward to Mr. Romero
Sir: Your note of the 1st instant has been received, in which you ask the attention of this department to an advertisement published in the New York World, of the 29th ultimo, by Don Louis Arroyo, in which that person gives notice that shippers to Mexican ports must have their invoices and manifests attested by him, as consul of the Mexican empire, in the city of New York.
In reply, I have to state that this department is not aware of any law of the United States which forbids a person claiming to be a consul of a foreign power from making on his own responsibility a publication of the character to which you refer.
It cannot be necessary for me to repeat what has uniformly been said by this government in all its official correspondence, that no other than the republican government in Mexico has been recognized by the United States. You are aware, however, that the party in arms against that government is, and for some time past has been, in possession of some, at least, of the ports of Mexico. That possession carries with it, for the time being, a power to prescribe the terms upon which foreign commerce may be carried on with those ports. If, as is presumed to be the case, one of those conditions is, that the invoices and manifests of vessels from abroad, bound to those ports, must be certified by a commercial agent of the party in possession, residing in the port of the foreign country from which the vessel may proceed, it is not perceived what effective measures this government could properly take in the premises. Such a commercial agent can perform no consular act relating to the affairs of his countrymen in the United States. To prohibit him from attesting invoices and manifests, under the circumstances referred to, would be tantamount to an interdiction of trade between the United States and those Mexican ports which are not in possession of the republican government of that country. The consuls of the United States in Mexico, who have their exequaturs from that government only, themselves discharge duties as commercial agents in the ports which are not under the control of that government in all respects like those which the person Arroyo, in the same way and to the same extent, claims to do at New York in respect to said ports.
I avail myself of this occasion to offer to you, sir, renewed assurances of my high consideration.
Señor Don Matias Romero, &c., &c., New York City.