Lieutenant General Grant to
Mr. Seward
Headquarters Armies of the
United States, Washington, D. C.,
November 1, 1865.
Sir: I have the honor to forward for your
perusal the prospectus of the Mexican Express Company, forming in
New York city for the undoubted purpose of aiding the imperial
government of that country, and also some slips taken from New York
papers throwing some light upon the subject.
Your particular attention is respectfully called to the article taken
from the New York Courrier des Etats Unis.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant
General.
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
[Page 571]
[Enclosure No. 1.]
THE MEXICAN EXPRESS
COMPANY.
New York,
October 26,
1865.
To the Editor of the Herald:
I do not propose to enter into any controversy with Mr. J. N.
Navarro, consul general of President Juarez at this port; but as
I observe that his misinterpretation of my interew with the
ex-President has been repeated in other quarters, I beg leave,
through your courtesy, to say that, representing a business
contract with the government of the Emperor Maximilian, I simply
wished to learn from ex-President Juarez whether the convoys of
the Mexican Express Company passing through regions occupied by
troops or guerillas acting under his orders would be molested.
He assured me they would not be, and I consider the assurance
creditable to his good sense. As he no longer, however, issues
any orders on Mexican soil, the whole matter has ceased to have
any importance for myself or my company.
I am your very obedient servant,
[Enclosure No. 2.]
THE MEXICAN EXPRESS COMPANY.
To the Editor of the Herald:
I observe in your journal of this morning an article purporting
to be signed by Señor Romero as Mexican minister at Washington.
Señor Romero states that it has come to his knowledge that
certain speculators of this country have obtained pretended
concessions from the French agents in Mexico—that is to say,
from the so-called imperial government of Maximilian—for the
establishment of an express company, proposed to be styled the
“Imperial Mexican Express,” and that, in order that no one may
be deceived, Señor Romero requests the publication of certain
Mexican decrees, made in December, 1862, and June and July,
1863.
In answer to so much of Señor Romero’s article as relates to the
express company now being formed for the transaction of express
business between the United States and Mexico, I have to state
that in the month of May last Maximilian was pleased to grant to
myself and to such persons (American citizens) as might become
associated with me an exclusive privilege of carrying on an
express business between Mexico and the United States, and
guaranteeing, so far as he could do so, protection to the
company and its business. After the granting of this decree, I
had an interview with President Juarez, in Chihuahua, in which I
stated to him, with entire frankness, that I had obtained a
decree from Maximilian for the purpose of forming an express
company to transact business between Mexico and the United
States and elsewhere, and that I proposed to interest therein
American citizens and American capital. President Juarez advised
me that he had no objection to the formation of such a company
as I proposed, and that it was then, and always had been, his
desire, knowing, as he supposed, the wishes and desires of the
American people in regard to the form of government to prevail
in Mexico, to have American citizens and American capital
permanently transferred to Mexico. He remarked that this was the
common-sense view of the matter, and that certainly there could
be no objection to having American capital invested in Mexico
for the purpose of conducting an express business.
I repeated these assurances of President Juarez to gentlemen of
New York, who have become interested with me in the formation of
a Mexican express company. These gentlemen are too well known in
the city of New York, and in the United States, in connexion
with expresses already in successful operation, to need any
defence against a charge of “speculators.”
I have sent copies of this letter to Mr. Navarro, Mexican consul,
and to Señor Romero.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
EUGENE DE COURCILLON, President of the
Mexican Express Company.
[Enclosure No. 3.—Translation.]
From the “Courrier des Etats
Unis,” of New York, October 24, 1865.
Mr. Matias Romero has deemed it proper to revive a collection of
decrees and laws from the so-called republican government of
Mexico, which declare all the grants made by the legitimate
government null and void. This confused heap of protests without
force are reprinted in consequence of the establishment, in New
York, of the “Mexican Express Company,” to which capitalists and
influential persons have subscribed, and among them Mr.
[Page 572]
Clarence Seward, a
nephew of the Secretary of State. The arrogance of the agents of
Juarez agrees perfectly with the farce of their loan.
If thinking men, such as Mr. Clarence Seward, take partin
enterprises patronized by the empire, it is because they believe
in its stability; for the same reason no man of means will
commit himself to this fancy loan. In order that this
speculation should have any chances of success, it would be
necessary that the United States should be determined to wage
war against Mexico and France, and the most simple common sense,
notwithstanding the ambiguous words of the Secretary of State,
which people seek to interpret, and which were only spoken in
order to partially satisfy the radical supporters of the Monroe
doctrine—the most simple common sense, we repeat, indicates that
the cabinet of Washington will not become the Don Quixote of a
cause which numbers among its advocates so many competitors of
Gines de Pasamonte.
