Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward
No. 320.]
Legation of the United States,
Paris,
May 16, 1866.
Sir: I translate from La France, of last
evening, the following announcement:
“The embarcation of troops of Austrian volunteers for Mexico has been
countermanded. Those enlisted have been discharged, and the majority of
them have been enrolled in the army of the north.”
I suppose I may consider this paragraph, in a semi-official paper, as
practically answering the inquiry which I addressed to the minister of
foreign affairs on Thursday last, and as finally disposing of what
threatened to become an unpleasant complication.
Apropos of our relations with Mexico, and more especially of the latest
phase of them, I invite your attention to the annexed extracts from the
Memorial Diplomatique, semi-official, and from the Debats, mild
opposition.
General Almonte, who was appointed to replace Mr. Hidalgo at this court
as the representative of Mexico, has arrived.
I am, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
[From the Memoral Diplomatique,
May
13.]
According to an American letter published in the Times, the minister
of the United State at Paris recently suggested to the cabinet of
the Tuileries that, for the purpose of arresting the military
reprisals in Mexico, the Juarez government should be informed of the
limit within which the French army of occupation should be
withdrawn. Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys delivered this overture for the
reason that the French government had no means of communication with
Juarez. At length Mr. Bigelow offered for this purpose to the
cabinet of the Tuileries the good offices of his governine it, near
which is accredited the Juarist agent, Mr. Romero.
It appears, from our information, that what there may of truth in
this story relates to the steps formerly taken by the federal
cabinet to induce France to demand from the Mexican government the
repeal of certain decrees concerning the Juarist brigandage. These
steps, and the reception which they met with from the minister of
foreign affairs of France, all this is found at length in the Livie
Jaune of 1866; and we believe that no later incident could have
changed in this regard the rule of conduct of the imperial
government.
[Untitled]
[From the Memorial Diplomatique,
May
13.]
According to the information which reaches us from Vienna, the
imperial government has had no difficulty in convincing Mr. Motley
that Austria has no intention to send troops to Mexico to replace;
that the volunteers in question cannot be considered as Austrian
soldiers, as it is of their own accord that, after having fulfilled
their military obligations in their own country, they enlist in the
service of the Emperor Maximilian to form an integral portion of the
Mexican army.
The proof that this incident seems to have been settled in a
satisfactory manner is, that the embarcation of one thousand
Austrian volunteers was to take place the 10th of May instant, at
Trieste, where, since the 7th, the Tampico has been lying at
anchor—a vessel of the Transatlantic Company, on board of which they
were to be transported to Vera Cruz.
[Untitled]
[From the Journal des Debats of
May 14,
1866.]
We yesterday called attention to the despatches of Mr. Seward to the
minister of the United States at Vienna, in which the American
Secretary of State protests against the sending of Austrian
volunteers to Mexico, in terms whose earnestness every one can
appreciate. The Constitutionnel thinks it can announce this morning
that all difficulties are removed in the
[Page 308]
matter, and that the explanations given by the
Vienna cabinet have fully satisfied the minister of the United
States, so that a first detachment of 1,000 volunteers was to embark
on the 10th May at Trieste, for Mexico. To tell the truth, the
Constitutionnel knows nothing of these facts of itself, but gets
them from the Memorial Diplomatique, in which, for our part, we are
far from having absolute confidence. It may be, after all, that
Austria has not thought proper to pay attention to the protest from
Washington, although she has at this moment affairs enough on hand
not to seek for new ones. We shall soon know if it is true that one
corps of volunteers set out three days ago for Vera Cruz, on board the Tampico; but even if this fact
were exact, it would not be enough to prove that an understanding in
regard to this question of volunteers exists at present between
Austria and the United States. The very categoric language of Mr.
Seward permits us to doubt this. We shall wait, therefore, until the
texts of the arrangements concluded between the two governments is
made known to us before we believe it, by the Constitutionnel’s
leave, which indorses statements of which it has no proof except the
assertion of the Memorial Diplomatique, which are always to be
received with caution.
