Mr. Seward to Mr. Webb.
Sir: Your despatch of the 7th August, No. 13, in which you review at some length and with much care the situation of the war which has been so long and, as it seems to us, so unprofitably carried on between Brazil, the Oriental Republic, and the Argentine Republic on one side, and Paraguay on the other, has been received.
Without accepting your speculations as conclusive, the President authorizes me to say that if any or all of the belligerents should distinctly intimate to this government a willingness to accept its good offices with a view to secure a peace that should be just and honorable to all parties, those good offices would be promptly exercised.
The United States feel that, in a political sense, all republics and all American States are sufferers by wars on this continent which are either unnecessary or unreasonable in their beginning, or which are unnecessarily or unreasonably protracted. They have regarded the war in question with constant regret from its beginning, and they are exceedingly anxious to see it brought to a conclusion with as little detriment as possible to the honor and interests of the belligerents.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
James Watson Webb, Esq., &c., &c., &c.