Mr. Seward to Mr. Kilpatrick.
Sir: Your despatch of the 2d of April, No. 3, has been received and submitted to the President.
I proceed to give you his views upon the grave matters which it presents. Your proceeding in submitting to the representatives of the foreign states resident at Santiago the communication which was addressed to you by the Spanish Admiral Mendez, on the 15th of March, in which he announced that simul taneously with his being appointed to the command of her Majesty’s squadron in the Pacific, he was also invested with diplomatic powers to treat with the government of Chili, is approved.
The decree which was made by the Chilian government on the 16th of March, and which prohibits neutral vessels that communicate with the ships of the Spanish squadron, or furnish them supplies, from touching at the ports of the republic, has been promulgated here.
The report which you have given us of the efforts which you made, with the support therein of Commodore Rodgers, to obtain a peaceful conclusion of the war which has so long been carried on between Chili and Spain, and especially to avert the bombardment of the city of Valparaiso, has been read with deep interest.
Since you had no instructions, and under the circumstances could not have been furnished with instructions applicable to the emergency, it was right that you should seek and hold informal and unofficial interviews, for the humane purposes mentioned, with the Chilian minister and the Spanish admiral. Your efforts were made with zeal, energy, and perseverance. The various suggestions you offered in that negotiation were proper, and the reasons assigned by you in their support were sound and wise. It was not your duty on that occasion to claim or assume the position of an umpire, and therefore it was not within your province to decide upon the conflicting views of the war which were taken by the belligerent parties.
In the opinion of the President, the most beneficial policy which this government can practice with reference to foreign states is to abstain from all authoritative or dictatorial proceedings in regard to their own peculiar affairs, while it employs at all times whatever just influence it enjoys to promote peace, and to recommend to them, by its own fidelity to justice and freedom, the institutions of free popular government. In this respect you have proceeded in harmony with the policy of the United States.
It is inferred from your report that not only could Valparaiso have been spared, but that peace could absolutely and permanently have been gained if the belligerent parties could have agreed upon the firing of mutual and simultaneous salutes of blank cartridges; and that nothing remained to secure such agreement under the auspices of your recommendation but to effect an understanding which of the parties should discharge the first gun.
I need not express the President’s surprise and profound regret at the failure of efforts which came so near being crowned with a complete and beneficent success. The proceedings by which, concurring with the commodore, you offered to the French minister the protection of our naval forces for the persons and property of French subjects at Valparaiso, in the event of a bombardment, is approved.
You present in your despatch a question, “Whether upon the facts stated by you, the citizens of Valparaiso had not a right to expect that the town would not be bombarded?”
Upon this point we may reserve ourselves until the inquiry shall necessarily arise in connection with claims or otherwise.
[Page 412]The conclusion at which you arrived upon an examination of the circumstances, that it was not your duty to advise or instruct Commodore Rodgers to resist the bombardment by force, is accepted and approved.
It remains for me only to recommend that you persevere in the way you have so well begun and that you spare no practical efforts to induce the belligerents to bring to an end a war, which, while it promises no material advantage to either party, is fraught with injuries to the interests of commerce and civilization.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Judson Kilpatrick, Esq., &c., &c., &c.