Mr. Webb to Mr. Seward
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of despatches Nos. 191 and 192; and on the 21st instant I forwarded a copy of No. 192 to the minister of foreign affairs, with a despatch, a copy of which is enclosed, marked A.
I have asked for a conference on this subject next week, when I shall go to the city for that purpose.
On the 2d of January, I had a long conference with the minister of foreign affairs, Senhor Albuquerque, in regard to our claims, and your despatch No. 189, which I had enclosed to him during my illness. It reached me when there existed but little probability of my ever having anything more to do with worldly matters, and I sent it to the foreign office, as indicating our friendly feelings, well knowing that was not the time for offering mediation, even if I had been authorized then to make such an offer, which I certainly was not. He inquired in substance:
Do you now offer mediation? I hope not, because it would embarrass us, as we should be compelled to decline it.
I was then assured that this government expected to have 50,000 men at the seat of war about the 1st of March, when the fleet would threaten the fortress of Humaita, while the bulk of the army would ascend the Parana, land on the Paraguayan shore, and march round the fortress to the Paraguay river and Asuncion. To this I replied, that I certainly did not offer mediation, knowing it would be refused, as it was when mediation was offered, at my instigation, between Brazil and Uruguay, which, had it been accepted, would have avoided all the existing difficulties growing out of a war that had so greatly taxed the resources of Brazil, at the sacrifice of tens of thousands of lives drawn from the labor of the empire, and at a cost ruinous to its credit. And I called his attention to the clause of the despatch in which you say:
The President authorizes me to say, that if all or either of the belligerents should distinctly intimate to this government a willingness to accept its good offices, with a view to securing a peace that would be just and honorable to all parties, those good offices would be promptly exercised.
Upon this I remarked that it was apparent from the tenor of the despatch that it was intended I should do nothing calculated to embarrass the belligerents, or which might have an aspect even of dictation, when nothing was further from the intentions of our government. But at the same time it should not be overlooked that the President, speaking the sentiments of the American people, and in the interest of commerce and civilization, expressed the strongest desire to have this war terminated; as being not only hostile to commerce and civilization, and to the progress of the age, but as injurious “in a political sense, because all republics, and all American states, (including Brazil,) are suffering by wars on this continent, which are either unnecessary or unreasonable in their beginning, or which are unnecessarily and unreasonably protracted.”
I admitted to the fullest extent the right of the allies to proceed in their great effort to bring the war to a close in March, undisturbed by the interference of other powers, whether European or American; but if that effort failed, [Page 246] what then? Was this war to continue indefinitely? Would it not then become the duty of the commercial powers to interfere and demand its cessation? And, above all, would it not, more especially, become the duty of the United States government, the leading American power, holding, as it does, that the pending war is “politically injurious to all republics and to all American states,” to demand its cessation?
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But if they cannot accomplish their purpose, so much to be desired in the interest of civilization, then all parties should be compelled to terminate the war, and all the great rivers should be open to the navigation of the world. And in addition, the different governments now at war should be prohibited from erecting fortresses anywhere on the banks of the great navigable rivers, which would command their channels; and all existing fortresses, of such a nature, be destroyed.
On learning from your despatch No. 190, dated the 23d of October, that a copy of your 189, to me, had been forwarded to General Asboth and Mr. Washburn, I saw, or thought I saw, that the general might misapprehend its purport and offer mediation, instead of merely indicating our readiness to interpose with our good offices when requested so to do.
I thereupon addressed a private note to the general, and pointed out to him that I construed the despatch as a notice of a willingness to act, and not as an offer to interpose; well knowing that such offer at this time must, of necessity, be refused, and thereby weaken our position when an offer should be made with an intimation that it must be accepted. But my letter arrived too late, and I am glad that it did. On the 1st of January he offered mediation, in a despatch so admirably conceived and so kindly worded, that I am sure it will do good instead of harm.
Indeed, I learn from Admiral Godon, Governor Mathews, the British minister, and other sources, that both the people and the government of the Argentine Republic are getting tired of the war. If this be so, (and I believe it,) the offer of mediation by the American minister, which fact is loudly proclaimed by the press of Buenos Ayres, will do good. The fact is re-published in the Rio press, and the inference is that I offered mediation at the same time. So the public mind will gradually be prepared for an interference, after the failure of the next attempt of the allies to “conquer a peace.” I believe that in such an event we should indirectly be asked to compel all parties to make peace, and thus get rid of the ridiculous treaty by which the allies bind themselves, under no circumstances and in no contingency, to treat with Lopez. But this is only conjecture. At present all in authority in Brazil think, or pretend to think, that their success in March is certain. A failure, therefore, will have a most depressing tendency on all parties.
I learn from Mr. Thornton, the British minister, that then, if we do not compel an abandonment of the war, England and France most assuredly will. He says he has urged his government to do so; and it was to avoid any such interference by European powers that I have urged action by our government.
That our present proposition will be rejected now, is a certainty; and so to speak, a necessity. And if it should be accepted after defeat, is it such an one as we then should desire? Should we not have another prepared in view of such a contingency? Beyond all possible peradventure, if Paraguay and the allies met in a Congress in Washington, they could disagree by agreement made in advance. That is to say, the allies would not yield anything. What then? Why, the President is to appoint an umpire—a European power, of course, because there is no American power to whom the question could be submitted; Peru and Chili having committed themselves against the allies, and Bolivia being interested and looked upon as an enemy of Brazil.
So that your proposition is, in effect, no more nor less than saying, “Declare [Page 247] an armistice and let the President of the United States appoint an umpire, whose decision shall be binding upon all the belligerents.”
And a very good proposition this is; but pardon me for saying that, this being an American question, I desire to see the United States have something more to do with its settlement, if outsiders are to take it in hand; as they most assuredly should or will, if the allies fail in their assault on Paraguay in the coming month of March.
With great respect, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.