Mr. Seward to Mr. Webb
Sir: While there is much which is not unworthy of consideration in your despatch No. 34, there is more that can neither be commended nor allowed.
Messrs Asboth and Washburn, our representatives in Buenos Ayres, Uruguay and Paraguay, are responsible to this department, which, under the President’s direction, is specially and exclusively authorized to approve and commend or to disapprove and censure their proceedings. It is inconvenient and undesirable that the records of this department should be made a receptacle for disputation, controversy, or even criticism between the several representatives of the United States and foreign countries.
It would be unreasonable to expect that, dwelling in foreign countries whose governments and people are at war with each other, they could be able to see questions which affect those countries in a common light. Impartiality between foreign belligerents is attempted by this department; but the department is not so unreasonable as to expect to find always an agreement of views between its several legations in countries unhappily involved in war.
The business intrusted to you and to the ministers in Paraguay and Buenos Ayres was a simple tender of the good offices of this government to bring about, if possible, a fair and equal conference under an armistice for the termination of the war of the La Plata. It was nothing more. The wisdom of the proceeding was not submitted to the representatives charged with the execution of the measure. The manner as well as the spirit in which the proposition was expected to be made was the subject of precise instructions. The instructions in the present case did not require from those representatives an examination and report upon the merits of the respective states in the original controversy, or upon the character, pretensions, and claims of the several belligerents. What information either representative may think himself able to give concerning the claims and the character of the government and people among whom he resides, is unobjectionable, and may be useful. On the other hand, it is unnecessary for the representative near one of the belligerents to go out of his way to argue against the case and draw an injurious character of the opposing parties in the conflict. Nor is it seen with what propriety the past relations and transactions between the United States and either of the belligerents, altogether foreign from the present war, are drawn into review and made the subject of discussion now. Such discussions, especially when contradictory, have no tendency to advance the humane and single object of the United States, namely, the restoration of peace, just and honorable to all parties, by means of a conference to be opened between them. If the effort fails through the disinclination of the parties, our responsibility ends, while we shall have given no just cause of offence to either party.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
James Watson Webb, Esq., &c., &c., &c.