Mr. Williams to Mr. Seward
Sir: Since my last despatch the legislative chambers have adjourned without day, after a session of forty days. Their acts, so far as made public, are an increase of the President’s salary, provision for a new election of deputies, and an approval of the reports of the ministers. I see, moreover, in the speech of the president of the chambers allusion made to some authority conferred on the President to consent to a free interchange of the products of the Central and South American states. This law has not yet been made public.
The dissolution, as well as the assembling of the chambers, is an affair of great pomp and ceremony. The President of the republic is escorted to the halls of the assembly by a procession composed of the civil, ecclesiastical, and military dignitaries. The troops line the passage of the procession, and artillery salvos are fired in all the public squares. At the hall the president of the chambers recounts in a brief address the doings of the two houses, to which the President of the republic replies briefly, and, on the present occasion, very complimentarily.
It was evident the President was gratified that they had done so little, and that little so in consonance with his views.
The excitement growing out of the Guatemala rebellion seems wholly to have subsided.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.