Mr. Seward to Mr. Johnson
Sir: Your dispatch of the 19th of December last, No. 82, has been received. In that paper you express an opinion that it would not be proper to proceed further with the negotiation in relation to the claims convention until you should have received an answer to your cable cipher of the 18th of that month. You observe, further, that if the suggestion which was contained in that cable dispatch of a new article in lieu of [Page 396] the 4th, 5th, and 6th articles of the convention, signed by Lord Stanley and yourself, should be approved, that in that case you apprehend no difficulty in bringing the matter to a speedy and satisfactory conclusion. You assure me, further, that at the moment when you shall hear from me by cable you will renew the negotiation, and, if necessary, advise me of its progress by the same mode.
An answer to your cable dispatch which I have thus mentioned was transmitted by telegraph, under the President’s direction, on the 20th of December. In that answer I submitted some modification of the suggestion which you had made, of such a character as to make it at once more definite and more accordant with the views which prevail in this government. No reply to that answer has yet been received by cable or otherwise. On the other hand, Mr. Thornton confidentially informs me that on the 25th of December he received a dispatch from Lord Clarendon, in which he stated that he would, on the next day, transmit to Mr. Thornton, by mail, a power and a draught of a convention which he trusted would be satisfactory to the United States.
I do not doubt that this proceeding on the part of Lord Clarendon is based upon the renewal of the negotiations which you promised, and that in withholding information of it from the cable you have been governed by prudential considerations, which are easily conceived. I have to thank you for the perseverance and fidelity with which you have attended to the instructions of this department.
We await now the arrival of Lord Clarendon’s promised communication, which may be expected during the next week.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Reverdy Johnson, Esq., &c., &c., &c.