Mr. Dix to Mr. Seward
Sir: I send by the dispatch bag to-day the document from which I made an extract in my dispatch No. 158, (26th instant,) and a document from the foreign office containing diplomatic papers.
In the former you will find, at page 256, a paragraph, of which the following is a translation:
βThe time is not yet opportune to undertake a commercial negotiation with the cabinet of Washington; nevertheless, the progress which the doctrines of political economy now prevailing in Europe appear to have made within a few months in the federal administration gives ground for hope that our exchanges with the United States will not fail ere long to be placed on the footing of a conventional arrangement favorable to their development. In any event, we shall at a still earlier period obtain, without doubt, for the products of our vines, in regard to which the existing mode of assessing duties has of late been so prejudicial, the modification of the tariff, which we have claimed since last year.β
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.