Mr. Seward to Mr. Hovey.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your two dispatches of the 14th of February, Nos. 115 and 116.
[Page 859]Your account of the partisan discontent which was manifested in Lima in regard to your omission to recognize at once, without instructions from your government, the military chief of a successful armed revolution in Peru, has been read with careful attention. Your proceeding on that occasion is again approved and confirmed. The United States could have no motive to intervene between the political parties of a sister republic. They have every possible motive for sustaining in every case the deliberate and final action of the whole constituent people in every such republic. In case of revolution, foreign nations are entitled to wait for definitive conclusions of the people thus concerned.
You again solicit instructions on the subject of claims. I have nothing now to add to previous instructions on that subject. Those instructions are well considered by the President. Some consideration is due by a friendly state to the embarrassments which governments sustain in the case of revolutionary changes.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Alvin P. Hovey, Esq., &c., &c., &c.