Mr. Fish to Mr. MacVeagh.
Sir: Your dispatch No. 14. of the 8th ultimo, has been received. The view is correct which it takes of the absurd newspaper report of a letter from President Grant to the Emperor of Russia, congratulating the latter upon his denunciation of the clause of the treaty of Paris which restricts liberty of navigation in the Black Sea. The occasions are rare which are conceived to warrant or require a deviation on the part of the President from the rule which limits his communications to foreign sovereigns to mere letters of ceremony. The occasion adverted to was not deemed sufficient to call for any such communication. It is true that the United States, not having been a party to the treaty of Paris, may have more or less reason to complain of any curtailment of their rights under the law of nations which it may have effected. No formal complaint on the subject, however, has as yet been addressed to either of the parties to that instrument, though the restriction which it imposes on the right of our men-of-war to the passage of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus is under serious consideration.
I am, &c.,