Mr. Fish to Mr. MacVeagh.
Sir: Your dispatch No. 30, dated 27th March last, has been received and read with interest.
The representations which you state that you have given of the sincerity of the friendship of the Government of the United States for that to which you are accredited, and of the absence of any identification with the policy of European powers, or of any committal to their interests in questions affecting Turkey, are fully approved.
This Government is not disposed to prematurely raise any question to disturb the existing control which Turkey claims over the straits leading into the Euxine. It has observed the acquiescence of other powers whose greater propinquity would suggest more intimate interests in the usage whereby the Porte claims the right to exclude the national vessels of other powers from the passage of those straits.
But while this Government does not deny the existence of the usage, and has had no occasion to question the propriety of its observance, the President deems it important to avoid recognizing it as a right under the law of nations.
The position of Turkey with reference to the Euxine may be compared to that of Denmark with reference to the Baltic, with the difference that the former is sovereign over the soil on both sides of the straits, while Sweden owns the territory on the east of the sound leading to the Baltic.
[Page 903]Commercial nations from the earliest times until recently submitted to the exactions of Denmark of what was called the sound dues, which were ultimately abolished by the payment of a gross sum by each country, proportionate to its tonnage, in the habit of passing the sound.
The legality of the tax when it was levied was, at least, questionable, and probably was acquiesced in from its antiquity merely, though, perhaps, in part from a regard to the comparative weakness of Denmark to resist its collection by the commercial world at large, or by the more powerful nations singly.
We are not aware that Denmark claimed the right to exclude foreign vessels of war from the Baltic merely because in proceeding thither they must necessarily pass within cannon-shot of her shores. If this right has been claimed by Turkey in respect to the Black Sea, it must have originated at a time when she was positively and comparatively in a much more advantageous position to enforce it than she now is. The Black Sea, like the Baltic, is a vast expanse of waters, which wash the shores not alone of Turkish territory, but those of another great power who may, in times of peace, at least, expect visits from men-of-war of friendly states. It seems unfair that any such claim as that of Turkey should be set up as a bar to such an intercourse, or that the privilege should in any way be subject to her sufferance.
There is no practical question making it necessary at present to discuss the subject, but should occasion arise when you are called upon to refer to it, you will bear in mind the distinction taken above, and be cautious to go no further than to recognize the exclusion of the vessels as a usage.
I am, &c.,