No. 53.
Sir E.
Thornton to Earl Granville.1
[From British Blue Book “North America,” No. 9, (1872) p. 20.]
I have the honor to inclose a copy of the New York Herald of the 15th instant, in which are published copies of the President’s Message to the Senate in secret session, and of the documents which accompanied it. It is supposed that copies of these documents must, by some surreptitious means, have been abstracted from the Senate, and it is said that the whole of them were telegraphed to New York during the night of the 14th instant, at the expense of the New York Herald, which published them on the morning of the 15th instant.
Mr. Fish was informed by telegraph during that day that certain documents had been published, but could not discover whether the whole of them had appeared. He, however, at once forwarded to Congress in open session the four notes which have passed between your Lordship and General Schenck on the subject of the claims for indirect damages.
On the arrival here of the New York Herald, it was found that all the documents sent to the Senate on the 13th instant, with the exception of the memorandum inclosed in your Lordship’s note of the 20th of March last, had been published. Mr. Fish told me yesterday that, in consequence of this publication, it was the opinion of the President and of himself, that it would be expedient to relieve the Senate of the injunction of secrecy with regard to these documents, so that they might become officially public; but that they were indisposed to do so if I thought Her Majesty’s Government would object to it. I replied that, as the documents had been made public, and as it was evident that they were really copies of those which had been sent to the Senate, I could see no objection to their being officially published, in accordance with the President’s wish; nor did I think it worth while to beg Mr. Fish to wait until I should have telegraphed to your Lordship and received an answer. But I at the same time strongly expressed my opinion that the discussion with regard to the Draft Treaty Article should not be held in open session, in favor of which a motion had been made on the 13th instant, but defeated. Mr. Fish entirely agreed with me that a public discussion would be most inexpedient.
With reference to the copy of Mr. Fish’s telegram to General Schenck of the 27th ultimo, there is no doubt that, on that day, it was he who suggested that your Lordship should, in answer to his dispatch to General Schenck, make a proposal of the nature described in my telegram forwarded on the same day. The utmost that I did was, on his urging me to give my private opinion upon the suggestion, to say that I thought it might, with some modifications, be taken as the basis of an arrangement; [Page 522] but I did not, and of course could not, state, on hearing such a suggestion for the first time, that Her Majesty’s Government would or would not make a proposal of the nature indicated by Mr. Fish.
His telegram to General Schenck, of the 27th ultimo, was sent after I had received, and in consequence of, your Lordship’s telegram of the same day, the contents of which I communicated to him, and in which jour Lordship stated that the apparent absence of instructions to the American Minister, with whom the negotiation was being conducted, was a great obstacle to an arrangement.
- The substance of this dispatch was received by telegraph on the 17th of May.↩