No. 637.
Mr. Fish to Mr. Maynard.

No. 28.]

Sir: Your dispatch No. 22, dated 27th September last, with inclosures, is received. It relates to what is known as the affair at Tripoli, Barbary, and incloses certain newspaper articles and copy of a note from Safvet Pasha, the minister of foreign affairs, and your reply thereto.

You will observe, by reference to my dispatch No. 23, dated 8th October last, that this Government has never heretofore been called upon to recognize in any way the sovereignty of the Sublime Porte over Tripoli, and that our relations with that country have been governed and controlled for more than half a century by the treaty of 1805.

This subject was fully discussed in my former dispatch, and I allude particularly to it in this connection in order that you may recognize its significance and the importance of being controlled in the settlement of this affair, and in all our negotiations connected therewith, exclusively by our treaty with Tripoli.

For these reasons it would have been better if, in your note to Safvet Pasha, you had not referred to our treaty with the Ottoman government as securing our consul against the indignity of proceedings against him by the local authorities for an alleged misdemeanor. The “most-favored nation” clause in our treaty with Tripoli secures to the United States consul all the rights and privileges accorded to the representatives of other foreign powers. Having appealed to our treaty with Tripoli, we cannot, in the settlement of this question, take our treaty with the Porte at all into consideration.

So far as any satisfaction required by this Government is concerned, the affair of Tripoli will be considered settled when we hear of the punishment of the Turkish sailor who invaded the American consulate. The question of the recognition of the sovereignty of the Porte over Tripoli is now for the first time presented officially to this Government. Our treaty with the Tripolitan authorities was made at the close of a war waged for the protection of American citizens and American interests in Tripoli. We have at all times yielded to Tripoli all the rights and privileges accorded to that power by the treaty, and have claimed and exercised all the rights and privileges accorded by it to the United States. We cannot lightly, and without sufficient guarantees that these rights will be preserved to us by some other authority, surrender them at the mere request of a friendly power which offers nothing in exchange for such surrender. I am at a loss to imagine what reasons the Ottoman authorities can have for presenting this question at the time it was done. At the time Aristarchi Bey first called my attention to the designation of Tripoli as one of the Barabary states in our volume of Foreign Relations nothing had recently occurred to call attention to the matter. The treaty made with Tripoli had been in operation ever since 1805, and [Page 1317] no official or unofficial protest against it had ever been made by the Ottoman government. Our consul to Tripoli has been, ever since the ratification of the treaty, accredited by a letter of the President to the reigning pasha. It is true that our consuls to Tripoli have in late years applied to and received through the United States minister an exequatur from the Porte, but this was done only in recognition of such authority as was claimed and exercised by the Porte in the local government, and cannot be construed as in any manner an abandonment of our treaty-rights. In this connection it is important to observe, as bearing upon the distinction which this Government has always made in its relations with Tripoli, that it is the invariable custom of this Department to forward the commissions of consuls to the minister accredited to the government in which the consulate is situated, in order that the minister may apply for an exequatur and forward it to the consul with his commission; but this has never been done on the appointment of consuls to Tunis and Tripoli, which form the only exception to the rule. The application of consuls to Tripoli for an exequatur from the Porte was made upon their own authority and without orders from this Government; but, however it was made, it is a fact of minor importance, and cannot affect the real question at issue.

From all the information in the possession of this Department it appears that after the change in the government of Tripoli in 1835, and until a late date, the European governments still insisted on their right to maintain in force their treaties with the Bashaws of Tripoli. The French government maintained in Tripoli a consul-general chargé d’affaires until 1845, in which year he dropped his diplomatic title. Spain was represented in Tripoli as late as 1846 by a consul-general chargé d’affaires, but since that time by a vice-consul only. After 1835 the British government retained at Tripoli the diplomatic agent appointed under the Bashaws. When he died, about 1849 or 1850, his successor was for a time styled consul-general chargé d’affaires. At present Great Britain, and all the other European governments, are understood to be represented at Tripoli by consuls. What motives induced these governments to change the character of their representative at Tripoli is, of course, not known, and can only be conjectured. It may have been only for reasons connected with the economical administration of the foreign affairs of the respective governments, and it may have been in consequence of representations made-to them by the Ottoman government. I am unofficially informed that in 1872 the Ottoman government entered into a convention with Great Britain, France, and Italy, in which those governments acknowledged the sovereignty of the Porte over Tripoli. It is not known whether in this convention or at any other time those governments abandoned their rights under their treaties with the Bashaws. It is believed, however, that the treaty-making powers which; prior to 1835, had entered into treaties with the Bashaws of Tripoli, regard those treaties as being still in force. But, however this may be with other governments, the United States has always maintained the inviolability of our treaty with Tripoli, and in justice to ourselves we must continue to maintain it until we can have some guarantee for the conservation of our rights under that treaty. The whole question of our relations with Tunis and Tripoli might be taken into consideration, if brought forward and presented by the Porte, as a proper subject for diplomatic action in the negotiation of the proposed new treaty between the Ottoman government and the United States.

Nothing has been received at the Department from Mr. Vidal modifying or changing in any material point the state of affairs as reported by [Page 1318] him in his No. 73, a copy of which was transmitted to you with my No. 23. It is apprehended that an incorrect, or at least very much exaggerated, report of the occurrences has been made by the Tripolitan authorities to his excellency Safvet Pasha, and that that distinguished minister’s well-known solicitude for the dignity and honor of his government have been taken advantage of by the pasha to induce him to magnify into international importance a mere local difficulty. The invasion of the American consulate by a Turkish sailor, the insult to the officers of the Congress on the streets of Tripoli, and the summons from the pasha to our consul to answer before one of the local courts for an alleged misdemeanor, are facts which there does not appear to be any attempt made to controvert. If, however, it should appear upon fuller investigation that a different state of affairs exists from that reported, this Government will take proper measures for the preservation of our own honor and dignity and the full and complete satisfaction of all who may have been aggrieved.

I am, &c.,

HAMILTON FISH.