and this Government; and has suffered armed naval expeditions to be fitted out in British ports to depredate on the commerce of the United States in violation of, as was believed, the Queen's proclamation and of the municipal laws of the United Kingdom. The undersigned, &c., WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Mr. Romero to Mr. Seward. [Translation.] MEXICAN LEGATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Washington, January 14, 1863. The undersigned, chargé d'affaires of the United Mexican States, has had the honor of receiving to-day, the note which, under date of the 7th instant, the Honorable William H. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States of America, was pleased to address to him in regard to the clearance, from ports of the United States, of articles contraband of war. purchased by emissaries of the French army invading Mexico, for the use of that army. Although the undersigned, in compliance with his duty, has left the determination of this delicate affair to his government, as he has informed the honorable Secretary of State, he thinks he is bound to make some observations which occur to him, in view of the argument contained in the note that he has just received from the Department of State of the United States. The honorable Secretary of State says that he has not been able to perceive what congruency there is between the articles mentioned by the undersigned in his note of December 20, 1862, of the treaty which binds Mexico and the United States to each other, and the present question, "since the United States have not set up, or thought of setting up, any claim that Mexico shall be required to admit into her ports any articles of merchandise contraband of war which may be exported from the United States on French or any other account." As, in the [339] opinion of the undersigned, there can be no doubt that the pres ent question is regulated by the stipulations which have been mentioned, he requests the honorable Secretary of State to permit him again to refer to them. The undersigned has maintained that the exportation from the United States of articles contraband of war, purchased by emissaries of the French army invading Mexico, for the use of that army, is illegal ac cording to the stipulations of the treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation, concluded between Mexico and the United States on the 5th of April, 1831. Article XVI declares legal the most ample liberty of commerce and navigation between the two countries, and Article XVIII provides that such liberty of navigation and commerce is not extended to articles contraband of war. If, therefore, the traffic in these articles is illegal, it is the duty of the Government of the United States not to authorize it; and in granting to it the same liberty and the same franchises as to the traffic in articles of lawful commerce, this Government fails to comply with one of the obligations imposed on it by said treaty. Nor has the honorable Secretary of State discovered any similarity between this case and that which appears in the recently published cor respondence between this Government and that of Great Britain, to which the undersigned referred in his said note of the 20th of December last, expressing his surprise that the Government of the United States should deem it just to demand from the government of Great Britain what it is unwilling to concede to that of Mexico. It is true that what the United States have chiefly complained of against the British government is the fitting out at and sailing from British ports of naval expeditions organized by the insurrectionary States, with which the United States are now at war; but this Government has not limited itself to asking the British government not to permit the fitting out and sailing of such expeditions; it has gone further. It has demanded that it should not permit the purchase and exportation from British ports of articles contraband of war intended for insurrectionary States, which is exactly what the undersigned has thought he had a right to demand of this Government. Lord Russell, in replying on the 10th of May, 1862, to a note which on the 8th of the same month had been addressed to him by the minister of the United States accredited near the British government, in which he had proposed that the statute of George IV, of July 3, 1819, which prohibits the enlistment of British subjects in armies of belligerent powers, when Great Britain is neutral, might be amended, said what will be found on page 93 of the diplomatic correspondence annexed to the annual message of the President of the United States of the 1st of December, 1862, which is entirely the same position in which the Goverument of the United States has desired to place itself with respect to Mexico, and which is as follows: "The foreign-enlistment act is intended to prevent the subjects of the Crown from going to war when the sovereign is not at war. In these cases (enlistment in a belligerent army and the fitting out of vessels) the persons so acting would carry on war, and thus might engage the name of their sovereign and of their nation in belligerent operations. But owners and freighters of vessels carrying warlike stores do nothing of the kind. If captured for breaking a blockade or carrying contraband of war to the enemy of the captor, they submit to capture, are tried, and condemened to lose their cargo." * * * * * * * * This Mr. Adams replied to Lord Russell on the 12th of the said month of May, page 94, as follows: "The position which I did mean to take is this: that the intent of the enlistment act, as explained by the words of its preamble, was to prevent the unauthorized action of subjects of Great Britain, disposed to embark in the contests of foreign nations, from involving the country in the risk of a war with these countries. view of the law does not seem to be materially varied by your lordship. When speaking of the same thing you say that the law applies to cases where' private persons so acting would carry on war, and thus might engage the name of their sovereign and of their nation in belligerent operations.' It is further shown by that preamble that that act was an additional act of prevention, made necessary by experience of the inefliciency of former acts passed to effect the same object. "But it is now made plain that, whatever may have been the skill with which this latest act was drawn, it does not completely fulfill its intent, because it is very certain that many British subjects are now engaged in undertakings of a hostile character to a foreign state, which, though not technically within the strict letter of the enlistment act, are as much contrary to its spirit as if they levied war directly. Their measures embrace all the operations preliminary to openly carrying on war-the supply of men and ships and arms and money to one party, in order that they may be the better enabled to overcome the other, which other is in this case a nation with which Great Britain is now under treaty obligations of the most solemn nature to maintain a lasting peace and frienship." * * * This is exactly what the undersigned has solicited since the discussion of this affair began, in the note which he addressed to the Department of State on the 10th of December last. This view of the question is not exclusive to Mr. Adams; the honorable Secretary of State, in the dispatch which he addressed to the minister of the United States at London, on the 2d of June, 1862, page 108, adopts it entirely in saying to him as follows: "There has just now fallen into our hands a very extraordinary document, being a report made by Caleb Huse, who calls himself a captain of artillery, and who is an agent of the insurgents in Europe for the purchase of arms, munitions of war, and military supplies, which have been shipped by him in England and elsewhere, in the mad attempt to overthrow the Federal Union. It reveals enough to show that the complaints you have made to Earl Russell fell infinitely short of the real abuses of neutrality which have been committed in Great Britain, in the very face of Her Majesty's government." * In writing those lines it seems the (honorable Secretary of State had forgotten the doctrine which he now says is "conformable to the laws of the United States, and to the practical application of those laws which has prevailed since the foundation of this Government." Among the so-called authorities which have governed the course of the honorable Secretary of the Treasury, and which were submitted to the undersigned, and have again been referred to by the [340] *honorable Secretary of State, is the following fragment of the instructions communicated by Mr. Webster to Mr. Thompson, on the 8th of July, 1842, that is as follows: As to advances, loans, or donations of money or goods, made by individuals to the government of Texas or its citizens, the Mexican government needs not to be informed that there is nothing unlawful in this, so long as Texas is at peace with the United States, and that there are things which no government undertakes to restrain. This sentence which, in the opinion of the Government of the United States, is an authority that may be applied to Mexico with the same rigor as if it were an article of the international code, loses all its force when it concerns the United States. A while ago, the consul of the United States at Liverpool learned that in that city a subscription was being raised of £40,000 to assist the insurgents of this country, to whom England had conceded all the rights of belligerents. Instead of the honorable Secretary of State seeing in this transaction a matter "in which there was nothing unlawful, so long as England was at peace with the Southern States, and one of those things which no government thinks of prohibiting," he addressed, under date of the 1st of May, 1862, (page 78,) a dispatch to Mr. Adams, recommending him to call the attention of Lord Russell to the transaction. Evidently, the honorable Secretary State did not propose that Mr. Adams should speak to Lord Russell of this affair with a view of approving of it and of manifesting that there was nothing unlawful in it, but that he should request the English gvoernment to apply a remedy to this want of neutrality. In the archives of the United States, as in those of other nations. there are opposite opinions on all questionable points, even on those which can hardly be a subject of discussion. In the present case, it seems to the undersigned that the honorable Secretary of the Treasury has only collected those authorities which do not favor the just cause of Mexico. The undersigned might present, in support of his good right, another list of American authorities more numerous and more weighty than those which appear to have induced the honorable Secretary of the Treasury to concede to France what separates the United States from that neutrality which they declare that they wish to observe in the war between Mexico and the Emperor of the French. The honorable Secretary of State is pleased to inform the undersigned that the prohibition against exporting arms from the ports of the United States, which was first adopted to the prejudice of Mexico only, and which afterward became general, is a temporary measure. The opinion which the undersigned holds with respect to the motives which have induced the Government of the United States to prohibit the exportation of arms to Mexico-an opinion founded on undeniable facts— would fail to be justified if the prohibition against exporting arms will be raised when, on account of the French having occupied or blockaded the whole coast of Mexico, it would be entirely impossible to introduce arms into the republic. The undersigned, &c., M. ROMERO. Mr. Seward to Mr. Romero. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, has had the honor to receive the note which was addressed to him on the 14th instant by Mr. Romero, concerning the action of the Treasury Department in relation to shipments of goods at New York for Mexican ports. The undersigned, while seeing no cause further to expatiate upon the reasons heretofore offered in explanation of that measure, avails, &c. (Signed) WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Mr. Rankin to Mr. Seward. [Telegraphic.] SAN FRANCISCO, January 14, 1863. French consul desires me to prevent shipment of contraband goods to Mexico. Shall I comply? If yes, what articles are deemed contraband? (Signed) H. Ex. 324-43 IRA P. RANKIN, Collector. Mr. Seward to Mr. Rankin. [Telegraphic.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, of Your telegram of the 14th has been received. Subjoined is a copy an executive order of the 30th November last, which will serve as an answer to your inquiry. (Signed) WILLIAM H. SEWARD, EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, November 20, 1862. Ordered, That no arms, ammunition, or munitions of war, be cleared or allowed to be exported from the United States until further order. That any clearances of arms, ammunition, or munitions of war issued heretofore by the Treasury Department be vacated, if the articles have not passed without the United States, and the articles stopped. That the Secretary of War hold possession of the arms, &c., recently seized by his order at Rouse's Point, bound for Canada. (Signed) ABRAHAM LINCOLN. |