MEXICO. 



565 



transactions on. the Rio Grande, upon which 

 the United States Government had made rep- 

 resentations to the Imperial Government of 

 France. On the 18th of July Mr. Seward, after 

 conference with the President, returned the 

 letter to M. Montholon, saying that the United 

 States was in friendly communication with the 

 Republican Government of Mexico, and there- 

 fore that the President declined to receive the 

 letter, or to hold intercourse with the agent 

 who brought it. 



On the 1st of August M. Romero, the Mex- 

 ican minister, informed the Department that 

 Don Luis Arroyo assumed to act as commercial 

 agent in New York without an exequatur or 

 other recognition by the United States Govern- 

 ment, and asked whether the Government rec- 

 ognized the right of Maximilian to make such 

 appointment. Mr. Seward replied, August 

 9th, that no law of the United States prevents 

 a person from advertising him self as consul, but 

 that the United States Government in all its 

 official correspondence has recognized no other 

 government in Mexico except that of Juarez ; 

 and that such a commercial agent can perform 

 no consular act relating to the affairs of his 

 countrymen in the United States. "To pro- 

 hibit him from attesting invoices and mani- 

 fests," said the Secretary, "would be tanta- 

 mount to an interdiction of trade between 

 the United States and those Mexican ports 

 which are not in possession of the Republican 

 Government of that country. The consuls of 

 the United States in Mexico, who have their 

 exequatur from that Government only, them- 

 selves discharge duties as commercial agents in 

 the ports which are not under the control of 

 the Government in all respects like those which 

 the person, Arroyo, in the same way and to the 

 same extent, claims to do in New York in re- 

 spect to said ports." 



Although the evacuation of Mexico by the 

 French troops had been expressly provided for 

 in the convention concluded between France 

 and Mexico in 1864, and M. Drouyn do Lhuys 

 had stated the intention of Napoleon to with- 

 draw his troops as soon as the government of 

 Maximilian was established, and they could 

 with propriety depart, few indications were 

 afforded in 1865 of any desire or preparation to 

 lessen the foreign contingent in the imperial 

 service. Bodies of troops, it is true, were from 

 time to time sent home, but their places were 

 generally lilled by others arriving from France, 

 and at the close of the year precisely the same 

 condition of affairs existed as had in former 

 years caused remonstrances from the United 

 States Government. These remonstrances were 

 repeated during the year with undimiuished 

 earnestness by Mr. Seward. On July 13th he 

 wrote to Mr. Bigelow, acting charge in Paris, 

 enclosing a number of intercepted letters re- 

 ceived from the Mexican minister in Washing- 

 ton, which went to show complicity on the part 

 of the French authorities in Mexico in Gwin's 

 colonization scheme heretofore mentioned. 



These he requested him to present to M. 

 Drouyn de Lhuys, and frankly inform him that 

 the sympathies of the American people are al- 

 ready considerably excited in favor of the re- 

 public of Mexico ; and because they are disposed 

 to regard with impatience the continued inter- 

 vention of France in the country, any favor 

 shown to the proceedings of Dr. Gwin by the 

 titular Emperor of Mexico or by the Imperial 

 Government of France, with reference to those 

 agents, will tend greatly to increase the popular 

 impatience, because it will be regarded, per- 

 haps justly, as imparting dangers to, or at least 

 as a menace against the United States. Under 

 date of November 6th Mr. Seward represented 

 to Mr. Bigelow that the presence and operations 

 of a French army in Mexico, and its mainten- 

 ance of authority there, was a cause of serious 

 concern to the United States. Nevertheless 

 the objections of the United States were still 

 broader, and included the authority itself which 

 the French army was thus maintaining. That 

 authority, he said, was in direct antagonism to 

 the policy of this Government- and the princi- 

 ple on which it is founded. " Every day's expe- 

 rience of its operation only adds some new con- 

 firmation of the justice of the views which this 

 Government expressed at the time the attempt 

 to institute that authority first became known. 

 The United States have hitherto practised the 

 utmost frankness on that subject. They still 

 regard the attempt to establish permanently a 

 foreign and Imperial Government in Mexico as 

 disallowable and impracticable, for the reasons 

 they could not now agree to compromise the 

 position they have heretofore assumed. They 

 are not prepared to recognize or to pledge them- 

 selves hereafter to recognize any political insti- 

 tutions in Mexico which are in opposition to the 

 Republican Government with which we have 

 so long and so constantly maintained relations 

 of amity and friendship." He said, in closing, 

 that " it is hardly necessary to say that we should 

 not be dwelling so earnestly upon this branch 

 of political relations if it had not been our con- 

 viction that those relations of the present mo- 

 ment supersede those of commerce in the con- 

 sideration of the American people." Mr. Bige- 

 low, under date of November 30th, reports read- 

 ing the despatch of Mr. Seward to M. Drouyn 

 cle Lhuys, who thanked him, though he lelt 

 obliged to say that he derived neither pleasure 

 nor satisfaction from its contents. 



On the 3d of November Mr. Seward wrote to 

 Mr. Bigelow with reference to the summary 

 execution of Gen. Arteaga and his brother 

 officers, saying : " I am directed by the Presi- 

 dent to request you to ask the serious attention 

 of the French Government to the military pro- 

 ceedings in Mexico, by which native Mexicans 

 taken captives while adhering in war to their 

 own Republican Government arc denied rights 

 which the law of nations invariably accords to 

 prisoners of war." Mr. Bigelow communicated 

 to the French Government this protest of the 

 United States against the atrocious acts of Na- 



