DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS. 233 



form 1 tho Secretary of State that tho United 



K-iMti.m had visaed passports and given 



safe-comlu.'t for thirty thousand subjects of 



\\.rt h-Cienn;in Confederation, expelled 

 i'Y:inc:o, eight thousand of whom had 



furnished with ruilroad tickets, and a 

 leas number with a small amount of money. 



Rights of Neutrak.Tho principles which 

 formed tho celebrated declaration of tho Oon- 



of Paris were early in tho war accepted 



:ince as tho rule by which her conduct as 



utntls would be guided. 

 The Danish proclamation of neutrality also 

 ann.Mimvil tho adhesion of Denmark to these 

 principles. 



Tho North-Gorman Confederation officially 

 communicated to the United States its inten- 

 tion of adhering to tho principle that private 

 property on tho high-seas would bo exempt 

 from seizure by Prussian ships without regard 

 to reciprocity. The Government of the United 

 States was especially gratified by this an- 

 nouncement, and on the 22d of July the fol- 

 lowing note was addressed by tho Secretary 

 of State to Baron Gerolt : 



DEPARTMENT OF STATE, ) 

 WASHINGTON, July 22, 1870. ) 



SIB : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt 

 of your letter of tho 19th instant, communicating to 

 this" Government the text of a dispatch from Count 

 Bismarck, to the effect that private property on the 

 high-seas will be exempt from seizure oy the ships 

 ofhis Majesty the King of Prussia, without regard to 

 reciprocity. 



In compliance with the request further contained 

 in your note, that communication has been officially 

 made public from this Department. 



It is now nearly a century since the United States, 

 through Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, ana 

 John Adams ; their plenipotentiaries, and Prussia, 

 under the guidance of the great Frederick, entered 

 into a treaty of amity and commerce, to be in force 

 for ten years from its date, whereby it was agreed 

 that, if war should unhappily arise between the two 

 contracting parties, " all merchant and trading vessels 

 employed in exchanging the products of different 

 places, and thereby rendering the necessaries, con- 

 % veniencos, and comforts of human life more easy to 

 ' be obtained, and more general, should be allowed to 

 pass free and unmolested ; and that neither of the 

 contracting powers should grant or issue any commis- 

 sion to any private armed vessels, empowering them 

 to take or destroy such trading-vessels, or interrupt 

 such commerce." 



The Government of the United States receives with 

 great pleasure the renewed adherence of a great and 

 enlightened German Government to tho principle 

 temporarily established by the Treaty of 1785, and 

 since then advocated by this Government whenever 

 opportunity has offered. In 1854, President Pierce, 

 in his annual message to Congress, said: "Should 

 the loading powers of Europe concur in proposing, 

 us a rule ot international law, to exempt private 

 property upon the ocean from seizure by public armed 

 cruisers, as well as by privateers, the United States 

 will readily meet them on that broad ground." In 

 1856, this Government was 'invited to give its adhe- 

 sion to the declaration of Paris. Mr. Marcy, the then 

 Secretary of State, replied : " The President proposes 

 to add to tho first proposition in the declaration of the 

 Congress at Paris the following words : * And that 

 tho private property of the subjects or citizens of a 

 belligerent on the high-seas shall be exempted from 

 seizure by public armed vessels of tho other belliger- 



ent, unless it bo contraband. Thus Amended, the 

 Government of tho United Stutoa will adopt it, 

 together with the other three principles contained in 

 that declaration. 1 " And again, in 1861, Mr. Seward 

 renewed the offer to give tho adhesion of the United 

 States to the declaration of the Congress of Paris, 

 and expressed a preference that the same amend- 

 ment should bo retained. 



Count Bismarck's dispatch, communicated in your 

 letter of the 19th instant, shows that North Germany 

 is willing to recognize this principle (even without 

 reciprocity) in the war which has now unhappily 

 broken out between that country and France. Thia 

 gives reason to hope that tho Government and the 

 people of the United States may soon bo gratified by 

 seeing it universally recognized as another restraining 

 and harmonizing influence imposed by modern civil- 

 ization upon tho art of war. 



Accept, sir, tho rouewed assurance of my very high 

 consideration. HAMILTON r : 



On the 23d day of August, rhe President 

 found it necessary to issue his proclamation 

 enjoining neutrality as to the belligerents in 

 the present war. 



French cruisers appearing off the coasts and 

 harbors of the United States, apparently with 

 a view to abuse their hospitality by making 

 such waters subservient to purposes of war, 

 the President issued his proclamation on tho 

 8th of October, defining the rights and obliga- 

 tions of the belligerents as to such neutral 

 waters. 



Highta of Legation. After the circumvalla- 

 tion of Paris by the Germans, Count Bismarck 

 wrote to M. Jules Favre that a courier with the 

 dispatches of foreign ministers in Paris would 

 be allowed to pass through the lines of tho 

 besieging army, on the condition that such 

 dispatches should be nnsealed, subject to the 

 inspection of the Prussian authorities, and to 

 contain nothing in relation to the war. The 

 diplomatic corps in Paris unanimously de- 

 termined not to accept the conditions. 



On the 6th of October tho representatives 

 of foreign powers in Paris addressed a joint 

 note to Count Bismarck, stating that, if the 

 condition (viz., to send dispatches unsealed) was 

 insisted upon, it would be impossible for tho 

 diplomatic representatives of neutral states to 

 keep up official communications with their 

 respective governments. 



Count Bismarck, on the 10th of October, 

 made the following reply : 



VERSAILLES, October 10. 1870. 



SIB : I have had tho honor to receive the letter of 

 the 6th October, by which the members of tho diplo- 

 matic corps who still reside in Paris wished to inform 

 me that it would be impossible for them to entertain 

 official relations with their governments, if the con- 

 dition was to be insisted on that only open dispatches 

 could be addressed to them. .When the refusal cf an 

 armistice by the French Government rendered tho 

 continuation of the siego of Paris inevitable, the 

 Government of tho King, at his own instance, noti- 

 fied the agents of the neutral powers accredited to 

 Berlin, by a circular note of the 26th September, 

 from the Secretary of State, M. Von Thile. that lib- 

 erty of relations with Paris existed only so far as per- 

 mitted by military events. 



The same day I received, at Ferricres, the com- 

 munication of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the 

 Government of the national defence, informing me of 



