As I have been advised of no negotiations modifying my instructions No.
43 and No. 287, and as the Marquis de Moustier’s predecessor had never
suggested the suspension of this claim upon any such pretext, I gave his
excellency yesterday to understand that I presumed my government would
have advised me of any negotiations pending at Washington or elsewhere,
if it intended that they should in any way modify my conduct here; that
I had received no intimation of the kind from Washington, though I could
readily see many advantages in [Page 361]
referring claims of this class to a commission with powers; and that for
the present I should content myself with referring his communication to
my government for further instructions.
His excellency then remarked that he was also awaiting additional
information from the minister of marine.
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Drouyu de Lhuys
Legation of the United
States, Paris
,
April 11,
1866.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of the note verbale which your excellency addressed to this
legation on the 26th of March, 1865, in relation to a hundred
barrels of blasting powder, seized on board the American schooner
William L. Richardson, in the gulf of California, by one of the
vessels of the French naval division on the Pacific.
Your excellency informs me that an application, made through my
immediate predecessor by some California merchant, to ship blasting
powder monthly to certain Mexican ports for use in the mines of
Mexico, has been refused on the ground that powder delivered at any
point where actual war prevailed must be regarded as contraband of
war, and that the government of the Emperor already had knowledge of
operations of that character which had worked to the advantage of
its enemies.
Your excellency further states that the case of the schooner
Richardson falls within the foregoing rule, from which your
excellency represents that there was the less occasion to depart, as
the French authorities were in possession of reliable information
that the powder with which she was laden was destined to the use of
guerillas whom Señor Vega was trying to organize in the States of
Sonora and Sinaloa.
Though my government entertained no doubt that the destination of the
schooner Richardson was correctly represented in the statement of
Captain Goodwin, which I had the honor to transmit to your
excellency on the 9th of March, 1865, and that the cargo of powder
was designed exclusively for mining purposes, the doubts which you
express in regard to the correctness of the representation led me to
refer the case back to Washington, whence I have received some
additional proof, which I now have the honor to submit to you in the
annexed enclosures, marked, respectively, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and to
which I invite your attention. I do not know what authority your
excellency may have for stating that the cargo of powder on board
the William L. Richardson was shipped for La Paz; but whatever it
may be, the testimony which I have now the honor to submit, and that
which I have submitted on a previous occasion, constrains me to
think that your excellency has been misled. The manifest of the
schooner, the sworn statement of Captain Goodwin, the formal
declarations of the director and engineer of the Arizona Mining
Company, the letter of the United States consul at La Paz, and,
finally, the written admission of the French officer who made the
seizure, all concur to show that the powder in question was shipped
to Arizona, and not for La Paz, or any other Mexican port.
Had there been any question at La Paz about the destination of the
powder at the time of its seizure, Captain de la Canrè would hardly
have given Captain Goodwin a certificate, in which he speaks in so
many words of his seizure “of the one hundred kegs of powder,
shipped in San Francisco on the schooner William L. Richardson, to
be delivered to Paul Helder at Fort Yanca, Colorado river,”
&c.
These documents seem to prove by the highest order of testimony—
1. That the schooner William L. Richardson was an American vessel,
bound from one American port to another.
2. That the powder seized was of a kind known as blasting powder, and
was designed to be used for industrial purposes at Tubac, in
Arizona, and within the territory of the United States.
My government is in possession of no evidence which tends to impeach
the testimony of any of the witnesses to whose statements I have
referred, or to invalidate the conclusions to which it has conducted
me. I venture to believe that it will prove upon perusal equally
satisfactory and conclusive to your excellency.
Assuming, as I feel authorized to do, that the powder on board of the
Richardson was bound from one American port to another, it can make
no difference, so far as the owner’s right to indemnity is
concerned, whether it was contraband of war or not. The United
States, while recognizing the right of France to prevent contraband
of war from reaching Mexican territory, will not be expected to
allow any exercise of that right to interfere with perfect freedom
of trade between her ports. The most rapid and inexpensive, and in
fact the only [Page 362] available
mode of shipping merchandise from the United States to the Arizona
Mining Company, is by the route taken by Captain Goodwin through the
gulf of California and the Colorado river. The freedom of the
navigation of that gulf and river are guaranteed to us by a solemn
treaty still in unimpaired vigor, and if any of the exigencies of
war should lead to an unlawful seizure in these waters of American
merchandise, I am aware of no principle of equity or law by virtue
of which full indemnity for the damage sustained by the owner of the
property can be refused.
The length of time which has elapsed since this seizure was made
authorizes me to express the hope that this case will receive your
excellency’s early attention.
I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to your excellency the
assurances of high consideration with which I have the honor to be
your excellency’s very humble and very obedient servant,
His Excellency Monsieur Drouyn de
Lhuys, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Paris.
