Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress
Mr. Washburn to Mr. Seward.
Sir: I have the honor to enclose herewith a copy of a letter received on the 29th ultimo from Admiral Godon, in reply to mine of August 8th, in which he declines to order a vessel from the squadron to take me to Paraguay, assuming that I have not yet complied with my instructions. I also enclose you a copy of my reply to him, in which I tell him I have done all it was possible for me under the circumstances to do; that the Brazilian envoy not having condescended to answer my former letter to him, I cannot, with a proper sense of the respect due to a minister of the United States, write to him again, and that as President Mitre in his last letter to me declared the correspondence closed on his part, saying that for the future it must be carried on, if at all, with his government, I could not with propriety address him again. I had, however, had an interview with Señor Elizalde, the minister for foreign relations, and informed him of the tenor of your despatch No. 43, and sent him a copy of my protest to President Mitre, having thus carried out, as I thought, the spirit of your instructions and the letter, so far as the attitude taken by President Mitre and Minister Octaviano towards me would permit.
The admiral, however, having set himself up as the interpreter of my instructions, when he could know nothing of the circumstances in which I was placed, declines to furnish a war vessel as directed by the Secretary of the Navy, and I am informed by our late minister here, Mr. Kirk, that he had said in his presence he would not take me up under any circumstances. Consequently, I see no way of getting to Paraguay, and I therefore propose returning to the United States by the first convenient opportunity, unless in the meanwhile the admiral shall change his mind and consent to obey instructions, or I shall receive such additional instructions as will render it advisable to remain a while longer.
Nothing has yet been heard here of the new minister, Mr. Asboth; should he arrive after my departure his position will be even less enviable than mine, and he may think it incumbent on himself not to present his credentials till further instructed by you.
Of the consul recently appointed in the place of Mr. Helper, we also hear nothing. The latter is exceedingly anxious to return to the United States, and fears are expressed by the American merchants here that should the impending diplomatic rupture take place before the new consul receives his exequatur, it may lead to serious commercial difficulties. I am extremely loth to be instrumental in doing harm to our commerce, but I have endured the indignities put upon me and my government so long that the place has become intolerable to me.
This sense of wrong has been doubly aggravated by the perverse conduct of our own admiral, who, as my former despatches have shown, has justified and sustained the allies in their discourteous and illegal course towards the government of the United States.
I observe that certain newspapers in the United States have made comments in regard to my position here, evidently with the intention to put me in a false light, and, by assailing me, to vindicate somebody else. It is certainly hard, after the indignities I have received from foreign governments, not from any personal [Page 605] motive, but for simply endeavoring to do my duty as a servant of the United States, to be maligned at home. I hope therefore that it may be consistent with the public interest to publish so much of the correspondence in this case as may show that I have been sustained. My protest to President Mitre and the accompanying letter to the admiral would show, I think, that I have not been neglectful of my duties, or insensible to the national dignity.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
Admiral Godon to Mr. Washburn.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your two letters, dated respectively the 8th and 28th of August—the first in duplicate, enclosing copies of a despatch from the Secretary of State to yourself, and also a copy of a letter from the Secretary of the Navy to me, containing instructions under which, in a certain contingency, I was to send you in a vessel of the squadron to Asuncion.
In anticipation of the contingency therein alluded to, I had given orders in the month of July to Commander Crosby, of the Shamokin, to hold himself in readiness for immediate service up the river Paraguay.
The letter from the Secretary of the Navy leaves me in no doubt how to act in regard to his orders. It informs me that you have been instructed to ask the commander of the allied forces and the President of the Argentine Republic, in a respectful manner, to give you a safe conduct through the military lines, which it is believed will be accorded to you; but in the event of its not being done, you have been further instructed, without unreasonable delay, to apply to me for a passage in a war vessel with sufficient naval escort to your destination.
Clear as these instructions are, they are made even more distinct by the despatch of the Secretary of State to yourself, a copy of which you have been kind enough, under directions from the department, to furnish me. That despatch, after alluding to the “inconvenient” and “not altogether courteous” delay caused you in returning to Asuncion, but without desiring to regard it as an “unfriendly proceeding,” directs that, should the hindrance still continue, you are to address yourself at once to the commander-in-chief of the allied forces, and to the President of the Argentine Republic, informing them that you are proceeding as resident minister for the United States at Asuncion; that you are charged with no duties inconsistent with the neutrality which the United States has maintained in the war in which the allies are engaged with Paraguay, and to ask them in the name of the United States government to give you, together with your family and domestics, safe conduct through the military lines.
After having addressed this letter as directed, the despatch adds, “should the hindrance not cease within a reasonable time,” you will then deliver a copy of these instructions, together with a copy of the accompanying letter of instructions from the Secretary of the Navy to me, and will proceed in such vessel as I shall furnish to the place of your destination.
You will perceive, sir, from the preceding synopsis of your and my instructions, that the contingency alluded to has not arrived; and that I would not be carrying out the spirit of the orders of my superior, or the evident intention of those from your chief, by immediately sending you to your destination in a vessel of war, as you request.
The Secretary of State evidently desired to show the Argentine government that the obstructions interposed by the commander-in-chief of the allies to your passage through the military lines to your legitimate duties was regarded as an act “not courteous,” and one which was causing an agent of the United States inconvenience. That, as there was no good reason for such a course, they were requested not only to discontinue it, but to aid you with a safe conduct through the military lines.
Therefore, until you receive from the authorities named a refusal to comply with that request within a reasonable time, my orders will not justify me in construing the hindrance to your movements as a proceeding sufficiently “unfriendly” to require me to send you with an armed escort through the blockading squadron.
From the character of the despatch of the Secretary of State, it is clear to my mind that no violent measures are either desired or anticipated, and the Secretary of the Navy distinctly informs me, as you will notice in his letter, that from the general tenor of your last communication, it was probable that the allies would desist from any further opposition to your progress.
[Page 606]It is therefore with regret I find that your letter, which I have been expecting, does not state that you have addressed the commander in-chief of the allied forces or the President of the Argentine Republic, for the purpose of obtaining the desired safe conduct, or that you have allowed a “reasonable time for the hindrance to cease,” before making the application for a vessel and suitable naval escort to take you to your destination.
I have not been unmindful of the inconvenience and seeming discourtesy of the allies in keeping a minister of the United States from passing through the military lines to his post, and have communicated with our acting chargé d’affaires to this government in regard to it, from whom I learned that the obstructions would be removed. I feel satisfied that the same information will be given to you when you address the president of the Argentine government, as directed by the Secretary of State.
The truly friendly relations that exist between the allies now at war against Paraguay and our own government, disposed me still more to refrain from committing any act which would seem like arrogance in a great and powerful nation like the United States, towards governments too weak to resist it, although they might in their very weakness venture to commit indiscretions, as in the present instance.
Should a refusal of safe conduct follow your letter to the Argentine government and commander-in-chief of the allies, I will then consider under my instructions that they have committed an unfriendly act, and that the occasion has arrived for the dignity of the United States to be sustained by furnishing you with a vessel and suitable naval escort to carry you through the blockading squadron to your station.
Even should a safeguard be offered you for your passage through the lines, as is fully anticipated, I will, under all the circumstances of delay, still find it advisable, if you desire it, to furnish you with a vessel to carry you in a friendly manner, but with national dignity, to the government to which you are accredited. I shall await and hope to receive an early communication from you.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hon. C. A. Washburn, Minister Resident for the United States at Asuncion.
Mr. Washburn to Admiral Godon.
Sir: Your letter bearing date September 16 was received by me on the 29th ultimo. From this letter it appears that you decline at present to send a vessel of the squadron to take me to Paraguay, assuming that I have not yet obeyed my instructions, and that I have yet something more to do before you will feel it your duty to comply with the instructions of the Secretary of the Navy, and order a war vessel to take me to my post. In my letter to you of August 8, I informed you that the contingency contemplated by the instructions both to you and to me had arrived, as I had done the very thing but a few days before my instructions reached me which I was ordered to do by the Secretary of State; and there was no reason why I should do the same over again. In fact, I could not do it, for the reason that President Mitre, in reply to my last letter to him, said that for his part the correspondence must close. Had you known all the facts of the case, I would fain believe you would not have hesitated a single moment in sending the orders for one of the war steamers now lying in this river to proceed at once to Paraguay; and that you may now be fully informed of the repeated indignities to which I have been subjected during my long detention within the military lines of the allies, I now write you more at length, though not with a view to influence your action. I considered that I was the proper judge and interpreter of my own instructions, as you were of yours, and that when I sent you my last letter my duties had been fulfilled, and if you had conformed to your instructions, and not constituted yourself the interpreter of mine, there would have been no occasion for question or argument.
When I met you in Rio de Janeiro, now about a year ago, it was then known that all communication by merchant vessels between Paraguay and the outer world had been destroyed, and I then expressed to you my fears that without the aid of a war vessel I should be unable to reach Asuncion, You then said that you were shortly after coming to the river Plate, and if that should prove to be the position of affairs you would send me up on a war vessel. To use your own words, at the house of and in the presence and hearing of our common friend, Major Ellison: “In that case we must send you up in one of the government vessels.” With this understanding I left Rio and came to this place. Soon after my arrival I called on the Brazilian special envoy, Senor Octaviano, and was profusely thanked by him for the services I had rendered the Brazilian government in extricating its minister to Paraguay and his family from that country a year before, after the war had commenced and his diplomatic relations with that government had ceased. He also said that a Brazilian vessel would be at my disposition to take me to Paraguay if I would accept it. I declined [Page 607] the offer, saying that as our squadron would be here in a few days it would be much better for me to go on an American vessel, as, if I went as the guest of the Brazilians, it might excite the suspicions of President Lopez, and I should lose any influence for good that I might otherwise have. He acknowledged that my reasons were just and valid, but he subsequently repeated his offer, which, for the same reasons, was again declined.
It was not till near the middle of January, and after your arrival at this place, that you positively refused to send a gunboat to take me up the river. While you were lying at Montevideo I twice went down there solely to urge upon you the necessity of sending a war vessel; for I felt the position I was in here was not only unpleasant and undignified, but that my detention was not calculated to do credit or cause respect to our government. At that time you will recollect that the rivers were high and the navigation safe and easy, and it is believed that there were none of the obstacles, such as torpedoes and sunken vessels, that have since been placed in the channel by the Paraguayans, and the trip could then have been quickly and safely made at a trifling expense to the government. On bearing your final determination, and finding that to reach my post I must avail myself of any means that offered, I addressed a note to Senor Octaviano, saying that you had concluded not to send a vessel up the river, and intimating that I would accept his offer of a passage to Paraguay in a Brazilian steamer.
It seems, however, that the minister, on hearing of your determination, changed his mind, for instead of furnishing the vessel as promised he never condescended to answer my letter. Hence you will observe I was utterly precluded from writing him again, and after waiting here some ten days longer I left my family here and started up the river, intending to go through to Paraguay if it were possible. I disembarked at Corrientes, and went from there to President Mitre’s camp to ask for such facilities and escort over the lines as my position entitled me to. Before granting it President Mitre said he wished to consult his government, but gave it as his opinion that I had a perfect right to pass through, and said he had no doubt his government would take the same view of the matter. I then said if he must refer the matter to his government, as it was probable I should have no trouble in passing through to Paraguay, I could go back to Buenos Ayres and return with my family by the time he would get his answer. I accordingly returned, first having written an account of my interview with President Mitre to the Secretary of State, and of his detaining me until he could consult his government. It was on the representations made in this despatch that the instruction of Mr. Seward, No. 43, of which I sent you a copy with my letter of August 8, was based. It was clear from the tone of that instruction that the Secretary of State regarded my detention, even while President Mitre should consult his government, as discourteous and illegal. But evidently it was hardly thought possible that the allies would persist in their unlawful and insulting course. On returning to Buenos Ayres I called on the minister for foreign affairs, Senor Elizalde, and he told me that he had received a letter from President Mitre giving an account of our interview, and that he agreed with the president that it was their duty to grant me every facility for passing through to my destination, and he would give me an open letter to President Mitre requesting him to furnish me everything that he, in behalf of the government, had promised me. With this letter I returned to the front, which was then on the left bank of the Parana, and on presenting it to President Mitre he refused to respect it! He said circumstances had changed, and he must again consult his government. Admiral Tamandare, with whom I also had an interview, told me that I could not go through; that he should take the responsibility of stopping me; that he had told you when in Buenos Ayres that as the war vessels of other neutral nations had been permitted to pass through the blockading squadron, he should make no objection to an American gunboat doing the same as long as only a blockade of the river was maintained, but that when active operations should commence no vessel or person would be permitted to pass the fleet, or to cross the military lines. I was greatly surprised at this statement of the admiral, as I had understood from you that when you met him here he even then objected to the passage of any neutral war vessel above the squadron. My despatch to the State Department, giving an account of this interview with Admiral Tamandare, and of his positive refusal to allow me to pass up the river, and of the repudiation by President Mitre of the promise made to me by his government, was not received till after the instructions before mentioned had been issued by the department. On the receipt of that, however, still stronger instructions were sent not only to me but to our minister at Rio, Mr. Webb, and our minister, who it was supposed would be here before this time, Mr. Asboth. Peremptory orders were given to the two latter that if my detention was continued, and if within six or eight days satisfactory explanations were not given, then they were “to ask their passports to return to the United States.” My instructions, also, were to return to the United States if the hindrance alluded to had not ceased through some proceeding on the part of the allied powers. No proceeding to cause such hindrance to cease has yet been made by the allies, and from the fact that Mr. Asboth has not yet arrived, whose action, with that of Mr. Webb, was to have been concurrent with my own, I am yet obliged to remain here to await still further instructions, unless, in the meanwhile, you shall furnish me a vessel of war and it shall be allowed to pass up to Paraguay.
Subsequent to my interview with President Mitre, before alluded to, when he refused to fulfil the pledge of his government and told me he must again consult it, I wrote him several [Page 608] letters asking for a final answer. But I was always put off with the excuse that more time was wanted, till at last, on the 21st of July, I sent him a protest against the course that had been pursued towards me. From that protest I make the following extracts:
“It is now nearly six months since I first called on your excellency and made known my desire to pass over to the country to which I was accredited by my government. The opinion you then expressed was that I was entitled to pass through without interruption to my destination, but that you preferred to get the opinion of your government on the question before taking any action upon it. I accordingly waited till such opinion was obtained, and then, as it corresponded with that expressed by your excellency, I did not suppose I would have any more trouble or difficulty in reaching the capital of Paraguay. But month after month has passed since I had the honor of delivering personally into your hands the letter of Senor Elizalde, in which he, as minister for foreign relations, requested your excellency to furnish me such facilities of passing through to Paraguay as he had promised me. Your reply then was that circumstances had so far changed since my former interview that it would be again necessary to consult your government. Since then I have repeatedly, personally and by letter, requested your final answer, and each time I have been told that within a very few days I should have it; so there has not been a day for the past four months when I might not reasonably have expected such a decision from your excellency as would have left me at liberty to go to Paraguay, or, if the decision were unfavorable, would have justified me in returning to Buenos Ayres or Montevideo to await the instructions of my government. But this decision I have not yet received, and have, as it were, been compelled to remain with my family at Corrientes, which place has all the while been a city of hospitals, full of sick and wounded, and every way unhealthy, disagreeable, and very expensive.”
* * * * * *
“It is with extreme regret that I find myself compelled to speak, after so long a delay, of my detention in this place, and to enter, as I now most earnestly do, my protest against it. I protest against the detention as a violation of the laws of nations and of all diplomatic usages and courtesies. I protest against the detention as unnecessary and unlawful in itself, and I protest against the manner in which it has been effected. If it was your purpose to thwart the wishes of my government and prevent me from doing what it had ordered me to do, I certainly had a right to know it long before this. I protest against the repeated intimations and assurances I have from time to time received, that within a very few days a final answer should be given me, when now nearly six months has passed and such answer has not yet been received.”
This protest drew forth a prompt and a lengthy reply from President Mitre, dated on the 24th of July, in which he defends his course towards me, and gives various reasons for it. After speaking of the interview which you held with Admiral Tamandare, in which the latter said there would be no difficulty in the way of my going to Paraguay so long as affairs were as they then were, but that after the allies had established their military lines it was a right recognized by all nations that they could never be crossed by neutrals, whatever might be their character, except by express concession, the president adds: “Este principio firí reconocide sin restriccion alguna por el Señor Admirante de las Estados Unidos declarando que estamos en nuestro perfecto derecho al no dejar atraresar á ningun neutral neustros lineas de guerra una vez establicidas.”
In another place, in justification of the course of the allies towards, me, he says: “Ellos no han tenide en vista sino el ejercicio de uno derecho perfecto, derecho explicitamente re-conscido par el Alumante de las Estados Unidos antes de que V. E. emprendiese en viage.”
He afterwards adds that he can have nothing more to do with the matter, but will leave it to his government and its allies, shutting the door in my face with this expressive sentence: “Dejando asi terminada esta correspondencia por me parte pues contraido como hallo á una guerra actira y de combates diarios, y sin ejercir mas feruciones que las militares no me es possible in me es permitido entrar en contestations diplomaticas.”
This answer from President Mitre was received on the very day that my first instructions from the Secretary of State on the same question came to hand; and the combination of authorities arrayed against me and the position I had assumed, representing as it did three distinct governments, backed up as it was by the approval of the acting admiral of our own squadron on this coast, was certainly enough to abash a man less confident than I was of the position assumed or less sensitive to an insult to his government and country. Fortunately, however, the letter from my superior came to hand at this trying crisis, and I found I was not only sustained, but that our government regarded the conduct of the allies as “disrespectful in itself and entirely inconsistent with the laws of nations.” Under the circumstances then existing I could not again apply to President Mitre, for, in the first place, it was unnecessary, as I had anticipated my instructions and had just done all that the Secretary of State had directed me to do, and the president had replied, declaring the correspondence closed on his part. I could not address him again without exposing myself to a rebuff, nor could I apply to the Brazilian minister, Octaviano, for he had not had the courtesy to answer the first and only letter I ever addressed to him. There was but one course open to me, and that was to apply to the admiral of the squadron, as I had been ordered to do by the Secretary of State, for a vessel to take me up the river. This I have done, and you refuse to comply with my request until I do certain acts that I consider it would be derogatory to my [Page 609] government that I should do. To do what you require, I must again apply to President Mitre; and, judging of the future by the past, it would be six months before I could get an answer, and then it would probably be, like the last, a refusal to consider the question submitted to him. It took him that length of time before to come even to that conclusion; and, as it is just as far from Buenos Ayres to Paraguay as it is from Paraguay to Buenos Ayres, it would probably take him full as long to come to a similar result a second time. And I am not prepared to wait here six months to please the allies; my place is in Paraguay. And I prefer to trust to my own government to vindicate the rights of its ministers rather than trust to another correspondence with those already proved false and faithless.
I will add that after President Mitre had closed his correspondence with me, and referred all further discussion in regard to my detention to his government and its allies, I had, on my return to this city, an interview with Señor Elizalde, the minister for foreign affairs, and verbally represented to him the view taken of the matter by our government; and I afterwards sent him a copy of my protest to President Mitre, accompanied by a brief note saying that such protest was reasserted and reiterated. Señor Elizalde, in acknowledging the receipt of the note and the protest, said he would submit them to the allies of his government; since when I have received nothing, official or otherwise, from any of the allied authorities, so that you will see I have literally complied with the instructions of the Secretary of State in the despatch before mentioned, as far as it was possible for me to do so. I did not mention this circumstance to you in my letter of August 8, or that of the 28th, for I had never been instructed to report to you the details of what I had done, or that you were to pass judgment on or approve my action before obeying the express orders of the government.
Before receiving your letter, I had already advised our government of all that had transpired. In a despatch dated September 12, 1866, I said that I was precluded from addressing another letter to the Brazilian minister, as the first and only note I had ever written him had never been answered, and that “I did not care for nor would accept another letter from this government to President Mitre, requesting him to send me through, for I had had one such already, and he did not respect it.” I shall not recede from that position unless specially instructed so to do by the Secretary of State.
At the conclusion of your letter you are kind enough to say that, should a safeguard be offered me for my passage through the lines, you will, under all the circumstances of delay, still find it advisable, if I “desire it,” to furnish me with a vessel to take me with “national dignity” to my destination. I had previously supposed that I had already made known my desire on this matter, for I thought I had made the request for such vessel often enough to leave you in no doubt on the matter. But, as I have been so unfortunate in making my wishes known to you that you seem still to be in doubt as to what they are, I will now distinctly say that, under any and every contingency, with or without a safeguard, and with or without the consent of the powers allied against Paraguay, after the long and undignified detention which the allies have caused me, and the consequent notoriety occasioned by their unlawful and unprecedented course towards me, the “national dignity” requires that I should go to Paraguay in a United States national vessel. I therefore say again that I do desire such vessel.
I will also say that I fully concur with the views of Mr. Seward, as expressed in his instructions to Mr. Webb and Mr. Asboth, that “the sovereignty and honor of the United States will admit of no hesitation or delay,” and that, if a vessel is not promptly furnished, I shall have no discretion but to close all discussion on the question, as far as you and I are concerned; after which our government will, of course, take such measures as may be necessary to vindicate those rights that have been so contemptuously disregarded by the allied authorities.
I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
Rear-Admiral S. W. Godon, &c., &c., &c.