Mr. Seward to Mr. Pruyn.
Sir: Your dispatch of the 1st of October, No. 35, has been received and duly considered. Your No. 21, which related to transactions then occurring in the midst of civil war, was made the basis of my instruction No. 14. Since that time the contending Venezuelan government, which was then maintaining itself at Puerto Cabello, in opposition to the newly organized government at Caracas, has passed away, and the civil war seems practically to have come to an end. Happily no consequences injurious either to the Venezuelan government or to the United States have resulted from your proceeding in regard to the French ship of war then at La Guayra, which I had occasion to discuss in that instruction. It is therefore now unnecessary to prolong the correspondence upon the subject of that discussion.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Erastus C. Pruyn, Esq., &c., &c., &c.