Mr. Fish to Mr. Washhurne
Sir: Your Nos. 350, 353, and 358, severally dated 23d, 30th ultimo, and 4th instant, have been received.
Your letters to Count Bismarck on the subject of the dispatch-bag, and its conveyance to and from Paris, meets title entire approval of the Department. It is dignified, forcible, and just.
It was not unnatural that the powers besieging Paris during their [Page 300] long and terrible efforts should have had their susceptibilities aroused at times, by the various rumors and statements (originated and put in circulation possibly for the very purpose of operating upon those susceptibilities) of information prejudicial to their military operations being conveyed into and from the beleaguered capital.
But it would be very much to be regretted, and would have been very unjust, had even a momentary suspicion found its lodgment in minds capable of achieving the results that have attended the civil and military operations of Germany toward the representative of a friendly state, and that representative being the one who at the request of Germany, and with the consent of his own Government, had charged himself with the arduous and critical duty of the care and protection of the German residents shut in with the millions of Frenchmen in the capital which Germany was endeavoring to reduce by siege, starvation, and bombardment.
The President observes, however, with satisfaction the very just disclaimer of any suspicion of the good faith of our conduct, in the letter of the chancellor of the North German Union to you, under date of 28th January last.
The question of the right of uninterrupted correspondence between a neutral power and its representative, duly accredited and resident in the capital of a belligerent, which, while he is thus resident, becomes the object of attack and siege by another belligerent, is now, happily, no longer one of immediate practical application.
It is satisfactory to notice that although Count Bismarck, in his note addressed to you on 6th December last, speaks of “obtaining for the legation of the United States the privilege of receiving closed dispatches,” in his note of January 28th from Versailles he recognizes the principle asserted by me in a note addressed to Baron Gerolt on 21st November last, (of which a copy was sent to you with my No. 206 of 22d November,) and admits of no “doubt as to the right of your Government to correspond with you.”
The delays and interruptions to that right are, I trust, wholly of the past, and may have been, and it is hoped were, the unavoidable accidents of the then pending military strife. In the absence of any recurrence we are content with the recognition so fully made by Count Bismarck of the right which we claimed.
I inclose herewith for your archives, and in connection with the correspondence on this subject, a copy of a dispatch from Mr. Bancroft of 21st January, with a translation of a letter to him from Count Bismarck of 15th January last, replying to my note of 21st November, (above referred to,) addressed to Baron Gerolt, and of my reply to Mr. Bancroft of this date.
I am, &c.,