Mr. Bancroft to Mr. Fish
Sir: The capitulation of Paris will, it is here universally believed, lead to the establishment of peace. The terms will include Metz. Germany is determined to rely for its security against future aggression from France on a safe military line of defense. If it obtains the boundary which it requires, peace between the two peoples can hardly be broken for a century. The minister from Switzerland tells me to-day [Page 374] that eighty thousand of the troops of Bourbaki have escaped from before the Germans into the neutral territory of Switzerland. This is the fourth French army that has been brought to ruin since the capture of the late Emperor at Sedan, and military power, and with it military influence, are now so completely crushed in France that the constituent assembly which is to be convened at Bordeaux will, in proceeding to form a new constitution, be entirely free from the control or influence of the army.
In that convention I cannot but hope that the late anti-republican usurpation will receive its proper rebuke, and that the more reasonable and better instructed statesmen of France may assist to found a republic on principles analogous to our own.
With regard to Germany, present appearances indicate that, after the close of this war, it will devote itself exclusively to the employments of peace. Compared with the great objects of this war, which involved the question of national existence, all conceivable causes for a future war will appear trivial and indifferent. This war has carried sorrow into almost every family, alike into the houses of that class from which the officers are chiefly taken, and those of the poor. Two hundred of the students of Konigsberg University are serving for the most part in the ranks, and the other universities have contributed to the army in the same proportion, so that for the future no motive to war that is likely to occur can seem worthy of a repetition of equal sacrifices.
Indeed, people of every degree long for peace, and long for its continuance. I am, therefore, of the opinion that Germany in the coming years will devote its immense energies to the improvement of its laws, the establishment of its liberties, and the development of its great resources.
The relations between our own country and the new empire are happily those of reciprocal good will and amity. The heart of the German people at the beginning of the war turned with affectionate confidence toward America. This warmth of feeling was somewhat chilled by the exportations of the munitions of war from America to France, but the minister here has been just to our government, knowing well the condition of our laws and our treaty stipulations with Prussia in regard to traffic in contraband articles of war, established on our part by Franklin, John Adams, and Jefferson, in the days of Frederick the Great, and renewed by John Quincy Adams, and again by Henry Clay, during the reign of the father of the present King, and continued in force to the present day.
I remain, &c.,