No. 161.

Mr. Bancroft to Mr. Fish

No. 188.]

Sir: I have not failed to continue the inquiries made proper by your telegram of January 16, respecting the interruptions to the communication of Mr. Washburne with his Government. I receive the most unequivocal assertions here at each of the departments of the ministry of the willingness and desire for the prompt transmission of Mr. Washburne’s [Page 375] pouch from London to Paris. I observed in the columns of a late French newspaper, published in Paris, the assertion as of a well-known fact, that Mr. Washburne received his dispatches, letters, and newspapers, &c., once a week. My own letters to him appear to have reached him regularly except on one single occasion. The note of Count Bismarck, of January 15, which I lately forwarded to you, states unequivocally that Mr. Washburne’s intercourse with the Government is free and uninterrupted. I have heard of no delay but on one occasion; but the unvarying declarations of this government from all its departments preclude the idea that the delay was intentional on their part. The government here has been kept fully informed of the manner in which Mr. Washburne has discharged his duties as protector of the Germans, and has uniformly expressed to me its warm and grateful sense of his assiduousness and fidelity.

I remain, &c.,

GEO. BANCROFT.