Mr. Bancroft to Mr. Fish
Sir: I have received your No. 281 of January 17, and its inclosures. I share your regret that this government should have revoked its declaration exempting private property on the high seas from seizure, but American navigation has very little to apprehend from that revocation, for this government is bound by the principle that free ships make free goods, so that French property on board American ships, unless contraband of war, will remain perfectly safe. As it regards contraband of war, this government is fully aware of the stipulations with regard to it made originally with the full approval of Frederick the Great by John Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, on our part, renewed in 1799, in a treaty signed by John Quincy Adams, and indefinitely continued by the treaty negotiated by Henry Clay. I am, therefore, persuaded that everything will be carefully avoided which could give us ground of complaint. Indeed, it may be a question whether the revocation of the declaration does in any way affect the navigation of the United States, since the declaration neither revoked nor impaired the treaty obligations of the two countries. Meantime Paris has surrendered, and the protocol and convention of surrender, of which I inclose official copies, partake of the character of a political national act. All accounts that are received here tend to confirm the general opinion that this convention, made with the government of the national defense at Paris, will be followed by peace.
Pray give no credence to the conditions of peace reported in English newspapers, under the real or pretended authority of telegrams. They are in many respects purely fictitious. But so far as relates to a cession of territory, I inclose to you a map published by the German post-office department, and which, therefore, may be regarded in some measure as authentic and official. The part of Alsace and Lorraine of which it appears the cession will be required, is marked on the Swiss side with a line of blue, on the French side by a line of blue and red. The cession is one which it will be very hard, if not impossible, for the French to [Page 376] make. The Germans plead that, square mile for square mile, the territory to be ceded is exactly of the same extent as that which France, in 1859, required from Italy, so that, as to square miles, France would be of exactly the same contents as by the treaty of 1815. With regard to Metz, I hear it sometimes said that Luxemburg was the proper defense of Germany on that side against France; that so late as 1867, Germany, rather than engage in a war with France, consented to give up that fortress and retire from Luxemburg, surrendering a German territory, in old times a part of the empire, and since 1815 a part of the German Union, entirely to the King of Holland. I do not suffer myself to express any opinions on these questions, and hardly to form any. My object is simply to keep the Department accurately informed on questions as they arise.
I remain, &c.,