throughout a large part of the world, could probably never have happened if Mexico had always been able to maintain with firmness real and unquestioned sovereignty and independence. But if Mexico has heretofore been more unfortunate in these respects than many other modern nations, there are still circumstances in her case which justify a hope that her sad experience may be now coming to an end. Mexico really has, or ought to have, no enemies. The world is deeply interested in the development of her agricultural, and especially her mineral and commercial resources, while it holds in high respect the simple virtues and heroism of her people, and, above all, their inextinguishable love of civil liberty. "The President, therefore, will use all proper influence to favor the restoration of order and authority in Mexico, and, so far as it may be in his power, he will prevent incursion and every other form of aggression by citizens of the United States against Mexico. But he enjoins you to employ your best efforts in convincing the Government of Mexico and even the people, if, with its approval, you can reach them, that the surest guarantee of their safety against such aggressions is to be found in a permanent restoration of the authority of that Government. If, on the other hand, it shall appear in the sequel that the Mexican people are now only resting a brief season to recover their wasted energies sufficiently to lacerate themselves with new domestic conflicts, then it is to be feared that not only the Government of the United States but many other Governments will find it impossible to prevent a resort to that magnificent country of a class of persons, unhappily too numerous everywhere, who are accustomed to suppose that visionary schemes of public interest, aggrandizement, or reform will justify even lawless invasion and aggression. "In connection with this point it is proper that you should be informed that the Mexican Government has, through its representative here, recently complained of an apprehended attempt at invasion of the State of Sonora by citizens of California, acting, as is alleged, with the knowledge and consent of some of the public authorities in that State. You will assure the Mexican Government that due care being first taken to verify the facts thus presented, effective means shall be adopted to put our neutrality laws into activity. "The same representative has also expressed to the President an apprehension that the removal of the Federal troops from the Texan border may be followed by outbreaks and violence there. There is, perhaps, too much ground for this apprehension. Moreover, it is impossible to foresee the course of the attempts which are taking place in that region to subvert the proper authority of this Government. The President, however, meantime directs you to assure the Mexican Government that due attention shall be bestowed on the condition of the frontier, with a view to the preservation and safety of the peaceable inhabitants resid ing there. He hopes and trusts that equal attention will be given to this important subject by the authorities of Mexico. "These matters, grave and urgent as they are, must not altogether withdraw our attention from others to which I have already incidentally alluded, but which require more explicit discussion. "For a few years past, the condition of Mexico has been so unsettled as to raise the question on both sides of the Atlantic whether the time has not come when some foreign power ought, in the general interest of society, to intervene to establish a protectorate or some other form of Government in that country and guarantee its continuance there. Such schemes may even now be held under consideration by some European nations, and there is also some reason to believe that designs have been conceived in some parts of the United States to effect either a partial dismemberment or a complete overthrow of the Mexican Government, with a view to extend over it the authority of the newly projected confederacy, which a discontented part of our people are attempting to establish in the southern part of our own country. You may possibly meet agents of this projected confederacy, busy in preparing some further revolution in Mexico. You will not fail to assure the Government of Mexico that the President neither has, nor can ever have, any sympathy with such designs, in whatever quarter they may arise or whatever character they may take on. "In view of the prevailing temper and political habits and opinions of the Mexican people, the President can scarcely believe that the disaffected citizens of our own country, who are now attempting a dismemberment of the American Union, will hope to induce Mexico to aid them by recognizing the assumed independence which they have proclaimed, because it seems manifest to him that such an organization of a distinct Government over that part of the present Union which adjoins Mexico would, if possible, be fraught with evils to that country more intolerable than any which the success of those desperate measures could inflict even upon the United States. At the same time it is manifest that the existing political organization in this country affords the surest guaranty Mexico can have that her integrity, union, and independence will be respected by the whole people of the American Union. "The President, however, expects that you will be watchful of such designs as I have thus described, however improbable they may seem, and that you will use the most effective measures in your power to counteract any recognition of the projected Confederate States by the Mexican Government, if it shall be solicited. "Your large acquaintance with the character of the Mexican people, their interests, and their policy will suggest many proper arguments against such a measure, if any are needful beyond the intimations I have already given. "In conclusion, the President, as you are well aware, is of opinion that, alienated from the United States as the Spanish-American Re publics have been for some time past-largely, perhaps, by reason of errors and prejudices peculiar to themselves, and yet not altogether without fault on our own part-that those states and the United States nevertheless, in some respects, hold a common attitude and relation towards all other nations; that it is the interest of them all to be friends as they are neighbors, and to mutually maintain and support each other so far as may be consistent with the individual sovereignty which each of them rightly enjoys, equally against all disintegrating agencies within and all foreign influences or power without their borders. "The President never for a moment doubts that the republican system is to pass safely through all ordeals and prove a permanent success in our own country, and so to be commended to adoption by all other nations. But he thinks also that that system everywhere has to make its way painfully through difficulties and embarrassments, which result from the action of antagonistical elements which are a legacy of former times and very different institutions. The President is hopeful of the ultimate triumph of this system over all obstacles, as well in regard to Mexico as in regard to every other American state; but he feels that those states are nevertheless justly entitled to a greater forbearance and more generous sympathies from the Government and people of the United States than they are likely to receive in any other quarter. "The President trusts that your mission, manifesting these sentiments, will reassure the Government of Mexico of his best disposition to favor their commerce and their internal improvements. He hopes, indeed, that your mission, assuming a spirit more elevated than one of merely commerce and conventional amity, a spirit disinterested and unambitious, earnestly American in the continental sense of the word, and fraternal in no affected or mere diplomatic meaning of the term, while it shall secure the confidence and good will of the Government of Mexico, will mark the inauguration of a new condition of things directly conducive to the prosperity and happiness of both nations, and ultimately auspicious to all other republican states throughout the world." Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Corwin, Ap. 6, 1861; MSS. Inst., Mex.; The refusal of the United States to take part in the movement of France, Spain, and Great Britain to compel Mexico to the payment of her debts to these nations is noticed in 2 Lawrence's Com. sur droit int., 339, 340. See further, 5 Calhoun's Works, 379. The British and Foreign State Papers for 1861-22, vol. 52, give the correspondence between Great Britain, France, Spain, and the United States respecting the affairs of Mexico, the non-settlement of claims of British creditors and others, the murder of the British vice-consul at Tasco, the Spanish occupation of Vera Cruz, the suspension of diplo matic relations, and the combined operations of Great Britain, France, and Spain against Mexico. The claims so pressed may be thus classified: 1. British. On November 16, 1860, the house of the British legation was broken into and £152,000 sterling bonds, belonging to British subjects, were carried off. (See Fraser's Mag, Dec., 1861, where it is said that this attack was a sort of "reprisal" for the action of British naval officers, who had evaded the Mexican tariff on the exportation of silver by carrying off silver in British cruisers.) Damages were also claimed for the murder of a British subject on April 3, 1859. There was also a claim for bonded debts secured by a prior diplomatic arrangement with Mexico. 2. French. During Miramon's revolutionary administration an issue of bonds for $15,000,000 was made through the agency of Jecker, a Swiss banker, the amount to be raised by this process being $750,000. These bonds fell into the hands of Jecker's French creditors. A claim was made also for $12,000,000 for torts on French subjects. 3. Spanish. By the Miramon revolutionary government certain prior Spanish claims of various types were recognized. These, however, were repudiated by the Juarez government. Another grievance was the abrupt dismissal of the Spanish minister by the latter government. (See Tucker's Monroe Doct., 93.) As will be hereafter seen, Great Britain and Spain withdrew from the alliance before the hostile occupa tion of Mexican soil by France. Infra, § 318. As to the character of the claims in these cases, see infra, § 232. As to negotiations with Spain in reference to the alliance with France and "The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a note which was addressed to him on the 30th day of November last, by Mr. Gabriel G. y Tassara, minister plenipotentiary of Her Majesty the Queen of Spain; Mr. Henri Mercier, minister plenipotentiary of His Majesty the Emperor of the French; and the Lord Lyons, minister plenipotentiary of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. "With that paper, the aforesaid ministers have submitted the text of a convention which was concluded at London on the 31st of October last, between the sovereigns before named, with a view of obtaining, through a common action, the redress of their grievances against the Republic of Mexico. "In the preamble the high contracting parties say that they have been placed by the arbitrary and vexatious conduct of the authorities of the Republic of Mexico under a necessity for exacting from those authorities a more effective protection for the persons and properties of their subjects, as well as the execution of obligations contracted with them by the Republic of Mexico, and have agreed to conclude a convention between themselves for the purpose of combining their common action in the case. "In the first article the high contracting parties bind themselves to make, immediately after the signing of the convention, the neces sary arrangements to send to the shores of Mexico land and sea forces combined, the effective number of which shall be determined in a further exchange of communications between their Governments, but the total of which must be sufficient to enable them to seize and occupy the various fortresses and military positions of the Mexican sea-coasts; also that the commanders of the allied forces shall be authorized to accomplish such other operations as may, on the spot, be deemed most suitable for realizing the end specified in the preamble, and especially for insuring the safety of foreign residents; and that all the measures which are thus to be carried into effect shall be taken in the name and on account of the high contracting parties without distinction of the particular nationality of the forces employed in executing them. "In the second article the high contracting parties bind themselves not to seek for themselves, in the employment of the coercive measures foreseen by the present convention, any acquisition of territory, or any peculiar advantage, and not to exercise in the subsequent affairs of Mexico any influence of a character to impair the right of the Mexican nation to choose and freely to constitute the form of its own government. "In the third article the high contracting parties agree that a commission composed of three commissioners, one appointed by each of the contracting powers, should be established, with full power to determine all questions which may arise for the employment and distribution of the sums of money which shall be recovered from Mexico, having regard to the respective rights of the contracting parties. "In the fourth article the high contracting parties, expressing their desire that the measures which it is their intention to adopt may not have an exclusive character, and recognizing the fact that the Government of the United States, like themselves, has claims of its own to enforce against the Mexican Republic, agree that, immediately after the signing of the present convention, a copy of it shall be communicated to the Government of the United States, and that this Government shall be invited to accede to it, and that in anticipation of such accession, their respective ministers at Washington shall be furnished with full powers to conclude and sign, collectively or severally, with a plenipotentiary of the United States, to be designated by the President, such an instrument. "But as the high contracting powers would expose themselves, in making any delay in carrying into effect articles one and two of the convention, to failure in the end which they wish to attain, they have agreed not to defer, with a view to obtaining the accession of the United States, the commencement of the stipulated operations beyond the period at which their combined forces may be united in the vicinity of Vera Cruz. "The plenipotentiaries, in their note to the undersigned, invite the United States to accede to the convention. The undersigned, having |