much prudence and discretion in weighing the language which they use within this hall while yielding to the dictates of their convictions, the sincerity of which I have no disposition whatever to call in question.

If they could know, as the government knows, the detestable abuse that is made of their words, of their criticisms, of their charges against the government, within that empire of Mexico and in the midst of those very rebels whom we have to fight, I am deeply convinced that their voices would not be so loud on this question, and that they would regret the language which they have already used.

Numerous voices: Good! good!

THE MINISTER OF STATE. You would not believe the strange communications that reach the government in this regard. I have here the description of a banquet held in the United States by the friends of Juarez. Do you wish me to read to you the list of toasts that were offered? [Yes, yes! read them! read them!]

"The Mexicans of the party of Juarez, residing in New York, celebrated the other evening the anniversary of the independence of Mexico, by a grand banquet at Delmonico's. Among those present were remarked Messrs. Romero, Doblado, Juan Baz, Colombiez, Alatorre, and other personages more or less distinguished for various reasons. After the banquet, M. Romero gave the signal for the speeches, which, as usual, abounded in big words and high-sounding phrases. They drank" to the death of Maximilian, tyrant of Mexico; to the death of the Pope, tyrant of consciences; to the death of Napoleon III, tyrant of the whole world."

That is not all. They drank the health of the French deputies who oppose the tyranny of the Emperor! [Cries of indignation.]

Such are the sad abuses which wicked and fiery passions make of criticisms and oppositions even the most conscientious-such, I feel convinced, as these are. But this is not yet all. Our soldiers, in the long and difficult marches to which their duty condemns them, often find documents traitorously scattered among them! Do you know their purport? Juarez, to the soldiers of France." I ask your pardon; do not hasten to cry out with indignation, 'Juarez and his friend Jules Favre." Several voices: That is true!

M. ROUHER, minister of state.

66

To the French soldiers, proposing to them to desert the flag of that tyrant called Napoleon III! [Manifestations of indignation.]

What matter our previous differences of opinion? What matters it that you have approved or disapproved the Mexican expedition? Let such discussions be henceforward discarded.

Our flag row floats over far distant shores. Let us then have the same sentiments of patriotism; let us all desire the triumph of that cause which we have promoted in those regions! Let us hasten by the unanimity of our wishes: let us hasten the moment when the French troops, not humbled-that they cannot be-but triumphant, and having completed their work, shall return amid the applauses of all France, to receive the crowns which their courage will have merited. [Good! good! bravo! bravo! Prolonged and redoubled applause.] M. JULES FAVRE. Mr. President, I rise to a personal explanation. The President, M. SCHNEIDER. I cannot very well see what can constitute the occasion for a personal explanation.

Several voices: Let him speak.

THE PRESIDENT, M. SCHNEider.

I decide, then, that M. Jules Favre asks the floor for a personal explanation and not for a speech. If there be question of a speech, M. Emile Ollivier is entitled.

M. EMILE OLLIVIER. Oh, Mr. President, let M. Jules Favre speak.

M. JULES FAVRE. It is not, you may be sure, and the Chamber may

feel convinced of it, to the last fact cited by the minister of state that I wish to make allusion. But in the explanations which he has made to you, there is one which is calculated to impress upon you the belief that on the part of the speakers of the opposition to the government, in the announcement of a fact recognized as very serious by all the members of the assembly, there might have been something of a surprise; and as such an insinuation affects my character for fair and open dealing, I ask your permission to reply to it.

I said, and you remember it perfectly well, that a corps commander, whose name it is unnecessary to mention

M. JULES FAVRE. I said that General Castagny, at the head of a body of French troops, had recourse to a measure contrary to the laws of war and to the law of nations. [Denials.]

The minister of state says, in reply to me, that as yet there is something untimely and imprudent involved in the assertion, that as long as our troops are upon hostile territory, while they are exposed to death, we have no right to examine their conduct, and that it is proper for us to guard our expressions so that there might be no possibility of their doing any harm. [That is so.]

I ask you, then, why you applaud the words of the minister? What does he do?

Various voices: His language is patriotic; he is a Frenchman!

M. JULES FAVRE. As to me, I can admit no such argument; it is unworthy of any man of sense. [Murmurs and cries of disapprobation.]

I respect and honor the courage of our soldiers who brave all dangers, but I esteem not the less the courage of the statesman who, on the government benches, comes to sanction by his words the principles which he proposes to your votes. Each in his sphere fulfils a duty, and I cannot believe that one can be considered superior to the other. [Various manifestations.]

Now, if I render him this justice, I claim a similar one from him in regard to the part which we perform here. I ask, gentlemen, whether there can be a sort of infallibility, of inviolability, decreed by the danger which a general runs that would permit him to place himself above all laws. [Interruption.]

If it be so, it is undeniable that it would not be himself only; it would be the fate of the men whom he happened to command that he would succeed in endangering. [Exclamations of indignation.]

As far as regards the fact which has provoked the discussion between the minister of state and us, nothing is more simple. That fact, gentlemen, is the burning of a city of four thousand souls. Before giving expression to it I took care to state that the fact had been announced a long time since that the Moniteur had been interrogated on the subject, and that the Moniteur had been silent.

Just a while ago, when the minister of state reproached me for not having asked him for explanations, he must have forgotten that from the 20th of April explanations had been asked by the press. [Exclamations of disapprobation.] Here is what the Journal des Debats said in its issue of the 20th of April last. [Oh! oh!-confusion]

I am only replying to the reproach of the minister, which would seem to intimate that I announced a fact hitherto unknown; whilst, on the contrary, that fact was a public one, and several papers had called on the Moniteur for information in reference to it. [Interruption.]

M. ERNEST PICARD. That is the very point in issue.

M. JULES FAVRE. Here is what the Journal des Debats says:

66

This despatch has been published by several journals, among others by the Constitutionnel, but we do not find it in the Moniteur of this morning. It is significant in its necessary brevity, for the telegraph does not indulge in long discourses; but we hope soon to find in the official organ the details and the documents which the despatch could not give, and which should serve to pre

sent under their true light the rigorous measures adopted by General Castagny against San Sebastian and against the four Juarist chiefs in question. San Sebastian counts, or rather once counted, since that city no longer exists, a population of four thousand inhabitants. Whilst allowing the greatest possible latitude to the cruel necessities of war, it behooves us to know the reasons that induced General Castagny to destroy by fire a centre of population of that importance."

There, then, was the question very distinctly made: Does the minister of state think that it is conformable to the law of nations, not to pursue a few brigands, not to shoot down some wretches who had assassinated our soldiers. These no one. has ever defended within this hall-[So! so!]

Your murmurs will not efface my words from the Moniteur; my words remain, and you cannot distort them.

Now, I assert that this fact was published in all the papers six weeks ago: A city of four thousand inhabitants, in which were peaceable and inoffensive inhabitants, women, children, and men of property, has been given to the flames. This act is contrary to the law of nations. We have said so; we say so yet. Such proceedings might bring deplorable retaliations upon our soldiers. I add that such violent proceedings, unless they are disavowed, compromise the honor of France to a most fatal extent. [Numerous cries of indignation. Cries of good! good! from some benches.]

THE CHAIRMAN, M. SCHNEIDER. I proceed now to put to the vote the third section of the article in reference to the war department, estimate marked F, and I announce in advance that there is a demand for the yeas and nays on the tion.

ques

"3d section. Pay and maintenance of the troops, 33,718,701 francs." The demand for the yeas and nays is signed by Messrs. Hénon, Carnot, Ernest Picard, Viscount Lanjuinais, the Duke de Marmier, Bethmont, Magnin Jules Favre, Marie, Garnier Pagès.

A member: And Juarez! [Exclamations and laughter.]

A vote was then taken.

THE PRESIDENT, M. SCHNEIDER. The result of the vote is as follows:

SIR: I have had the honor to receive your note of the 21st of July, 1865, transmitting to me, for the information of the government of the United States, a translation into English of the discussion which took place in the legislative body of France on the 8th of June, 1865, in relation to the affairs of Mexico, and of parts of the disposal of that discussion, which terminated on the 9th of the same month.

Thanking you for this interesting document, I have the honor to renew to you, sir, the assurances of my high consideration. WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

Señor MATIAS ROMERO, &c., Washington, D. C.

Mr. Romero to Mr. Seward.

[Translation.]

MEXICAN LEGATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Washington, 23d of July, 1865.

MR. SECRETARY: In virtue of the recommendation which you were pleased to make to me at the interview which we had yesterday at the Department of State, to the effect that I should state to you in writing what I verbally had the honor to represent to you, I now proceed to make to you the following

statement:

You know very well with how much anxiety the government of Mexico has been awaiting the termination of the civil war in the United States-since our fate being indentified to a certain extent with that of the Union, the success of the latter insured our own, whilst its overthrow would have made our situation more difficult. In fact, the French intervention in Mexico having been, as is already universally admitted, nothing else than a part of the conspiracy which was planned to subvert this government, and to break up this country, nothing is more natural than that the principal question in the United States when once decided in favor of republican institutions, the accessory one, which is being discussed in Mexico, should be decided in the same sense. The success, therefore, of the cause of the independence of Mexico is already beyond all doubt, even to the eyes of the most determined enemies of the republic, and it has now become only a question of time. The duty which the Mexican government has to shorten that time as much as may be possible causes me to address this communication to you.

We had believed that when once the civil war had terminated here, which from its magnitude and importance had absorbed the whole attention of the government of the United States, without permitting it to take the measures necessary to destroy those accessory to the rebellion which were developing themselves in foreign countries, the same government would have to pursue one of these two policies-either to take the steps it might deem proper in order that the French should withdraw themselves from Mexico, or to follow the same policy of neutrality observed up to this period, until peace is finally restored at home and the federal authority is established in the southern States, thus giving time to the Emperor of the French to the end that, reconsidering his measures, he may abandon an enterprise which is already without object, and which it is utterly impossible to realize, and which, should he persist in it, will involve him most certainly in future complications with the United States, which, when once at peace, will not be able to remain an indifferent spectator of the conquest by a European power of one of the principal regions of this continent in their immediate vicinity.

Upon the choice of these two policies I shall say nothing at this time, for I do not propose in this note to solicit from this government the adoption of the one or of the other. My object is solely to manifest that the time necessary having already elapsed to know which of them has been adopted. We have believed that it is the second; and in this belief, being unable to rely, for the time being, not even upon the moral support of the government to put an end to the war carried on against us by the Emperor of the French, we deem it our duty to inform the government of the United States of what we desire to do in this country in the fulfilment of our duties as Mexicans.

In the first place, I deem it my duty to represent to you that, although the patriotism of the Mexican people is a sufficient guarantee to insure us success over our invaders, and although we have in our country sufficient elements to defend our independence-which elements have enabled us to resist during four years the most persistent efforts of the first military nation of Europe, and will

enable us to prolong the contest to the point of compelling our enemies to leave our country-our situation is such that the French might be enabled to remain some years more in Mexico if they persist in it, and our condition does not ameliorate.

It is known that the people of Mexico is without arms. As arms are not manufactured in the republic, we are compelled to use those which we may be enabled to import. The circumstance that some of our ports are occupied and others blockaded by the French, and, above all, the fact that this government had prohibited, to our prejudice, the exportation of arms from the United States, and that we could not obtain them in Europe, because almost all the governments of that continent are hostile to our cause, has caused the government of Mexico from the commencement of the war to find itself with a small quantity of muskets, and these in so bad a condition that it is really surprising how the resistance has been prolonged with implements so utterly worthless.

The principal, and almost exclusive, revenues of the Mexican government being derived from the yield of maritime custom-houses of the republic, and the most valuable of these being occupied or blockaded by the French, it follows that the government of the republic has found itself deprived of its revenues in times when it most required them to organize and sustain the armies which defend the independence of the country.

Our situation, therefore, is to sum up the following: with arms and means we can terminate in a few months the war which France is waging against us; and without these elements, we shall be obliged to limit ourselves to resisting the French, who will be enabled to remain in Mexico for an indefinite period, with great danger to the peace of this continent, until they find hemselves compelled to quit that country through weariness, if not expelled by the force of arms.

You will understand, Mr. Secretary, that it is the duty of the Mexican government to shorten the war, and to do all that is incumbent upon it to procure the necessary elements to attain that result. The identity of interests existing respecting this point between the United States and Mexico, and, above all, the great sympathy which, with unparalleled unanimity, the people of the United States have manifested, even in the most unfortunate days of the Union, for the cause of the independence of Mexico, have led the Mexican government to believe that, by rendering this sympathy effective, these elements might be derived from it which are required to terminate immediately a war which otherwise might last for years, and all this without compromitting in any manner the government of the United States, and without causing it to deviate, by a single hair's breadth, from the duties incumbent upon it as a neutral power. Although in the realization of this idea we propose to ourselves to treat with the citizens of this country as individuals without in any manner compromitting their government, and although what we think of doing is entirely lawful and compatible with the attitude occupied by the United States as a power neutral towards France, we deem it proper to submit our plans to the government of the United States as a proof of our good faith, of our deference to this government, and with the view of receiving assurances, if this be possible, that no embarrassment will be placed in our way in the execution thereof since a painful experience has taught us the necessity of taking this step. Reserving, therefore, the consideration of other matters when circumstances shall require it, our wishes are limited for the present to the two following points:

1st. To negotiate a loan to the government of Mexico in this market by disposing of bonds which shall contain the guarantees which we consider sufficient to induce speculators to purchase them, and which may make them acceptable to the people of this country. It is indubitable that the duties of a neutral power do not impose upon the United States that of preventing us from realizing our bonds, since this does not constitute the intervention of this governH. Ex. Doc. 73- -12