of his friends, emigrants in Europe; he came for this; did Mr. Castro wish to know it? Does he now wish to know the answer we gave him? Then I am going to tell him, adding that I am willing to hear all the questions which he may put to me; to answer them with all the frankness permitted to me by the nature of the affairs I may have to discuss, and with the reserve imposed upon me by the position which I fill, in which it is often necessary to sacrifice one's self love, and other things temporarily and transitorily, even to one's reputation, because the public good may so require, and because it is the duty of good statesmen. You, gentlemen, know that on grave questions, by saying all that lies at the bottom, and all that is involved with them, and making public the whole matter, interests of very sacred character may be compromised and dangers and differences be brought upon the country. This is not done by the most ordinary man even when he is intrusted with the management of affairs of the immense importance which attach to those connected with the government of a country.

Well, sirs, I have no occasion for reserve in telling you the answer given to General Almonte. It was said to him-when did you come? And here I have no occasion to mention what the President said to him, who coincided in the opinion and even the form of expression with the minister who is speaking; and this is a satisfaction I enjoy, and which I wish to impart to some deputies who are making some demonstrations. I said, then, you have come to talk of an idea you have conceived, of a project for effecting which you have taken many steps in advance, precisely when our expedition has set out, when our general-in-chief who is to command it has gone, and the plenipotentiary who bears with him the instructions of the government. This fact alone, this single circumstance exempts me, not only as minister, but as Spaniard merely, from giving you any answer. I added more; the plenipotentiary of the Queen, and the commander-in-chief of the Spanish troops have had instructions upon all the points which were discussed when concluding the convention of London, and particularly the difficulties which may present themselves; and above all, I solemnly declare here that every precaution was had to estimate duly the incidents which might turn up, and the solutions which would be adopted in every case.

If Mr. Castro gives credit to the documents when they are presented, he will see if Mr. Castro, outside the documents, puts faith in what relates to verbal declarations, to the speech of the minister of state and of Count de Reus, those words will be harmony when the fit time comes; when all the questions may be discussed which it was foreseen might present themselves in Mexico, and of the turn which things might take. Does Mr. Castro require a reply more plain and more conclusive? It was then said to General Almonte that they could have no reason to reckon in any manner on the support of the Spanish government, from the mode in which they had initiated the question and begun to realize their idea, because the government of the Queen, beyond all things, desired to give on one day and on any day, in all its acts and language, irrefragable proofs of the respect with which it regarded the independence of that unfortunate republic, and for the freedom which that people enjoyed to shape its constitutions as would best suit them, as there was no government existing with which they had any anterior connexions. We know, then, Mr. Castro must already see what the project was; we were not ignorant of it; we apprized Count de Reus of the course to be pursued in the eventualities which might present themselves.

The Count de Reus has acted upon the instructions of the government; and therefore when we have believed that through his noble sentiments, so worthy a distinguished soldier, he was sometimes, perhaps, more considerate, somewhat more indulgent, than allowable by the nature of the govern

ment he was dealing with, and that of the affairs placed under his direction, we have urged to energetic action, if the prospects did seem productive of the results, which he in his loftiness of spirit looked forward to. Accepting, then, the idea of coming to a conclusion, pacific, conciliatory, and friendly, upon the great question agitated in Mexico, we believed that at times a certain vigor was called for, and we recommended it. But we always took care that any conflict with the other plenipotentiaries should be avoided, and that was the fourth basis of our action. Then came up a special question upon which, at this moment, I have but little to say. Mr. Castro has referred to it, but he has not made a thorough analysis of it, because he could not do so, nor has he uttered a clear and definitive opinion, because he has not formed one. Because we cannot ignore it, we cannot forget it, that what Mr. Castro would desire is, that the government, at the moment of receiving advices of events, which he sometimes qualifies as at least inconvenient and prejudicial, and at others as untoward for the honor of the country and its interests, should have uttered its opinion so as to have impugned it with safety. But Mr. Castro does not know what the opinion of the government is about this business, and hence springs that vacillation, that timidity, inappropriate to him when occupied with this event. After telling us that he had arranged the great plan, the terrible accusation with which he was going to finish the wretched existence of this moribund administration, his worship has arrived at no determinate opinion. He has declaimed, but he has not reasoned. A fact has happened, at first incredible, is what he said-well, pass the word round; one thing, however, I will not pass-with one remark I will not be indulgent; he said that from the moment when the event was announced the friends of the administration believed it impossible-believed such event would dishonor the country and destroy the credit of the government; but, nevertheless, they have since changed their opinion, converting their grieved and disconsolate accents. into words of pleasantness and approval. * * * * * This event, which Mr. Castro has considered, has not been passed upon up to this day, nor has it been condemned, as Mr. Castro affirms.

Now, I will say something more of what Mr. Castro has said, and if, in saying more of what he has said, he believes that the solution which has been given to the question is a solution which compromises the honor and interests of the country-if he believes the government has incurred by it a moral responsibility which may in time be converted into a legal responsibility-that would be another motive why he should maintain his proposition and demand a vote upon it. I am about to say more. The government has thought that, in the situation to which things have come, regretable and unlooked for differences having sprung up between the Spanish and English plenipotentiaries on the one part and the French on the other, the resolution adopted by the Count de Reus was inevitable. He could not adopt another, as the question was radically set according to the differences of opinion which showed themselves at the conferences.

The resolution adopted by the Count de Reus to withdraw the Spanish forces from the Mexican territory was a necessary resolution; it was not at his option to take another; he could not remain without grave risk-without exposing himself, and exposing the Spanish troops, the government, and the nation to great contests. Oh, but if it had been allowed that that event should have occurred to which, in another way, Mr. Castro distinctly alluded. If it had occurred in presence of our army, then what would Mr. Castro have said? What an indignity! Then would he have said that by its presence it had sanctioned, and by its inaction permitted, a thing contrary to the honor and interests of the country. And if that should have been realized; if the Spaniards, impassable and with arms shouldered, had wit

nessed this event without adopting any decision, on whom would the censures have fallen? Would they have included the Count de Reus, or would they be confined to her Majesty's government? For it must be observed that I notice in the discourse of Mr. Castro a certain desire to throw exclusively upon the government all responsibility for the occurrences and the acts which have taken place in the expedition to Mexico, excluding entirely the Count de Reus.

The Minister of State, CALDERON COLLANTES.

No. 58.]

Mr. Perry to Mr. Seward.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
Madrid, May 30, 1862.

SIR: I have the honor to report for your information what was said in the interview which took place on the 23d instant between Mr. Calderon Collantes and myself, and which was also referred to summarily in my last despatch.

On the occasion referred to I informed Mr. Calderon that I was still without instructions from you, written since the embarcation of the Spanish troops from Vera Cruz for the Habana could have been known in Washington. I ventured little, however, in saying that my government would regard that conduct of the general in command as a high proof of the loyalty and good faith with which the government of Spain had proceeded in this business. I was of opinion also that, at the height the pretensions of France had reached in Mexico, it was the best possible termination of Spanish participation in the affair. It hardly comported with the dignity, certainly not with good policy on the part of Spain, to march in second line after the French in Mexico, even if there had been no previous obligations to be regarded; but the stipulations of the treaty of London, offered also to the United States for their co-operation, and the repeated declarations of Mr. Calderon to myself, certainly forbade Spain to engage in the project now openly avowed by the French agents of putting the Archduke Maximilian on the throne of Mexico. I was aware that it must have been a delicate matter for Spain to break with France in this affair, but it was better now than later, and the vigorous action of the Spanish general and plenipotentiary at the critical moment when it was exerted had left the French so evidently in the wrong and placed Spain so boldly in the right that I had little fear of any serious complication for Spain with the government of the Emperor. His imperial Majesty was too sagacious a statesman and too mindful of the public opinion of the world to pursue Spain on such ground.

I thought to interpret faithfully the public sentiment of America in assuring Mr. Calderon it would be decided and even enthusiastic in favor of the highly honorable conduct of Spain. And I did not confine my remarks to the United States; I had myself made a campaign in Mexico and had seen something of that people, knew something of the ideas which prevailed among them, something of what would be their probable feelings and sentiments in view of the events which were passing among them.

The national feeling of Mexico would be strongly roused by the attitude now taken by the representatives of France, and the government of President Juarez would never have been so strong and well supported in Mexico as now when its existence was threatened from abroad.

If the Spanish government had before been looked upon with prejudice or enmity in Mexico, which was in fact true, I had no doubt it would hereafter be treated with respect and perhaps with affection. The effect of the

recent conduct of Spain in Mexico would not be to lessen, but in all probability to increase her influence in all Spanish America, and open for her facilities for arranging her questions pending with those independent states such as she might never have obtained if her military expedition had continued its course with the French.

Spain had, in fact, undoubtedly obtained a great part of the object which she proposed by this expedition, as it had been repeatedly explained to me by Mr. Calderon. She had shown the Spanish-American states that she was not without means to assert her rights if she were aggrieved. They had seen that a complete army, well-disciplined and appointed, with a valiant general at its head, could be sent from the island of Cuba at short notice, attended also with a powerful fleet of screw frigates, such as any nation would be proud to possess.

This was palpable evidence that the Spain of to-day was no longer the Spain of that time when the struggles of colonial independence took place. Spain had planted her flag alone on the forts of Vera Cruz, and afterwards the conduct and discipline of her soldiers had gained for them the respect or good will of the inhabitants who had seen and dealt with them, whilst at the same time she had now demonstrated that it was not her purpose to send her forces into those states with any aggressive plan for intervention in their interior policy and government. I should acknowledge myself mistaken if, in relieving herself from an unsustainable position in Mexico, Spain had not by that very act obtained moral advantages quite equivalent to the objects which she had proposed in this expedition to accomplish.

Mr. Calderon manifested much pleasure during the course of these remarks, saying that, in fact, the two great points of showing to the American republics the power at the same time with the forbearance and good will of Spain he hoped had been attained; but he would also inform me that the whole object of the Spanish expedition to Mexico might be considered as accomplished. And her Majesty's minister here entered upon a train of remarks which, as he afterwards informed me, were not to be regarded as of an official character, and are therefore suppressed. Spain having thus attained the objects of her expedition to Mexico had retired when her work in that country was done, in fulfilment of the stipulations of the convention of London and of the assurances which he had had the honor to give me and afterwards to transmit to Mr. Tassara for his instruction at Washington.

Mr. Perry also made some observations upon the probable fortunes of the French expedition to Mexico, not doubting the power of France to occupy the capital of that country and establish temporarily any kind of government she pleased; but whatever the form or appearance of such government might be, it would be either very transitory or it would end in being the government of France herself.

Mr. Calderon assented to this remark, but doubted whether it could be the serious plan of the French Emperor to follow up the expedition to Mexico as the beginning of a permanent intervention in the interior affairs of that country.

Mr. Perry replied that sound policy would certainly not counsel such a project, and doubtless the Emperor was too well informed of the nature of such an enterprise in a military point of view, as he certainly was too sagacious a ruler to have conceived that idea in the beginning. But the course of events might prove to be stronger than the purposes of the Emperor of the French. It was no criticism upon the political conduct of the Emperor to suppose that when he crossed the Alps into Italy, in 1859, he could have had but a very imperfect idea, if any, of the turn which Italian politics have really taken in consequence of his act, or of what would really be his own action as realized by events. Probably, though the action of the Emperor

in Italy must be said to have been eminently successful, not one of his preconceived plans had been followed out, aside from the stipulated annexation of Nice and Savoy.

The road from France to Mexico was long, and the condition of the latter country not such as to inspire the highest confidence in any political calculations concerning it. But how would France be able to retire from her present enterprise once fairly begun? And if a French administration should come to be imposed on Mexico? The country was rich in resources and might gain, materially, at least, by such a change. Was not the vision of such a dependency of the empire as Mexico might become bright enough to obtain for the Emperor by and by the support of the French people to procure it?

The visible policy of the Emperor, which he pursued constantly and at the expense of every sacrifice, was to increase the maritime power of France. He had created a magnificent war marine, but he lacked behind it the resources which the possession of a great merchant service could only supply. When thousands of ships should be crossing each other between Mexico and France, conducting a thriving commerce which it would be in the power of the Emperor to confine to French bottoms, would not the merchant navy of France be created? These were questions merely, but they were such as the present attitude of that power in Mexico made natural and necessary. I wished merely to say to Mr. Calderon that the geographical and strategical position of the Spanish colonies in the West Indies, with their magnificent harbors on the road between France and Mexico, ought to make the government of her Catholic Majesty careful as to the consequences of the present French intervention in the interior affairs of that country. In my own humble opinion, though I spoke unadvisedly and without the knowledge of my government, the conversion of Mexico into a French colony ought to be looked upon as deeply interesting at the same time to England, to Spain, and to the United States.

Mr. Calderon observed that we in the United States were the most interested. Mr. Perry answered that, in his judgment, the first and most deeply interested was England, for reasons which it is unnecessary to repeat. After England came Spain, from the position of her American colonies. But the United States, though they certainly could not witness the permanent occupation of Mexico by the French with indifference, esteemed far too highly the political sagacity of the present Emperor ever to imagine that he would, under any circumstances, dream of seeking a second Moscow in the territories of the United States themselves.

Mr. Calderon informed Mr. Perry that the whole history of the allied expedition and the rupture of the plenipotentiaries would be laid before the Spanish Cortes as soon as the voluminous correspondence could be copied, and he had no doubt that the conduct of Spain would receive the complete approbation of the government of the United States.

Mr. Perry again assured Mr. Calderon that this, indeed, was hardly doubtful, even upon the data already before us, and took his leave, once more expressing in earnest language his sense of the noble and chivalric deportment of the Spanish general and plenipotentiary in Mexico, who had now added to his well-earned laurels as a soldier the proofs of great political foresight and a moral courage which did honor to himself and to his country Most respectfully, sir, your obedient servant, HORATIO J. PERRY.

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State, Washington.