the assurances of his cordial respect and esteem, and of his most distinguished consideration. "J. WATSON WEBB. "His Excellency "Senhor Counsellor BENEVENUTO AUGUSTO DE MAGALHAES TAQUES, I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. WATSON WEBB. Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. No. 1. [CIRCULAR.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Rio de Janeiro, October 9, 1861. You are hereby instructed, from and after this date, to grant no clearances from this port to American vessels, unless the masters of said vessels first take and subscribe before you an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and to sustain those in authority in the enforcement of the laws. The refusal on the part of any master promptly and formally to renew his allegiance to the government of our country, at a time when its existence is threatened by a formidable and causeless rebellion, will be ample proof that such officer çannot safely be continued in the control of American property. It has been repeated to the undersigned that in several instances shipmasters at this port, sailing under American papers, and claiming the protection of the American flag, have displayed in some part of their rigging the rebel flag of the so-called southern confederacy, and that when remonstrated with, they have claimed that inasmuch as they did not hoist the rebel flag at the peak, it was used by them only as a " signal" flag, the right to use which could not be questioned. This miserable pretence for publicly insulting the nationality of the United States cannot be tolerated, and you are hereby instructed, from and after this date, to displace any master of an American vessel who may be guilty of thus offending, and to place his first officer or such other suitable person as you may select in charge of such vessel. The hoisting and displaying a secession or rebel flag on board an American vessel is to be considered as a declaration that the property over which it floats is in the possession of a rebel-virtually captured or stolen by one who proclaims allegiance to the so-called southern confederacy; and your dispossessing the master of the command of such vessel must be viewed as a recapture of American property from the pirates in whose possession it had fallen. The question will then legitimately arise for determination of this legation, whether vessels bound beyond the port where thus seized will be permitted to prosecute their voyage. In cases where the voyage of the vessel or vessels taken possession of under these instructions terminated at the port to which you have been appointed a consul of the United States, you will instruct the mate or person put in charge by you to convey her direct to the port of the United States whence she cleared, provided she cleared from a port north of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland. If, however, the vessel cleared from Baltimore, or a more southern port, you will order her to be conveyed to the port of New York direct, with instructions to the person in charge to report himself to the collector of that port, and through Him to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States; and you will, in all cases, furnish the person in charge with a letter addressed to the collector of the port to which he is bound, detailing, for the information of the Secretary of the Treasury, the cause of the seizure, and the circumstances under which it was made. You will, immediately on the arrival of American vessel in the port where you officially reside, serve upon the captain a copy of this circular, and retain in your possession evidence of such service. The oath of allegiance to be administered under these instructions will be as follows: master of the "I, of, do hereby solemnly swear that I do owe true and faithful allegiance to the government of the United States; and that I will, to the best of my ability, defend the Constitution of the United States, and give a cordial support to all persons in authority duly elected or appointed to administer the government and execute the laws thereof. So help me God." I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. WATSON WEBB, Envoy Ex'y and Minister Plenipo'y for the United States. No. 12.] Mr. Seward to Mr. Webb. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, December 12, 1861. SIR: Your despatch of October 24 (No. 3) has received the President's consideration. Your speech to the Emperor, on the occasion of presenting your credentials, was equally just and appropriate. The Emperor's reply is entirely satisfactory, and the sentiments of friendship towards the United States which he expresses are much enhanced in value by the special marks of consideration which he bestowed upon you at the audience. Your special note to the minister for foreign affairs, touching the conduct of your predecessor, is approved. It is among our humiliations that disloyal representatives have exerted themselves to lower the national character in the respect of the governments to which they are accredited. The course of treason, however, is always short, while loyalty, like every other virtue, knows no fatigue, and seldom encounters discomfiture. I am, sir, your obedient servant, JAMES WATSON WEBB, Esq., &c., &c., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. No. 13.] Mr. Seward to Mr. Webb. Washington, December 12, 1861. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: I recur to your despatch (No. 3) of the date of October 24. Your course in issuing your circular, concerning the secession flag, to the consuls in the Brazilian empire is approved. We trust that it will have the effect of saving the national prestige in South America. It is to be regretted that the late minister-your predecessor-and the late consul at Rio have probably escaped, for the present, the account which they owe to the government for their treasonable abuse of the confidence of their country. I am, sir, your obedient servant, JAMES WATSON WEBB, Esq., &c., &c., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Mr. Webb to Mr. Seward. No. 17.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I perceive by allusions in the public press, although the message itself, in extenso, has not come under my observation, that the President, in suggesting the means of carrying out the gradual manumission of the negro, alludes to the necessity of obtaining a place of colonization for the persons manumitted. The wisdom of such a suggestion is too manifest to require discussion; but the purchase of territory for this wise and philanthropic purpose may be attended with difficulties so embarrassing as, in a measure, to defeat the object in view. It has occurred to me, therefore, that the labor question of Brazil, upon the early solution of which so much depends, and to which I have heretofore referred, may be rendered auxiliary to our own difficulty in disposing of the freed negro. The rapidly increasing value of the negro in the province of Rio Janeiro and all the southern provinces of the empire, and the steadily advancing price of coffee, added to the well ascertained fact that the slave population is on the decrease instead of the increase, as with us, where the African is of a far lower type than those brought to Brazil, is rapidly depopulating the northern provinces of the empire. Every coasting vessel brings its ten to thirty slaves for sale at Rio, for the supply of labor in this vicinity and on the coffee plantations; and the cry is heard from the provinces of Para, Maranham, Pianhi, Parahiba, Pernambuco, and even Bahia, that they are being depopulated, for the benefit of the southern provinces, by the inevitable law of demand and supply. It is now conceded, too, that the negroes on the opposite coast of Africa, whence Brazil was supplied, are a very superior race to the tribes further north, which furnished the slave for the West Indies and the United States. The latter are an ignorant and docile people, and, with few exceptions, they yield themselves naturally to servitude, even in their native Africa. Not so the Minas and tribes further south, and from which Brazil was furnished with laborers. They are a fierce, warlike, and intellectual people, to whom slavery is as much a burden as to many of the Caucasian races, and they are not only ready for insurrection and capable of extensive combinations and conspiracies to effect their liberation, as the insurrection in Bahia some years since abundantly proved, but it is now susceptible of demonstration that, throughout the slave population of Brazil, there exists, to a greater or less extent, an organized conspiracy to prevent the increase of slavery by the mothers committing infanticide! Of course, nature is too powerful in the breasts of women to render such a combination universal, or slavery would cease in a single generation. It is proved, however, that there are sufficient of the fiercer traits among the slaves to render infanticide so frequent as to prevent their increase; and the slave trade being at an end, and colonization from Europe checked by unwise and selfish laws, well may the statesmen of Brazil tremble at the prospect which the future presents. To me it is clearly manifest that, unless the southern provinces of Brazil are supplied with laborers from abroad, which can only be in consequence of a change in the colonization laws of the empire and some special legislation, those provinces lying under the equator will be robbed of their laborers by reason of the higher price which the slave commands in this region, and, in consequence, the north will revert to the possession of the native Indian and the wild beasts, from whom it was conquered by the introduction of African labor. Is there no remedy for this great evil now pressing with such force upon Brazil? I think there is, and that Providence is pointing out the mode of relief by the events now transpiring in the United States. In one word, the finger of God, in my mind, points to the northern provinces of Brazil as the future home of the manumitted negro of the United States; and thus, by the simplest of all means, the United States, Brazil, and the freed negro, are all to be equally benefited by one and the same measure, viz: A treaty between the United States and Brazil, by which all the freed negroes of the United States shall be transplanted to the region of the Amazon at the expense of the United States, and there be endowed with land gratuitously by Brazil, and at the expiration of a term of years become citizens of Brazil, with all the rights and privileges of the free negro population of the empire; all of whom, by the constitution, are the recognized equals of the white man, and equally eligible with him to the highest offices of the empire, and where already the social distinction between the white and black races, which once existed, have been nearly eradicated. On the bench and in the legislative halls, in the army and the navy, in the learned professions, and among the professors in her colleges, as also in the pulpit and in the social relations of life, the woolly-headed and thick-lipped descendant of Africa has his place side by side with his white "brother" in Brazil, and not unfrequently jostles him for his position. Under these circumstances it appears to me quite impossible that the government of Brazil could hesitate to enter into any reasonable arrangement which might be suggested and which does not involve the expenditure of money. It is of vital importance to prevent the further depopulation of the northern provinces; and how can that be done so effectually as to introduce free negro labor, and what is more experienced and practical, negro labor? No person familiar with the subject can for a moment doubt but the government of Brazil, with all its apprehension of negro insurrection, would willingly purchase, at $250 per head, 50,000 Africans for the supply of laborers in the northern provinces. This would be a sum of $12,500,000; and it would cost as much more to qualify these Africans for the performance of the duties required of them-say $25,000,000 for the 50,000 Africans. Now, I insist that 50,000 freed negroes from the United States would be worth to Brazil more than 100,000 slaves from Africa; and being free men and citizens, all apprehension of insurrection would cease, while of necessity they would adhere to the soil where originally planted, instead of being shipped off and sold as chattels to some other part of the empire where slave labor happened to be in demand. And I propose to give Brazil ten or twenty times that number of freed, practical laborers gratuitously, or in return for land now utterly valueless. The advantages to Brazil of some such arrangement as I suggest are so palpable that I will not here enter into a consideration of the subject, but when necessary make them apparent to this government, as they must be at a glance to you, should I be authorized to open negotiations upon the subject in question. The object of this communication is to demonstrate what I think would be a feasible and economical plan of colonization to the United States. 1st. It must be assumed as a fact, conceded by all parties, that if we emancipate, we must also be at the expense of colonizing the negro. 2d. If we give to the slave freedom, it is not only the right but the duty of the government to accomplish the object at the least possible expense to the people. 3d. Freedom being the object in view, the true philanthrophist does not insist that it shall be immediate. 4th. The object to be attained being the freedom of the slave, the time when is a secondary consideration; it being understood that it shall not be unneces sarily delayed. 5th. To make freedom available and conducive to the happiness of the slave, as well as desirable, a probationary state of "apprenticeship" may become in most cases an absolute necessity. 6th. The expense to our government of colonizing the freed slave should be reduced to the smallest possible sum, and, if possible, his colonization should be at his own expense, and our government be altogether exempt from the burden. 7th. I suppose that if the question were put to the people of the United States, whether they would willingly incur an expense of $100 per head in colonizing the freed negro, the response would be "aye," and the feeling would be universally in favor of their expatriation to some place where they would cease to have any political connexion with our country. Now, my belief is-but it is of course only an opinion, and it will require time to discuss and consider it in all its bearings-that ten thousand, an hundred thousand, or even a million of manumitted slaves may be comfortably transported to Brazil, and here become valuable auxiliaries and useful citizens without one dollar of expense to our government, and solely at the expense of the colonist himself. It must be borne in mind that in the infancy of our republic, when it was desirable to entice the immigrant to our shores at his own cost, and at the same time to devise means for the poor laborer to come to us, we passed laws authorizing the owners and masters of vessels to bring such immigrants to our shores at their own cost and to possess a lien upon their time and labor out of which to remunerate themselves for the cost of transportation to the free scil and all the blessings of the free institutions of the United States. Under those laws thousands of the laboring poor of Europe came to our shores, and upon landing they were literally sold to the person who would pay the charges against them for the shortest period of labor. They thus became apprenticed to their new masters for a period of time varying from six to eighteen months and two years, according to the amount of their indebtedness to the vessel which brought them across the Atlantic. These people were known as "redemptionists,” and you and I know children of these "redemptionists" who have filled high and honorable places in the republic, and the bronze monument to Jefferson in front of the Presidential mansion is a living testimony of the legislation referred to. The law was a wise one, and the result proved it to be expedient and suited to the exigency of the times in which it existed. It was good for the fathers and mothers of some of our most useful citizens, and fanatical indeed must be the man who would perceive any injustice or cruelty in applying the principles of these early laws of the republic to the manumitted slave or negro in the process of transformation from a mere chattel into a freeman. Instead of manumitting the slave, then, at once, he should be made to pass through a transition state, in which he would be educated for the ultimate enjoyment of his freedom, at the same time that he would be paying the expense of his education and the cost of his transportation to his future home. What with "contrabands" now on hand, and those which must accumulate pending this civil war, it is quite safe to say they will number at least thirty thousand at the termination of the war, without counting upon the action of slave States under the resolution of Congress. Their case will require immediate attention and prompt action, and the result of that action is destined to exercise a controlling influence upon the future action of the northern slave States on the recommendation of the President and the resolution of Congress. I propose. then, simply as suggestions for your consideration and for the consideration of all the philanthropists of the United States or throughout the world, that a |