l'inviolabilité des droits en vertu desquels l'Empereur mon Maître a acquis un territoire placé sous se domination par un Traité qui appartient à l'histoire contemporaine. Dans leurs relations de bonne intelligence, les Gouvernements tiennent à honneur de consolider le repose et de mettre d'accord les intérêts des nations amies, par un échange mutuel d'égards et de bons procédés. C'est sur cette base que repose le respect qu'ils portent à la sécurité de leurs Etats, sans réveiller le passé, sans inquiéter le présent, et sans compromettre l'avenir. Pénétré de cette conviction, j'apprécie sincèrement l'intention dont vous êtes animé, M. le Comte, lorsque vous me faites l'honneur de m'annoncer que le Gouvernement de Sa Majesté Britannique n'a aucune raison de croire qu'il entre la Grande Bretagne et la Russie des rapports que le Gouvernement de Sa Majesté Britannique désire vivement maintenir sur un pied d'amitié. Je me ferai un devoir de transmettre au Cabinet Impérial une assurance, j'en suis certain, entièrement conforme à ses intentions et à ses vues. Pour ma part, je ne puis qu'ajouter que si les explications échangées entre nous ont pour résultat de prémunir des intérêts privés liés au commerce, contre les risques et les pertes que je tenais à cœur de prévenir, je n'aurais pas à regretter d'avoir fait preuve en cette occasion d'une sollicitude et d'une franchise qui m'étaient commandées par les devoirs du poste que l'Empereur mon Maître a daigné me confier. Le Comte de Malmesbury. J'ai, &c. BRUNNOW. CORRESPONDENCE between Great Britain and The United States, relative to the Recruiting in The United States, the Neutrality of The United States in the War between Great Britain and Russia, the Suspension of Diplomatic Relations and the Withdrawal of Exequaturs of British_Consuls.— 1856. SIR, [Continued from Vol. XLVII. Page 358.] No. 60.-The Earl of Clarendon to Mr. Crampton. MR. BUCHANAN asked me on the 6th instant whether I had sent any answer through you to Mr. Marcy's despatch of the 28th of December. I told Mr. Buchanan that Her Majesty's Government had thought it due to themselves, as well as to the Government of The United States, not to take any decision on the subject of that despatch, and consequently not to answer the despatch itself, until they had received your observations upon the statements it contained; and it had accordingly been transmitted to you for that purpose by the last mail. Some time might therefore elapse before an answer was sent, which I hoped would not be of material importance; although, I added laughing, if you are in a hurry for a diplomatic rupture with us, I suppose that Mr. Crampton will in the meanwhile receive his passports. Mr. Buchanan, in the same friendly tone, inquired if I really thought that the President or Mr. Marcy wished for a rupture of any kind with England; and I expressed my entire conviction that they did not, and that they took precisely the same view as Her Majesty's Government of the suicidal folly of a war between two countries so deeply interested in cultivating the most friendly relations with each other; but I by no means felt so sure with respect to all the members of the President's Cabinet, or that The United States' Government would take the same means as Her Majesty's Government would take to avert an event which both alike deprecated. My reason for saying this was, that the AttorneyGeneral had made use of his official position in order to publish portions of despatches, which had come to his knowledge as a member of the Cabinet, in his instructions to The United States' District Attorney at Philadelphia, manifestly for no other object than to inflame the public mind against England and against the English Government, a few days before the trial of Hertz at Philadelphia took place. Now I did not know what the opinion of the President nor of the other members of the Cabinet was upon this proceeding of the Attorney-General, though we had no reason to think it had been disapproved-it certainly had not been disavowed; but what I did know for certain was, that if any member of Her Majesty's Government had been so unmindful of his duty towards his country and his colleagues as not only to make a public use of the despatches which had come confidentially into his hands, but to do so for the purpose of exciting ill-will on the part of the people of England against the Government and people of The United States, the Cabinet Minister so offending would either have been compelled to resign his office instantly, or all his colleagues would have resigned theirs. The country would have expected this of them, and would not have been satisfied with any other course; but as nothing of the kind had taken place in reprobation of the Attorney-General's proceeding, I must be permitted to think that more regard was exhibited here than in The United States for the maintenance of peaceful relations between the two countries. J. F. Crampton, Esq. I am, &c. CLARENDON. No. 62.-Mr. Buchanan to the Earl of Clarendon.-(Rec. Feb. 16.) (Extract.) London, February 16, 1856. CONSIDERING what has been said in the two Houses of Parliament in relation to myself, in advance of the publication of the correspondence between the two Governments on the Recruitment Question, I have deemed it a duty to communicate to your Lordship, as you are the only individual in this country to whom I could make such a communication with propriety, an extract from my despatch of Tuesday last, the 12th instant, to the Secretary of State upon this subject, which was transmitted to Washington on Wednesday by the steamer Arago, from Southampton. The Earl of Clarendon. (Extract.) Yours very respectfully, JAMES BUCHANAN. (Inclosure.)-Mr. Buchanan to Mr. Marcy. London, February 12, 1856. I was somewhat surprised at the broad statement made by Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons on Friday night last (vide "The Times" of Saturday morning,)" That when the communication. to which I have referred (that contained in Lord Clarendon's note to me of the 16th of July last) was made to the American Minister in London, he expressed himself satisfied with the explanation, and said that he felt confident that his Government would entertain a similar feeling in regard to it." Fortunately the expression, and the only expression, verbal or written, which I employed upon the occasion, is contained in my note to Lord Clarendon of the 18th of July, acknowledging the receipt of his note of the 16th, and is in the following language: "And the Undersigned will have much satisfaction in transmitting a copy of his Lordship's note to the Secretary of State by the next steamer." From this you will perceive that I made no allusion whatever to what might be the opinion of my Government in regard to Lord Clarendon's note, nor did I express any opinion of my own, except what might have been inferred from the statement, that I would have much satisfaction in transmitting a copy of this note to the Secretary of State. I have never had any conversation at any time with Lord Palmerston on the subject; and the matter thus rested between Lord Clarendon and myself until after the 24th of September, on which day I received your despatch of the 8th of September, with the documents implicating Mr. Crampton in the Recruitment Question. From this despatch I learned that you had resolved to conduct the subsequent correspondence yourself directly with Mr. Crampton at Washington, and this on account of his personal complicity in the affair. Under these circumstances, I had no occasion of sufficient importance to see Lord Clarendon from the 24th of September until the 29th of October, this being a season of the year when, according to the current phrase, "everybody is out of town," and all public business is suspended, except in urgent cases. On the 29th of October I called upon his Lordship, by appointment, for the purpose of bringing to his serious attention the question of sending a British fleet to Bermuda and Jamacia; and on this first opportunity which had presented, I informed him, "That, when in acknowledging the receipt of his note to me (of the 16th of July) on the subject of enlistments, I had expressed the satisfaction I should feel in forwarding it to Washington, I had not the most distant idea that Mr. Crampton was implicated in these enlistments," &c. (Vide my despatch of the 30th of October.) Again, at an interview with his Lordship on the 1st of November, I employed substantially the same language, adding thereto, that I was "sorry to say, satisfactory proof existed that Mr. Crampton and other British officers had before and since (the date of his note of the 16th of July) been engaged in aiding and countenancing these proceedings and recruitments," &c. (Vide my despatch of the 2nd of November.) I need scarcely refer to my recent despatch of the 1st instant, wherein I reported to you the correction I had made in conversation with Lord Clarendon of the statement contained in his despatch to Mr. Crampton of the 16th November, because he had omitted from his statement the qualification which I made at the time, that when I had received his note of the 15th of July, I had not the least idea of Mr. Crampton's complicity in the business of recruiting. Had Lord Palmerston, therefore, been careful to consult accuracy, he would have said: "When the communication to which I have referred was made to the American Minister in London, he expressed the satisfaction he would have in communicating it to his Government; but having subsequently learned that the British Minister at Washington was implicated in the transaction, he informed Lord Clarendon more than once that he did not know that fact when he expressed this satisfaction." The Hon. W. L. Marcy. JAMES BUCHANAN. SIR, No. 63.-The Earl of Clarendon to Mr. Buchanan. Foreign Office, February 20, 1856. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 16th instant, inclosing a copy of a despatch which you had addressed to your Government on the 12th instant, with reference to a statement made by Viscount Palmerston on Friday, the 8th instant, "that when the communication to which I have referred (that contained in my note to you of the 16th of July) was made to the American Minister in London, he expressed himself satisfied with the explanation, and said that he felt confident that his Government would entertain a similar feeling in regard to it. I have not failed to communicate your letter and its inclosure to Viscount Palmerston, who has requested me to state to you, in reply, that he should feel much regret if he had unintentionally misrepresented the tenor of any communication which you had made to Her Majesty's Government; but it seems to him that there is no essential difference between the substance and the effect of what he said in the House of Commons, and the statement which you now make in regard to the same point. Although it appears that he did not correctly quote the words you had used, Viscount Palmerston said in the House of Commons that you had expressed yourself satisfied with my note of the 16th of July, and that you had expressed your expectation that your Government would be so also. You say that you only said that you had much satisfaction in transmitting to The United States' Government a copy of my note: I cannot but think, however, that this comes to the same meaning; because you could not have felt much satisfaction in transmitting a copy of that note, if that note had not appeared to you to be satisfactory, and if you had not expected that it would have been so considered by your Government also. Viscount Palmerston, moreover, with reference to that part o your despatch to Mr. Marcy which adverts to your communication to me in October last, would beg to observe that the accuracy of his statement as to the impression produced upon your mind in July, by my note of the 16th of that month, cannot be affected by the tenor of your statement to me three months afterwards, on the 29th of October, founded upon communications, whether correct or incorrect, which you had then recently received from Washington. Viscount Palmerston adds, that he would be much obliged to you, if you will have the goodness to transmit to your Government a copy of this explanation on his part. With reference to a passage in your despatch to Mr. Marcy as to the suspension of public business in the autumn, when "every[1857-58. XLVIII] |