NEW ORLEANS, May 16,
1862.
Maj. Gen. B. F. BUTLER, U.S. Army,
Commanding Department of the
Gulf, at New Orleans:
SIR: Your official communication of the 14th instant I have
received, and transmitted literal copies thereof to my Government through the
usual channels.
In reading it I cannot but think that you have misunderstood
the communication which I had the honor of addressing you on the 10th instant,
and to which it purports to be an answer.
My communication recited a series of outrages upon my
person, the dignity of consulate office, and of the flag of the Government
which I have the honor of representing in this city; and informed you that as
those acts would be brought to the knowledge of my Government I desired to know
whether they were performed with your sanction or by your order. It has pleased
you to say that so far as you can judge I have merited the treatment I have
received, even if a little rough. I am therefore to infer that the acts brought
to your notice received your sanction.
I shall leave it with my Government to direct my future
course in consequence of those acts and to pronounce the use which I have made
of my consular flag, and in the meanwhile I have to inform you that I have
placed the interests of the subjects of His Majesty the King of the
Netherlands, heretofore in my charge, under the charge and keeping of the
consul of His Majesty the Emperor of the French in New Orleans. But I must be
permitted, referring to my only intercourse with your subordinate and with
yourself, to insist upon the fact that none of the property covered by my
consular flag was claimed by me as my private property, and that I have never
admitted anything in reference thereto.
You will find herewith inclosed a copy of an additional statement
of facts, subsequent to my first communication, which statement has also
been transmitted to my Government. You will perceive that the property which
was removed from my consular office by the armed forces under your command,
except the title papers and other objects specified in said additional
statement of facts, had been received by me as a deposit from Mr. Edmund J. Forstall,
a highly respectable citizen and merchant of New Orleans, for many years known
as the agent of the banking-house of Hope & Co., of Amsterdam, for whom he
was acting in the premises.
Such being the truth of the facts in reference to said
property as represented to, and as believed and acted upon by me, I must and do
hereby protest against the removal from my consular office of property
belonging to and placed there for account of subjects of His Majesty the King
of the Netherlands, against the acts of violence which preceded and the display
of force which accompanied such removal, and against the violation of the
privileges and immunities with which by the law of nations and the treaties of
the United States I was invested in my official character.
I have the honor to
be, respectfully, your obedient servant,
AM. COUTURIE,
Consul of the
Netherlands.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III, Volume
2 (Serial No. 123), p. 122-3
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