Thursday, February 22, 2024

John J. Crittenden to Count Eugène de Sartiges, October 22, 1851

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, October 22, 1851.

The undersigned, acting Secretary of State of the United States, has the honor to remind M. de Sartiges, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the French republic, that in the interview which he had with him on the 8th instant, he stated that he might have occasion to address him in writing on the subject of the information which M. de Sartiges then communicated, that the French government had issued orders to its ships of war, then in the West Indies, to give assistance to Spain, and to prevent by force any adventurers of any nation from landing with hostile intent on the island of Cuba. Having imparted that information to the President, the undersigned has now the honor, by his direction, to address M. de Sartiges in regard to it.

M. de Sartiges is apprised that a few days prior to the interview adverted to the chargé d'affaires of her Britannic Majesty had given to this department official notice that his government had issued similar orders to its naval forces. The President had regarded this as a matter of grave importance, but its gravity is greatly increased by the concurrence and co-operation of France in the same measure. It cannot be doubted that those orders have been occasioned by the recent unlawful expedition of less than five hundred men, which, having evaded the vigilance of this government, and escaped from New Orleans, were landed by the steamer Pampero upon the island of Cuba, and were soon captured, and many of them executed. That such an incident should have incited the combined action of two great European powers, for an object to which neither of them is a direct party, and in a manner that may seriously affect the people of the United States, cannot fail to awaken the earnest consideration of the President.

He cannot perceive the necessity or propriety of such orders, while he entertains the strongest apprehensions that their execution by French and British cruisers will be attended with injurious and dangerous consequences to the commerce and peace of the United States. They cannot be carried into effect  without a visitation, examination, and consequent detention of our vessels on our shores, and in the great channels of our coasting trade, and this must invest British and French cruisers with the jurisdiction of determining, in the first instance at least, what are the expeditions denounced in their orders, and who are the guilty persons engaged in them. It is plain, however different may have been the intentions of the respective governments, that the exercise of such a power and jurisdiction could hardly fail to lead to abuses and collisions perilous to the peace that now so happily prevails. By such an interference those governments seem to assume an attitude unfriendly to the United States. The President will not, however, allow himself to believe that this intervention has been intended as an admonition or reproach to his government. He has signally manifested his condemnation of all such lawless enterprises, and has adopted active measures for their prevention and suppression. It must also be known to the governments of France and England, in common with all the world, that this government, since it took its place among nations, has carefully preserved its good faith, and anxiously endeavored to fulfill all its obligations, conventional and national. And this it has done from motives far above any apprehensions of danger to itself. From its beginning, under the present Constitution, it has sedulously cultivated the policy of peace, of not intermeddling in the affairs of others, and of preventing by highly penal enactments any unlawful interference by its citizens to disturb the tranquillity of countries with which the United States were in amity. To this end many such enactments have been made, the first as early as the year 1794, and the last as late as 1838. The last having expired by its own limitation, and all the preceding legislation on the subject having been comprehended in the act of Congress of the 20th of April, 1818, it is unnecessary to do more than to refer M. de Sartiges to its provisions as marking the signal anxiety and good faith of this government to restrain persons within its jurisdiction from committing any acts inconsistent with the rights of others, or its own obligations. These laws were intended to comprehend, and to protect from violation, all our relations with and duties to countries at peace with us, and to punish any violations of them by our citizens as crimes against the United States. In this manifestation of its desire to preserve just and peaceful relations with all nations, it is believed that the United States have gone before and further than any of the older governments of Europe. Without recapitulating all the provisions of those laws by which the United States have so carefully endeavored to prohibit every act that could be justly offensive to their neighbors, it is deemed enough for this occasion to say that they denounce all such enterprises or expeditions as those against which the orders in question are directed.

The undersigned thinks it is of importance enough to call the attention of M. de Sartiges more directly to this law. A literal copy of it is accordingly herewith communicated. Besides the ordinary legal process, it authorizes the President to employ the military and naval forces of the country for the purpose of preventing such expeditions and arresting for punishment those concerned in them. In the spirit of this law, the President condemns such expeditions against the island of Cuba as are denounced by the orders in question, and has omitted nothing for their detection and prevention. To that end he has given orders to civil, naval, and military officers from New York to New Orleans, and has enjoined upon them the greatest vigilance and energy. This course on the subject has been in all things clear and direct. It has been no secret, and the undersigned must presume that it has been fully understood and known by M. de Sartiges. An appeal might confidently be made to the vigilant and enlightened minister of Spain that his suggestions for the prevention of such aggressions, or the prosecution of offenders engaged in them, have been promptly considered, and, if found reasonable, adopted by the President; his course, it is believed, has been above all question of just cause of complaint. This government is determined to execute its laws, and in the performance of this duty can neither ask nor receive foreign aid. If, notwithstanding all its efforts, expeditions of small force hostile to Cuba have, in a single vessel or steamer, excited by Cubans themselves, escaped from our extensive shores, such an accident can furnish no ground of imputation either upon the law or its administration. Every country furnishes instances enough of infractions and evasions of its laws, which no power or vigilance can effectually guard against. It need not be feared that any expeditions of a lawless and hostile character can escape from the United States of sufficient force to create any alarm for the safety of Cuba, or against which Spain might not defend it with the slightest exertion of her power. The President is persuaded that none such can escape detection and prevention, except by their insignificance. None certainly can escape which could require the combined aid of France and England to resist or suppress. Cuba will find a sure, if not its surest, protection and defense in the justice and good faith of the United States.

There is another point of view in which this intervention on the part of France and England cannot be viewed with indifference by the President. The geographical position of the island of Cuba in the Gulf of Mexico, lying at no great distance from the mouth of the river Mississippi and in the line of the greatest current of the commerce of the United States, would become, in the hands of any powerful European nation, an object of just jealousy and apprehension to the people of this country. A due regard to their own safety and interest must, therefore, make it a matter of importance to them who shall possess and hold dominion over that island. The government of France and those of other European nations were long since officially apprised by this government that the United States could not see, without concern, that island transferred by Spain to any other European state; President Fillmore fully concurs in that sentiment, and is apprehensive that the sort of protectorate introduced by the orders in question might, in contingencies not difficult to be imagined, lead to results equally objectionable. If it should appear to M. de Sartiges that the President is too apprehensive on this subject, this must be attributed to his great solicitude to guard friendly relations between the two countries against all contingencies and causes of disturbance. The people of the United States have long cherished towards France the most amicable sentiments, and recent events which made her a republic have opened new sources of fraternal sympathy. Harmony and confidence would seem to be the natural relations of the two great republics of the world, relations demanded no less by their permanent interests than by circumstances and combinations in continental Europe, which now seem to threaten so imminently the cause of free institutions. The United States have nothing to fear from those convulsions, nor are they propagandists, but they have at heart the cause of freedom in all countries, and believe that the example of the two great republics of France and America, with their moral and social influences, co-operating harmoniously, would go far to promote and to strengthen that cause. It is with these views that the President so much desires the cultivation of friendly feelings between the two countries, and regards with so much concern any cause that may tend to produce collision or alienation. He believes that this Cuban intervention is such a cause. The system of government which prevails most generally in Europe is adverse to the principles upon which this government is founded, and the undersigned is well aware that the difference between them is calculated to produce distrust of, if not aversion to, the government of the United States. Sensible of this, the people of this country are naturally jealous of European interference in American affairs. And although they would not impute to France, now herself a republic, any participation in this distrustful and unfriendly feeling towards their government, yet the undersigned must repeat, that her intervention in this instance, if attempted to be executed, in the only practicable mode for its effectual execution, could not fail to produce some irritation, if not worse consequences. The French cruisers sailing up and down the shores of the United States to perform their needless task of protecting Cuba, and their ungracious office of watching the people of this country as if they were fruitful of piracies, would be regarded with some feelings of resentment, and the flag they bore-a flag which should always be welcome to the sight of Americans—would be looked at as casting a shadow of unmerited and dishonoring suspicion upon them and their government. The undersigned will add that all experience seems to prove that the rights, interests, and peace of the continents of Europe and America will be best preserved by the forbearance of each to interfere in the affairs of the other. The government of the United States has constantly acted on that principle, and has never intermeddled in European questions. The President has deemed it proper to the occasion that his views should be thus fully and frankly presented for the friendly consideration of M. de Sartiges and his government, in order that all possible precautions may be used to avert any misunderstanding, and every cause or consequence that might disturb the peace or alienate, in the least, the sentiments of confidence and friendship which now bind together the republics of the United States and France. The undersigned avails himself of this occasion to offer to M. de Sartiges the assurance of his very distinguished consideration.

JOHN J. CRITTENDEN.
M. DE SARTIGES.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 13-7

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