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.
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