Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.
Sir: The President appreciates the vigilance and the prudence which suggested your confidential despatch No. 164.
It may be enough to say, in reply, that the Comte de Paris and the Due de Chartres, after a year’s service in the army of the United States, in which they have conducted themselves with the utmost propriety and the highest gallantry, have returned to Europe. It is not to be doubted that they carry with them the affectionate gratitude of the American people. [Page 373] This, however, is a sentiment won by them, not for themselves alone, or even peculiarly, but, as in the case of Lafayette and Rochambeau, it is a sentiment won by them for France.
You need hardly be told that the generous course adopted towards us, in what seemed a critical hour, by the Prince Napoleon, (Jerome,) made an equal impression upon the country, and its best wishes attend him wherever he goes, and whatever may be the sphere of his action.
Although the policy of the Emperor during the contest has not been, in all respects, what we have claimed and wished, you are, nevertheless, not to be told now, for the first time, that it has been interpreted by us in the most favorable light, and every generous, and even any forbearing, word that he has spoken to us personally or by Mr. Thouvenel, has awakened the kindest sentiments among the American people. We have wished so well to France, and to her present government, that we have not suffered ourselves to attribute to the one or the other any of the unfriendly or unfeeling utterances of the press of Paris which have occasionally reached us. It appeared very early after the revolutionary war that the gratitude of the people of the United States for the aid they had received from France in that struggle was a sentiment too strong to allow them to divide themselves into parties upon the question who shall rule in France. That same sentiment lives at this day. We leave that question to Frenchmen, and only desire that, to whomsoever the sway is confided, he may, by ruling France wisely and well, increase her power and advance her prosperity and happiness.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
William L. Dayton, Esq., &c., &c., &c.