Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Third Session Thirty-seventh Congress

[Translation.]

Mr. Van Limburg to Mr. Seward.

Sharon Springs, August 30, 1862.

Sir: I have had the honor to receive your letter, dated Washington, 20th of this month, relative to the seizure made at the consulate of the Netherlands in New Orleans, and to the report on this subject which has been made by the honorable Reverdy Johnson. I have likewise had the honor to receive the extract from the report which was annexed to your letter. I shall hasten to transmit the two documents to his excellency the minister of foreign affairs of the King, with a request to furnish me with the necessary instructions, in order that I may fully answer the letter which you have just done me the honor to address to me. Meanwhile, I avail myself of the power which you have been pleased to confer on me of selecting the person to whom will be delivered the sum of eight hundred thousand dollars in silver, by indicating the person under whose charge that sum was found, that is to say, Mr. Amedee Conturié.

As to what concerns the other articles seized, I have not been able to find, either in the report of the honorable Reverdy Johnson or in the correspondence exchanged between him and Mr. Conturié, the slightest trace of any refusal by the latter to receive back the various boxes seized. I have, however, perceived that there was a disagreement between them as to the opening of one of the boxes, and as to the delivery of the eighteen bonds of the cities of New Orleans and Mobile; but I have also perceived that, very far from refusing to receive all the boxes which are mentioned in the “Statement” of the consul dated the 13th of May, he asked them back in their entirety in his letter of the 24th of July addressed to Mr. Reverdy Johnson. I have, moreover, not found in all the correspondence which has been communicated to me any want of respect shown by Mr. Conturié towards the authorities of the United States, although he may have differed from them as to the way of understanding his duties. For instance, the honorable Reverdy Johnson seems to have thought that it was the consul’s duty to go in quest of or to send for that which had been improperly seized at his house. I cannot, any more than the consul, share this opinion; in my judgment, the least that could be done, after an unwarranted seizure, was to have the articles which had been seized sent back to the place in which they had been found.

After receiving your letter of the 5th of June, and finding in it an allusion to a denial of the deposit, and to a refusal of information on the part of the consul at the time of the appearance of the military authority of the United States in the consulate of the Netherlands, I questioned Mr. Conturié in this regard by letter of the 9th June, which he only received in duplicate on the 26th of July. He answered me that he had not at all refused to give information, and he sent me a note supplementary to his “Statements of facts”—a note which I have the honor to transmit to you herewith. However, I must leave entirely to the King’s government to judge of the conduct of the consul.

In my opinion, all questions between organs or agents of different governments ought to be discussed with the most perfect sincerity and greatest politeness, and every offenve expression carefully avoided. I therefore request you, sir, to be pleased to believe that the word “ outrage,” which appears to have displeased you in my letter of the 28th of July, was not applied, as you seem to have supposed, to all which had taken place—to “these transactions,” as you say. The word had not, in my pen, the sense which it might have had in English. It only regarded the grave offences committed against the consul, by calling him a “fellow,” searching his pockets, and writing to him that he had “prostituted his flag to a base purpose.” It is only these acts, sir—acts which the government of the United States, I am happy to acknowledge, has hastened to decline to be responsible for—that I have taken the liberty of characterizing as “outrage.” It was for such acts, sir, that the King’s government (as I had the honor to represent to you in my letter of the 28th of July) flattered itself that a friendly government would not refuse to give it ultimate satisfaction. It is a general custom, as no person better knows than you, sir, that not only grave offences are censured, but that the authors of them are punished.

Now, when the President and government of the United States have made their decisions conformable to the conclusions of the excellent report of the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, according to which the $800,000, seized by order of Major General Butler, was an amount of silver legitimately delivered on deposit to the consul of the Netherlands; now, when the good faith of the consul is acknowledged; now, more than ever, is flagrant the insult offered, according to the orders, or with the approval, of Major General Butler, to the consul of the Netherlands, to whom, in answer to his just complaint, he wrote, or caused to be written, a letter, of which I find myself compelled to transmit to you herewith a copy.

It is with great regret that I come back to this letter, for you will do me the justice, sir, to believe that everything which can exasperate is as far from my sentiments as from my intentions. To conciliate is one of my most cherished duties, but I cannot sacrifice the dignity of international relations; and I respectfully request you to be pleased to consider again whether it is just that the author of such a letter should remain in official relations with foreign consuls.

In your letter of the 20th of this month you have been pleased to remark that the government of the United States does not conceal “that the dissatisfaction with Major General Butler’s precipitancy and harshness in the transactions concerned was among the causes for transferring the administration of public affairs at New Orleans to General Shepley.” You have been pleased to bring to mind that you had previously made known to me (in your letter of the 5th of June) that the President has also appointed a military governor of the State of Louisiana, who has been instructed to pay due respect to all consular rights and privileges; but as various newspapers in the United States have continued to make mention of new orders or new regulations of Major GeneralButler relative to the confiscations or penalties imposed on citizens of New Orleans, and as one, namely, the New York Times, a journal which, if I mistake not, is generally respected and valued, has published in its number of Tuesday, the 26th of this month, two letters of Major General Butler—the first, to the consul of France, in answer to an official letter that the latter had addressed to “the assistant military commandant of New Orleans;” the second, to the consul of Spain, concerning a quarantine imposed on a Spanish frigate, are dated on the 14th and the other on the 16th of this month, it would seem that Brigadier General Shepley has not accepted the appointment of which you have done me the honor to speak to me; that Major General Butler yet acts as military governor, and that foreign consuls are still in official connexion with him. If this supposition is erroneous, if the letters published in the New York Times are apocryphal, you will much oblige me, sir, by having the goodness to apprise me thereof, for it cannot, I think, be indifferent to the King’s government to know whether the consul of the Netherlands (Mr. Conturié or another) would remain or not in case of having official connexions with Major General Butler.

In conclusion, sir, neither the King’s government nor the royal legation have any motive for sustaining, beyond justice, either Mr. Conturié or any other Netherlandish consul; and whether it be a question of Mr. Conturié or of another functionary of the Netherlands whose conduct shall be censurable, no personal consideration will ever restrain the royal government from listening to the sentiments of its own dignity and from the consideration due to foreign governments. It will hasten, always, to remove from service any person who shall have seriously violated his duty or gratuitously offended an authority or functionary of a friendly government.

I have the honor, sir, to renew to you the assurances of my high consideration.

ROEST VAN LIMBURG.

Mr. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States, &c., &c., &c.

Major General Butler to Mr. Conturié.

Headquarters Department of the Gulf, New Orleans, May 14, 1862.

Sir: Your communication of the 10th instant is received. The nature of the property found concealed beneath your consular flag—the specie, dies, and plates of the Citizens’ Bank of New Orleans—under a claim that it was your private property, which claim is now admitted to be groundless, shows you have merited, so far as I can judge, the treatment you have received, even if a little rough. Having prostituted your flag to a base purpose, you would not hope to have it respected so debased.

I am, officially, your obedient servant,

BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, Major General Commanding,

Per GEORGE BROWN.

The Consul of the Netherlands.

[Erasure conformable to the original.]—Am. Conturié

[Translation.—Note.]

The second paragraph of the communication of the Secretary of State of the United States to the minister of the Netherlands, dated the 5th of June last, is thus conceived: “The statements,” &c, &c.

In his letter of the 9th of June the minister, referring to this passage, says to the consul, “I invite you to write to me about it.”

A few lines are sufficient to explain all.

Mr. Conturié is a wine and liquor merchant. His store and counting room are at No. 33 Pavier street. The Netherlands consulate, where the silver and all the articles seized and carried off by order of General Butler were found, was on the premises No. 109 Canal street. The localities are distinct, and the distance which separates the two establishments is near about equal to that between the White House and Willards’ Hotel, at Washington.

On the 10th of May last, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, Mr. Conturié was at the consulate; hitherto he had no idea or suspicion of the lamentable acts which were going soon to blaze out. Hearing a voice in the office say that a federal officer had come to see Mr. Conturié, he stepped forward, saying that he was Mr. Conturié, consul of the Netherlands. The federal officer exhibited no order from General Butler; he put no question concerning the articles which might be found in the keeping of the consul; he asked no information or explanations on any subject, but confined himself to saying and doing what has been stated in the report of the consul.

These are the preliminary facts plainly reported; the rest are stated in the consular report. Mr. Conturié asserts that, if information of the character of that spoken of in the communication of the Secretary of State had been asked of him, in the name of General Butler or on the part of any other established authority, he would have hastened to furnish it, because no reason or cause can be imagined for refusing it, since acts of deposit were recorded in the books of the consulate. Mr. Conturié would have done, assuredly, with an earnestness at least equal, before the very lamentable occurrence of the 10th of May, what he did a few days afterwards of his own motion.

These preliminary facts being thus set forth in relief, there necessarily flows therefrom the conclusion that Mr. Conturié has not incurred the slightest blame of having exaggerated to himself the privileges and immunities of the Netherlandish consul and consulate. And if any mention has not hitherto been made of the absence of previous demand for information, on the part of General Butler, concerning the articles deposited in the consulate, it is because a report is, naturally, only a narrative of facts which have actually taken place. Negative facts cannot find a place in it sometimes, except by way of explanation, elucidation, or justification.

New Orleans, August 11, 1862.