Mr. Seward to Mr. Van Limburg.
Sir: I have had the honor of receiving your excellency’s note of the 30th of August, in which you designate Amedee Conturié, of New Orleans, as the person who shall receive the eight hundred thousand dollars of coin which was taken from that person by direction of Major General Butler, and which, it has [Page 643] now been decided by this government, was a lawful deposit with him, made by the agent of, and for the account of, Messrs. Hope & Company, of Amsterdam.
I have the honor, further, to state that instructions will be immediately given by this government to Major General Butler, or General Shepley, military governor at New Orleans, or other authority there having possession of the coin, to deliver the same to the said Amedée Conturié, and take his acknowledgment for the same.
I regret that I do not find in your note a designation of any person to receive other articles which were taken from Mr. Conturié by direction of Major General Butler, and which this government has decided shall be delivered to such person as you shall designate, as you were informed by a note written by me to your excellency on the 20th day of August last.
Having submitted your note to the President, I am authorized to say that he accepts, with entire satisfaction, the explanation of the sense in which the word “outrage” was used in your previous communication of the 28th of July, and that your remarks upon that subject are entirely liberal and generous.
In regard to the transfer of the administration of civil affairs at New Orleans from Major General Butler to Governor Shepley, you admit that I wrote you, on the 5th of June last, that the President has made a military governor of the State of Louisiana, who has been instructed to pay due respect to all consular rights and privileges. You then call my attention to the fact that certain newspapers, among which is the New York Times, so late as the 26th of last month, published letters and other documents showing that Major General Butler was still exercising civil functions at New Orleans so late as the 14th and the 16th of August, and you ask me to state whether these facts are authentic.
I find not the least difficulty in answering this inquiry. The commission to General Shepley as military governor of Louisiana had already been issued and forwarded to him at New Orleans when I communicated this fact to you on the 5th of June last. Postal and commercial communications with New Orleans had been entirely cut off by the civil war for a year previous to the capture of that city by Major General Butler, and they had not been at all restored when my letter to you was written. There was a considerable and unavoidable delay of the commission on its way to Governor Shepley. When it reached him, at New Orleans, he thought it necessary, in view of the military situation existing there, to come to this capital for conference with the government, and for other purposes, before assuming the functions to which he was invited. Having done so, he returned to New Orleans and assumed the trust to which he had been appointed, at a day later than the 16th of August, and he is now exercising the same. I need not say that these delays unavoidably resulted from a novel situation of affairs, and were not looked for nor even foreseen by the President.
After this explanation, it does not seem important that I should remark, at present, on the other topics discussed in your note. I shall, however, cheerfully recur to them if it shall seem necessary, when you shall have favored me with the respected views of your government concerning the general subject embraced in our correspondence, as it is affected by the communication I had the honor to make to you on the 20th day of August last.
I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to you, sir, the assurance of my high consideration.
Mr. Roest Van Limburg.