Mr. Dayton to Mr. Seward
Sir: Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys has informed me to-day that Annan had sold to Sweden those two iron-clad rams now being built by him at Bordeaux for the confederates. He assured Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys that the affair was completed, and offered to show him the contract which he then had in his hands. Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys says he did not examine the contract, but says he is satisfied that the sale has been made. I told him frankly I had little confidence in Arman’s statements on this subject, and should immediately write to our minister at Sweden to make sure of the facts. I shall do so by this mail.
Mr. Arman said likewise that he was seeking a neutral purchaser for those clipper ships, although, as he said, these were mere vessels of commerce. Two of them are advertised in the Bordeaux papers to sail in the China line—one called the Yeddo, on the 30th of this month; the other, called the Ozaca, on the 30th of next month.
The Rappahannock, yet in the basin at Calais, he says, is a great trouble to him. He seems scarcely to know what ultimately to do with her.
It seems he has a committee of jurisconsults connected with his department as advisers, and says he means to submit the facts to them.
I have, of course, made him aware from the beginning that the treatment given to these insurgent vessels was looked upon by us as a violation of international law, and as involving a just ground of complaint by us against the French government.
I have told him, too, that our government held all restrictions imposed by port rules on our vessels-of-war differing from those imposed by us upon their vessels, as illegal and unjust. That we claimed in their ports every courtesy that we extended to them in the ports of our own country.
I do not think there can possibly be any misunderstanding as to our meaning on these questions.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward Secretary of State, &c., &c., &c.