Mr. Ottbourg to Mr. F.W. Seward
Sir: It has been announced as official that eighty French soldiers in the service of the empire taken at the battle of San Jacinto, in which the imperialists under the command of General Miramon were routed, have been shot by General Escobedo in obedience to the orders of President Juarez. In consequence Miramon issued a proclamation, ordering reprisals, which the editors in this city [Page 372] have been strictly enjoined not to make public, as it is understood that Maximilian disapproved of this measure of retaliation and at once countermanded its being carried into effect. The liberals, on the other hand, justify this execution of the prisoners by reference to the circulars from the French government, which Marshal Bazaine published, inviting French military of all grades to return to France, with a warning of the penalties incurred under French law by those who entered the ranks of any government other than their own.
Advices from Queretaro to 4th instant inform us of the concentration of liberal forces to the number of 20,000, from distinct and remote quarters of the republic, under Generals Escobedo, Regules and Corona, and of the consequent critical position of the imperial army of 10,000 men, commanded by Maximilian in person. Troops have been accumulated in his rear to cut off communications with the capital, which with Queretaro, Pnebla and Vera Cruz, are the only cities of wealth left to the empire. In this relative position of the parties, even though the capital may be taken at the moment General Porfirio Diaz shall make an attack in form, a battle expected from day to day near Queretaro will alone decide the fate of the empire or concede it a lingering existence of some few months longer.
The effects of these military operations make themselves known in the prices, progressively higher, demanded for provisions, and the more jealous precautions of the authorities.
The difficulties of meeting the ordinary expenses of government increase in direct proportion, as the resignation of the minister of hacienda (finance) openly acknowledges; for his excellency, having remitted $100,000 to the army of the emperor, distrusts his ability to cover the estimates by further resort to his extraordinary financial artifices. The stoppage of trade, the tardy returns of the last imposition of one per cent. and the impossibility of extorting new contributions from a city exhausted by taxation, fully warrant the retreat from a position the calls upon which no minister can meet short of a recurrence to universal confiscation, however that measure may be disguised under specious names.
Enclosure No. 1 shows that residents beyond the bounds of the imperial rule, equally with those who still support its sway, are paying the exactions of civil discord and military rule.
Within the last week the latent hostility to Americans has been manifested in the arrest by minor agents of the government of two citizens of the United States upon frivolous and unfounded pretexts; and it is due alone to the more enlarged comprehension of the higher authorities, an example of which is exhibited in enclosures Nos. 1, 2, and 3, that I have been able at all to hold my ground without compromising the dignity of the United States, and that measure of respect to which the officials are entitled as long as they do not forget what they owe to themselves and to the government authorities with whom they cannot avoid being brought in contact.
A person by the name of Zerman, claiming the rank of brigadier general of the United States army, who presented himself last year in this consulate with a passport from the Department of State, is now serving in some sort of character the government police in this capital.
I have been informed that speculators, anticipating a loan to be effected in favor of Mexico in the United States, are purchasing and engaging the refusal of reclamations against the Mexican government, with the expectation that a certain amount would be retained for the payment of claims which were invested with an American character.
The private secretary of Prince Maximilian is very busily engaged in the compilation of the correspondence of Marshal Bazaine and other officials with the emperor of Mexico.
The publication of these papers promises completely to vindicate the conduct of Maximilian, and to attach the responsibility for the errors of his administration where it justly belongs.
[Page 373]No mail from the United States has been received at this consulate during the last six weeks.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hon. F. W. Seward, Assistant Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.