[Extract.]
Mr. Washburn to Mr. Seward
No. 91.]
Legation of the United States,
Asuncion,
September, 21, 1867.
Sir: Since the date of my despatch of August
31st I can learn of very little change in the aspects of the war. The
allies appear to have made some raids to the north of Humaita, and have
at least once entered the town of Pilar, situate some seven leagues
above the Paraguay lines and on the left bank of the river. They have
also succeeded in driving off some cattle belonging to the Paraguayans,
and it is here believed that they have effectually stopped all land
communication between the Paraguay camp and the country above, but even
here we know very little of the real condition of affairs. Every event
of the war is here represented as a great success for Paraguay, and
every battle is always a great victory in which the allies suffer
fearfully and the Paraguayans little or nothing.
Mr. Gould, the secretary of the British legation in Buenos Ayres, who
came up to the Paraguay camp some six weeks ago, as mentioned in my last
despatch, it now appears tried to do something in the way of mediation.
He proposed the following terms as a basis of an arrangement for peace
:
1st. An understanding, secret and antecedent, shall assure the allied
powers of the acceptation by the Paraguay government of the propositions
that they are disposed to make.
2d. The independence and integrity of the republic of Paraguay will be
formally acknowledged by the allied powers.
3d. All questions that relate to territory or boundaries in dispute
before the present war will be reserved for a later understanding or
submitted to the arbitration of neutral powers.
4th. The allied troops will retire from the republic of Paraguay, the
same as the troops of Paraguay will evacuate the positions occupied by
them within the territory of the Brazilian empire, as soon as peace may
be secured.
5th. No indemnity for the expenses of the war will be demanded.
6th. The prisoners of war on both sides shall be immediately put at
liberty.
7th. The Paraguay troops shall be immediately sent to their homes, except
the number of men strictly necessary for the maintenance of the interior
tranquillity of the republic.
These terms were satisfactory to President Lopez, and the secretary then
went back to the allied camp to confer with President Mitre and the
Marquis de Caxias, and, as appears from the correspondence, a
translation of which I enclose herewith, he proposed the same terms to
them, but added another article to the conditions which had been
submitted to President Lopez. This last article was the ever-insuperable
obstacle in the way of peace; that is, the preliminary condition that
Lopez shall leave the country. Thus amended the allies were willing to
accept the terms proposed by Mr. Gould, if Paraguay would first
acknowledge that “it had been deceived as regards the ambitious projects
that it attributed erroneously to Brazil, and that it regrets the
hostile measures that under this false impression it had undertaken, not
only against Brazil but also against the Argentine Confederation.” With
the conditions thus made acceptable to the allies, the secretary
returned to the Paraguay headquarters and submitted them to President
Lopez. Of course they were indignantly rejected, and Mr. Gould then for
the third time passed through the military lines, and, I suppose, has
returned to Buenos Ayres. Before returning, however, he did me the great
service of sending the gunboat that had brought him up the river to
Corrientes to bring up the provisions for me of which I made mention in
my last despatch, and which the allies had detained for some three or
four months, after having promised General Asboth to pass them directly
through to the Paraguay camp.
[Page 731]
With this I send a copy of a letter I have written to General Asboth,
giving more fully the details of the mediation attempted through the
agency of Mr. Gould.
* * * * *
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
[Translation.]
Señor Caminos to Mr. Gould
Headquarters Paso Pucu,
September 14, 1867.
Mr. Secretary: I had the honor to receive
the communication of this date that your honor was pleased to
address me, and with it memorandum that you had officiously
presented to the chiefs of the allied forces as bases for bringing
to the field of discussion the questions that induced the present
war.
In the different clauses of this memorandum I find a sensible
difference from those that your honor had prepared to obtain the
object at the conferences to which you invited me, telling me that
on this matter the Brazilian minister in Buenos Ayres, and President
Mitre, and Marquis de Caxias in the allied camp had previously
spoken, but the most salient is the condition of the separation of
his Excellency the marshal President of the republic from the
supreme command of the state, but which is rather his expatriation
to Europe, as is seen by the terms of the eighth clause of the
memorandum offered to the allied chiefs.
In those points that your honor has before presented, as if to serve
as a starting point for a discussion you said “his Excellency the
marshal President of the republic having concluded the war with
honor for his country, and fully assured of its independence and its
institutions, would leave with the assent of the national congress
(or without convoking it) the government in the hands of his
excellency the vice president, for the purpose of going to Europe
for some time, in order to rest himself from the fatigues of
war.
“The government shall declare that it has been deceived as regards
the ambitious projects that it attributed erroneously to Brazil, and
that it regrets the hostile measures that under this false
impression it had undertaken, not only against Brazil, but also
against the Argentine Confederation.”
In declaring, then, the first paragraph copied as a starting point on
which I could not consent to any discussion, I said that the second,
disconnected, could offer no difficulty once that Brazil should make
clear and certain that it had no ambitious intentions on the
Oriental state, and the republics of the Plate, producing among the
belligerents a satisfaction entirely mutual, and a guarantee for the
future stability of peace.
In the memorandum now received I find the following sentence: “His
Excellency the marshal President of the republic, peace being once
established, or the preliminaries of peace, will retire to Europe,
leaving in the hands of his excellency, the vice president, that is
in similar cases, according to the constitution of the republic, the
person designed to be left in charge.
It will suffice, the reading the one proposition and then the other,
and the declaration that your honor has been pleased to make me,
that on the part of the allies the change of government is
indispensable, to see that it only remains to me but to repeat in my
turn the declaration that this point is inadmissible, as being
contrary to the honor and interest of my country.
To satisfy your honor, I ought to add that the vice-president being
nominated by the President of the republic, according to our
institutions, he is not competent to assume the supreme command of
the state in the absence of the President, and his mission is
limited to convoking the national Congress. As for the rest, I can
assure you that the republic of Paraguay will not stain its honor or
its glory by ever consenting that its President and defender, who
has given it such glories and is fighting for its existence, should
suffer his deposition from his post, and still less that he should
be expatriated from the land of his heroism and his sacrifices, as
these are themselves for my country the sure guarantee that Marshal
Lopez will share the fortune that God may have provided for the
Paraguay nation.
The other articles of the memorandum presented to the allied chiefs
may serve as a starting point for a discussion conformable with what
I have already had the honor to express to your honor, and I repeat
that although it does not escape my attention that in the discussion
they might offer some difficulties, but that the interests of peace
could reduce them to convenient terms.
I will not close this communication without expressing to your honor
my gratitude for
[Page 732]
the
effort you have made to approach the belligerents in order to put an
end to the present sanguinary strife, and to ask you that if in the
exterior, or where our voice cannot reach, it should be sought to
present this step, as indicated on the part of Paraguay, that you
will be pleased to declare formally that it was entirely foreign to
it, and that the suggestion of it has proceeded exclusively from
your honor.
Mr. G. Z. Gould, Secretary of Legation of
her Britannic Majesty.
Bases presented to the allied chiefs.
1. An understanding, secret and antecedent, shall assure the allied
powers of the acceptation by the Paraguay government of the
propositions that they are disposed to make.
2. The independence and integrity of the republic of Paraguay will be
formally acknowledged by the allied powers.
3. All questions that relate to territory or boundaries in dispute
before the present war will be reserved for a later understanding or
submitted to the arbitration of neutral powers.
4. The allied troops will retire from the republic of Paraguay and
will evacuate the positions occupied by them within the territory of
the Brazilian empire as soon as peace may be secured.
5. No indemnity for the expenses of the war will be demanded.
6. The prisoners of war on both sides shall be immediately put at
liberty.
7. The Paraguay troops shall be immediately sent to their homes
except the number of men strictly necessary for the maintenance of
the interior tranquillity of the republic.
8. (As is translated.*)
Headquarters of Tuyucué, September
12.
Mr. Washburn to Mr. Asboth
Legation of the United
States, Asuncion,
September 20, 1867.
My Dear Friend and Worthy Colleague: On the
17th instant I received an invitation from Minister Berges to visit
him at the government house, to confer with him on matters of
importance. I complied with the request, when the minister
communicated to me substantially the following facts:
The English secretary of legation, Mr. G. Z. Gould, had protracted
his stay in the Paraguayan camp for some 20 days. During this time
he had approached President Lopez, directly and through his private
secretary, Luis Caminos, to see if it were not possible to propose
some terms of peace that would be acceptable to both of the
belligerent parties. [The terms proposed to President Lopez as
likely to be accepted by the allies will be found appended to the
letter of Luis Caminos to Mr. Gould, of which I send you a copy.] To
the terms suggested by Mr. Gould President Lopez made no objection,
and he therefore returned to the allied camp and proposed the same
terms, but adding another article, to the effect that President
Lopez should leave the government of Paraguay in the hands of the
vice-president and go to Europe.
Thus amended the bases proposed to the allies would be acceptable if
Lopez would submit to the further humiliation of admitting that he
had been wrong in his suspicions of the ambitious designs of Brazil,
and that he regrets the hostile measures he had taken under a false
impression both against Brazil and the Argentine Republic.
With the bases of a peace thus amended to conform to the ideas of the
allies, the hopeful diplomat returned to the Paraguay camp, this
time coming up through a part of the blockading squadron to
Curupaiti.
The reception which his amended proposition met with may be inferred
from the letter of Señor Caminos. Of course it was indignantly
rejected.
This attempt at mediation, coming as it evidently does with the
approval, if not at the request of the allies, has doubtless
inspired a hope in this government that other and more reasonable
overtures of peace will soon be made, but Mr. Berges says that if
there is to be mediation of any foreign power this government is not
disposed to accept that of England, nor of any other power but that
of the United States; that our government is the only one that has
shown any interest in Paraguay or even a disposition to treat it
with common fairness, and that if any credit or reputation is to
accrue to the mediators it is due to the government and diplomatic
agents of the United States; that the English government has
[Page 733]
shown no interest in this
war in favor of Paraguay, and its minister in Buenos Ayres has
publicly repudiated the idea that it would ever do so.
When Mr. Gould first came through I was told by Mr. Berges that the
“Dotterel” had come up to Curupaiti. Such, however, I have since
been informed, was not the fact. He came to Itapiru, and thence
through the lines to Paso Pucu, bringing with him the boxes and
mail-bags that the gunboat had brought up from Buenos Ayres for me.
For some reason, however, he did not send them forward to me for
some 10 days, though informed repeatedly that he could do so. On
returning to the allied headquarters, it appears that while he was
negotiating for peace, the “Dotterel” went back to Corrientes and
took aboard my provisions that had been left there some three months
before, after having been refused a passage through the lines, on
the ground, as the newspapers say, that I did not require so much,
and that the boxes perhaps contained things contraband of war. I
conclude that it was at the request of the allies the “Dotterel”
went back to Corrientes and took these things on board, as I imagine
you were raising such a tempest about their ears they were afraid
that, if detained there longer, they would have another question
with the United States government and no Admiral Godon to sustain
them. On returning from Corrientes, the “Dotterel,” as I am now
positively assured, came to Curupaiti, where my goods were
discharged and passed over by land to Humaita. They will probably
reach here in a day or two. Had they not come through by this time I
should have addressed a letter to President Mitre, asking him that,
as the newspapers had stated he had detained my provisions that were
necessary and almost indispensable for the health of myself and
family on the ground that I did not need so many, he would kindly
allow me to have from week to week the quantity that he thought
reasonable and proper; that as prisoners of war were allowed to
supply themselves with food at their own expense, he would allow me
to have a regular weekly supply from my own stores to such an amount
as, in his opinion, was required for health and comfort. This would
have been a fair hit, more just than discreet, perhaps, but their
impudence in stopping my supplies after having engaged to forward
them, merits anything but honeyed words. Mr. Berges is of the
opinion that in the attempted mediation of the English secretary,
both he and the allies have made so sorry a figure that they will
not be anxious to have the facts of the matter known or published,
and it is that you may know them that I send through this and the
accompanying despatches.
Should you publish the letter of Señor Caminos and the bases of peace
submitted by Mr. Gould, it would not be at all displeasing to this
government, and certainly it is but just that the outer world should
know of the real merits of the questions that are prolonging this
miserably protracted war.
Very respectfully, your friend and colleague,
His Excellency General A. Asboth, U. S.
Minister, Buenos Ayres.
