Mr. Asboth to Mr. Seward
Sir : With reference to your despatch No. 12, Washington, October 15, 1866, declaring the willingness of the United States government to give their good offices, if asked for, towards the termination of the ravages of the Paraguayan war, I beg leave to inform you, in connection with my report No. 3, A. C, that having received on the 31st December ultimo, from Señor Dr. Don Rufino de Elizalde, the Argentine minister for foreign affairs, the assurance that the official despatches for the honorable Mr. Washburn had duly reached their destination, and having thus acquired the certainty that Mr. Washburn also was in possession of the views entertained by the United States government on this subject, I hastened to address on the following day a note to the Argentine minister for foreign affairs, the full contents of which I have the honor to give here, as follows :
Legation of the United States Buenos Ayres, January 1, 1867.
Sir : The United States government, which I have the honor to represent, believes that its good offices might be acceptable towards bringing the war between the allies and Paraguay to a satisfactory termination. Although the United States have never been eager to interfere in controversies abroad which lead to wars, or in accepting the part of mediator for the purpose of arresting hostilities, they have a natural desire, as an American power, that peace should prevail in this hemisphere wherever it can be maintained consistently with the honor and interest of the countries, whatever may be the form of their government.
By indulging this desire so far as to aid in restoring tranquillity to the boundless region of the La Plata and Parana, so much favored by Providence, the United States would not, it is conceived, justly incur a charge of uncalled-for intermeddling; if, however, all or either of the contending parties shall ask for the good offices of the United States, they will be bestowed with a fall appreciation of the delicacy and responsibility of the trust, and with a single desire to render impartial justice and to terminate the ravages of war.
I am instructed to make known these views to your excellency, and to inform the State Department at Washington of the manner in which they are received by the Argentine government.
Instructions to the same effect have been addressed to the United States ministers accredited respectively to the governments of Brazil and of Paraguay, and while trusting that your excellency will be pleased to receive the above sentiments as an additional proof of the sincere wishes of the United States for the lasting prosperity of the Argentine Republic, I beg leave to assure you, that it would give me the utmost satisfaction to inform my government, in return, that its anxiety to assist in smoothing the troubled waters in South America was responded to by Argentine government, through your excellency, in the same conciliatory spirit as that evinced by the government of the United States.
The bonds of sympathy and common interests which so happily prevail between the United States and the Argentine Republic will be drawn still closer when all the American sister republics shall be at peace, and the United States government will certainly neglect nothing to secure permanently to both the American continents the mutual advantages of lasting friendship
I seize the present occasion to offer to your excellency, personally, my renewed assurances of the-high consideration with which
I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
A. ASBOTH.
His Excellency Senor Dr. Don Rufino de Elizalde, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Although no reply to this note has reached me up to this moment, owing as I believe to the desire of the Argentine government to secure beforehand the benefit of President Mitre’s advice, who is still absent at the seat of war, as commander-in-chief of the allied armies; nevertheless, since the French mail steamer Carmel sails to-morrow, I have deemed it proper to forward by the present a preliminary report of the action already taken by me, in pursuance of the instructions received.
I have also advised General Webb, our minister in Rio de Janeiro, of my proceedings [Page 117] in this matter; nor have I neglected to inform in time the honorable Charles Washburn of the step I was about to take, as mentioned in my report No. 3, above alluded to.
From the tenor of Mr. Washburn’s letter, dated 25th December ultimo, I judge that the Paraguayans, although not discouraged, but rather determined to hold out to the last, would welcome a mediation of the United States. In the Argentine Confederation, all the people, especially those in the interior provinces, are clamoring for peace. The Mendoza revolution, reported under No. 17, series 1866, is daily spreading and becoming more and more serious; the federal party, which publicly claims the countenance of the renowned General Urquiza, and is supported from Chili with war materials and money, has under arms, in the province of Cuyo, a numerical superiority of men to those which General Paunero, the commissioner of the national government, can oppose to them.
In the presence of such a state of affairs, the readiness of the United Statesto assist in restoring peace, having somehow found its way through the govern ment officers to the daily press, the general satisfaction at the probability of sueh an event is only restrained from an open manifestation by the fear that the Argentine government, hampered, as it must be by the “secret treaty” and its many obligations to Brazil, may have some difficulty in arriving at a decision that will, without further clash of arms, lead to an honorable as well as satis-factory termination of this disastrous war. * * *
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.