Mr. Johnson to Mr. Seward
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your telegraphic dispatch of the 26th instant.
The San Juan protocol will of course be left as it is.
Why you are of the opinion that the claims convention is “useless unless amended” you do not state, and I am unable to conjecture. I have just had an interview at the foreign office with Lord Stanley, who read me a dispatch from her Majesty’s minister at Washington, which stated that it was understood that all the cabinet disapprove of it, and had said that it was contrary to instructions. This latter statement puzzles me yet more. If I understand your original, and all the subsequent instructions, whether by telegraph or otherwise, the convention conforms substantially with them. By those of the 20th of July I considered myself authorized, if this government would adjust, as desired, the naturalization and San Juan controversies, to settle the claims controversy by a convention on the model of that of February 8, 1853. And as the two former were satisfactorily arranged, I deemed myself not only authorized but bound to adopt the course that I did in relation to the latter.
The convention is in substance the same with the one of 1853. The only difference is in the articles relating to the Alabama claims, in which it is provided that the head of some foreign government is to be the arbitrator to decide them in the event that the commissioners prove unable to come to a unanimous decision; and that he is to be selected by the two governments previous to their consideration by the commissioners. In all other respects the two conventions are nearly identical.
By your dispatch No. 20, of the 23d of September, I was expressly authorized, as I understood, to agree to such a convention whenever I should become satisfied that the naturalization and San Juan questions were or would be satisfactorily arranged. It is true that in this dispatch the arrangement was not to be obligatory until those of the two former were finally settled. The same condition was annexed to my powers as to the San Juan matter, and I made the protocol in regard to that dependent upon the final and satisfactory settlement of the naturalization question. This provision is not inserted in the claims convention, not because her Majesty’s government had or would object to it, but because the Senate might properly decline to ratify it until that was done, and in this effect your object. And such must have been the view of Lord Stanley, as I made him acquainted with this limitation of my authority. If, however, the signing of the convention without this limitation is esteemed a disregard of instructions, it is but literally so, and cannot, in any way that I can conceive, render the convention “useless” should it be ratified.
By your telegraphic dispatch of the 11th of November I was told, in so many words, that if I could get Washington substituted for London, as the place of meeting of the commission, “all will be right.” And, as you have been advised, I did obtain this substitution.
That the naturalization question will be settled according to the views of our government is certain, whether this government remains in office or not. I know this not only from the public sentiment of the country, but from personal intercourse with some of the leading statesmen who, it is understood, will constitute a part of the government should there be a change.
[Page 388]Awaiting the receipt of the dispatches to which your telegram of the 26th refers,
I remain, with high regard, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.