No. 90.
Mr. E. B. Washburne to Mr. Fish.
Sir: General Burnside and Mr. Forbes left to go through the Prussian lines yesterday. The general took the bag, in which I had inclosed [Page 127] several dispatches. My colleague of the diplomatic corps, Mr. Caicedo, the minister resident of the United States of Colombia, expects to leave to-morrow morning, and I propose intrusting this dispatch to him to be delivered to Mr. Stevens in London. The diplomatic corps has received no answer to the application to the Prussian authorities to be permitted to send a courier through the military lines to take official dispatches to their respective governments. Count Bismarck writes to Jules Favre that such permission will be granted only on the condition that such dispatches shall be unsealed and subject to the inspection of the Prussian authorities, and contain nothing in relation to the war. For myself, I determined instantly that I would not send dispatches under any such conditions, for I assumed that the Government of the United States would permit no other government to examine the official dispatches of its diplomatic representatives. At a meeting of the corps this morning to consider the question, it was unanimously determined not to accept any such condition. The Prussian authorities will be advised of that decision, and no other application will be made to them. If the siege continue, and I remain in Paris, it will be for you to determine as to the measures to be taken to hold official communication with me.
It seems that the nuncio, acting as the doyen of the diplomatic corps, had requested Jules Favre to ask Count Bismarck to advise the corps whenever the bombardment of the city was to take place. That fact only came to my knowledge yesterday, and I sent word to Count Bismarck, by General Burnside, that I had nothing to do with such a request, as I conceived that, according to the laws of war, the diplomatic corns had a right to a notification of bombardment without asking for it.