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NICARAGUA.

No. 2.]

Mr. Seward to Mr. Dickinson.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, June 5, 1861.

SIR: The Spanish American states are important characters in the interesting drama of advancing civilization. They occupy a virgin domain equal to about one-eighth of the habitable part of the globe. Its fountains of wealth are inexhaustible. Its position secures it nearly equal advantages of trade and intercourse with the listless nations of the east, and with the vigorous nations of the west. Its ports, as well as all its transit routes are essential features in the commerce of the world. With the advantages of youth and singular exemption from foreign oppression or aggression which the Spanish American states have enjoyed for near half a century, it might have been expected that they would within that period have become strong and influential nations. The fact, thus far, is otherwise. They are just strong enough to maintain independence without securing necessary fear or respect. With much versatility, respectable talent, high cultivation, and very generous aspirations, they are generally changeful and capricious. The very mention of a South American state suggests always the same inquiry: why a people so free, so virtuous, so educated, and so emulous, are not more secure, fortunate, and happy. Everybody wishes the Spanish American states well, and yet everybody loses patience with them for not being wiser, more constant, and more stable. Such, I imagine, is the temper in which every foreign state finds itself when it proposes to consider its relations to those republics, and especially the republics of Central America. I know, at least, that this has always been the temper of our best statesmen in regard to Nicaragua. Union, or, at least, practical alliance with Nicaragua has always been felt by them as a necessity for the United States, and yet no one ever deems it prudent to counsel the establishment of such intimate relations. Possessing one of the continental transits most interesting to the United States, Nicaragua is at once jealous of foreign intervention to render it available, and incompetent to open and maintain it herself. But Nicaragua, like the other Spanish American states, has far better excuses for its shortcomings than it generally has credit for. That state became precociously mature, and it adopted our model of government with little of that preliminary popular education and discipline which seem necessary to enable any people to administer, maintain, and preserve free republican institutions. The policy pursued by foreign nations towards Nicaragua has not been liberal or generous. Great Britain, in her wars with Spain, early secured a position in the state very detrimental to its independence, and used it to maintain the Indians in a condition of defiance against the creole population, while it did nothing, at least nothing effectually, to civilize the tribes whom it had taken under its protection. Unwilling to lend the aid necessary to the improvement of the country, Great Britain used its protectorate there to counteract domestic efforts and intervention from this government to make that improvement which was necessary for the interest of Nicaragua herself, and hardly less necessary

for all the western nations. Our own government has been scarcely less capricious, at one time seeming to court the most intimate alliance, at another treating the new republic with neglect and indifference, and at another indirectly, if not directly, consenting to the conquest and desolation of the country by our own citizens for the purpose of re-establishing the institution of slavery, which it had wisely rejected. It may be doubtful whether Nicaragua has not until this day been a loser instead of a gainer by her propinquity to, and intercourse with, the United States.

Happily this condition of things has ceased at last. Great Britain has discovered that her Mosquito protectorate was as useless to herself as it was injurious to Nicaragua, and has abandoned it. The United States no longer think that they want slavery re-established in that state, nor do they desire anything at the hands of its government but that it may so conduct its affairs as to permit and favor the opening of an inter-oceanic navigation, which shall be profitable to Nicaragua and equally open to the United States and to all other maritime nations.

You go to Nicaragua in this fortunate conjuncture of circumstances. There is yet another comfort attending your mission. Claims of American citizens upon the government of Nicaragua have long been a source of diplomatic irritation. A convention which provides for the settlement of these claims has been already negotiated. It wants only the consent of the Senate of the United States to an amendment proposed by Nicaragu, which, it is believed, would not materially change the effect of the convention, and such consent may, therefore, be expected to be given at the approaching special session of Congress.

Your instructions, therefore, will be few and very simple. Assure the republic of Nicaragua that the President will deal with that government justly, fairly, and in the most friendly spirit; that he desires only its welfare and prosperity. Cultivate friendly dispositions there toward the United States. See that no partiality arises in behalf of any other foreign state to our prejudice, and favor, in every way you can, the improvement of the transit route, seeking only such facilities for our commerce as Nicaragua can afford profitably to herself, and yield, at the same time, to other commercial nations.

Let unpleasant memories of past differences be buried, and let Nicaragua be encouraged to rely on the sympathy and support of the United States if she shall at any time come to need them.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

A. B. DICKINSON, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

EGYPT.

No. 3.]

Mr. Thayer to Mr. Seward.

UNITED STATES CONSULATE GENERAL,
Alexandria, Egypt, June 29, 1861.

SIR: I have the honor to inform you of my arrival at this port on the morning of the 26th instant. The interruption of travel between Washington and New York, consequent on the late riotous proceedings in Baltimore, and my illness in Europe, necessarily prevented an earlier appearance at my post.

Immediate notice of my arrival, coupled with a request for an early inter view with the viceroy, was served on the minister of foreign affairs, who telegraphed accordingly to the Pacha, then sojourning at his palace in Benha, about one hundred and twenty miles distant A reply arrived on the evening of the 28th instant, that his highness would visit Alexandria and give an official reception. The promptness of his response, and his obliging readiness in voluntarily foregoing the usage which has heretofore required diplomatic agents, when asking an immediate interview, to present themselves in whatever part of Egypt he may have happened to be, instead of his coming to meet them, are interpreted here as marks of special courtesy to the government of the United States.

At half-past eight, according to previous arrangement, the dragoman of the viceroy arrived at the United States consulate with the state carriage, in which, together with our vice-consul, Mr. Johnson, I was conveyed to the palace built by the late Mohammed Ali on the sea-shore. We were also accompanied by a cavalcade of guards and janizaries attached to the other consulates at Alexandria. As we entered the court-yard the troops were drawn up in a line, with quite a fine effect, on our right, and we were greeted with the vigorous music of a military band.

Passing up the steps of the palace, and between the numerous attendants and officers who stood in order on each side, I was welcomed by the minister of foreign affairs, and by him presented to the viceroy, who advanced towards the centre of the spacious hall of reception. I then addressed him as follows:

"YOUR HIGHNESS: I have the honor to present to your highness a letter of credence from the President of the United States, announcing that I have been duly appointed to be the consul general of the United States for Egypt and its dependencies.

"In thus accrediting me as a diplomatic agent, the President desires me to assure your highness of his cordial friendship, and of his satisfaction in the continuance of those amicable relations which have so long and so happily subsisted between the governments of your highness and of the United States.

"During my official residence it will be my pleasant duty, acting in harmony with these assurances of the President, to use all honorable means to protect the interests of my fellow-citizens, and at the same time to foster a good understanding between them and the subjects of your highness. May these purposes receive your highness's benevolent approval."

In accepting my credentials, his highness replied, in French, that he perfectly understood and was much pleased with what I had said; that he welcomed me to Egypt, and hoped that his relations with the United States woud be as agreeable hereafter as they had been in times past.

The viceroy then invited me to the divan, where we sat holding a few minutes of informal conversation, with the usual accompaniment of pipes and coffee. His highness was in his most affable humor. He hoped that Egypt would prove agreeable to me, though I might find it very different from the United States. Here in Egypt, he remarked, things go on very smoothly. I replied, in so far as things went smoothly, I trusted the United States would be able to imitate the government of his highness. The viceroy laughed, and then proceeding from gay to grave, mentioned the melancholy tidings he had heard the night before of the Sultan's death. I responded that I lamented the sad event, but was very glad, nevertheless, that the viceroy was in excellent health. His highness, whose domains are but nominally a dependency of the Sultan's, seemed to take pleasure in this compliment. To the suggestion that a voyage to the United States in one of the excellent steam yachts of his navy might be interesting to him, the viceroy answered that he could not leave his country for so long a time. This, I assured him, was the worst disability under which his highness labored. The viceroy made no explicit reference to the present domestic disturbances in the United States, but expressed his good wishes for the welfare and harmony of our government.

I was next invested with "the sabre of honor," and returned home, escorted in the state carriage as before. Immediately on my reception by the viceroy a salvo of cannon had been fired, and at the signal, the national flags of all the fifteen consulates in Alexandria were raised for the day in compliment to the occasion. A horse, handsomely caparisoned, awaited me as I left the palace, and was led to the consulate as the gift of the viceroy. The uniform usage in Egypt makes this present so essential a part of a first official reception by the viceroy, that the refusal of it would be deemed ungracious, and our government, in the case of all my predecessors, has permitted its acceptance. As the oriental custom on such occasions made it necessary for me to disburse a considerable sum of money in gratuities to the very numerous soldiers and servants of the viceroy, his gift may be regarded as in some degree reciprocated. The pecuniary value of the horse is by no means large.

On returning to the consulate I found the military band of the viceroy stationed in front, who continued their complimentary services during the whole day. The consuls general of other nations, and the viceroy's minister for foreign affairs, then called upon me, appearing in full uniform; and in the afternoon I returned their visits, paying my respects first to the minister. By the minister and by the consuls a deep and intelligent interest was manifested in the affairs of the United States, and warm wishes were expressed for the continuance of our Union. The vigor of our government, and the vastness, suddenness, and spontaneous character of the military movement of our people in the pending struggle for national integrity, seem to have filled them with surprise. Indeed, among all well-informed men here, as well as elsewhere abroad, the historic battle fields of Europe have paled in interest before the tremendous uprising of the great nation beyond the Atlantic. They almost forget the political complications nearer home in studying the military map of the United States. The book-shops of the principal transatlantic cities abound in maps, charts, and other publications illustrative of the American contest, and the United States will become to masses, hitherto ignorant of its geography, a ground more familiar than

were India and the Crimea when the progress of armies made their localities significant to the whole world.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

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Mr. Haywood, secretary of the Manchester Cotton Supply Association, is expected here daily on a mission to Egypt and India, relative to the prospective deficiency of cotton produced by the pending conflict in the United States.

Mr. Haywood, while here, will endeavor to induce the Egyptian government to extend the cultivation of cotton. It is believed that the crop in Egypt could be increased tenfold if the government would tender its aid. Carelessness in allowing the small canals of irrigation to be obstructed is said to be a cause of the comparative meagreness of the average yield of this important staple.

This year, owing to the unusual height of the last overflow of the Nile, the crop promises to exceed considerably that which preceded it. In expectation of a scarcity in England, some of the commercial houses of Alexandria are sending agents into the interior to buy up the cotton in advance of harvest. But so well understood is the condition of the cotton growing region in the United States, even by the poorest fellahs, (peasants,) that it is difficult to persuade them to sell on terms which heretofore they would have been delighted to accept. The ruling price, at the last quotations, of Mako, which ranks next to Sea Island cotton, is 275 piastres ($13 75) per cantar (a quintal;) but some of the largest cotton growers insist on $17 00, and are holding back for that unheard of figure.

The following information is derived from intelligent men whose business connexions in Egpyt give authority to their statements in reference to this important question. I also communicate some tabular statistics which are appended to this despatch.

The cotton crop of Egypt commences to be gathered about the middle of September. There are two qualities, the Sea Island and the Mako.

The Sea Island cottons are divided into two kinds. The first is that of which the seed is new, and which is sown for the first time in Egypt. The second is that which has been sown for the second time. The Sea Island, after the second planting, are changed into fine Mako.

The Mako are divided into three kinds, which in commerce are called fine quality, medium quality, and inferior quality.

It is very difficult to give an exact statement of the number of quintals which Egypt annually produces. But, according to the official tables of exports, the total amount of crop is valued, on an average yearly, at from four hundred and sixty thousand to five hundred and fifty thousand, divided as follows:

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