Government for every centime received, and will turn over the small surplus, if any there be, to the Treasury Department. The whole subject is a very delicate and harassing one, for the French people at this moment, very naturally, are in a similar state of excitement to that which prevailed in the United States during the rebellion, and they are prone to see in the smallest things infractions upon their honor as a nation, where no disrespect is intended or imagined. Thus, for example, they argue that for the United States Government to refuse to take silver or Bank of France notes, except at a discount, in this time of their sore distress, is to impugn their national honor. That the true plan is for the Government of the United States to receive silver and bank notes at par, and after the war is over to make a reclamation upon the French government for the amount lost by so doing. I feel it my duty to state the exact situation of affairs, and to report the opinions expressed to me by many of the leading men here in commerce and public affairs. No explanation seems to them satisfactory, and I find myself placed in a very unpleasant position thereby, at a critical time, when it is desirable to cultivate the kindly feelings of the people. My instructions, however, are so clear and unmistakable that I have no hesitation as to the course which I will pursue. I have to-day received from the consul general of the North German Confederation at London, a request to inclose to each of the United States consuls circulars asking them to forward immediately all information concerning German vessels and their crews, which may be brought into port by French cruisers. I have directed the consuls to communicate to me all such intelligence, and upon its receipt I will immediately advise the German consul general at London. Trusting that the Department will approve my action in the above particulars, I have only to add that the dispatches this day received for the consul at Strasburg cannot at present be forwarded to him, as all communications are cut, and that city is besieged. It is reported this evening that the Prussians are in the vicinity of Chalons, on their way to Paris. It is impossible to ascertain the truth or falsity of this rumor, as no information can be obtained from the department, but I am inclined to doubt it for the moment. JOHN MEREDITH READ, JR. No. 115. No. 60.] Mr. Davis to Mr Read. DEPARTMENT OF STATE SIR: Your dispatch No. 56 is received. Washington, August 31, 1870. The questions in regard to the receipt of fees, in currency or in spe cie, and to the daily deposit of them in a bank, are supposed to have been satisfactorily answered by the cable. Full copies of the telegrams are inclosed. If the extra labor put upon you by the care of the North German consulates renders necessary an extra force, you will employ such as is necessary, keeping a separate memorandum account of all expenditures in that behalf for the use of this Department hereafter. The items will also go into your usual and ordinary accounts. The Department relies on your prudence to keep these extraordinary expenses within reasonable bounds. Your course in refusing to receive the property of French subjects for protection is approved. If the protection sought is against the act of France or of the French authorities, the rendering it would be an infringement of the last clause of the third article of the consular convention, concluded with France in 1853. If it is intended to be used against the North Germans, the granting it is a violation of the neutrality which we should observe in this war. You intimate that citizens of the United States in Paris may apply to have their property lodged at the consulate for protection. As the receipt of such property may invole you in personal liability to the owners, unless you carefully guard yourself against it, the Department does not feel inclined to give you instructions which can be construed as requiring you to receive it. Should you receive it, you will be careful to state officially in writing to each party that the Government will assume no risk in the custody of the property and no obligation to return it. A consulate is not estab lished in a foreign country to be a storehouse of property in time of war. But if parties are willing to take upon themselves, so far as the Government is concerned, the entire risk of the safe-keeping and return of small articles which can be deposited in a consulate without interfering with the official business, the Department will be glad to see them ac commodated, if it is an accommodation to them to be permitted to make deposit of such sort of property. I am, sir, your obedient servant, JOHN MEREDITH READ, Jr., United States Consul General, Paris. J. C. B. DAVIS, Acting Secretary. No. 63.] No. 116. Mr. Read to Mr. Fish. UNITED STATES CONSULATE GENERAL FOR FRANCE, Paris, September 16, 1870. (Received October 3.) SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch No. 60, with inclosed copies of telegrams forwarded to me by the Department. I have the honor also to reply to the instructions contained in your dispatch, as follows: 1. The several dispatches and telegram have enabled me to satisfac torily arrange the monetary affairs connected with this consulate general. 2. The Department may feel entirely sure that I will keep the extraordinary expenses connected with the care of the North German consulate "within reasonable bounds," and that, while using my utmost personal exertions, I will carefully abstain from creating or allowing any unnecessary expenditures whatever. 3. I have declined in every instance to receive the property of French citizens, except that in the case of the grandson of the Marquis de Lafay ette I consented to take charge of certain relics of that illustrious Frenchman, in remembrance of the services which he had rendered to our country when she was struggling for her liberty. But I distinctly informed Mr. de Lafayette that these matters were deposited in this consulate general at his own risk. 4. I have received the valuables of certain American citizens, most of whom were ladies, and who had no one to whom they could turn for protection. But I have notified each person in writing that they deposited their effects in the consulate general at their own risk, and that neither the Government nor the consul general would or could accept any responsibility in thus receiving them. While taking the utmost care to relieve the Government of all responsibility and myself from personal liability, I have spared no pains to defend and protect the property of American citizens. As a means to this end I have placed in several newspapers a notice requesting all Americans, resident in Paris, to come to this consulate general and register their names, their addresses in this city, with a slight description of the character of their property, and also their exact addresses in the United States. With this record at hand, I will be enabled to give a certain sort of useful information to their relatives or representatives, in case of loss of property or life. I had the honor to address to you on the 12th instant the following telegram: FISH, Secretary of State, Washington: Prussians within twenty-eight miles. Have instructed consuls throughout Stevens, when communications are cut. Saturday. My family safe at Granville. I shall remain in Paris to guard our interests. READ, Consul General. As I have received no reply to this message, I presume that my course is approved. The Prussians are very near Paris, and it is possible that no mails after to day will reach their destination. Referring to my determination heretofore expressed, I wish the Department to distinctly understand that I shall remain here not only in case of a siege, but also in case the city is bombarded. In my judg ment it is my duty to adopt this course, and I shall have no hesitation in doing so. In view of the immediate possibility and necessity of providing places of refuge for American citizens in times of danger and popular tumult, I have established branch offices of this consulate general at my resi dence in the Avenue d'Antin, and at the residence of the vice-consul general in the Place de Batignolles. It gives me the utmost pleasure to state that, in all my efforts in this and in every other direction, I have the faithful coöperation of Mr. Olcott, vice-consul general, Mr. Thirion, consular clerk and secretary, and Mr. David T. S. Fuller, clerk and messenger. No. 117. JOHN MEREDITH READ. Mr. Davis to Mr. Read. No. 69.1 DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, October 4, 1870. SIR: Your No. 63 is received. While approving generally your energy and zeal n preparing protection for your countrymen and country women the Department would caution you to do nothing that can be construed by the French government as an infringement upon, or an unau thorized extension of the provisions of the consular convention of 1853. It is, to say the least, doubtful whether the right to establish agencies, (or branches,) conferred by Article V, should be construed as conferring the right to establish several offices in the same city, and it is certain that, under our laws, Mr. Olcott is not a vice-consul with operative functions while you are in Paris. The Department advises you to communicate freely with Mr. Washburne on these subjects, and to so act as not to bring us in conflict with the French, or with the Prussians should they occupy Paris. I am, sir, your obedient servant, JOHN MEREDITH READ, Jr., Esq., U. S. Consul General, Paris. J. C. B. DAVIS, Assistant Secretary. GREAT BRITAIN. No. 118. Mr. Fish to Mr. Motley. [Telegram.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, July 16, 1870. Send to Bancroft, Berlin, by mail, and telegraph following: Hoffman, Paris, asks may we protect Prussians? Have answered, Our representatives may protect Prussians, if Prusia asks for it and France consents. Precedent of Moustier's request to us to protect French in Mexico referred to. At request of Gerolt have instructed Washburne to ask if North German steamers between Hamburg and Bremen and United States will be exempted from capture. Have received nothing from you. Think your dispatches have been intercepted. Answer through Motley, via Hamburg or Belgium. FISH. No. 394.] No. 119. Mr. Motley to Mr. Fish. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, London, July 21, 1870. (Received August 3.) SIR: I have the honor to send herewith two copies of a proclamation of her Majesty the Queen, commanding British subjects to observe strict neutrality in the war now existing between the Emperor of the French and the King of Prussia. JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. VICTORIA R. BY THE QUEFN. Whereas we are happily at peace with all sovereigns, powers, and states; and whereas, notwithstanding our utmost exertions to preserve peace between all sovereign powers and states, a state of war unhappily exists between his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of the French and his Majesty the King of Prussia, and between their respective subjects and others inhabiting within their countries, territories, or dominions; and whereas we are on terms of friendship and amicable intercourse with each of these sovereigns, and with the several subjects and others inhabiting within their countries, territories, or dominions; and whereas great numbers of our loyal subjects reside and carry on commerce, and possess property and establishments, and enjoy various rights and privileges within the dominions of each of the aforesaid sovereigns, protected by the faith of treaties between us and each of the aforesaid sovereigns; and whereas we, being desirous of preserving to our subjects the blessings of peace, which they now happily enjoy, are firmly purposed and determined to abstain altogether from taking any part, directly or indirectly, in the war now unhappily existing between the said sovereigns, their subjects, and territories, and to remain at peace with and to maintain a peaceful and friendly intercourse with each of them, and their respective subjects, and others inhabiting within any of their respective countries, territories, and dominions, and to maintain a strict and impartial neutrality in the said state of war unhappily existing between them: We, therefore, have thought fit, by and with the advice of our privy council, to issue this our royal proclamation: And we do hereby strictly charge and command all our loving subjects to govern themselves accordingly, and to observe a strict neutrality in and during the aforesaid war, and to abstain from violating or contravening either the laws and statutes of the realm in this behalf, or the law of nations in relation thereto, as they will answer to the contrary at their peril. And whereas in and by a certain statute made and passed in the fifty-ninth year of his Majesty King George the Third, intituled "An act to prevent the enlisting or engagement of his Majesty's subjects to serve in a foreign service, and the fitting out or equipping, in his Majesty's dominions, vessels for warlike purposes, without his Majesty's license," it is, among other things, declared and enacted as follows: "That if any person within any part of the United Kingdom, or in any part of his Majesty's dominions beyond the seas, shall, without the leave and license of his Majesty for that purpose first had and obtained as aforesaid, equip, furnish, fit out, or arm, or attempt or endeavor to equip, furnish, fit out, or arm, or procure to be equipped, furnished, fitted out, or armed, or shall knowingly aid, assist, or be concerned in the equipping, furnishing, fitting out, or arming, of any ship or vessel, with intent or in order that such ship or vessel shall be employed in the service of any foreign prince, state, or potentate, or of any foreign colony, province, or part of any province or people, or of any person or persons exercising or assuming to exercise any powers of government in or over any foreign state, colony, province, or part of any province or people, as a transport or storeship, or with intent to cruise or commit hostilities against any prince, state, or potentate, or against the subjects or citizens of any prince, state, or potentate, or against the persons exercising or assuming to exereise the powers of government in any colony, province, or part of any province or country, or against the inhabitants of any foreign colony, province, or part of any province or country, with whom his Majesty shall not then be at war, or shall within the United Kingdom or any of his Majesty's dominions, or in any settlement, colony, territory, island, or place belonging or subject to his Majesty, issne or deliver any commission for any ship or vessel, to the intent that such ship or vessel shall be employed as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, upon conviction thereof upon any information or indictment, be punished by fine and imprisonment, or either of them, at the discretion of the court in which such offender shall be convicted; and every such ship or vessel, with the tackle, apparel, and furniture, together with all the materials, arms, ammunition, and stores, which may belong to or be on board of any such ship or vessel, shall be forfeited; and it shall be lawful for any officer of his Majesty's customs or excise, or any officer of his Majesty's navy, who is by law empowered to make seizures for any forfeiture incurred under any of the laws of customs or excise, or the laws of trade and navigation, to seize such ships and vessels aforesaid, and in such places and in such manner in which the officers of his Majesty's customs or excise and the officers of his Majesty's navy are empowered respectively to make seizures under the laws of customs and excise, or under the laws of trade and navigation; and that every such ship and vessel, with the tackle, apparel, and furniture, together with all the materials, arms, ammunition, and stores, which may belong to or be on board of such ship or vessel, may be prosecuted and condemned in the like manner and in such courts as |