Mr. Portman to Mr. Seward.
Sir: By this mail I presume you will receive from Mr. Pruyn translation of a letter from the ministers for foreign affairs, which I sent him for his information and for transmission to the department, in which the ministers request that the ships of war, munitions, &c., which they desired to be procured in the United States, be sent out to them without delay, being urgently required at the present time for putting down the civil commotion, which, in the case of the Prince of Nagato, appears to have assumed already the proportions of open rebellion.
This Prince, who last year, at Simonoseki, had all his forts dismantled and all his guns carried off by the allied fleet, now suddenly professes a great friendship for foreigners. The value of such friendship may be readily estimated.
By last mail I received a despatch with enclosures from our consul general at Shanghai in reference to the transfer of the steamer Lancefield, owned by the Prince of Nagato, through the agency of the owner of the American steamer Fee Pang, late the Monitor, copies of which documents were no doubt forwarded already to the department. I shall acknowledge the receipt of the same to Mr. Seward by the first opportunity and send you copies by a vessel to leave for San Francisco in a few days, together with such further information as the next inward mail may bring or I may gather from other reliable sources.
A governor for foreign affairs applied to me for information on the subject, but I stated to him that three days after the last mail left Shanghai, Mr. Pruyn must have arrived there and in person communicated with Mr. Seward; by the next inward mail I expected to receive Mr. Pruyn’s clear and explicit instructions, under which I would then be able to confer with him, to which he readily assented.
The design of the Prince of Nagato is evidently by the aid of foreigners successfully to resist the Tycoon’s lawful authority, and I regret to say that: there appears to be a tendency, in view of large profits to be realized, to afford such aid. The policy of the Tycoon, in furtherance of the very object for which the expedition to Simonoseki last year was undertaken by the Four Powers, is to put down this rebellious Daimio of Nagato, whose resistance, if successful and protracted, may prove productive of serious complications. The ships constructed in the United States would therefore now be of great service to the Tycoon, and I beg respectfully to recommend, as Mr. Pruyn has already done before, that they may be sent out to this government with all possible despatch.
I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.