Letter (No. 68) of Dudley Mann to J. P. Benjamin
Source: United States, Naval War Records Office
Title: Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. / Series II - Volume 3: Proclamations, Appointments, etc. of President Davis; State Department Correspondence with Diplomatic Agents, etc.
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Publication date: 1922
Place of Publication: Washington
Pages: 963 - 964
Copied from: Cornell University's MoA Multivolume Monographs, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (1894 - 1922)
[No. 68]
SIR:: I confidently trust that my Nos. 66 and 67, giving detailed accounts of my audience with the sovereign pontiff and of my interview with the cardinal secretary of state, will have been in your possession some days previous to the arrival of this. Lest, however, they may have been delayed on their way to their destination, I will state that my reception at the Vatican was cordial in the broadest sense of the word, and that my mission has been as successful as the President could have possibly desired it to be.
On the 19th I had a second interview with Cardinal Antonelli. I intended it to be of short duration, but he became so much interested in the communications which I made to him that he prolonged it for nearly an hour. He took the occasion to inform me, at the commencement, that the acting representative of the United States had obtained an interview of him the day before to remonstrate against the facilities afforded by the government of the holy see to "Rebels" for entering and abiding in Rome; and that he, the cardinal, promptly replied that he intended to take such "Rebels" under his special protection, because it would be making exactions upon elevated humanity which it was incapable of conscientiously complying with, to expect them to take an oath of allegiance to a country which they bitterly detested. I may add, in this connection, that such passports as you may issue will receive the visa of the nuncio at Paris or Brussels, and that there is now nowhere that the nationality of a citizen of the Confederate States is not as much respected as that of the United States except in the dark hole of the North of Europe.
We have been virtually, if not practically, recognized here. While I was in the foreign office the day before yesterday, foreign ministers were kept waiting for a considerable length of time in the antechamber in order that my interview might not be disturbed. Frequently the cardinal would take my hand between his and exclaim: "Mon cher, your Government has accomplished prodigies, alike in the cabinet and in the field."
Antonelli is emphatically the State. He is perhaps the very best informed statesman of his time. His channels for obtaining intelligence from every quarter of the earth are more multifarious and reliable than even those of the French. His worst enemies accord to him abilities of the very highest order. They say that he is utterly unscrupulous as to the means which he employs, but that no other man could have saved the temporal power of the Pope. He is bold, courageous, resolute, and is a great admirer of President Davis, because he is distinguished by those qualities, qualities which, if supported by good judgment, will, in his opinion, ever win the object to which they are devoted.
Of course I can form no conjecture when the letter of his holiness to the President will be ready for delivery. Weeks, perhaps months, may elapse first. With my explanations to him upon the subject of slavery, I indulge the hope that he will not allude, hurtfully to us, to the subject. As soon as I receive it I will endeavor to prevail with him to have the correspondence published in the official Journal here, or to give me permission to bring it out in the Paris Moniteur. Its information would be powerful upon all the Catholic governments in both hemispheres, and I would return to Brussels and make an appeal to King Leopold to exert himself with Great Britain, Prussia, etc., in our behalf. Thus I am exceedingly hopeful that before spring our independence will be generally acknowledged. Russia alone will most probably stand aloof until we are recognized by the North, as she has now, at least ostensibly, identified her fortunes with that distracted and demon-like division of the old Union.
So far my mission has not found its way into the newspapers. I wish to keep it secret in order that the publication of the letters may, from the unexpectedness, cause a salutary sensation everywhere when it occurs.
I have reason to believe that what I have said in high places in relation to Irish emigration to New York were words in season.
I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hon. J. P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of State, C. S. A., Richmond, Va.
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