States legation and the Austrian embassy at Constantinople. Since Koszta's transfer to the hospital, the Austrian authorities have made use of every possible intrigue to induce him to escape from there. This has been several times proposed to him by persons whom I have every reason to believe are Austrian emissaries, offering to conceal him in their houses, whose object doubtless, was to have him arrested on leaving the hospital, by the Austrian spies, who are constantly hovering about the building, and restore him again to the Austrians; but Koszta was timely put on his guard by me, against all such intrigues on their part.

I have been informed that, since the revolution of 1848, the emperor of Austria had granted a general amnesty to all his subjects who had taken up arms against the government, inviting those who had taken refuge in foreign countries to return to Austria in the space of six months; and that those who would fail to return in that space of time would lose the right of Austrian protection, and that he would no longer consider them as Austrian subjects.

I have endeavoured to get a copy of this decree, thinking it might be useful in Koszta's case; the persons to whom I have applied for it remember that an ordinance to this effect had been issued by the emperor of Austria, but I have not succeeded in getting it.

I have the honor to be, sir, with great consideration, your obedient E. S. OFFLEY.

servant,

Hon. Wм. L. MARCY,

Secretary of State, Washington.

Mr. Mann to Mr. Offley.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, August 6, 1853.

SIR: The department learned, about ten days since, through the public prints, that a person, said to be in possession of a passport as an American citizen, was recently seized in the city of Smyrna, and conveyed on board an Austrian vessel then lying in the harbor.

In the same manner, it has since understood that this gentlemen has been placed, at the request of yourself and the Austrian consul, in charge of the French consul at Smyrna. Other details have been given. to which it is needless now to refer. The department has been waiting with much interest, from day to day, to receive from you the official account of these important transactions, but, as yet, nothing has come to hand, although it is well known that private parties in New York have received letters, since the date of these occurrences, both from Smyrna and Constantinople.

It is to be presumed that you could not have been so negligent in regard to your official duties as to omit altogether transmitting information or them to the department. Should it appear, however, that there was any delay on your part in writing to the department, or in embracing the first opportunity of sending dispatches, the fact will be at

once reported to the President. You will in future take care also to send a duplicate of your several communications by different convey

SIR: Your interesting dispatch, under date of July 5, marked duplicate, has been received, and the important questions to which it gives rise are now under grave consideration.

SIR: Referring to the dispatch addressed to you by this department on the 13th instant, in which the receipt of your dispatch of the 5th ultimo was acknowledged, and you were informed that the important questions growing out of the kidnapping of Martin Koszta were under consideration, I have now to instruct you that, while the President regrets the occurrences presented in those communications, he does not find, after the fullest attention given to the subject, any just cause for disapproving of your conduct, or that of Captain Ingraham, the commander of the United States corvette the St. Louis, or that of any of our diplomatic agents who took part in the matter. Though Martin Koszta was not invested with all the rights and privileges of a citizen of the United States, he was, at the time the outrage was committed upon him, entitled to the protection extended to him by the American functionaries at Smyrna. Having placed himself under the consular flag at Smyrna, and that of the United States legation at Constantinople, he had a right to be protected and respected as an American citizen, according to the immemorial usage of that country; a usage which has the obligatory character of a law in Turkey, and has been sanctioned and upheld by the highest courts instituted by the most enlightened nations for the administration of international law. You

therefore did nothing more than your duty in claiming for him the protection due to one of our citizens, and you and Captain Ingraham are justified by your government in using the means you did for procuring his release from illegal imprisonment. I am, sir, &c.,

E. S. OFFLEY, Esq.,

United States Consul, Smyrna.

W. L. MARCY.

No. 44.

Mr. Offley to Mr. Marcy.

UNITED STATES CONSUlate.
Smyrna, September 17, 1853.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the dispatch addressed me by the Acting Secretary of State, the Hon. A. Dudley Mann, dated August 6th last past, as well as of your dispatch, dated August the 13th, informing me that my dispatch, dated July 5th, relative to Martin Koszta, had been received by the department.

The former reached me on the 9th instant, and the latter yesterday, (the 16th.) I beg to state that immediately after the occurrence of the Koszta affair, my first care was to report the case to your excellency. The first mail that offered was that of the 6th of July by the Austrian steamer, via Trieste, and, although my dispatch was ready to be sent by that opportunity, I preferred forwarding it the day after by the French steamer, via Marseilles, care of the United States legation at London, that conveyance being, in my estimation, the safest one; as I feared, if I had sent it through Austria, it might have been opened, or even destroyed.

The departure of the mail gives me only time to inform you that I have just received a dispatch, and a duplicate of the same, from the United States legation, under date 15th instant, wherein it is stated that the proposal made, by the Hon. G. P. Marsh, to the Austrian minister at Constantinople, for Koszta's liberation and return to America, has been accepted by the Austrian government. I beg to enclose the duplicate of the above dispatch, (subjoined A,) as well as copy of a letter from the Hon. G. P. Marsh, under date August 4th (subjoined B) to this consulate, which contains the nature of the above proposal. I deem it my duty to lay these copies before you, as some delay may possibly occur in the receipt of the dispatch that Mr. Marsh has probably addressed you thereon.

I have the honor to be, sir, with great consideration, your obedient servant, E. S. OFFLEY.

Hon. W. L. MARCY,

Secretary of State, Washington.

A.

CONSTANTINOPLE, September 15, 1853.

SIR: The Austrian government has consented to my proposal for Koszta's liberation and return to America, on the conditions offered by me. I have not time to make the necessary arrangements before the departure of the mail of this evening, but I shall send either an agent, or more explicit instructions, by the Monday's boat.

In the meantime inquiries can be made for an opportunity of taking passage for him in an American ship sailing direct for the United States, and if he is destitute of means, the legation will provide the funds to pay his passage.

As, however, I have no authority to use the contingent fund of the legation for this purpose, I hope he will be able to raise the necessary

means.

Koszta is to remain at the French consulate until the moment of sailing, and is then to be put on board the ship under the surveillance of the American and Austrian consulates. Of course he can on no account leave the French consulate general in the meantime, and I earnestly hope that measures will be taken to prevent any public demonstration or disturbance of any sort, either before or at the time of his embarcation.

SIR: I have this day, at the suggestion of the French ambassador, had an interview with Mr. de Bruck on the subject of Koszta's release. I modified my former proposal, to the effect that Koszta should be put on board the first American ship sailing directly for an American port, by the French consulate or the Turkish authorities, with a stipulation that he shall not land at any Turkish or European port, and that if he voluntarily leaves the ship, our protection shall be withdrawn

from him.

I think this proposal will be accepted, and I wish you to communicate it to Koszta, and obtain his consent to it. It will be some days (two weeks or more) before an answer can be returned from Vienna. The notorious an Austrian spy and assassin, is said to have gone to Smyrna. I hope Koszta will be on his guard against false friends as well as open enemies.

E. S. OFFLEY,

U. S. Consul, Smyrna.

G. P. MARSH.

No. 46.

Mr. Offley to Mr. Marcy.

U. S. CONSULATE, Smyrna, September 27, 1853.

SIR: I had the honor of addressing you on the 17th instant, answering the dispatches from the Department of State, under date 6th and 13th August last, and transmitting the duplicate of a letter I had received on that day from the minister resident at Constantinople, dated the 15th instant, stating that his proposal for Mr. Koszta's liberation had been accepted by the Austrian government; enclosing also copy of the minister resident's letter of the 4th August, wherein the terms of the above proposal were mentioned.

On the 21st instant, Mr. J. P. Brown, dragoman of the United States legation, arrived from Constantinople, and handed me a dispatch from the minister resident, dated the 19th instant, containing an extract of the agreement between the Hon. G. P. Marsh and the Austrian internuncio on Koszta's liberation, and intimating to me to act in the whole matter under Mr. Brown's general direction. The agreement was not conformable with the tenor and spirit of the above mentioned letter of the legation, under date August 4, to which Mr. Koszta had given his consent at the request of the minister resident; but it contained a new proviso, to which I felt it my duty to abstain from giving my assent, under the following considerations:

The Austrian government thereby reserves to itself, "in conformity with its rights," to proceed against Koszta whenever he may be found again on the Ottoman territory. Last month Mr. Marsh refused to give his consent to a clause proposed by Baron De Bruck, which simply provided, that Mr. Koszta should not return again to Turkey, as appears by the following extract of a letter written to this consulate by Mr. Brown, under Mr. Marsh's instructions, dated the 2d of August last, wherein he says: "The internuncio wishes Mr. M. (Marsh) to provide that he (Koszta) will never return again to Turkey, which he cannot do. His case will, I believe, soon come to an end." It is therefore surprising that the legation should now concede more than it refused to agree to at first, especially as it knows that the prevalent opinion of Europe and of the United States has supported our conduct in this case.

I considered the condition admitted by the legation as a triumph to Baron De Bruck, and a mortification to the character of our country, the effect of which would destroy all the influence and credit that now reflects on it in consequence thereof, and would confirm the principle laid down by Austria in her manifest and in her press on this subject.

If Mr. Koszta be merely regarded as a political refugee, the pretensions of Austria, admitted by the legation in its agreement with the internuncio, are not only contrary to the laws of nations, but have also always been contested to Austria by France, England, and even Turkey itself; and the question was more particularly resolved in 1849, after the events of 1848.

But Koszta is under the protection of the United States, and, by ac