DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
17 
 
will accredit a representative to the court of her Catholic Majesty, and
you ask 
directions how to regulate your conduct towards the person who may be so
ac- 
credited. 
It is the policy of the United States to refrain from recognizing revolutionary

governments. It has not recognized any revolutionary government in Mexico,

while it has justly respected the belligerent rights of the parties engaged
in war 
in that country. You will, of course, follow the policy which prevails here;

and you will hold no official intercourse with any representative at Madrid
of 
any revolutionary government that has been or shall be established against
the 
authority of the government of the United States of Mexico, with which alone

the United States are maintaining diplomatic relations. 
I am, sir, your obedient servant, 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 
GUSTAVUS KOERNER, Esq., 4r.4vc.,  C.. Madrid. 
Mr. Seward to Mr. Koerner. 
No. 82.4                          DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 
Washington, April 18, 1864. 
SIR: Your despatch of the 27th of March, No. 85, has been received. Your

proceedings therein related, in reference to the denial of Mr. Tassara's
request 
in the matter of equipments, and also your views in the matter of Mr. Caz-

neau's claim on the Spanish government, are approved. 
I thank you for the interesting information you have given concerning exist-

ing domestic questions in Spain. 
It is true that Mr. Preston has gone to Mexico, as a pretended legate of
the 
insurgents, to the so-called regency of the empire. They are very enterprising

in diplomacy, but their success there is not greatly to be feared, unless
they 
should retrieve misfortunes sustained on the battle-field. Spain has heretofore

had opportunity to understand the slaveholders of the United States. It is
not 
less her own interest than it is ours that ahe shall not suffer herself to
be misled 
by them. What resistance could Mexico, now or at any future time, offer,
with 
even European aid, against the slaveholding power of the United States, if
it 
could escape destruction and attain independence in the present civil war?

I am, sir, your obedient servant, 
WILLIAM     H. SEWARD. 
GUSTAVUS KOERNER, Esq., S., 4-c., 4-c., Madrid. 
Mvr. Koerner to Mr. Seward. 
No. 88.1                        LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 
Madrid, April 18, 1864. 
SIR: Despatch No. 75, enclosing communication from the Navy Department, 
was received last night. The instruction it contains as to expressing the

thanks of the government of the United States to Spanish Admiral Don D. 
Pavia, through the appropriate channel, will receive my prompt attention.

The house of deputies of the Cortes have adopted the constitutional changes

lately passed in the senate by a very large majority; by this proceeding
heredi- 
tary peerage has been abolished, and the two houses are left free to prescribe
their 
own rules, which, under the former enactment of 1857, were to be regulated
by 
a law which required the action of both houses, and the assent of the crown.

The effect of the recent changes is there-establishment of the constitution
of 1845. 
2 c*,