394 
 
DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
Mr. Fogg to Mr. Seward. 
[Extract.] 
No. 61.3                              UNITED STATES LEGATION, 
Berne, June 16, 1864. 
SiR: Having received no response to my despatches Nos. 58 and 59, dated 
April 16 and 29, communicating the proposition of the federal council for
an 
amendment of the existing treaty between Switzerland and the United States,

I beg to recall your attention to the subject. 
In this connexion it has occured to me that possibly the treaty might be

modified with advantage to the citizens of both countries in some other of
its 
provisions. For instance, article 2 provides- that while "thecitizeis
of one 
of the two countries residing in the other shall be free from personal military

service, they shall be liable to the pecuniary or material contributions
which 
may be required, by way of compensation, from citizens of the country where

they reside, who are exempt from the said service."  The practical operation

of this provision is believed to inure exclusively to the Swiss, inasmuch
as 
Americans residing here are required to pay a military tax, while I appre-

hend no such tax is ever levied on Swiss in the United States. 
There may be some other provisions which ought to be modified, and which

may occur to the State Department in looki!ig over the existing treaty. 
But possibly you do not deem any modification necessary for the present,

and decline the proposition of the president of the confederation which I
com- 
municated in my former despatch. If so, I would like to be informed to that

effect, and be enabled to communicate the response of the State Department
to 
the federal council. 
With the highest respect, your obedient servant, 
GEORGE G. FOGG. 
Hon. WILLIAM -. SEWARD, 
Secretary of State of the b S. of America. 
Mr. Fogg to Mr. Seward 
No. 62.]                              UNITED STATES LEGATION, 
Berne, July 2, 1864. 
SIR: Your despatch No. 52, of the 31st May, was received some days since.

The day after its receipt I waited upon the president, with a carefully pre-

pared translation in the French of the same. Having read the despatch, the

president expressed some disappointment at the inability of the United States

government to accede to the proposition of the federal council in relation
to 
American consuls (in America) affording-protection to Swiss citizens. 
I said to him that, as you had stated, it would be a departure from the pgoliey

hitherto followed by our government, and that now was especially a most in-

opportune moment to adopt a new policy, which might be construed as a depart-

ure from that course of1"non-intervention " which we were persistently
demand- 
ing that other powers should maintain towards ourselves. 
I suggested, further, that the delicacy of our present relations with France,
in 
part growing out of recent and current transactions in  Mexico, might be
an 
additional reason why the United States must hesitate before any step that
could 
possibly produce new complications, at a time when all the national eaergie&

were tasked to guard and vindicate the national life. 
Of course I was careful to say that these suggestions were my own, and not

those of the President or of the State Department.