In 1860 a decision of the United States and Paraguayan Arbitration Commission settled the last in a series of disputes that had brought the two countries perilously close to an armed confrontation.1 The commissioners ruled that the Paraguayan government had not acted unjustly in expelling from its soil the American-owned United States and Paraguay Navigation Company, and they dismissed the company’s claim for one million dollars in compensation.2 A fascinating aspect of the maneuvers that led to the decision was the role played by Sam Ward, one of the most skilled American lobbyists in the nineteenth century. Historians have recounted many other chapters in his intriguing career,3 but this one was overlooked until 1954, when Pablo Max Ynsfrán revealed in the pages of this journal that Carlos Antonio López, the Paraguayan dictator, secretly hired Ward to work against the claim of the navigation company.4 A perusal of the evidence, however, suggests that the company officials were indeed aware of the Ward-López connection and that Ward was later appointed to the arbitration commission for just this reason.
What proof is there to support such a contention? It seems most unlikely that Ward could have kept all his activities on behalf of Paraguay from the agents of the navigation company. He may possibly have concealed his successful attempt to enlist the New York Times in Paraguay’s defense, but his lobbying in Washington would seem to have been a different matter. Ward never revealed his specific activities in this field, but, using his well-known ability to make influential friends, he could penetrate Washington’s most important political circles.5 Because of their intensity and extent, his efforts would have been difficult to cloak, especially since Ward had a conversation in May 1859 with Assistant Secretary of State John Appleton concerning the claims of the company—before Ward knew that Appleton had been hired by the navigation company to prepare its case.6 Ward’s desire for detailed information on the company’s claim must have excited more than Appleton’s idle curiosity, and it would not have been difficult for a man in Appleton’s position to find out about Ward’s campaign.
Moreover, there exists the strong probability that the company knew or suspected Ward’s connections even before his return from Paraguay. This would explain, for instance, why an anonymous agent of the company approached Ward in May 1859—the day after his return from Paraguay—with two tentative proposals. The agent first asked Ward if he would be willing to act as an umpire in the dispute, should the two commissioners be unable to agree upon an award. He was also asked if he would go to Paraguay and seek a pre-commission settlement, presumably on behalf of the company. Ward’s positive reply to both inquiries must have aroused the interest of the company, for Samuel G. Arnold, the company president, sought out Ward for an interview one week later.7
Ward did nothing immediately to carry out either proposal. Still, the very fact that the company first approached him so soon after his return cannot be passed over lightly. As Ward was a person of little political consequence at that time, it seems unlikely that the company would have offered him two important positions even tentatively, unless they suspected his underground connections with López. In that case they may have been trying to confirm these suspicions, bring Ward over to their side, or both. One must also consider that Ward had had extensive conversations in Buenos Aires with Edward A. Hopkins, formerly director of the navigation company’s Paraguayan operations. This fact raises the strong possibility that Hopkins, having become suspicious of Ward’s interest, alerted the company.8
For the purposes of this analysis Ward’s interview of January 30, 1860, with Charles Bradley, an attorney for the company, is of the utmost importance. In this interview Bradley forced Ward to admit that he and José Berges, the Paraguayan representative on the arbitration commission, were good friends and, in fact, had just crossed the Atlantic together. If Bradley was not already aware of this relationship, he must have been struck by Ward’s candid admission. It is very possible, moreover, that Bradley knew of the Ward-Berges relationship prior to the interview. Once more Hopkins was in a position to supply this information, for he had been in London at the same time as Berges and Ward, and there he had again spoken with Ward about the company’s claim.
Even if one dismisses this possibility, Ward’s revelation of his tie to Berges must have raised—if it did not confirm—Bradley’s suspicion that Ward was on the Paraguayan side. Soon afterwards Bradley bluntly asked Ward if he were free to work for the company, offering him a substantial percentage of the sum that the company might receive from the Paraguayan government. Furthermore, the nature of Bradley’s offer reveals his assumption that Ward was in the employ of Paraguay. Certainly this latest offer did not envision Ward’s acting as a neutral intermediary. Rather, it appears that the company was willing to pay Ward a commission in order to buy him away from Paraguay. Indeed, there seems to have been no valid reason for the company to make such an offer to Ward unless it was aware of Ward’s true role in the proceedings. Nor could Bradley have failed to notice that Ward assumed the role of spokesman for the Paraguayan cause. He not only made and rejected proposals, but vehemently defended the cause of Paraguay, thus revealing that he was fully conversant with all of the points in this case. For this reason, Bradley treated Ward as a de facto spokesman for Paraguay throughout the interview.9
Still, the vital question remains unanswered. How did Ward manage his appointment to the arbitration commission if the company knew of his connections with President López? According to Ynsfrán, Ward’s appointment “reveals that his subterranean connections were not suspected.”10 Two documents point to exactly the opposite conclusion. The first is a telegram from a “C. C. Ward” to Samuel G. Mason, an official of the navigation company, which says “meet me at the depot this evening at half past seven.”11 The second document offers apparent proof that this “C. C. Ward” was Sam Ward and that he had made a deal with the company. This is a letter from Samuel G. Arnold, the president of the company, to Samuel G. Mason less than two weeks after the telegram was sent. In this letter Arnold tells Mason that “Ward must be brought back again to our interest.”12 This statement would seem to indicate that Ward had made a deal with the company and had then reneged on it. Alternatively he may never have intended to keep it, and the company might have just discovered this betrayal. The latter seems more probable. As Ward had been appointed to the arbitration commission on June 8,13 and as his conversations with the company officials apparently took place on the evening of June 6, he probably went through the motions of making a deal at the last moment in order to overcome the company’s objection to his appointment. Thus it would appear that Ward was appointed not because the company did not know of his deal with López, but precisely because the company was aware of this “secret bargain” and hoped to counteract it with one of their own.
It is also significant that the company failed to protest the appointment of Ward and to reveal his ties with López once they realized he did not intend to keep his bargain. In Arnold’s letter to Mason he explained the reason for not protesting Ward’s appointment. Arnold was confident that Ward “could be brought back again,” saying that “it is now very much a question of finesse in the management, which Mowry [?], from various causes can manage better than any of us and is willing to do so.”14
Several other reasons can be added to this one. If the company protested Ward’s appointment on the grounds of his connections with López, Ward, in turn, could charge that the company had solicited his services, thereby creating a very messy situation. But more important, the company probably felt that Ward could not do much damage to their case. As Bradley had informed Ward, the company felt certain of getting a favorable American commissioner, or, if the claim went that far (as seemed likely), of getting a favorable umpire. Yet, the case never reached an umpire. For contrary to the company’s expectations, Cave Johnson, the American commissioner, joined the Paraguayan commissioner, José Berges, in ruling against its claim.
In an ironic vein, Ynsfrán has correctly concluded that despite the secret bargain between López and Ward, there is no evidence that Ward influenced the ultimate decision of the arbitration commission in favor of Paraguay.15 Yet it appears that the real irony of Sam Ward’s “secret bargain” is that it was not such a secret after all, for Ward and the officials of the company had played a more complicated game than even Ynsfrán suspected.
The means by which these disputes were peacefully resolved is explained in the present author’s “Settlement of the Paraguayan-American Controversy of 1859: A Reappraisal,” Americas, XXV (July 1968), 49-69.
The decision of the commissioners is found on pages 189-190 of the Journal of the Claim Against Paraguay Under the Convention of 1859. Records of Boundary and Claims Commissions and Arbitrations. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
An extensive bibliography on Ward can be found in Lately Thomas’ Sam Ward “King of the Lobby” (Boston, 1965).
Ynsfrán presents this thesis in his “Sam Ward’s Bargain with President López of Paraguay,” HAHR, XXXIV (August 1954), 313-331. See also Ynsfrán, La expedición norteamericana contra el Paraguay, 1858-1859 (2 vols., México-Buenos Aires, 1954-1958), II, 163-189.
Information on Ward’s activities can be culled from various sources, the most important being the Ward-López correspondence carried out under the pseudonyms of Pedro Fernández (Ward) and Nicolas Pérez (López). Ward’s letters of March 5, 8, 15, 20; May 17, 24, 25; and June 25, 1859 to López, and López’ letters of April 20, May 30, August 20, and September 16, 1859 are printed in Juan F. Pérez Acosta, Carlos Antonio López, “Obrero Máximo’’ (Asunción, 1948), 433-455. Information is also found in Ward’s letters of March 6 and May 10, 1860 to his sister, Julia Ward Howe, quoted in Maud Howe Elliott, Uncle Sam Ward and His Circle (New York, 1938), 456, 459. Ward’s extensive contacts in Washington are also revealed in Edgar Eugene Robinson (ed.), “The Day Journal of Milton S. Latham,’’ Quarterly of the California Historical Society, XI (March 1932), 3-28. See also Berges’ letter of May 20, 1860 to López, quoted in Ynsfrán, La expedición, II, 209-211.
Fernández (Ward) to Pérez (López), May 24, 1859, Pérez Acosta, Carlos Antonio López, 447-451.
Fernández (Ward) to Pérez (López), May 17 and 24, 1859, ibid.
Fernández (Ward) to Pérez (López), March 8, 1859, ibid., 439-442.
This conversation between Ward and Bradley is quoted in Ynsfrán, La expedición, II, 195-200.
Ibid., 181.
C. C. Ward, New York, to S. G. Mason, Providence, Rhode Island, June 6, 1860. Edward P. Carrington Papers (Microfilm). Rhode Island Historical Society. Providence, Rhode Island.
Arnold to Mason, June 19, 1860, ibid.
U.S. Senate Executive Journal, XI, 202.
Arnold to Mason, June 19, 1860, Edward P. Carrington Papers (Microfilm).
Ynsfrán, “Bargain,” 331.
Author notes
The author is Assistant Professor of History at California State College at Fullerton.