The Foreign Service Journal, November 2011

Pres. Hayes act immediately on Bangkok. “I regret,” he told the for- mer Union general in a letter dated March 18, 1880, “that the president did not take the advice I gave him when I first came here as all the scan- dal would have been avoided and he would have got great credit for re- forming the service.” Fred Seward’s successor was John Hay, a man who would one day write a memorable chapter in American diplomacy, but who would prove no friend to Mosby. The official attitude toward Mosby remained unchanged. He continued to be treated as a crack- pot, and to be harassed in subtle ways, such as by denial of funds for chair or boat hire, or by ignoring his requests for furlough. Petitions for money to purchase law books fell upon deaf ears, despite similar allowances made to his predecessor. Mosby wrote to Garfield that Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman, in a move smacking of petty revenge, even removed one of Mosby’s sisters from a Civil Service position. Garfield assured the Virginian that, despite what he had been hearing, the president found no fault with Mosby’s conduct. Newspapers all over the country, smelling the blood of a second Seward in the offing, were, in fact, stir- ring on his behalf. Note was taken of a reported dis- agreement between Hayes and Secre- tary of State William M. Evarts over how George Seward’s inevitable resig- nation should be handled. Evarts al- legedly wanted to hold Seward’s resig- nation until his impeachment should again become imminent, while Hayes wanted to install a new man in Peking at once. “Mr. Evarts,” commented the Wash- ington Post in March 1880, “seems in- fatuated with the idea of being the special defender ... of all the legally un- convicted violators of law that disgrace his department, especially those bear- ing the name of Seward.” In the event, the president had his way, and it was shortly announced that George F. Seward, after many years of N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 51 [Mosby] seems to be one of those restless, inquisitive spirits who feel that they have a mission to look into things, and get at their true inwardness. — San Francisco Chronicle , April 1880