VI. BULL RUN; CONSUL BUNCH; COTTON AND MERCIER…

VI. BULL RUN; CONSUL BUNCH; COTTON AND MERCIER

The diplomatic manoeuvres and interchanges recounted in the preceding chapter were regarded by Foreign Secretaries and Ministers as important in themselves and as indicative of national policy and purpose. Upon all parties concerned they left a feeling of irritation and suspicion. But the public knew nothing of the details of the inconclusive negotiation and the Press merely gave a hint now and then of its reported progress and ultimate failure. Newspapers continued to report the news from America in unaccustomed detail, but that news, after the attack on Fort Sumter, was for some time lacking in striking incident, since both sides in America were busily engaged in preparing for a struggle in arms for which neither was immediately prepared. April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers, and three weeks later for 42,000 additional. The regular army was increased by 23,000 and the navy by 18,000 men. Naval vessels widely scattered over the globe, were instructed to hasten their home-coming. By July 1 Lincoln had an available land force, however badly trained and organized, of over 300,000, though these were widely scattered from the Potomac in the east to the Missouri in the west.

In the South, Davis was equally busy, calling at first for 100,000 volunteers to wage defensive battle in protection of the newly-born Confederacy. The seven states already in secession were soon joined, between May 4 and June 24, by four others, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee in order, but the border states of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, though strongly sympathetic with the rest of the South, were held to the Union by the "border state policy" of Lincoln, the first pronouncement of which asserted that the North had no purpose of attacking slavery where it existed, but merely was determined to preserve the Union. The Northern Congress, meeting in extra session on July 4, heartily approved Lincoln's emergency measures. It authorized an army of 500,000, provided for a loan of $200,000,000, sanctioned the issue of $50,000,000 in Treasury notes and levied new taxes, both direct and by tariffs to meet these expenditures.

In the months preceding the attack on Sumter the fixed determination of the South to secede and the uncertainty of the North had led the British press to believe that the decision rested wholly with the South. Now the North by its preparations was exhibiting an equally fixed determination to preserve the Union, and while the British press was sceptical of the permanence of this determination, it became, for a short time, until editorial policy was crystallized, more cautious in prophecy. The Economist on May 4 declared that the responsibility for the "fatal step" rested wholly on Southern leaders because of their passionate desire to extend the shameful institution of which they were so proud, but that the North must inevitably, by mere weight of population and wealth, be the victor, though this could not conceivably result in any real reunion, rather in a conquest requiring permanent military occupation. Southern leaders were mad: "to rouse by gratuitous insult the mettle of a nation three times as numerous and far more than three times as powerful, to force them by aggressive steps into a struggle in which the sympathy of every free and civilized nation will be with the North, seems like the madness of men whose eyes are blinded and hearts hardened by the evil cause they defend."

Two weeks later, the Economist, while still maintaining the justice of the Northern cause, though with lessened vigour, appealed to the common sense of the North to refrain from a civil war whose professed object was unattainable. "Everyone knows and admits that the secession is an accomplished, irrevocable, fact.... Even if the North were sure of an easy and complete victory--short, of course, of actual subjugation of the South (which no one dreams of)--the war which was to end in such a victory would still be, in the eyes of prudence and worldly wisdom, an objectless and unprofitable folly[319]." But by the middle of June the American irritation at the British Proclamation of Neutrality, loudly and angrily voiced by the Northern press, had caused a British press resentment at this "wilful misrepresentation and misjudgment" of British attitude. "We do believe the secession of the Slave States to be a fait accompli--a completed and irreversible transaction. We believe it to be impossible now for the North to lure back the South into the Union by any compromise, or to compel them back by any force." "If this is an offence it cannot be helped[320]."

The majority of the London papers, though not all, passed through the same shifts of opinion and expression as the Economist; first upbraiding the South, next appealing to the North not to wage a useless war, finally committing themselves to the theory of an accomplished break-up of the Union and berating the North for continuing, through pride alone, a bloody conflict doomed to failure. Meanwhile in midsummer attention was diverted from the ethical causes at issue by the publication in the Times of Motley's letter analysing the nature of the American constitution and defending the legal position of the North in its resistance to secession. Motley wrote in protest against the general British press attitude: "There is, perhaps, a readiness in England to prejudge the case; a disposition not to exult in our downfall, but to accept the fact[321]...."

He argued the right and the duty of the North to force the South into subjection. "The right of revolution is indisputable. It is written on the record of our race. British and American history is made up of rebellion and revolution.... There can be nothing plainer, then, than the American right of revolution. But, then, it should be called revolution." "It is strange that Englishmen should find difficulty in understanding that the United States Government is a nation among the nations of the earth; a constituted authority, which may be overthrown by violence, as may be the fate of any state, whether kingdom or republic, but which is false to the people if it does not its best to preserve them from the horrors of anarchy, even at the cost of blood."

Motley denied any right of peaceful secession, and his constitutional argument presented adequately the Northern view. But he was compelled also to refer to slavery and did so in the sense of Lincoln's inaugural, asserting that the North had no purpose of emancipating the slaves. "It was no question at all that slavery within a state was sacred from all interference by the general government, or by the free states, or by individuals in those states; and the Chicago Convention [which nominated Lincoln] strenuously asserted that doctrine." Coming at the moment when the British press and public were seeking ground for a shift from earlier pro-Northern expressions of sympathy to some justification for the South, it may be doubted whether Motley's letter did not do more harm than good to the Northern cause. His denial of a Northern anti-slavery purpose gave excuse for a, professedly, more calm and judicial examination of the claimed Southern right of secession, and his legal argument could be met, and was met, with equally logical, apparently, pro-Southern argument as to the nature of the American constitution. Thus early did the necessity of Lincoln's "border state policy"--a policy which extended even to warnings from Seward to American diplomats abroad not to bring into consideration the future of slavery--give ground for foreign denial that there were any great moral principles at stake in the American conflict.

In the meantime the two sections in America were busily preparing for a test of strength, and for that test the British press, reporting preparations, waited with interest. It came on July 21 in the first battle of Bull Run, when approximately equal forces of raw levies, 30,000 each, met in the first pitched battle of the war, and where the Northern army, after an initial success, ultimately fled in disgraceful rout. Before Bull Run the few British papers early taking strong ground for the North had pictured Lincoln's preparations as so tremendous as inevitably destined to crush, quickly, all Southern resistance. The Daily News lauded Lincoln's message to Congress as the speech of a great leader, and asserted that the issue in America was for all free people a question of upholding the eternal principles of liberty, morality and justice. "War for such a cause, though it be civil war, may perhaps without impiety be called 'God's most perfect instrument in working out a pure intent[322].'" The disaster to the Northern army, its apparent testimony that the North lacked real fighting men, bolstered that British opinion which regarded military measures against the South as folly--an impression reinforced in the next few months by the long pause by the North before undertaking any further great effort in the field. The North was not really ready for determined war, indeed, until later in the year. Meanwhile many were the moralizations in the British press upon Bull Run's revelation of Northern military weakness.

Probably the most influential newspaper utterances of the moment were the letters of W.H. Russell to the Times. This famous war-correspondent had been sent to America in the spring of 1861 by Delane, editor of the Times, his first letter, written on March 29, appearing in the issue of April 16. He travelled through the South, was met everywhere with eager courtesy as became a man of his reputation and one representing the most important organ of British public opinion, returned to the North in late June, and at Washington was given intimate interviews by Seward and other leaders. For a time his utterances were watched for, in both England and America, with the greatest interest and expectancy, as the opinions of an unusually able and thoroughly honest, dispassionate observer. He never concealed his abhorrence of slavery, terming apologists of that institution "the miserable sophists who expose themselves to the contempt of the world by their paltry theiscles on the divine origin and uses of Slavery[323]...." and writing "day after day ... the impression of my mind was strengthened that 'States Rights' meant protection to slavery, extension of slave territory, and free-trade in slave produce with the other world[324]." But at the same time he depicted the energy, ability, and determination of the South in high colours, and was a bit doubtful of similar virtues in the North. The battle of Bull Run itself he did not see, but he rode out from Washington to meet the defeated army, and his description of the routed rabble, jostling and pushing, in frenzy toward the Capitol, so ridiculed Northern fighting spirit as to leave a permanent sting behind it. At the same time it convinced the British pro-Southern reader that the Northern effort was doomed to failure, even though Russell was himself guarded in opinion as to ultimate result. "'What will England and France think of it?' is the question which is asked over and over again," wrote Russell on July 24[325], expatiating on American anxiety and chagrin in the face of probable foreign opinion. On August 22 he recorded in his diary the beginnings of the American newspaper storm of personal attack because of his description of the battle in the Times--an attack which before long became the alleged cause of his recall by Delane[326]. In fact Russell's letters added nothing in humiliating description to the outpourings of the Northern press, itself greedily quoted by pro-Southern foreign papers. The impression of Northern military incapacity was not confined to Great Britain--it was general throughout Europe, and for the remainder of 1861 there were few who ventured to assert a Northern success in the war[327].

Official Britain, however, saw no cause for any change in the policy of strict neutrality. Palmerston commented privately, "The truth is, the North are fighting for an Idea chiefly entertained by professional politicians, while the South are fighting for what they consider rightly or wrongly vital interests," thus explaining to his own satisfaction why a Northern army of brave men had chosen to run away[328], but the Government was careful to refrain from any official utterances likely to irritate the North. The battle served, in some degree, to bring into the open the metropolitan British papers which hitherto professing neutrality and careful not to reveal too openly their leanings, now each took a definite stand and became an advocate of a cause. The Duke of Argyll might write reassuringly to Mrs. Motley to have no fear of British interference[329], and to Gladstone (evidently controverting the latter's opinion) that slavery was and would continue to be an object in the war[330], but the press, certainly, was not united either as to future British policy or on basic causes and objects of the war. The Economist believed that a second Southern victory like Bull Run, if coming soon, would "so disgust and dishearten the shouters for the Union that the contest will be abandoned on the instant.... Some day, with scarcely any notice, we may receive tidings that an armistice has been agreed upon and preliminaries of peace have been signed[331]." John Bright's paper, the Morning Star, argued long and feverishly that Englishmen must not lose sight of the fact that slavery was an issue, and made appeal for expressions, badly needed at the moment, of pro-Northern sympathy[332]. To this John Bull retorted:

"Nothing can be clearer than this, that black slavery has nothing whatever to do with this Civil War in America.... The people of America have erected a political idol. The Northerners have talked and written and boasted so much about their Republic that they have now become perfectly furious to find that their idol can be overthrown, and that the false principles upon which the American Republic is built should be exhibited to the world, that their vaunted democracy should be exposed as a mere bubble or a piece of rotten timber, an abominable and worthless tyranny of the sovereign mob[333]."

Here was an early hint of the future of democracy as at issue[334]. John Bull, the "country squire's paper," might venture to voice the thought, but more important papers were still cautious in expressing it. W.H. Russell, privately, wrote to Delane: "It is quite obvious, I think, that the North will succeed in reducing the South[335]." But Delane permitted no such positive prophecy to appear in the Times. Darwin is good testimony of the all-prevalent British feeling: "I hope to God we English are utterly wrong in doubting whether the North can conquer the South." "How curious it is that you seem to think that you can conquer the South; and I never meet a soul, even those who would most wish it, who think it possible--that is, to conquer and retain it[336]."

In September, after the first interest in Bull Run had waned, there appeared several books and articles on the American question which gave opportunity for renewal of newspaper comment and controversy. A Dr. Lempriere, "of the Inner Temple, law fellow of St. John's College, Oxford," published a work, The American Crisis Considered, chiefly declamatory, upholding the right of Southern secession, stating that no one "who has the slightest acquaintance with the political action of history would term the present movement rebellion." With this the Spectator begged leave to differ[337]. The Saturday Review acknowledged that a prolonged war might force slavery and emancipation to the front, but denied them as vital at present, and offered this view as a defence against the recrimination of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, who had accused the paper of unfair treatment in a review of her pamphlet exhibiting emancipation as the object of the North. Under the caption, "Mrs. Beecher Stowe's Wounded Feelings," the Saturday Review avowed disbelief in the existence of a "Holy War" in America. "The North does not proclaim abolition and never pretended to fight for anti-slavery. The North has not hoisted for its oriflamme the Sacred Symbol of Justice to the Negro; its cri de guerre is not unconditional emancipation." "The Governmental course of the British nation ... is not yet directed by small novelists and their small talk[338]." Thomas Hughes also came in for sarcastic reference in this article, having promptly taken up the cudgels for Mrs. Stowe. He returned to the attack through the columns of the Spectator, reasserting slavery as an issue and calling on Englishmen to put themselves in the place of Americans and realize the anger aroused by "deliberate imputations of mean motives," and by the cruel spirit of the utterances. A nation engaged in a life and death struggle should not be treated in a tone of flippant and contemptuous serenity. The British press had chosen "to impute the lowest motives, to cull out and exult over all the meanness, and bragging, and disorder which the contest has brought out, and while we sit on the bank, to make no allowances for those who are struggling in the waves[339]."

Besides the Spectator, on the Northern side, stood the Daily News, declaring that the South could not hold out, and adding, "The Confederate States may be ten millions, but they are wrong--notoriously, flagrantly wrong[340]." The Daily News, according to its "Jubilee" historians, stood almost alone in steadfast advocacy of the Northern cause[341]. This claim of unique service to the North is not borne out by an examination of newspaper files, but is true if only metropolitan dailies of large circulation are considered. The Spectator was a determined and consistent friend of the North. In its issue of September 28 a speech made by Bulwer Lytton was summarized and attacked. The speaker had argued that the dissolution of the Union would be beneficial to all Europe, which had begun to fear the swollen size and strength of the young nation across the Atlantic. He hoped that the final outcome would be not two, but at least four separate nations, and stated his belief that the friendly emulation of these nations would result for Americans in a rapid advance in art and commerce such as had been produced in the old commonwealths of Greece. The Spectator answered that such a breaking up of America was much more likely to result in a situation comparable to that in South America, inquired caustically whether Bulwer Lytton had heard that slavery was in question, and asserted that his speech presumably represented the official view of the Tories, and embodied that of the English governing class[342].

In press utterances during the autumn and early fall of 1861 there is little on British policy toward America. Strict neutrality is approved by all papers and public speakers. But as the months passed without further important military engagements attention began to be directed toward the economic effects on England of the war in America and to the blockade, now beginning to be made effective by the North. The Saturday Review, though pro-Southern, declared for neutrality, but distinguished between strict observance of the blockade and a reasonable recognition of the de facto government of the Confederacy "as soon as the Southern States had achieved for their independence that amount of security with which Great Britain had been satisfied in former cases[343]." But another article in the same issue contained a warning against forcibly raising the blockade since this must lead to war with the North, and that would commend itself to no thoughtful Englishman. Two weeks later appeared a long review of Spence's American Union, a work very influential in confirming British pro-Southern belief in the constitutional right of the South to secede and in the certainty of Southern victory. Spence was "likely to succeed with English readers, because all his views are taken from a thoroughly English standpoint[344]." The week following compliments are showered upon the "young professor" Montague Bernard for his "Two Lectures on the Present American War," in which he distinguished between recognition of belligerency and recognition of sovereignty, asserting that the former was inevitable and logical. The Saturday Review, without direct quotation, treated Bernard as an advocate also of the early recognition of Southern independence on the ground that it was a fait accompli, and expressed approval[345].

These few citations, taken with intent from the more sober and reputable journals, summarize the prevailing attitude on one side or the other throughout the months from June to December, 1861. All publications had much to say of the American struggle and varied in tone from dignified criticism to extreme vituperation, this last usually being the resort of lesser journals, whose leader writers had no skill in "vigorous" writing in a seemingly restrained manner. "Vigorous" leader writing was a characteristic of the British press of the day, and when combined with a supercilious British tone of advice, as from a superior nation, gave great offence to Americans, whether North or South. But the British press was yet united in proclaiming as correct the governmental policy of neutrality, and in any event Motley was right in stating "the Press is not the Government," adding his opinion that "the present English Government has thus far given us no just cause of offence[346]." Meanwhile the Government, just at the moment when the Declaration of Paris negotiation had reached an inglorious conclusion, especially irritating to Earl Russell, was suddenly plunged into a sharp controversy with the United States by an incident growing out of Russell's first instructions to Lyons in regard to that negotiation and which, though of minor importance in itself, aroused an intensity of feeling beyond its merits. This was the recall by Seward of the exequatur of the British consul Bunch, at Charleston, South Carolina.

It will be remembered that in his first instruction to Lyons on the Declaration of Paris Russell had directed that Bunch, at Charleston, be commissioned to seek a Southern official acceptance of the binding force of the second and third articles, but that Lyons and Mercier, fearing Seward's irritation, had hesitated to proceed in the matter. Later Russell had recalled his instructions, but before this recall could reach Lyons the latter had decided to act[347]. On July 5 Lyons gave explicit directions to Bunch not to approach the Confederate Government directly, but to go to Governor Pickens of South Carolina and explain the matter to him verbally, adding "you should act with great caution, in order to avoid raising the question of the recognition of the new Confederation by Great Britain." Unfortunately Lyons also wrote, "I am authorized by Lord John Russell to confide the negotiation on this matter to you," thus after all implying that a real negotiation with the South was being undertaken. On the same day Mercier sent similar instructions to St. André, the French Acting-Consul at Charleston[348]. Bunch received Lyons' official letter on July 19[349], together with a private one of July 5, emphasizing that Bunch was to put nothing in writing, and that he and his French colleagues were to keep the names of Lyons and Mercier out of any talk, even, about the matter. Bunch was to talk as if his instructions came directly from Russell. Lyons hoped the South would be wise enough not to indulge in undue publicity, since if "trumpeted" it might elicit "by such conduct some strong disavowal from France and England." Both the official and the private letter must, however, have impressed Bunch with the idea that this was after all a negotiation and that he had been entrusted with it[350].

Bunch, whose early reports had been far from sympathetic with the Southern cause, had gradually, and quite naturally from his environment, become more friendly to it[351]. He now acted with promptness and with some evident exultation at the importance given him personally. In place of Governor Pickens an experienced diplomat, William Henry Trescott, was approached by Bunch and Belligny, who, not St. André, was then the French agent at Charleston[352]. Trescott went directly to President Davis, who at once asked why the British proposal had not been made through the Confederate Commissioners in London, and who somewhat unwillingly yielded to Trescott's urging. On August 13 the Confederate Congress resolved approval of the Declaration of Paris except for the article on privateering[353]. Bunch took great pride in the secrecy observed. "I do not see how any clue is given to the way in which the Resolutions have been procured.... We made a positive stipulation that France and England were not to be alluded to in the event of the compliance of the Confederate Govt.[354]," he wrote Lyons on August 16. But he failed to take account either of the penetrating power of mouth-to-mouth gossip or of the efficacy of Seward's secret agents. On this same day, August 16, Lyons reported the arrest in New York, on the fourteenth, of one Robert Mure, just as he was about to take passage for Liverpool carrying a sealed bag from the Charleston consulate to the British Foreign Office, as well as some two hundred private letters. The letters were examined and among them was one which related Bunch's recent activities and stated that "Mr. B., on oath of secrecy, communicated to me also that the first step of recognition was taken[355]." The sealed bag was sent unopened to be handed by Adams to Russell with an enquiry whether in fact it contained any papers on the alleged "negotiation" with the South.

Bunch had issued to Mure a paper which the latter regarded as a passport, as did the United States. This also was made matter of complaint by Adams, when on September 3 the affair was presented to Russell. America complained of Bunch on several counts, the three principal ones being (1) that he had apparently conducted a negotiation with the Confederacy, (2) that he had issued a passport, not countersigned by the Secretary of State as required by the United States rules respecting foreign consuls, (3) that he had permitted the person to whom this passport was issued to carry letters from the enemies of the United States to their agents abroad. On these grounds the British Government was requested to remove Bunch from his office. On first learning of Mure's arrest Lyons expressed the firm belief that Bunch's conduct had been perfectly proper and that the sealed bag would be found to contain nothing supporting the suspicion of the American Government[356]. The language used by Lyons was such as to provide an excellent defence in published despatches, and it was later so used. But privately neither Lyons nor Russell were wholly convinced of the correctness of Bunch's actions. Bunch had heard of Mure's arrest on August 18, and at once protested that no passport had been given, but merely a "Certificate to the effect that he [Mure] was a British Merchant residing in Charleston" on his way to England, and that he was carrying official despatches to the Foreign Office[357]. In fact Mure had long since taken out American citizenship papers, and the distinction between passport and certificate seems an evasion. Officially Lyons could report "it is clear that Mr. Robert Mure, in taking charge of the letters which have been seized, abused Mr. Bunch's confidence, for Mr. Bunch had positive instructions from me not to forward himself any letters alluding to military or political events, excepting letters to or from British officials[358]." This made good reading when put in the published Parliamentary Papers. But in reality the sending of private letters by messenger also carrying an official pouch was no novelty. Bunch had explained to Lyons on June 23 that this was his practice on the ground that "there is really no way left for the merchants but through me. If Mr. Seward objects I cannot help it. I must leave it to your Lordship and H.M.'s Government to support me. My own despatch to Lord J. Russell I must send in some way, and so I take the responsibility of aiding British interests by sending the mercantile letters as well[359]." And in Bunch's printed report to Lyons on Mure's arrest, his reply as to the private letters was, "I could not consider him [Mure] as being disqualified from being the bearer of a bag to Earl Russell, by his doing what everyone who left Charleston was doing daily[360]...."

Officially Lyons, on September 2, had reported a conversation with Belligny, the French Consul at Charleston, now in Washington, writing, "I am confirmed in the opinion that the negotiation, which was difficult and delicate, was managed with great tact and good judgment by the two Consuls[361]." But this referred merely to the use of Trescott and its results, not to Bunch's use of Mure. The British Government was, indeed, prepared to defend the action of its agents in securing, indirectly, from the South, an acknowledgment of certain principles of international law. Russell did not believe that Lincoln was "foolhardy enough to quarrel with England and France," though Hammond (Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs) "is persuaded that Seward wishes to pick a quarrel[362]." Enquiry was promptly made of France, through Cowley, as to her stand in the matter of the consuls at Charleston, Russell intimating by an enquiry (later printed in the Parliamentary Papers), as to the initiation of the Declaration of Paris negotiations, that it was Thouvenel who had first suggested the approach to the South through the Consuls[363]. This was an error of memory[364], and Cowley was perturbed by Thouvenel's reticence in reply to the main question. The latter stated that if a like American demand were made on France "undoubtedly he could not give up an Agent who had done no more than execute the orders entrusted to him[365]." This looked like harmony, but the situation for the two countries was not the same as no demand had been made for the recall of Belligny. Cowley was, in reality, anxious and suspicious, for Thouvenel, in conversation, attributed Seward's anger to Bunch's alleged indiscretions in talk, and made it clear that France would not "stand by" unless Seward should protest to France against the fact of a communication (not a negotiation) having been held with the Confederacy[366]. Before the French reply was secured Russell had prepared but not sent an answer to Adams, notifying him that the bag from Bunch, on examination, was found not to contain "correspondence of the enemies of the Government of the United States" as had been suspected, and transmitting a copy of Bunch's explanation of the reason for forwarding private letters[367]. In another letter to Adams of the same date Russell avowed the Government's responsibility for Bunch's action on the Declaration of Paris, and declined to recall him, adding:

"But when it is stated in a letter from some person not named, that the first step to the recognition of the Southern States by Great Britain has been taken, the Undersigned begs to decline all responsibility for such a statement.

"Her Majesty's Government have already recognized the belligerent character of the Southern States, and they will continue to recognize them as belligerents. But Her Majesty's Government have not recognized and are not prepared to recognize the so-called Confederate States as a separate and independent State[368]."

Adams received Russell's two notes on September 13[369], and merely stated that they would be despatched by the next steamer. That Russell was anxious is shown by a careful letter of caution to Lyons instructing him if sent away from Washington "to express in the most dignified and guarded terms that the course taken by the Washington Government must be the result of a misconception on their part, and that you shall retire to Canada in the persuasion that the misunderstanding will soon cease, and the former friendly relations be restored[370]." Meantime Russell was far from satisfied with Bunch, writing Lyons to inform him that the "statements made in regard to his proceedings require explanation[371]." The failure of Seward to demand Belligny's recall worried Russell. He wrote to Palmerston on September 19, "I cannot believe that the Americans, having made no demand on the French to disavow Belligny, or Baligny, will send away Lyons," and he thought that Seward ought to be satisfied as England had disavowed the offensive part of Bunch's supposed utterances. He was not in favour of sending reinforcements to the American stations: "If they do not quarrel about Bunch, we may rest on our oars for the winter[372]." There was nothing further to do save to wait Seward's action on receipt of the British refusal to recall Bunch. At this moment Lyons at Washington was writing in a hopeful view of "avoiding abstract assertions of principles," but accustoming the North to the practice of British recognition of Southern belligerent rights[373]. Lyons believed that Seward would not go further than to withdraw Bunch's exequatur, but he was anxious for the return of Mercier (long absent with Prince Napoleon), since "our position is unluckily not exactly the same with that of France[374]." On October 12 Lyons conferred at length with Seward on the Bunch matter, as usual, privately and unofficially. Seward dwelt on a letter just received from Motley assuring him that Great Britain was not "unfriendly to the United States," and "appeared anxious not to pick a quarrel, yet hardly knowing how to retract from his original position." Lyons told Seward that it would be "impossible to carry on the Diplomatic business ... on the false hypothesis that the United States Government" did not know England and France had recognized the belligerent rights of the South, and he urged Russell to get from France an open acknowledgment, such as England has made, that she "negotiated" with the Confederacy. Lyons thought Mercier would try to avoid this, thus seeking to bring pressure on the British Government to adopt his plan of an early recognition of Southern independence. Like Cowley, Lyons was disturbed at the French evasion of direct support in the Bunch affair[375].

Bunch's formal denial to Lyons of the charges made against him by the United States was confined to three points; he asserted his disbelief that Mure carried any despatches from the de facto government at Richmond; he protested that "there was not one single paper in my bag which was not entirely and altogether on Her Majesty's service"; and he explained the alleged "passport" was not intended as such, but was merely "a certificate stating that Mr. Mure was charged by me with despatches," but he acknowledged that in the certificate's description of Mure as a "British merchant" a possible error had been committed, adding, however, that he had supposed anyone would understand, since the words "British subject" had not been used, that Mure was in reality a naturalized citizen of America[376]. This explanation was received by Russell on October 21. Lyons' comment on Bunch's explanation, made without knowledge of what would be Seward's final determination, was that if Bunch had any further excuses to make about the private letters carried by Mure he should drop two weak points in his argument. "I mean the distinction between B. merchant and B.S., and the distinction between a document requesting that the bearer 'may be permitted to pass freely and receive all proper protection and assistance' and a passport[377]." Russell, on receipt of Bunch's explanation was also dissatisfied, first because Bunch had violated Lyons' instructions against entrusting despatches to persons carrying private correspondence, and second, because Bunch "gives no distinct denial" to the newspaper stories that he had gossiped about his activities and had stated them to be "a first step toward recognition[378]." These criticisms were directed entirely to Bunch's conduct subsequent to the overture to the South; on the propriety of that act Russell supported Bunch with vigour[379]. October 26, Seward read to Lyons the instruction to Adams on the revocation of Bunch's exequatur. The ground taken for this, reported Lyons, was an evasion of that charge of communicating with the South for which Russell had avowed responsibility, and a turning to the charge that Bunch was personally unacceptable longer to the United States because of his partisanship to the South, as evidenced by various acts and especially as shown by his reported assertion that Great Britain had taken "a first step to recognition." "Never," wrote Lyons, "were serious charges brought upon a slighter foundation." "No one who has read Mr. Bunch's despatches to your Lordship and to me can consider him as in the least degree a partisan of the Southern cause." "When Mr. Seward had finished reading the despatch I remained silent. After a short pause I took leave of him courteously, and withdrew[380]."

As will have been noted, Lyons had foreseen the American decision against Bunch on purely personal grounds, had been relieved that this would be the issue, and had fore-warned Russell. His despatch just cited may be regarded as a suggestion of the proper British refutation of charges, but with acceptance of the American decision. Nevertheless he wrote gloomily on the same day of future relations with the United States[381]. At the same time Russell, also foreseeing Seward's action, was not disturbed. He thought it still "not off the cards that the Southern Confederates may return to the Union.... Our conduct must be strictly neutral, and it will be[382]." Upon receipt of Lyons' despatch and letter of October 28 Russell wrote to Palmerston, "I do not attach much importance to this letter of Lyons. It is the business of Seward to feed the mob with sacrifices every day, and we happen to be the most grateful food he can offer[383]." For Russell saw clearly that Great Britain could not object to the removal of Bunch on the purely personal grounds alleged by Seward. There followed in due course the formal notification by Adams on November 21, just six days before he learned of the Trent affair, which had occurred on November 8. That alarming incident no doubt coloured the later communications of both parties, for while both Adams and Russell indulged in several lengthy argumentative papers, such as are dear to the hearts of lawyers and diplomats, the only point of possible further dispute was on the claim of Great Britain that future occasions might arise where, in defence of British interests, it would be absolutely necessary to communicate with the Confederacy. Adams acknowledged a British duty to protect its citizens, but reasserted the American right to dismiss any British agent who should act as Bunch had done. On December 9, Russell closed the matter by stating that he did "not perceive that any advantage would be obtained by the continuance of this correspondence[384]." Bunch was expected to leave Charleston as soon as a safe conveyance could be provided for him, but this was not immediately forthcoming. In fact he remained at Charleston until February, 1863, actively engaged, but official papers were signed by his vice-consul. In the excitement over the Trent, he seems rapidly to have disappeared from the official as he did from the public horizon[385].

The Bunch controversy, seemingly of no great importance in so far as the alleged personal grounds of complaint are concerned, had its real significance in the effort of Great Britain to make contact with the Southern Government--an effort incautiously entered upon, and from which an attempt to withdraw had come too late. The result was British assertion of a right in case of necessity to make such contact, having recognized the South as a belligerent, but a discontinuance of the practice, under the American protest[386]. While this controversy was in progress the attention of the British Government was directed to a proposal urged by Mercier upon Lyons in Washington, which appeared to have the support of the French Government. On September 30, Mercier, so Lyons reported, had received a private letter from Thouvenel expressing great concern over the prospective scarcity of cotton from America, due to the blockade, and asking Mercier's advice. The latter now informed Lyons that his reply had outlined the following steps: first, complete harmony of action between England and France; second, recognition of Southern independence; third, refusal longer to recognize the blockade; fourth, England and France to be alert to seize the "favourable moment," when the North became disheartened, the present moment not being a good one[387]. This policy Mercier thought so "bold" that the North would be deterred from declaring war. The two diplomats held long argument over this suggestion. Lyons acknowledged the general pressure for cotton, but thought there was no need of great alarm as yet and also advanced the idea that in the end Europe would benefit by being forced to develop other sources of supply, thus being freed from such exclusive dependence on the United States. Mercier answered that France was in dire need and could not wait and he urged that mere recognition of the South would not secure cotton--it was necessary also to break the blockade. In comment to Russell, Lyons agreed that this was true, but thought the fact in itself an argument against accepting Mercier's ideas: "The time is far distant when the intervention of England and France in the quarrel would be welcomed, or, unless under compulsion, tolerated by the American peoples." The South had not yet "gone far enough in establishing its independence to render a recognition of it either proper or desirable for European powers," and he stated with emphasis that recognition would not end the war unless there was also an alliance with the South[388].

In the British Cabinet also, at this same time, attention was being directed to the question of cotton, not, primarily, by any push from the British manufacturing interest, but because of queries addressed to it by the French Minister in London. Russell wrote to Palmerston, referring to the inquiry of Flahault, "I agree with you that the cotton question may become serious at the end of the year," but he added that Lindsay had informed him that in any case cotton could not be brought in the winter-time from the interior to the Southern ports[389]. In truth any serious thought given at this time to the question of cotton appears to be the result of the French arguments at London and Washington advocating a vigorous American policy. October 19, Lyons and Mercier renewed debate on exactly the same lines as previously, Mercier this time reading to Lyons an instruction from Thouvenel and his reply. Lyons insisted that the North would most certainly declare war on any power that recognized the South and asserted that such a war would cause more suffering many times than all the suffering now caused by the shortage of cotton. Yet Lyons felt compelled to use caution and conciliation in dealing with Mercier, because of the desire to preserve close harmony of attitude[390]. A few clays later Lyons' comments seemed wholly justified when Mercier reported to him the tone of a conversation with Seward, after having left with him a copy of Thouvenel's instruction. Seward said plainly that the United States would go to war with any foreign power that tried to interfere and that the only way in which France could get cotton was by a Northern conquest of the South. He acknowledged that the United States might be defeated, but he informed Mercier that France would at least know there had been a war. On his part Mercier told Seward that in his opinion there was but one possible outcome in America--separation--and that he had advised Thouvenel that the true policy of England and France was to recognize the South and "bring about a peaceful separation." Lyons' comment to Russell is that Seward had certainly taken a "high" tone--evident justification of Lyons' previously expressed opinion. Seward had been very eager to learn whether England knew of Thouvenel's instruction, to which Mercier replied "no," and was now anxious that Russell should not reveal to Adams that Lyons had known the contents before delivery to Seward--a caution with which Lyons was very content[391].

Lyons' first report of Mercier's ideas had been received in London at a rather critical moment. On October 17, just after Adams' complaint about Bunch and Russell's answer, while waiting to see whether Seward would magnify that incident into a cause of rupture, and four days before Bunch's "unsatisfactory explanation" had been received, Russell wrote to Palmerston:

"There is much good sense in Mercier's observations. But we must wait. I am persuaded that if we do anything, it must be on a grand scale. It will not do for England and France to break a blockade for the sake of getting cotton. But, in Europe, powers have often said to belligerents, Make up your quarrels. We propose to give terms of pacification which we think fair and equitable. If you accept them, well and good. But, if your adversary accepts them and you refuse them, our mediation is at an end, and you may expect to see us your enemies. France would be quite ready to hold this language with us.

"If such a policy were to be adopted the time for it would be the end of the year, or immediately before the meeting of Parliament[392]."

Apparently Russell under the irritations of the moment was somewhat carried away by Mercier's suggestion. That it was but a briefly held thought has been shown by expressions from him already cited[393]. Nor was he alone in ministerial uncertainty[394], but Palmerston was not inclined to alter British policy. October 18, he replied to Russell:

"As to North America, our best and true policy seems to be to go on as we have begun, and to keep quite clear of the conflict between North and South.... The only excuse [for intervention] would be the danger to the intervening parties if the conflict went on; but in the American case this can not be pleaded by the Powers of Europe.

"I quite agree with you that the want of cotton would not justify such a proceeding, unless, indeed, the distress created by that want was far more serious than it is likely to be. The probability is that some cotton will find its way to us from America, and that we shall get a greater supply than usual from other quarters.

"The only thing to do seems to be to lie on our oars and to give no pretext to the Washingtonians to quarrel with us, while, on the other hand, we maintain our rights and those of our fellow countrymen[395]."

In Washington the result of Mercier's conversation with Seward, outlining Thouvenel's suggestions, was a long and carefully prepared despatch to Dayton, in Paris, which the biographer of Seward thinks was one of his "great despatches; perhaps it was his greatest, if we consider his perfect balance and the diplomatic way in which he seemed to ignore what was menacing, while he adroitly let Thouvenel see what the result would be if the implied threats should be carried out[396]." Seward argued with skill the entire matter of cotton, but he was none the less firm in diplomatic defiance of foreign intervention. Since Great Britain had taken no part in the French scheme--a point which Seward was careful to make clear to Dayton--the despatch needs no expanded treatment here. Its significance is that when reported to Lyons by Mercier (for Seward had read it to the latter) the British Minister could pride himself on having already pointed out to both Mercier and Russell that Seward's line was exactly that which he had prophesied. Mercier again was very anxious that his confidences to Lyons should not become known, and Lyons was glad indeed to be wholly free from any share in the discussion[397].

Two days after thus describing events, Lyons, on November 6, had still another communication, and apparently a last on this topic, with Mercier, in which the two men again went over the whole ground of national policy toward America, and in which their divergent views became very apparent. The arguments were the same, but expressed with more vigour. Mercier seems, indeed, to have attempted to "rush" Lyons into acquiescence in his policy. Lyons finally observed to him that he "had no reason to suppose that Her Majesty's Government considered the time was come for entertaining at all the question of recognizing the South" and asked what good such a step would do anyway. Mercier replied that he did not believe that the North would declare war, and so it would be a step toward settlement. To this Lyons took positive exception[398]. Lyons' report of this conversation was written on November 8, a date which was soon to stand out as that on which occurred an event more immediately threatening to British-American relations than any other during the Civil War.

The battle of Bull Run had left on British minds an impression of Northern incapacity in war--even a doubt of Northern courage and determination. On August 19 the Declaration of Paris negotiation, a favourable result from which was eagerly desired by Russell, had failed, as he well knew when he attached to the convention that explanatory statement limiting its action in point of time. In the end Russell felt that Britain had just escaped a "trap." Two weeks after this Russell learned of the arrest of Mure, and soon of the demand for Bunch's recall, finally and formally made by Adams on November 21. Just six days later, on November 27, London heard of the Trent affair of November 8. It is small wonder that Russell and his colleagues felt an increasing uncertainty as to the intent of the United States, and also an increasing irritation at having to guard their steps with such care in a situation where they sincerely believed the only possible outcome was the dissolution of the American Union. But up to the moment when the news of the Trent affair was received they had pursued a policy, so they believed, of strict and upright neutrality, and were fixed in the determination not to permit minor controversies or economic advantage to divert them from it.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 319: Economist, May 18, 1861.]

[Footnote 320: Ibid., June 29, 1861.]

[Footnote 321: J.L. Motley, The Causes of the American Civil War. Published as a pamphlet. N.Y., 1861.]

[Footnote 322: Daily News, July 19, 1861.]

[Footnote 323: Russell, My Diary, North and South, p. 159, Boston, 1863. This work is in effect a condensation of Russell's letters to the Times, but contains many intimate descriptions not given in the newspaper.]

[Footnote 324: Ibid., p. 315.]

[Footnote 325: The Times, August 10, 1861.]

[Footnote 326: Russell, My Diary, London, 1863, II, p. 296. This edition varies somewhat from that published at Boston and previously cited. The New York Times became Russell's most vicious critic, labelling him "Bull Run Russell," a name which stuck, and beginning its first article on his sins "The terrible epistle has been read with quite as much avidity as an average President's message. We scarcely exaggerate the fact when we say, the first and foremost thought on the minds of a very large portion of our people after the repulse at Bull's Run was, what will Russell say?" Ibid., p. 297. As to his recall Russell afterwards asserted that it was really due to a variance of opinion with Delane, the former being really pro-Northern in sympathy and in conviction of ultimate victory. This will be examined later when Russell's position as an independent editor in London becomes important.]

[Footnote 327: For similar German impressions see G.H. Putnam, Memories of My Youth, N.Y., 1914, p. 187.]

[Footnote 328: Newton, Lord Lyons, I, p. 48. In the same view Russell wrote to Lyons, August 16. "The defeat of Manassas or Bull's Run seems to me to show a great want of zeal. For I cannot believe the descendants of the men of 1776 and indeed of 1815 to be totally wanting in courage." (Lyons Papers.)]

[Footnote 329: Motley, Correspondence, II, p. 31. August 20, 1861.]

[Footnote 330: Gladstone Papers, August 29, 1861.]

[Footnote 331: Economist, Aug. 17, 1861.]

[Footnote 332: Morning Star, Sept. 10, 1861.]

[Footnote 333: John Bull, Sept. 14, 1861.]

[Footnote 334: To be discussed fully in Chapter XVIII.]

[Footnote 335: Sept. 13, 1861. Dasent, Delane, II, p. 34.]

[Footnote 336: Darwin to Asa Gray, Sept. 17 and Dec. 11, 1861. Cited in Rhodes, III, p. 510.]

[Footnote 337: Spectator, Sept. 14, 1861.]

[Footnote 338: Saturday Review, Sept. 14, 1861.]

[Footnote 339: Spectator, Sept. 21, 1861.]

[Footnote 340: Daily News, Sept. 17 and Oct. 10, 1861. The statement is in reply to an article in the Times of October 9, arguing that even if the South were regarded as in the wrong, they had ten millions, a fact that was conclusive.]

[Footnote 341: The Daily News Jubilee. By Justin McCarthy and John E. Robinson, pp. 69-77.]

[Footnote 342: Spectator, Sept. 28, 1861.]

[Footnote 343: Saturday Review, Nov. 2, 1861.]

[Footnote 344: Ibid., Nov. 16. Spence's book rapidly went through many editions, was widely read, and furnished the argument for many a pro-Southern editorial. Spence himself soon became the intimate friend and adviser of Mason, the Confederate envoy to England.]

[Footnote 345: Ibid., Nov. 23, 1861. The inference from Bernard's la guage is perhaps permissible, but not inevitable.]

[Footnote 346: Motley, Correspondence, II, p. 37. To his mother, Oct. 18, 1861.]

[Footnote 347: See ante, Ch. V.]

[Footnote 348: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence respecting International Maritime Law." No. 21 and Inclosure. Belligny was in fact the French agent at Charleston who acted with Bunch.]

[Footnote 349: F.O., Am., Vol. 768. No. 392. Lyons to Russell, Aug. 2, 1861. It is interesting to note that fourteen days were here required to transmit a letter that in ordinary times would have reached its destination in two days. Lyons states that he does not intend to inform Mercier of Russell's attempted recall of instructions.]

[Footnote 350: F.O., Am., Vol. 767. No. 324. Inclosure No. 2. Private. Lyons to Bunch, July 5, 1861. Bunch in reporting to Lyons, also used the word "negotiation."]

[Footnote 351: When Davis proclaimed privateering Bunch had thought this indicated a "low morality" and that Southern privateers would be in reality pirates. F.O., Am., Vol. 763. Inclosure in No. 162. Bunch to Russell, April 18, 1861.]

[Footnote 352: Bancroft's account, Seward, II, pp. 197-203, states that Pickens was absent from Charleston. Bunch's account privately was that he and Belligny thought Pickens "totally unfit to be intrusted with anything in which judgment and discretion are at all necessary." (Lyons Papers. Bunch to Lyons, Aug. 16, 1861.)]

[Footnote 353: Bancroft, Seward, II, p. 198.]

[Footnote 354: Lyons Papers. Bunch to Lyons.]

[Footnote 355: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 4. Adams to Russell, Sept. 3, 1861.]

[Footnote 356: Ibid., No. 2. Lyons to Russell, Aug. 19, 1861.]

[Footnote 357: Russell Papers. Bunch to Lyons, Aug. 18, 1861. Copy in Lyons to Russell, Aug. 31, 1861.]

[Footnote 358: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on the Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 7. Lyons to Russell, Aug. 23, 1861.]

[Footnote 359: Lyons Papers. Bunch to Lyons, June 23, 1861.]

[Footnote 360: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on the Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 15. Inclosures. Bunch to Lyons, Sept. 30, 1861.]

[Footnote 361: Ibid., "Correspondence respecting International Maritime Law." No. 39. Lyons to Russell.]

[Footnote 362: Palmerston MS. Russell to Palmerston, Sept. 6, 1861.]

[Footnote 363: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on the Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 6. Russell to Cowley, Sept. 7, 1861.]

[Footnote 364: Russell Papers. Cowley to Russell. Private. Sept. 17, 1861.]

[Footnote 365: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 10. Cowley to Russell, Sept. 10, 1861.]

[Footnote 366: F.O., France, Vol. 1396. No. 1112. Cowley to Russell, Sept. 10, 1861. Also Russell Papers. Cowley to Russell. Private. Sept. 10, 1861.]

[Footnote 367: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on the Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 9. Russell to Adams, Sept. 9, 1861.]

[Footnote 368: Ibid., No. 8. Two days later, September 11, Russell wrote to Palmerston that Motley was ignorant of Seward's intentions, and that the Queen wished a modification of the "phrase about not being prepared to recognize," but that he was against any change. Palmerston MS.]

[Footnote 369: Ibid., No. 12. Adams to Russell.]

[Footnote 370: Russell to Lyons, Sept. 13, 1861. (Cited in Newton, Lyons, I, p. 52.)]

[Footnote 371: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on the Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 11. Russell to Lyons, Sept. 14, 1861.]

[Footnote 372: Palmerston MS. Russell to Palmerston, Sept. 19, 1861.]

[Footnote 373: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell. Private. Sept. 24, 1861.]

[Footnote 374: Ibid., Sept. 27, 1861. The facts about Belligny were, as reported by Lyons and Cowley, that before Bunch's activities became known, the French Consul had been recalled and replaced by another man, St. André. It will have been noted that when Lyons and Mercier sent their instructions to the consuls at Charleston that of Mercier was addressed to St. André. Apparently he had not reached Charleston. Thus there was no opportunity to demand the recall of Belligny. Bancroft (Seward, II, p. 203), unaware of this, presumes that Seward "thought it important not to give them (England and France) a common grievance."]

[Footnote 375: Ibid., Lyons to Russell, Oct. 14, 1861.]

[Footnote 376: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on the Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 15. Inclosure. Bunch to Lyons, Sept. 30, 1861.]

[Footnote 377: Lyons Papers. Copy, Private and Confidential, Lyons to Bunch, Oct. 24, 1861. Bunch was informed in this letter that Mure had been set free.]

[Footnote 378: F.O., Am., Vol. 757. No. 381. Russell to Lyons. Draft. Oct. 26, 1861.]

[Footnote 379: The criticisms of Lyons and Russell were not printed in the Parliamentary Papers. Bunch did later deny specifically that he had told anyone of his activities. (Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on the Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 22. Inclosure. Bunch to Lyons. Oct. 31, 1861.)]

[Footnote 380: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on the Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 17. Lyons to Russell, Oct. 28, 1861. There are two interesting unindicated elisions in the printed text of this letter. Indicating them in brackets the sentences run: first:--

"It may seem superfluous to make any observations on the charges brought against Mr. Bunch. [For it is plain that a high-handed proceeding being deemed advisable with a view to gratify the American Public, Mr. Bunch has merely been selected as a safer object of attack than the British or French Government.] I can not help saying that never were more serious charges, etc.," and second:--

"When Mr. Seward had finished reading the despatch I remained silent. [I allowed the pain which the contents of it had caused me to be apparent in my countenance, but I said nothing. From my knowledge of Mr. Seward's character, I was sure that at the moment nothing which I could say would make so much impression upon him as my maintaining an absolute silence.] After a short pause, etc." (F.O., America, Vol. 773. No. 607. Lyons to Russell, Oct. 28, 1861).]

[Footnote 381: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, Oct. 28, 1861.]

[Footnote 382: Lyons Papers. Russell to Lyons, Nov. 2, 1861.]

[Footnote 383: Palmerston MS. Russell to Palmerston, Nov. 12. 1861. He added, "The dismissal of Bunch seems to me a singular mixture of the bully and coward."]

[Footnote 384: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on the Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 26. Russell to Adams, Dec. 9, 1861.]

[Footnote 385: Bonham, British Consuls in the Confederacy, p. 45. Columbia University, Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, XI-III. No. 3. Bonham shows that Bunch was more pro-Southern than Lyons thought. Lyons had suggested that Bunch be permitted to remain privately at Charleston. (Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on the Withdrawal of Bunch's Exequatur." No. 29. Lyons to Russell, Dec. 31, 1861.) That Bunch was after all regarded by the United States as a scapegoat may be argued from the "curious circumstance that in 1875, Mr. Bunch, being then British Minister resident at Bogota, acted as arbitrator in a case between the United States and Colombia." (Moore, Int. Law Digest, V, p. 22.)]

[Footnote 386: Bancroft, Seward, II, p. 203, says that if Great Britain ever attempted another negotiation "that British representatives were careful to preserve perfect secrecy." I have found no evidence of any similar communication with the South.]

[Footnote 387: As early as April, 1861, Stoeckl reported Mercier as urging Lyons and Stoeckl to secure from their respective Governments authority to recognize the South whenever they thought "the right time" had come. Lyons did not wish to have this responsibility, arguing that the mere fact of such a decision being left to him would embarrass him in his relations with the North. Stoeckl also opposed Mercier's idea, and added that Russia could well afford to wait until England and France had acted. Russia could then also recognize the South without offending the North. (Russian Archives. Stoeckl to F.O., April 2-14, 1861. No. 863.)]

[Footnote 388: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, Oct. 4, 1861.]

[Footnote 389: Palmerston MS. Russell to Palmerston, Oct. 8, 1861. On Oct. 7, Lyons wrote to Head, "If we can get through the winter and spring without American cotton, and keep the peace, we shall attain a great object." (Lyons Papers.)]

[Footnote 390: F.O., America, 772. No. 585. Lyons to Russell, Oct. 21, 1861.]

[Footnote 391: Ibid., Vol. 773. No. 606. Lyons to Russell. Confidential. Oct. 28, 1861.]

[Footnote 392: Walpole, Russell, II, 344.]

[Footnote 393: See ante, p. 194.]

[Footnote 394: "The Americans certainly seem inclined to pick a quarrel with us; but I doubt their going far enough even to oblige us to recognize the Southern States. A step further would enable us to open the Southern ports, but a war would nevertheless be a great calamity." (Maxwell, Clarendon, II, 245. Granville to Clarendon. No exact date is given but the context shows it to have been in October, 1861.)]

[Footnote 395: Ashley, Palmerston, II, 218-19. On October 30, Russell wrote to Gladstone expressing himself as worried about cotton but stating that the North was about to try to take New Orleans and thus release cotton. (Gladstone Papers).]

[Footnote 396: Bancroft, Seward, II, p. 219. Bancroft cites also a letter from Seward to his wife showing that he appreciated thoroughly the probability of a foreign war if France should press on in the line taken.]

[Footnote 397: F.O., America, Vol. 773. No. 623. Confidential. Lyons to Russell, Nov. 4, 1861.]

[Footnote 398: Ibid., No. 634. Confidential. Lyons to Russell, Nov. 8, 1861. In truth Lyons felt something of that suspicion of France indicated by Cowley, and for both men these suspicions date from the moment when France seemed lukewarm in support of England in the matter of Bunch.]

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

VII. THE "TRENT"

The Trent affair seemed to Great Britain like the climax of American arrogance[399]. The Confederate agents sent to Europe at the outbreak of the Civil War had accomplished little, and after seven months of waiting for a more favourable turn in foreign relations, President Davis determined to replace them by two "Special Commissioners of the Confederate States of America." These were James M. Mason of Virginia, for Great Britain, and John Slidell of Louisiana, for France. Their appointment indicated that the South had at last awakened to the need of a serious foreign policy. It was publicly and widely commented on by the Southern press, thereby arousing an excited apprehension in the North, almost as if the mere sending of two new men with instructions to secure recognition abroad were tantamount to the actual accomplishment of their object.

Mason and Slidell succeeded in running the blockade at Charleston on the night of October 12, 1861, on the Confederate steamer Theodora[400], and arrived at New Providence, Nassau, on the fourteenth, thence proceeded by the same vessel to Cardenas, Cuba, and from that point journeyed overland to Havana, arriving October 22. In the party there were, besides the two envoys, their secretaries, McFarland and Eustis, and the family of Slidell. On November 7 they sailed for the Danish island of St. Thomas, expecting thence to take a British steamer for Southampton. The vessel on which they left Havana was the British contract mail-packet Trent, whose captain had full knowledge of the diplomatic character of his passengers. About noon on November 8 the Trent was stopped in the Bahama Channel by the United States sloop of war, San Jacinto, Captain Wilkes commanding, by a shot across the bows, and a boarding party took from the Trent Mason and Slidell with their secretaries, transferred them to the San Jacinto, and proceeded to an American port. Protest was made both by the captain of the Trent and by Commander Williams, R.N., admiralty agent in charge of mails on board the ship[401]. The two envoys also declared that they would yield only to personal compulsion, whereupon hands were laid upon shoulders and coat collars, and, accepting this as the application of force, they were transferred to the San Jacinto's boats. The scene on the Trent, as described by all parties, both then and later, partakes of the nature of comic opera, yet was serious enough to the participants. In fact, the envoys, especially Slidell, were exultant in the conviction that the action of Wilkes would inevitably result in the early realization of the object of their journey--recognition of the South, at least by Great Britain[402]. Once on board the San Jacinto they were treated more like guests on a private yacht, having "seats at the captain's table," than as enemy prisoners on an American war-ship.

Captain Wilkes had acted without orders, and, indeed, even without any recent official information from Washington. He was returning from a cruise off the African coast, and had reached St. Thomas on October 10. A few days later, when off the south coat of Cuba, he had learned of the Confederate appointment of Mason and Slidell, and on the twenty-eighth, in Havana harbour, he heard that the Commissioners were to sail on the Trent. At once he conceived the idea of intercepting the Trent, exercising the right of search, and seizing the envoys, in spite of the alleged objections of his executive officer, Lieutenant Fairfax. The result was that quite without authority from the United States Navy Department, and solely upon his own responsibility, a challenge was addressed to Britain, the "mistress of the seas," certain to be accepted by that nation as an insult to national prestige and national pride not quietly to be suffered.

The San Jacinto reached Fortress Monroe on the evening of November 15. The next day the news was known, but since it was Saturday, few papers contained more than brief and inaccurate accounts and, there being then few Sunday papers, it was not until Monday, the eighteenth, that there broke out a widespread rejoicing and glorification in the Northern press[403]. America, for a few days, passed through a spasm of exultation hard to understand, even by those who felt it, once the first emotion had subsided. This had various causes, but among them is evident a quite childish fear of the acuteness and abilities of Mason and Slidell. Both men were indeed persons of distinction in the politics of the previous decades. Mason had always been open in his expressed antipathy to the North, especially to New England, had long been a leader in Virginia, and at the time of the Southern secession, was a United States Senator from that State. Slidell, a Northerner by birth, but early removed to Louisiana, had acquired fortune in business there, and had for nearly twenty years been the political "boss" of one faction of the Democratic Party in New Orleans and in the State. With much previous experience in diplomacy, especially that requiring intrigue and indirect methods (as in the preliminaries of the Mexican War), and having held his seat in the United States Senate until the withdrawal of Louisiana from the Union, he was, of the two men, more feared and more detested, but both were thoroughly obnoxious to the North. Merely on the personal side their capture was cause for wide rejoicing[404].

Surprise was also an element in the American elation, for until the news of the capture was received no portion of the public had given serious thought to any attempt to stop the envoys. Surprise also played its part when the affair became known in England, though in official circles there had been some warning. It had already been reported in the British press that Mason and Slidell had run the blockade at Charleston, were in Cuba, and were about to set sail for England on the Confederate steamer Nashville, but the British Government, considering that the envoys might perhaps sail rather on the West India Mail Steamer for Southampton, became much concerned over a possible American interference with that vessel. On November 9 Hammond sent an urgent enquiry to the Advocate-General stating the situation, calling attention to the presence at Southampton of an American war-vessel, and asking whether this vessel, or any other American man-of-war, "would be entitled to interfere with the mail steamer if fallen in with beyond the territorial limits of the United Kingdom, that is beyond three miles from the British Coast."

"Whether for instance she might cause the West India Mail Steamer to bring to, might board her, examine her Papers, open the Mail Bags and examine the contents thereof, examine the luggage of passengers, seize and carry away Messrs. Mason and Slidell in person, or seize their Credentials and Instructions and Despatches, or even put a Prize Crew on board the West India Steamer and carry her off to a Port of the United States; in other words what would be the right of the American Cruiser with regard to her passengers and crew and lawful papers and correspondence on board our packet on the assumption that the said packet was liable to capture and confiscation on the ground of carrying enemies' despatches; would the Cruiser be entitled to carry the packet and all and everything in her back to America or would she be obliged to land in this Country or in some near port all the people and all the unseizable goods[405]?"

Hammond further stated that Russell was anxious to have an immediate reply, inasmuch as the mail packet was due to arrive in Southampton on November 12. The opinion of the law officer consulted is best given in Palmerston's own words in a letter to Delane, Editor of the Times:

"_94 Piccadilly, November 11, 1861_.

"MY DEAR DELANE,

"It may be useful to you to know that the Chancellor, Dr. Lushington, the three Law Officers, Sir G. Grey, the Duke of Somerset, and myself, met at the Treasury to-day to consider what we could properly do about the American cruiser come, no doubt, to search the West Indian packet supposed to be bringing hither the two Southern envoys; and, much to my regret, it appeared that, according to the principles of international law laid down in our courts by Lord Stowell, and practised and enforced by us, a belligerent has a right to stop and search any neutral not being a ship of war, and being found on the high seas and being suspected of carrying enemy's despatches; and that consequently this American cruiser might, by our own principles of international law, stop the West Indian packet, search her, and if the Southern men and their despatches and credentials were found on board, either take them out, or seize the packet and carry her back to New York for trial. Such being the opinion of our men learned in the law, we have determined to do no more than to order the Phaeton frigate to drop down to Yarmouth Roads and watch the proceedings of the American within our three-mile limit of territorial jurisdiction, and to prevent her from exercising within that limit those rights which we cannot dispute as belonging to her beyond that limit.

"In the meanwhile the American captain, having got very drunk this morning at Southampton with some excellent brandy, and finding it blow heavily at sea, has come to an anchor for the night within Calshot Castle, at the entrance of the Southampton river.

"I mention these things for your private information.

Yours sincerely,

PALMERSTON[406]."

Not completely satisfied with this decision as reported to Delane, and sincerely anxious to avert what he foresaw would be a difficult situation, Palmerston took the unusual step of writing to Adams on the next day, November 12, and asking for an interview. His note took Adams by surprise, but he promptly waited upon Palmerston, and was told of the latter's disturbance at the presence of the American ship James Adger, Captain Marchand commanding, in Southampton Harbour, with the alleged purpose of stopping the British West India steamer and intercepting the journey of Mason and Slidell. Palmerston stated that he "did not pretend to judge absolutely of the question whether we had a right to stop a foreign vessel for such a purpose as was indicated," and he urged on Adams the unwisdom of such an act in any case. "Neither did the object to be gained seem commensurate with the risk. For it was surely of no consequence whether one or two more men were added to the two or three who had already been so long here. They would scarcely make a difference in the action of the Government after once having made up its mind[407]."

The interview with Adams, so Palmerston wrote to Delane on the same day, November 12, was reassuring:

"MY DEAR DELANE,

"I have seen Adams to-day, and he assures me that the American paddle-wheel was sent to intercept the Nashville if found in these seas, but not to meddle with any ship under a foreign flag. He said he had seen the commander, and had advised him to go straight home; and he believed the steamer to be now on her way back to the United States. This is a very satisfactory explanation.

Yours sincerely,

PALMERSTON[408]."

In fact, neither Adams' diary nor his report to Seward recorded quite the same statement as that here attributed to him by Palmerston, and this became later, but fortunately after the question of the Trent had passed off the stage, a matter of minor dispute. Adams' own statement was that he had told Palmerston the James Adger was seeking to intercept the Nashville and "had no instruction" to interfere with a British Packet--which is not the same as saying that she already had instructions "not to meddle with any ship under a foreign flag[409]." But in any case, it would appear that the British Government had been warned by its legal advisers that if that which actually happened in the case of the Trent should occur, English practice, if followed, would compel acquiescence in it[410]. This is not to say that a first legal advice thus given on a problematical case necessarily bound the Government to a fixed line of action, but that the opinion of the Government was one of "no help for it" if the case should actually arise is shown by the instructions to Lyons and by his reaction. On November 16, Hammond wrote to Lyons stating the opinion of the Law Officers that "we could do nothing to save the Packet being interfered with outside our three miles; so Lord Palmerston sent for Adams, who assured him that the American [the James Adger] had no instructions to meddle with any ship under English colours ... that her orders were not to endeavour to take Mason and Slidell out of any ship under foreign colours[411]." On receipt of this letter subsequent to the actual seizure of the envoys, Lyons hardly knew what to expect. He reported Hammond's account to Admiral Milne, writing that the legal opinion was that "Nothing could be done to save the Packet's being interfered with outside of the Marine league from the British Coast"; but he added, "I am not informed that the Law Officers decided that Mason and Slidell might be taken out of the Packet, but only that we could not prevent the Packet's being interfered with," thus previsioning that shift in British legal opinion which was to come after the event. Meanwhile Lyons was so uncertain as to what his instructions would be that he thought he "ought to maintain the greatest reserve here on the matter of the Trent[412]."

This British anxiety and the efforts to prevent a dangerous complication occurred after the envoys had been seized but some two weeks before that fact was known in London. "Adams," wrote Russell, "says it was all a false alarm, and wonders at our susceptibility and exaggerated notions[413]." But Russell was not equally convinced with Adams that the North, especially Seward, was so eager for continued British neutrality, and when, on November 27, the news of Captain Wilkes' action was received, Russell and many others in the Cabinet saw in it a continuation of unfriendly Northern policy now culminating in a direct affront. Argyll, the most avowed friend of the North in the Cabinet, was stirred at first to keen resentment, writing "of this wretched piece of American folly.... I am all against submitting to any clean breach of International Law, such as I can hardly doubt this has been[414]." The Law Officers now held that "Captain Wilkes had undertaken to pass upon the issue of a violation of neutrality on the spot, instead of sending the Trent as a prize into port for judicial adjudication[415]." This was still later further expanded by an opinion that the envoys could not be considered as contraband, and thus subject to capture nor the Trent as having violated neutrality, since the destination of the vessel was to a neutral, not to an enemy port[416]. This opinion would have prohibited even the carrying of the Trent into an American port for trial by a prize court.

But the British Government did not argue the matter in its demand upon the United States. The case was one for a quick demand of prompt reparation. Russell's instruction to Lyons, sent on November 30, was couched in coldly correct language, showing neither a friendly nor an unfriendly attitude. The seizure of the envoys was asserted to be a breach of international law, which, it was hoped, had occurred without orders, and Lyons was to demand the restoration of the prisoners with an apology. If Seward had not already offered these terms Lyons was to propose them, but as a preliminary step in making clear the British position, he might read the instruction to Seward, leaving him a copy of it if desired[417]. In another instruction of the same date Russell authorized a delay of seven days in insisting upon an answer by Seward, if the latter wished it, and gave Lyons liberty to determine whether "the requirements of Her Majesty's Government are substantially complied with[418]." And on December 1, Russell writing privately to Lyons instructed him, while upholding English dignity, to abstain from anything like menace[419]. On November 30, also, the Government hurriedly sent out orders to hold the British Fleet in readiness, began preparations for the sending of troops to Canada, and initiated munitions and supply activities. Evidently there was at first but faint hope that a break in relations, soon to be followed by war, was to be avoided[420].

It has long been known to history, and was known to Adams almost immediately, that the first draft of the instruction to Lyons was softened in language by the advice of Prince Albert, the material point being the expression of a hope that the action of Captain Wilkes was unauthorized[421]. That instruction had been sent previous to the receipt of a report from Lyons in which, very fearful of results, he stated that, waiting instructions, he would preserve a strict silence[422]. Equally anxious was Cowley at Paris, who feared the realization of Seward's former "foreign war panacea." "I wish I could divest myself of the idea that the North and South will not shake hands over a war with us[423]." Considering the bitterness of the quarrel in America this was a far-fetched notion. The efforts promptly made by the Confederate agents in London to make use of the Trent affair showed how little Cowley understood the American temper. Having remained very quiet since August when Russell had informed them that Great Britain intended remaining strictly neutral[424], they now, on November 27 and 30, renewed their argument and application for recognition, but received in reply a curt letter declining any official communication with them "in the present state of affairs[425]."

The delay of at least three weeks imposed by methods of transportation before even the first American reaction to the British demand could be received in London gave time for a lessening of excitement and a more careful self-analysis by British statesmen as to what they really felt and desired. Gladstone wrote: "It is a very sad and heart-sickening business, and I sincerely trust with you that war may be averted[426]." Argyll hurried home from the Continent, being much disturbed by the tone of the British press, and stating that he was against standing on technical grounds of international law. "War with America is such a calamity that we must do all we can to avoid it. It involves not only ourselves, but all our North American colonies[427]." But war seemed to both men scarcely avoidable, an opinion held also by Cornewall Lewis[428] and by Clarendon, the latter standing at the moment in a position midway between the Whig and Tory parties[429]. Yet Russell, with more cause than others to mistrust Seward's policy, as also believing that he had more cause, personally, to resent it, was less pessimistic and was already thinking of at least postponing immediate hostilities in the event of an American refusal to make just recompense. On December 16 he wrote to Palmerston: "I incline more and more to the opinion that if the answer is a reasoning, and not a blunt offensive answer, we should send once more across the Atlantic to ask compliance.... I do not think the country would approve an immediate declaration of war. But I think we must abide by our demand of a restoration of the prisoners.... Lyons gives a sad account of Canada. Your foresight of last year is amply justified[430]." And on December 20 he wrote, "Adams' language yesterday was entirely in favour of yielding to us, if our tone is not too peremptory.... If our demands are refused, we must, of course, call Parliament together. The sixth of February will do. In any other case we must decide according to circumstances[431]."

Thus Russell would not have Great Britain go to war with America without the sanction of Parliament, and was seeking reasons for delay. He was reacting, in fact, to a more sobering second thought which was experienced also by nearly everyone, save the eager British "Southerner," in public and in newspaper circles. The first explosion of the Press, on receipt of the news of the Trent, had been a terrific one. The British lion, insulted in its chosen field of supremacy, the sea, had pawed the air in frenzy though at first preserving a certain slow dignity of motion. Customary "strong leader-writing" became vigorous, indeed, in editorial treatment of America and in demand for the prompt release of the envoys with suitable apology. The close touch of leading papers with Governmental opinion is well shown, as in the Times, by the day-to-day editorials of the first week. On November 28 there was solemn and anxious consideration of a grave crisis with much questioning of international law, which was acknowledged to be doubtful. But even if old British practice seemed to support Captain Wilkes, the present was not to be controlled by a discarded past, and "essential differences" were pointed out. This tone of vexed uncertainty changed to a note of positive assurance and militant patriotism on November 30 when the Government made its demand. The Times up to December 2, thought it absolutely certain that Wilkes had acted on authorization, and devoted much space to Seward as the evil genius of American warlike policy toward England. The old "Duke of Newcastle story" was revamped. But on December 2 there reached London the first, very brief, American news of the arrival of the San Jacinto at Fortress Monroe, and this contained a positive statement by Wilkes that he had had no orders. The Times was sceptical, but printed the news as having an important bearing, if true, and, at the same time, printed communications by "Justicia" and others advising a "go slowly" policy[432]. Yet all British papers indulged in sharp reflections on American insults, displayed keen resentment, and demanded a prompt yielding to the Governmental demand.

An intelligent American long resident in London, wrote to Seward on November 29: "There never was within memory such a burst of feeling as has been created by the news of the boarding of [the Trent]. The people are frantic with rage, and were the country polled, I fear 999 men out of a thousand would declare for immediate war. Lord Palmerston cannot resist the impulse if he would." And another American, in Edinburgh, wrote to his uncle in New York: "I have never seen so intense a feeling of indignation exhibited in my life. It pervades all classes, and may make itself heard above the wiser theories of the Cabinet officers[433]." If such were the British temper, it would require skilful handling by even a pacific-minded Government to avoid war. Even without belligerent newspaper utterances the tone of arrogance as in Punch's cartoon, "You do what's right, my son, or I'll blow you out of the water," portended no happy solution. Yet this cartoon at least implied a hope of peaceful outcome, and that this was soon a general hope is shown by the prompt publicity given to a statement from the American General, Winfield Scott, in Paris, denying that he had said the action of Captain Wilkes had been decided upon at Washington before he sailed for Europe, and asserting that no orders were given to seize the envoys on board any British or foreign vessel[434]. Nevertheless, Adams, for the moment intensely aroused, and suspicious of the whole purpose of British policy, could write to his friend Dana in Boston: "The expression of the past summer might have convinced you that she [Great Britain] was not indifferent to the disruption of the Union. In May she drove in the tip of the wedge, and now you can't imagine that a few spiders' webs of a half a century back will not be strong enough to hold her from driving it home. Little do you understand of this fast-anchored isle[435]."

There can be no doubt that one cause of a more bitter and sharper tone in the British press was the reception of the counter-exultation of the American press on learning of the detention and the exercise of "right of search" on a British ship. The American public equally went "off its head" in its expressions. Writing in 1911, the son of the American Minister to Great Britain, Charles Francis Adams, jun., in 1861, a young law-student in Boston, stated: "I do not remember in the whole course of the half-century's retrospect ... any occurrence in which the American people were so completely swept off their feet, for the moment losing possession of their senses, as during the weeks which immediately followed the seizure of Mason and Slidell[436]." There were evident two principal causes for this elation. The North with much emotion and high courage entering in April, 1861, upon the task of restoring the Union and hoping for quick success, had now passed through a wearisome six months with no evident progress towards its object. Northern failure had developed a deep mortification when, suddenly and unexpectedly, a bold naval captain, on his own initiative, appeared to have struck a real blow at the South. His action seemed to indicate that the fighting forces of the North, if free from the trammels of Washington red tape, could, and would, carry on energetic war. Certainly it was but a slight incident to create such Northern emotion, yet the result was a sudden lifting from despondency to elation.

But almost equally with this cause of joy there operated on American minds the notion that the United States had at last given to Great Britain a dose of her own medicine in a previous era--had exercised upon a British ship that "right of search" which had been so keenly resented by America as to have become almost a permanent cause of a sense of injury once received and never to be forgotten. There was no clear thinking about this; the obnoxious right of search in times of peace for vagrant seamen, the belligerent right exercised by Britain while America was a neutral, the practice of a "right of visit" claimed by Britain as necessary in suppression of the African Slave Trade--all were confused by the American public (as they are still in many history textbooks to this day), and the total result of this mixing of ideas was a general American jubilation that the United States had now revenged herself for British offences, in a manner of which Great Britain could not consistently complain. These two main reasons for exultation were shared by all classes, not merely by the uninformed mob of newspaper readers. At a banquet tendered Captain Wilkes in Boston on November 26, Governor Andrews of Massachusetts called Wilkes' action "one of the most illustrious services that had made the war memorable," and added "that there might be nothing left [in the episode] to crown the exultation of the American heart, Commodore Wilkes fired his shot across the bows of the ship that bore the British lion at its head[437]."

All America first applauded the act, then plunged into discussion of its legality as doubts began to arise of its defensibility--and wisdom. It became a sort of temporarily popular "parlour game" to argue the international law of the case and decide that Great Britain could have no cause of complaint[438]. Meanwhile at Washington itself there was evidenced almost equal excitement and approval--but not, fortunately, by the Department responsible for the conduct of foreign relations. Secretary of the Navy Welles congratulated Wilkes on his "great public service," though criticizing him for not having brought the Trent into port for adjudication. Congress passed a joint resolution, December 2, thanking Wilkes for his conduct, and the President was requested to give him a gold medal commemorative of his act. Indeed, no evidence of approbation was withheld save the formal approval and avowal of national responsibility by the Secretary of State, Seward. On him, therefore, and on the wisdom of men high in the confidence of the Cabinet, like Sumner, Lyons pinned his faint hope of a peaceful solution. Thoroughly alarmed and despondent, anxious as to the possible fate of Canada[439], he advised against any public preparations in Canada for defence, on the ground that if the Trent affair did blow over it should not appear that we ever thought it an insult which would endanger peace[440]. This was very different from the action and attitude of the Government at home, as yet unknown to Lyons. He wisely waited in silence, advising like caution to others, until the receipt of instructions. Silence, at the moment, was also a friendly service to the United States.

The earliest American reactions, the national rejoicing, became known to the British press some six days after its own spasm of anger, and three days after the Government had despatched its demand for release of the prisoners and begun its hurried military preparations. On December 3 the Times contained the first summary of American press outpourings. The first effect in England was astonishment, followed by renewed and more intense evidences of a belligerent disposition. Soon, however, there began to appear a note of caution and more sane judgment of the situation, though with no lessening of the assertion that Britain had suffered an injury that must be redressed. The American frenzy of delight seemingly indicated a deep-seated hostility to Britain that gave pause to British clamour for revenge. On December 4 John Bright made a great speech at Rochdale, arguing a possible British precedent for Wilkes' act, urging caution, lauding American leadership in democracy, and stating his positive conviction that the United States Government was as much astonished as was that of Great Britain by the attack on the Trent.[441] To this the Times gave a full column of report on December 5 and the day following printed five close-type columns of the speech itself. Editorially it attacked Bright's position, belittling the speech for having been made at the one "inconspicuous" place where the orator would be sure of a warm welcome, and asking why Manchester or Liverpool had not been chosen. In fact, however, the Times was attempting to controvert "our ancient enemy" Bright as an apostle of democracy rather than to fan the flames of irritation over the Trent, and the prominence given to Bright's speech indicates a greater readiness to consider as hopeful an escape from the existing crisis.

After December 3 and up to the ninth, the Times was more caustic about America than previously. The impression of its editorials read to-day is that more hopeful of a peaceful solution it was more free to snarl. But with the issue of December 10 there began a series of leaders and communications, though occasionally with a relapse to the former tone, distinctly less irritating to Americans, and indicating a real desire for peace[442]. Other newspapers either followed the Times, or were slightly in advance of it in a change to more considerate and peaceful expressions. Adams could write to Seward on December 6 that he saw no change in the universality of the British demand for satisfaction of the "insult and injury thought to be endured," but he recognized in the next few days that a slow shift was taking place in the British temper and regretted the violence of American utterances. December 12, he wrote to his son in America: "It has given us here an indescribably sad feeling to witness the exultation in America over an event which bids fair to be the final calamity in this contest...." Great Britain "is right in principle and only wrong in point of consistency. Our mistake is that we are donning ourselves in her cast-off suit, when our own is better worth wearing[443]." His secretarial son was more vehement: "Angry and hateful as I am of Great Britain, I still can't help laughing and cursing at the same time as I see the accounts of the talk of our people. What a bloody set of fools they are! How in the name of all that's conceivable could you suppose that England would sit quiet under such an insult. We should have jumped out of our boots at such a one[444]."

The British Cabinet members were divided in sentiments of hope or pessimism as to the outcome, and were increasingly anxious for an honourable escape from a possible situation in which, if they trusted the observations of Lyons, they might find themselves aiding a slave as against a free State. On November 29, Lyons had written a long account of the changes taking place in Northern feeling as regards slavery. He thought it very probable that the issue of emancipation would soon be forced upon Lincoln, and that the American conflict would then take on a new and more ideal character[445]. This letter, arriving in the midst of uncertainty about the Trent solution, was in line with news published in the British papers calling out editorials from them largely in disapproval[446]. Certainly Russell was averse to war. If the prisoners were not given up, what, he asked, ought England then to do? Would it be wise to delay hostilities or to begin them at once?

"An early resort to hostilities will enable us at once to raise the blockade of the South, to blockade the North, and to prevent the egress of numerous ships, commissioned as privateers which will be sent against our commerce." But then, there was Canada, at present not defensible. He had been reading Alison on the War of 1812, and found that then the American army of invasion had numbered but 2,500 men. "We may now expect 40 or 50,000[447]." Two days later he wrote to Gladstone that if America would only "let the Commissioners free to go where they pleased," he would be satisfied. He added that in that case, "I should be very glad to make a treaty with the U.S., giving up our pretensions of 1812 and securing immunity to persons not in arms on board neutral vessels or to persons going bona fide from one neutral port to another. This would be a triumph to the U.S. in principle while the particular case would be decided in our favour[448]."

On Saturday, December 14, the Prince Consort died. It was well-known that he had long been a brake upon the wheel of Palmerston's foreign policy and, to the initiated, his last effort in this direction--the modification of the instruction to Lyons on the Trent--was no secret. There is no evidence that his death made any change in the British position, but it was true, as the American Minister wrote, that "Now they [the British public] are beginning to open their eyes to a sense of his value. They discover that much of their political quietude has been due to the judicious exercise of his influence over the Queen and the Court, and they do not conceal their uneasiness as to the future without him[449]." The nation was plunged into deep mourning, but not to distraction from the American crisis, for on the day when all papers were black with mourning borders, December 16, they printed the news of the approval of Wilkes by the United States Congress, and gave a summary of Lincoln's message of December 2, which, to their astonishment, made no mention of the Trent affair. The Congressional approval caused "almost a feeling of consternation among ourselves," but Lincoln's silence, it was argued, might possibly be taken as a good omen, since it might indicate that he had as yet reached no decision[450]. Evidently there was more real alarm caused by the applause given Wilkes by one branch of the government than by the outpourings of the American press. The next day several papers printed Lincoln's message in full and the Times gave a long editorial analysis, showing much spleen that he had ignored the issue with Great Britain[451]. On the eighteenth this journal also called attention, in a column and a half editorial, to the report of the American Secretary of War, expressing astonishment, not unmixed with anxiety, at the energy which had resulted in the increase of the army to 700,000 men in less than nine months. The Times continued, even increased, its "vigour" of utterance on the Trent, but devoted most of its energy to combating the suggestions, now being made very generally, advocating a recourse to arbitration. This would be "weak concession," and less likely to secure redress and peace for the future, than an insistence on the original demands.

Statesmen also were puzzled by Lincoln's silence. Milner Gibson wrote that "even though Lyons should come away, I think the dispute may after all be settled without war[452]." Cornewall Lewis thought the "last mail from America is decidedly threatening, not encouraging[453]." But on December 19, Adams was at last able to give Russell official assurance that Wilkes had acted without authorization. Russell at once informed Lyons of this communication and that he had now told Adams the exact terms of his two instructions to Lyons of November 30. He instructed Lyons to accept in place of an apology an explanation that Wilkes' action was unauthorized--a very important further British modification, but one which did not reach Lyons until after the conclusion of the affair at Washington[454]. Meanwhile a notable change had taken place in American public expressions. It now regarded "the Wilkes affair unfavourably, and would much prefer it had not occurred at all[455]," a reaction without question almost wholly caused by the knowledge of the British demand and the unanimous support given it by the British public[456]. On Great Britain the alteration in the American tone produced less effect than might have been expected, and this because of the persistent fear and suspicion of Seward. His voice, it was felt, would in the end be the determining one, and if British belief that he had long sought an occasion for war was correct, this surely was the time when he could be confident of popular support. Thurlow Weed, Seward's most intimate political adviser, was now in London and attempted to disabuse the British public through the columns of the Times. His communication was printed, but his assertion that Seward's unfriendly utterances, beginning with the "Newcastle story," were misunderstood, did not convince the Times, which answered him at length[457], and asserted its belief "... that upon his ability to involve the United States in a war with England, Mr. Seward has staked his official, and, most probably, also his political existence." The Duke of Newcastle's report of Seward's remarks, wrote George Peabody later, "has strongly influenced the Government in war preparations for several months past[458]." Adams himself, though convinced that Seward's supposed animosity "was a mistake founded on a bad joke of his to the Duke of Newcastle," acknowledged that: "The Duke has, however, succeeded in making everybody in authority here believe it[459]." Surely no "joke" to an Englishman ever so plagued an American statesman; but British Ministers founded their suspicions on far more serious reasons, as previously related[460].

As time passed without an answer from America, British speculation turned to estimates of the probable conditions of a war. These were not reassuring since even though postulating a British victory, it appeared inevitable that England would not escape without considerable damage from the American navy and from privateers. Americans were "a powerful and adventurous people, strong in maritime resources, and participating in our own national familiarity with the risks and dangers of the deep[461]." Englishmen must not think that a war would be fought only on the shores of America and in Canada. The legal question was re-hashed and intelligent American vexation re-stated in three letters printed in the Daily News on December 25, 26 and 27, by W. W. Story, an artist resident in Rome, but known in England as the son of Justice Story, whose fame as a jurist stood high in Great Britain[462]. By the last week of the year Adams felt that the Ministry, at least, was eager to find a way out: "The Government here will not press the thing to an extreme unless they are driven to it by the impetus of the wave they have themselves created[463]." He greatly regretted the death of the Prince Consort who "believed in the policy of conciliating the United States instead of repelling them." On December 27, Adams wrote Seward: "I think the signs are clear of a considerable degree of reaction." He also explained the causes of the nearly unanimous European support of England in this contention: "Unquestionably the view of all other countries is that the opportunity is most fortunate for obtaining new and large modifications of international law which will hereafter materially restrain the proverbial tendency of this country on the ocean[464]."

Adams' estimate was correct. Even the Morning Post, generally accepted as Palmerston's organ[465], and in the Trent crisis the most 'vigorous' of all metropolitan journals, commented upon the general public hope of a peaceful solution, but asked on December 30, "... can a Government [the American] elected but a few months since by the popular choice, depending exclusively for existence on popular support, afford to disappoint the popular expectation? The answer to this question must, we fear, be in the negative...." The Post (thereby Palmerston?) did indeed, as later charged, "prolong the excitement," but not with its earlier animosity to America. The very fact that the Post was accepted as Palmerston's organ justified this attitude for it would have been folly for the Government to announce prematurely a result of which there was as yet no definite assurance. Yet within the Cabinet there was a more hopeful feeling. Argyll believed Adams' statement to Russell of December 19 was practically conclusive[466], and Adams himself now thought that the prevalent idea was waning of an American plan to inflict persistent "indignities" on Britain: "at least in this case nothing of the kind had been intended[467]." Everyone wondered at and was vexed with the delay of an answer from America, yet hopefully believed that this indicated ultimate yielding. There could be no surety until the event. Russell wrote to Palmerston on January 7, "I still incline to think Lincoln will submit, but not until the clock is 59 minutes past 11. If it is war, I fear we must summon Parliament forthwith[468]."

The last moment for reply was indeed very nearly taken advantage of at Washington, but not to the full seven days permitted for consideration by Russell's November thirtieth instructions to Lyons. These were received on December 18, and on the next day Lyons unofficially acquainted Seward with their nature[469]. The latter expressed gratification with the "friendly and conciliatory manner" of Lyons and asked for two days' time for consideration. On Saturday, December 21, therefore, Lyons again appeared to make a formal presentation of demands but was met with a statement that the press of other business had prevented sufficient consideration and was asked for a further two days' postponement until Monday. Hence December 23 became the day from which the seven days permitted for consideration and reply dated. In the meantime, Mercier, on December 21, had told Seward of the strong support given by France to the British position.

The month that had elapsed since the American outburst on first learning of Wilkes' act had given time for a cooling of patriotic fever and for a saner judgment. Henry Adams in London had written to his brother that if the prisoners were not given up, "this nation means to make war." To this the brother in America replied "this nation doesn't[470]," an answer that sums up public determination no matter how loud the talk or deep the feeling. Seward understood the change and had now received strong warnings from Adams and Weed in London, and from Dayton in Paris[471], but these were not needed to convince him that America must yield. Apparently, he had recognized from the first that America was in an impossible situation and that the prisoners must be released if the demand were made. The comment of those who were "wise after the event" was that true policy would have dictated an immediate release of the prisoners as seized in violation of international law, before any complaint could be received from Great Britain. This leaves out of consideration the political difficulties at home of an administration already seriously weakened by a long-continued failure to "press the war," and it also fails to recognize that in the American Cabinet itself a proposal by Seward to release, made immediately, would in all probability have been negatived. Blair, in the Cabinet, and Sumner in the Senate, were, indeed, in favour of prompt release, but Lincoln seems to have thought the prisoners must be held, even though he feared they might become "white elephants." All that Seward could do at first was to notify Adams that Wilkes had acted without instructions[472].

On Christmas morning the Cabinet met to consider the answer to Great Britain. Sumner attended and read letters from Bright and Cobden, earnestly urging a yielding by America and depicting the strength of British feeling. Bright wrote: "If you are resolved to succeed against the South, have no war with England; make every concession that can be made; don't even hesitate to tell the world that you will even concede what two years ago no Power would have asked of you, rather than give another nation a pretence for assisting in the breaking up of your country[473]." Without doubt Bright's letters had great influence on Lincoln and on other Cabinet members, greatly aiding Seward, but that his task was difficult is shown by the fact that an entire morning's discussion brought no conclusion. Adjournment was taken until the next day and after another long debate Seward had the fortune to persuade his associates to a hearty unanimity on December 26. The American reply in the form of a communication to Lyons was presented to him by Seward on the 27th, and on that same day Lyons forwarded it to Russell. It did not contain an apology, but Lyons wrote that since the prisoners were to be released and acknowledgment was made that reparation was due to Great Britain, he considered that British demands were "so far substantially complied with" that he should remain at his post until he received further orders[474].

Seward's reply was immediately printed in the American papers. Lyons reported that it was very well received and that the public was calm and apparently contented with the outcome[475]. He thought that "thus the preparation for war ... has prevented war." Seward's argument reviewed at great length all the conditions of the incident, dilated on many points of international law both relevant and irrelevant, narrated the past relations of the two nations on "right of search," and finally took the ground that Mason and Slidell were contraband of war and justly subject to capture, but that Wilkes had erred in not bringing the Trent, with her passengers, into port for trial by an American prize court. Therefore the two envoys with their secretaries would be handed over promptly to such persons as Lyons might designate. It was, says Seward's biographer, not a great state paper, was defective in argument, and contained many contradictions[476], but, he adds, that it was intended primarily for the American public and to meet the situation at home. Another critic sums up Seward's difficulties: he had to persuade a President and a reluctant Cabinet, to support the naval idol of the day, to reconcile a Congress which had passed resolutions highly commending Wilkes, and to pacify a public earlier worked up to fever pitch[477]. Still more important than ill-founded assertions about the nature of contraband of war, a term not reconcilable with the neutral port destination of the Trent, was the likening of Mason and Slidell to "ambassadors of independent states." For eight months Seward had protested to Europe "that the Confederates were not belligerents, but insurgents," and now "his whole argument rested on the fact that they were belligerents[478].... But this did not later alter a return to his old position nor prevent renewed arguments to induce a recall by European states of their proclamations of neutrality.

On the afternoon of January 8, a telegram from Lyons was received in London, stating that the envoys would be released and the next day came his despatch enclosing a copy of Seward's answer. The envoys themselves did not reach England until January 30, and the delay in their voyage gave time for an almost complete disappearance of public interest in them[479]. January 10, Russell instructed Lyons that Great Britain was well satisfied with the fact and manner of the American answer, and regarded the incident as closed, but that it could not agree with portions of Seward's argument and would answer these later. This was done on January 23, but the reply was mainly a mere formality and is of interest only as revealing a further shift in the opinion of the legal advisers, with emphasis on the question of what constitutes contraband[480]. Possibly the British Government was embarrassed by the fact that while France had strongly supported England at Washington, Thouvenel had told Cowley "... that the conduct pursued by Capt. Wilkes, whether the United States claimed to be considered as Belligerents, or as a Government engaged in putting down a rebellion, was a violation of all those principles of Maritime international law, which France had ever supported[481] ..." and had instructed Mercier to so state to Seward. This implied a reflection on former British practice, especially as regards the exercise of a right of search to recover its own citizens and is indicative of the correctness of Adams' judgment that one main reason for European support of Great Britain in the Trent crisis, was the general desire to tie her to a limitation of belligerent maritime power.

In notifying Russell of the release of the prisoners, Lyons had stated that he would caution the Commander of the ship conveying them that they were "not to be received with honours or treated otherwise than as distinguished private gentlemen[482]." Russell was equally cautious, seeing Mason, shortly after arrival in London, "unofficially at my own house," on February 10, refusing to read his credentials, and after listening to a statement of his instructions, replying that "nothing had hitherto occurred which would justify or induce" Great Britain to depart from a position of neutrality[483]. Russell had already suggested that Thouvenel use the same method with Slidell[484]. This procedure does not necessarily indicate a change in governmental attitude, for it is exactly in line with that pursued toward the Confederate Commissioners before the Trent; but the Trent controversy might naturally have been expected to have brought about an easier relation between Russell and a Southern representative. That it did not do so is evidence of Russell's care not to give offence to Northern susceptibilities. Also, in relief at the outcome of the Trent, he was convinced, momentarily at least, that the general British suspicion of Seward was unfounded. "I do not," he wrote to Gladstone, "believe that Seward has any animosity to this country. It is all buncom" (sic)[485]. Apparently it was beginning to be realized by British statesmen that Seward's "high tone" which they had interpreted, with some justification earlier, as especially inimical to England, now indicated a foreign policy based upon one object only--the restoration of the Union, and that in pursuit of this object he was but seeking to make clear to European nations that the United States was still powerful enough to resent foreign interference. The final decision in the Trent affair, such was the situation in the American Cabinet, rested on Seward alone and that decision was, from the first, for peace.

Nor did Seward later hold any grudge over the outcome. America in general, however, though breathing freely again as the war cloud passed, was bitter. "The feeling against Great Britain is of intense hatred and the conclusion of the whole matter is, that we must give up the traitors, put down the rebellion, increase our navy, perfect the discipline of the 600,000 men in the field, and then fight Great Britain[486]." Lowell, in one of the most emotional of his "Bigelow Papers," wrote, on January 6, 1862:

"It don't seem hardly right, John, When both my hands was full, To stump me to a fight, John-- Your cousin, tu, John Bull! Ole Uncle S., sez he, 'I guess We know it now,' sez he, 'The lion's paw is all the law, Accordin' to J.B., Thet's fit for you an' me[487]!'"

It was not the demand itself for the release of Mason and Slidell that in the end so stirred America as the warlike tone of the British press and the preparations of the Government. Even after their surrender America was further incensed by British boasting that America had yielded to a threat of war, as in the Punch cartoon of a penitent small boy, Uncle Sam, who "says he is very sorry and that he didn't mean to do it," and so escapes the birching Britannia was about to administer. America had, in all truth, yielded to a threat, but disliked being told so, and regarded the threat itself as evidence of British ill-will[488]. This was long the attitude of the American public.

In England the knowledge of America's decision caused a great national sigh of relief, coupled with a determination to turn the cold shoulder to the released envoys. On January 11, the Times recounted the earlier careers of Mason and Slidell, and stated that these two "more than any other men," were responsible for the traditional American "insane prejudice against England," an assertion for which no facts were offered in proof, and one much overestimating the influence of Mason and Slidell on American politics before secession. They were "about the most worthless booty it would be possible to extract from the jaws of the American lion ... So we do sincerely hope that our countrymen will not give these fellows anything in the shape of an ovation." Continuing, the Times argued:

"What they and their secretaries are to do here passes our conjecture. They are personally nothing to us. They must not suppose, because we have gone to the very verge of a great war to rescue them, that therefore they are precious in our eyes. We should have done just as much to rescue two of their own Negroes, and, had that been the object of the rescue, the swarthy Pompey and Caesar would have had just the same right to triumphal arches and municipal addresses as Messrs. Mason and Slidell. So, please, British public, let's have none of these things. Let the Commissioners come up quietly to town, and have their say with anybody who may have time to listen to them. For our part, we cannot see how anything they have to tell can turn the scale of British duty and deliberation."

This complete reversal, not to say somersault, by the leading British newspaper, was in line with public expressions from all sections save the extreme pro-Southern. Adams was astonished, writing privately: "The first effect of the surrender ... has been extraordinary. The current which ran against us with such extreme violence six weeks ago now seems to be going with equal fury in our favour[489]." Officially on the same day he explained this to Seward as caused by a late development in the crisis of a full understanding, especially "among the quiet and religious citizens of the middle classes," that if Great Britain did engage in war with the United States she would be forced to become the ally of a "slave-holding oligarchy[490]."

Here, in truth, lay the greatest cause of British anxiety during the period of waiting for an answer and of relief when that answer was received. If England and America became enemies, wrote Argyll, "we necessarily became virtually the Allies of the Scoundrelism of the South[491]." Robert Browning, attempting to explain to his friend Story the British attitude, declared that early in the war Britain was with the North, expecting "that the pure and simple rights [of anti-slavery] in the case would be declared and vigorously carried out without one let or stop," but that Lincoln's denial of emancipation as an object had largely destroyed this sympathy. Browning thought this an excusable though a mistaken judgment since at least: "The spirit of all of Mr. Lincoln's acts is altogether against Slavery in the end[492]." He assured Story that the latter was in error "as to men's 'fury' here": "I have not heard one man, woman or child express anything but dismay at the prospect of being obliged to go to war on any grounds with America[493]." And after the affair was over he affirmed: "The purpose of the North is also understood at last; ... there is no longer the notion that 'Slavery has nothing to do with it[494].'"

A few extreme pro-Northern enthusiasts held public meetings and passed resolutions commending the "statesmanlike ability and moderation of Seward," and rejoicing that Great Britain had not taken sides with a slave power[495]. In general, however, such sentiments were not publicly expressed. That they were keenly felt, nevertheless, is certain. During the height of the crisis, Anthony Trollope, then touring America, even while sharing fully in the intense British indignation against Captain Wilkes, wrote:

"These people speak our language, use our prayers, read our books, are ruled by our laws, dress themselves in our image, are warm with our blood. They have all our virtues; and their vices are our own too, loudly as we call out against them. They are our sons and our daughters, the source of our greatest pride, and as we grow old they should be the staff of our age. Such a war as we should now wage with the States would be an unloosing of hell upon all that is best upon the world's surface[496]."

The expressions of men like Browning and Trollope may not indeed, be regarded as typical of either governmental or general public reactions. Much more exactly and with more authority as representing that thoughtful opinion of which Adams wrote were the conclusions of John Stuart Mill. In an article in Fraser's Magazine, February, 1862, making a strong plea for the North, he summarized British feeling about the Trent:

"We had indeed, been wronged. We had suffered an indignity, and something more than an indignity, which, not to have resented, would have been to invite a constant succession of insults and injuries from the same and from every other quarter. We could have acted no otherwise than we have done; yet it is impossible to think, without something like a shudder, from what we have escaped. We, the emancipators of the slave--who have wearied every Court and Government in Europe and America with our protests and remonstrances, until we goaded them into at least ostensibly co-operating with us to prevent the enslaving of the negro ... we should have lent a hand to setting up, in one of the most commanding positions of the world, a powerful republic, devoted not only to slavery, but to pro-slavery propagandism...."

No such protestations of relief over escape from a possible alliance with the South were made officially by the Government, or in a debate upon the Trent, February 6, when Parliament reassembled. In the Lords the Earl of Shelburne thought that America should have made a frank and open apology. The Earl of Derby twitted the United States with having yielded to force alone, but said the time "had not yet come" for recognizing the Confederacy. Lord Dufferin expressed great friendship for America and declared that Englishmen ought to make themselves better informed of the real merits of the Civil War. Earl Granville, speaking for the Government, laid stress upon the difficulties at home of the Washington administration in pacifying public opinion and asserted a personal belief that strict neutrality was England's best policy, "although circumstances may arise which may call for a different course." On the same day in the Commons the debate was of a like general tenor to that in the Lords, but Disraeli differed from his chief (Derby) in that he thought America had been placed in a very difficult position in which she had acted very honourably. Palmerston took much credit for the energetic military preparations, but stated "from that position of strict neutrality, it is not our intention to depart "--an important declaration if taken, as apparently it was not, as fixing a policy. In substance all speakers, whether Whig or Tory, praised the Government's stand, and expressed gratification with the peaceful outcome[497].

A further debate on the Trent was precipitated by Bright on February 17, in connection with the estimates to cover the cost of the military contingents sent to Canada. He asserted that England by generously trusting to American honour, might have won her lasting friendship, and it is worthy of note that for the first time in any speech made by him in Parliament, Bright declared that the war was one for the abolition of slavery. Palmerston in reply made no comment on the matter of slavery, but energetically defended the military preparations as a necessary precaution. Bright's speech was probably intended for American consumption with the purpose of easing American ill-will, by showing that even in Parliament there were those who disapproved of that show of force to which America so much objected. He foresaw that this would long be the basis of American bitterness. But Palmerston was undoubtedly correct in characterizing Bright's opinion as a "solitary one." And looked at from a distance of time it would seem that a British Government, impressed as it was with a sense of Seward's unfriendliness, which had not prepared for war when making so strong a demand for reparation, would have merited the heaviest condemnation. If Mill was right in stating that the demand for reparation was a necessity, then so also were the military preparations.

Upon the Government the Trent acted to bring to a head and make more clear the British relation to the Civil War in America. By November, 1861, the policy of strict neutrality adopted in May, had begun to be weakened for various reasons already recited--weakened not to the point of any Cabinet member's advocacy of change, but in a restlessness at the slow development of a solution in America. Russell was beginning to think, at least, of recognition of the Confederacy. This was clear to Lyons who, though against such recognition, had understood the drift, if Schleiden is to be trusted, of Ministerial opinion. Schleiden reported on December 31 that Lyons had expressed to him much pleasure at the peaceful conclusion of the Trent affair, and had added, "England will be too generous not to postpone the recognition of the independence of the South as long as possible after this experience[498]." But the Trent operated like a thunder-storm to clear the atmosphere. It brought out plainly the practical difficulties and dangers, at least as regards Canada, of a war with America; it resulted in a weakening of the conviction that Seward was unfriendly; it produced from the British public an even greater expression of relief, when the incident was closed, than of anger when it occurred; and it created in a section of that public a fixed belief, shared by at least one member of the Cabinet, that the issue in America was that of slavery, in support of which England could not possibly take a stand.

This did not mean that the British Government, nor any large section of the public, believed the North could conquer the South. But it did indicate a renewed vigour for the policy of neutrality and a determination not to get into war with America. Adams wrote to Seward, "I am inclined to believe that the happening of the affair of the Trent just when it did, with just the issue that it had, was rather opportune than otherwise[499]." Hotze, the confidential agent of the Confederacy in London, stated, "the Trent affair has done us incalculable injury," Russell is now "an avowed enemy of our nationality[500]." Hotze was over-gloomy, but Russell himself declared to Lyons: "At all events I am heart and soul a neutral ... what a fuss we have had about these two men[501]."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 399: The Trent was the cause of the outpouring of more contemporary articles and pamphlets and has been the subject of more historical writing later, than any other incident of diplomatic relations between the United States and Great Britain during the Civil War--possibly more than all other incidents combined. The account given in this chapter, therefore, is mainly limited to a brief statement of the facts together with such new sidelights as are brought out by hitherto unknown letters of British statesman; to a summary of British public attitude as shown in the press; and to an estimate of the after effect of the Trent on British policy. It would be of no service to list all of the writings. The incident is thoroughly discussed in all histories, whether British or American and in works devoted to international law. The contemporary American view is well stated, though from a strongly anti-British point of view, in Harris, T.L., The Trent Affair, but this monograph is lacking in exact reference for its many citations and can not be accepted as authoritative. The latest review is that of C.F. Adams in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for November, 1911, which called out a reply from R.H. Dana, and a rejoinder by Mr. Adams in the Proceedings for March, 1912.]

[Footnote 400: C.F. Adams, The Trent Affair. (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, pp. 41-2.)]

[Footnote 401: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence respecting the Trent." No. 1. Inclosure. Williams to Patey, Nov. 9, 1861.]

[Footnote 402: Harris, The Trent Affair, pp. 103-109, describes the exact force used.]

[Footnote 403: Dana, The Trent Affair. (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, pp. 509-22.)]

[Footnote 404: C.F. Adams, The Trent Affair. (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, pp. 39-40.)]

[Footnote 405: F.O., America, Vol. 805. Copy, E. Hammond to Advocate-General, Nov. 9, 1861.]

[Footnote 406: C.F. Adams, The Trent Affair. (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, p. 54.)]

[Footnote 407: Ibid., pp. 53-4. Adams' Diary MS. Nov. 12, 1861.]

[Footnote 408: Ibid., p. 55.]

[Footnote 409: A full year later, after the publication of the American volume of despatches for the year 1862, Russell took up this matter with Adams and as a result of an interview wrote to Lyons, November 28, 1862:

"Lord Palmerston stated to Mr. Adams on the occasion in question that Her Majesty's Government could not permit any interference with any vessel, British or Foreign, within British waters; that with regard to vessels met with at sea, Her Majesty's Government did not mean to dispute the Belligerent right of the United States Ships of War to search them; but that the exercise of that right and the right of detention in certain conditions must in each case be dealt with according to the circumstances of the case, and that it was not necessary for him to discuss such matters then because they were not in point; but that it would not do for the United States Ships of War to harass British Commerce on the High Seas under the pretence of preventing the Confederates from receiving things that are Contraband of War.

"I took an opportunity of mentioning to Mr. Adams, the account which Lord Palmerston had given me of the language which he had thus held, and Mr. Adams agreed in its accuracy.

"Nothing must be said on this Subject unless the false statements as to Lord Palmerston's language should be renewed, when you will state the real facts to Mr. Seward." (F.O., Am., Vol. 822. No. 295. Draft.)

This résumé by Russell contained still other variations from the original reports of both Palmerston and Adams, but the latter did not think it worth while to call attention to them.]

[Footnote 410: Walpole, Russell, II, p. 357, is evidently in error in stating that the law officers, while admitting the right of an American war vessel to carry the British Packet into an American port for adjudication, added, "she would have no right to remove Messrs. Mason and Slidell and carry them off as prisoners, leaving the ship to pursue her voyage." Certainly Palmerston did not so understand the advice given.]

[Footnote 411: Lyons Papers. Hammond to Lyons. F. O., Private. Nov. 16, 1861. This statement about explicit orders to Captain Marchand "not to endeavour, etc.," is in line with Palmerston's understanding of the conversation with Adams. But that there was carelessness in reporting Adams is evident from Hammond's own language for "no instructions to meddle," which Adams did state, is not the same thing as "instructions not to meddle." Adams had no intent to deceive, but was misunderstood. He was himself very anxious over the presence of the James Adger at Southampton, and hurried her Captain away. Adams informed Russell that Palmerston had not understood him correctly. He had told Palmerston, "I had seen the Captain's [Marchand's] instructions, which directed him to intercept the Nashville if he could, and in case of inability to do so, to return at once to New York, keeping his eye on such British ships as might be going to the United States with contraband of war. Lord Palmerston's recollections and mine differed mainly in this last particular. Lord Russell then remarked that this statement was exactly that which he had recollected my making to him. Nothing had been said in the instructions about other British ships." (State Dept., Eng., Vol. 78. No. 80. Adams to Seward. Nov. 29. 1861.) Hammond's letter mentions also the excitement of "the Southerners" in England and that they had "sent out Pilot Boats to intercept and warn the Packet...."]

[Footnote 412: Lyons Papers. Lyons to Milne, Dec. 1, 1861.]

[Footnote 413: Ibid., Russell to Lyons, Nov. 16, 1861.]

[Footnote 414: Gladstone Papers. Argyll to Gladstone, Nov. 29, 1861.]

[Footnote 415: C.F. Adams, The Trent Affair. (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, p. 58.)]

[Footnote 416: Moore, Int. Law Digest, VII, p. 772. The much argued international law points in the case of the Trent are given in extenso by Moore.]

[Footnote 417: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence respecting the Trent." No. 2.]

[Footnote 418: Ibid., No. 4.]

[Footnote 419: Ibid., No. 29. Inclosure.]

[Footnote 420: Troops were in fact shipped for Canada. This resulted, after the Trent affair had blown over, in a circumstance which permitted Seward, with keen delight, to extend a courtesy to Great Britain. Bancroft (II, 245) states that these troops "finding the St. Lawrence river full of ice, had entered Portland harbour. When permission was asked for them to cross Maine, Seward promptly ordered that all facilities should be granted for 'landing and transporting to Canada or elsewhere troops, stores, and munitions of war of every kind without exception or reservation.'" It is true that the American press made much of this, and in tones of derision. The facts, as reported by Lyons, were that the request was merely "a superfluous application from a private firm at Montreal for permission to land some Officers' Baggage at Portland." (Russell Papers, Lyons to Russell, Jan. 20, 1862.) Lyons was much vexed with this "trick" of Seward's. He wrote to the Governor-General of Canada and the Lieutenant-Governors of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, protesting against an acceptance of Seward's permission, and finally informed Russell that no English troops were marched across the State of Maine. (Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, Feb. 14, 1862. Also Lyons Papers. Lyons to Monck, Feb. 1, 1862.)]

[Footnote 421: Martin, Life of the Prince Consort, V, pp. 418-26.]

[Footnote 422: Still another letter from Russell to Lyons on November 30, but not intended for Seward, outlined the points of complaint and argument, (1) The San Jacinto did not happen to fall in with the Trent, but laid in wait for her. (2) "Unnecessary and dangerous Acts of violence" were used. (3) The Trent, when stopped was not "searched" in the "ordinary way," but "certain Passengers" were demanded and taken by force. (4) No charge was made that the Trent was violating neutrality, and no authority for his act was offered by Captain Wilkes. (5) No force ought to be used against an "unresisting Neutral Ship" except just so much as is necessary to bring her before a prize court. (6) In the present case the British vessel had done nothing, and intended nothing, warranting even an inquiry by a prize court. (7) "It is essential for British Interests, that consistently with the obligations of neutrality, and of observing any legal and effective blockade, there should be communication between the Dominions of Her Majesty and the Countries forming the Confederate States." These seven points were for Lyons' eye alone. They certainly add no strength to the British position and reflect the uncertainty and confusion of the Cabinet. The fifth and sixth points contain the essence of what, on more mature reflection, was to be the British argument. (F.O., Am., Vol. 758. No. 447. Draft. Russell to Lyons Nov. 30, 1861).]

[Footnote 423: Russell Papers. Cowley to Russell, Dec. 2, 1861.]

[Footnote 424: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 78. Russell to Yancey, Rost and Mann, Aug. 24, 1861.]

[Footnote 425: Ibid., No. 124. Russell to Yancey, Rost and Mann, Dec. 7, 1861.]

[Footnote 426: Gladstone Papers. Gladstone to Robertson Gladstone, Dec. 7, 1861.]

[Footnote 427: Ibid., Argyll to Gladstone, Mentone. Dec. 10, 1861.]

[Footnote 428: Maxwell, Clarendon, II, p. 255. Lewis to Clarendon, Dec. 18, 1861.]

[Footnote 429: Ibid., p. 254. Clarendon to Duchess of Manchester, Dec. 17, 1861.]

[Footnote 430: Palmerston MS.]

[Footnote 431: Ibid., Russell to Palmerston, Dec. 20, 1861.]

[Footnote 432: Many citations from the Times are given in Harris, The Trent Affair, to show a violent, not to say scurrilous, anti-Americanism. Unfortunately dates are not cited, and an examination of the files of the paper shows that Harris' references are frequently to communications, not to editorials. Also his citations give but one side of these communications even, for as many argued caution and fair treatment as expressed violence. Harris apparently did not consult the Times itself, but used quotations appearing in American papers. Naturally these would print, in the height of American anti-British feeling, the bits exhibiting a peevish and unjust British temper. The British press made exactly similar quotations from the American newspapers.]

[Footnote 433: C.F. Adams, The Trent Affair (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc. XLV, p. 43, note.) John Bigelow, at Paris, reported that the London Press, especially the Tory, was eager to make trouble, and that there were but two British papers of importance that did not join the hue and cry--these being controlled by friends of Bright, one in London and one in Manchester (Bigelow, Retrospections of An Active Life, I, p. 384.) This is not exactly true, but seems to me more nearly so than the picture presented by Rhodes (III, 526) of England as united in a "calm, sorrowful, astonished determination."]

[Footnote 434: Cowley sent to Russell on December 3, a letter from Percy Doyle recounting an interview with Scott in which these statements were made. (F.O., France, Vol. 1399. No. 1404. Inclosure.)]

[Footnote 435: Dec. 13, 1861. C.F. Adams, The Trent Affair. (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, p. 95.)]

[Footnote 436: Ibid., p. 37.]

[Footnote 437: Ibid., p. 49. The New York Times, November 19, stated, "We do not believe the American heart ever thrilled with more genuine delight than it did yesterday, at the intelligence of the capture of Messrs. Slidell and Mason.... We have not the slightest idea that England will even remonstrate. On the contrary, she will applaud the gallant act of Lieut. Wilkes, so full of spirit and good sense, and such an exact imitation of the policy she has always stoutly defended and invariably pursued ... as for Commodore Wilkes and his command, let the handsome thing be done, consecrate another Fourth of July to him. Load him down with services of plate and swords of the cunningest and costliest art. Let us encourage the happy inspiration that achieved such a victory." Note the "Fourth of July."]

[Footnote 438: Lyons Papers. Lousada to Lyons. Boston, Nov. 17, 1861. "Every other man is walking about with a Law Book under his arm and proving the right of the Ss. Jacintho to stop H.M.'s mail boat."]

[Footnote 439: "Mr. Galt, Canadian Minister, is here. He has frightened me by his account of the defencelessness of the Province at this moment." (Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell. Private. Dec. 3, 1861.)]

[Footnote 440: Lyons Papers. Lyons to Monck, Dec. 9, 1861.]

[Footnote 441: Rogers, Speeches by John Bright, I, p. 189 seq.]

[Footnote 442: Among the communications were several on international law points by "Historicus," answering and belittling American legal argument. W.V. Harcourt, under this pseudonym, frequently contributed very acute and very readable articles to the Times on the American civil war. The Times was berated by English friends of the North. Cobden wrote Sumner, December 12, "The Times and its yelping imitators are still doing their worst." (Morley, Cobden, II, 392.) Cobden was himself at one with the Times in suspicion of Seward. "I confess I have not much opinion of Seward. He is a kind of American Thiers or Palmerston or Russell--and talks Bunkum. Fortunately, my friend Mr. Charles Sumner, who is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and has really a kind of veto on the acts of Seward, is a very peaceable and safe man." (ibid., p. 386, to Lieut.-Col. Fitzmayer, Dec. 3, 1861.) It is interesting that Canadian opinion regarded the Times as the great cause of American ill-will toward Britain. A letter to Gait asserted that the "war talk" was all a "farce" (J.H. Pope to Gait, Dec. 26, 1861) and the Toronto Globe attacked the Times for the creation of bad feeling. The general attitude was that if British policy resulted in an American blow at Canada, it was a British, not a Canadian duty, to maintain her defence (Skelton, Life of Sir Alexander Tilloch Gait, pp. 340, 348.) Yet the author states that in the beginning Canada went through the same phases of feeling on the Trent as did Great Britain.]

[Footnote 443: A Cycle of Adams' Letters, I, pp. 81-2.]

[Footnote 444: Ibid., I, p. 83. Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Dec. 13, 1861.]

[Footnote 445: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell. Private. Nov. 29, 1861.]

[Footnote 446: See the Times, Dec. 14, 1861. Here for the first time the Times used the expression "the last card" as applied to emancipation.]

[Footnote 447: Palmerston MS. Russell to Palmerston, Dec. 11, 1861.]

[Footnote 448: Gladstone Papers. Russell to Gladstone, Dec. 13, 1861. On the same day Lady Russell wrote Lady Dumfermline: "There can be no doubt that we have done deeds very like that of Captain Wilkes.... but I wish we had not done them.... It is all terrible and awful, and I hope and pray war may be averted--and whatever may have been the first natural burst of indignation in this country, I believe it would be ready to execrate the Ministry if all right and honourable means were not taken to prevent so fearful a calamity." (Dana, The Trent Affair. (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, p. 528.))]

[Footnote 449: A Cycle of Adams' Letters, I, p. 87. Charles Francis Adams to his son, Dec. 20, 1861. ]

[Footnote 450: The Times, Dec. 16, 1861.]

[Footnote 451: The Times twice printed the full text of the message, on December 16 and 17.]

[Footnote 452: Gladstone Papers. Milner-Gibson to Gladstone, Dec. 18, 1861.]

[Footnote 453: Maxwell, Clarendon, II, p. 225. Lewis to Clarendon, Dec. 18, 1861.]

[Footnote 454: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence respecting the Trent." No 14. Russell to Lyons, Dec. 19, 1861. The Government did not make public Adams' confirmation of "no authorization of Wilkes." Possibly it saw no reason for doing so, since this had been established already by Wilkes' own statements. The point was later a matter of complaint by Americans, who regarded it as indicating a peevish and unfriendly attitude. (Willard, Letter to an English Friend on the Rebellion in the United States, p. 23. Boston, 1862.) Also by English friends; Cobden thought Palmerston had intentionally prolonged British feeling for political purposes. "Seward's despatch to Adams on the 19th December [communicated to Russell on the 19th]... virtually settled the matter. To keep alive the wicked passions in this country as Palmerston and his Post did, was like the man, and that is the worst that can be said of it." (Morley, Cobden, II, p. 389. To Mr. Paulton, Jan., 1862.)]

[Footnote 455: Davis to Adams. New York. Dec. 21, 1861. C.F. Adams, The Trent Affair, (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, p. 107.)]

[Footnote 456: There has crept into American historical writing of lesser authenticity a story that just at this juncture there appeared, in the harbours of New York and San Francisco, Russian fleets whose commanders let it be understood that they had come under "sealed orders" not to be opened except in a certain grave event and that their presence was, at least, not an unfriendly indication of Russian sentiment in the Trent crisis. This is asserted to have bolstered American courage and to give warrant for the argument that America finally yielded to Great Britain from no fear of consequences, but merely on a clearer recognition of the justice of the case. In fact the story is wholly a myth. The Russian fleets appeared two years later in the fall of 1863, not in 1861. Harris, _The Trent Affair, _ pp. 208-10, is mainly responsible for this story, quoting the inaccurate memory of Thurlow Weed. (Autobiography, II, pp. 346-7.) Reliable historians like Rhodes make no mention of such an incident. The whole story of the Russian fleets with their exact instructions is told by F. A. Colder, "The Russian Fleet and the Civil War," Am. Hist. Rev., July, 1915.]

[Footnote 457: Weed, Autobiography, II, pp. 354-61.]

[Footnote 458: Ibid., p. 365. Peabody to Weed, Jan, 17, 1862.]

[Footnote 459: A Cycle of Adams' Letters, I, p. 91. Charles Francis Adams to his son, Dec. 27, 1861.]

[Footnote 460: See ante. Ch. IV.]

[Footnote 461: The Times, Dec. 25, 1861.]

[Footnote 462: James, William Wetmore Story and his Friends, II, pp. 108-9. The letters were sent to Robert Browning, who secured their publication through Dicey.]

[Footnote 463: C.F. Adams, The Trent Affair. Adams to Motley, Dec. 26, 1861. (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, p. 109).]

[Footnote 464: Ibid., p. 110.]

[Footnote 465: Palmerston had very close relations with Delane, of the Times, but that paper carefully maintained its independence of any party or faction.]

[Footnote 466: Gladstone Papers. Argyll to Gladstone, Dec. 30, 1861.]

[Footnote 467: State Dept., Eng., Vol. 78. No. 97. Adams to Seward, Jan. 2, 1862.]

[Footnote 468: Palmerston MS.]

[Footnote 469: Bancroft, Seward, II, p. 233. Lyons officially reported that he carried no papers with him (Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence respecting the Trent." No. 19. Lyons to Russell, Dec. 19, 1861). Newton (Lyons, I, pp. 55-78) shows that Seward was, in fact, permitted to read the instructions on the nineteenth.]

[Footnote 470: A Cycle of Adams' Letters, I, p. 86. C.F. Adams, Jr., to Henry Adams, Dec. 19, 1861.]

[Footnote 471: Bancroft, Seward, II, p. 234. Adams' letter of December 3 was received on December 21; Dayton's of December 3, on the 24th.]

[Footnote 472: Much ink has flowed to prove that Lincoln's was the wise view, seeing from the first the necessity of giving up Mason and Slidell, and that he overrode Seward, e.g., Welles, Lincoln and Seward, and Harris, The Trent Affair. Rhodes, III, pp. 522-24, and Bancroft, Seward, II, pp. 232-37, disprove this. Yet the general contemporary suspicion of Seward's "anti-British policy," even in Washington, is shown by a despatch sent by Schleiden to the Senate of Bremen. On December 23 he wrote that letters from Cobden and Lyndhurst had been seen by Lincoln.

"Both letters have been submitted to the President. He returned them with the remark that 'peace will not be broken if England is not bent on war.' At the same time the President has assured my informant that he would examine the answer of his Secretary of State, word for word, in order that no expression should remain which could create bad blood anew, because the strong language which Mr. Seward had used in some of his former despatches seems to have irritated and insulted England" (Schleiden Papers). No doubt Sumner was Schleiden's informant. At first glance Lincoln's reported language would seem to imply that he was putting pressure on Seward to release the prisoners and Schleiden apparently so interpreted them. But the fact was that at the date when this was written Lincoln had not yet committed himself to accepting Seward's view. He told Seward, "You will go on, of course, preparing your answer, which, as I understood it, will state the reasons why they ought to be given up. Now, I have a mind to try my hand at stating the reasons why they ought not to be given up. We will compare the points on each side." Lincoln's idea was, in short, to return an answer to Great Britain, proposing arbitration (Bancroft, Seward, II, 234).]

[Footnote 473: Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLV, 155. Bright to Sumner, Dec. 14, 1861. The letters to Sumner on the Trent are all printed in this volume of the Proceedings. The originals are in the Sumner Papers in the library of Harvard University.]

[Footnote 474: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence respecting the Trent." No. 24. Lyons to Russell, Dec. 27, 1861.]

[Footnote 475: F.O., Am., Vol. 777. No. 807. Lyons to Russell, Dec. 31, 1861. But he transmitted a few days later, a "shocking prayer" in the Senate on December 30, by the Rev. Dr. Sutherland, which showed a bitter feeling. "O Thou, just Ruler of the world ... we ask help of Thee for our rulers and our people, that we may patiently, resolutely, and with one heart abide our time; for it is indeed a day of darkness and reproach--a day when the high principle of human equity constrained by the remorseless sweep of physical and armed force, must for the moment, succumb under the plastic forms of soft diplomacy" (Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, Jan. 3, 1862).]

[Footnote 476: Bancroft, Seward, II, 249-53.]

[Footnote 477: C.F. Adams, The Trent Affair. (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV. p. 75).]

[Footnote 478: Bancroft, Seward, II, 250.]

[Footnote 479: Mason, Slidell, Eustis and McFarland were delivered to the British ship Rinaldo, January 1, 1862. En route to Halifax the ship encountered a storm that drove her south and finally brought her to St. Thomas, where the passengers embarked on a packet for Southampton.]

[Footnote 480: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence respecting the Trent." Nos. 27 and 35. February 3, Lyons reported that Sumner, in a fireside talk, had revealed that he was in possession of copies of the Law Officers' opinions given on November 12 and 28 respectively. Lyons was astounded and commented that the Law Officers, before giving any more opinions, ought to know this fact (F.O., Am., Vol. 824. No. 76. Lyons to Russell).]

[Footnote 481: F.O., France, Vol. 1399. No. 1397. Cowley to Russell, Dec. 3, 1861. The italics are mine.]

[Footnote 482: Newton, Lyons, I, 73.]

[Footnote 483: F.O., Am., Vol. 817. No. 57. Draft. Russell to Lyons, Feb. 11, 1861.]

[Footnote 484: F.O., France, Vol. 1419. No. 73. Draft. Russell to Cowley, Jan. 20, 1862.]

[Footnote 485: Gladstone Papers. Russell to Gladstone, Jan. 26, 1862.]

[Footnote 486: Bigelow, Retrospections, I, 424. Bowen to Bigelow, Dec. 27, 1861.]

[Footnote 487: Poems. Bigelow Papers. "Jonathan to John." After the release of the envoys there was much correspondence between friends across the water as to the merits of the case. British friends attempted to explain and to soothe, usually to their astonished discomfiture on receiving angry American replies. An excellent illustration of this is in a pamphlet published in Boston in the fall of 1862, entitled, Field and Loring, Correspondence on the Present Relations between Great Britain and the United States of America. The American, Loring, wrote, "The conviction is nearly if not quite universal that we have foes where we thought we had friends," p. 7.]

[Footnote 488: Dana, The Trent Affair. (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, pp. 508-22).]

[Footnote 489: A Cycle of Adams' Letters, I, 99. To his son, Jan. 10, 1862.]

[Footnote 490: State Dept., Eng., Vol. 78. No. 99. Adams to Seward, Jan. 10, 1862.]

[Footnote 491: Gladstone Papers. Argyll to Gladstone, Dec. 7, 1861, Also expressed again to Gladstone. Ibid., Jan. 1, 1862.]

[Footnote 492: James, William Wetmore Story and His Friends, II, 105. Browning to Story, Dec. 17, 1861.]

[Footnote 493: Ibid., p. 109. To Story, Dec. 31, 1861.]

[Footnote 494: Ibid., p. 110. To Story, Jan. 21, 1862.]

[Footnote 495: Liberator, Feb. 7, 1862. Giving an account of a meeting at Bromley-by-Bow.]

[Footnote 496: Trollope, North America (Chapman & Hall, London, 1862), I, p. 446. Trollope left England in August, 1861, and returned in the spring of 1862. He toured the North and the West, was a close observer, and his work, published in midsummer 1862, was very serviceable to the North, since he both stated the justice of the Northern cause and prophesied its victory.]

[Footnote 497: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXV, p. 12 seq., though not consecutive as the speeches were made in the course of the debate on the Address to the Throne.]

[Footnote 498: Schleiden Papers. Schleiden to the Senate of Bremen.]

[Footnote 499: State Dept., Eng., Vol. 78. No. 114. Adams to Seward, Feb. 13, 1862.]

[Footnote 500: Pickett Papers. Hotze to Hunter, March 11, 1862.]

[Footnote 501: Lyons Papers. Russell to Lyons, Feb. 8, 1862.]

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

VIII. THE BLOCKADE

The six months following the affair of the Trent constituted a period of comparative calm in the relations of Great Britain and America, but throughout that period there was steadily coming to the front a Northern belligerent effort increasingly effective, increasingly a cause for disturbance to British trade, and therefore more and more a matter for anxious governmental consideration. This was the blockade of Southern ports and coast line, which Lincoln had declared in intention in his proclamation of April 19, 1861.

As early as December, 1860, Lyons had raised the question of the relation of British ships and merchants to the secession port of Charleston, South Carolina, and had received from Judge Black an evasive reply[502]. In March, 1861, Russell had foreseen the possibility of a blockade, writing to Lyons that American precedent would at least require it to be an effective one, while Lyons made great efforts to convince Seward that any interference with British trade would be disastrous to the Northern cause in England. He even went so far as to hint at British intervention to preserve trade[503]. But on April 15, Lyons, while believing that no effective blockade was possible, thought that the attempt to institute one was less objectionable than legislation "closing the Southern Ports as Ports of Entry," in reality a mere paper blockade and one which would "justify Great Britain and France in recognizing the Southern Confederacy...." Thus he began to weaken in opposition to any interference[504]. His earlier expressions to Seward were but arguments, without committing his Government to a line of policy, and were intended to make Seward step cautiously.

Possibly Lyons thought he could frighten the North out of a blockade campaign. But when the Civil War actually began and Lincoln, on April 19, declared he had "deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade," and that when a "competent force" had been posted "so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels," warning would be given to any vessel attempting to enter or to leave a blockaded port, with endorsement on her register of such warning, followed by seizure if she again attempted to pass the blockade, Lyons felt that: "If it be carried on, with reasonable consideration for Foreign Flags, and in strict conformity with the Law of Nations, I suppose it must be recognized[505]." The Proclamation named the original seven seceding states, and on April 27 Virginia was added. The blockade was actually begun at certain Virginia ports on April 30, and by the end of May there were a few war-ships off all the more important Southern harbours[506]. This method of putting a blockade into effect by warning at the port rather than by a general notification communicated to European governments and setting a date, involved a hardship on British merchants since they were thereby made uncertain whether goods started for a Southern port would be permitted to enter. In practice vessels on their first departure from a blockaded harbour were warned and permitted to go out, but those seeking to enter were warned and turned back. In effect, while the blockade was being established, Lincoln's Proclamation had something of the nature for the timid British merchant, though not for the bold one, of a paper blockade. This was not clearly understood by Lyons, who thought neutrals must acquiesce, having "exhausted every possible means of opposition," but who consoled himself with the idea that "for some time yet" British trade could be carried on[507].

Lyons was in fact sceptical, as he told Seward in a long conversation on April 29 of the possibility of blockading a 3,000 mile coast line, but Seward assured him it would be done and effectively[508]. The British press was equally sceptical, and in any case believed that the war would be of short duration, so that there need be no anxiety over next year's supply of cotton[509]. In Parliament Russell took the stand that the blockade, if carried on in accordance with international law and made effective, required British recognition and respect. He also defended Lincoln's "notification at the port" method, stating that it might seem a hardship, but was perfectly legal[510]. Thus there was early and easy acquiescence in the American effort, but when, in June, there was revived a Northern plan to close Southern ports by legislative action, Britain was stirred to quick and vigorous opposition. Lyons learned that a Bill would be introduced in Congress giving the President authority, among other powers, to "proclaim" the ports closed, thus notifying foreign nations not to attempt to use them. He saw in it an unexpected application of the Northern theory that the South was not a belligerent and had no rights as such, and he regarded it as in effect a paper blockade[511].

The fourth section of the Bill as introduced in Congress did not direct the President to issue a proclamation closing Southern ports--it merely gave him the power to do so. Almost from the first Lyons thought that Lincoln and Seward were too wise to issue such a proclamation[512]. Nevertheless it was his duty to be on guard and to oppose the plan. For six weeks there was much communication in regard to the "Southern Ports Bill," as all parties called it, from Russell to Lyons, and also with Cowley in France. The British Foreign Office interest in the matter, almost rising to excitement, is somewhat astonishing in view of the small importance evidently attached to the plan at Washington and the reluctance of France to be as vigorous as Great Britain in protest. Vigorous Russell certainly was, using a "high tone" in official remonstrance to America not unlike that taken by Seward on British recognition of Southern belligerency.

Immediately on learning of the introduction of the Bill Russell addressed enquiries to Cowley asking what France intended and urged a stiff protest. Thouvenel had not heard of the Bill and was seemingly indifferent. At first he acquiesced in Russell's protest, then drew back and on three separate occasions promised support only to withdraw such promise. He was disinclined, said Cowley, to join in a "friendly hint" to America because of the touchy sensibilities lately shown by Seward, and feared a direct protest might result in an American declaration of war. In any case why not wait until the President did act, and even then the proper method would be a protest rather than "reprisals." "I wish," wrote Cowley, on July 28, "that the French were inclined to be more bumptious, as they seemed to be at first. I would at all times rather have the task of calming them, than of urging them on[513]...." Nevertheless Russell on July 19 notified Lyons that England would not observe a "legislative closing" of Southern ports[514]. On July 12 Lyons telegraphed that the Bill had passed both Houses of Congress, and on the sixteenth he wrote privately to Russell that he was much disturbed over its possible consequences since "even Sumner was for it[515]," as this indicated a real intention to carry it into effect[516]. On August 8, Russell sent formal instructions of protest, a copy of which was to be handed to Seward, but the next day authorized Lyons to exercise discretion as to communicating the despatch[517].

The original form of this instruction, dated in June and revised in July, concluded with language that might well draw out Thouvenel's objection to a threat of "reprisals." It read that "H.M.G. ... reserve ... the right of acting in concert with other Nations in opposition to so violent an attack on the rights of Commercial Countries and so manifest a violation of International Law[518]." This high tone had been modified possibly by French opposition, possibly by Lyons' early opinion that the Bill would not be made operative. Indeed on July 24 Russell told Lyons that no final instruction of protest would be sent him until the President actually issued a proclamation[519]. Yet in spite of being fairly well assured that there was no danger in the "Southern Ports Bill," Russell did send the instruction of August 8, still distinctly "vigorous" in tone, though with no threat of "reprisals." His reason for doing so is difficult to understand. Certainly he was hardly serious in arguing to Thouvenel that a stiff instruction would strengthen the hands of the "moderate section" of the American Cabinet[520], or else he strangely misjudged American temperament. Probably a greater reason was his wish to be able to print a Parliamentary Paper indicating the watchful care he was exercising in guarding British interests.

Before Russell's instruction could reach America Seward had voluntarily reassured Lyons as to American intentions. Lyons reported this, privately, on July 20[521], but on the same day also reported, officially, that two days earlier, that is on the eighteenth, he and Mercier had discussed the "Southern Ports" Bill and that as a result Mercier had then gone, that same day, to Seward to state that France must regard such a measure as merely a paper blockade[522]. "We were not very sanguine of success," wrote Lyons, but Seward "had listened to him [Mercier] with calmness," and personally seemed disinclined to issue the required Proclamation. This despatch, making it appear that England and France were in close harmony and that Lyons and Mercier were having a difficult time at Washington was printed, later, in the Parliamentary Papers. It was received by Russell on August 5, and in spite of the reassurances of Lyons' private letter (naturally not for printing) presumably received in the same mail with the official despatch, it furnished the basis of his "strong" instruction of August 8.

At Washington also there were indications of an effort to prepare a good case for the British public and Parliament. July 23, so Lyons wrote privately, Seward had prevented the issue of the "Southern Ports" Proclamation[523], and on the next day he was shown by Seward, confidentially, an instruction to Adams and other Ministers abroad in which was maintained the right to close the ports by proclamation, but stating the Government's decision not to exercise the right. Lyons believed this was the end of the matter[524]. Yet on August 12, he presented himself formally at the Department of State and stated that he had instructions to declare that "Her Majesty's Government would consider a decree closing the ports of the South actually in possession of the insurgent or Confederate States as null and void, and that they would not submit to measures taken on the high seas in pursuance of such decree."... "Mr. Seward thanked me for the consideration I had shown; and begged me to confine myself for the present to the verbal announcement I had just made. He said it would be difficult for me to draw up a written communication which would not have the air of a threat." To this Lyons agreed[525].

This permitted a warmth-creating impression to Englishmen of the "forthright yet friendly" tone of British diplomats when dealing with Seward. So also did Russell's instruction of August 8, not yet received by Lyons when he took the stage at Washington. Yet there is a possibility that Lyons was in fact merely playing his part as Seward had asked him to play it. On the next day, August 13, he acknowledged the receipt of Russell's communication of July 24, in which it was stated that while Great Britain could not acquiesce in the "Southern Ports" Bill no final instructions would be sent until Lincoln issued a Proclamation. Lyons now explained, "As Mr. Seward is undoubtedly at this moment opposed to closing the Ports, I have thought it wiser to be guided by him for the present as to the mode of communicating your decision about the matter[526]." Is it possible that Seward really wished to have a "strong," yet not "too strong" statement from Lyons in order to combat the advocates of the "Ports" Bill? There are many ramifications of diplomatic policy--especially in a popular government. At any rate on August 16 Lyons could assure Russell that there "was no question now of issuing the Proclamation[527]." And on the nineteenth could write officially that a Proclamation based on the Bill had indeed been issued, but without the objectionable fourth section[528].

The whole affair of the "Southern Ports" Bill occupies more space in the British Parliamentary Papers, and excited more attention from the British Government than it would seem to have merited from the Washington attitude toward it. The Bill had been drawn by the Secretary of the Treasury, and its other sections related to methods of meeting a situation where former customs houses and places for the collection of import duties were now in the hands of the Confederacy. The fourth section alone implied a purpose to declare a paper blockade. The idea of proclaiming closed the Southern ports may have at first received the sanction of Seward as consistent with his denial of the existence of a war; or it may have been a part of his "high tone" foreign policy[529], but the more reasonable supposition is that the Bill was merely one of many ill-considered measures put forth in the first months of the war by the North in its spasm of energy seeking to use every and any public means to attack the South. But the interest attached to the measure in this work is the British attitude. There can be no doubt that Russell, in presenting papers to Parliament was desirous of making clear two points: first, the close harmony with France--which in fact was not so close as was made to appear; second, the care and vigour of the Foreign Secretary in guarding British interests. Now in fact British trade was destined to be badly hurt by the blockade, but as yet had not been greatly hampered. Nor did Russell yet think an effective blockade feasible. Writing to Lyons a week after his official protest on the "Southern Ports" Bill, he expressed the opinion that a "regular blockade" could not possibly prevent trade with the South:

"If our ships can go in ballast for cotton to the Southern Ports it will be well, but if this cannot be done by agreement there will be surely, in the extent of 3,000 miles, creeks and bays out of which small vessels may come, and run for Jamaica or the Bahamas where the cargoes might be transhipped. But it is not for Downing Street to suggest such plans to Cheapside and Tooley Street[530]."

A better knowledge of American geography would have made clear to Russell that if but seven Southern ports were effectively blockaded the remaining 2,550 miles of coast line would be useless for the export of cotton in any considerable amount. His bays and creeks did indeed long provide access to small vessels, but these were not adequate for the transport of a bulky export like cotton[531]. To Russell, however, the blockade appearing negligible in probable effect and also not open to objection by neutrals if regularly established, it seemed that any immediate danger to British trade was averted by the final American action on the "Southern Ports" Bill. It was not until the blockade did begin to be thoroughly effective that either the British public or Government gave it serious consideration.

Not again until late November did Russell return with any interest to the subject of the blockade and then it was again on an American effort which seemed to indicate the ineffectiveness of blockading squadrons and a plan to remedy this by unusual, even "uncivilized," if not illegal, methods. This was the "Stone Boat Fleet" plan of blocking Charleston harbour by sinking vessels across the entrance bar[532]. The plan was reported by Lyons and the news received in England at the most uncertain moment as to the outcome of the Trent controversy[533]. British press and Government at first placed no stress on it, presumably because of the feeling that in view of the existing crisis it was a minor matter. In the same week Lyons, having been asked by Russell for an opinion on the blockade, answered:

"I am a good deal puzzled as to how I ought to answer your question whether I consider the Blockade effective. It is certainly by no means strict or vigorous along the immense extent of coast to which it is supposed to apply. I suppose the ships which run it successfully both in and out are more numerous than those which are intercepted. On the other hand it is very far from being a mere Paper Blockade. A great many vessels are captured; it is a most serious interruption to Trade; and if it were as ineffective as Mr. Jefferson Davis says in his Message, he would not be so very anxious to get rid of it[534]."

This was a very fair description of the blockade situation. Lyons, unaffected by irritations resulting from the Trent, showed the frame of mind of a "determined neutral," as he was fond of describing himself. His answer was the first given to Russell indicating a possibility that the blockade might, after all, become strictly effective and thus exceedingly harmful to British trade. There is no direct proof that this influenced Russell to denounce the plan of blocking Southern harbours with stone-laden boats sunk in the channel, but the existence of such a motive seems probable. Moreover his protest was not made until December 20, the day after he had learned officially from Adams that Wilkes was unauthorized in searching the Trent--a day on which strain and uncertainty regarding American intentions were greatly lessened. Russell then wrote to Lyons that he observed it to be stated, "apparently on good authority," that the declared purpose of the stone boat fleet was "of destroying these harbours for ever." He characterized this as implying "utter despair of the restoration of the Union," and as being only "a measure of revenge and irremediable injury against an enemy."

"But even in this view, as a scheme of embittered and sanguinary war, such a measure is not justifiable. It is a plot against the commerce of nations and the free intercourse of the Southern States of America with the civilized world. It is a project worthy only of times of barbarism."

Lyons was instructed to speak in this sense to Seward, who, it was hoped, would disavow the project[535].

There was nothing in Lyons' despatches, nor in the American newspaper extracts accompanying them, to warrant such accusation and expostulation. Lyons had merely commented that by some in America the project had been characterized as "odious and barbarous," adding, "The question seems to depend on the extent to which the harbours will be permanently injured[536]." It will be noted that Russell did not refer to information received from Lyons (though it was already in hand), but to "apparently good authority" in justification of his vigorous denunciation. But like vigour, and like characterization of American "barbarism" did not appear in the British press until after the news arrived of the release of Mason and Slidell. Then the storm broke, well summed up in the Punch cartoon entitled "Retrogression. (A Very Sad Picture.) War Dance of the I.O.U. Indian," and showing Uncle Sam in war-feathers and with war-club, in his hand a flag made of the New York Herald, dancing in glee on the shores of a deserted harbour across which stretched a row of sunken ships[537].

On January 13 the Liverpool Shipowners' Association called the attention of the Foreign Office to the news that Charleston harbour had been closed by stone boats and urged governmental remonstrance[538]. Hammond at once replied quoting the language of Russell's letter of December 20 and stating that further representations would be made[539]. On the sixteenth Russell again instructed Lyons to speak to Seward, but now was much less rasping in language, arguing, rather, the injury in the future to the United States itself in case the harbours were permanently destroyed since "... the object of war is peace, and the purposes of peace are mutual goodwill and advantageous commercial intercourse[540]." To-day it seems absurd that any save the most ignorant observer should have thought the North contemplated a permanent and revengeful destruction of Southern port facilities. Nor was there any just ground for such an extreme British view of the Northern plan. Yet even Robert Browning was affected by the popular outcry. "For what will you do," he wrote Story, "if Charleston becomes loyal again[541]?" a query expressive of the increasing English concern, even alarm, at the intense bitterness, indicating a long war, of the American belligerents. How absurd, not to say ridiculous, was this British concern at an American "lapse toward barbarism" was soon made evident. On January II Lyons, acting on the instructions of December 20, brought up the matter with Seward and was promptly assured that there was no plan whatever "to injure the harbours permanently." Seward stated that there had never been any plan, even, to sink boats in the main entrance channels, but merely the lesser channels, because the Secretary of the Navy had reported that with the blockading fleet he could "stop up the 'large holes,'" but "could not stop up the 'small ones.'" Seward assured Lyons that just as soon as the Union was restored all obstructions would be removed, and he added that the best proof that the entrance to Charleston harbour had not been destroyed was the fact that in spite of blockading vessels and stone boats "a British steamer laden with contraband of war had just succeeded in getting in[542]." Again, on February 10, this time following Russell's instruction of January 16, Lyons approached Seward and was told that he might inform Russell that "all the vessels laden with stone, which had been prepared for obstructing the harbours, had been already sunk, and that it is not likely that any others will be used for that purpose[543]." This was no yielding to Great Britain, nor even an answer to Russell's accusation of barbarity. The fact was that the plan of obstruction of harbours, extending even to placing a complete barrier, had been undertaken by the Navy with little expectation of success, and, on the first appearance of new channels made by the wash of waters, was soon abandoned[544].

The British outcry, Russell's assumption in protest that America was conducting war with barbarity, and the protest itself, may seem at first glance to have been merely manifestations of a British tendency to meddle, as a "superior nation" in the affairs of other states and to give unasked-for advice. A hectoring of peoples whose civilization was presumably less advanced than that which stamped the Englishman was, according to Matthew Arnold, traditional--was a characteristic of British public and Government alike[545]. But this is scarcely a satisfactory explanation in the present case. For in the first place it is to be remarked that the sinking of obstructions in an enemy's harbours in order to render more effective a blockade was no novelty in maritime warfare, as Russell must have well known, and that there was no modern record of such obstructions having permanently destroyed a harbour. A far more reasonable explanation is that which connects the energy of the British Government in opposing a proposed American closing of Southern harbours by Presidential proclamation, with a like energy against the stone boat project. The first method was indeed rightly regarded as a violation of accustomed maritime belligerency, but both methods were primarily objectionable in British eyes because they were very evidently the result of efforts to find a way in which an as yet ineffective blockade could be made more rigorous. On the impossibility of an effective blockade, if conducted on customary lines, the British people and Foreign Secretary had pinned their faith that there would be no serious interruption of trade. This was still the view in January, 1862, though doubts were arising, and the "stone boat" protest must be regarded as another evidence of watchful guardianship of commerce with the South. The very thought that the blockade might become effective, in which case all precedent would demand respect for it, possibly caused Russell to use a tone not customary with him in upbraiding the North for a planned "barbarity."

Within three months the blockade and its effectiveness was to be made the subject of the first serious parliamentary discussion on the Civil War in America. In another three months the Government began to feel a pressure from its associate in "joint attitude," France, to examine again with much care its asserted policy of strict neutrality, and this because of the increased effectiveness of the blockade. Meanwhile another "American question" was serving to cool somewhat British eagerness to go hand in hand with France. For nearly forty years since independence from Spain the Mexican Republic had offered a thorny problem to European nations since it was difficult, in the face of the American Monroe Doctrine, to put sufficient pressure upon her for the satisfaction of the just claims of foreign creditors. In 1860 measures were being prepared by France, Great Britain and Spain to act jointly in the matter of Mexican debts. Commenting on these measures, President Buchanan in his annual message to Congress of December 3, 1860, had sounded a note of warning to Europe indicating that American principles would compel the use of force in aid of Mexico if debt-collecting efforts were made the excuse for a plan "to deprive our neighbouring Republic of portions of her territory." But this was at the moment of the break-up of the Union and attracted little attention in the United States. For the same reason, no longer fearing an American block to these plans, the three European Governments, after their invitation to the United States to join them had been refused, signed a convention, October 31, 1861, to force a payment of debts by Mexico. They pledged themselves, however, to seek no accession of territory and not to interfere in the internal affairs of Mexico.

In this pledge Great Britain and Spain were sincere. Napoleon III was not--was indeed pursuing a policy not at first understood even by his Ministers[546]. A joint expedition under the leadership of the Spanish General Prim was despatched, and once in Mexico took possession of customs houses and began to collect duties. It soon became evident to the British and Spanish agents on the spot that France had far other objects than the mere satisfaction of debts. The result was a clash of interests, followed by separate agreements with Mexico and the withdrawal of forces by Great Britain and Spain. This difference of view on Mexican policy had become clear to Cowley, British Ambassador at Paris, by January, 1862, and from that month until the end of March his private letters to Russell referring to American affairs in general are almost wholly concerned with French designs on Mexico. Cowley learned that earlier rumours of Napoleon's purpose to place the Archduke Maximilian of Austria upon the Throne of Mexico, far from being unfounded, were but faint indications of a great French "colonial Empire" scheme, and he thought that there was "some ill-will to the United States at the bottom of all this[547]...." He feared that the Mexican question would "give us a deal of trouble yet[548]," and by March was writing of the "monstrous claims on the Mexican Govt." made by France[549].

These reactions of Cowley were fully shared by Russell, and he hastened, in March, to withdraw British forces in Mexico, as also did Spain. Great Britain believed that she had been tricked into a false position in Mexico, hastened to escape from it, but in view of the close relation of joint policy with France toward the Civil War in America, undertook no direct opposition though prophesying an evil result. This situation required France to refrain, for a time, from criticism of British policy and action toward the North--to pursue, in brief, a "follow on" policy, rather than one based on its own initiative. On the British side the French Mexican policy created a suspicion of Napoleon's hidden purposes and objects in the Civil War and made the British Government slow to accept French suggestions. The result was that in relation to that war Great Britain set the pace and France had to keep step--a very advantageous situation for the North, as the event was to prove. On the purely Mexican question Lyons early took opportunity to assure Seward that Great Britain was "entirely averse to any interference in the internal affairs of Mexico, and that nothing could be further from their wishes than to impose upon the Mexican Nation any Government not of its own choice[550]."

British dislike of France's Mexican venture served to swell the breeze of amity toward America that had sprung up once the Trent was beyond the horizon, and made, temporarily, for smooth sailing in the relations of Great Britain and the North. Lyons wrote on February 7 that the "present notion appears to be to overwhelm us with demonstrations of friendship and confidence[551]." Adams' son in London thought "our work here is past its crisis," and that, "Our victory is won on this side the water[552]," while the American Minister himself believed that "the prospect of interference with us is growing more and more remote[553]." Russell also was optimistic, writing to Lyons, "Our relations have now got into a very smooth groove.... There is no longer any excitement here upon the question of America. I fear Europe is going to supplant the affairs of America as an exciting topic[554]," meaning, presumably, disturbances arising in Italy. On April 4 Adams described his diplomatic duties as "almost in a state of profound calm[555]."

This quiet in relation to America is evidence that no matter what anxiety was felt by British statesmen over the effects of the blockade there was as yet no inclination seriously to question its legality. That there was, nevertheless, real anxiety is shown by an urgent letter from Westbury to Palmerston upon the blockade, asserting that if cotton brought but four pence at Charleston and thirteen pence at Liverpool there must be some truth in its alleged effectiveness:

"I am greatly opposed to any violent interference. Do not let us give the Federal States any pretence for saying that they failed thro' our interference.... Patience for a few more weeks is I am satisfied the wiser and the more expedient policy[556]."

This would indicate some Cabinet discussion, at least, on the blockade and on British trade interests. But Westbury's "few more weeks" had no place in Russell's thought, for on February 15 he wrote to Lyons in regard to assertions being made that the blockade was ineffective because certain vessels had eluded it:

"Her Majesty's Government, however, are of opinion that, assuming that the blockade is duly notified, and also that a number of ships is stationed and remains at the entrance of a port, sufficient really to prevent access to it or to create an evident danger of entering or leaving it, and that these ships do not voluntarily permit ingress or egress, the fact that various ships may have successfully escaped through it (as in the particular instances here referred to) will not of itself prevent the blockade from being an effective one by international law[557]."

From this view Russell never departed in official instructions[558]. England's position as the leading maritime Power made it inevitable that she should promptly approve the Northern blockade effort and be cautious in criticizing its legitimate operation. Both her own history and probable future interests when a belligerent, required such a policy far more important in the eyes of statesmen than any temporary injury to British commerce. English merchants, if determined to trade with the South, must take their own risks, and that Russell believed they would do so is evidenced by his comment to Adams that it was a tradition of the sea that Englishmen "would, if money were to be made by it, send supplies even to hell at the risk of burning their sails."

But trade problems with the South soon brought real pressure on the Government. In January, while marking time until Mason should arrive at his post, the Confederate commissioners already in London very nearly took a step that might have prejudiced the new envoy's position. They had now learned through public documents that Russell had informed Adams he "had no intention of seeing them again." Very angry they planned a formal protest to the British Government, but in the end Mann and Rost counselled silence, outvoting Yancey[559]. On his arrival Mason ignored this situation and with cause for, warmly received socially in pro-Southern circles, he felt confident that at least a private reception would soon be given him by Russell. He became, indeed, somewhat of a social lion, and mistaking this personal popularity for evidence of parliamentary, if not governmental, attitude, was confident of quick advantages for the South. On the day after his arrival he wrote unofficially to Hunter, Confederate Secretary of State "... although the Ministry may hang back in regard to the blockade and recognition through the Queen's speech, at the opening of Parliament next week the popular voice through the House of Commons will demand both."... "I shall be disappointed if the Parliament does not insist on definite action by the Ministry[560]...."

Carefully considering the situation and taking the advice of many English friends, Mason and Slidell agreed that the best line to take was to lay aside for the moment the claim to recognition and to urge European repudiation of the blockade. Slidell, arrived in Paris, wrote Mason that in his coming interview with Thouvenel he should "make only a passing allusion to the question of recognition, intimating that on that point I am not disposed at present to press consideration. But I shall insist upon the inefficiency of the blockade, the 'vandalism of the stone fleet,' etc[561]." Mason was urged to take a like course with Russell. Both men were much excited by a document a copy of which had been secured by Mann purporting to be a "confidential memorandum" addressed by England to the Continental Powers, asking whether the time had not come to raise the blockade. No such memorandum existed, but Slidell and Mason believed it genuine[562]. They had great hopes of the opening of Parliament, but when that event took place, February 6, and the only references in debate were to the Trent and its fortunate outcome, Mason was puzzled and chagrined. He wrote: "It is thought that silence as to the blockade was intended to leave that question open[563]." This, no doubt, was the consolatory explanation of his friends, but the unofficial interview with Russell, at his home, on February 10, chilled Mason's hopes.

As agreed with Slidell, emphasis in this interview was laid by Mason on the blockade, though recognition was asked. His report to Richmond shows that he proceeded with great caution, omitting portions of his instructions on cotton for fear of arousing antagonism, and venturing only a slight departure by expressing the hope that if Great Britain wished to renew communication with the Confederacy it might be made through him, rather than through the British consuls at the South. Russell's "only reply was, he hoped I might find my residence in London agreeable." He refused to see Mason's credentials, stating this to be "unnecessary, our relations being unofficial." He listened with courtesy, asked a few questions, but "seemed utterly disinclined to enter into conversation at all as to the policy of his Government, and only said, in substance, they must await events." Certainly it was a cool reception, and Mason departed with the conviction that Russell's "personal sympathies were not with us, and his policy inaction[564]." But Mason still counted on parliamentary pressure on the Government, and he was further encouraged in this view by a letter from Spence, at Liverpool, stating that he had just received a request to come to London "from a government quarter, of all the most important[565]."

The summons of Spence to London shows that the Government itself feared somewhat a pro-Southern move in Parliament. He reported to Mason that interviews had taken place with Palmerston and with Russell, that he had unfortunately missed one with Gladstone, and, while not citing these men directly, declared the general "London idea" to be that of "postponement"; since it was inevitable that "the North will break down in a few months on the score of money," and that "We have only to wait three months." Evidently Spence believed he was being used as an intermediary and influential adviser in pro-Southern circles to persuade them to a period of quiet. This, he thought, was unwise since delay would be injurious[566]. Of like opinion were the two Members of Parliament who were, throughout Mason's career in England, to be his closest advisers. These were Gregory and Lindsay, the former possessing somewhat of a following in the "gentleman-ruler" class, the latter the largest shipowner in Great Britain. Their advice also was to press on the blockade question[567], as a matter of primary British commercial interest, and they believed that France was eager to follow a British lead. This was contrary to Slidell's notion at the moment, but of this Mason was unaware[568].

The Government did indeed feel compelled to lay before Parliament the papers on the blockade. This was a bulky document of one hundred and twenty-six pages and covered the period from May 3, 1861, to February 17, 1862. In it were the details of the institution of the blockade, reports from British consuls on its effectiveness, lists of vessels captured and of vessels evading it, all together furnishing a very complete view of this, the principal maritime belligerent effort of the North[569]. The Blockade Papers gave opportunity for debate, if desired, and especially so as almost at the end of this document appeared that instruction of February 15 by Russell to Lyons, which clearly stated British acceptance of the blockade as effective. Mason's interview with Russell occurred on the tenth. Five days later, after Spence had been urged vainly to use his influence for "postponement," Russell, so it must appear, gave challenge to pro-Southern sentiment by asserting the effectiveness of the blockade, a challenge almost immediately made known to Parliament by the presentation of papers.

Unless Southern sympathizers were meekly to acquiesce, without further protest, in governmental policy they must now make some decided effort. This came in the shape of a debate in the Commons, on March 7, of a motion by Gregory urging the Government to declare the blockade ineffective[570], and of a similar debate on March 10 in the Lords. As is inevitable where many speakers participate in a debate the arguments advanced were repeated and reiterated. In the Commons important speeches for the motion were made by Gregory, Bentinck, Sir James Ferguson, Lord Robert Cecil and Lindsay, while against it appeared Forster and Monckton Milnes. The Solicitor-General, Roundell Palmer, presented the Government view. Gregory opened the debate by seeking to make clear that while himself favourable to recognition of the South the present motion had no essential bearing on that question and was directed wholly to a fact--that the blockade was not in reality effective and should not be recognized as such. He presented and analysed statistics to prove the frequency with which vessels passed through the blockade, using the summaries given by Mason to Russell in their interview of February 10, which were now before Parliament in the document on the blockade just presented, and he cited the reports of Bunch at Charleston as further evidence. This was the burden of Gregory's argument[571], but he glanced in passing at many other points favourable to the South, commenting on its free trade principles, depicting the "Stone Fleet" as a barbarity, asserting the right of the South to secede, declaring that France regarded British attitude as determined by a selfish policy looking to future wars, and attacking Seward on the ground of American inconsistency, falsely paraphrasing him as stating that "as for all those principles of international law, which we have ever upheld, they are as but dust in the balance compared with the exigencies of the moment[572]." Gregory concluded with the statement that the United States should be treated "with justice and nothing more."

When presenting a cause in Parliament its advocates should agree on a line of argument. The whole theory of this movement on the blockade was that it was wise to minimize the question of recognition, and Gregory had laboured to prove that this was not related to a refusal longer to recognize the blockade. But Bentinck, the second speaker for the motion, promptly undid him for he unhappily admitted that recognition and blockade questions were so closely interwoven that they could not be considered separately. This was promptly seized upon by Forster, who led in opposition. Forster's main argument, however, was a very able tearing to pieces of Gregory's figures, showing that nearly all the alleged blockade runners were in reality merely small coasting steamers, which, by use of shallow inner channels, could creep along the shore and then make a dash for the West Indies. The effectiveness of the blockade of main ports for ocean-going vessels carrying bulky cargoes was proved, he declared, by the price of raw cotton in England, where it was 100 per cent. greater than in the South, and of salt in Charleston, where the importer could make a profit of 1,000 per cent. To raise the blockade, he argued, would be a direct violation by Britain of her neutrality. The real reason for this motion was not the ineffectiveness of the blockade, but the effectiveness, and the real object an English object, not a Southern one. Gregory was taunted for changing a motion to recognize the Confederacy into the present one because he knew the former would fail while the present motion was deceitfully intended to secure the same end. Forster strongly approved the conduct of the Government in preserving strict neutrality, alleging that any other conduct would have meant "a war in which she [England] would have had to fight for slavery against her kinsmen."

Gregory's speech was cautious and attempted to preserve a judicial tone of argument on fact. Forster's reads like that of one who knows his cause already won. Gregory's had no fire in it and was characterized by Henry Adams, an interested auditor, as "listened to as you would listen to a funeral eulogy."... "The blockade is now universally acknowledged to be unobjectionable[573]." This estimate is borne out by the speech for the Government by the Solicitor-General, who maintained the effectiveness of the blockade and who answered Gregory's argument that recognition was not in question by stating that to refuse longer to recognize the blockade would result in a situation of "armed neutrality"--that is of "unproclaimed war." He pictured the disgust of Europe if England should enter upon such a war in alliance "with a country ... which is still one of the last strongholds of slavery"--an admission made in the fervour of debate that was dangerous as tending to tie the Government's hands in the future, but which was, no doubt, merely a personal and carelessly ventured view, not a governmentally authorized one. In general the most interesting feature of this debate is the hearty approval given by friends of the North to the Government's entire line of policy and conduct in relation to America. Their play at the moment, feeling insecure as to the fixity of governmental policy, was to approve heartily the neutrality now existing, and to make no criticisms. Later, when more confident of the permanency of British neutrality, they in turn became critics on the score of failure, in specific cases, in neutral duty.

The Solicitor-General's speech showed that there was no hope for the motion unless it could be made a party question. Of that there was no indication, and the motion was withdrawn. Three days later a similar debate in the Lords was of importance only as offering Russell, since he was now a member of the upper chamber, an opportunity to speak for himself. Lord Campbell had disavowed any intention to attack the blockade since Russell, on February 15, had officially approved it, but criticized the sending to Lyons of the despatch itself. Russell upheld the strict legality and effectiveness of the blockade, stated that if England sided with the South in any way the North would appeal to a slave insurrection--the first reference to an idea which was to play a very important rôle with Russell and others later--and concluded by expressing the opinion that three months would see the end of the struggle on lines of separation, but with some form of union between the two sovereignties[574]. Russell's speech was an unneeded but emphatic negative of the pro-Southern effort.

Clearly Southern sympathizers had committed an error in tactics by pressing for a change of British policy. The rosy hopes of Mason were dashed and the effect of the efforts of his friends was to force the Government to a decided stand when they preferred, as the summons of Spence to conference makes evident, to leave in abeyance for a time any further declaration on the blockade. The refusal of Mason and his Southern friends to wait compelled a governmental decision and the result was Russell's instruction to Lyons of February 15. The effect of the debate on Mason was not to cause distrust of his English advisers, but to convince him that the existing Government was more determined in unfriendliness than he had supposed. Of the blockade he wrote: "... no step will be taken by this Government to interfere with it[575]." He thought the military news from America in part responsible as: "The late reverses at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson have had an unfortunate effect upon the minds of our friends here[576]...." Spence was opposed to any further move in Parliament until some more definite push on the Government from France should occur[577]. Slidell, anxiously watching from Paris the effort in England, had now altered his view of policy and was convinced there was no hope in France until England gave the signal. Referring to his previous idea that the Continent could be put in opposition to Great Britain on the blockade he wrote:

"I then supposed that the influence of the Emperor was such that any view of the question which he might urge on the British Cabinet would be adopted. I have since had reason to change entirely this opinion. I am now satisfied that in all that concerns us the initiative must be taken by England; that the Emperor sets such value on her good will that he will make any sacrifice of his own opinions and policy to retain it[578]."

On March 28 he repeated this conviction to Mason[579]. It was a correct judgment. Mason was thereby exalted with the knowledge that his was to be the first place in importance in any and all operations intended to secure European support for the Confederacy, but he could not conceal from himself that the first steps undertaken in that direction had been premature. From this first failure dated his fixed belief, no matter what hopes were sometimes expressed later, that only a change of Government in England would help the Southern cause.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 502: See ante, p. 52.]

[Footnote 503: See ante, pp. 61 and 65-66.]

[Footnote 504: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, April 15, 1861.]

[Footnote 505: Ibid., Lyons to Russell. Private. April 23, 1861.]

[Footnote 506: Bernard, Neutrality of Great Britain, pp. 80-1.]

[Footnote 507: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, April 27, 1861.]

[Footnote 508: Bernard, p. 229.]

[Footnote 509: Saturday Review, May 18, 1861.]

[Footnote 510: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXIII, pp. 188-195.]

[Footnote 511: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, June 24, 1861.]

[Footnote 512: Ibid., Lyons to Russell, July 2, 1861.]

[Footnote 513: Russell Papers. Cowley to Russell. The important correspondence on this subject is found in: F.O., France, Vol. 1393. No. 796. Cowley to Russell, July 2, 1861. Ibid., No. 804. Cowley to Russell, July 4, 1861. Ibid., Vol. 1377. No. 704. Russell to Cowley, July 10, 1861. Ibid., Vol. 1394. No. 874. Cowley to Russell, July 17, 1861. Ibid., No. 922. Cowley to Russell, July 28, 1861. Ibid., No. 923. Confidential Cowley to Russell, July 29, 1861. Russell Papers. Cowley to Russell, July 19, 1861. Ibid., Cowley to Russell, July 28, 1861. It is interesting that the promise of France to support England in remonstrance against the "Southern Ports Bill" appears, through Cowley's communications, in the printed Parliamentary Papers. A study of these alone would lead to the judgment that France had been the first to raise the question with England and had heartily supported England. The facts were otherwise, though Mercier, without exact instructions from Thouvenel, aided Lyons in argument with Seward (Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 68. Lyons to Russell, July 20, 1861).]

[Footnote 514: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 61.]

[Footnote 515: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, July 16, 1861.]

[Footnote 516: Schleiden reported Seward as objecting to the Bill and Sumner as "vainly opposing" it. Sumner had in fact spoken publicly in favour of the measure. Probably he told Schleiden that privately he was against it. Schleiden reported Sumner as active in urging the Cabinet not to issue a Proclamation closing the ports (Schleiden Papers. Schleiden to Senate of Bremen, July 10 and 19, 1861). Mercier later informed Thouvenel that Sumner declared the Bill intended for the Northern public only, to show administration "energy," and that there was never any intention of putting it into effect. F.O., France, 1394. No. 931. Cowley to Russell, Aug. 1, 1861.]

[Footnote 517: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." Nos. 70 and 71. Thouvenel did finally consent to support Russell's protest.]

[Footnote 518: F.O., Am., Vol. 755. No. 168.]

[Footnote 519: F.O., Am., Vol. 756.]

[Footnote 520: F.O., France, Vol. 1395. No. 967. Cowley to Russell, Aug. 8, 1861.]

[Footnote 521: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell.]

[Footnote 522: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 68. Lyons to Russell, July 20, 1861. Enclosed was a copy of the six lines of Thouvenel's "instruction" to Mercier, dated July 4, the very brevity of which shows that this was in fact no instruction at all, but merely a comment by Thouvenel to Mercier.]

[Footnote 523: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, July 30, 1861.]

[Footnote 524: Ibid., Lyons to Russell, August 1, 1861.]

[Footnote 525: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 81. Lyons to Russell, Aug. 12, 1861.]

[Footnote 526: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell. Private. Aug. 13, 1861.]

[Footnote 527: Ibid., Russell Papers.]

[Footnote 528: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 83.]

[Footnote 529: Lyons thought this possible. Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell. Private. July 20, 1861.]

[Footnote 530: Lyons Papers. Russell to Lyons. Private. Aug. 16, 1861. And again he wrote the next day, "To prevent smuggling over 3,000 miles of coast and 1,500 miles of land frontier seems to me impossible" (Ibid., Aug. 17, 1861). Russell had received some two weeks earlier, a letter from Bunch at Charleston, urging that England make no objection to the blockade in order that the South might be taught the lesson that "King Cotton," was not, after all, powerful enough to compel British recognition and support. He stated that Southerners, angry at the failure to secure recognition, were loudly proclaiming that they both could and would humble and embarrass Great Britain (F.O., Am., Vol. 781. No. 82. Bunch to Russell, July 8, 1861). Bunch wrote on July 23 that the South planned to hold back its cotton until Great Britain and France raised the blockade (Ibid., No. 87). Bunch was now impressed with Southern determination.]

[Footnote 531: The seven ports were Norfolk (Virginia), Wilmington (North Carolina), Charleston (South Carolina), Savannah (Georgia), Mobile (Alabama), New Orleans (Louisiana), and Galveston (Texas).]

[Footnote 532: The first important reference to the blockade after mid-August, 1861, is in an order to Bunch, conveyed through Lyons, not to give advice to British merchants in Charleston as to blockade runners that had gotten into port having any "right" to go out again (F.O., Am., Vol. 757. No. 402. Russell to Lyons, Nov. 8, 1861).]

[Footnote 533: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 125. Lyons to Russell, Nov. 25, 1861. Received Dec. 9.]

[Footnote 534: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, Nov. 29, 1861.]

[Footnote 535: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 127.]

[Footnote 536: Ibid., No. 126. Lyons to Russell, Nov. 29, 1861. Received Dec. 12.]

[Footnote 537: Punch, Feb. 1, 1862.]

[Footnote 538: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 141.]

[Footnote 539: Ibid., No. 142. Jan. 15, 1861.]

[Footnote 540: Ibid., No. 143.]

[Footnote 541: James, W. W. Story, II, p. 111, Jan. 21, 1862.]

[Footnote 542: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 153. Lyons to Russell, Jan. 14, 1862. Received Jan. 27.]

[Footnote 543: Ibid., Lords, Vol. XXV. "Despatch from Lord Lyons respecting the Obstruction of the Southern Harbours." Lyons to Russell, Feb. 11, 1862. Received Feb. 24.]

[Footnote 544: Thompson and Wainwright, Confidential Correspondence of G.V. Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1861-65, I, p. 79. Du Pont to Fox, Dec. 16, 1861. Hereafter cited as Fox, Confid. Corresp. This letter shows clearly also that the Navy had no thought of a permanent obstruction.]

[Footnote 545: Vide Arnold, Friendship's Garland.]

[Footnote 546: Thouvenel, Le Secret de l'Empereur, II, 249. Thouvenel could mistakenly write to Mercier on March 13, 1862. "Nous ne voulons pas cependant imposer une forme de gouvernement aux Mexicains..."]

[Footnote 547: Russell Papers. Cowley to Russell. Private. Jan. 17, 1862. On this same date Thouvenel, writing to Flahault in London, hoped England would feel that she had a common interest with France in preventing Mexico from falling under the yoke of Americans either "unis ou secedes." (Thouvenel, Le Secret de l'Empereur, II, 226).]

[Footnote 548: Ibid., Jan. 24, 1862.]

[Footnote 549: Ibid., March 6, 1862.]

[Footnote 550: F.O., Am., Vol. 825. No. 146. Lyons to Russell, Feb. 28, 1862. The fact that Slidell arrived in France just as Napoleon's plans for Mexico took clearer form has been made the ground for assumptions that he immediately gave assurance of Southern acquiescence and encouraged Napoleon to go forward. I have found no good evidence of this--rather the contrary. The whole plan was clear to Cowley by mid-January before Slidell reached Paris, and Slidell's own correspondence shows no early push on Mexico. The Confederate agents' correspondence, both official and private, will be much used later in this work and here requires explanation. But four historical works of importance deal with it extensively, (1) Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, 2 vols., 1905, purports to include the despatches of Mason and Slidell to Richmond, but is very unsatisfactory. Important despatches are missing, and elisions sometimes occur without indication. (2) Virginia Mason, The Public Life and Diplomatic Correspondence of James M. Mason, 1906, contains most of Mason's despatches, including some not given by Richardson. The author also used the Mason Papers (see below). (3) Callahan, The Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy, 1901, is the most complete and authoritative work on Southern diplomacy yet published. He used the collection known as the "Pickett Papers," for official despatches, supplementing these when gaps occurred by a study of the Mason Papers, but his work, narrative in form, permits no extended printing of documents. (4) L.M. Sears, A Confederate Diplomat at the Court of Napoleon III. (Am. Hist. Rev. Jan., 1921), is a study drawn from Slidell's private letters in the Mason Papers. The Mason Papers exist in eight folios or packages in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, and in addition there is one bound volume of Mason's despatches to Richmond. These contain the private correspondence of Mason and Slidell while in Europe. Slidell's letters are originals. Mason's letters are copies in Slidell's hand-writing, made apparently at Mason's request and sent to him in May, 1865. A complete typed copy of this correspondence was taken by me in 1913, but this has not hitherto been used save in a manuscript Master's degree thesis by Walter M. Case, "James M. Mason, Confederate Diplomat," Stanford University, 1915, and for a few citations by C. F. Adams, A Crisis in Downing Street (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, May, 1914). The Mason Papers also contain many letters from Mason's English friends, Spence, Lindsay, Gregory and others.]

[Footnote 551: Russell Papers. To Russell. Lyons thought France also included in these demonstrations.]

[Footnote 552: A Cycle of Adams' Letters, I, 113. Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Feb. 14, 1862.]

[Footnote 553: Ibid., p. 115. To his son, Feb. 21, 1862.]

[Footnote 554: Lyons Papers. March 1, 1862.]

[Footnote 555: A Cycle of Adams' Letters, I, 123. To his son.]

[Footnote 556: Palmerston MS. Feb. 9, 1862.]

[Footnote 557: Bernard, p. 245. The author agrees with Russell but adds that Great Britain, in the early stages of the blockade, was indulgent to the North, and rightly so considering the difficulties of instituting it.]

[Footnote 558: He wrote to Mason on February 10, 1863, that he saw "no reason to qualify the language employed in my despatch to Lord Lyons of the 15th of February last." (Bernard, p. 293).]

[Footnote 559: Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, II, p. 155. Yancey and Mann to Hunter, Jan. 27, 1862.]

[Footnote 560: Mason, Mason, pp. 257-8, Jan. 30, 1862.]

[Footnote 561: Mason Papers. Feb. 5, 1862.]

[Footnote 562: Mann sent this "confidential memorandum" to Jefferson Davis, Feb. 1, 1862 (Richardson, II, 160). There is no indication of how he obtained it. It was a fake pure and simple. To his astonishment Slidell soon learned from Thouvenel that France knew nothing of such a memorandum. It was probably sold to Mann by some enterprising "Southern friend" in need of money.]

[Footnote 563: Mason, Mason, p. 258. Mason to Hunter, Feb. 7, 1862.]

[Footnote 564: Ibid., pp. 260-62. Mason's despatch No. 4. Feb. 22, 1862. (This despatch is not given by Richardson.) Slidell was more warmly received by Thouvenel. He followed the same line of argument and apparently made a favourable impression. Cowley reported Thouvenel, after the interview, as expressing himself as "hoping that in two or three months matters would have reached such a crisis in America that both parties would be willing to accept a Mediation...."

(F.O., France., Vol. 1432. No. 132. Confidential. Cowley to Russell, Feb. 10, 1862.)]

[Footnote 565: Mason Papers. Spence to Mason, Feb. 13, 1862. This was that James Spence, author of The American Union, a work strongly espousing the Southern cause. This book was not only widely read in England but portions of it were translated into other languages for use on the Continent. Spence was a manufacturer and trader and also operated in the Liverpool Cotton Exchange. He made a strong impression on Mason, was early active in planning and administering Southern cotton loans in England, and was in constant touch with Mason. By Slidell he was much less favourably regarded and the impression created by his frequent letters to Mason is that of a man of second-rate calibre elated by the prominent part he seemed to be playing in what he took to be the birth of a new State.]

[Footnote 566: Ibid., Spence to Mason, Feb. 20, 1862.]

[Footnote 567: Mason, Mason p. 258.]

[Footnote 568: Slidell in France at first took the tack of urging that Continental interests and British interests in the blockade were "directly antagonistic," basing his argument on England's forward look as a sea power (Slidell to Hunter, Feb. 26, 1862. Richardson, II, p. 186).]

[Footnote 569: Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Papers relating to the Blockade."]

[Footnote 570: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXV, pp. 1158-1230, and pp. 1233-43.]

[Footnote 571: Mason's authenticated statistics, unfortunately for his cause, only came down to Oct. 31, 1861, a fact which might imply that after that date the blockade was rapidly becoming effective and which certainly did indicate that it was at least sufficiently effective to prevent regular and frequent communications between the government at Richmond and its agents abroad. Did Russell have this in mind when he promptly incorporated Mason's figures in the papers presented to Parliament? These figures showed that according to reports from four Southern ports, sixty vessels had entered and cleared between April 29 and October 31, 1861; unauthenticated statistics extending to the date December 31, presented by Mason of vessels arrived at and departing from Cuban ports showed forty-eight vessels, each way engaged in blockade running. Seven of these were listed as "captured." Those reaching Cuba were described as twenty-six British, 14 Confederate, 3 Spanish, 3 American and 2 Mexican, but in none of these statistics were the names of the vessels given, for obvious reasons, in the printed paper though apparently included in the list submitted by Mason. These figures did in fact but reveal a situation existing even after 1861. The American blockading fleets had to be created from all sorts of available material and were slow in getting under way. Regular ships of the old Navy could not enforce it being too few in number, and also, at first, directing their efforts to the capture of shore positions which would render a large blockading squadron unnecessary. This proved an abortive effort and it was not until 1862 that the development of a large fleet of blockaders was seriously undertaken. (See Fox, Confid. Corresp., I, pp. 110, 115, 119 and especially 122, which, May 31, 1862, pays tribute to the energy with which the South for "thirteen long months" had defended its important port shore lines.) If Gregory had been able to quote a report by Bunch from Charleston of April 5, 1862, he would have had a strong argument. "The blockade runners are doing a great business.... Everything is brought in in abundance. Not a day passes without an arrival or a departure. The Richmond Government sent about a month ago an order to Nassau for Medicines, Quinine, etc. It went from Nassau to New York, was executed there, came back to Nassau, thence here, and was on its way to Richmond in 21 days from the date of the order. Nearly all the trade is under the British flag. The vessels are all changed in Nassau and Havana. Passengers come and go freely and no one seems to think that there is the slightest risk--which, indeed, there is not." (Lyons Papers. Bunch to Lyons, April 5, 1862).]

[Footnote 572: I have nowhere found any such statement by Seward. Gregory's reference is to a note from Seward to Lyons of May 27, 1861, printed in the Blockade Papers. This merely holds that temporary absence of blockading ships does not impair the blockade nor render "necessary a new notice of its existence."]

[Footnote 573: A Cycle of Adams' Letters, I, pp. 119-20. Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., March 15, 1862.]

[Footnote 574: This "three months" statement returned to plague Russell later, British merchants complaining that upon it they had based plans in the belief that the Government had something definite in view. Spence's reference to this "three months" idea, after his conferences in London, would indicate that Russell was merely indulging in a generalization due to the expected financial collapse of the North. The Russian Ambassador in London gave a different interpretation. He wrote that the Northern victories in the West had caused Great Britain to think the time near when the "border states," now tied to the Union by these victories, would lead in a pacification on lines of separation from the Southern slave states. "It is in this sense, and no other that Russell's 'three months' speech in the Lords is to be taken." (Brunow to F.O., March 3-15, 1862. No. 33). Brunow does not so state, but his despatch sounds as if this were the result of a talk with Russell. If so, it would indicate an attempt to interpret Lincoln's "border state policy" in a sense that would appear reasonable in the British view that there could be no real hope at Washington of restoring the Union.]

[Footnote 575: Mason, Mason, p. 264. Despatch No. 6. March 11, 1862.]

[Footnote 576: Ibid., p. 266. Fort Henry was taken by Grant on February 6 and Fort Donelson on the 15th. The capture of these two places gave an opening for the advance of the Western army southwards into Tennessee and Mississippi.]

[Footnote 577: Mason Papers. Spence to Mason, March 18, 1862.]

[Footnote 578: Richardson, II, 207. Slidell to Hunter, March 26, 1862.]

[Footnote 579: Mason Papers.]

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