ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 297 



full reparation, and Her Majesty's Government are unwilling to believe that it could 

 be the deliberate intention of the Government of the United States unnecessarily to 

 force into discussion between the two Governments a question of so grave a character, 

 and with regard to which the whole British nation would be sure to entertain such 

 unanimity of feeling. 



Her Majesty's Government, therefore, trust that when this matter shall have been 

 brought under the consideration of the Government of the United States, that Gov- 

 ernment will, of its own accord, offer to the British Government such redress as alone 

 would satisfy the British nation, namely, the liberation of the four gentlemen, and 

 their delivery to your Lordship, in order that they may again be placed under British 

 protection, and a suitable apology for the aggression which has been committed. 



Then a comnmnicatiou of the facts was at the same time made to the 

 French representative by some of the persons taken on board tliis ves- 

 sel, two, I think, being French subjects; and Mr. Thouvenel writing to 

 M. Mercier a communication which is afterwards communicated to Lord 

 Eussell, takes the same ground of its being an. offence against interna- 

 tional law. I need not trouble to read that. 



Then follows, also, a communication from the Austrian Minister in 

 the same sense as that from the French Minister. Also one from the 

 German Minister, Count Bernstoff, to Baron Gerolt in the same sense. 



Then comes the long communication from Mr. Seward to which I have 

 already referred, but with which I do not think I need trouble you at 

 length. He argues the question out; tries to suggest that these men 

 might be regarded as contraband of war ; points out the difficulties of so 

 regarding them, and makes the best answer he can. That claim to treat 

 them as contraband of war he afterwards withdraws; and, finally, when 

 he writes, announcing the release of the men, he says that if the safety 

 of the Union required the detention of the captured persons, it would be 

 the right and duty of the Government to detain them. " T//e right and 

 duty''\ you will observe is the language used. "Eight" is one of those 

 words very often ambiguously employed. This correspondence demon- 

 strates there was no riglit to seize or detain them by international law; 

 and when Mr. Seward used the word "right" in that connection, he 

 meant what I have already adverted to — that it was something which 

 would he done, right or ivrong, whether internationally defensible or not, 

 if the emergency of the situation and the interests of the United States 

 required that it should be done. 



Now Lord Eussell replies to that despatch on the 23rd January 

 1076 1863 (I am reading from page 37 of this correspondence) in these 

 words. 



Mr. Seward asserts that "if the safety of this Union required the detention of the 

 captured persons it would be the right and duty of this Government to detain them." 

 He proceeds to say that the waning proportions of the insurrectit^, and the compar- 

 ative unimportance of the captured persons themselves, forbid him from resorting to 

 that defence. Mr. Seward does not here assert any right founded on international 

 law, however inconvenient or irritating to neutral nations; he entirely loses sight 

 of tlie vast difference which exists between the exercise of an extreme right and the 

 commission of an unquestionable wrong. His frankness compels me to be equally 

 open, and to inform him that Great Britain could not have submitted to the perpe- 

 tration of that wrong, however flourishing might have been the insurrection in the 

 South, and however important the persons captured might have been. 



My object in referring to this case, Mr. President, as I hope you will 

 perceive, is to point to it as an illustration of tlie case in which a nation 

 puts itself outside international right, and where the only defence of 

 its position must be that it considers itself morally justified in doing the 

 thing, and is prepared, if necessary, to fight in defence of having done 

 it. That is not within the domain of international law, it lies entirely 

 outside. 



