384 



DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 



cial intercourse an extensive coast inhabited by a large 

 and industrious population. 



If, therefore, the Government of the United States 

 consider it for their interest to inflict this great injury 

 on other nations, the utmost they can expect is that 

 European powers shall respect those acts of the United 

 States which are within the limits of the law. The 

 United States Government cannot expect that Great 

 Britain should frame new statutes to aid the Federal 

 blockade, and to carry into effect the restrictions on 

 commerce which the United States, for their own pur- 

 poses, have thought fit to institute, and the application 

 of which it is their duty to confine within the legiti- 

 mate limits of international law. 



Two days later Mr. Adams responded as fol- 

 lows : 



In declaring that blockade the Government of the 

 United States are believed to have done nothing which 

 has not been repeatedly done heretofore, and the right 

 to do which at any time hereafter, whenever the neces- 

 sity shall appear to call for it, is not distinctly affirmed 

 by the Government of Great Britain. Neither does the 

 fact that this proceeding pressed with the greatest 

 severity upon the interests of neutral nations appear 

 formerly to have been regarded in any other light than 

 as an incidental damage, which, however much re- 

 gretted in itself, unavoidably follows from the gravity 

 of the emergency which created it. For it can scarcely 

 be supposed that so onerous a task as a veritable 

 blockade will be undertaken by any nation for causes 

 not deemed of paramount necessity, or will be perse- 

 vered in one moment longer than those causes continue 

 to operate. I am very sure that it is the desire of the 

 Government of the United States to accelerate the 

 period when the blockade now in operation may be 

 safely raised. To that end it is bending all its efforts. 

 And in this it claims to be mindful, not simply of the 

 interests of its own citizens, but likewise of those of all 

 friendly nations. Hence it is that it views with deep 

 regret the strenuous efforts of evil disposed persons in 

 foreign countries, by undertakings carried on in de- 

 fiance of all recognized law, to impair, so far as they 

 can, the efficacy of its measures, and in a correspond- 

 ing degree to protract the severity of the struggle. 

 Hence it is, likewise, that it has been profoundly con- 

 cerned at the inefficacy of the laws of Great Britain, in 

 which a large proportion of the undertakings originate, 

 to apply any adequate policy of prevention. For I doubt 

 not your lordship will see at a glance the embarrass- 

 ment in which a country is necessarily involved by 

 complaints raised of the continued severity of a block- 

 ade by a friendly nation, which at the same time con- 

 fesses its inability to restrain its subjects from stimu- 

 lating the resistance that necessitates a continuance 

 of the very state of things of which they make com- 

 plaint. 



That a sense of the difficulties consequent upon the 

 action of such persons prompted the enactment of the 

 statute of his Majesty George the Third, of the 3d July, 

 1819, is made plain by the language of its preamble. It 

 is therein stated that it was passed because the laws 

 then in force were not sufficiently effectual to prevent the 

 evil complained of. It now appears from the substance 

 of the representations which I have heretofore had the 

 honor to make to your lordship, that the provisions of 

 that law are as little effectual in curing the evil as 

 those of any of its predecessors. But I am pained to be 

 obliged to gather from the concluding -"-ords of your 

 lordship's note that the expression of an opinion that 

 the United States, in the execution of a measure 

 conceded to be correct, as well as justified by every 

 precedent of international law as construed by the 

 highest British authorities, cannot expect that Great 

 Britain should frame new statutes to remedy the defi- 

 ciency of its own laws to prevent what it acknowledges 

 on the face of that statute to be evils created by its own 

 refractory subjects. I must be permitted to say, in 

 reply, that, in my belief, the Government of the United 

 States would scarcely be disposed to make a similar 



reply to her Majesty's Government were the relative 

 position of the two countries to be reversed. 



Permit me, in conclusion, to assure your lordship that 

 the grounds upon which the representations I have had 

 the nonor to make [were founded] have not been has- 

 tily considered. So far from it, the extent of the evil 

 complained of has been under rather than overstated. 

 I have now before me a list of eleven steamers and ten 

 sailing vessels that have been equipped and despatch- 

 ed within thirty days, or are now preparing, freighted 

 with supplies of all kinds for the insurgents from one 

 port of Great Britain alone. These supplies, I have 

 reason to believe, are to be conveyed to Nassau, which 

 place is used as an entrepot for the convenience of 

 vessels under British colors, employed for the sole pur- 

 pose of breaking the blockade. I have reasons for 

 supposing that the business is reduced to a system, 

 emanating from a central authority situated at Lon- 

 don ; and, further, that large sums of money have been 

 contributed by British subjects to aid in carrying it on. 

 If the United States have, in any of their relations with 

 with her Majesty's Government, committed some act 

 not within the legitimate limits of international law 

 which justifies the declaration of a disposition not to 

 provide against such obvious violations of the neu- 

 trality proclaimed at the outset of this deplorable 

 struggle, I trust I may be so clearly presented to their 

 consideration by your lordship as to supply the means 

 either of explanation or of remedy. 



On the 10th of May, Mr. Adams, writing rel- 

 ative to the case of the Emily St. Pierre, here- 

 after mentioned, argued the duty of the Gov- 

 ernment to suppress these attempts to send 

 supplies to the Confederate States, from the 

 intention of the queen's proclamation. {See AN- 

 NUAL CYCLOPEDIA, 1861 ; PUBLIC DOCUMENTS.) 

 Earl Kussell immediately replied as follows : 



FOREIGN OFFICE, May 10, 1S62. 



Sin : In the letter I had the honor to receive from 

 you yesterday you appear to have confounded two 

 things totally distinct : 



The foreign enlistment act is intended to prevent the 

 subjects of the crown from going to war when the sov- 

 ereign is not at war. Thus private persons are prohib- 

 ited from fitting out a ship-of-war in our ports or from 

 enlisting in the service of a foreign state at war with 

 another state, or in the service of insurgents against a 

 foreign sovereign or state. In these cases the persons 

 so acting would carry on war, and thus might engage 

 the name of their sovereign and of their nation in bel- 

 ligerent operations. But owners and masters of mer- 

 chant ships carrying warlike stores do nothing of the 

 kind. If captured for breaking a blockade or carrying 

 contraband of war to the enemy of the captor, they sub- 

 mit to capture, are tried, and condemned to lose their 

 cargo. This is the penalty which the law of nations 

 has affixed to such an offence, and in calling upon her 

 Majesty's Government to prohibit such adventures you 

 in effect call upon her Majesty's Government to do 

 that which it belongs to the cruisers and the courts of 

 the United States to do for themselves. 



There can be only one plea for asking Great Britain 

 thus to interpose. That plea is, that the blockade is 

 in reality ineffective, and that merchant ships can 

 enter with impunity the blockaded ports. But this is 

 a plea which I presume you will not urge. Her Ma- 

 jesty's Government have considered the blockade as an 

 effective blockade, and have submitted to all its incon- 

 veniences as such. 



They can only hope that, if resistance should prove 

 to be hopeless, the Confederate States will not con- 

 tinue the struggle ; but if, on the other hand, the resto- 

 ration of the Union should appear to be impossible, 

 the work of devastation now going on will cease. 



Her Majesty's Government can only desire the pros- 

 perity of the inhabitants of the United States, what- 

 ever may be the event of the present civil war. 



