792 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



been far removed from English waters, the British 

 Government, in violation of its own laws, and in defer- 

 ence to the importunate demands of the United States, 

 made an ineffectual attempt to seize one vessel, and 

 did actually seize and detain another which touched at 

 the island of Nassau, on her way to a Confederate port, 

 and subjected her to an unfounded prosecution, at the 

 very time when cargoes of munitions of war were be- 

 ing openly shipped Trom British ports to New York, to 

 be used in warfare against us. Even now the public 

 journals bring intelligence that the British Govern- 

 ment has ordered the seizure, in a British port, of two 

 vessels, on the suspicion that they may have been sold 

 to this Government, and that they may be hereafter 

 armed and equipped in our service, while British sub- 

 jects are engaged in Ireland by tens of thousands to 

 proceed to the United States for warfare against the 

 confederacy, in defiance both of the law of nations and 

 of the express terms of the British statutes, and are 

 transported in British ships, without an effort of con- 

 cealment, to the ports of the United States, there to be 

 armed with rifles imported from Great Britain, and to 

 be employed against our people in a war of conquest. 

 No royal prerogative is invoked, no executive interfe- 

 rence is interposed against this flagrant breach of 

 municipal and international law, on the part of our 

 enemies, while strained constructions are placed on 

 existing statutes, new enactments proposed, and ques- 

 tionable expedients devised, for precluding the possi- 

 bility of purchase by this Government of vessels that 

 are useless for belligerent purposes, unless hereafter 

 armed and equipped outside of the neutral jurisdiction 

 of Great Britain. 



For nearly three years this Government has exercised 

 unquestioned jurisdiction over many millions of will- 

 ing and united people. It has met 'and defeated vast 

 armies of invaders, who have in vain sought its sub- 

 version. Supported by the confidence and affection 

 of its citizens, the confederacy has lacked no element 

 which distinguishes an independent nation, according 

 to the principles of public law. Its legislative, execu- 

 tive, and judicial departments, each in its sphere, have 

 performed their appropriate functions with a regular- 

 ity as undisturbed as in a time of profound peace, and 

 the whole energies of the people have been developed 

 in the organization of vast armies, while their rights 

 and liberties have rested secure under the protection 

 of the courts of justice. This confederacy is either in- 

 dependent or it is a dependency of the United States, 

 for no other earthly power claims the right to govern 

 it. Without one historic fact on which the pretension 

 can rest, without one line or word of treaty or cove- 

 nant, which qan give color to title, the United States 

 have asserted, and the British Government has chosen 

 to concede, that these sovereign States are dependen- 

 cies of the Government which is administered at Wash- 

 ington. Great Britain has accordingly entertained 

 with that Government the closest and most intimate 

 relations, while refusing on its demand ordinary ami- 

 cable intercourse with us, and has, under arrangements 

 made with the other nations of Europe, not only denied 

 our just claim of admission into the family of nations, 

 but interposed a passive though effectual bar to the 

 acknowledgment of our rights by other Powers. So 

 soon as it had become apparent, by the declarations 

 of the British ministers, in the debates of the British 

 Parliament in July last, that her Majesty's Government 

 was determined to persist indefinitely in a course of 

 policy which, under professions of neutrality, had be- 

 come subservient to the designs of our enemy, I felt it 

 my duty to recall the commissioners formerly accred- 

 ited to that court, and the correspondence on the sub- 

 ject is submitted to you. 



It is due to you and to our country that this full 

 statement should be made of the just grounds which 

 exist for dissatisfaction with the conduct of the British 

 Government. I am well aware that we are unfortu- 

 nately without adequate remedv for the injustice under 

 which we have suffered at the hunds of a powerful na- 

 tion, at a juncture when our entire resources are ab- 

 sorbed in the defence of our lives, liberties, and inde- 



pendence, against an enemy possessed of greatly supe- 

 rior numbers and material resources. Claiming no 

 favor, desiring no aid, conscious of our own ability to 

 defend our own rights against the utmost efforts of 

 an infuriated foe, we had thought it not extravagant 

 to expect that assistance would be withheld from our 

 enemies, and that the conduct of foreign nations would 

 be marked by a genuine impartiality between the bel- 

 ligerents. It was not supposed that a professed neu- 

 trality would be so conducted as to justify the Foreign 

 Secretary of the British nation in explaining, in cor- 

 respondence with our enemies, how " the impartial 

 observance of neutral obligations by her Majesty's 

 Government has thus been exceedingly advantageous 

 to the cause of the more powerful of the two contend- 

 ing parties." The British Government may deem this 

 war u favorable occasion for establishing, by the tem- 

 porary sacrifice of their neutral rights, a precedent 

 which shall justify the future exercise of those extreme 

 belligerent pretensions that their naval power renders 

 so formidable. The opportunity for obtaining the tacit 

 assent of European Governments to a line of conduct 

 which ignores the obligations of the declarations of 

 Paris, and treats that instrument rather as a theoretical 

 exposition of principles than a binding agreement, 

 may be considered by the British ministry as justify- 

 ing them in seeking a great advantage for their own 

 country at the expense of ours. But we cannot per- 

 mit, without protest, the assertion that international 

 law or morals regard as " impartial neutrality " con- 

 duct avowed to DC " exceedingly advantageous " to 

 one of the belligerents. 



I have stated that we are without adequate remedy 

 against the injustice under which we suffer. There 

 are but two measures that seem applicable to the pres- 

 ent condition of our relations with neutral Powers. 

 One is, to imitate the wrong of which we complain, to 

 retaliate by the declaration of a paper blockade of the 

 coast of the United States, and to capture all neutral 

 vessels trading with their ports, that our cruisers can 

 intercept on the high seas. This measure I cannot 

 recommend. It is true that, in so doing, we should 

 but follow the precedents set by Great Britain and 

 France in the Berlin and Milan decrees, and the British 

 orders in council at the beginning of the present cen- 

 tury. But it must be remembered that we, ourselves, 

 protested against those very measures as signal viola- 

 tions of the law of nations, and declared the attempts 

 to excuse them, on the ground of their being retaliato- 

 ry, utterly insignificant. Those blockades are now 

 quoted by writers on public law, as a standing re- 

 proach on the good name of the nations who were be- 

 trayed by temporary exasperation into wrong doing, 

 and ought to be regarded rather as errors to be avoid- 

 ed than as examples to be followed. 



The other measure is not open to this objection. 

 The second article of the declaration of Paris, which 

 provides " that the neutral flag covers enemy's goods, 

 with the exception of contraband of war," was a new 

 concession by belligerents in favor of neutrals, and not 

 simply the enunciation of an acknowledged preex- 

 isting rule, like the fourth article, which referred to 

 blockades. To this concession we bound ourselves by 

 the convention with Great Britain and France, which 

 took the shape of the resolutions adopted by your pre- 

 decessors on the 13th of August, 1861. The consid- 

 eration tendered us for that concession has been with- 

 held. We have, therefore, the undeniable right to 

 refuse longer to remain bound by a compact which the 

 other party refuses to fulfil. But we should not forget 

 that war is but temporary, and that we desire that 

 peace shall be permanent. The future policy of the 

 confederacy must ever be to uphold neutral rights to 

 their full extent. The principles of the declaration of 

 Paris commend themselves to our judgment as more 

 just, more humane, and more consonant with modern 

 civilization than those belligerent pretensions which 

 great naval Powers have heretofore sought to intro- 

 duce into the maritime code. To forego our undeni- 

 able right to the exercise of those pretensions is a pol- 

 icy higher, worthier of us and our cause, than to re- 



