264 



DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 



would be British intervention, to create within our ter- 

 ritory a hostile state by overthrowing this republic 

 itself! * * * 



As to the treatment of privateers in the insurgent 

 service, you will say that this is a question exclusively 

 our own. We treat them as pirates. They are our 

 own citizens, or persons employed by our citizens, 



Breying on the commerce of pur country. If Great 

 ritain shall choose to recognize them as lawful bel- 

 ligerents, and give them shelter from our pursuit and 

 punishment, the laws of nations afford an adequate 

 and proper remedy. 



Happily, however, her Britannic Majesty's Govern- 

 ment can avoid all these difficulties. It invited us in 

 1856 to accede to the declaration of the Congress of 

 Paris, of which body Great Britain was herself a mem- 

 ber, abolishing privateering everywhere in all cases 

 and forever. You already nave our authority to pro- 

 pose to her our accession to that declaration. If she 

 refuse it, it can only be because she is willing to be- 

 come the patron of privateering when aimed at our 

 devastation. 



These positions are not elaborately defended now, 

 because to vindicate them would imply a possibility 

 of our waiving them. 



We are not insensible of the grave importance of this 

 occasion. We see how, upon the result of the debate 

 in which we are engaged, a war may ensue between 

 the United States and one, two, or even more European 

 nations. War in any case is as exceptionable from the 

 habits as it is revolting from the sentiments of the 

 American people. But if it come it will be fully seen 

 that it results from the action of Great Britain, not our 

 own; that Great Britain will have decided to fraternize 

 with our domestic enemy, either without waiting to 

 hear from you our remonstrances and our warnings, 

 or after having heard them. War in defence of national 

 life is not immoral, and war in defence of independence 

 is an inevitable part of the discipline of nations. 



The dispute will be between the European and the 

 American branches of the British race. All who be- 

 long to that race will especially deprecate it, as they 

 ought. It may well be believed that men of every race 

 and kindred will deplore it. A war not unlike it, be- 

 tween the same parties, occurred at the close of the 

 last century. Europe atoned by forty years of suffer- 

 ing for the error that Great Britain committed in pro- 

 voking that contest. If that nation shall now repeat 

 the same great error, the social convulsions which will 

 follow may not be so long, but they will be more gen- 

 eral. When they shall have ceased, it will, we think, 

 be seen, whatever may have been the fortunes of other 

 nations, that it is not the United States that will have 

 come out of them with its precious Constitution altered, 

 or its honestly obtained dominions in any degree 

 abridged. Great Britain has but to wait a few months, 

 and all her present inconveniences will cease with all 

 our own troubles. If she take a different course she 

 will calculate for herself the ultimate, as well as the 

 immediate consequences, and will consider what posi- 

 tion she will hold when she shall have forever lost the 

 sympathies and affections of the only nation on whose 

 sympathies and affections she has a natural claim. In 

 making that calculation she will do well to remember 

 that in the controversy she proposes to open we shall 

 be actuated by neither pride, nor passion, nor cupidity, 

 nor ambition ; but we shall stand simply on the princi- 

 ple^of self-preservation, and that our cause will involve 

 the independence of nations and the rights of human 

 nature. 



Under date of May 21st, Mr. Adams writes 

 to Mr. Seward, giving an account of his inter- 

 view with Lord John Russell. The most im- 

 portant portion of their conversation, so far as 

 regards its public interests, consists in the views 

 of the English Government relative to regard- 

 ing the Confederate States as a belligerent. On 

 this point Mr. Adams thus writes : 



I then alluded more especially to the brief report 

 of the Lord Chancellor's speech on Thursday last, in 

 which he had characterized the rebellious portion of 

 my country as a belligerent State, and the war that 

 was going on asjustum bclhim. 



To this his lordship replied that he thought more 

 stress was laid upon these events than they deserved. 

 The fact was that a necessity seemed to exist to define 

 the course of the Government in regard to the partici- 

 pation of the subjects of Great Britain in the impend- 

 ing conflict. To that end the legal questions involved 

 had been referred to those officers most conversant 

 with them, and their advice had been taken in shaping 

 the result. Their conclusion had been that, as a ques- 

 tion merely of fact, a war existed. A considerable 

 number of the States, at least seven, occupying a wide 

 extent of country, were in open resistance, whilst one 

 or more of the others were associating themselves in 

 the same struggle, and as yet there were no indications 

 of any other result than a contest of arms more or lesS 

 severe. In many preceding cases, much less formi- 

 dable demonstrations had been recognized. Under 

 such circumstances it seemed scarcely possible to 

 avoid speaking of this in the technical sense sisjustum 

 lellum, that is, a war of two sides, without in any way 

 implying an opinion of its justice, as well as to with- 

 hold an endeavor, so far as possible, to bring the man- 

 agement of it within the rules of modern civilized 

 warfare. This was all that was contemplated by the 

 Queen's proclamation. It was designed to show the 

 purport of existing laws, and to explain to British sub- 

 jects their liabilities in case they should engage in the 

 war. And however strongly the people of the United 

 States might feel against their enemies, it was hardly 

 to be supposed that in practice they would now vary 

 from their uniformly humane policy heretofore in en- 

 deavoring to assuage and mitigate the horrors of war. 



On the 3d of June Mr. Seward writes to Mr. 

 Adams stating the views of the President rela- 

 tive to foreign interference, thus : 



Every instruction you have received from this de- 

 partment is full of evidence of the fact that the prin- 

 cipal danger in the present insurrection which the 

 President nas apprehended was that of foreign inter- 

 vention, aid, or sympathy ; and especially of such in- 

 tervention, aid, or sympathy on the part of the Gov- 

 ernment of Great Britain. 



The justice of this apprehension has been vindicated 

 by the following facts, namely : 



1. A guarded reserve on the part of the British Sec- 

 retary of State, when Mr. Dallas presented to him our 

 protest against the recognition of the insurgents, which 

 seemed to imply that, in some conditions, not explained 

 to us, such a recognition might be made. 



2. The contracting of an engagement by the Govern- 

 ment of Great Britain with that of France, without 

 consulting us, to the effect that both Governments 

 should adopt one and the same course of procedure in 

 regard to the insurrection. 



3. Lord John Kussell's announcement to Mr. Dallas 

 that he was not unwilling to receive the so-called com- 

 missionere of the insurgents unofficially. 



4. The issue of the Queen's proclamation, remark- 

 able, first, for the circumstances under which it was 

 made, namely, on the very day of your arrival in Lon- 

 don, which had been anticipated so far as to provide 

 for your reception by the British secretary, but with- 

 out affording you the interview promised before any 

 decisive action should be adopted ; secondly, the tenor 

 of the proclamation itself, which seems to recognize, 

 in a vague manner indeed, but does seem to recognize, 

 the insurgents as a belligerent national poiver. 



That proclamation, unmodified and unexplained, 

 would leave us no alternative but to regard the Gov- 

 ernment of Great Britain as questioning our free exer- 

 cise of all the rights of self-defence guaranteed to us 

 by our Constitution and the laws of nature and of na- 

 tions to suppress the insurrection. 



I should nave proceeded at once to direct you to 



