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DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 



DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF 

 THE CONFEDERATE STATES. On the 4th 

 of May, Messrs. Yancey, Mann, and Rost, the 

 commissioners from the Confederate States to 

 obtain their recognition in Europe as an inde- 

 pendent nation, waited upon Lord John Rus- 

 sell, the British Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

 Their interview is described in a letter from 

 Lord Russell to Lord Lyons, the British Minis- 

 ter resident at Washington. He writes : 



One of these gentlemen, speaking for the others, 

 dilated on the causes which had induced the South- 

 ern States to secede from the Northern. The prin- 

 cipal of these causes, he said, was not slavery, but 

 the very high price which, for the sake of protecting 

 the Northern manufacturers, the South were obliged 

 to pay for the manufactured goods which they re- 

 quired. One of the first acts of the Southern Congress 

 was to reduce these duties, and, to prove their sincer- 

 ity, he gave as an instance that Louisiana had given 

 up altogether that protection on her sugar which she 

 enjoyed by the legislation of the United States. 



As a proof of the riches of the South, he stated that 

 of $350,000,000 of exports of produce to foreign coun- 

 tries, $270,000,000 were furnished by the Southern 

 States. 



I said that I could hold no official communication 

 with the delegates of the Southern States. That, how- 

 ever, when the question of recognition came to be for- 

 mally discussed, there were two points upon which 

 inquiry must be made : first, whether the body seek- 

 ing recognition could maintain its position as an inde- 

 pendent State ; secondly, in what manner it was pro- 

 posed to maintain relations with foreign States. 



After speaking at some length on the first of these 

 points, and alluding to the news of the secession of 

 Virginia, and other intelligence favorable to their 

 cause, these gentlemen called my attention to the ar- 

 ticle in their constitution prohibiting the slave trade. 



I said that it was alleged very currently that if the 

 slave States found that they could not compete suc- 

 cessfully with the cotton of other countries, they would 

 revive the slave trade for the purpose of diminishing 

 the cost of production. They said this was a suspicion 

 unsupported by any proof. The fact was they had pro- 

 hibited the slave trade, and did not mean to revive it. 

 They pointed to the new tariff of the United States as a 

 proof that British manufactures would be nearly exclu- 

 ded from the North, and freely admitted in the'South. 



Other observations were made, but not of very great 

 importance. The delegates concluded by stating that 

 they should remain in London for the present, in the 

 hope that the recognition of the Southern Confederacy 

 would not be long delayed. 



On the 14th of August, the same commis- 

 sioners address a lengthy note to Lord John 

 Russell, again urging the recognition of the 

 Confederate States, for the reasons set forth in 

 their letter. They thus allude to their first 

 interview : 



At an early day after the arrival of the undersigned in 

 London, at an informal interview which your lordship 

 was pleased to accord to them, they informed your 

 lordship of the object of their mission, and endeavored 

 to impress upon your lordship that the action of the 

 seven Confederate States had been based upon repeat- 

 ed attempts on the part of the Federal Government, 

 and of many of the more Northern States which com- 

 posed the late Union, during a series of years which 

 extended over near half a century, to rule the people 

 of the Southern section of that Union by means of the 

 unconstitutional exercise of power; and that secession 

 from that Union had been resorted to as, in the opinion 

 of the seceding States, the best and surest mode of 

 saving the liberties which their Federal and State con- 

 stitutions were designed to secure to them. They also 



endeavored to place before your lordship satisfactory 

 evidence that the justice of this great movement upon 

 the part of the cotton States was so palpable that it 

 would be endorsed by many, if not by all, of the South- 

 ern States which were then adhering to the Union, 

 which would sooner or later become convinced that 

 the security of their rights could only be maintained by 

 pursuing the like process of secession from the late 

 Federal Union, and accession to the constitution of the 

 government of the Confederate States of America. 



They next proceed to state the reasons for 

 which the people of the Confederate States be- 

 lieve they violated no principle of allegiance in 

 their act of secession. They then refer to the 

 British declaration of neutrality, respecting 

 which they present the following views : 



The undersigned, however, received with some sur- 

 prise and regret the avowal of her Britannic Majesty's 

 government that, in order to the observance of a strict 

 neutrality, the public and private armed vessels of 

 neither of the contending parties would be permitted 

 to enter her Majesty's ports with prizes. The under- 

 signed do not contest the right of the British Govern- 

 ment to make such regulations, but have been dis- 

 posed to think that it has been unusual for her Majes- 

 ty's Government to exercise such right, and that in 

 this instance the practical operation of the rule has 

 been to favor the government at Washington, and to 

 cripple the exercise' of an undoubted public right of 

 the Government of the Confederate States. This Gov- 

 ernment commenced its career entirely without a 

 navy. Owing to the high sense of duty which distin- 

 guished the Southern officers who were lately in com- 

 mission in the United States navy, the ships which 

 otherwise might have been brought into Southern 

 ports were honorably delivered up to the United States 

 Government, and the navy, built for the protection of 

 the people of all the States, is now used by the Gov- 

 ernment at Washington to coerce the people and 

 blockade the ports of one-third of the States of the late 

 Union. 



The people of the Confederate States are an agricul- 

 tural, not a manufacturing or commercial people. 

 They own but few ships. Hence there has been noi 

 the least necessity for the Government at Washington 

 to issue letters of marque. The people of the Confed- 

 erate States have but few ships, and not much com- 

 merce upon which such private armed vessels could 

 operate. The commodities produced in the Confed- 

 erate States are such as the world needs more than 

 any other, and the nations of the earth have heretofore 

 sent their ships to our wharves, and there the mer- 

 chants buy and receive our cotton and tobacco. 



But it is far otherwise with the people of the present 

 United States. They are a manufacturing and com- 

 mercial people. They do a large part of the carrying 

 trade of the world. Their ships and commerce afford 

 them the sinews of war, and keep their industry afloat. 

 To cripple this industry and commerce, to destroy 

 their ships, or cause them to be dismantled and tied 

 up to their rotting wharves, are legitimate objects and 

 means of warfare. 



Having no navy, no commercial marine, out of 

 which to improvise public armed vessels to any con- 

 siderable extent, the Confederate States were com- 

 pelled to resort to the issuance of letters of marque, a 

 mode of warfare as fully and clearly recognized by the 

 law and usage of nations as any other arm of war, and 

 most assuredly more humane and more civilized in its 

 practice than that which appears to have distinguished 

 the inarch of the troops of the Government of the 

 United States upon the soil and among the villages of 

 Virginia. 



These facts tend to show that the practical working 

 of the rule that forbids the entry of the public and 

 private armed vessels of either party into British ports 

 with prizes, operates exclusively to prevent the exer- 

 cise of this legitimate mode of warfare by the Confed- 



