Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Washington, October 22, 1861.
Sir: The receipt of your despatch of the 14th of September (No. 44) has been already acknowledged.
It was accompanied by Earl Russell’s reply to the note which, in execution of my instructions, you addressed to him on the subject of the detention of a bearer of despatches sent by Robert Bunch, her Majesty’s consul at Charleston, and the substitution by me of another person to convey his consular bag to Great Britain.
Earl Russell says, in his note, that if it had been true (as we apprehended) that Mr. Bunch had inserted into his official bag and covered with his official seal the correspondence of the enemies of this government in the United States, he would have been guilty of a grave breach of his duty towards his own government and that of the United States. Earl Russell says also, that on the opening of the bag at the foreign office (in London) no ground for that suspicion was revealed.
These declarations, made with unquestioned candor and freedom, are entirety satisfactory upon the main point involved in your note. It is therefore a pleasant duty for me to instruct you to reply to Earl Russell that this government regrets the interruption of the passage of the consular despatches, which has occurred in consequence of a mistaken suspicion that the agent who transmitted them was abusing the confidence of the two governments. I sincerely hope that no serious inconvenience resulted from the delay.
Earl Russell, after making the explanations which I have quoted, proceeds to remark that her Majesty’s government was advised that the suspicion of the conveyance by post of letters from British subjects between the northern States and the southern States was in contravention of the treaty on this subject contracted between the two governments; that her Majesty’s government had been, nevertheless, unwilling to press this view on the United States; but that this stoppage of the post has occasioned great inconvenience to individuals. His lordship then submits a copy of a note which Mr. Bunch had written to the under secretary of state, showing the mode in which he had endeavored to palliate the evil by enclosing private letters in his official bag. His lordship then dismisses the subject, saying that he shall address any further communication he may have to make thereon, to Lord Lyons.
Mr. Bunch, in his note, states that he encloses in the bag, to the under secretary’s address, certain letters which are intended for the post, and that they are principally letters of servants, governesses, &c., British subjects, [Page 164] which, owing to the discontinuance of the post, they are unable to send in any other way; also, that some of the letters contain dividends, the property of British subjects, which they could scarcely receive without Mr. Bunch’s intervention. He adds that he hopes that there is no irregularity in this proceeding, since no expense of postage is incurred, because the bag in which the letters are contained goes by a private hand to Liverpool. I read this note under the light thrown upon it by the explanations of Earl Russell, which show that the whole correspondence contained in the bag was innocent.
In these circumstances, what remains open to special exception in Mr. Bunch’s proceeding is, his substitution of his consular bag and official seal for the mail bag and mail locks of the United States, and of his own mail carrier for the mail carriers of the United States.
The proceeding of the consul in these respects, certainly is not defensible on any ground of treaty or international law; nor does Earl Russell in any way imply that he deems it is so. The proceeding however was practically harmless, and it is not likely to be repeated.
I confess to the fact of the interruption of the post, and also that it works literally a non-fulfilment of a treaty stipulation. I deplore it for that reason, as well as for the public and private injuries that it occasions, not only abroad but at home. But the British government is well aware that the interruption has occurred, not through the deliberate or even voluntary consent of the government, but through the sudden violence of an insurrection which has not only obstructed the mails, but which even seeks to overthrow not only the treaty in question, but even the government of the United States and the Union itself, which constitutes them one treaty-making and treaty-observing nation. Suppression of the correspondence between parties in that nation with each other in this country and in foreign countries is a measure which is essential to the suppression of the insurrection itself, and to a complete restoration of the functions of the government throughout the Union. I feel sure that the magnanimity of the British government may be relied upon not to complain, at one and the same time, of the breach of our international postal treaty under such circumstances, and of our resort to a measure which is indispensable to complete our ability to fulfil it.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.