Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: Your despatch of October 3 (No. 230) has been received. Your proceeding in presenting to her Majesty’s government a remonstrance against the practices of British subjects in arming and fitting out privateers to depredate on American commerce is approved by the President. The language [Page 214] and the effect of your remonstrance are equally satisfactory. When at the close of the last session of Congress it was proposed here to issue letters of marque for the protection of our commerce against such depredations by the insurgents, the proposition was relinquished on the ground that they had no ports here within control from which piratical cruisers could be sent out, and it was not apprehended that the shores of Great Britain would be suffered to be used by them for a base of operations. Yet we now see a piratical vessel built, manned, armed, equipped, and despatched from a British port, and roaming at large on the seas, without ever touching the American shores, destroying American merchantmen as if there were no treaties between Great Britain and the United States, while entrance into British ports for coals and other supplies is denied to our national armed vessels under a proclamation of neutrality. This is one of the lamentable fruits of the policy which Great Britain adopted at the beginning of the war, without previous consultation with the United States, and has persisted in ever since in opposition to their earnest and persevering remonstrances. Our agents are reporting to us new and larger military and naval preparations in British ports, and if they are to be allowed to go on to their conclusion, and to operate, as has been done in the case of the 290, will not the result be that, while Great Britain avows neutrality, her subjects are practically allies of the internal enemies of the United States? The President will not consent to believe that her Britannic Majesty’s government would willingly allow a condition of affairs to occur which would seem to leave to the United States almost no hope of remaining at peace with Great Britain without sacrifices for which no peace could ever compensate.
The Secretary of the Navy is adopting all possible means to meet the new exigency which has occurred.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.