Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.
Sir: I have now received the missing despatches of last week (No. 360 and 361) and likewise despatches numbered from 365 to 368, inclusive.
The books referred to in No. 365, of the 7th of October, have likewise arrived in safety.
Immediately after the reception of your No. 360, of the 30th of September, I applied to Lord Russell for an interview, which I obtained this morning at half-past ten o’clock. I then stated to his lordship the substance of your communication so far as was necessary to put him in a position to reply to the preliminary inquiry whether his government was disposed to negotiate about it at all. He replied in the negative. I gathered from what he said that the whole matter had been under consideration with the ministers for some time back, and that the Duke of Newcastle had had much correspondence with the authorities in the West India colonies about it. The conclusion had been that on the whole it might be the means of entangling them in some way or other with the difficulties in the United States by possible reclamations of fugitives or in some other way, or danger which they were most desirous to avoid. Hence they should not be inclined to enter upon negotiations, and least of all to adopt the form of a convention.
I explained the reasons why we had wished to take this course, our object simply being to secure for those persons voluntarily disposed to emigrate (and we did not mean to include any others) the enjoyment of the rights to which they would be justly entitled as colonists. His lordship seemed so to understand it. But he remarked that some time ago an agent had been sent from the West Indies to the United States to see if sufficient inducements could be held out to the free negroes to emigrate, but he had found them so comfortable and earning so much higher a rate of wages than could be obtained at the place he came from that any transfer of them seemed out of the question.
I then referred to an application that had been made to me by a private individual here by the name of Davis, styling himself the representative of much landed property in the island of Jamaica, to obtain as many as five thousand families, to whom he would be ready to assign lands if the expense of transportation could be paid for. I had answered the gentleman by referring him to my own government, and that only after he should have made his own aware of his object and ready to approve it. His lordship said he supposed that the grant of land would be only in consideration of labor. He thought it very likely that many of these people might ultimately find their way over from the United States, but he did not consider it expedient just now to make any provision [Page 228] about it. He expressed a little surprise that Hayti had not been preferred. I observed that efforts had been made in that direction, and some emigrants had actually gone, but the negroes were sluggish to move, and they were deterred by the difference of language and habits. I had always thought that fewer obstacles would be found to removal to the English islands than to any other after it should once be set agoing. His lordship admitted it as very possible, at least to those of them where there was a sensible deficiency of labor. But the rate of wages, though rising, was still quite low.
Under these circumstances, I remarked that it seemed of no use for me to press the point further. I should, accordingly, make report of his lordship’s answer as definitively closing the matter.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.