Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: I regret to be obliged to revert to a subject upon which I have already written to you more than once with deep concern, namely, the fitting out of vessels of war in England for the service of the insurgents.
[Page 64]The report now comes to us that one or two iron-clad vessels for that service are ready in England, and that Captain Bullock is there with men to bring them to our shores.
It is notorious that while the government of Great Britain have formally departed from the friendly relations which existed between the two countries before the insurrection began, and have assumed an attitude of neutrality between the belligerents and this government, British subjects have become aiders and abettors of the insurrection in every possible way, and that the arms, ammunition, and military stores of the insurgents are constantly shipped from British ports, and those who bring them are provided in every form with directions and facilities for entering our country in violation of our blockade.
This government entertains no more doubt of the stability of this federal Union than her Majesty’s government do of the stability of the union of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Under such circumstances, the question arises whether the government of Great Britain are actually indifferent upon the subject of the relations which must exist between the two countries. Are they willing that, so long as the insurgents shall be able to protract a hopeless warfare against the peace and happiness of the American people, they shall avail themselves of the aid and sympathy of a sordid class of persons in the British islands, to whom the disturbance of lawful commerce and the subversion of all honest interests of either country are of no value when weighed against their own gains from a hostile and unlawful trade ?
The President does not believe that the British government are consciously tolerating the injurious practices of which I have complained. But I am instructed to ask you once more to bring these complaints to the notice of Earl Russell, in the hope that the time may have at last come when British subjects, deliberately and wickedly engaged as abettors in the existing warfare against the government, may be subjected to some restraint, or at least be made to feel her Majesty’s severe displeasure. The President would not be content without doing all that lies in his power to arrest a growing discontent on the part of the American people, fast ripening into an alienation which would perplex and embarrass the two nations for an indefinite period.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.