Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: Your despatch of the 25th of April (No. 148) has been received.
The progress of the national arms continues so auspiciously as to excite the insurgents to desperation and to require of their abettors in Europe extreme activity and diligence to rescue a cause which, without foreign intervention, seems already lost. You may now assume that the Mississippi in its whole length is restored to the federal authority. Richmond is practically held in close siege by General McClellan. Norfolk, with all the coasts and tributaries of Hampton roads, is cleared of insurrectionary land forces and naval forces. Our navy, already large and effective and daily increasing, is now released from two very arduous and exhausting sieges in which it has been so long engaged, and it is scarcely to be doubted that, with the cooperation of the armies already in the field, every port and every fort on the sea-coast will be recovered within the time that the vessels bringing contributions and auxiliaries will require to complete their voyages from England.
I have expected constantly, since the arrival of the last mail, to be enabled to send out by the steamer which will carry this despatch a proclamation of the President’s, modifying the blockade I still hope to be able to do so. But the President, with the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of War, has been absent from the capital for several days, and they have only just this hour returned from Hampton roads. If I fail to get the paper perfected to-day, I shall still hope to send intelligence of the issue of a proclamation by despatch over the wires to overtake the steamer at Cape Race.
If there be, as we do not doubt there is, a sincere desire on the part of the maritime powers of Europe to see an end of this painful strife, hardly less severe in its injuries to them than to us, it is to be expected that the partial opening of so many of the southern ports will be sufficient to put an end to distrust of our complete and speedy restoration of the American Union.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, &c., &c., &c.