Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the reception of despatches from the department, numbered from 243 to 246, both inclusive, and also of two printed [Page 98] circulars dated, respectively, on the 3d and 5th of May, consequent upon the recovery of New Orleans.
I am not aware of any matter contained in these which calls for particular notice, unless it be the injunction upon me to renew my appeals to the government of Great Britain for the revocation of the recognition of belligerent rights, its original false step.
I had little expectation of success, but I felt it my duty at once to execute the orders. So, after the forms in connexion with the slave trade treaty on Tuesday had been completed, I asked the favor of a few minutes’ further conversation on this subject. I alluded to the fact of your reception of my report of our last conference, and to your comments on it which had just reached me. I told him that you thought the course of events, and the decided turn the fortunes of war had taken since the date of that conference, justified you in presuming that some alteration in the views of the government must have ensued. I dwelt somewhat upon the unfavorable impression that act had made on the people of the United States. It was the true root of the bitterness towards Great Britain that was felt there. All the later acts of assistance given here by private persons to the rebels, the knowledge of which tended to keep up the irritation, were viewed only as natural emanations from that fatal source. Every consular report that went, and there were a good many, giving details of ships and supplies and money transmitted to keep up the war, served merely to remind us of the original cause of offence. I did hope then that he would consider, before it should be too late to be useful, the expediency of some action that might tend to soften the asperity thus engendered. I believed that in your urgency you were actuated by a sincere desire to maintain kindly relations between the two countries, and to that end you labored to procure the removal of this unlucky obstruction. I certainly acted in that spirit myself.
His lordship replied by saying that he did not see his way to any change of policy at present. We seemed to be going on so fast ourselves that the question might settle itself before a great while.
I said that I should be sorry to have that result happen before any action had been taken here; for, after it, we should scarcely attach value to what seemed a mere form.
His lordship remarked that the insurrection had certainly been a very formidable one. It embraced a great territory and a numerous population. The very magnitude of the means used to suppress it proved its nature. Under these circumstances the government had sought to remain perfectly neutral. It would lean to neither side. The wishes of the federal authorities had been that it should aid them, which would have been a departure from that line of policy.
To this I replied, that whatever might be the intent of that policy, the practical effect of it had been materially to uphold the rebels. The declaration of it at so early a moment, before the government had had any time to organize its counteracting forces, was a prejudgment of the whole question in their favor. The people of the United States felt as if the putting the two sides on an equality was in the nature of a standing insult to them. And the manifest eagerness of influential parties in Great Britain to expedite all the means necessary to induce the misguided people to persevere in their undertaking was like the continual application of a nettle to flesh already raw.
His lordship then fell back upon the same argument to which he has resorted in his note to me of the 17th instant, in answer to my previous remonstances against these movements, a copy of which goes out with this despatch. He said that large supplies of similar materials had been [Page 99] obtained here on the part of the United States, which had been freely transported and effectively used against the insurgents,
I answered by admitting that at one time a quantity of arms and military stores had been purchased here as a purely commercial transaction for the use of the federal army; but that I had early objected to this practice, for the reason that it prevented me from pressing my remonstrances against a very different class of operations carried on by friends and sympathizers with the rebels in this island, and it had been discontinued. We had, indeed, purchased largely in Austria, but that government had never given any countenance to the insurgents.
His lordship observed that that government had no commercial interests pressing upon it for protection.
Here the conversation ceased. His lordship said that I had fully acquitted myself of my duty, and I took my leave.
There was another topic touched upon prior to the commencement of this one, to which I shall advert in another despatch.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.