Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.

No. 102.]

Sir: I have now received copies of all the papers connected with the affair of the Trent. The result is in the highest degree satisfactory.

I need not add my testimony to the general tribute of admiration of the skilful manner in which the various difficulties and complications attending this unfortunate business have been met or avoided. Thus far, in spite of all efforts sedulously made to the contrary, the effect on public opinion has been favorable.

The publication of the foreign correspondence during the past season, as well as of the latest despatches, has materially corrected the old notion of determined hostility on your part to Great Britain, which has been used so mischievously for months past. On the whole, I think, I may say with confidence that matters look better. Last Saturday I called, at the request of Lord Russell, at the foreign office, when his lordship read to me the despatch which he was then on the point of sending off to Lord Lyons. We thereupon exchanged congratulations on the complete restoration of friendly relations between the two countries.

Since that time not only the correspondence already published in America has been printed by authority in the London Gazette, but the later papers written on this side, including the very last, being that which was read to me. You will doubtless notice with some curiosity the earlier one, being Lord Russell’s note of the substance of the conversation held with me on the 19th ultimo, at the time I read to him your confidential despatch to me of the 30th of November. The circumstances attending that affair have given rise to so much speculation, both here and on the continent, and have led to such sharp controversy in the London newspapers, that it may be advisable that the government should understand them correctly. Considering the paper as confidential, of course I took good care that no knowledge of its substance or of the substance of the conference should be extended beyond the limits of this legation. Yet the fact is certain that on the strength of an impression of the occurrence of some such event the funds rose one per cent. on the very next day.

So general was the idea that the Morning Post, a paper considered here, and not without reason, as deriving information from high sources, thought proper to notice the rumor on the 21st December, and deliberately to affirm [Page 15] that though a despatch had indeed been communicated, yet that it had reference to other unimportant matters, and in no way related to the difficulty about the Trent. Some days later, however, in a summary of the events relating to that case published in the Observer, a weekly paper published on Sunday morning, supposed also to be now and then supplied with authentic information, I noticed at the conclusion a tolerably correct version of the substance of that despatch. After the appearance of that, I had no hesitation in disclosing to persons with whom I conversed my knowledge of its correctness. It was, then, with no little surprise that they perceived last week, when intelligence was received from America of the existence of such a paper, a formal denial in the Post that any such paper had ever been communicated to the British government. No longer able to deny the existence of it, the next step was to affirm that I must have suppressed it. And, not satisfied with that, the same press went on to supply a motive for doing so, in the fact that certain American parties had about the same time appeared in the market buying up stock, which was the cause of the rise in the funds already alluded to. Of course the insinuation was that I was engaged in a heavy stockjobbing operation for my own benefit and that of my friends. The motive for this concoction of a series of falsehoods which were inevitably to be exposed in a very short space of time, seemed difficult to divine. The explanation came almost on the heels of the charge. Lord Russell’s note to Lord Lyons of the 19th of December gave his version of the conversation held on that day. The case was clear to all eyes. But to this day the Post has made no retraction of its statement, has not assigned the smallest justification for making them, neither has it disclaimed the authority upon which they are imputed to have been made. So great has been the effect of these disclosures in inspiring a belief that there was an intention somewhere to bring on a war, that it is not impossible it may be made the basis of some proceedings at the approaching session of Parliament.

You will doubtless also perceive that Lord Russell’s note of our conversation on the 19th differs in some particulars from that which I had the honor to submit to you in my despatch of the 20th of December, No. 93. The reason of this is to be traced to the distinction which his lordship voluntarily drew between my official and unofficial character at the outset. I understood him as intending to answer my two questions only in my private capacity, as a person desirous of making my own arrangements in certain contingencies. For that reason I did not consider the part of the conversation relating to them as needing to be reported. The other portion of his note, touching the substance of your despatch, substantially agrees with mine. The casual opinions expressed about the policy of the respective countries were not regarded by me as part of the official language, though I have not the least objection to their publication. Whilst his lordship was about it he might as well have inserted his reply to my reference to the part taken by the government of Great Britain in the negotiation of 1804-‘09, which was in substance that there were many things said and done by them fifty or sixty years ago which he might not undertake to enter into a defence of now—all which was said pleasantly on both sides, without an idea that the official conference was not closed. Yet so difficult is it to retain in the memory a distinct line between formal and casual conversation that I have no disposition in any way to call in question his report, which, so far as it goes, is undeniably more accurate than my own. What I have here written about it is to account to you for what might otherwise appear an omission of duty on my part.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Hon. William H. Seward,Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.