Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: Mr. Stuart, in a very courteous manner, verbally expressed to me the opinion of her Majesty’s government, that Major General Butler’s order concerning the females in New Orleans who gave offence to the Union soldiers was an improper one in respect to the expressions employed in it, whatever constructions might be placed upon them, and their hope, therefore, that it might be disapproved.
I answered him that we must ask his government, in reading that proclamation, to adopt a rule of construction which the British nation had elevated to the dignity of a principle and made it the motto of their national arms— “Honi soit qui mal y pense.” That it was not until a gross construction of the order was brought to the knowledge of this government that we saw that the proclamation contained un double entendre. That gross meaning the government of course rejected, and it regretted that in the haste of composition a phraseology which could be mistaken or perverted had been used. I was happy, however, to inform him that all sensibility about the order seemed to have passed away, and no complaints were now heard of any impropriety of conduct on the part of the ladies of New Orleans. I explained also to Mr. Stuart the ground of the sensibility of our army to female discourtesy. Our soldiers are mainly young American citizens of education and respectability. Chivalrous respect to the sex is a national sentiment. Hitherto it has been met by gentle and respectful courtesy by those to whom the homage is so properly paid. It has not been expected “that disloyalty to the common government of both parties would be regarded as a plea for a change of national manners Happily all classes of citizens easily learn to meet the changes which this unhappy civil war brings upon us.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.