Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: Your despatch of November 20 (No. 262) is received. The President is content that you shall exercise your discretion as to the manner of presenting the claims growing out of the depredations of the “290,” with which you are charged, and he authorizes me, therefore, to approve the note addressed by you to Earl Russell which accompanied your despatch.
You have rightly judged that it is no part of the purpose of this government to harass that of Great Britain by impatient demands for the immediate adjustment of the claims for pecuniary reparation. The purpose first is, prevention of similar injuries hereafter. It is clear that there will soon be no commerce left to the United States if the transaction of the “290” is to be repeated and reiterated without check and with impunity.
It ought not to be doubted in Great Britain that a people who are only second in commerce to the British nation itself cannot quietly consent to a wrongful strangulation of their foreign trade.
Notices have already been received at this department of the intention of some foreign powers to demand redress and reparation for commercial depredations on innocent foreigners which have been committed by the insurgents, although they were committed by citizens who were, at the time, in a state of actual armed insurrection and defiant hostility against the federal authority. Beyond doubt we should have no sufficient answer to such claims if we had tolerated or excused, or faded to put forth all the efforts of the government to prevent the acts of piracy complained of. How does the case of the “290” differ from what, under other circumstances, would be our own? Great Britain is mistress in her own ports and waters. We cannot enter those ports and waters with armed force. Insomuch as steam can only be successfully employed [Page 17] against steam in war, her rigorous and almost absolute exclusion of our navy from her ports and waters deprives us of the power to watch for and seize, upon their appearance in the open sea, the steam war vessels which her own subjects build, equip, and despatch from her own ports, virtually, though undesignedly, under the protection of her own government. It seems to the President an incontestable, principle, that whatever injury is committed by the subjects of Great Britain upon citizens of the United States, either within the British dominions or upon the high, seas, in expeditions thus proceeding from British ports and posts, ought to be redressed by her Majesty’s government, unless they shall be excused from liability upon the ground that the government had made all reasonable efforts to prevent the injury from being inflicted. If it shall appear in the sequel that the government did make all such reasonable efforts in the case of the “290,” still this will not meet the case of other and future depredations in expeditions which, as it is now publicly known, are being prepared in Great Britain. There would seem to be no answer in such future cases, except that there is no obligation on the part of Great Britain to put forth efforts adequate to the prevention of such unlawful proceedings against friendly nations. Such a principle, generally accepted by nations, would be followed by universal piracy, and commercial states would be required thereafter to conduct their exchanges upon the ocean by the employment of armed vessels or convoys. The President feels himself all the more at liberty to insist upon such measures of prevention, because, first, a license to such transaction would be, while it should continue, only less injurious to Great Britain than to the United States, the safest possible commerce between the two nations being equally important to both of them. Secondly, because it is manifestly the interest of all commercial nations that wars, whether civil or international, shall be closely confined to the parties who have voluntarily or necessarily engaged in them. This government is aware that it is said, that although the “290” was despatched from a British port, yet she was, nevertheless not armed, equipped, and manned within the port. But the fact is undisputed that she issued from the port and proceeded, by pre-concert, to a convenient station, and that there she received her crew, her equipment, and her arms, all of which were sent out to her by the same British subjects who built and despatched her. In criminal law an illegal transaction, as it is none the less injurious, so it is none the less illegal, because its preparation is broken up into parts and effected in several places instead of one. Such subdivision being adopted simply with a view to evade the law is fraudulent in itself, and an aggravation rather than an extenuation of the offence.
With these explanations of the views of the President, which you may use or refrain from using in your negotiations as you deem expedient, I leave the affair for the present in your own able hands.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.