Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: It is thought expedient that the most direct and energetic measures should be adopted to arrest by judicial proceedings the clearance and departure of the hostile vessels which are being built, equipped, and manned in the ports of Great Britain. You will therefore sanction and authorize such prosecutions whenever, upon legal advice, it shall seem expedient.
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This government has heard with surprise and regret that a loan has been made in London to the insurgents, with conditions of security and payment openly hostile to the United States, and it has good reason for assuming that most or all of the moneys thus loaned are paid to British subjects residing In Great Britain for advances in money, labor, arms, military stores, and supplies [Page 244] used in the fitting out of those hostile expeditions, in violation of the Queen’s proclamation and of the enlistment acts of Great Britain, as well as of treaties and the law of nations. The President does not for a moment believe that her Majesty’s government have lent or will lend any sanction or approval to these proceedings of her Majesty’s subjects; but he regrets that he is unable to perceive that any part of those transactions, so inimical to the United States, and apparently so universally known in Great Britain, have arrested the attention of her Majesty’s government, or encountered any opposition, or even any manifestation of its disapprobation or censure,
The loan made by European capitalists is a direct engagement with the armed insurgents who have assumed to control, supply, and deliver cotton for the reimbursement of the money advanced, with interest. You will give notice to Earl Russell that this transaction necessarily brings to an end all concessions, of whatever form, that have been made by this government for mitigating or alleviating the rigor of the blockade in regard to the shipment of cotton and tobacco. Nor will any title of any person, whether citizen of the United States or subject of a foreign power, to any cotton or merchandise, which title is derived. from or through any pretended insurgent authority or other agency hostile to the United States, be respected by this government.
It would be to evince a want of frankness and good faith if we should fail to inform Great Britain that in this country the proceedings to which I have referred have come to be regarded, equally by the people and the government, as tending to complicate the relations between the two countries in such a manner as to render it difficult, if not altogether impossible, to maintain and preserve friendship between them; a result which the President believes is as far from being desired by Great Britain as it is from being the policy or the wish of the United States. After the resort to the courts of the United Kingdom which the President has specially authorized as a sequel to the applications and remonstrances which you have made, thus far without any effective result, this government is not now aware of any other measures remaining within its power to arrest the tendency I have described and to avert the calamities I have deprecated. If it be in the power of the British government to suggest anything further that it may be thought possible and proper for the United States to do with that view, the suggestion will be received and considered with the utmost candor and respect.
You will, in such manner as shall seem most proper, bring these views to the knowledge of her Majesty’s government.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.