Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: I have had the honor to lay before the President of the United States resolutions, addresses, and other proceedings of popular meetings which have been held at various places in Great Britain, in compliance with the request of those assemblies, communicated in your correspondence with this department. These proceedings are distinguished, in every case, by an earnest desire that peace may now and forever be preserved between the United States and Great Britain; that the union of this country, which is the bulwark of its safety, may be maintained; and especially that it may not be overthrown so as to give room for a new nation to be founded on the corner-stone of human slavery.
The justice of these sentiments, as well as the confidence in the President which is expressed in the proceedings, would entitle the subjects of Great Britain who constituted these meetings to a special, grateful, and fervent acknowledgment on his part. His sentiments in regard to the subjects discussed in those proceedings have, however, been fully expressed in replies which have been made to the workingmen of Manchester, to the citizens of London who were assembled at Exeter Hall on the evening of the 29th of January last, and to the citizens of Bradford. Instead of reiterating the expression of those sentiments in special addresses to so many distinct communities, I have the honor to ask you to make one general acknowledgment, in the spirit of the aforementioned replies, to the citizens who have addressed the President from the following places, namely: Sheffield, Chesterfield, Crosshills, Salford, Cobham, Tower Hamlets, Bristol, Stroud, Glasgow, London, (special meeting of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society of the 19th January,) Galashiels, Bath, Bromley, South London or Southwark, the borough of Leeds, Middleton, in Lancashire; Aberdare, in South Wales; Aberdare, (second meeting,) Oldham, Rawtenstall, Luddenden Foot, Paisley, Edinburg, Carlisle, Birmingham, Merthyr-Tydfil, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Liverpool, Huddersfield, Ashford, in Kent; Ashton-under-Lyne, Manchester, (Union and Emancipation Society,) Mossley, Leeds, Cirencester, Bolton, Southampton, Newark-upon-Trent, London, (Trades Union,) Bradford, (second meeting,) Great Horton, Woolwich, in Kent, and Bingley, in Yorkshire.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.