Mr. Seward to Mr. Adapts.
Sir: Your despatch of the 24th of April, 1863, (No. 392,) has been received. I have read with care and, as I think, with candor, its accompaniment, the note which Earl Russell addressed to you on the 24th of April last on the subject of reputed acts of enlistment for our military forces in Ireland, as well as your reply to that communication.
We have indeed observed here a remarkable increase of immigration, especially of immigration from Ireland. But you are entirely correct as well as truthful in the declarations you have made—that not one person has been enlisted, directly or indirectly, in Ireland, or in any foreign country, by any agent or under any authority or with any knowledge of this government. You have assigned some of the causes of this immigration. The enlistment and conscription of men into the loyal and devoted armies of the country; the inducements to military ambition, with the increase of military spirit in the country, which is continually rendering the soldier’s career more attractive; the growth of national spirit, with an increase of confidence in the cause of the Union, and, of course, an increase of patriotic devotion to it, all the while urging citizens to abandon the pursuits of civil life; the greater publicity of the contest in foreign countries, and the increased favor felt toward it there as its true character comes to be understood; a marked advance in the prices of labor and skill, consequent upon a condition of industrial activity in agriculture and in the mechanical and manufacturing departments which has hitherto been unknown; the advantages offered to the poor of every land by the homestead law—all these are probably beginning to be felt in Europe. There is yet another material cause: gold and silver have to some extent become demonetized here, and been replaced by a [Page 292] national currency which is satisfactory to the masses of the people. The rewards of labor paid in this currency are increased, without being balanced as yet by a corresponding increase of hiring of labor abroad, while the cost of subsistence here is not equally enhanced. You are authorized to communicate to Earl Russell so much of the information furnished you by this despatch as you may think it will be useful that her Majesty’s government should have. And in every case you will counteract and deny, in a courteous manner, but with decision and earnestness, all allegations to the effect that we are enlisting soldiers in Ireland, Great Britain, or in any other foreign country.
I trust that the expositions of opinion abroad would justify us in hoping that this new result in Europe of our deplorable strife is likely to induce there the reflection that this civil war has no tenacity of life, except what is derived from the support and sympathy extended to it by prejudiced or misguided parties in foreign countries, whose prosperity and welfare this government not only has no desire to disturb, but really seeks to promote through as speedy return to domestic peace as can be made with safety to the national existence.
The United States, by fostering slavery here, with the tacit concurrence of foreign states for fifty years, have created a system of international industry beneficial to European countries. It is hardly to be expected that when that policy is all at once arrested and abandoned here, at the cost of a fearful civil war, all the painful results of so sudden and violent a change will be confined to this country, and that the European states will not be obliged to conform their own social industry in some respects to the altered condition of affairs.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.