Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.
Sir: I have the honor to transmit the resolutions of the city of York, adopted some time since, but not received at this legation until the present week.
On Monday last I presented, in person, the reply to the resolutions of the meeting at Exeter Hall, on the 29th of January last, to Mr. Evans, the chairman of the Emancipation Society, under whose auspices it was held. Since then I have sent the answer to the proceedings of the first meeting at Bradford. The reference to Mr. Forster was omitted, as he seemed rather to prefer that course. The genuine reply, in all the other cases specified in your despatch No. 568, and in the three mentioned in your later despatch No. 577, is now in process of transmission.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
[Page 296]At a meeting of the citizens of the city of York, duly convened and held in the Guildhall of the said city, on Monday, the 23d day of February, 1863, the Right Hon. William Fox Clark, Lord Mayor, in the chair, it was—
Resolved, 1. That this meeting cordially approves of the policy of non-intervention in American affairs pursued by her Majesty’s government, and avows its entire agreement with the sentiment expressed by the Earl of Derby in the House of Lords, that it would be premature to recognize the nationality of the Confederate States, at all events, before the government of Washington shall, by an abandonment of hostilities against them, virtually acknowledge their independence.
2. That this meeting, having in view certain facts brought to light through intercepted despatches and other sources, declares its belief that direct aid and co-operation have been afforded to the Confederate States by their sympathizers in this country, who have negotiated loans, and fitted out and manned vessels of war on their behalf. The meeting, therefore, desires emphatically to protest against such proceeding, as an infringement of the Queen’s proclamation, and as altogether disrespectful and disloyal to the status of England as a neutral power.
3. That this meeting is decidedly of opinion that the conflict now raging between the two sections of the North American republic had its origin in the question of slavery; and that as the object of the southern section is, by the evidence of their own official documents, to establish “a great slaveholding confederacy,” the meeting, entertaining that unmitigated aversion to slavery which has characterized Englishmen in former years, desires to repudiate all sympathy with a state which so avowedly makes slavery the fundamental principle and “corner-stone” of its constitution, and at the same time to express its hearty appreciation of every honest and sincere effort on the part of northern statesmen or citizens to free themselves from the shame and guilt of the system.
4. That this meeting cannot separate without gratefully acknowledging the generous sympathy manifested by the northern Americans towards the suffering population of Lancashire, as proved by the mission of the George Griswold, and without, at the same time, expressing an earnest hope that the present crisis through which the United States are passing may lead to times of peace, freedom, and national advancement in the future.
5. That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the Right Honorable Earl Russell, her Majesty’s secretary of state for foreign affairs, and to the Honorable Charles Francis Adams, representative of the American government in this country.