Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-eighth Congress, Part I
Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.
Sir: I have the honor to transmit copies of further correspondence with Lord Russell, being the sequel of the discussion of the case of the gunboat No. 290. I shall now await the instructions of the government which I, by this time, presume to be on their way to me.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
[Enclosures.]
1. Lord Russell to Mr. Adams, January 24, 1863.
2. Mr. Adams to Lord Russell, January 26, 1863.
[Page 104]Earl Russell to Mr. Adams.
Sir: It is impossible for me to leave without notice some of the statements contained in your letter of the 30th ultimo.
These statements contain or imply a grave charge against her Majesty’s government. You speak of the “admitted fact of a violation of a statute of this kingdom intended to prevent ill-disposed persons from involving it in difficulty by committing wanton and injurious assaults upon foreign nations with which it is at peace, of which her Majesty’s ministers are invited to take cognizance, of which they do take cognizance so far as to prepare measures of prevention; but which, by reason of circumstances wholly within their own control, they do not prevent in season to save the justly complaining party from serious injury; in the substantial points of the case little room seems left open for discussion.”
On the substantial points of the case, as stated by you, there is, on the contrary, great room left open for discussion.
I must ask, first, what are the circumstances within the control of the government to which you allude? Do you mean that her Majesty’s government, in construing a penal statute or in carrying into effect the provisions of a penal statute, were to hurry at once to a decision, and to seize a ship building and fitting out at Liverpool without being satisfied by evidence that the provisions of the foreign enlistment act had been violated in the case of such vessel? Do you mean that her Majesty’s government were to dispense with proof, and to inflict injury upon the Queen’s subjects by seizing a ship upon your mere assertion that the owners of that ship were violating the law?
If such is your meaning, I must reply that the government of this country respect the law. They do not seize upon property to the loss and damage of its owners without proof that they are legally entitled to do so.
Perhaps your meaning is that her Majesty’s government should have proceeded on the opinion of Mr. Collier, without awaiting for other authority.
But here again I must reply that the usage of this country requires that the government should consult their own legal advisers, and obtain the opinion of the law officers of the crown before they proceed to enforce a penal statute.
If you mean to contend, therefore, that a nation in a state of profound peace should set aside the formalities of law and act at once upon presumptions and surmises, I entirely differ from you. I may remind you that the evidence sufficient to satisfy a court of law as to the “equipment” or “fitting out” of a vessel for warlike purposes, and of its actual destination, is not attainable without difficulty.
If you mean that her Majesty’s government wilfully delayed or neglected the measures by which the character of the Alabama could have been legally ascertained, I must give a positive and complete denial of the truth of any such assertion. The opinion of the law officers, until the receipt of which her Majesty’s government could not act, was delivered at the foreign office on the 29th of July, but in the morning of that day the Alabama, under pretext of a pleasure excursion, escaped from Liverpool.
With regard to the very different circumstances of 1793 and 1794, those circumstances are recorded in history. It is notorious that Monsieur Genet, the French minister to the United States, fitted out privateers in the ports of the United States; that he boasted in his despatches of the captures of British vessels which those privateers had made, and that he procured a sham condemnation of those captured vessels in neutral ports. It is notorious, also, that he endeavored to make the United States the basis of his operations and of [Page 105] attempts to raise rebellions against England in Canada, and against Spain in Louisiana.
According to your own account the United States purposely delayed to give any redress to the complaints made by the British government of the captures of British merchant vessels, because they felt unwilling to act on a policy of repression till they had given due notice of the construction they put upon a treaty offensive and defensive with France, which had been quoted in defence of the depredations committed on British commerce.
It is evident that by so acting the United States government deliberately made themselves parties in the interval to the proceedings carried on in their own ports, and the same government, with the sense of justice which distinguished them, made compensation afterwards for the injuries inflicted under cover and protection of their own flag, and promised to exclude French privateers “from all further asylum in” their “ports.”
In Mr. Jefferson’s letter, quoted by you, he says: “Having for particular reasons forborne to use all the means in our power for the restitution,” &c. * * Here is the inquiry stated, and here are the grounds why it was permitted.
But the British government have given no asylum to belligerent privateers bringing prizes into British ports. They have no particular reasons to allege; they have not foreborne to use all the means in their power; they have used all the means they could use consistently with the law of the land, and by no fault of theirs have those means in a single instance proved inefficacious. There was no want of a statute to enforce, nor of a will to enforce it; evidence was wanting and an authority to decide upon that evidence till it was too late. But her Majesty’s government cannot promise the United States to act without evidence, nor to disregard the legal authority of their own law officers.
As to other points, we are nearly agreed so far as the law of nations is concerned. But with respect to the statement in your note that large supplies of various kinds have been sent from this country by private speculators for the use of the confederates, I have to observe that that statement is only a repetition in detail of a part of the assertion, made in my previous letter of the 19th ultimo, that both parties in the civil war have to the extent of their wants and means induced British subjects to violate the Queen’s proclamation of the 13th of May, 1861, which forbids her subjects from affording such supplies to either party.
It is, no doubt, true that a neutral may furnish as a matter of trade supplies of arms and warlike stores impartially to both belligerents in a war, and it was not on the ground that such acts were at variance with the law of nations that the remark was made in the former note. But the Queen having issued a proclamation forbidding her subjects to afford such supplies to either party in the civil war, her Majesty’s government are entitled to complain of both parties for having induced her Majesty’s subjects to violate that proclamation, and their complaint applies most to the government of the United States, because it is by that government that by far the greatest amount of such supplies have been ordered and procured.
I do not propose to discuss other collateral topics which have been introduced, but, in explanation of my former letter, I must say that I never meant to accuse you of giving any encouragement to the enlistment of British subjects in this country to serve in the civil war unhappily prevailing in the United States.
But it is notorious that large bounties have been offered and given to British subjects residing in the United States to engage in the war on the federal side, and these British subjects, acting in defiance of the laws of their country and of the Queen’s proclamation, have been encouraged by the United States government so to act.
A recent and striking example of the open avowal of this course of conduct on the part of the United States government is to be found in the correspondence [Page 106] between Mr. Seward and Mr. Stewart with reference to the crew of the Sunbeam, in which, although it does not appear that any bounties were offered, Mr. Seward has treated an endeavor to induce British sailors to enlist in the belligerent service of the United States as affording no grounds of complaint to her Majesty’s government,
I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient humble servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.
Mr. Adams to Earl Russell.
My Lord: I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of your lordship’s note of the 24th instant, in reply to some portions of mine of the 30th of last month, respecting the case of the outfit from Liverpool of the gunboat No. 290, to depredate on the commerce of the United States.
Your lordship is pleased to raise a discussion on the following statement made by me. I quote the paragraph as it stands in your note:
“The admitted fact of a violation of a statute of this kingdom, intended to prevent ill-disposed persons from involving it in difficulty by committing wanton and injurious assaults upon foreign nations with which it is at peace, of which her Majesty’s ministers are invited (by a party injured) to take cognizance, of which they do take cognizance, so far as to prepare measures of prevention, but which, by reason of circumstances wholly within their own control, they do not prevent in season to save the justly-complaining party from serious injury. On the substantial point of the case little room seems left open for discussion.”
Out of my profound respect for your lordship’s representation, I have reviewed the whole of this paragraph with the utmost care. I am compelled now to confess that I can perceive no ambiguity in the meaning sufficient to justify any of the implications which your lordship appears to desire to raise from it. Starting from a point of moral obligation (in my view as strong between nations as it is between individuals) that injuries inflicted on an innocent party (of which, if not prevented, it has a right to complain, provided that it give notice in time seasonable for the application of adequate means of prevention) should be, so far as practicable, repaired or compensated for by the party that does the wrong, or suffers it to be done by persons under its control, I have applied the general principle to the case before me. The fact that warning had been given in full season to prevent the departure of No. 290 does not depend upon my statement, inasmuch as it is simply a question of dates, open to the inspection of all men. The fact that her Majesty’s government were convinced of the justice of the representation made, is patent from the determination to which your lordship admits that they ultimately came to detain the vessel. The fact that this decision was so long delayed as to fail in effecting the object intended, whereby great injury has been actually done, and is yet likely to ensue, to the commerce of the United States, is equally a question purely of dates. Inasmuch as these constitute the substance of the paragraph of my note, to which exception is taken, I must confess myself wholly at a loss to perceive upon what ground any doubt can further be raised about it.
But your lordship proceeds to do me the honor to address a series of questions to me as to possible meanings that may be conveyed in my language, [Page 107] which might imply, from the failure to act of her Majesty’s government, motives of some kind or other that I have not distinctly expressed. I must respectfully ask to be excused from entering into any such field of controversy. I desire neither to make charges, nor to raise implications of an unnecessary nature to complicate the difficulties of this painful subject. All that I deem it my duty to know is, that a grievous wrong has been done to an innocent and friendly nation, by what seems to me to have been a most unfortunate delay in effecting a prevention, that later experience conclusively shows ought to have been applied in time. Of the reasons that prevented such an application, inasmuch as none of them could have grown out of the course of the injured party, I have no wish to enter into a discussion. The principle of justice is not merely that right should be done, but that it should be done sufficiently prompt to effect its object. Otherwise it is justice denied. Upon that I am content to rely.
As it is probable that I may receive, at an early moment, further instructions from my government in respect to the substantial points involved in the present correspondence, I deem it unadvisable further to take up your lordship’s time by enlarging the limits of the discussion of purely incidental questions. I desire to express my obligation to you for the ready and full manner in which your lordship has exonerated me from the suspicion of encouraging the enlistment of her Majesty’s subjects in the service of the United States. At the same time it is not without regret that I perceive the charge still persevered in against the government of the United States. If I understand your lordship aright, it is now affirmed that because the government offers large bounties on enlistment in the United States, and because British subjects in the United States, tempted by these bounties, do occasionally enlist, therefore your lordship is justified in having affirmed in your former note that the government of the United States, systematically and in disregard of the comity of nations, induce them to enlist. As well might I in my turn, in view of the frequent applications made to me to procure the discharge of citizens of the United States who have been tempted in the same manner to enlist in her Majesty’s service in this kingdom, assume the existence of a similar policy. Further than the presence of a general offer, I do not perceive that your lordship’s reference to the action of Mr. Seward, of which I am not in a situation to speak authoritatively, appears to extend. Further than this, I must still continue to disclaim the belief in the existence of any systematic policy, as well in one case as in the other.
I pray your lordship to accept the assurances of the highest consideration with which I have the honor to be, my lord, your most obedient servant,
Right Honorable Earl Russell, &c., &c., &c.