Inasmuch as the argument of your despatch was drawn up more particularly
to apply to the case of the “Alabama,” I decided upon sending in with my
note only the papers connected with the depredations committed by that
vessel. This left on my hands a number of others occasioned by the
“Florida” not disposed of. I now propose to send those in likewise to
his lordship, with a note in which I mean to take notice of his singular
allusion to “seeming merchant ships,” in the face of the evidence in
those cases, which went so far to strip off all such semblance.
The controversy raised by “Historicus” in the Times appears to be gaining
vigor from the interposition of Messrs. Lindsay and Saunders. As a
general thing, the public appearance of the rebel emissaries proves
injurious rather than beneficial to the rebel cause. Mr. Lamar, who is
on his way home from his fruitless expedition to Russia, obtained, a few
days since, through the interposition of the chairman, Mr. Lindsay, an
opportunity to introduce at an agricultural celebration at Chertsey an
elaborate prelude of a defence of slavery in the south. But it was not
permitted by the former to reach its conclusion, doubtless for reasons
satisfactory to himself. Although doctrines of that kind would find
little serious objection among members of the higher class, they are
extremely repugnant to the convictions of the great body of the people,
educated as they have been to an admiration of the labors of Wilberforce
and Clarkson. Every attempt to modify their views on the abstract
question of slavery has not only failed, but has injured the influence
of the maker.
Hon. William H. Seward,
Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
Mr. Adams to Earl Russell.
Legation of the United
States,
London,
October 23, 1863.
My Lord: It may be within your recollection
that, in the note of the 17th of September, which I had the honor to
address to you in reply to yours of the 14th of the same month,
respecting the claim for the destruction of the ship Nora, and other
claims of the same kind which I had been instructed to make, I
expressed myself desirous to defer to your wishes that they should
not be pressed on the attention of her Majesty’s government, so far
as to be willing to refer the question of the withdrawal of my
existing instructions back for the consideration of my government. I
have now the honor to inform your lordship of the result of that
application.
After a careful resurvey of all the facts connected with the outfit
and late proceedings of the gunboat No. 290, now known as the war
steamer Alabama, I regret to report to you that the government of
the United States finds itself wholly unable to abandon the position
heretofore taken on that subject.
The reasons for this conclusion have been so often explained in the
correspondence which I have heretofore had the honor to hold with
your lordship touching this case, that I shall endeavor to confine
myself to a brief recapitulation.
The United States understand that they are at peace with Great
Britain. That peace is furthermore secured by treaties, which oblige
both parties to refrain and to restrain their subjects from making
war against each other.
They greatly regret to be compelled to admit the fact that the vessel
known first as the gunboat No. 290, and now as the Alabama; is
roving over the seas, capturing, burning, sinking, and destroying
American vessels, without lawful authority from any source
recognized by international law, and in open defiance of all
judicial tribunals established by the common consent of civilized
nations as a restraint upon such a piratical mode of warfare.
That this vessel was built with the intent to make war against the
United States, by British subjects, in a British port, and that she
was prepared there to be armed and equipped with a specific armament
adapted to her construction, for the very purpose she is now
pursuing, does not appear to them to admit of dispute.
That this armament and equipment, adapted to this ship and no other,
were simultaneously prepared by British subjects, in a British port,
with the intent to complete her preparation for her career, seems
equally clear. Furthermore, it is sufficiently established that,
when this vessel was ready, and her armament and equipment were
equally ready, she was clandestinely sent, by the contrivance of her
British holders, and the armament and equipment were at the same
time clandestinely sent, through the connivance of the same or other
British subjects, who prepared them to a common point outside of
British waters, and there the armament and equipment of this vessel
as a war ship were completed.
This war ship thus deriving all its powers to do mischief from
British sources, manned by a crew of British subjects, enlisted in
and proceeding from a British port, then went forth on her work to
burn and destroy the property of the people of the United States, in
fraud of the laws of Great Britain, and in violation of the peace
and sovereignty of the United States. From the earliest to the
latest day of her career she does not appear to have gained any
other national character on the ocean than that which belonged to
her in her origin.
From a review of all these circumstances, essential to a right
judgment of the question, the government of the United States
understand that the purpose of the building, armament, equipment,
and expedition of this vessel carried with it one single criminal
intent, running equally through all the portions of this
preparation, fully complete and executed when the gunboat No. 290
assumed [Page XXX] the name of the
Alabama; and that this intent brought the whole transaction, in all
its several parts here recited, within the lawful jurisdiction of
Great Britain, where the main portions of the crime were planned and
executed.
Furthermore, the United States are compelled to assume that they gave
due and sufficient previous notice to her Majesty’s government that
this criminal enterprise was began and in regular process of
execution, through the agencies herein decribed, in one of her
Majesty’s ports. They cannot resist the conclusion that the
government was then bound by treaty obligations, and by the law of
nations, to prevent the execution of it. Had it acted with the
promptness and energy required by the emergency, they cannot but
feel assured that the whole scheme must have been frustrated. The
United States are ready to admit that it did not act so far as to
acknowledge the propriety of detaining this vessel, for the reasons
assigned; but they are constrained to object that valuable time was
lost in delays, and that the effort, when attempted, was too soon
abandoned. They cannot consider the justice of their claim for
reparation liable to be affected by any circumstances connected with
the mere forms of proceeding, on the part of Great Britain, which
are exclusively within her own control.
Upon these principles of law, and these assumptions of fact, resting
upon the evidence in the case, I am instructed to say that my
government must continue to insist that Great Britain has made
itself responsible for the damages which the peaceful, law-abiding
citizens of the United States sustain by the depredations of the
vessel called the Alabama.
In repeating this conclusion, however, it is not to be understood
that the United States incline to act dogmatically, or in a spirit
of litigation. They desire to maintain amity as well as peace. They
fully comprehend how unavoidably reciprocal grievances must spring
up from the divergence in the policy of the two countries in regard
to the present insurrection. They cannot but appreciate the
difficulties under which her Majesty’s government is laboring, from
the pressure of interests and combinations of British subjects
apparently bent upon compromising, by their unlawful acts, the
neutrality which her Majesty has proclaimed, and desires to
preserve, even to the extent of involving the two nations in the
horrors of a maritime war. For these reasons I am instructed to say
that they frankly confess themselves unwilling to regard the present
hour as the most favorable to a calm and candid examination, by
either party, of the facts or the principles involved in cases like
the one now in question. Though indulging a firm conviction of the
correctness of their position in regard to this and other claims,
they declare themselves disposed at all times, hereafter as well as
now, to consider in the fullest manner all the evidence and the
arguments which her Majesty’s government may incline to proffer in
refutation of it; and in case of an impossibility to arrive at any
common conclusion, I am directed to say that there is no fair and
equitable form of conventional arbitrament or reference to which
they will not be willing to submit.
Entertaining these views, I crave permission to apprise your lordship
that I have received directions to continue to present to your
notice claims of the character heretofore advanced, whenever they
arise, and to furnish the evidence on which they rest, as is
customary in such cases, in order to guard against possible ultimate
failure of justice from the absence of it.
In accordance with these instructions, I now do myself the honor to
transmit the papers accompanying the cases heretofore withheld
pending the reception of later information.
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 Hon. Earl Russell,
&c., &c., &c.
Earl Russell to Mr. Adams.
Foreign Office,
October 26, 1863.
Sir: I have had the honor to receive your
letter of the 23d instant. In that letter you inform me that you are
instructed to say that the government of the United States must
continue to insist that Great Britain has made itself responsible
for the damages which the citizens of the United States sustain by
the depredations of the vessel called the Alabama. But towards the
conclusion of your letter you state that the government of the
United States are not disposed to act dogmatically, or in a spirit
of litigation; that they desire to maintain amity as well as peace;
that they fully comprehend how unavoidably reciprocal grievances
must grow, up from the divergence of the policy of the two countries
in regard to the present insurrection. You add further, that the
United States frankly confess themselves unwilling to regard the
present hour as the most favorable to a calm and candid examination
by either party of the facts or the principles involved in cases
like the one now in question. With this declaration her Majesty’s
government may well be content to await the time when a calm and
candid examination of the facts and principles involved in the case
of the Alabama may, in the opinion of the government of the United
States, usefully be undertaken.
In the mean time I must request you to believe that the principle
contended for by her Majesty’s government is not that of
commissioning, equipping, and manning vessels in our ports to cruise
against either of the belligerent parties— a principle which was so
justly and unequivocally condemned by the President of the United
States in 1793, as recorded by Mr. Jefferson in his letter to Mr.
Hammond of the 15th of May of that year. But the British government
must decline to be responsible for the acts of parties who fit out a
seeming merchant ship, send her to a port or to waters far from the
jurisdiction of British courts, and there commission, equip, and man
her as a vessel-of-war.
Her Majesty’s government fear that if an admitted principle were thus
made elastic to suit a particular case, the trade of ship-building,
in which our people excel, and which is to great numbers of them a
source of honest livelihood, would be seriously embarrassed and
impeded. I may add, that it appears strange that, notwithstanding
the large and powerful naval force possessed by the government of
the United States, no efficient measures have been taken by that
government to capture the Alabama.
On our part I must declare that to perform the duties of neutrality
fairly and impartially, and at the same time to maintain the spirit
of British law, and protect the lawful industry of the Queen’s
subjects, is the object of her Majesty’s government, and they trust
that the government of the United States will recognize their
earnest desire to preserve, in the difficult circumstances of the
present time, the relations of amity between the two nations.
I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your
most obedient, humble servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.
