Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: Your despatch of October 29 (No. 526) has been received. I thank you for the newspaper debates which you have furnished me on the subject of the armed naval expeditions prepared in British ports.
I think you have rightly derived the existing embarrassments of the British government in regard to our affairs from the one cause—the error of investing the insurgents with a belligerent character.
The latest incidents disclose that the insurgents, so long tolerated and practically cherished within the realm, have at last, by natural consequence, had the hardihood to organize in the British provinces, adjacent to our ports, with design for a border campaign. It seems surprising that they have not earlier made this attempt. The Canadian authorities, desirous of peace and beneficial commerce with us, have not been slow to discover the duties devolved upon them by comity and international law, and they have acted promptly and effectively in fulfilling those obligations. Her Majesty’s government cannot fail, I think, to approve of this course, because it is conservative of their trans-Atlantic empire. It seems to me, also, that they cannot easily undervalue the good faith and candor of this government in its proceedings in regard to this new class of embarrassments. It is certain that in such attempts as the insurgents are so audaciously making in Canada, we might look for occasions of offence, if we were disposed to be aggressive or unfriendly to Great Britain. We shall probably pass through the present difficulties easily, but other plots will follow. Certainly the insurgents are inventive, bold, and enterprising. Their schemes are suggestive. They have failed because of deficiency of material power and moral strength in the insurrection itself. They are disturbers of the peace at home, and nothing more here. They are disturbers of the peace of Europe, and can be nothing more there. Slaveholders, seeking to subvert justice and establish slavery, they have not even strength enough to destroy the Union. How idle are all the European policies which assume that such architects can build and maintain states! When shall we see the governments of Great Britain and France apprehending this truth? What new and unnecessary complications are we to go through before they discover and act upon it?
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.