Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of February 5, No. 593, which is accompanied by a copy of the Queen’s speech, and the debate thereon, at the opening of Parliament.
The situation of the ministry, in face of the new European complications, is manifestly an embarrassing one; but it is not clearly seen how it could have been avoided, without incurring a risk of falling into more troublesome complications. If it be true, as you inform me, that evil disposed persons are preparing to renew the agitation for a recognition of the insurgents in the United States, the motive for the proceeding must be local and mercenary, or factious with reference to England herself; for I think there is abundant evidence that despondency pervades the domestic councils of the insurgents. No doubt of the failure of the insurrection exists here. If the British ministry should cordially accept this result before it becomes a historical fact, it would lay the foundations of permanent friendship between the two countries, and would thus, as we think, indemnify itself for all the losses it has sustained in the fields of local and merely European politics.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.