Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward
Sir: I have to acknowledge the reception of despatches from the department, numbered from 1317 to 1327, inclusive.
I have also received in a note from the despatch agent at Boston, Mr. Emory, a telegram requesting me to send notice to Mr. Perry, at Madrid, concerning Mr. J. P. Hall and the steamer Kearsarge, which I caused to be done yesterday, the 11th instant.
I had an interview with Lord Russell yesterday, and brought to his notice such parts of the contents of your Nos. 1317, 1321, 1322, 1323, and 1325, as you wished him to know, as also the contents of a note I had just received from Mr. Dudley, the consul at Liverpool, respecting the arrival of the Tallahassee at that place under the guise of a merchantman.
He seemed to be gratified with the language of No. 1321. This led to a vague, general conversation upon the subject of the outfits and other operations of the rebels, and the efforts that had been made to check them, from which I recollect no material point to report. He alluded to the receipt of my note to him of the 7th instant, which embodies the general argument on this subject as being of so important a nature that he should be obliged to take the opinion of the cabinet before making a reply. As the members are dispersed in the country during the Easter holidays, it is not probable that a meeting will take place for a week or two.
I think I perceive some beneficial results from the more energetic injunctions issued to the authorities in the colonial dependencies in checking the abuses of neutrality, which have heretofore been tolerated in almost all their ports. The accounts of the proceedings at Melbourne are very similar to those reported at Bermuda by Mr. Allen in the letter, a copy of which came to me with your No. 1317 of the 22d of March. They must be very embarrassing to the rebel cruisers. Had this government started with such measures at the outset, the effect would have been materially to discourage the prosecution of the schemes, and to deter [Page 312] British subjects from those measures of active sympathy which have given them nearly all their force. The reasons why it did not do so are not difficult to trace. They sprang partly from the natural inertia of the system, rarely to be overcome excepting under the pressure of strong popular feeling, and partly from the inharmonious temper of the cabinet on the subject of our affairs. It is not quite within the range of a despatch liable to be published to dwell more fully upon such matters. Enough to say that the course of events has, to a certain extent, modified previous difficulties and inspired more union in the prosecution of an energetic policy. This has shown itself in Canada, as well as in many other places at home and abroad. And although I will not venture to affirm that it has got so far as you desire, the open retraction of the original mistake, I am yet fully impressed with the notion that it will contribute so far as it may indirectly to counteract all the tendencies that have made that measure so mischievously injurious.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.