Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-ninth Congress, Part I

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward

No. 927.]

Legation of the United States, London, April 13, 1865.

Sir: I have the honor to transmit a copy of the note addressed by me to Lord Russell on the 7th instant, reference to which was made by me in my despatch No. 917, of last week, as not then ready to be sent.

Lord Russell has acknowledged the reception of this note, but has delayed a reply, for the reason assigned in my No. 922, which goes to you hereafter.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.

Mr. Adams to Earl Russell

Legation of the United States, London, April 7, 1865.

My Lord: I have the honor to transmit to you a copy of a letter addressed to the Secretary of State at Washington, by the consul of the United States at Rio Janeiro, Mr. Monroe, making a report of the depredations committed upon the commerce of the United States by the vessel known in the port of London as the Sea King, but since transformed into the Shenandoah by a process already fully explained in a note which I had the honor to address your lordship on the 18th of November last.

I regret to be oblidged to add, that this same vessel has been, since the date of Mr. Monroe’s letter, heard of at Melbourne, from which place further details of similar outrages have been received. The particulars have been communicated to my government, but there has not been sufficient time for me to obtain its instructions in regard to them. I cannot doubt, however, that they will be the same in substance as those embraced in the last despatch.

Were there any reason to believe that the operations carried on in the ports of her Majesty’s kingdom and its dependencies to maintain and extend this systematic depredation upon the commerce of a friendly people had been materially relaxed or prevented, I should not be under the painful necessity of announcing to your lordship the fact that my government cannot avoid entailing upon the government of Great Britain the responsibility for this damage.

It is impossible to be insensible to the injury that may yet be impending from the part which the British steamer City of Richmond has had, in being suffered to transport with impunity, from the port of London, men and supplies, to place them on board the French-built steam ram, Olinde alias Stoerkodder, alias Stonewall, which has, through a continuously fraudulent process, succeeded in deluding several governments of Europe, and in escaping from this hemisphere on its errand of mischief in the other.

I am by no means insensible to the efforts which have already been made and are yet making by her Majesty’s government to put a stop to such outrages in this kingdom and its dependencies. Neither can I permit myself to doubt the favorable disposition of her ministers to maintain amicable relations with the government which I represent. Whilst perfectly ready to bear testimony to the promptness with which all the numerous remonstrances and representations which it has been my painful duty heretofore to submit have been met and attended to by your lordship, it is at the same time impossible for me to dispute the fact that the hostile policy which it is the object of all this labor to prevent has not only not been checked, but is even now going into execution with more and more complete success. That policy, I trust I need not point out to your lordship, is substantially the destruction of the whole mercantile navigation belonging to the people of the United States. The nature of the process by which this is coming about may readily be appreciated by a brief examination of the returns of the registered tonnage of her Majesty’s kingdom for the last six years. I have the honor to append to this note a tabular statement of the number of merchant ships built, and of the tonnage owned in the United States, which have been transferred to British owners in the successive years, beginning with 1858 and ending in 1864, so far as the materials at hand from the official reports of the two governments can supply the information.

I trust it will be needless for me to do more than to point out to your lordship the inference deducible from this statement, to wit, that the United States commerce is rapidly vanishing from the face of the ocean, and that that of Great Britain is multiplying in nearly the same ratio. Furthermore, it is my painful duty to suggest that this process is going on by reason of the action of British subjects in co-operation with emissaries of the insurgents, who have supplied from the ports of her Majesty’s kingdom all the materials, such as vessels, armament, supplies and men, indispensable to the effective prosecution of this result on the ocean.

So far as I am aware, nota single vessel has been engaged in these depredations excepting such as have been so furnished, unless, indeed, I might except one or two passenger steamers belonging to persons in New York, forcibly taken possession of whilst at Charleston in the beginning of the war, feebly armed and very quickly rendered useless for any aggressive purpose. It may, then, on the face of this evidence, be fairly assumed as true that Great Britain, as a national power, is, in point of fact, fast acquiring the entire maritime commerce of the United States by reason of the acts of a portion of her Majesty’s subjects engaged in carrying on war against them on the ocean during a time of peace between the two countries. I deeply regret to be constrained to add that every well-meant effort of her Majesty’s government to put a stop to this extraordinary state of things, down to this time, has proved almost entirely fruitless,

I would most respectfully invite your lordship to produce in the history of the world a parallel case to this of endurance by one nation of injury done to it by another, without bringing on the gravest of complications. That in this case no such event has followed, has been owing, in the main, to a full conviction that her Majesty’s government has never been animated by any aggressive disposition towards the United States, but, on the contrary, that it has steadily endeavored to discountenance, and in a measure to check, the injurious and malevolent operations of many of her subjects. But whilst anxious to do full justice to the amicable intentions of her Majesty’s ministers, and on that account to forbear from recourse to any but the most friendly and earnest appeals to reason and to their sense of justice for a rectification of these wrongs, it is impossible to resist the conviction that heretofore their measures, however well intended, have never proved effective to remedy the evils complained on Prompt to acquit them of any design, I am reluctantly compelled to acknowledge the belief that practically this evil had its origin in the first step taken, which never can be regarded by my government in any other light than as precipitate, of acknowledging persons as a belligerent power on the ocean before they had a single vessel of their own to show floating upon it. The result of that proceeding has been that the power in question, so far as it can be entitled to the name of a belligerent on the ocean at all, was actually created in consequence of the recognition, and not before; and all that it has subsequently attained of such a position has been through the labors of the subjects of that very country which gave it that title in advance. Neither is the whole case stated even now. The results equally show that the ability to continue these operations with success during the whole term of four years that the war has continued, has been exclusively owing to the opportunity to make use of this granted right of a belligerent in the courts, and the ports and harbors of the very power that furnished the elements of its existence in the outset. In other words, the kingdom of Great Britain cannot but be regarded, by the government I have the honor to represent, as not only having given birth to this naval belligerent, but also as having nursed and maintained it to the present hour.

In view of all these circumstances I am instructed, whilst insisting on the protest heretofore solemnly entered against that proceeding, further respectfully to represent to your lordship that, in the opinion of my government, the grounds on which her Majesty’s government have rested their defence against the responsibility incurred in the manner heretofore stated, for the evils that have followed, however strong they might have heretofore been considered, have now failed by a practical reduction of all the ports heretofore temporarily held by the insurgents. Hence the President looks with confidence to her Majesty’s government for an early and an effectual removal of all existing causes of complaint on this score, whereby the foreign commerce of the United States may be again placed in a situation to enjoy the right to which it is entitled on the ocean, in peace and safety from annoyance from the injurious acts of any of her Majesty’s subjects, perpetrated under the semblance of belligerent rights. I am further instructed to invite the attention of your lordship to another subject in this immediate connexion.

From the beginning of this war the armed vessels of her Majesty have continued to enjoy full and free pratique in the waters of the United States. They have been welcomed in just the same friendly manner as has been heretofore customary when there was no exclusion of the same class of ships of the United States from the waters of Great Britain. It is the opinion of the President that the time has come when it may be asked, not only with strict right but also with entire comity, when the reciprocity of these hospitalities is to be restored. It is the expectation that the naval force of the United States in European waters will be augmented on or about the beginning of next month, when this question may become one of some interest. I am, therefore, directed to solicit information from your lordship as to the reception which these vessels may expect in the ports of this kingdom.

I pray your lordship to accept the assurances of the highest consideration with which I have the honor to be, my lord, your lordship’s most obedient servant,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Right Honorable Earl Russell, &c., &c., &c.

[Enclosures.]

1. Mr. Monroe to Mr. Seward, November 29, 1864.^*

2. Statements in tabular form of American vessels sold to British subjects from 1858 to 1864, inclusive.

United States official report.

Before the war.			During the war.
Year.	No. vessels.	Tonnage.	Year.	No. vessels.	Tonnage.
1858	33	12,684	1861	126	71,673
1859	49	21,308	1862	135	64,578
1860	41	13,683	1863	348	252,379
			1864	106	92,052
Three years	123	47,675	Four years	715	480,682

British official report.

Before the war.			During the war.
Year.	No. vessels.	Tonnage.	Year.	No. vessels.	Tonnage.
1860	Not given	11,716	1861	Not given	66,757
			1862	Do.	59,103
			1863	608	328,665
One year		11,716	Three years	608	454,525

1. See despatch No. 1250 to Mr. Adams, current series.