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. Hunter
Sir: In reference to the subject-matter of the despatch from the department No. 1314, of the 21st of March, I have the honor to transmit copies of a note of mine to Lord Russell, of the 4th of April, and of his reply, dated the 8th instant.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
William Hunter, Esq., Acting Secretary of State, Washington, DC.
[Enclosures.]
1. Mr. Adams to Lord Russell, April 4, 1865.
2. Lord Russell to Mr. Adams, April 5, 1865.
3. Lord Russell to Mr. Adams, April 8, 1865.
4. Professor Abel’s report.
Mr. Adams to Earl Russell
My Lord: I have the honor to present to your, consideration a copy of a letter addressed to the Secretary of State of the United States by the commander-in-chief of the armies, together with accompanying papers, relating to certain fuzes found to have been in the hands of the insurgents at the storming of Fort Fisher, which are alleged to have been supplied from the arsenal at Woolwich. I likewise transmit samples of the fuzes referred to.
I am directed to call your lordship’s attention to the circumstance that these fuzes are affirmed to be the invention of Professor Abel, and are maunfactured exclusively by him at Woolwich, under the name of the Abel fuze.
Should this allegation prove, on investigation, to be correct, I am further desired to solicit a suitable expression of her Majesty’s displeasure with Professor Abel for such an abuse of her sovereign authority.
I pray your lordship to accept the assurances of the highest consideration with which I have the honor to be, &c, &c,
Right Honorable Earl Russell, &c., &c., &c.
[Enclosures,]
1. Lieutenant General Grant to Mr. Seward, March 19, 1865.
2. Tal. P. Sharffner to General Grant, March 19, 1865.
3. Lieutenant Colonel Babcock to General Grant, March 19, 1865.
4. Box with three fuzes.
Earl Russell to Mr. Adams
Sri: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesterday’s date, respecting certain fuzes found in Fort Fisher, which it is alleged were supplied from Wolwich arsenal, and I have to inform you that I have requested the secretary of state for war to cause an immediate investigation to be made into the circumstances of the case.
I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.
Earl Russell to Mr. Adams
Sir: I have the honor to transmit to you herewith, with a view to its being communicated to the United States government, a copy of a report made by Mr. Abel to the secretary of [Page 349] state for war, with reference to the fuzes to which you called attention in your letter of the 4th ultimo, as having been found at Fort Fisher at the time of its capture.
I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.
Report of Professor Abel, the director of ordnance.
The fuzes to which this correspondence relates are an invention of mine, by which charges of gunpowder can be exploded through the agency of electricity, derived from other sources than voltaic batteries.
These fuzes, in their original form, were described in a report presented to the secretary of state for war, by Professor Wheatstone and myself, in November, 1860. The precise nature of the explosive material, upon which the success of these fuzes depended, and which has been modified from time to time, has never been communicated to government by me, nor have the fuzes ever been officially introduced into the service; but they are known to the authorities as Abel’s fuzes, and have been for some time past employed in the proof of guns at Woolwich, in ballistic and other experiments carried on by the ordnance select committee, and occasionally in engineering operations.
No fuzes have ever been made in my department for other than experimental purposes of my own and of the royal engineer authorities. The small supplies required occasionally for the service have been furnished by the superintendent of royal laboratories.
After the fuzes became publicly known, and were found to have effected a considerable advance in the application of electricity to the explosion of gunpowder, a trade demand arose for them; and being urged to do so by Professor Wheatstone and, other scientific friends, I recommended, in a minute to the chief clerk, date of 4th March, 1861—in papers 84 and 177— that a tradesman should be authorized to manufacture and sell them for industrial purposes and to foreign governments. Mr. Ladd, electrician, of Beak street, Regent street, was consequently authorized to trade in the fuzes, and he has from time to time received orders from telegraph companies, instrument makers, and other sources, for the different varieties of these fuzes, which are now used for firing the time-signal guns in the north, for blasting and other purposes.
Mr. Ladd has been instructed by one of my assistants, when improvements have been made in the fuzes; moreover, a man who works in my department has been occupied in his leisure, and exclusively at his own house, in making for Mr. Ladd the more delicate portions of the fuzes. My sanction need not have been given to this arrangement, which is of a perfectly private character between Mr. Ladd and the man in question, but it was requested and granted. Mr. Ladd was pledged to me not to impart to others, without my consent, the nature of the composition used in the fuzes; and if he received an order for fuzes, which it was desired to have constructed in any way differently from the ordinary patterns, he applied to me for the sanction for such a modification. I have received no account from Mr. Ladd of the nature of the individual orders which he has executed, and have never even examined his books with a view to ascertain the number sold by him, but I have received from him one statement of the total number which he had sold [up to the close of last year,] and upon the price of which he has paid me a percentage, as a kind of royalty.
It will be seen from the foregoing full statement of my connexion with Mr. Ladd that his business transactions in the matter of these fuzes have been entirely of an unofficial character, and that if at any time he had supplied fuzes to agents of the so-called Confederate States, he would simply, in his private capacity as a tradesman, have sold upon his own responsibility an article of trade of my invention manufactured by himself.
Mr. Ladd informs me, however, he is in a position to prove that he has never supplied any of the fuzes to parties acknowledging themselves or known to him to be agents of the Confederate States. He states that the only person now known to him to be connected with America to whom he has supplied fuzes is Colonel Shaffner, who purchased a small number some considerable time ago, but that at that time he had no reason to regard even that gentleman an agent of the confederate or of the American government. I need hardly point out that it would be impossible for Mr. Ladd to guard against supplying confederate agents at second or third hand with my fuzes, as is proved by the discovery in Fort Fisher of some of these, which, from their nature, must have been manufactured about two years and a half ago.
To meet the allegations that I had declined to sell to the United States government the secret of the nature of my fuze composition, and that I would not allow one hundred of the fuzes to be manufactured for that government, I submit the following statement:
In the beginning of January last a gentleman describing himself as Colonel Shaffner, of the United States army, called upon me. After leading the conversation to the fuzes of my in vention, stating that he had also made some good fuzes, but that mine were superior, he hinted in a mysterious manner that he was anxious to negotiate with me for the sale through his agency to the United States government of the recipe of my fuze composition. I informed [Page 350] him that I was not prepared to dispose of this recipe to any foreign government without the sanction of the secretary of state for war, but that if proper application were made to the latter, and the entertainment of his proposal were officially sanctioned, I might take into consideration such terms as he might submit to me. He left me with the impression that he would proceed in the manner suggested by me; but upon his calling again shortly afterwards he stated that he was not inclined to make the transaction an official one, as that must be done through his minister, and complained that he could not make such advantageous terms for himself as well as for me, if he were to adopt that course instead of purchasing the secret direct from me.
I told him that under any circumstances the transaction must receive the sanction of the secretary of state for war, and that if he liked to send a written proposal to me I would forward it to the war office. Upon this I had no further communication with Colonel Shaffner. No terms were proposed on either side, though he pressed me very much to name such as I would be prepared to accept. No mention was made at either of the interviews of the Confederate States, either in connexion with the fuzes or in any other way. In neither interview did Colonel Shaffner make any pretence of acting for the United States government. Indeed, my impression before he gave his real motive for not wishing to go to the United States minister was that in reality he was a confederate agent.
Shortly after these interviews Mr. Ladd informed me that the same gentleman had made proposals to him for the sale of the recipe in question, and showed me some forms of agreement which Colonel Shaffner had proposed should be entered into between them. I do not recollect the details of the proposed agreement, but I know that they at once convinced me that Colonel Shaffner was trying to obtain possession, in an ambiguous manner, of my recipe for his own advantage—that is, with a view of selling, it to the United States govern ment and probably to other governments. There was, however, I distinctly remember, a clause in one of the agreements, by which Mr. Ladd was to bind himself not to supply confederate agents with the fuzes.
I declined to sanction the sale of my recipe by Mr. Ladd to Colonel Shaffner, and the negotiation between them was, therefore, broken off. Mr. Ladd stated to me at the time Colonel Shaffner was much annoyed at this, and still endeavored, but unsuccessfully, to induce Mr. Ladd to negotiate with him by threatening him with an accusation that he had supplied my fuzes to confederate agents. Eventually Colonel Shaffner ordered of Mr. Ladd, not for the United States government, but for some private experimental purposes, one hundred of my fuzes, in which, however, he desired that the charge of gunpowder employed as priming should be mixed with a quantity of the igniting composition of which he had desired to obtain the recipe; his object, as stated by him, being to produce, by means of the fuzes, a larger body of flame for some special purpose which he had in view. Mr. Ladd applied to me, as usual, to know whether he might supply the fuzes thus modified; but as it was clear to me that Colonel Shaffner’s sole object in ordering these fuzes was to obtain a comparatively large quantity of the secret composition, most probably with a view to its thorough chemical examination and subsequent imitation, I declined to allow Mr. Ladd to supply him with these special fuzes.
Mr. Ladd now informs me that, failing to obtain these fuzes, Colonel Shaffner then purchased, immediately before leaving England, one hundred and ten dozen of the cheapest form of my fuze, used for experimental purposes, from which he could extract the composition, or which he could readily convert into military fuzes. In complying’ with the desire of Earl de Grey and Ripon for a full explanation, I have been obliged to enter into greater details with regard to Colonel Shaffner’s proceedings than, perhaps, their importance merits, so that the feelings may be rendered evident by which the latter has been actuated in bringing the accusation against me, which I am called upon to answer.