Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams
Sir. Your despatch of the 30th of December, No. 846, has been received.
I am happy in being authorized to approve of the expressions you have made to Earl Russell in relation to Lord Lyons. We earnestly hope for his restoration to health and usefulness.
The representations you have made to Earl Russell, concerning the difficulties which have occurred in Canada, are approved by the President.
The situation in this respect exhibits the same general features as when I last described it in this correspondence.
No new aggressions have been committed. Some popular impatience was manifest on the occasion of the revocation of that part of the order of Major General Dix, which authorized continued pursuit of invaders into British territories; but that impatience subsided immediately, when the order which requires travellers coming into the United States to exhibit passports was promulgated. That order has now gone into full effect on the borders with very beneficial results. The public mind in this country has resumed its habitual tone of calmness and self-reliance.
Each house of Congress has, with practical unanimity, resolved that the President ought to give the stipulated notice for terminating the reciprocity treaty, and this proceeding meets the public approval. When the action of Congres shall have been completed, the bill will be sent to you.
On the British side of the border there is manifested a strong popular desire to restore the cordiality which has been so unfortunately subverted. The governor general of Canada and the colonial ministry are earnest and emphatic in their avowals of the same disposition. Measures have been taken to establish an armed police on the British side of the border. One of the Philo Parsons pirates has beeen arrested upon our requisition, and subjected to an examination at Toronto. Several of the escaped St. Albans felonshave been rearrested and brought before Judge Smith, at Montreal, who has reconsidered and reversed the decision of Coursall. It is regretted, however, that international justice wavers at this point, just as it staggered there on the occasion of the first arrest of the St. Albans offenders. No one proposes—no one seems to think of restoring the money which was purloined from the citizens of St. Albans, and placed in the hands of the provincial police, subject to the order of the British courts. The magistrate at Toronto has taken time to consider the claim of Burleigh, the Philo Parsons pirate, to a discharge upon the pretence that he is a belligerent. Judge Smith has adjourned the case of the St. Albans offenders thirty days, to enable them to arm themselves with a similar mock defence. At the same time [Page 92] no warrant has been issued against the offenders for violation of British laws, or resistance of the Queen’s proclamation. We are thus left to expect that they will be discharged and set at liberty, to renew their depredations upon a broader scale, and with new accomplices, attracted by assured impunity within British jurisdiction. We are, indeed, promised special legislation in the provincial legislature, which is soon to be convened at Quebec. But, on the other hand, the rebel agents and emissaries are with their friends enjoying undisguised honors, favors, and sympathies in the provinces.
Seven new piratical vessels, all of which were practically fitted out, armed and manned within the British island, in violation of British laws, are roaming the ocean, destroying American commerce, and there regularly receive supplies of provisions and munitions from British territory. The only remedy that her Majesty’s government is understood to have resorted to in the case of these vessels is a civil prosecution against one person who was engaged in the unlawfulproceeding of arming and despatching the Sea King. We know not when that offender will be brought to trial. Even his conviction will be without fruits, if his punishment, easured by the standard hitherto used by British courts, shall be limited to a fine of one hundred and fifty pounds for the accomplished transaction.
It thus clearly appears that the British government substantially fails to guarantee the neutrality it proclaims, and that the United States are severely suffering from this failure. Her own law writers and precedents instruct us that in such a case the aggrieved nation has an absolute right of reprisal. Nevertheless, we have refrained, and at present we shall refrain, from every form of retaliation in this, as we have in all other cases of national injury. This attitude, however, leaves to us no remedies but those with which, happily, our people are familiar, namely, lawful measures of self-defence. We are drawing rapidly upon that magazine. We feel sure that it is not for the interest of either nation that it shall be ineffectually exhausted. You will see that Congress is considering the expediency of putting an end to the arrangement for extradition of fugitives from justice.
Of all the nations, Great Britain seems to us the last that could justly or wisely become, directly or indirectly, an opponent of the United States in a civil war began and waged and presisted in by insurgents for the extension of African slavery.
You will use these views according to your own discretion in your discussion with Earl Russell on che subject to which they relate. It is thought expedient that you address a special representation to her Britannic Majesty’s government concerning the Shenandoah or Sea King.
I annex copy of a despatch of the 14th instant from Mr. Potter, our consul general at Montreal.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Chaules Francis Adams. &c., &c., &c.