Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 1, 1873

1. Concession of belligerent rights.

[undated.]

The dates of the several acts which have been cited by either party in the discussion of this question are herewith given:

1861, April 14. Fort Sumter surrendered.

1861, April 15. President Lincoln, by proclamation, called out the militia and convened Congress.

1861, April 17. Jefferson Davis, by proclamation, gives notice that he will grant letters of marque. (Received by British government May 10.)

1861, April 19. President Lincoln issues his first proclamation of blockade, which was as follows:

By the President of the United States.

a proclamation.

Whereas an insurrection against the Government of the United States has broken out in the States of South Carolina. Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the United States for the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually executed therein conformably to that provision of the Constitution which requires duties to be uniform throughout the United States;

And whereas a combination of persons, engaged in such insurrection, have threatened to grant pretended letters of marque to authorize the bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce on the high seas, and in waters of the United States;

And whereas an executive proclamation has been already issued, requiring the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to desist therefrom, calling out a militia force for the purpose of repressing the same, and convening Congress in extraordinary session to deliberate and determine thereon:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and to the protection of the public peace, and the lives and property of quiet and orderly citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, until Congress shall have assembled and deliberated on the said unlawful proceedings, or until the same shall have ceased, have further deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States and of the law of nations in such cases provided. For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If, therefore, with a view to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach, or shall attempt to leave either of the said ports, she will be duly warned by the commander of one of the blockading vessels, who will indorse on her register the fact and date of such warning, and if the same vessel shall again attempt to enter or leave the blockaded port, she will be captured and sent to the nearest convenient port, for such proceedings against her and her cargo as prize as may be deemed advisable.

And I hereby proclaim and declare that if any person, under the pretended authority of the said States, or under any other pretense, shall molest a vessel of the United States, or the persons or cargo on board of her, such persons will be held amenable to the laws of the United States for the prevention and punishment of piracy.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this nineteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.

[l. s.]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.

1861, April 19. Troops of the United States on the way to Washington were attacked by a mob in Baltimore. Communication by railroad and telegraph between Washington and New York and north of that point was interrupted by the rebels from the 21st to the 28th April in case of telegraph, and from April 19 to May 3 and after, in case of railroad. Passengers were two or three days in making difficult and expensive transit in carriages on and after the 20th. (Vide New York Herald.)

1861, April 20. The steamer Canadian sailed from Portland, taking the Boston papers of that day, with telegraphic accounts of the riots at Baltimore, and what purported to be a version of the President’s proclamation, which version appeared in the London journals as hereafter stated.

1861, April 20. The Department of State issued a circular to its representatives abroad which, purported to inclose a copy of the President’s first proclamation of blockade. (Vol. I., p. 20.)

1861, April 22. Lord Lyons incloses an unofficial copy of a proclamation of blockade to his government, (supposed to be a newspaper version.) This note, it is stated by the British government, was received on May 10. (Vol. I., p. 18.)

1861, April 27. Steamer Persia left New York for England with the New York papers up to that date. President Lincoln’s second proclamation of blockade was issued extending the blockade to Virginia and North Carolina. (Stat, at Large, vol. 12, p. 1259.)

Lord Lyons communicates to his government a copy of Mr. Seward’s note of same date, covering a printed copy of the proclamation of the 19th of April. (Received at British Foreign Office May 14.) (Vol. I., p. 23.)

1861, May 1. 1861, May 1. Mr. Adams, United States minister, left Boston for his post. Steamer Canadian arrived at Londonderry, and her news was telegraphed to London. The Daily News of May 2 contains the following paragraphs: “President Lincoln has issued a proclamation declaring a blockade of all the ports in the seceded States. ‘(—)’ The Federal Government will condemn as pirates all privateer vessels which may be seized by Federal ships.”

1861, May 2. 1861,
May 3. 1861,
May 4. The steamer Canadian arrived at Liverpool on the 2d of May. On the 3d of May the Daily News published the news of the proclamation in the following language, which was repeated verbatim in the Times of the 4th of May, and, as far as known, no other copy was ever printed in the English journals:

The following is the President’s proclamation of the blockade of the southern ports:

An insurrection against the Government of the United States has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the law of the United States cannot be executed effectually therein conformably to that provision of the Constitution which requires duties to be uniform throughout the United States. And further, a combination of persons engaged in such insurrection have threatened to grant pretended letters of marque to authorize the bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce on the high seas, and in the waters of the United States; and whereas an Executive proclamation has already been issued requiring the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to desist, and therefor calling out the militia force for the purpose of repressing the same, and convening Congress in extraordinary session to deliberate and determine thereon; the President, with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and to the protection of the public peace, and the lives and property of its orderly citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, until Congress shall have assembled and deliberated on said unlawful proceedings, or until the same shall have ceased, has further deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States and the laws of nations in such cases provided. For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent the entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If, therefore, with a view to violate such blockade, any vessel shall attempt to leave any of the said ports, she will be duly warned by the commander of one of said blocking vessels, who will indorse on her register the fact and date of such warning, and if the same vessel shall again attempt to enter or leave a blockade port, she will be captured and sent to the nearest convenient port, for such proceedings against her and her cargo as may be deemed advisable.

A reference to the proclamation, as correctly given above, will show-that there were many variations from the original; the most important of which were the omission of the formal parts of the proclamation; of the words “for the collection of the revenue;” and of the declarations as to piracy.

1861, May 2. May 2, 1861, Lord Lyons wrote to Lord Russell as follows:

I have the honor to inclose a copy of a note by which I acknowledged the receipt of Mr. Seward’s note of the 27th ultimo, announcing the intention of this Government to set on foot a blockade of the southern ports. I was careful to so word my note as to show that I accepted Mr. Seward’s communication as an announcement of an intention to set oh foot a blockade, not as a notification of the actual commencement of one. I believe that most of my colleagues made answers to the same sense.

I have the honor to transmit to your lordship copies of the President’s proclamation announcing the extension of the blockade to the ports of Virginia and North Carolina, which have been sent to me in a blank cover from the State Department. (Vol. I, p. 24.)

Inclosure, Lord Lyons to Mr. Seward, April 29, 1861:

The undersigned, Her Britannic Majesty’s envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the United States of America, has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a note of the day before yesterday’s date from the Secretary of State, communicating to him a proclamation which announces, among other things, that a blockade of the ports of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas will be set on foot, in pursuance of the law of the United States and the law of nations, and that for this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent the entrance and exit of vessels. (Vol. I. p. 25.)

The Secretary of State has, moreover, done the undersigned the honor to inform him in the same note that it is intended to set on foot also a blockade of the ports of Virginia and North Carolina.

May 2. In the House of Commons Mr. Ewart asked Lord Russell whether the government intended to place the British naval force in the Gulf of Mexico on sufficient footing, and if privateers sailing under flag of recognized power would be treated as pirates.

Lord Russell replied that “Her Majesty’s government heard the other day that the Confederate States have issued letters of marque, and to-day we have heard that it is intended there shall be a blockade of all the ports of the Southern States;” and after stating that some of the questions had been submitted to the law-officers of the Crown, he said: “We have not been involved in any way in that contest, by any act or giving any advice in the matter, and, for God’s sake, let us, if possible, keep out of it.” (Vol. IV, p. 482.)

1861, May 4. Steamship Persia, from New York, arrived at Queenstown.

May 5. Steamship Persia arrrived at Liverpool.

House of Commons, Mr. Gregory asked Lord Russell the following question: “3d. The Government of the United States having refused to relinquish the belligerent right of issuing letters of marque, the seven Southern confederated and sovereign States having become to the United States a separate and independent and foreign power, whether Her Majesty’s government recognize the right of the president of the southern confederacy to issue letters of marque; and if so, whether our minister at Washington has been notified to that effect?” (Vol. IV, p. 482.)

Lord Russell, in reply, stated that, with respect to belligerent rights in the case of certain portions of a State being in insurrection, there was a precedent which seems applicable to this purpose in the year 1825. The British government at that time allowed the belligerent rights of the provisional government of Greece, and, in consequence of that allowanc, the Turkish government made a remonstrance. I may state the nature of that remonstrance and the reply of Mr. Canning. “The Turkish government complained that the British government allowed to the Greeks a belligerent character, and observed that it appeared to forget that to subjects in rebellion no national character could properly belong.” But the British government informed Mr. Stratford Canning that the “character of belligerency was not so much a principle as a fact; that a certain degree of force and consistency acquired by any mass of population engaged in war entitled that population to be treated as a belligerent, and even if their title were questionable, rendered it the interest, well understood, of all civilized nations so to treat them. For what was the alternative? A power or a community (call it which you will) which was at war with another, and which covered the sea with its cruisers, must either be acknowledged as a belligerent or dealt with as a pirate;” which latter character, as applied to the Greeks, was loudly disclaimed. In a separate dispatch of the same date, (12th of October, 1825,) Sir Stratford Canning was reminded that when the British government acknowledged the right of either belligerent to visit and detain British merchant-vessels having enemy’s property on board, and to confiscate such property, it was necessarily implied, as a condition of such acknowledgment, that the detention was for the purpose of bringing the vessels detained before an established court of prize, and that confiscation did not take place until after condemnation by such competent tribunal. The question has been under the consideration of the government. They have consulted the law-officers of the Crown. The attorney and solicitor-general and the Queen’s advocate, and the government have come to the opinion that the southern confederacy of America, according to those principles, which seem to them to be just principles, must be treated as a belligerent.” (Vol. IV, p. 483.)

1861, May 7. House of Commons—belligerent rights at sea.—Question thereupon by Mr. Walpole, who consulted the government as to its introduction. Viscount Palmers-ton, in reply, stated that “the house will bear in mind that my noble friend (Lord John Russell) stated last evening that this question of international rights, as connected with belligerent rights at sea, is of grave and complicated character; that it is under the consideration of the government, and until the government shall be in a condition, after consulting its legal advisers, to make some distinct communication upon the subject, it would be inexpedient, and indeed impossible, for them to enter into any discussion upon the matter.” (Vol. IV, p. 484.)

1861, May 9. House of Commons—as to privateering.—Mr. Forster inquired as to status of British subjects serving on, or assisting in equipment of privateer for rebels, and whether such privateer is to be subject to forfeiture. Inquiry was made of secretary of state of home department. The reply was as follows:

“Sir George Lewis: Sir it is in the contemplation of Her Majesty’s government to issue a proclamation for the purpose of cautioning all Her Majesty’s subjects against any interference in the hostilities between the Northern and Southern States of America. In that proclamation the general effect of the common and statute law on the matter will be stated.” (Vol. IV, p. 484.)

Receipt by British government of Lord Lyons’s note of April 22, inclosing unofficial newspaper copy of blockade proclamation of 19th of April. 1861, May 10.

May 10. House of Lords—question: United States 5 civil war; privateering.

Earl Derby said:

I understand that a proclamation is about to be issued by Her Majesty’s government on the subject of privateering and of belligerent rights. I hope that in that proclamation, or in some other way, a most distinct and emphatic warning will be given to all seamen in the service of Her Majesty as to the conditions upon which they will engage—if they choose to enter upon such hazardous enterprise—in the system of privateering. There should be no doubt left on their minds, but the fullest and plainest intimation should be publicly made to them, whether, if they do engage in such a service, they will or will not in extremity be entitled to expect any protection or interference on the part of this country. I hope my noble friend will state to your lordships whether the government have come to any conclusion upon this question; and if so, whether they are prepared forthwith to issue a public and emphatic notification of the course they intend to pursue, and the consequences likely to result to British seamen from a disregard of their warning.

Earl Granville. The noble earl, by the manner in which he has approached the subject, has evinced a becoming appreciation of the difficulties which may arise to ourselves from the unfortunate state of things in the United State. With respect, however, to the question of the belligerent rights of the parties now engaged in that unhappy contest, the noble earl has not asked for any expression of opinion on the part of the government, and therefore I am absolved from entering into a discussion of that most important, difficult, and delicate subject. But the noble earl has inquired whether it is our intention to issue a proclamation, warning the subjects of Her Majesty against in any manner departing from that neutrality which Her Majesty herself is so desirous to observe. To that question, as the noble earl has stated, an answer has already been given in “another place,” namely, that it is the intention of the government, according to precedent, to issue a proclamation, giving such warning to all the subjects of Her Majesty. The precise wording of the proclamation is a matter of considerable importance and difficulty requiring some deliberation, and we have thought it right to obtain the best advice in framing it; but I may state that the government are anxious to make it as plain and emphatic as possible. (Vol. IV, p. 485.)

1861, May 11. The British government allege that Mr. Dallas handed to the minister of foreign affairs the Department of State circular of April 20, and its accompanying copy of the proclamation of the blockade of Southern ports. There is no evidence of this fact in the Department of State.

1861, May 13. Queen’s proclamation of neutrality according belligerent rights to South. (Vol. I, Claims, &c., p. 41.)

May 13. In the evening Mr. Adams arrived in London.

May 14. On the morning of this day Mr. Adams was ready for business. The Queen’s proclamation was issued without consultation with the United States minister, even before it was practicable for Lord Russell to see him.

1861, May 14. Receipt by British Foreign Office of official copy of President Lincoln’s proclamation of April 19, with Lord Lyons’s note of April 27.

1861, May 17. Receipt of Lord Lyons’s note of May 2, communicating official copy of second proclamation of blockade, dated April 27, and extending blockade to ports of Virginia and North Carolina.

May 17. Mr. Adams’s note to Mr. Seward giving an account of an interview with Lord Russell, in which he said to Lord Russell:

I must be permitted to express the great regret I had felt on learning the decision to issue the Queen’s proclamation, which at once raised the insurgents to the level of a belligerent state, and still more the language used in regard to it by Her Majesty’s ministers in both houses of Parliament before and since. Whatever might be the design, there could be no shadow of doubt that the effect of these events had been to encourage the friends of the disaffected here. The tone of the press and of private opinion indicated it strongly. I then alluded more especially to the brief report of the lord chancellor’s speech on Thursday last, in which he had characterized the rebellious portion of my country as a belligerent state, and the war that was going on as justum bellum.

To this his lordship replied that he thought more stress was laid upon these events, than they deserved. The fact was that a necessity seemed to exist to define the course of the government in regard to the participation of the subjects of Great Britain in the impending conflict. To that end, the legal questions involved had been referred to those officers most conversant with them, and their advice had been taken in shaping the result. Their conclusion had been that, as a question merely of fact, a war existed. A considerable number of the States, at least seven, occupying a wide extent of country, were in open resistance, while one or more of the others” were associating themselves in the same struggle, and as yet there were no indications of any other result than a contest of arms more or less severe. In many preceding cases much less formidable demonstrations had been recognized. Under such circumstances it seemed scarcely possible to avoid speaking of this in the technical sense as justum bellum, that is, a war of two sides, without in any way applying an opinion of its justice, as, well as to withhold an endeavor, so far as possible, to bring the management of it within the rules of modern civilized warfare. This was all that was contemplated by the Queen’s proclamation, it was designed to show the purport of existing laws, and to explain to British subjects their liabilities in case they should engage in the war. And however strongly the people of the United States might feel against their enemies, it was hardly to be supposed that in practice they would now vary from their uniformly humane policy heretofore in endeavoring to assuage and mitigate the horrors of war.

To all which I answered that under other circumstances I should be very ready to give my cheerful assent to this view of his lords-hip’s; but I must be permitted frankly to remark that the action taken seemed, at least to my mind, a little more rapid than was absolutely called for by the occasion. It might be recollected that the new administration had scarcely had sixty days to develop its policy; that the extent to which all departments of the Government had been demoralized in the preceding administration was surely understood here, at least in part; that the very organization upon which any future action was to be predicated was to be renovated and purified before a hope could be entertained of energetic and effective labor. The consequence had been that it was but just emerging from its difficulties, and beginning to develop the power of the country to cope with this rebellion, when the British government took the initiative, and decided practically that it is a struggle of two sides; and, furthermore, it pronounced the insurgents to be a belligerent state before they had ever shown their capacity to maintain any kind of warfare whatever, except within one of their own harbors and under every possible advantage. It considered them a marine power before they had ever exhibited a single privateer on the ocean. I said that I was not aware that a single armed vessel had yet been issued from any port under the control of these people. (Vol. I, p. 183.)

1861, June 3. Mr. Seward wrote to Mr. Adams:

Every instruction you have received from this Department is full of evidence of the fact that the principal’ danger in the present insurrection which the President has apprehended is that of foreign intervention, aid, or sympathy; and especially of such intervention, aid, or sympathy on the part of the government of Great Britain.

The justice of this apprehension has been vindicated by the following facts, namely: The issue of the Queen’s proclamation, remarkable, first, for the circumstances under which it was made, namely, on the very day of your arrival in London, which had been anticipated so far as to provide for your reception by the British secretary, but without affording you the interview promised before any decisive action should be adopted; secondly, the tenor of the proclamation itself, which seems to recognize, in a vague manner, indeed, but still does seem to recognize, the insurgents as a belligerent national power. That proclamation, unmodified and unexplained, would leave us no alternative but to regard the government of Great Britain as questioning our free, exercise of all the rights of self-defense guaranteed to us by our Constitution and the laws of nature and of nations, to suppress the insurrection. (Vol. I, p. 193.)

June 8. Mr. Seward again wrote to Mr. Adams, June 8, 1861:

Your conversation with the British secretary incidentally brought into debate the Queen’s late proclamation, (which seems to us designed to raise the insurgents to the level of a belligerent state,) the language employed by Her Majesty’s ministers in both houses of Parliament, the tone of the public press and of private opinion, and especially a speech of the lord chancellor, in which he had characterized the insurgents as a belligerent state, and the civil war which they are waging against the United States as justum bellum.

The opinions which you expressed on these matters, and their obvious tendency to encourage the insurrection and to protract and aggravate the civil war, are just, and meet our approbation. At the same time it is the purpose of this Government, if possible, consistently with the national welfare and honor, to have no serious controversy with Great Britain at all; and if this shall ultimately prove impossible, then to have both the defensive position and the clear right on our side. With this view, this Government, as you are made aware by my dispatch No. 10, has determined to pass over without official complaint the publications of the British press, manifestations of adverse individual opinion in social life, and the speeches of British statesmen, and even those of Her Majesty’s ministers in Parliament, so long as they are not authoritatively adopted by Her Majesty’s government. We honor and respect the freedom of debate and the freedom of the press. We indulge no apprehensions of danger to our rights and interests from any discussion to which they may be subjected, in either form, in any place. Sure as we are that the transaction now going on in our country involves the progress of civilization and humanity, and equally sure that our attitude in it is right, and no less sure that our press and our statesmen are equal in ability and influence to any in Europe, we shall have no cause to grieve if Great Britain shall leave to us the defense of the independence of nations and the rights of human nature. (Vol. I, p. 195.)

June 14. Mr. Adams wrote to Mr. Seward, June 14, 1861:

I next approached the most delicate portion of my task. I descanted upon the irritation produced in America by the Queen’s proclamation, upon the construction almost universally given to it, as designed to aid the insurgents by raising them to the rank of a belligerent state, and upon the very decided tone taken by the President in my dispatches in case any such design was really entertained. I added that from my own observation of what had since occurred here, I had not been able to convince myself of the existence of such a design. (Vol. I, p. 198.)

1865, June 2. Earl Russell wrote to Sir F. Bruce, June 2, 1865:

I received, on the 25th ultimo, your dispatch of the 10th ultimo, inclosing a copy, taken from a newspaper, of a proclamation issued by the President of the United States on that day, declaring, among other matters, that “armed resistance to the authority of this Government,” namely, the Government of the United States, “may he regarded as virtually at an end; and the persons by whom that resistance, as well as the operations of insurgent cruisers, were directed, are fugitives or captives.”

On the day following the receipt of your dispatch intelligence reached this country of the capture of President Davis by the military forces of the United States.

In this state of things Her Majesty’s government lost no time in communicating with the government of the Emperor of the French as to the course which should be pursued by the two governments; and while these communications were in progress I received officially from Mr. Adams, on the 30th ultimo, a copy of the President’s proclamation of the 10th.

It would indeed have been more satisfactory if the Government of the United States had accompanied the communication of the President’s proclamation with a declaration that they formally renounced the exercise as regards neutrals of the rights of a belligerent; but Her Majesty’s government considered that, in the existing posture of affairs, the delay of any formal renunciation to that effect did not afford to neutral powers sufficient warrant for continuing to admit the possession of a belligerent character by a confederation of States which had been actually dissolved. The late president of the so-called Confederate States has been captured, and transported as a prisoner to Fort Monroe; the armies hitherto’ kept in the field by the Confederate States have, for the most part, surrendered or dispersed; and to continue to recognize those States as belligerents would not only be inconsistent with the actual condition of affairs, but might lead to much embarrassment and complication in the relations between neutral powers and the Government of the United States.

Her Majesty’s government have, accordingly, after communication with the government of the Emperor of the French, determined to consider the war which has lately prevailed between the United States and the so-called Confederate States of North America to have ceased de facto; and on that ground, they recognize the re-establishment of peace within the whole territory of which the United States, before the commencement of the civil war, were in undisturbed possession. (Vol. I, p. 320.)

From the time when the proclamation of neutrality was issued until the withdrawal of the concession of belligerent rights to the rebels, the United States Government were constantly making representations to the British government on this subject. These representations will be found running through the whole correspondence on the subject, as printed in the volumes of Claims.

The rights conceded to the rebels were partially withdrawn June 2, 1865, (Vol. I, Claims, page 378,) and finally withdrawn October 13, 1865. Vol. I, Claims, page 387.)

The following extract from a letter from George Bemis, esq., to the Secretary of State, dated Borne, April 20, 1870, directs attention to some of the more important parts of the correspondence contained in the volumes entitled “Claims against Great Britain,” and to some important correspondence not contained in that compilation. This letter was written after the receipt of the second volume, which fact explains some apparent mistakes of the writer:

I beg to call the notice of the Department to the grave and fundamental omissions, misarrangements, and misdesignations, contained in the Compilation as thus far executed. It is principally in reference to these that I have hoped to make my communication of some service to the undertaking for the future.

I must premise that I do not profess even now to give a full and reliable inventory of what must be supplied or explained, but only to suggest such deficiencies as have thus far met my eye, or of which I have the means at hand of inquiring into. Thus I beg to particularize that I have little or no opportunity here, from my own memoranda, to inquire into the care or completeness with which the manuscript (hitherto unpublished) dispatches of the Department which I had left marked for publication have been copied and printed. The Secretary may be aware that I gave a winter’s work to that task, leaving in paper-marks and pencil annotations in the manuscript volumes of the archives, to facilitate future reference to documents and parts of documents to be extracted. I desire, therefore, to be explicitly understood as excluding all that portion of the work from criticism. I would only remark in passing, however, that I think, from some memoranda which I have preserved, that I must have marked in for publication (at least) one of Mr. Adams’s manuscript dispatches, No. 25, Adams to Seward, August 8, 1861, (in which he speaks of the British government regarding the separation of the Union as a fixed fact,) and the Queen’s speech of prorogation of Parliament of August 6, 1861, in which her British Majesty says—reiterating and persisting in belligerent recognition, when Mr. Seward had repudiated such a construction, even so late as August 4, 1863, (Seward to Lyons, August 4, 1863, Alabama Compilation, vol. 1, p. 268)— “The dissensions which arose some months ago in the United States of North America have unfortunately assumed the character of open war. Her Majesty, deeply lamenting this calamitous result, has determined, in common with the other powers of Europe, to preserve a strict neutrality between the contending parties;” two documents which I do not find in the Compilation, and which I should deem important.

But of the grave and fundamental omissions and misplacements which I would point out as essential to be supplied and rectified, I would instance at least the following:

The Parliamentary announcement of British recognition of rebel belliger ency, of May 6, 1861, by Lord J. Russell,^* (Hansard’s Parl. Deb., vol. 162, page 1564.) I do not imagine that this has been overlooked by the compiler, but to rank it among “Debates “as matter for the appendix, as is perhaps designed, is as, little allowable as to put the title-page of a volume into its appendix. Belligerent recognition, in my view, was not effected by the proclamation of neutrality of May 13, but by what was done and written May 6, 1861, including, besides this official parliamentary declaration or speech of Lord Russell, his two governmental dispatches of the same day, addressed to Lords Cowley and Lyons, the British ambassadors at Paris and Washington, respectively.

The Queen’s proclamation of neutrality, (which, by the way, is indexed in the compilation under Notification of Blockade, vol. 1, page 5,) on the contrary, was never communicated or intended to be communicated, diplomatically and officially, to the United States, [see Lord Russell’s treatment of this matter, Blue Book, 1862, No. 1, p. 27—Lord Russell to Lyons, May 15—where his lordship is willing that it shall circulate in the rebel States, but seems especially careful to give no instruction about communicating it at Washington;] but, on the other hand, what was resolved upon and declared by the British government, at the date of May 6, was diplomatically and officially communicated to the United States June 15, following; and (I am sorry to say) to the rebels on or about July 20, through the Bunch-Trescot mission, at Charleston, S. C. (Compilation, vol. 1, page 135.) If the honorable Secretary has ever scrutinized this point, he will have found, I think, that both Lord Russell and Mr. Seward consider the communication of British and French recognition of rebel belligerency to have taken effect, or, at least, been attempted, in Washington, in the personal interview of the two foreign ministers with Mr. Seward, June 15, 1861, described in the British Blue Book, 1862, No. 3, p. 9, (Compilation, vol. 1, p. 62,) under index caption Declaration of Paris; (!) and in the two dispatches, Seward to Dayton, of June 17, (Compilation, vol. 1, p. 60,) and Seward to Adams, of June 19, 1861, (ib., p. 64.) He will have found, furthermore, that the instruction on Lord Russell’s part was originally concocted May 18, though bearing date May 18, (Compilation, p. 110, note; ib., p. 104, “Postscript:”) [this important dispatch is omitted from page 50 of the Compilation^† its proper place, and given on page 107, under in closure, Russell to Adams, of August 28, 1861, ib., p. 105;] and that the French instruction to Mercier, communicated in the same personal interview in Washington, bears date “May 11, 1881,” (French Yellow Book for 1861; Les États-Uuis, pages 93–96;) which communication, it seems to me, ought in historic fairness, at least, to have made part of the “Alabama Compilation;” though I have observed that it has been omitted. For further reference to Mr. Seward’s sagacious and correct perception of the bearing of the British communication of rebel recognition dated May 18, cloaked under the name of the “Declaration of Paris,” I would refer the honorable Secretary, in addition, to “Compilation,” top of p. 194, given under index caption “Revocation (!) of Belligerent Recognition;” and to Compilation, page 196, at the bottom of the page, under same index caption, where Mr. Seward speaks of “the promised direct communication, bringing it (rebel belligerent recognition) authoritatively before this Government in the form chosen by the British government itself.” As for Lord Russell’s and Lord, Lyons’s understanding that the instruction of May 18 was intended for the formal communication to the United States of the action taken by the British government on this head, see Russell to Lyons, 2d dispatch of May 18, (Compilation, p. 51, three to first five lines; also, the last two lines of the same dispatch, where Lord Russell speaks of “communicating” [this “admission of the belligerent rights of the Confederate States of America,”] “at Montgomery, to the President of the so-styled Confederate States.”) See, also, Cowley to Russell, of May 9, (Compilation, p. 50, second paragraph from top,) where Cowley quotes Thouvenel as “to precedents” “for recognizing belligerent rights Lyons to Russell, June 17, 1861, (Compilation, p. 63,) where Mr. Seward for the moment appears to have thought that the scheme was not a covert and delusive one, but a bona fide attempt to reform the declaration of Paris; and Lyons’s instruction to Bunch of July 5, 1861, (Compilation, p. 123,) where Lord Lyons makes the dispatch of May 18, (No. 1.) the very vehicle of communicating belligerent recognition to the rebel confederacy, through Mr. Bunch, the British consul, resident at Charleston, South Carolina. But if anything were wanting to complete this characterization of the scheme, it is to be found in the Bunch-Trescot papers,^* where Consul Bunch puts down, in black and white, that the object of the mission was to go a step further in belligerent recognition toward full recognition of confederate independence than had been done on the 6th of May. It is for this reason that I have already ventured in my former letter to press upon the Secretary’s attention the importance of these papers, and my earnest hope, if no scruple of delicacy toward Mr. Trescot exists on the part of the Government, and no fear of their exciting national hostilities, that they may be given to the world. I would add, in respect to these papers, that Mr. Trescot accompanied them with Southern newspaper-cuttings, showing the republication in those journals, in the summer of 1862, of the British parliamentary documents of May 6, 1861, &c., which cuttings I hope will make a part of the compilation publication, if such publication of them is ever to be made; and that Mr. Trescot speaks, in his record memorandum of the mission, of a long “private” letter of Lord Lyons to Bunch, which, if procurable, would probably be worth more than all the other documents put together. I am not certain, however, that Mr. Trescot did not orally inform Mr. Sanford, through whose patriotic exertions these valuable documents were secured to the United States Government, that he had returned this private letter to Mr. Bunch.

In regard to Lord Russell’s speech^† of May 6, 1861, it may perhaps be worth mentioning to the honorable Secretary, that Mr. Seward thought his lordship’s quotation of Canning’s dispatch of the 12th of October, 1825, (toward the close of the speech)—that in which he speaks of its being a condition-precedent to any such belligerent recognition, “that the detention by the searching vessel is for the purpose of bringing the vessels detained before an established court of prize, and that confiscation should not take place until after condemnation by such competent tribunal”—of importance enough to request Mr. Adams to endeavor to obtain the whole of the dispatch quoted; and that Mr. Adams even applied to Lord Russell personally for that purpose, but unsuccessfully.—(See MSS. correspondence in Department of State, December, 1867, to February, 1868.)

But to proceed with further omissions and misplacements:

The most important part of Lord Russell’s dispatch to Lord Cowley of May 6, 1861—that part which gives the key to the whole movement, and was the launching of the Bunch mission—is left out on page 36, (where the rest is given under index caption of “Notification of Blockade,” p. 5,) and is only given at page 48 under “Declaration of Paris.”

On page 37 is given Lord Russell’s -account of his interview with the rebel emissaries Yancey, Mann, and Rost, on May 4, 1861, (the Saturday before the Monday of May 6, when our civil-war fortunes were to receive that stroke of paralysis which was to benumb them for four long years,) but omits the fuller and far more important account of the same interview, given by the emissaries themselves, under date of August 14, 1861; [a portion of this account is afterward furnished, to be sure, at page 335, under head of “Port Regulations,” (!)]—a most important document in the history of belligerent recognition, which seems to have escaped Mr. Seward’s attention in discussing the subject-matter with Lord Stanley, in January, 1867. (Seward to Adams,^‡ January 12, 1867, U. S. Dip. Cor., 1867, pp. 45–50.)

Lord Russell’s important letter to the Commissioners of the Admiralty, of May 1, 1861—which, perhaps, amounts to a recognition of rebel equality at that early day, but which certainly constitutes the only instruction given to British cruisers during the war that that government, so far as I am aware, has ever published—is given (page 33) under index caption “Notification of Blockade,” (!) when the blockade was as yet unknown.

Lord Lyons to Lord Russell of April 22, 1861, (showing that Lord Lyons considers that but few British cot ton-vessels will be on the American coast when the blockade takes effect, and that no great alarm need be apprehended from rebel cruisers,) given page 18 of the Compilation—omits the date, “Received May 10,” (i. e., at the Foreign Office,) like Mr. Seward’s official communication of the blockade, of April 19, (page 23,) that of “May 14,” commented on in my former communication; showing that official notification of the American proclamation of blockade did not actually reach the British government, on its own showing, till twenty-four hours or more after the publication of the Queen’s proclamation of neutrality.

Mr. Seward’s bold and energetic letter to Mr. Adams,^§ of May 21, 1861—written after hearing of the parliamentary declaration of May 6, but before any official communication of belligerent recognition, or information as to intention of issuing the proclamation of neutrality, and which letter of Mr. Seward’s Lord Lyons “fears the President has consented to being sent,” (Lyons to Russell, May 23, 1861, Blue Book, 1862, No. 1, page 39, and which last, so far as I can see, is also not given in the Compilation)—is only given entire (at page 179) under “Revocation of Belligerency.” (!) The extract on the earlier page, (51,) though justly duplicated under. “Declaration of Paris,” contains no reflection or expression of that “violent explosion of wrath,” which Lord Lyons refers to as exhibited in the American press generally, on the reception of the news of the proceedings in Parliament on the 6th, but which reflection of American sentiment is justly and forcibly depicted in the remainder of Secretary Seward’s energetic instruction to Mr. Adams of May 21, not extracted.

And here, perhaps, in regard to index captions in vol. 1, I may remark once for all upon the imperious necessity of some explanatory, prefatory, or supplementary note, showing why the head caption “Notification of Blockade” is foisted into the index from pages iii to v, underneath the general title “Recognition of Rebel Belligerency; why the general title itself is not resumed again on page iv; how the “Declaration of Paris” connects itself with the main subject; the same of the “Revocation of Bunch’s Exequatur;” what is meant by “Port Regulations,” pages xxxiii-xxxvii; and how “Propositions for Mediation and Intervention” are distinguishable from the current general title “Recognition of Rebel Belligerency.” Nor do I understand exactly why, in the text and body of the volume from page 517 to the end, the main title of the volume and the heading of the page “Claims against Great Britain” is dropped, and “Enforcement of Neutrality” is made to occupy the heading of the left-hand page, with “Amendment of Laws” &c., on the right-hand side. The Compilation for most purposes would be far more satisfactory, I am “constrained to think, without any divisions at all, and with a mere chronological juxtaposition of documentary pieces, than with such a confusing and misguiding series of captions and titles. In saying, this I am well aware that some of these divisions were of my own suggestion; but with the mechanical arrangement, or rather mis-arrangement, of printing, and still more in the absence of an explanatory preface, I find that all such arrangement and distribution of my own has only led to complicated disorder.

But to hasten on with my imperfect catalogue of omissions and misarrangements under the head of “Recognition of Rebel Belligerency,” to which I have devoted a more especial attention, I find one of the five or six demands for the recall of this recognition, as made by the United States during the course of the civil war, and the demand which of all others was most explicitly and unwarrantably refused by Great Britain, altogether omitted from that head. I allude to the demand of Mr. Seward of October 24, 1864, (Seward to Adams^* No. 1138, Dip. Cor. 1864, Pt. II, pp. 338–341, 342,) which teas communicated to the British government by Mr. Adams, November 23, 1864, (Adams to Seward,^† No. 821, Dip. Cor. 1865, p. 5,) and which was point-blank refused by Lord Russell, November 26, 1864, (Blue Book, 1865, No. 1, pp. 25, 27, 28, Russell to Lyons,^‡ November 26.) The refusal is given in the Compilation, (vol. 1, pp. 279, &c.,) but neither Mr. Seward’s instruction nor Mr. Adams’s communication of the instruction which led to the refusal. A portion is of Mr. Seward’s letter,^§ in which the instruction is contained, is indeed given at page 676 under “Amendment of laws,” but not the extract on pagers 41, 42, (of United States Dip. Cor.,) relating to belligerent recognition, which seems to have been overlooked by the compiler. It is true that both Messrs. Seward’s and Adams’s entire dispatches’ of October 24 and November 23 are given in vol. 2, of the Compilation, under “Rebel operations from Canada,” (pp. 20–36,) but the two portions of the Belligerent-Recognition correspondence ought not obviously to be given thus dislocated and dissevered. Especially, as it seems to me, was it desirable to bring our demand into juxtaposition with Lord Russell’s volunteer communication to Slidell and Mason of November 25, 1884, (the day before,) which Slidell in his intercepted dispatch to the rebel secretary of state, (elsewhere commented on,) justly characterized as a gratuitous and extraordinary offensive insult to the Government of the United States.

I find that I have omitted to notice in their chronological order two other important dispatches, or extracts of dispatches, of the year’1862, relating to the same head of Rebel Belligerency, which ought to have been repeated, or else differently arranged, in vol. 1 of the Compilation. The first is Seward to Adams, No. 260, May 28, 1862, (Dip. Cor., 101,) a dispatch in which Mr. Seward invoked the element of slavery for the first time, as a ground for revocation of belligerency, and which dispatch both Messrs. Seward and Adams regarded as of the highest importance; and the second, Adams to Seward, No. 208, August 22, 1862, (Dip. Cor., 180, 181,) highly noticeable for Mr. Adams’s report that the British government would probably have recalled belligerent recognition in 1862 if McClellan’s advance on Richmond had proved successful. These two dispatches are given at pages 405, 431, of vol. 1 of the Compilation, under the topic, “Propositions for Mediation,” &c.; but are, perhaps lost to the subject of “Recognition.” (See Mr. Seward’s^* comments on Lord Russell’s course, September 8, No. 336, Dip. Cor., 1862, p. 188,’ also omitted from the Compilation; though another extract from the same dispatch is given, vol. 1, p. 434.)

But to recur to the latter period of 1865; again I find the important dispatch of Seward to Adams, No. 1304, of March 15, (Dip. Cor., 1865, p. 245,) omitted from both vols. 1 and 2, This is a dispatch in which Mr. Seward makes the diminution and destruction of American commerce a specific ground of national claim against Great Britain, connected with the outfit in British ports of rebel cruisers, and which assumes more consequence by reason of Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s recent unfounded admissions in that respect. I ought to notice, perhaps, in reference to the compilation, that Mr. Adams’s fulfillment of Mr. Seward’s instruction, by way of communicating this dispatch, is given at page 290 of vol. 1 of the Compilation, though somewhat varied in terms and recast as to its connection. Another dispatch of Mr. Seward’s of March 20, 1865, (^†Seward to Adams, No. 1310, Dip. Cor., p. 252,) five days later, alsoomitted, ought to have given Mr. Seward’s urgent claim (at its conclusion) for the recall of belligerent recognition. Following after this period at a near interval I find more omissions under the head of “demand for revocation of rebel belligerency,” which it seems to me are material deficiencies.

Dispatch No. 1350, F. W. Seward to Adams, of April 12,^‡ (Dip. Cor., p. 309.)

Dispatch No. 973, Adams to Hunter, of June 2,^§ (Dip. Cor., p. 393.)

Dispatch No. 977, Adams to Hunter, of June 2,^║ (Dip. Cor., p. 397.)

Dispatch, (unnumbered circular,) Seward to Adams, June 7,^¶ (Dip. Cor., p. 400.)

Some or all of these are certainly necessary to tell the story of the reluctant recall by England of rebel recognition, and how easily and fairly the same measures (of merely withholding hospitality from rebel cruisers, and of according it as usual to United States ships of war) might have been practiced upon by that government from 1862 downward.

This branch of the case may be appropriately closed by printing entire the instructions of Mr. Fish to Mr. Motley, of the 25th of September, 1869, and the unsigned “notes” upon that dispatch, which were handed to Mr. Fish by Mr. Thornton on the 6th day of November, 1869.

Although an official character to the latter document was disavowed by Lord Clarendon, and it, therefore, does not form a part of the official record of the case, the fact that it was reputed to have been prepared by Lord Tenderden (then Mr. Abbott) will give it an interest in the eyes of the American commissioners.

1. Published on page 482, Vol. IV, Claims, &c.
2. It is referred to by a foot-note on page 50.
3. The correspondence referred to by Mr. Bemis is on file in the Department of State, and will, if desired, be placed at the disposal of the High Joint Commission.
4. See Compilation, vol. 4, p. 483.
5. See Compilation, vol. 3, p. 660.
6. See Compilation, vol. 1, p. 179.
7. See Compilation, vol. 2, p. 20.
8. See Compilation, vol. 2. p. 36.
9. See Compilation, vol. 2, p. 67.
10. Given in full on p. 20, vol. 2, of Compilation.
11. The extract printed on page 434 and the one on page 542 of vol. 1, Compilat on constitute Mr. Seward’s instruction to Mr. Adams of September 8, 1862, with the exception of three paragraphs, which treat entirely of military events transpiring in the United States at that time.
12. See Compilation, vol. 1, p. 366.
13. See Compilation, vol. 1, p. 367.
14. See Compilation, vol. 1, p. 371.
15. See Compilation, vol. 1, p. 373.
16. See Compilation, vol. 1, p. 374.