LONDON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 1862.
Twenty-four hours after the Message from Washington which we reported yesterday the Cabinet of the Federal States' Government broke its silence, and the Old World is no longer at enmity with the New. In the afternoon of the 27th of December Lord Lyons received an announcement from the United States' Government that they consented to deliver to him the four prisoners when and where he pleased. We draw a long breath, and are thankful. The suspense which has endured so long, and has weighed so heavily upon our peaceful avocations, has at last terminated. We are once more able to subside from the bustle of preparation, to withdraw our attention from the mustering of squadrons and the equipment of vast engines of destruction, and to busy ourselves about our own domestic affairs. With a clear conscience and a placid self-respect we can congratulate ourselves that in doing what is right we have done also what was expedient. The straightforward course of honour and of duty always has its compensations, but in this case it has had the unusual reward of a signal and immediate success.
Crotchetmongers and charlatans of every kind have hung upon the footsteps of the men who conducted this great affair, and have attempted to force upon their attention their importunate conceits. The owls of wisdom and the bats of ill augury filled the atmosphere with their shrill cries and dull flappings. But, keeping within the circle of manly sense and international precedent, the trusted chiefs of the British people have succeeded in conjuring away this storm and in bringing back a tranquil sky. Thanks, under Providence, to them, we have come out of this trial with our honour safe and no blood spilt. It is a great victory though it is but an escape from being obliged to conquer. We are but where we were before we were so grossly insulted. We have but curbed for a moment the insolence of a neighbour who took pleasure in continually provoking us, and had permitted himself at last to go beyond the possibility of sufferance. We have done nothing to set up monuments to commemorate; we have only held our own in the great community of nations, and read a necessary lesson to an ill-mannered companion. There have been times in our history - times when we had not the strength we could now put forth - when we should have had no such real joy as we now feel in the hinderance of such a conflict. There are other nations which even at this age of the world would not have thought it consistent with their renown to manifest such patience and long suffering under outrage as we have exhibited. If the same experiment had been tried upon France, we question whether the same forbearance would have been afforded to the aggressor, or the same readiness to receive a tardy and grudging reparation. We have manifested a deliberation and a tranquillity under insult which even we could not have shown towards a people for whom we thought it right to make fewer allowances, or whom we feared more. The Government of the Federal States had done in mere wantonness what no nation of the Old World had ever dared to do. They had invaded the sanctuary which England extends to all political exiles who seek her protection; and to this wound, inflicted on her most sensitive pride, they had added an insult to her maritime flag and a menace to her security in traversing the seas. On all hands it is now admitted that the offence was at once insult and wrong, and it is no great triumph, therefore, that it should have been followed by reparation. If we had had to deal with a friendly and courteous people, we should have had no occasion for preparations of war. If a French or an English captain, while the two nations are upon their present terms were to gratify a crack-brained freak or an insane thirst of notoriety by some piratical outrage against the foreign flag, neither Government would wait to see whether any miserable advantage could be gained by the circumstance. The act would be at once disavowed, and the booty returned, with apologies and compensation. This was the course which, if Federal America had been courteous or even shrewd, Federal America would have pursued. Mr. Seward missed a great opportunity when he failed to act as a European statesman would have acted under similar circumstances. At this moment there is no great sympathy here for either party. The attraction we feel towards a weaker nation invaded by a stronger and a richer nation is repelled by the very general detestation of slavery; and, if Mr. Seward had seized the opportunity for a graceful and a courteous act, we would not answer for how far our countrymen might have been tempted from their rigorous neutrality. It was a gross blunder for the shrewd Minister of a shrewd people to miss the chance of a great advantage only to do the same act at last under circumstances of unavoidable humiliation.
But we are told that a very elaborate Note of protest accompanies this surrender. This voluminous gloss upon a very simple fact is still upon its way from Queenstown. We cannot say we are very impatient for it. We have long since learnt to value Transatlantic statesmen less for what they say than for what they do. It is by deeds, and not by arguments, that the fact we today announce has been brought about. It is not Vattel and Bynkershoek, and Stowell and De Hauteville, who have influenced this controversy, but the promptitude with which we reinforced Admiral Milne's fleet, and poured battalion after battalion into Canada. They loudly proclaim this in America, and Mr. Seward's Note will very probably be found to bear marks of the same sentiment. We make up our minds in advance, therefore, to accept with unruffled equanimity any quantity of words. Even if there should be muffled threats and expressions of ill will we shall humbly hope to outlive them. The aggressor is making retribution. It never has been held of much consequence whether he does it with a good grace or no. The substantial apology lies in the fact of the surrender of the thing taken. We hope to find in Mr. Seward's Note an expression of regret that he should ever have employed so inconsiderate a commander as Captain Wilkes, or should have been so ill-advised as to persevere in a tacit recognition of his act; but we shall be neither surprised or discomfited if this hope is not fulfilled.
To-day, however, it is enough that we congratulate ourselves that the danger is past, and all present apprehension of war at an end. Let us also especially congratulate ourselves that the crisis found this united nation and her loyal Colonies so well prepared, and that it leaves us so well protected. We have every reason to be satisfied with the position which this country has held throughout. We have never deviated from grave and courteous discussion, and have never descended to retort the wild invectives which came from the other side of the Atlantic. The War Departments have manifested an efficiency which gives us confidence in ourselves, and will give us security from future insult. The Government have acted with a rare courtesy and temper, but have displayed, together with dignified deliberation, firmness, promptitude, and courage. Nor will we refrain from adding, what every one will feel while he reads this news, that the man upon whom the nation instinctively relied while the crisis lasted deserves our warmest gratitude now that the peril is overcome. It is indeed a rare triumph to grace the latter years of a life so happily prolonged, that Lord Palmerston has found, and has used, the opportunity to curb the arrogance of the only people which has in this generation entered systematically upon a course of offence towards England.
While the country may fairly congratulate itself on the happy results which have attended the firm policy of its Government, and may look with satisfaction on this new proof that a bold attitude and straightforward demand form the safest course of action in international difficulties, it would be ungracious to forget how much our cause has been strengthened by the approbation and good will of the other Powers of Europe. To fulfil strictly the duties of peace, but to be ready to assert our rights even by war, is true wisdom, and we may hope that the national policy of late years has been such as to convince all our neighbours that we will neither commit nor suffer aggression. In spite of the wars which have, unhappily, made the last few years a time of anxiety for Europe, it is easy to perceive that there is a steady elevation of public morality and an awakening of national conscience The most irresponsible rulers are anxious to stand well with the world, and every faction uses the language of moderation, and endeavours to clothe its acts with the pretexts of virtue. To the old contempt which would await a pusillanimous nation would now be added a general indignation and a spirit of resistance against any community which should break through the laws devised for the common security. It is to the feeling that England in her demands at Washington was supporting the cause of civilization and insuring the safety of the seas that we owe the unanimity of approval which has been shown during the last few weeks. Not only have foreign nations expressed no jealousy at the display of those enormous armaments which sprang so suddenly into existence at our great ports, but they have plainly told us that nothing less could be expected of England if she cared for her own honour, or was willing to uphold the principles which are a security to all.
Such good will deserves recognition, and will not be forgotten by the British people. It shows that even great power does not provoke envy when it is exerted in a good cause. There are States which, from their history and traditions and policy, are predisposed to take the part of America against ourselves, and which in any quarrel where the right was not plainly on our side might be unconsciously affected by their old prejudices. But in this case our rivals both past and present, together with those States which differ most from ourselves in political principles, have combined to give active encouragement or tacit assent to our proceedings. Above all, the acknowledgments of Englishmen are due to the French Government. To the position taken by the Emperor from the outset of this discussion the Americans may, perhaps, owe it that they have not plunged into a mad and ruinous warfare. The blindness of their politicians and the ignorance of their people from the beginning of the war have, indeed, been truly wonderful. Either from a fond belief that France would support them in all their schemes, or with a wish to flatter the self-love of the French by contrasting their openness and generosity with the alleged perfidy of England, the Northern Americans have never failed to assort that, whereas we were disposed to take advantage of their dissensions, and had recognized the Confederates in order to break up the Republic, the French had shown a steady friendship for the Northern cause. It has long been evident to the world, and is now proved by the publication of the correspondence, that France and England were acting in unison, or at least on the selfsame principles. But until the affair of the Trent took place the completeness of this accordance was not yet made manifest.
it must now be admitted by the most steady adherents to old maxims of policy that, of the two great States of Western Europe, one can see the other enter into a dispute without an overwhelming desire to thwart and circumvent its rival. When the demands of England were despatched early last month France did not want advisers in the American interest. There were those who saw with jealousy the prospect of a war in which the ships of the United States would be swept from the seas, and the flag of England made more powerful than ever by the destruction of one of the second-rate navies. In the highest society the cause of the North was defended by a Prince in close relationship to the Throne. Besides this there was the usual American colony at Paris, reinforced at the moment by the veteran General Scott, whose military career might be supposed to recommend him favourably to the Court of the Tuileries. It will be doing no injustice to any one if we say that all the efforts of the American party were used to induce the French Government to give some aid or comfort to the Northern States. But the Emperor at once made up his mind. Sharing the conviction of his people that the act of Captain Wilkes was an outrage on the Law of Nations, he caused to be conveyed to General Scott and the Americans such an expression of his opinion that the General at once set off for America, where he happily arrived soon enough to give his advice to the vacillating Cabinet. Not content with this indirect aid to the cause of peace, the Imperial Government addressed to its Minister at Washington the remarkable despatch dated the 3d of December, pointing out in the clearest manner the violation of law committed by Captain Wilkes, and warning the President that not only could the Federal Government expect no countenance from France, but that France would be obliged to give her full moral support to the cause in which England was arming.
The good effect of this communication cannot be doubted, nor are we inclined to under-estimate its importance in causing the Cabinet of Mr. Lincoln to yield to our just claims. It is not as a military ally that we have counted on the help of France in this matter. We are able, as the last six weeks have proved, to maintain our own rights and vindicate our own honour, without the assistance of any other Power. The Federal Government knew that if it refused reparation the consequences would have been terrible to its people, and completely decisive of the war in which it is now engaged. Had France never rejected the advances of the American party; had M. Thouvennel's Note never been despatched, the surrender of the four prisoners would, in all probability, have taken place. But perhaps this would not have been done with the same readiness, or until further steps had been taken by England to assert her rights, which would have embittered the animosity and humiliated the pride of a people whom she was unwilling to regard as enemies. By his good feeling and sound judgment the French Emperor has aided in bringing this dispute to a close. He has convinced the Americans from the first that they had no chance of engaging the sympathy or the ambition of any European nation on their side, and that hereditary rivalries do not keep their ground against the dictates of public morality and the opinion of the community of nations in which France holds so high a place. Thus, not only have the Northern States escaped the losses and the humiliations a war with England must have entailed upon them, but they learn a lesson which will be useful to them during the rest of their struggle with their alienated fellow-citizens. They now know that neither the desire to embarrass a rival State, nor the remembrance of former passages in their history, will seduce European nations into sympathy with an unjust cause, or into endeavours to prop up a failing power. If the chill of adversity cools the heated imagination which sees nothing in war but a succession of triumphs, the lesson will have been worth the learning.
(Section on Portsmouth war preparations excised)
LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 1862.
There is little mystery in modern diplomacy. The bees work under glass hives, and seem to find pleasure and advantage in the transparency of their toil. There is not a step in the proceedings which have just led to the re-establishment of amicable relations with Federal America which is not as well known to the most humble member of the British public as it is to a Cabinet Minister. Everything that is mysterious is mysterious alike to all on this side of the Atlantic. By what means Captain Wilkes came to commit his, now disavowed, act of violence on the high seas none of us can tell; nor how it came to be adopted by the American Admiralty, or countenanced by the close custody of the captives. It is enough for us to know that the responsibility of the act was repudiated on the 28th of last month by the Federal Government. Nor is it possible to surmise why the American Cabinet were so long in stating their convictions that the act was indefensible, and that the men must be given up, seeing that by this long concealment of their convictions they destroyed their own financial credit in Europe, and put us to the expense of rendering Canada secure against any present or future contingency. Neither is it plain to us why the news of the surrender of the prisoners should have been unknown in Washington when it was on its way to England, or why the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, should have been allowed to thunder away in the Senate against the supposition that England had demanded reparation, at the moment when Mr. Seward was elaborately proving that he had no possible course before him but to surrender the prisoners. All this secrecy is explained by several hypotheses. Mr. Seward's friends explain it by a reason very favourable to that gentleman's prudence and judgment, and say that, notwithstanding he had that clear course before him which he has mapped out in an unmeasurable despatch, yet he had also a patriotic President before him, who would not yield until many of the advantages of yielding had been lost, and a patriotic populace behind him, who would have rendered it difficult for him to yield if they had been let into the secret.
What mystery there has been, however, has been found in the Republican Government, and, what is a still stranger lesson, the mystery has all been used in favour of peace. The proceedings of the British Government have been throughout carried on in the broad torchlight of the public Press. The act itself was no sooner announced than the Law Officers were set to work upon it, and their decision was made public. The substance of the despatch demanding reparation was known throughout the kingdom before it had left these shores. It was tracked on its way by the public eye; we knew when it would arrive, and with what deliberate delays its tenour was to be communicated before it was actually delivered. We also knew that Mr. Sewards attitude towards Lord Lyons had been for some time previous so threatening that our Minister had avoided as much as possible all interviews with him, lest he should find himself the subject of some affront which his duty would compel him to resent. Therefore it was that the Government telegrams not only announced from day to day the proceedings of Lord Lyons, but also noted the lapse of time after the demand had been delivered, and kept us informed of the unpromising silence of the American Cabinet. During the whole course of the crisis the British nation have been admitted, as it were, to the Cabinet, and every step has been taken with the full acclaim of the country, Now that it is ended, we have nothing to look back upon with regret. We believe we may say that Mr. Seward himself has expressed to Lord Lyons his sense of the manner in which this very delicate negotiation has been conducted, and has admitted that hi very difficult task was greatly facilitated by the extreme courtesy of the British Minister and his Government, and by the considerate manner in which the question had been presented to him for solution. All this we looked on upon as it passed, and, looking on, we all approved. Perhaps we may think that, if Mr. Seward's course had been equally frank and public from the first, his people, like our people, would have seen in what has now happened the natural sequence to the transaction. If he also had published the opinions of his Law Officers, he might have saved Boston from so stultifying itself, and New York from such sad exhibitions; he might have prevented his countrymen from making a hero of the author of this vapouring outrage, and saved them from the sting of sharing his humiliation. If, as our Correspondent anticipates, Mr. Seward has now to suffer for doing right, he will owe much of the unpopularity he has to endure to his own procrastination.
Yet, if the diplomatic note which he delivered to Lord Lyons when announcing his readiness to surrender the prisoners is to receive anything more than a credence of courtesy, there never could have been a moment when he had any doubt as to the entire illegality of the proceeding of his officer. With a verbosity never equalled even in diplomacy, and with an inconsequential vagueness never surpassed even in Congressional debate, Mr. Seward in this long document wanders through the history of all past transactions. Inasmuch, however, as he concludes that, notwithstanding all he has so lengthily and so vaguely premised, he can come to no other conclusion upon the circumstances of the present case than that the act was indefensible, and that the prisoners must be restored, the obvious course was to accept the fact of the reparation and to disregard the comment. Such, we believe, has been the course adopted by our Government. A Cabinet Council was held yesterday, at which this very elaborate document was considered. An answer will, we understand, be returned, expressing the gratification of Her Majesty's Government at the disavowal of the act of Captain Wilkes, accepting the satisfaction rendered, and assuming that the precedent in the case of the Trent will rule the more recent case of the seizure made by the captain of the Santiago de Cuba on board the British schooner Eugenia Smith. As to the general discussion of the law of neutrals, into which Mr. Seward enters at so much length, the Government will decline any answer until they have had an opportunity of submitting the whole Note to their Law Officers. There are propositions laid down in this Note which are not at all admissible, and it is of the highest importance that we should not suddenly bind ourselves to the abolition of belligerent rights which may be to ourselves at some future time of vital importance; nor that we should, on the other hand, admit the right of any foreign State to carry our Mail Packets into their ports and submit them to the arbitrament of their Prize Courts. After the delivery of the prisoners all these points may be very properly raised, and can be conveniently discussed; but it is expedient to separate this discussion entirely from the settlement of the misunderstanding which has so nearly precipitated us into war. Whenever the proper time comes we shall probably insist, with all authority in our favour, that a belligerent has a right to communicate with a neutral Power in a neutral ship; and that it is a presumption that in such communication there is nothing inconsistent with the character of the neutral nation, and therefore nothing injurious to the other belligerent.
Let the business of the day, however, suffice for the day. The quarrel being over, we are now rather better friends than we were before it commenced. Mr. Seward and Lord Lyons know each other better than they did some time ago, and are more conversant with each other's views and instructions. The tone of the American papers has, we are glad to remark, become very much more reasonable. Perhaps, in the face of the declarations made to our Correspondent, that a Northerner hates England twice as much as he loves the Union, and that America would give a million of men for a war with us, it might be imprudent to offer a temptation to strife by decreasing our force in Canada. We may hope, however, that whatever irritation now exists may gradually subside, and that we may experience no more of those fractious and splenetic annoyances which engender ill feeling and lead at least to great perils.
To all intents and purposes, except the actual shedding of blood, we have been for the last month at war with the Northern States of America. We have been spending money at a war rate; we have been moving troops, completing and equipping ships, preparing arms and ammunition, employing our minds and hardening our hearts, as if for impending and inevitable war. Till the moment of collision, till the pickets are driven in, the guns fired, and the men begin to drop, the greatest war is little else than what we have been waging since the capture of the Confederate Commissioners. In the United States two immense armies are collected and brought face to face, where they have stood for months, and all with as little loss of life as we have suffered by our military and naval preparations. Had the Australasian foundered in the snow-storm off the Island of Anticosti and been lost with all souls on board, our war would have cost nearly as many lives as the war hitherto has cost either side in the United States. It is war to be engaged as if for war, to be compassing and contriving the destruction of our foes and the protection of our friends, to be counting upon honours and preparing for losses, and to be occupied in the subject to the exclusion of our ordinary thoughts and cares. Already they talk of our having spent two millions, but when the bills are all in, and the works denoted in the daily columns of our Naval and Military Intelligence all completed and paid for, we shall be prepared for twice the sum. Ships cannot be finished in a hurry with men as thick as they can stand, regiments cannot be brought up to the full complement and carried comfortably across the Atlantic and back, without incalculable cost, and nobody dreams that his Income-tax will be less next year. This, then, is war. It is war, too, when the Christmas circle is broken up by the absence of the best man on a distant errand of destruction across a stormy ocean, off a dangerous coast, or in forests and snow-tracks. It is war in a form to strike all eyes, when the hunt, the dance, the theatricals miss the best riders, the best partners, the only manager, and any post may bring the news of another use, and perhaps another doom, for noble qualities. So virtually we have been at war all this Christmas time, and now suddenly Peace is proclaimed, and we are at war no longer. We have to suspend operations, to bring home our forces, and do everything as if after a war of two or of thirty years. How, then, do we, and how do the British people, take an announcement which heretofore has been celebrated with processions and proclamations, with bonfires and bell-ringing, with feasts and holydays, with illuminations and fireworks? We do not suppose that the national delight will be so ecstatic and unqualified as when we had been supping full of Crimean or Indian horrors for two years, and knew by recent experience what war really was. The most rational among us had speculated on the probable length of the war and its other contingencies; but that was only a speculation, and the gloomiest speculation can never strike the mind like the terrible fact. When we have imagined a thousand horrors, and come to understand that we could not escape them all, or most of them, one of them actually comes to pass surpassing them all. We have only to suppose a blockading squadron driven on shore and compelled to surrender, a military force cut off and frozen to death or submission, or some unaccountable reverse like the tale of Bull's Run, and we shall see at once that England is not likely to have the same hankering or Peace now as if she had been at actual war for a year or two. They who can look forward into the black future, and who have friends or incomes to be decimated, will rejoice with a rational and patriotic rejoicing. But it is no great injustice to the popular mind of this country to suspect it of a shade of disappointment. The public have made up their mind to the game of war; they have given up their other engagements; they have paid their money, and taken their places, when the manager comes before the curtain and tells them that the principal actor has sent his apologies and cannot attend. It is possible to be disappointed even of misery or disaster. We have heard of a man who had so persuaded himself he had a cancer that he felt annoyed to find himself mistaken. When you have screwed up your courage, it is provoking to find it uncalled for. Litigants with ruin staring them in the face have felt themselves hurt by a timely compromise or concession. The Americans themselves assure us that the popular feeling on their side is quite as much a mad desire to exchange blows with the mother country, for any or no reason, as a sense of wrong; and one cousin is too like the other not to be liable to a purely bellicose and combative excitement.
The knowledge on the part of our statesmen that the British people are only too ready and too able to fight for any cause, and to defend their interest and their honour whenever at stake, has, no doubt, contributed to our patient and forbearing policy hitherto with the United States. As regards this froward child, we have always felt a difficulty in setting our interest and our honour itself against those of our own offspring, and have relied on our power of defending them whenever it should be absolutely required. In a word, we could always wait for the hour when this painful necessity should arrive, and meanwhile we could comfort and assure ourselves with a merited confidence in our justice and safety. We felt that a war between two States of the same origin and language, and in many respects so similar and so connected, would be a public scandal, for which any amount of triumph would hardly compensate. Thus, the higher feeling of the parent, the brother, and the gentleman have been permitted to step in between the decidedly combative qualities too apparent on both sides of the Atlantic. Our statesmen have held back the people, knowing well that this people would be able to defend and avenge itself.
But our recent preparation has not been thrown away. Nine-tenths of the operations of real war are without any immediate and actual result. The demonstration which costs immense efforts, marching, countermarching, conveyance and abandonment of stores, constructions and destructions, and even the loss of many lives, may completely answer its intended purpose of deceiving or dividing a foe without in the least answering its apparent end. We have set all our naval and military forces in full current for Canada, and the current is already flowing thither at a much quicker rate than we can recall. That such a current should be suddenly arrested and brought back without a blow being struck may seem to realize an utter nullity. If, however, it has assured and will assure the Americans of our sincerity and earnestness, it has answered its purpose as much as if it had encountered the full tide of American war, and written its loss, not only on the mind, but on the bloody battle-field and the wreck-strewn wave. Less decision, a less rapid movement of soldiers, a less hurried equipment of vessels, might have been interpreted into a makebelieve, and Lord Palmerston might have been complimented on an effective "demonstration". As it is, the Americans will hear all that has been done. They may be assured that it has not been a little war they have escaped, even though its actual course has been bloodless and short.
In earnestness, in determination, and in magnitude of purpose, it would have been a very great war. It has, too, like an inspection or a review, or rather like a night alarm for practice against surprises, left much instruction. Prepared as we are, we cannot but find it a difficult task to concentrate and direct all our resources at a day's warning to any one point. Mistakes must be made or discovered. Ships, arms, and even men, are found not so readily as they seemed. The capacities of establishments are probed, as also the vigour and skill of officials. It has been a great field-day, such as nothing less than an Empire in danger can give us. All England has turned out to resist an outrage and vindicate her flag. Fortunately for all, the assailant has been wise in time, and England returns to her quarters with the feeling that her preparations have not been thrown away.
Fr 10 January 1862
THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.
(from our special correspondent.)
WASHINGTON, Dec. 27.
THE SURRENDER OF MASON AND SLIDELL.
Omitting all matters of detail till next post, I hasten to announce that the Government of the United States has acceded to the demand of Great Britain and has consented to surrender Mr. Mason, Mr. Slidell, and their secretaries. This morning Mr. Seward sent to Lord Lyons a request that his Lordship would call at the State Department, and in the interview which took place Mr. Seward handed the British Minister an exceedingly voluminous note, which will no doubt see the light some day in England, and informed him at the same time that the captives were at his Lordship's disposal. Let us take this act as the expression of the conviction in the minds of the American Government that they were wrong in retaining their prisoners, and that the seizure was an outrage, nor let us, till we know the nature of the despatch, attribute any other motives to them than the desire to do what is right. The effect in this country, when it is known, will be exceedingly great, for such a dish of humble pie cannot be taken into stomachs which have been disordered by cocktail talking without a great deal of nausea. Do not imagine that the real intelligence and worth of the people will disapprove the act. The men I allude to are the writers in the "sensation" press, and the bunkum orators, as well as the more violent Abolitionists, who by insulting menaces and intemperate pledges have bound themselves to oppose the concession, no matter how just it might prove to be. Doubtless, Mr. Seward in the elaborate despatch he has written will seek to show that Great Britain has laid down some new principle in this transaction, and in swelling periods will endeavour to demonstrate that by yielding the prisoners the United States has gained some great point for herself and the world in general from Great Britain, which can never again take political offenders from neutral ships. Let it be so. The case is memorable enough and clear enough to serve as a precedent. No one can doubt but that the relations of both countries would have been much more satisfactory if the Government of Washington had restored the prisoners as soon as it heard of the capture, and if all the irritating writing and speaking to which we have been treated here, and the expense, anxiety, and sense of indignity to which we were exposed in Great Britain, had been obviated. I fear that the wrath to come will be greater than anything yet experienced by us, and that a terrible future is in store for Great Britain, at the indefinite time when so many great things arc to come to pass. The Government here, which has thus far got over its external dangers, will now have to face a tremendous ordeal. The sense of justice or right or even necessity cannot prevail over the cherished love of doing what they like among the masses. The Union can get more than half a million of men to fight for her, at a considerable expense, it is true, but moved in the main, let us admit, by love for the Union; but she could, I am assured, raise a million to fight against England. That is, the hate of Great Britain is at least twice as strong as the love of the Union among many millions of Americans. They will he disappointed this time. If Mason and Slidell he surrendered without any extravagant threats in the press, or without any indignation meetings, we may hope that friendly relations will be preserved for years to come, as it will be a token that in a crisis the sound sense, patriotism, and desire to do what is demanded by justice and right predominate in the United States over the violence of popular passion. Let us stand by and see if it will be so, and let us be thankful meantime that we are spared the war which would have been forced on us in vindication of our honour had the Government here been deaf to the voice of reason. The secret of the Government has been well kept. Mr. Seward must have enjoyed the pleasure of tantalizing Mr. Sumner and the other Senators and politicians who thought to worm out his secret, for he is fond of a joke, and could not have been indifferent to the pangs of the Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations of the Senate, who to the last persisted in believing or in stating that Great Britain had made no absolute demand which did not admit of either a deliciously long correspondence, or a delicate negotiation by mediator or arbitrator. Some of my good friends of the sword who have been very fierce and belligerent will, no doubt, be difficult to appease. Men like M'Dowell, Halleck, and General Scott, who appreciated the gravity of the question, have spoken of it with moderation. Some of them, indeed, have from the first maintained that the seizure was unjustifiable. As to the officers of the navy, I must do them the justice to say that those I have met were from the first willing to surrender the Southern Commissioners, and that more than one expressed the strongest disapprobation of Captain Wilkes's act, notwithstanding that the Secretary of the Navy had highly lauded him. Mr. Welles is of the same opinion still, and submits to "force majeure."
Mr. Fox, the able and experienced Assistant-Secretary of the Navy - a naval officer who has seen the world, and has raised his head above the clouds and mists which dim the vision of the indigenous American who has never stirred out of his own country - differed from his chief. There were people who went about talking and writing in the most patriotic manner about never surrendering till death or afterwards, and seeing every city in a blaze before they would surrender the prisoners. These people will now most probably go about using the same language in another tense, and declaring that it would have been better to have done all sorts of things than to have performed an act of justice, and have averted much bloodshed and misery to two kindred nations, while they at a blow destroyed the possibility of success in the contest on which they had set their hearts. The interval which has elapsed since Monday, when Lord Lyons presented his note, of which he had at several previous interviews discussed the nature with Mr. Seward, was not unreasonably long, though it has given birth to a despatch which might not be characterized in the same way, and the press and the politicians were alike in the dark as to the demands of Great Britain, and the view taken of them by the Government. It was only the pressure of circumstances, and the convincing arguments founded on the state of the navy and the present position of affairs, which prevailed over the indisposition of the highest persons in the State to yield the prisoners. So late as yesterday a violent speech was made in the Senate by Mr. Hale, in introducing a resolution for the correspondence arising out of the Trent affair...
Fr 10 January 1862
LATEST INTELLIGENCE.
[A portion of the following appeared in our Second Edition of yesterday:-]
Reuter's telegram's.
AMERICA.
DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE ON THE TRENT AFFAIR.
LONDONDERRY, Jan. 9.
The Canadian steamer Jura, which arrived here this morning, was detained at Portland six hours for Lord Lyons' despatches, which she takes to Liverpool direct.
NEW YORK, Dec. 28.
The diplomatic correspondence in reference to the case of Messrs. Mason and Slidell has been published.
It commences with a despatch from Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams in London, declaring that Captain Wilkes acted without instructions, and hoping that the British Government would consider the subject in a friendly temper. Mr. Seward says also that the British Government may expect the best disposition on the part of the Federal Government.
The next despatch is from Earl Russell to Lord Lyons, stating the outrage on the British flag, and hoping that the act was committed without instructions from the Federal Government, as that Government must be aware that Great Britain cannot allow such an affront to pass without reparation. Earl Russell expresses a hope that the Federal Government will offer suitable redress by giving up the four prisoners to Lord Lyons. Mr. Seward, who was furnished with a copy of Earl Russell's despatch, replied that the English Government rightly conjectured that the act was without the authority or knowledge of the Federal Government. He trusts that England will see that the Federal Government neither practised nor approved any deliberate wrong in the transaction, and declares that Great Britain has a right to demand the same reparation as the United States would expect from any friendly nation in a similar case. Mr. Seward says he is aware that he argues on the British side of the case, but in doing so he is only defending American principles. He quotes the instructions from Mr. Madison, Secretary of State in 1804, to Mr. Monroe, Minister to England, and says:-
"If I decide this case in favour of my own Government I must disallow its most cherished principles, and for ever abandon its most cherished policy; but the country cannot afford such a sacrifice. The Government cannot deny the justice of England's claim."
Mr. Seward, in conclusion, states that the four prisoners are at the disposal of Lord Lyons, and asks his Lordship to indicate a time and place for receiving them.
Lord Lyons, in his reply, says he will forward Mr. Seward's communication to the British Government, and will confer personally with him in regard to the reception of the four gentlemen.
The note from M. Thouvenel to the French Minister on the Trent affair is included in the correspondence.
