Charles Francis Adams to Right Hon. Earl Russell, April 22, 1863

Mr. Adams to Lord Russell.

My Lord: I have carefully re-examined the positions taken in my note of the 14th of March, to which your lordship refers in yours of the 20th instant, as I always do when called upon by any comments you are pleased to make to me. But I confess myself at a loss to see the force of your objections. I did not forget the fact that no neutral state administers prize law in favor of either belligerent. In the case of the Sumter, though I tried to explain the law in its fullest extent, as applied to all belligerent vessels, whether war ships or merchantmen, I called your lordship’s particular attention to the fact that her Majesty’s government had recognized the Sumter as a war ship of a belligerent, in the port of Gibraltar, and to the further fact that it had never recognized the transfer of such a vessel to a neutral as valid, either in the exposition of public law, as given by high. authority in Great Britain, or in the practice of the nation when itself a belligerent. Hence it would appear as if Great Britain were now disposed to recognize the validity of an act of a belligerent towards herself, a neutral, which, as a belligerent, she had always refused to acknowledge when attempted by any other neutral nation. I cannot permit myself to imagine that your lordship has really intended to place Great Britain in a position which seems, to my view, singularly at war as much with the first principles of justice as with the reciprocal obligations of international law.

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