Charles Francis Adams to Right Honorable the Earl of Clarendon, January 24, 1866

Mr. Adams to Earl Clarendon.

My Lord: I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of your lordship’s note of the 19th instant touching the evidence furnished in my letter of the 28th of December to certain facts connected with the cruise of the steamer Shenandoah. Whatever may be the weight attached to that evidence in a court of law, I have no reason to presume that, after the experience of preceding trials under the enlistment act, my government would desire to be understood as furnishing it in the expectation of such use. The present object is, if possible, to establish the truth, so far as it may be obtained from the best sources, and to place it on record in a permanent form. Fully believing that this may prove of eminent use to a comprehension of the precise nature of the obligations of neutral nations hereafter, I shall be happy to receive, myself, as well as furnish to your lordship, any further elucidation of the actual facts attending this extraordinary case that may appear, and that without any regard to the bearing which it may be supposed to have on any particular view of the questions thought to be involved.

I pray your lordship to accept, &c., &c., &c.,