Charles Francis Adams to William H. Seward, March 1, 1866

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.

Sir: At the last moment last week I transmitted to you a copy of the London Times of Saturday last, containing the report of a debate in the House of Commons the night before on two different topics connected with America. I had not time to draw your attention to the singular statement made by Sir Roundell Palmer touching certain facts of the negotiation carried on between the two governments, which attempted to create an impression that the failure of the British cabinet to improve their preventive laws was entirely owing to the action at Washington. There was a want of ingenuousness in the purely lawyer-like manner in which the case was drawn up, which for the time completely imposed on the least credulous members of the assembly. It seemed to me to be a proceeding which called for some form of remonstrance at once. So I prepared and sent a note to Lord Clarendon, briefly recapitulating the principal steps in the transactions referred to, and clearing the chronology over which sonae mist had been thrown. It can hardly be presumed that a case can be felt to be very strong which is thought to stand in need of such kind of support. The effort to prove by mere argument the inefficiency of our statute, without any evidence of facts to support it, in the past practice, is quite of a piece with Lord Russell’s allegations in the Portuguese question, which I presume to have emanated from the same source.

The truth is, that with the highest respect for Sir Roundell Palmer in private life, I have never been able entirely to acquiesce in his notions of his duty as an officer of the government in a deliberative assembly.

I have the honor to transmit a copy of my note to Lord Clarendon. Since it was sent I perceive I made an omission in not fortifying my own report of my last conference with Lord Russell by the corroborating evidence of his lordship himself, in his note to Lord Lyons of the 14th February, 1863.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,