Charles Francis Adams to William H. Seward, October 12, 1865

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward

Sir: * * * * * * * *

There is nothing of material importance to notice in the events of the week. I transmit a copy of the Morning Post of yesterday, containing a leader on the subject of the claims for damages by the Alabama, &c. The author does not seem to have been aware of the late correspondence which must at the time of writing have been in print in the columns of The Gazette. I sendforward a copy herewith. It appears in full this morning in the Times and News. I perceive that my letter of the 18th of September appears marked as confidential, which is a mistake I cannot account for.

There is no leader on the subject in the Times., It will doubtless appear to morrow, in which case I shall forward it with the others.

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

[Untitled]

The threat so long held over our heads, that at the termination of the civil war in America the government at Washington would make us responsible for the depredations of the Alabama and her sister cruisers, is, it would seem, on the point of being realized. Mr. Seward, we are now informed, has called upon all persons who have suffered losses by the confederates, either on sea or land, to send in their claims to the government, in order that, in those cases in which the British government is considered to be responsible, they may be presented to it for settlement. What these claims may be, to what they may extend, and on what grounds they may be made to rest, it is, of course, impossible for us to conjecture; but foremost among them will, no doubt, be found such claims for compensation as may be advanced by those American merchants and shipowners whose cargoes and vessels were taken and destroyed by Captain Semmes and the other commanders of the few privateers which were enabled to hoist the flag of the southern confederacy. Of the manner in which such a demand, if advanced by the American government, will be received by the English cabinet, it is needless to speak. The subject has already been brought indirectly under the notice of her Majesty’s advisers by the American minister resident in London; and, so far as they were called upon to do it, they repudiated all responsibility for the depredations of the confederate cruisers. The diplomatic correspondence which passed on the subject was published before the dissolution of Parliament; and that portion which issued from the English foreign office gave it plainly to be understood that her Majesty’s government had done everything in its power to prevent an infraction of the laws of neutrality, and that, having done so, it could not hold itself responsible for injuries inflicted on American commerce which the federal government in its belligerent character was unable to prevent. There the matter was for the time permitted to stand; but now, if we are not misinformed, the advisers of the American President are about to make a specific demand on England to compensate their fellow-citizens for the losses which they have sustained at the hands of cruisers which, it is urged, would never, but for English connivance, have made their appearance on the high seas.

It is unnecessary now to recur with much particularity to the circumstances under which the Alabama, Florida, and some other confederate privateers left these shores, and, under the command of able and daring men, harassed and seriously damaged the federal mercantile marine. But the result of the protracted legal proceedings to which the sequestration of the Alexandra gave rise serves to furnish a tolerably correct estimate of the value of the supposed means which the English government had at its disposal of preventing those consequences of which the American nation so bitterly complained. The charge advanced against us was that we knowingly permitted vessels of war to be equipped in our ports for the purpose of preying on American commerce; that such vessels sailed from our shores manned chiefly by English crews, and that, [without having even wet] their keels in confederate waters, these cruisers hoisted the confederate colors, assumed to be confederate vessels of war, and forthwith commenced an onslaught on the merchant shipping of the federal States. They were consequently, it is contended, English vessels, and as such the English government is bound to make good the losses which they have inflicted on the citizens of the American government. The obvious answer to this is, as we have already observed, supplied in the futility of the proceedings instituted by the British government to obtain the confiscation of the Alexandra. The Alexandra and the Alabama, before the departure of the latter from the Mersey, stood in precisely the same position. In both vessels preparations had been made for immediate conversion into ships of war, but in both one sought in vain for any article of military equipment. There were ports through which guns might be made to peep, the sides of both were constructed of exceptional strength, in both there existed a fire-proof compartment, which was easily convertible into a magazine, and both, judging from their appearance, were better suited for hostile than for peaceful purposes. But it was laid down by the chief baron, when summing up to the jury in the case of the Alexandra, that the law had not been violated in respect to that vessel at the time of the seizure, and it was also intr mated that, even if the government had seized the Alabama on the morning of her departure, there would have been the same difficulty in establishing a violation of the foreign enlistment act by those who aided in the building of that vessel. The Alabama, as our readers may recollect, left these shores without arms or warlike equipment of any kind, and took on board her armament in Portuguese waters. No offence, it was therefore stated by the chief baron, had been committed in this country, and nothing had taken place to justify any intervention on the part of the government. On appeal to the full court its members were equally divided on the accuracy or otherwise of the chief baron’s ruling; but owing to some legal difficulties, which it is unnecessary now to specify, the appeal could not be carried to a higher tribunal.

As the law stands, therefore, it is clear that, unless by the exercise of powers which would have been illegal, the British government could not have prevented the departure of the Alabama from the port of Liverpool. But, dismissing the purely legal aspect of the case, the entire conduct of the government proved that her Majesty’s advisers were most anxious to prevent the ports being converted into building yards for privateers destined to make war upon a friendly power. If anything, they endeavored to strain the foreign enlistment act, in order to prevent the slightest imputation being cast upon their neutrality. But having done all this, it would be perfectly preposterous if the American government should urge that because vessels built in English ports had been employed against them, the English government should therefore be called on to indemnify America for the losses thereby sustained. On the assumption that England would be responsible for those losses, it would clearly have been the duty of the British government to have employed its navy for the purpose of cap turing or destroying privateers which were every day adding items to a bill which England would be bound to pay; but as the government did not adopt this course, it is evident that they repudiated their liability from the commencement. Notwithstanding the statement which has appeared in the New York papers, we conceive that Mr. Seward will not venture to address to us a demand with which he must know compliance would be refused. It is scarcely likely that her Majesty’s advisers would stultify themselves by acknowledging now a liability which they have hitherto repudiated; and it is certain that the nation would unanimously protest against a concession which would derogate from the national dignity, whilst it would impose on the taxpayers of this country an unmerited penalty.

[Untitled]

The following correspondence has passed between Mr. Adams, the United States minister at this court, and Earl Russell, her Majesty’s principal secretary of state for foreign affairs:

No. 1.

Mr. Adams to Earl Russell— (Received April 8.)

Legation of the United States, London, April 7, 1865.

My Lord: I have the honor to transmit to you a copy of a letter addressed to the Secretary of State at Washington by the consul of the United States at Rio Janeiro, Mr. Monroe, making a report of the depredations committed upon the commerce of the United States by the vessel known in the port of London as the Sea King, but since transformed into the Shenandoah by a process already fully explained in a note which I had the honor to address to your lordship on the 18th November last.

I regret to be obliged to add that this same vessel has been, since the date of Mr. Monroe’s letter, heard of at Melbourne, from which place further details of similar outrages have been received. The particulars have been communicated to my government, but there has not yet been sufficient time for me to obtain its instructions in regard to them. I cannot doubt, however, that they will be the same in substance as those embraced in the last despatch.

Were there any reasons to believe that the operations carried on in the ports of her Majesty’s kingdom and its dependencies to maintain and extend this systematic depredation upon the commerce of a friendly people had been materially relaxed or prevented, I should not be under the painful necessity of announcing to your lordship the tact that my government cannot avoid entailing upon the government of Great Britain the responsibility for this damage. It is impossible to be insensible to the injury that may yet be impending from the part which the British steamer City of Richmond has had in being suffered to transport with impunity, from the port of London, men and supplies, to place them on board of the French-built steam ram Olinthe, alias Stoerkodder, alias Stone wall, which has through a continuously fraudulent process succeeded in deluding several governments of Europe, and in escaping from this hemisphere on its errand of mischief in the other.

I am by no means insensible to the efforts which have already been made, and are yet making, by her Majesty’s government to put a stop to such outrages in this kingdom and its dependencies. Neither can I permit myself to doubt the favorable disposition of her ministers to maintain amicable relations with the government which I represent.

Whilst perfectly ready to bear testimony to the promptness with which all the numerous remonstrances and representations which it has been my painful duty heretofore to submit have been met and attended to by your lordship, it is at the same time impossible for me to dispute the fact that the hostile policy which it is the object of all this labor to prevent has not only not been checked, but is even now going into execution with more and more complete success.

That policy, I trust I need not point out to your lordship, is substantially the destruction of the whole mercantile navigation belonging to the people of the United States. The nature of the process by which this is coming about may readily be appreciated by a brief examination of the returns of the registered tonnage of her Majesty’s kingdom for the last six years. I have the honor to append to this note a tabular statement of the number of merchant ships built, and of the tonnage owned in the United States, which have been transferred to British owners in the successive years beginning with 1858 and ending in 1864, so far as the materials at hand from the official reports of the two governments can supply the information.

I trust that it will be needless for me to do more than to point out to your lordship the inference deducible from this statement, to wit: that the United States commerce is rapidly vanishing from the face of the ocean, and that that of Great Britain is multiplying in nearly the same ratio. Furthermore, it is my painful duty to suggest that this process is going on by reason of the action of British subjects, in co-operation with emissaries of the insurgents, who have supplied from the, ports of her Majesty’s kingdom all the materials, such as vessels, armament, supplies, and men, indispensable to the effective prosecution of this result on the ocean. So far as I am aware, not a single vessel has been engaged in these depredations excepting such as have been so furnished; unless, indeed, I might except one or two passenger steamers belonging to persons in New York, forcibly taken possession of whilst at Charleston in the beginning of the war, feebly armed and very quickly rendered useless for any aggressive purpose. It may then, on the face of this evidence, be fairly assumed as true that Great Britain, as a national power, is in point of fact fast acquiring the entire maritime commerce of the United States by reason of the acts of a portion of her Majesty’s subjects engaged in carrying on war against them on the ocean during a time of peace between the two countries. I deeply regret to be constrained to add that every well-meant effort of her Majesty’s government to put a stop to this extraordinary state of things down to this time has proved almost entirely, fruitless.

I would most respectfully invite your lordship to produce in the history of the world a parallel case to this of endurance of one nation of injury done to it by another without bringing on the gravest of complications. That in this case no such event has followed has been owing in the main to a full conviction that her Majesty’s government has never been animated by any aggressive disposition towards the United States; but, on the contrary, that it has steadily endeavored to discountenance and, in a measure, to check the injurious and malevolent operations of many of her subjects. But whilst anxious to do full justice to the amicable intentions of her Majesty’s ministers, and on that account to forbear from recourse to any but the most friendly and earnest appeals to reason and to their sense of justice for the rectification of these wrongs, it is impossible to resist the conviction that heretofore their measures, however well intended, have never proved effective to remedy the evil complained of. Prompt to acquit them of any design, I am reluctantly compelled to acknowledge the belief that practically this evil had its origin in the first step taken, which never can be regarded by my government in any other light than as precipitate, of acknowledging persons as a belligerent power on the ocean before they had a single vessel of their own to show floating upon it. The result of that proceeding has been that the power in question, so far as it can be entitled to the name of a belligerent on the ocean at all, was actually created in consequence of the recognition, and not before; and all that it has subsequently attained of such a position has been through the labor of the subjects of the very country which gave it the shelter of that title in advance. Neither is the whole case stated even now. The results equally show that the ability to continue these operations with success during the whole term of four years that the war has continued, has been exclusively owing to the opportunity to make use of this granted right of a belligerent in the courts and the ports and harbors of the very power that furnished the elements of its existence in the outset. In other words, the kingdom of Great Britain cannot but be regarded by the government I have the honor to represent as not only having given birth to this naval belligerent, but also as having nursed and maintained it to the present hour.

In view of all these circumstances I am instructed, whilst insisting on the protest heretofore solemnly entered against that proceeding, further respectfully to represent to your lordship that, in the opinion of my government, the grounds on which her Majesty’s government have rested their defence against the responsibility incurred in the manner hereinbefore stated, for the evils that have followed, however strong they might have heretofore been considered, have now failed by a practical reduction of all the ports heretofore temporarily held by the insurgents. Hence the President looks with confidence to her Majesty’s government for an early and an effectual removal of all existing causes of complaint on this score whereby the foreign commerce of the United States may be again placed in a situation to enjoy the rights to which it is entitled on the ocean in peace and safety, free from annoyance from the injurious acts of any of her Majesty’s subjects, perpetrated under the semblance of belligerent rights.

I am further instructed to invite the attention of your lordship to another subject in this immediate connexion. From the beginning of this war the armed vessels of her Majesty have continued to enjoy full and free pratique in the waters of the United States. They have been welcomed in just the same friendly manner as has been heretofore customary when there was no exclusion of the same class of ships of the United States from the waters of Great Britain. It is the opinion of the President that the time has come when it may be asked, not only with strict right but also with entire comity, when the reciprocity in these hospitalities is to be restored. It is the expectation that the naval force of the United States in European waters will be augmented on or about the beginning of next month, when this question may become one of some interest. I am therefore directed to solicit information from your lordship as to the reception which those vessels may expect in the ports of this kingdom.

I pray, &c.,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

[Enclosure 2 in No. 1.]

Statement of American vessels sold to British subjects from 1858 to 1864,

inclusive.

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The preceding account of Spanish property restored to the original proprietors after being in the possession of the enemies of Spain is defective, inasmuch as it does not comprehend the whole of the cases of restoration that have taken place within the period to which the detail is confined.

The very hasty manner in which I have made this communication did not admit of a more accurate statement. The principal cases, however, are included in it.

In several other cases, where the property was claimed for the original Spanish owners, the claims were dismissed because it did not appear that any violation of our neutrality had taken place. The capturing vessels were not armed, nor was their force augmented within our jurisdiction, nor had the captures been made within a marine league of our shore. The principles that guided the decision of the court, as well in restoring the property captured, where our neutral means had been used, as in declining all interference where that was not the case, manifest, I think, a disposition to and an exercise of the most rigid neutrality between the parties.