Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward, January 17, 1862

Mr. Adams to Mr.
Seward.

SIR: * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * *

I have reason to believe that the removal of the casus
belli in the Trent affair, has proved a most serious obstacle
in the way of all the calculations made by the party disposed to sow
dissension between the two countries. The expectations that have been
raised of a pressure from the manufacturing classes to break the
blockade in order to obtain cotton are likewise declining. The stock is
yet quite large, and, taken in conjunction with what is known to be
coming, it is believed to be sufficient to keep the mills going at the
present rate for six months longer. The large manufacturers have become
pretty well reconciled to the reduction of their product, from a
conviction that the business had already been overdone, and must have
ceased to yield any returns had it been continued longer on the former
scale. Such being the ruined condition of the old programme, it has been
found necessary to direct attention to the preparation of something new.
The chief support of the latest schemes is to be traced to the supposed
policy of the Emperor of the French. It is believed here that he has
already made overtures to the British government to enter a protest
against the blockade as in manner and substance too cruelly effective in
some respects and very ineffective in others. It is also affirmed that
he begins to consider it time to agitate the subject of recognition of
the Confederate States. I cannot say that the evidence that has been
furnished to me on these points is entirely satisfactory, but it is
sufficiently so to make it my duty to mention it. Doubtless your sources
of information in Paris will give you more precise knowledge of the
truth than I can do here. My main purpose in alluding to it is to call
your attention to a singular development made of the policy adopted by
the confederate emissaries here with a view to fortify the movement of
their allies in this country. The substance of it has been disclosed by
a publication in the Edinburgh Scotsman, a well-conducted paper, whose
sources of information I have heretofore found to be good. I take from
its issue on Saturday last, the 11th of January, the following
extract:

“There exists in London an active and growing party, including many M.
P.’s, having for its object an immediate recognition of the southern
confederacy, on certain understood terms. This party is in communication
with the quasi representatives of the south in
London, and gives out that it sees its way to a desirable arrangement.
Our information is that the south, acting through its London agents, is
at least willing to have it understood that, in consideration of
immediate recognition and the disregard of the ‘paper blockade,’ it
would engage for these three things: a treaty of free trade, the
prohibition of all import of slaves, and the freedom of all blacks born hereafter. It will
easily be seen that if any such terms were offered (but we hesitate to
believe the last of them) a pressure in favor of the south would come
upon the British government from more than one formidable section of our
public.”

I have reason for believing that some such project as this has been
actually entertained by the confederate emissaries. The pressure of the
popular feeling against slavery is so great here that their friends feel
it impossible to hope to stem it without some such plea in extenuation
as can be made out of an offer to do something for ultimate
emancipation. Of course no man
acquainted with the true state of things in America can believe for an
instant the existence of one particle of good faith in any professions
of this kind that may be countenanced by the rebel emissaries here. But
I have thought it might not be without its use to recommend that the
fact of their sanction of such an agitation should be made known pretty
generally in the United States, especially among the large class of
friends of the Union in the border States. If the issue of this contest
is to be emancipation with the aid of Great Britain, surely the object
for which the rebellion against our government was initiated—the
protection and perpetuation of slavery— ceases to be a motive for
resisting it further. If the course of the emissaries here be
unauthorized, it ought to be exposed here to destroy all further
confidence in them. If, on the contrary, it be authorized, it should be
equally exposed to the people in the slaveholding States. In either
event the eyes of the people both in Europe and America will be more
effectually opened to a conviction of the nature and certain
consequences of this great struggle.

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