Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward, November 29, 1861

Mr. Adams to Mr.
Seward.

Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith the
copy of a note addressed by Earl Russell to me on the 26th instant, in
reply to mine on the subject of the revocation of Mr. Bunch’s exequatur.
I likewise subjoin a copy of my note addressed to him in answer. I have
confined myself almost entirely to those portions in which his lordship
calls my positions into question, and have left his declarations of
future intentions to be dealt by the government if it be deemed worth
while to continue the discussion. Other matters are so constantly
occurring of a more imperative nature as to render this of very
secondary consequence. It is plain, from the turn which has been taken
in the newspapers of this morning, that the law officers of the crown
have modified their original position so far as to deny the right of the
United States government to take out persons when they do not take
papers and things. In other words,
Great Britain would have been less offended if the United States had
insulted her a great deal more. There is little reason to doubt that the
same steamer which bears this will carry out a demand for an apology and
the restoration of the men. I confess that the turn things have taken
has given me great anxiety for the fate of my unhappy country. But I
shall await with resignation the instructions which will probably close
my mission.

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

Earl Russell to Mr.
Adams,.

The undersigned, her Majesty’s principal secretary of state for
foreign affairs, has received, with much concern, the note which Mr.
Adams, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the
United States at this court, addressed to him on the 21st instant,
in which he announces the result of what Mr. Adams states to have
been the calm and impartial deliberation by the United States
government upon the question submitted for its decision the
necessity which that government feels itself under to revoke the
exequatur of Mr. Robert Bunch, her Majesty’s consul at
Charleston.

In discussing this matter, the undersigned will put aside all
allegations of the unknown letter-writer concerning Mr. Bunch’s
supposed conversation referred to in a former communication of Mr.
Adams; for it may now be affirmed that those allegations,
unsupported as they are by any proof, were entirely unfounded.

Neither will the undersigned take any notice of the charge made
against Mr. Bunch that his conduct has been that of a partisan of
faction and disunion, because that charge is equally unsupported by
any proof whatever, and is equally unfounded.

The withdrawal of Mr. Bunch’s exequatur does not, however, appear to
rest upon these unfounded allegations, nor on these groundless
charges. It is said to rest upon a law of the United States, of
which it is said her Majesty’s government might pardonably have been
ignorant, but which Mr. Bunch was bound to have brought to their
notice.

This law, as Mr. Adams affirms, forbids, “under a heavy penalty, any
person not specially appointed, or duly authorized by the President,
whether citizen or denizen, privileged or unprivileged, from
counselling, advising, aiding, or assisting in any political
correspondence with the government of any foreign state whatever,
with an intent to influence the measures of any foreign government,
or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or
controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of
their government.”

Taking Mr. Adams’s description of this statute as full and accurate,
the undersigned has to remark that the statute seems to have been
enacted for the purpose of preventing citizens or denizens of the
United States from aiding or counselling foreign governments with
regard to their disputes with the United States.

If this be so, Mr. Bunch, having no mission or instruction to aid or
counsel a foreign state at enmity with the United States, and not
having done so, would have no reason to suppose that a statute made
“alio intuitu” could be so construed as to apply to his
execution of the instructions he had received from her Majesty’s
government; and therefore there could be no reason why he should
have brought to the notice of her Majesty’s government an United
States statute which had no bearing whatever upon anything which he
was instructed to do.

The undersigned has further to remark that the United States
government, by their quotation of the statute in question as the
foundation on which they rest their complaint against Mr. Bunch,
seem distinctly to admit that the government of the Confederate
States at Richmond is, as regards the United States, “the government
of a foreign state”—an admission which goes further than any
acknowledgment with regard to those States which her Majesty’s
government have hitherto made. But if the Confederate States are, as
Mr. Adams’s note implies as regards the United States, a foreign
state, then the President of the United States has no competence,
one way or the other, with respect to the functions of the consuls
of other governments in that foreign state, and the exequaturs of
such consuls can be granted or withdrawn only by the government of
such foreign state, for the Confederate States cannot be at one and
the same time “a foreign state” and part of the territory of the
United States.

But there is a further question raised by the United States
government which is of deep and urgent importance. Mr. Adams is
instructed to say that any communication to be addressed to the
government of the so-called Confederate States respecting the goods
of a belligerent on board of neutral ships, or the goods of a
neutral on board of belligerent ships, should have been made by
diplomatic and not by consular agents; and that the “only authority
in the United States to which any diplomatic communication whatever
can be made is the government of the United States itself.”

Mr. Adams must be aware that this assertion raises grave questions
both of fact and of law. In the first place, when her Majesty’s
government are gravely told that an application to the Confederate
government for redress ought to be made through the President of the
United States, they might well ask whether such a position is
seriously laid down, and whether the President of the United States
can affirm that in the present condition of things he has the power
to give effect to any such application which might be made to him.
For instance, a British subject at New Orleans or Galveston might be
carried away by force to serve with the confederate troops; could
the President of the United States set him free? might he not be
killed in battle by a ball or a bullet from the United States army
as the only release he could obtain from President Lincoln from his
compulsory service? Again: the private debts due to a British
subject in Louisiana or in Arkansas may be confiscated and paid into
the public treasury of the State by a law or decree of the so-styled
Confederate Congress; could the President or Secretary of State of
the United States obtain the recovery of these sums; or could he
secure immunity from confiscation for the landed property of British
subjects in the eleven Confederate States?

If the President of the United States cannot do this, the course of
proceeding suggested by Mr. Adams would be altogether illusory.

But next as to a question of international law. Her Majesty’s
government hold it to be an undoubted principle of international
law, that when the persons or the property of the subjects or
citizens of a state are injured by a de facto
government, the state so aggrieved has a right to claim from the de facto government redress and reparation;
and also that in cases of apprehended losses or injury to their
subjects, states may lawfully enter into communication with de facto governments to provide for the
temporary security of the persons and property of their
subjects.

Acting upon this last-mentioned principle, her Majesty’s government
entered into concert with
the government of the Emperor of the French in regard to certain
articles of the declaration of Paris.

The result was an instruction which was to be carried into effect by
the British and French consuls at Charleston, and they both executed
their commission unostentatiously but effectively.

It may be necessary in future, for the protection of the interests of
her Majesty’s subjects in the vast extent of country which resists
the authority of the United States, to have further communications
both with the central authority at Richmond and with the governors
of the separate States, and in such cases such communications will
continue to be made, but such communications will not imply any
acknowledgment of the confederates as an independent state.

The undersigned has read with sincere pleasure the testimony
voluntarily borne by the President of the United States to the care
with which Lord Lyons has respected the sovereignty and the rights
of the United States, and the undersigned feels it right to say that
in very difficult circumstances the conduct of Mr. Adams, while
upholding the authority and interests of his own government, has
been such as to acquire the esteem and respect of the government of
her Majesty and of the British nation.

The undersigned requests Mr. Adams to accept the assurance of his
highest consideration.

Mr. Adams to Earl Russell.

The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of
the United States, has the honor to acknowledge the reception of a
note from the right honorable Earl Russell, her Majesty’s principal
secretary of state for foreign affairs, dated the 26th instant, in
answer to a previous one of his own, dated the 21st instant,
announcing the decision of the government of the United States to
withdraw the exequatur of Mr. Bunch, her Majesty’s consul at
Charleston, in South Carolina. The undersigned will do himself the
honor to transmit his lordship’s note for the information of his
government by the first opportunity.

The undersigned, disclaiming any desire to continue discussion upon a
painful topic one moment longer than a necessity for it shall
continue to exist, yet feels as if he could not, in justice to
himself as well as to his own government, omit this opportunity to
explain some passages of his former note, which appear to him to
have been in a degree misunderstood by Earl Russell. He confesses
himself at a loss to comprehend in what manner he should have been
so unfortunate in his use of language as to give ground for his
lordship’s statement” that the United States government, by their
quotation of the statute to which reference has been made as the
foundation on which they rest their complaint against Mr. Bunch,
seem deliberately to admit that the government of the Confederate
States at Richmond is, as regards the United States, the government
of a foreign state—an admission which goes further than any
acknowledgment with regard to those States which her Majesty’s
government have hitherto made.” If the undersigned have given just
cause for any construction of the action of his government
approximating to that indicated in the preceding extract from his
lordship’s note, then has he indeed committed, in his estimation, a
most grave mistake. But on a careful re-examination of his note of
the 21st, the undersigned must be permitted to say that he has found some difficulty in
perceiving anything that appears to him to be ambiguity in his
meaning. He discovers only one government of a foreign state alluded
to, and that is obviously her Majesty’s government. The other party,
in his own mind, were the rebellious insurgents in arms against the
authority of the United States, which he was very far from
characterizing in the manner indicated by his lordship. The purpose
of the law seems to the undersigned to have been severely to punish
all persons, whether native or foreign, citizen or privileged, who
knowingly made themselves instruments of foreign states to foment
factious disturbances within the United States. It appears to have
been enacted during the troubled period of the French revolution,
when interference with the domestic affairs of neighboring nations
was an avowed principle of action, and was therefore boldly acted
upon even by the recognized agents of the French authorities. The
undersigned, therefore, in applying the principle of the law in a
mitigated form to Mr. Bunch and his alleged intermixture with the
disputes and controversies going on within the United States, surely
cannot have made so great a mistake as to have assumed that he was
dealing with “the government of a foreign state.” He has considered
Mr. Bunch as an officer of her Majesty’s government, formerly
recognized by the government of the United States for certain
purposes of commerce, who has been engaged in political
correspondence as well with his own government as with rebellious
insurgents in the United States for purposes foreign from those
which were assigned at the time he received his authority, and for
that reason that he has knowingly violated the law. At the same time
the undersigned took great care in expressing his firm belief that
her Majesty’s government, in directing their agent in the manner
indicated, could not have been aware of the nature and character of
that law—a belief which he is happy to find, by his lordship’s
present mode of considering it, to have been well founded.

But much as the undersigned found of difficulty in regard to the
misconception he has been so unfortunate as to originate in his
lordship’s mind of this view of a law of his own country, he has
been still more embarrassed to learn the fact that in his statement
of what appeared to his mind true in its application to all
governments, and undeniable in respect to the government of the
United States, he has not enjoyed the satisfaction of his lordship’s
concurrence of opinion. This statement was that “the only authority
in the United States to which any diplomatic communication can be
made is the government of the United States.” If the undersigned had
been led in any way to vary this proposition he would have deemed
himself to have gone much further in the road to recognition of “the
government of a foreign state” within the United States than he did
in that mistakenly attributed to him by his lordship. Surely it
could not have been his lordship’s intention to present the
proposition that the same diplomatic agent of a foreign power can be
accredited to the government of a country and to the
self-constituted authorities of a portion of the people who are * *
* waging war to overthrow it. Applying this argument to the question
of Mr. Bunch, his case resolves itself into this: That holding his
authority to act in an official relation as an officer of a foreign
government from the recognition of the authorities of the United
States, they are expected to acknowledge his right whilst acting in
this capacity, at the same time to treat with any of their own
citizens who defy their authority whenever it may be deemed
advisable by that government. Surely such a proposition, if
accepted, would seem to undermine the foundations of sound
international relationship all over the world. Surely no government,
entertaining a proper degree of self-respect, would consent for a
moment to receive any representative of a foreign nation if his
first act might be to attempt to undermine the authority to which he had been
accredited by recognizing for any purpose the validity of a domestic
antagonism within its limits.

The undersigned is not insensible to the force of his lordship’s
argument in regard to the necessity imposed upon it of protecting
the interests of British subjects in those regions where the
authority of the United States is suspended, as well as the
difficulty of calling upon the government of the United States to
make good the damage that might ensue from the acts of persons now
in armed resistance. Doubtless it must have been under
considerations like these that her Majesty’s government was induced
to release that of the United States from responsibility for such
reclamations by adopting the policy of granting to the insurgents
the rights of a belligerent. Without entering into the wide field of
discussion presented by the arguments of his lordship, the
undersigned contents himself with the remark that whatever may be
the course of action her Majesty’s government deems proper to lay
down for itself in regulating its relations with the insurgent
forces in the United States, it will scarcely be disposed to require
of the government of the United States that it should recognize the
agents through whom they may be carried on. The objection to Mr.
Bunch’s action is that, whilst he has been enjoying, as consul of
her Majesty in the United States, the advantages of a solemn
recognition of the United States, he has been engaged in official
proceedings in violation of the law, as well as outside of any
authority with which they ever consented that he should be
vested.

That the latter part of the statement is that the fact would scarcely
seem to admit of the possibility of a doubt. But inasmuch as the
undersigned is not altogether sure that he has placed the matter so
fully before his lordship as his duty to his country seems to him to
require, he trusts he may be permitted to enlarge upon it a little
further. The position of Mr. Bunch, in regard to the United States,
had been exclusively that of a consul of a foreign nation at a
commercial port. That such a position does not of itself involve the
right of diplomatic negotiation with the recognizing government,
much less with any subordinate authority, is too well established by
law to need further elucidation. The only question that remains for
consideration is * * * then whether the authority actually vested in
Mr. Bunch by her Majesty’s government to enter into communication
with the insurgents in the United States touching certain articles
of the declaration of Paris to which their acquiescence was to be
obtained was of a diplomatic or purely of a consular nature. The
proper answer to this is to be found in an appeal to the mode in
which, from its very commencement, the declaration of Paris has been
permitted to take its shape. In its origin it was the result of a
conference of the accredited envoys of the great powers, and in all
the later steps taken to secure the acquiescence of different
nations, including the United States, the agency used has been that
of the customary diplomatic representatives. It therefore admits of
no doubt, in the mind of the undersigned, that the declaration of
Paris is a pure diplomatic act, and that all negotiations since
carried on to extend its authority, including that which the
undersigned himself had the honor to carry on with his lordship for
a time, bear the same exclusive character. It is, then, plain to the
mind of the undersigned that the government of the United States in
objecting to the assumption by an officer of a foreign government
recognized by it only as vested with the authority of a consul of
diplomatic authority to treat within the limits of the United
States, and without its knowledge or consent, with persons acting as
an armed resistance to it, has justification fully sufficient to
sustain its decision to withdraw the formal act of recognition of
such officer. To suppose it capable of a different course would seem to be to condemn it as
unworthy of the character for honor and independence to which it has
ever endeavored to aspire.

In conclusion, the undersigned desires to express his personal
obligations to Earl Russell for the friendly notice he has been
pleased to take of his labors in the arduous and difficult mission
with which he has been charged. It gives him great pleasure to be
able on his part to testify to the uniform courtesy and good will
with which he has been treated in all his relations with her
Majesty’s government.

The undersigned prays Earl Russell to receive the assurances of his
most distinguished consideration.