Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, December 17, 1863

Mr. Seward to Mr.
Adams.

Sir: Your despatch of the 27th of November (No.
545) has been received. We await with much interest the end of the
prosecution in the case of the Alexandra. Meanwhile the bold and
flagrant crime committed in the name of the insurgents here, by seizing
the steamer Chesapeake, and using the British colonial coasts and waters
as a base of their piratical operations, ought to bring home to the
British government the discovery that its premature toleration of the
anomalous belligerent is engendering a border war, which would be a sad
and dangerous sequel to our unhappy insurrection.

Again, if the northern states of Europe are to become a theatre of a
civil war in Denmark, with the intervention of foreign states on
opposing sides, according to their sympathies or dynastic interests, it
will soon become important to know by what code of neutrality our own
conduct is to be regulated—whether the one we have set up, or the one
that has been adopted by Great Britain and France in regard to
ourselves.

The President thinks that her Majesty’s government cannot fail to see the
importance of removing all existing causes of discontent between their
own country and the United States. I learn from your despatch that the
perverseness of disunion agitators in Great Britain still continues to
manifest itself in operations designed to influence Parliament at its
approaching session. The most effectual way to quiet them would be to
publish as widely as possible the (so to speak) official expositions of
the leaders of the insurrection given forth by the conspirators
themselves at Richmond. We cannot properly address ourselves to the
press in a foreign country. Perhaps the subject may be thought worthy of
Earl Russell’s attention.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,