Right Hon. Earl Russell to Charles Francis Adams, August 28, 1861

[Untitled]

The undersigned, her Majesty’s principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, has had the honor to receive the note, of the 23d instant, of Mr. Adams, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States.

Mr. Adams has accounted satisfactorily for the delay in answering the note of the undersigned of the 19th instant. Her Majesty’s government in all these transactions has acted in concert with the government of the Emperor of the French, and the undersigned cannot be surprised that Mr. Adams should wish to communicate with Mr. Dayton, at Paris, before replying to his note.

The undersigned is quite prepared, following Mr. Adams to recapitulate the particulars of this negotiation, and he is happy to think that in matters of fact there is no ground for any controversy between them. He need only supply omissions.

Mr. Adams, at his first interview with the undersigned, on the 18th of May last, mentioned the subject of the declaration of Paris as one on which he had power to negotiate, and the undersigned then told him that the matter had been already committed to the care of Lord Lyons, at Washington, with authority to agree with the government of the United States on the basis of the adoption of three of the articles and the omission of the first, being that relating to privateering. So far, the statement of Mr. Adams agrees substantially with that which is here made. But the representation of the undersigned was strictly accurate, and in faith of it he subjoins the despatch by which Lord Lyons was authorized to negotiate on the basis of the three latter articles of the declaration of Paris. Lord Lyons, however, was not empowered to sign a convention, because that form had not been adopted by the powers who originally signed the declaration, nor by any of the numerous states which afterwards gave their adherence to its articles.

At a later period, when Mr. Adams brought a copy of his full powers to the foreign office, the undersigned asked why the adherence of the United States should not be given in the same form as that of other powers, and he was told, in reply, that as the Constitution of the United States required the consent of the Senate to any agreement with foreign powers, that agreement must necessarily, or at least would most conveniently, be made in the shape of a convention.

The undersigned yielded to this argument, and proposed to the government of the Emperor of the French, with which her Majesty’s government have been acting throughout in complete agreement, to concur likewise in this departure from the form in which the declaration of Paris had been adopted by the maritime powers of Europe.

But the British government could not sign the convention proposed by the United States as an act of Great Britain singly and alone, and they found to their surprise that in case of France and of some of the other European powers the addition of Mr. Marcy relating to private property at sea had been proposed by the ministers of the United States at the courts of those powers.

The undersigned concurs in the statement made by Mr. Adams respecting the transactions which followed. Her Majesty’s government, like Mr. Adams, wished to establish a doctrine for all time, with a view to lessen the horrors of war all over the globe. The instructions sent to Lord Lyons prove the sincerity of their wish to give permanence and fixity of principles to this part of the law of nations.

The undersigned has now arrived at that part of the subject upon which the negotiation is interrupted.

The undersigned has notified Mr. Adams his intention to accompany his signature of the proposed convention with a declaration to the effect that her Majesty “does not intend thereby to undertake any engagement which shall have any bearing, direct or indirect, on the internal differences now prevailing in the United States.”

The reasons for this course can be easily explained. On some recent occasions, as on the fulfilment of the treaty of 1846, respecting the boundary, and with respect to the treaty called by the name of the “Clayton-Bulwer treaty,” serious differences have arisen with regard to the precise meaning of words, and the intention of those who framed them.

It was most desirable in framing a new agreement not to give rise to a fresh dispute.

But the different attitude of Great Britain and of the United States in regard to the internal dissensions now unhappily prevailing in the United States gave warning that such a dispute might arise out of the proposed convention.

Her Majesty’s government, upon receiving intelligence that the President had declared by proclamation his intention to blockade the ports of nine of the States of the Union, and that Mr. Davis, speaking in the name of those nine States, had declared his intention to issue letters of marque and reprisals; and having also received certain information of the design of both sides to arm, had come to the conclusion that civil war existed in America, and her Majesty had thereupon proclaimed her neutrality in the approaching contest.

The government of the United States, on the other hand, spoke only of unlawful combinations, and designated those concerned in them as rebels and pirates. It would follow logically and consistently, from the attitude taken by her Majesty’s government, that the so-called Confederate States, being acknowledged as a belligerent, might, by the law of nations, arm privateers, and that their privateers must be regarded as the armed vessels of a belligerent.

With equal logic and consistency it would follow, from the position taken by the United States, that the privateers of the southern States might be decreed to be pirates, and it might be further argued by the government of the United States that a European power signing a convention with the United States, declaring that privateering was and remains abolished, would be bound to treat the privateers of the so-called Confederate States as pirates.

Hence, instead of an agreement, charges of bad faith and violation of a convention might be brought in the United States against the power signing such a convention, and treating the privateers of the so-called Confederate States as those of a belligerent power.

The undersigned had at first intended to make verbally the declaration proposed. But he considered it would be more clear, more open, more fair to Mr. Adams to put the declaration in writing, and give notice of it to Mr. Adams before signing the convention.

The undersigned will not now reply to the reasons given by Mr. Adams for not signing the convention if accompanied by the proposed declaration. Her Majesty’s government wish the question to be fairly weighed by the United States government. The undersigned, like Mr. Adams, wishes to maintain and perpetuate the most friendly relations between her Majesty’s kingdom and the United States. It is in this spirit that her Majesty’s government decline to bind themselves without a clear explanation on their part to a convention, which, seemingly confined to an adoption of the declaration of Paris of 1856, might be construed as an engagement to interfere in the unhappy dissensions now prevailing in the United States—an interference which would be contrary to her Majesty’s public declarations, and would be a reversal of the policy which her Majesty has deliberately sanctioned.

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