However, it is barely possible that he may be serious in making the overture. In either view it deserves your attention. Can you communicate the substance of this despatch confidentially to Mr. Bigelow ? I am, sir, your obedient servant, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., de., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. No. 1227.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, January 10, 1865. SIR: Great destruction of rebel communications has been accomplished by General Grierson in Mississippi, and the insurgents have suffered severe loss by the burning of their storehouses at Charlotte, North Carolina. With these exceptions, no important military movements have been made during the past week. Congress resumed its labors on the 6th instant. The debates are temperate, as the measures discussed are grave. It is a circumstance of much significance that the legislature of Kentucky is earnestly debating the subject of slavery. The parties divided between the policy of immediate abolition and that of gradual emancipation. I am, sir, your obedient servant, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. (Same, mutatis mutandis, to all our principal ministers in Europe.) Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. No. 1228.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, January 10, 1865. SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of the 22d of December, No. 841, together with a copy of a letter addressed to you by the United States consul at Pernambuco, relative to arrival at Bahia of the pirate Shenandoah, formerly the Sea King. SIR: You will please make due and grateful acknowledgments on the part of the President of the United States to his friends in Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales, for their generous and humane letter of congratulation upon the results of the late national election; and you will at the same time assure them of the best wishes of the President for their individual happiness and the peace and prosperity of the British nation. I am, sir, your obedient servant, WILLIAM H. SEWARD. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c. [Letter above refered to.] DECEMBER 8, 1864. RESPECTED SIR: In conveying to you our congratulations on your re-election to the important dignity of chief magistrate of America, we do so with the utmost sincerity and of heartfelt emotion, in witnessing your success. The solemn and deliberate verdict given by the people of America in this great crisis is, to us, the most convincing proof that your conduct during your tenure of office has met with their hearty approval, and that the measures enacted by your government have been wholly in accordance with their wishes. This unmistakable record of their free and unbiased opinion we consider to be pregnant with the most important results, and a lesson worthy of consideration to the other nations of the civilized world. With a frightful and desolating civil war raging in every direction, with party spirit rampant in all its worst moods, with households rent in twain, father against son and brother against brother, yet have the people pronounced their judgment without shrinking from future consequences, and by the efficient agency of the ballot-box, as Professor Smith has stated, the national decision has been pronounced with majestic calmness under circumstances the most perilous and exciting. The friends of freedom may well take heart and rejoice that popular representative government can pass through so fiery an ordeal, and come out of it stronger and more purified for future action. As Welchmen we feel proud that so many of our countrymen, who have made America the country of their adoption, have responded so voluntarily to the call made upon them, and that they have fought and died so nobly in defence of what we deem the great principles of freedom. We regard your triumphant re-election as the death-blow to the festering blot of slavery, so long mixed up with and so deadly in its influence upon your institutions, and we look forward with sanguine wishes, that but a short time will elapse ere this constant weapon of attack, in the hands of your enemies, will be completely destroyed. We earnestly hope that Providence will vouchsafe to you yet many years of life, and that when the battle shall have been won, when strife shall have ceased and peace reigneth in the land, you will be able to look back upon the mighty struggle of the past with the conscientious feeling of having done your duty, and of having been the humble instrument in the accomplishment of the great work of freeing the slave, so that hereafter he may stand before his Maker as a man and a brother. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States. JOHN WILLIAMS JAMES, Chairman. The above address was adopted at a public supper of the friends of Mr. Lincoln, at Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. 1 No. 1233. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, January 10, 1865. SIR: Mr. Morse, our consul at London, by a despatch of the 23d ultimo, informs me that he has furnished you with such information as he communicated in that despatch to me concerning the written orders issued by insurgents in Great Britain to some of the crew of the pirate Florida, to report for duty on another piratical vessel called the Rappahannock. I will thank you, if you have not already done so, to present to her Majesty's government such remonstrances against these proceedings as may in your judgment be expedient. I am, sir, your obedient servant, CHARI ES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward. [Extracts.] No. 854] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, London, January 12, 1865. SIR: I have to acknowledge the reception of despatches from the department, numbered 1195 and from 1197 to 1211 inclusive. * * * * * I have the honor to transmit a copy of the London Times of the 11th instant, containing a long communication from the writer who signs himself Historicus. Thus far the British policy has had the practical effect of giving to the insurgents the privileges without entailing upon them much of the responsibilities of a belligerent. This has tempted them to encroach somewhat beyond the power of endurance. It is a little unlucky for this government that it is driven by the rebels to manifest resentment just at the moment of the most marked decline of their power. For this reason I doubt whether much earnestness can be expected in its action. It is, nevertheless, something of a symptom that the Times is willing to open its columns to so unequivocal condemnation of their proceedings. Whatever may be the effect of it on the government, it will be useful in checking the tendencies of a large class of readers of that newspaper, as well as of the provincial papers which habitually follow its lead. The chances now are that under the late blows the aristocratic sympathy with the rebels as a righteous cause may shrink into rather small dimensions. That which commenced in an attempt to perpetrate upon the intelligence of Europe a fraud of the most flagrant character will scarcely fail in the long run to betray its true nature through acts that defy all excuse. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. [From the London Times of January 11, 1855.] CONFEDERATE MENACES AGAINST NEUTRAL RIGHTS. To the Editor of the Times: SIR: The history of nations records every variety of attempt on the part of belligerents to break in upon those principles iples of public law which constitute the sole restraint on their passions and their interests. Nevertheless, I doubt if there can anywhere be found an instance in which any community pretending to the character of a civilized people has ventured upon so open a defiance of justice and of right as that which is flung down to the whole world of neutral nations in a document recently put forth by the confederate government. There is certainly nothing worse to be found even in the insane decrees of the French convention against neutral rights. This confederate paper is so incredibly insolent in its tone, and so extravagantly foolish in its pretensions, that, but for the fact that it is published "by au thority" in the Index, (the avowed organ of the confederate government in this country,) I should certainly have taken it for granted that it had been one of those clumsy forgeries which from time to time issue from the American press. However, finding it vouched by such authority, I am bound to accept it as the genuine production of Mr. Benjamin, the con federate secretary of state, and to deal with it as such. This astounding performance professes to be a despatch from the secretary of state at Richmond to the confederate secretary of the navy, containing instructions as to the treatment of neutral vessels by confederate cruisers. The origin of the paper is shortly this: It appears that the English Vice-Admiral Hope had called the attention of the captain of the Florida to the fact that the Martaban, a vessel with a British register and papers, had been burnt at sea by the Alabama. The vice-admiral, in a letter certainly not very happily worded, to which I shall presently revert, informed the captain of the Florida of the course he should adopt if such acts were repeated. It cannot be necessary to remind your readers, who are familiar with the recent discussions in the case of the Trent, that for a belligerent forcibly to deal with and dispose of neutral property without a regular adjudication in a prize court, is one of the gravest offences which can be committed by a belligerent against a neutral nation. Neutrals are only induced to tolerate the exercise, at all times irksome, of belligerent rights by the security which the law of nations has guaranteed to them in the impartial and judicial decisions of a prize court. If this guarantee is violated, and this security is removed, there is no longer any protection for neutrals, and therefore no longer any prospect of peace. A belligerent cruiser who destroys property prima facie neutral without adjudication is guilty of an act which in its character is piracy, and in its result is war. Of all the doctrines of the law of nations this is the most fundamental and the least disputed. The right of the neutral to adjudication before a competent court is an indefeasible right of which no condition of circumstances can be allowed to deprive him; and yet it is this law which the confederate government have publicly announced that they intend to violate and set at naught. It is one thing for a government to be committed by the rash and inconsiderate acts of its military or naval officers; the mischief thus created is sometimes difficult enough to repair; but it is another and much more serious thing when offences of this kind are the result of instructions authoritatively issued by the government itself; and it is to the latter category that the threatened outrages on neutral rights by the confederate cruisers unhappily belong. In dealing with the federal complaints against Great Britain on account of the acknowledgment of the belligerency of the south I have on former occasions pointed out that the fact of the confederate government possessing no ports into which it could carry its prizes for condemnation afforded no ground for refusing to it the rights of a maritime belligerent. I have further remarked that the consequence of this situation of the south was one which no doubt gave to the north the benefit of its maritime superiority, for the south, having no ports, could make no captures upon neutral property, which can only be dealt with by the adjudication of a prize court. This is what the north gains and the south loses by the maritime inferiority of the latter. But it should seem that, while the north are dissatisfied with the advantage which the law of nations thus allots to them, the south are resolved not to endure the loss which the same law imposes upon them. They, unfortunately for themselves, are too weak to command a port into which they can conduct their prizes for adjudication, and therefore they propose to get rid of the difficulty by the simple method of declaring that they intend to dispense with adjudication altogether. That is to say, if it is difficult or inconvenient for you to carry a man presumably innocent to a place where he can be tried, you may lawfully hang him at once without any trial at all. This is the doctrine which the new candidate for a place among the society of nations proposes to introduce into the code of public law. The pretext by which the confederate secretary pretends to justify these monstrous instructions is as ill-founded as the course of conduct they prescribe is indefensible. He makes a grievance of the fact that the neutral powers have prohibited either belligerent from bringing their prizes into the neutral harbors for the purpose of condemnation and sale. Now, there is no right more clearly declared by all writers to be inherent in a neutral government than that of the prohibiting the introduction of prizes for sale into its ports. Some of the best writers hold, indeed, that such a prohibition is an essential duty of neutrality, but none deny that such a course is permissible and proper. England and France have both adopted this rule in the present war. And, as far as I know, the same course has been pursued by all other civilized nations, otherwise the confederates would exercise in the ports of such nations as permitted them the privileges which they complain are denied to them elsewhere. But if to deny the entry of prizes into its ports is as it unquestionably is--the right of a neutral government, then such a government is not to be told that because it thinks fit to exercise one right it shall therefore be deprived of another. It is no answer to the inalienable right which a neutral has to have captures made upon it adjudicated in a prize court that the captor is unable to find a port into which to carry the prize for adjudication. The only consequence of such a state of things is that the captor must abstain from neutral captures which he is unable legitimately to effect. On this point if any authority on such a subject were wanting that of Lord Stowell is expressed: "When it is doubtful whether the capture is enemy's property, and it is impossible to bring it in, the safe and proper course is to dismiss. When it is neutral, the act of destruction cannot be justified by the gravest importance of such an act to the captor's own state." -The Felicity, 2 Dods., p. 386. If these doctrines had been mere speculative menaces we might have been disposed to disregard them as a part of that idle rhodomontade to which the American politician is so incurably prone; but unfortunately in this case they have taken the very practical and dangerous form of a "minute of instructions" to the confederate naval officers, introduced by the following solemn paragraph in the secretary of state's despatch: "The purpose of the President in requesting that the papers should be referred to this department was to obtain for the guidance of the naval officers in command of our cruisers such further and fuller instructions for the discharge of their duties as the experience of the war has shown to be necessary. These instructions I have now the honor to forward to you for transmission to your subordidates. MINUTE OF INSTRUCTIONS. "The cases which occur for decision by our cruisers may be classified as follows." The following are the classes in which neutral rights are involved: "B. A vessel under enemy's flag with cargo wholly or in part belonging to neutrals. "C. A vessel really neutral with cargo wholly or in part belonging to the enemy. "D. A vessel ostensibly neutral, but really hostile, fraudulently placed under a neutral flag and furnished with fraudulent papers as a cover to protect her from capture." Let us see how Mr. Benjamin instructs the confederate cruisers to deal with these several cases. Beginning with class B, he says: "B. A vessel under enemy's flag with cargo wholly or in part belonging to neutrals. "Under ordinary circumstances this case would present no embarrassment. The captured would be taken into a port of the captors, or of a neutral country; the portion of the cargo belonging to the neutrals would be delivered to the owners, and the vessel, with such portion of the cargo as belonged to the enemy, would be condemned as prize. "The action of neutral governments has placed serious obstacles in the way of doing justice to their own people. They have closed their ports to the admission of captured vessels, and have thus rendered it impossible to make delivery in their own ports of the property of their own subjects found on board of the vessels of our enemies, while it would be exposing those vessels to almost certain recapture to attempt to bring them into our ports ; for the captured vessels are almost invariably sailing vessels, and the enemy's cruisers off our ports are steamers." Now, there is nothing more certain than that neutral property not contraband on board an enemy's ship is not liable to belligerent capture. Wheaton expresses himself on this point with his usual precision: "The exemption of neutral property from capture has no other exceptions than those arising from the carrying of contraband, breach of blockade, and other analogous cases where the conduct of the neutral gives to the belligerent a right to treat his property as enemy's property. The neutral flag ag constitutes no protection to an enemy's property, and the belligerent communicates no hostile character to neutral property." It being, then, the undoubted and unquestionable rule of law that neutral property on board an enemy's vessel is a thing with which a belligerent has no right to meddle or dispose of, let us see how Mr. Benjamin proposes to deal with it. The instructions" thus proceed: "If, for instance, Great Britain will not permit a captured enemy's vessel to be carried into one of her ports for the purpose of their delivering to a British subject his goods found on board, she would certainly have no just ground of complaint that the goods were not restored to their owner. If, therefore, on the renewed representations we are about to make, we find neutral nations persist in refusing to receive the property of their subjects in their own ports when captured by us on enemy's vessels, it will become necessary to instruct our cruisers to destroy such property whenever they are unable to bring the prize into our ports." That is to say, in case Great Britain should not, at the orders of the confederate government, reverse the policy which, in common with all the nations of Europe, it has adopted, and allow her ports to be made a market for prizes, then the confederate cruisers will seize, burn, and destroy British property, over which they have no more right than they have over the coffers of the Bank of England, without process of law or color of justice. This is what Mr. Benjamin means to do to us unless we mend our ways; but he intends, it seems, to give us a short space for repentance, and "in the mean time" he will be content with an instalment of injustice, for he proceeds: "The commanders of our national cruisers should be instructed to continue their former practice of allowing the enemy to ransom his vessel in cases where the neutral property on board is of large value or bears any considerable proportion to that of the enemy; but if a ransom bond is refused, or if the proportion of neutral property on board is small compared with the value of the vessel and hostile cargo, the whole should be destroyed whenever the prize cannot be brought into a port of our own or of a neutral country." That is to say, the question whether neutrals should or should not be wholly dispossessed of their own property, over which the captor has no right, is to depend upon whether the belligerent captain in whose vessel it is freighted chooses or not to ransom the ship, and on the proportions which the neutral bears to the belligerent cargo. Was so outrageous a scheme ever so coolly propounded? The logic of Mr. Benjamin comes simply to this: "Because you don't choose to ask me to dinner I will rob your orchard." A man who deals in this fashion with property over which he can have no possible right is not likely to be much more scrupulous in cases where, if he pursued the proper course, be might be entitled to capture. Accordingly, we find that Mr. Benjamin treats the second head of neutral rights in an equally summary and lawless manner. The instructions under class Care as follows: "C. A vessel really neutral, with cargo wholly or in part belonging to the enemy." After an empty flourish about the right of the confederacy to scize enemy's goods on board |