Part 42 (2/2)
”The Senate has prepared a Bill which confers upon the President of the United States the power to grant letters of marque and reprisal in any war in which the country may at any time be engaged, and it is expected that the Bill will become a law. Lord Lyons suggests that the transaction may possibly be misapprehended abroad, if it come upon foreign powers suddenly and without any explanations. You will be at liberty to say that, as the Bill stands, the executive Government will be set at liberty to put the law in force in its discretion, and that thus far the proper policy in regard to the exercise of that discretion has not engaged the President's attention. I have had little hesitation in saying to Lord Lyons that if no extreme circ.u.mstances occur, there will be entire frankness on the part of the Government in communicating to him upon the subject, so far as to avoid any surprise on the part of friendly nations, whose commerce or navigation it might be feared would be incidentally and indirectly affected, if it shall be found expedient to put the Act in force against the insurgents of the United States[982].”
Certainly this was vague explanation, yet though the main object might be a.s.serted ”to put the act in force against the insurgents,” the hint was given that the commerce of friendly neutrals might be ”incidentally and indirectly affected.” And so both Lyons and Seward understood the matter, for on February 24, Lyons reported a long conversation with Seward in which after pointing out the probable ”bad effect” on Europe, Lyons received the reply that some remedy must be found for the fact that ”the law did not appear to enable the British Government to prevent” the issue of Confederate ”privateers[983].” On March 8, Seward followed this up by sending to Lyons an autograph letter:
”I am receiving daily such representations from our sea-ports concerning the depredations on our commerce committed by the vessels built and practically fitted out in England, that I do most sincerely apprehend a new element is entering into the unhappy condition of affairs, which, with all the best dispositions of your Government and my own, cannot long be controlled to the preservation of peace.
”If you think well of it, I should like that you should confidentially inform Earl Russell that the departure of more armed vessels under insurgent-rebel command from English ports is a thing to be deprecated above all things.”
On March 9th, Lyons had a long talk with Seward about this, and it appears that Lincoln had seen the letter and approved it. Seward stated that the New York Chamber of Commerce had protested about the _Alabama_, declaring:
”That no American merchant vessels would get freights--that even war with England was preferable to this--that in that case the maritime enterprise of the country would at least find a profitable employment in cruising against British trade.”
Seward went on to show the necessity of letters of marque, and Lyons protested vigorously and implied that war must result.
”Mr. Seward said that he was well aware of the inconvenience not to say the danger of issuing Letters of Marque: that he should be glad to delay doing so, or to escape the necessity altogether; but that really unless some intelligence came from England to allay the public exasperation, the measure would be unavoidable[984].”
Lyons was much alarmed, writing that the feeling in the North must not be underestimated and pointing out that the newspapers were dwelling on the notion that under British interpretation of her duty as a neutral Mexico, if she had money, could build s.h.i.+ps in British ports to cruise in destruction of French commerce, adding that ”one might almost suppose” some rich American would give the funds to Mexico for the purpose and so seek to involve England in trouble with France[985].
Lyons had also been told by Seward in their conversation of March 9, that on that day an instruction had been sent to Adams to present to Russell the delicacy of the situation and to ask for some a.s.surance that no further Southern vessels of war should escape from British ports.
This instruction presented the situation in more diplomatic language but in no uncertain tone, yet still confined explanation of the privateering bill as required to prevent the ”destruction of our national navigating interest, unless that calamity can be prevented by ... the enforcement of the neutrality law of Great Britain[986]....”
Lyons' reports reached Russell before Seward's instruction was read to him. Russell had already commented to Adams that American privateers would find no Confederate merchant s.h.i.+ps and that if they interfered with neutral commerce the United States Government would be put in an awkward position. To this Adams replied that the privateers would seek and capture, if possible, vessels like the _Alabama_, but Russell asked Lyons to find out ”whether in any case they [privateers] will be authorized to interfere with neutral commerce, and if in any case in what case, and to what extent[987].” Three days later, on March 26, Adams presented his instructions and these Russell regarded as ”not unfriendly in tone,” but in the long conversation that ensued the old result was reached that Adams declared Great Britain negligent in performance of neutral duty, while Russell professed eagerness to stop Southern s.h.i.+pbuilding if full evidence was ”forthcoming.” Adams concluded that ”he had worked to the best of his power for peace, but it had become a most difficult task.” Upon this Russell commented to Lyons, ”Mr. Adams fully deserves the character of having always laboured for peace between our two Nations. Nor I trust will his efforts, and those of the two Governments fail of success[988].”
In these last days of March matters were in fact rapidly drawing to a head both in America and England. At Was.h.i.+ngton, from March seventh to the thirty-first, the question of issuing letters of marque and reprisal had been prominently before the Cabinet and even Welles who had opposed them was affected by unfavourable reports received from Adams as to the intentions of Great Britain. The final decision was to wait later news from England[989]. This was Seward's idea as he had not as yet received reports of the British reaction to his communications through Lyons and Adams. March 27 was the critical day of decision in London, as it was also the day upon which public and parliamentary opinion was most vigorously debated in regard to Great Britain's neutral duty. Preceding this other factors of influence were coming to the front. In the first days of March, Slidell, at Paris, had received semi-official a.s.surances that if the South wished to build s.h.i.+ps in French yards ”we should be permitted to arm and equip them and proceed to sea[990].” This suggestion was permitted to percolate in England with the intention, no doubt, of strengthening Bullock's position there. In the winter of 1862-3, orders had been sent to the Russian Baltic fleet to cruise in western waters and there was first a suspicion in America, later a conviction, that the purpose of this cruise was distinctly friendly to the North--that the orders might even extend to actual naval aid in case war should arise with England and France. In March, 1863, this was but vague rumour, by midsummer it was a confident hope, by September-October, when Russian fleets had entered the harbours of New York and San Francisco, the rumour had become a conviction and the silence of Russian naval officers when banqueted and toasted was regarded as discreet confirmation. There was no truth in the rumour, but already in March curious surmises were being made even in England, as to Russian intentions, though there is no evidence that the Government was at all concerned. The truth was that the Russian fleet had been ordered to sea as a precaution against easy destruction in Baltic waters, in case the difficulties developing in relation to Poland should lead to war with France and England[991].
In England, among the people rather than in governmental England, a feeling was beginning to manifest itself that the Ministry had been lax in regard to the _Alabama_, and as news of her successes was received this feeling was given voice. Liverpool, at first almost wholly on the side of the Lairds and of Southern s.h.i.+p-building, became doubtful by the very ease with which the _Alabama_ destroyed Northern s.h.i.+ps.
Liverpool merchants looked ahead and saw that their interests might, after all, be directly opposed to those of the s.h.i.+p-builders. Meetings were held and the matter discussed. In February, 1863, such a meeting at Plaistow, attended by the gentry of the neighbourhood, but chiefly by working men, especially by dock labourers and by men from the s.h.i.+p-building yards at Blackwall, resolved that ”the Chairman be requested to write to the Prime Minister of our Queen, earnestly entreating him to put in force, with utmost vigilance, the law of England against such s.h.i.+ps as the _Alabama_[992].” Such expressions were not as yet widespread, nor did the leading papers, up to April, indulge in much discussion, but British _doubt_ was developing[993].
Unquestionably, Russell himself was experiencing a renewed doubt as to Britain's neutral duty. On March 23, he made a speech in Parliament which Adams reported as ”the most satisfactory of all the speeches he has made since I have been at this post[994].” On March 26, came the presentation by Adams of Seward's instruction of which Russell wrote to Lyons as made in no unfriendly tone and as a result of which Adams wrote: ”The conclusion which I draw ... is, that the Government is really better disposed to exertion, and feels itself better sustained for action by the popular sentiment than ever before[995].” Russell told Adams that he had received a note from Palmerston ”expressing his approbation of every word” of his speech three days before. In a portion of the despatch to Seward, not printed in the Diplomatic Correspondence, Adams advised against the issue of privateers, writing, ”In the present favourable state of popular mind, it scarcely seems advisable to run the risk of changing the current in Great Britain by the presentation of a new issue which might rally all national pride against us as was done in the _Trent_ case[996].” That Russell was indeed thinking of definite action is foreshadowed by the advice he gave to Palmerston on March 27, as to the latter's language in the debate scheduled for that day on the Foreign Enlistment Act. Russell wrote, referring to the interview with Adams:
”The only thing which Adams could think of when I asked him what he had to propose in reference to the _Alabama_ was that the Government should declare their disapproval of the fitting out of such s.h.i.+ps of war to prey on American commerce.
”Now, as the fitting out and escape of the _Alabama_ and _Oreto_ was clearly an evasion of our law, I think you can have no difficulty in declaring this evening that the Government disapprove of all such attempts to elude our law with a view to a.s.sist one of the belligerents[997].”
But the tone of parliamentary debate did not bear out the hopeful view of the American Minister. It was, as Bright wrote to Sumner, ”badly managed and told against us[998],” and Bright himself partic.i.p.ated in this ”bad management.” For over a year he had been advocating the cause of the North in public speeches and everywhere pointing out to unenfranchised England that the victory of the North was essential to democracy in all Europe. Always an orator of power he used freely vigorous language and nowhere more so than in a great public meeting of the Trades Unions of London in St. James' Hall, on March 26, the evening before the parliamentary debate. The purpose of this meeting was to bring public pressure on the Government in favour of the North, and the pith of Bright's speech was to contrast the democratic instincts of working men with the aristocratic inclinations of the Government[999].
Reviewing ”aristocratic” att.i.tude toward the Civil War, Bright said:
”Privilege thinks it has a great interest in this contest, and every morning, with blatant voice, it comes into your streets and curses the American Republic. Privilege has beheld an afflicting spectacle for many years past. It has beheld thirty millions of men, happy and prosperous, without emperor, without king, without the surroundings of a court, without n.o.bles, except such as are made by eminence in intellect and virtue, without State bishops and State priests.
”'Sole venders of the lore which works salvation,' without great armies and great navies, without great debt and without great taxes.
”You wish the freedom of your country. You wish it for yourselves.... Do not then give the hand of fellows.h.i.+p to the worst foes of freedom that the world has ever seen.... You will not do this. I have faith in you. Impartial history will tell that, when your statesmen were hostile or coldly neutral, when many of your rich men were corrupt, when your press--which ought to have instructed and defended--was mainly written to betray, the fate of a Continent and of its vast population being in peril, you clung to freedom with an unfailing trust that G.o.d in his infinite mercy will yet make it the heritage of all His children[1000].”
The public meeting of March 26 was the most notable one in support of the North held throughout the whole course of the war, and it was also the most notable one as indicating the rising tide of popular demand for more democratic inst.i.tutions. That it irritated the Government and gave a handle to Southern sympathizers in the parliamentary debate of March 27 is unquestioned. In addition, if that debate was intended to secure from the Government an intimation of future policy against Southern s.h.i.+pbuilding it was conducted on wrong lines for _immediate_ effect--though friends of the North may have thought the method used was wise for _future_ effect. This method was vigorous attack. Forster, leading in the debate[1001], called on Ministers to explain the ”flagrant” violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act, and to offer some pledge for the future; he a.s.serted that the Government should have been active on its own initiative in seeking evidence instead of waiting to be urged to enforce the law, and he even hinted at a certain degree of complicity in the escape of the _Alabama_. The Solicitor-General answered in a legal defence of the Government, complained of the offence of America in arousing its citizens against Great Britain upon unjustifiable grounds, but did not make so vigorous a reply as might, perhaps, have been expected. Still he stood firmly on the ground that the Government could not act without evidence to convict--in itself a statement that might well preclude interference with the Rams. Bright accused the Government of a ”cold and unfriendly neutrality,” and referred at length to the public meeting of the previous evening:
”If you had last night looked in the faces of three thousand of the most intelligent of the artisan cla.s.ses in London, as I did, and heard their cheers, and seen their sympathy for that country for which you appear to care so little, you would imagine that the more forbearing, the more generous, and the more just the conduct of the Government to the United States, the more it would recommend itself to the magnanimous feelings of the people of this country.”
This a.s.sumption of direct opposition between Parliament and the people was not likely to win or to convince men, whether pro-Southern or not, who were opponents of the speaker's long-avowed advocacy of more democratic inst.i.tutions in England. It is no wonder then that Laird, who had been castigated in the speeches of the evening, rising in defence of the conduct of his firm, should seek applause by declaring, ”I would rather be handed down to posterity as the builder of a dozen _Alabamas_ than as a man who applies himself deliberately to set cla.s.s against cla.s.s, and to cry up the inst.i.tutions of another country which, when they come to be tested, are of no value whatever, and which reduce the very name of liberty to an utter absurdity.” This utterance was greeted with great cheering--shouted not so much in approval of the _Alabama_ as in approval of the speaker's defiance of Bright.
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