Part 8 (2/2)
This would have been the matter-of-fact sense in which the private secretary copied into his books the matter-of-fact statement hich, without passion or excitement, the Minister announced that a state of war existed To his copying eye, as clerk, the words, though on the extree of diplomatic propriety, merely stated a fact, without novelty, fancy, or rhetoric The fact had to be stated in order to make clear the issue The as Russell's war--Adams only accepted it
Russell's reply to this note of Septe at last to the anxious secretaries that ”instructions have been issued which will prevent the departure of the two ironclad vessels froation in Portland Place accepted it as Grant had accepted the capitulation of Vicksburg The private secretary conceived that, as Secretary Stanton had struck and crushed by superior weight the rebel left on the Mississippi, so Secretary Seward had struck and crushed the rebel right in England, and he never felt a doubt as to the nature of the battle Though Minister Adams should stay in office till he were ninety, he would never fight another cah the private secretary should covet and attain every office in the gift of President or people, he would never again find education to compare with the life-and-death alternative of this two-year-and-a-half struggle in London, as it had racked and thu phases; but its practical value as education turned on his correctness of judg the men and their forces He felt respect for Russell as for Palland and an English policy, respectable enough in itself, but which, for four generations, every Adaht and exploited as the chief source of his political fortunes As he understood it, Russell had followed this policy steadily, ably, even vigorously, and had brought it to the er than his own, and, after persevering to the last possible instant, had been beaten Lord North and George Canning had a like experience This was only the idea of a boy, but, as far as he ever knew, it was also the idea of his Government For once, the volunteer secretary was satisfied with his Government Commonly the self-respect of a secretary, private or public, depends on, and is proportional to, the severity of his criticisn seemed to hi can to the War Department, and more decisive It ell planned, well prepared, and well executed He could never discover a mistake in it Possibly he was biassed by personal interest, but his chief reason for trusting his own judght himself to be one of only half a dozen persons who knew so about it
When others criticised Mr Seward, he was rather indifferent to their opinions because he thought they hardly knehat they were talking about, and could not be taught without living over again the London life of 1862 To hi and steady in leadershi+p; but this was no discredit to Russell or Palmerston or Gladstone They, too, had shoer, patience and steadiness of purpose They had persisted for two years and a half in their plan for breaking up the Union, and had yielded at last only in the jaws of war After a long and desperate struggle, the Aaain, in after life, he went back over the ground to see whether he could detect error on either side He found none At every stage the steps were both probable and proved All the nantly and with growing energy, to his dying day, deny and resent the axiom of Adams's whole contention, that from the first he meant to break up the Union Russell affir of the sort; that he had ht; that he did not knohat he meant
Driven from one defence after another, he pleaded at last, like Gladstone, that he had no defence Concealing all he could conceal--burying in profound secrecy his attempt to break up the Union in the autuood faith What orse for the private secretary, to the total derision and despair of the lifelong effort for education, as the final result of combined practice, experience, and theory--he proved it
Henry Adaht, suffered too much from Russell to admit any plea in his favor; but he came to doubt whether this ad after Earl Russell's death was the question reopened Russell had quitted office in 1866; he died in 1878; the biography was published in 1889 During the Alabama controversy and the Geneva Conference in 1872, his course as Foreign Secretary had been sharply criticised, and he had been coland pay more than L3,000,000 penalty for his errors On the other hand, he brought forward--or his biographer for hi to prove that he was not consciously dishonest, and that he had, in spite of appearances, acted without collusion, agreement, plan, or policy, as far as concerned the rebels He had stood alone, as was his nature Like Gladstone, he had thought hiled himself in a hopeless ball of admissions, denials, contradictions, and resentues to drop his defence, as they dropped Gladstone's; but this was not enough for the student of diplomacy who had made a certain theory his law of life, and wanted to hold Russell up against hiht and persistence of which he was unaware
The effort becaraphy in 1889 published papers which upset all that Henry Adams had taken for diplomatic education; yet he sat down once more, when past sixty years old, to see whether he could unravel the skein
Of the obstinate effort to bring about an armed intervention, on the lines marked out by Russell's letter to Pal could be said beyond Gladstone's plea in excuse for his speech in pursuance of the saular and palpable error,” ”the least excusable,” ”a rossness,” which passed defence; but while Gladstone threw himself on the mercy of the public for his speech, he attempted no excuse for Lord Russell who led hin Secretary's intent Gladstone's offence, ”singular and palpable,” was not the speech alone, but its cause--the policy that inspired the speech ”I weakly supposedI really, though ely, believed that it was an act of friendliness”
Whatever absurdity Gladstone supposed, Russell supposed nothing of the sort Neither he nor Palely believed” in any proposition so obviously and palpably absurd, nor did Napoleon delude himself with philanthropy Gladstone, even in his confession, h he were trying to confuse chiefly himself
There Gladstone's activity seems to have stopped He did not reappear in the matter of the rams The rebel influence shrank in 1863, as far as is known, to Lord Russell alone, rote on September 1 that he could not interfere in any ith those vessels, and thereby brought on himself Mr Adams's declaration of war on September 5 A student held that, in this refusal, he washis policy of September, 1862, and of every step he had taken since 1861
The student rong Russell proved that he had been feeble, timid, mistaken, senile, but not dishonest The evidence is convincing
The Lairds had built these shi+ps in reliance on the known opinion of the law-officers that the statute did not apply, and a jury would not convict Minister Adams replied that, in this case, the statute should be amended, or the shi+ps stopped by exercise of the political power
Bethell rejoined that this would be a violation of neutrality; one must preserve the status quo Tacitly Russell connived with Laird, and, had he meant to interfere, he was bound to warn Laird that the defect of the statute would no longer protect hio on till the shi+ps were ready for sea Then, on September 3, two days before Mr Ada for help; ”The conduct of the gentlemen who have contracted for the two ironclads at Birkenhead is so very suspicious,”--he began, and this he actually wrote in good faith and deep confidence to Lord Palents ”suspicious” when no one else in Europe or America felt any suspicion about it, because the whole question turned not on the ran Enlistht it necessary to direct that they should be detained,” not, of course, under the statute, but on the ground urged by the Aation above the statute ”The Solicitor General has been consulted and concurs in the h not of strict law We shall thus test the law, and, if we have to pay daes, we have satisfied the opinion which prevails here as well as in America that that kind of neutral hostility should not be allowed to go on without some attempt to stop it”
For naivete that would be unusual in an unpaid attache of Legation, this sudden leap froround, after two years and a half of dogged resistance, ht have roused Palmerston to inhuman scorn, but instead of derision, well earned by Russell's old attacks on himself, Palmerstonthe law officers he found that there was no lawful ground for e, that he could trust neither his law officers nor a Liverpool jury; and therefore he suggested buying the shi+ps for the British Navy
As proof of ”criestion see in other troubles of negligence, for he had neglected to notify the American Minister He should have done so at once, on September 3 Instead he waited till September 4, and then merely said that the matter was under ”serious and anxious consideration” This note did not reach the Legation till three o'clock on the afternoon of September 5--after the ”superfluous”
declaration of war had been sent Thus, Lord Russell had sacrificed the Lairds: had cost his Ministry the price of two ironclads, besides the Alabama Claims--say, in round numbers, twenty million dollars--and had put hi to yield only to a threat of war Finally he wrote to the Admiralty a letter which, from the American point of vieould have sounded youthful from an Eton schoolboy:--
September 14, 1863
MY DEAR DUKE:--
It is of the ut at Birkenhead should not go to A to Monsieur Bravay of Paris If you will offer to buy theet money's worth if he accepts your offer; and if he does not, it will be presuht by the Confederates I should state that we have suggested to the Turkish Government to buy them; but you can easily settle that matter with the Turks
The hilarity of the secretaries in Portland Place would have been loud had they seen this letter and realized the muddle of difficulties into which Earl Russell had at last thrown himself under the impulse of the American Minister; but, nevertheless, these letters upset from top to bottom the results of the private secretary's diplomatic education forty years after he had supposed it co he had conceived and rendered worthless his whole painful diplomatic experience
To reconstruct, when past sixty, an education useful for any practical purpose, is no practical proble it as only theoretical He no longer cared whether he understood human nature or not; he understood quite as much of it as he wanted; but he found in the ”Life of Gladstone” (II, 464) a reave hiht ”I always hold,” said Mr Gladstone, ”that politicians are the men whom, as a rule, it is thening it: ”For ht I understood, above one or two”
Earl Russell was certainly not one of the two
Henry Adaht he also had understood one or two; but the American type was more familiar Perhaps this was the sufficient result of his diplomatic education; it seemed to be the whole
CHAPTER XII