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listen to them. Should circumstances continue to favor the idea of a protraction of the war, I am prepared for a demonstration of this kind in some form or other before the lapse of much time after the close of the session of Parliament.

The question must naturally arise how such a movement is to be met. Of course much would depend upon the precise shape it might take. Supposing, for an instant, that this should be as free from exception in manner as it could be made, and that its spirit were to assume the most benevolent aspect possible, the effect would be to concentrate in a degree the moral sense of the civilized nations of Europe in its behalf. Much would then seem to depend on the form which the reply would take.

Without pretending to suggest in advance any ideas respecting the policy which a similar proceeding might develop, it has occurred to me as important that a marked distinction should be upheld between the objects which the government has had in view from the outset of this struggle, and those which are imputed to it. Of these last the subjugation of the people of the rebellious region is the most generally entertained. Instead of being a war for the fuller establishment of free principles, it is construed as one of dominion of one part of the people over the other. In other words, the actual state of facts is precisely reversed, and the party which started the war for the attainment of that latter end is viewed as the one which is itself to be subjected. Under these circumstances it seems to me impossible longer to avoid an explicit declaration of the true state of the question. I have never understood it to be the design or the desire of the people of the United States to subjugate their brethren and forever after treat them as slaves. But I do understand it to be their determination not to permit them, by exercising the right of subjugating a large portion of their own people, on that basis, to occupy a position of perpetual danger to themselves. The attitude of a slaveholding nation, directed and controlled as it has been and would be in the southern States, in bitter hostility to the integrity of the Union as a republic based on freedom, could scarcely be tolerated under any circumstances, much less if established and upheld by the intervention of the most enlightened nations of the world. To guard against such a shocking result would seem to be the first care of a statesman. It is, then, only through the removal of the main obstacle, the continuance of slavery, that any prospect of a solution of this question at all honorable to the motives of the European powers can be opened up. With that as a fundamental condition all other difficulties might possibly be in time removed, and a pacific termination arrived at. To attain such an object might be, indeed, considered an event in the history of the world which would reflect the most credit on the parties undertaking it; whilst, on the other hand, to reject or evade it would be assuming, in fact, the maintenance of a policy which the whole European sentiment of the present century has united to de

nounce.

It is no more than my duty to add that the effect of the news received of the events at Richmond during the early part of the month will be to stimu late the activity of the movement all over Europe. It is showing itself strongly in private circles here as well as in the newspapers, and it will no doubt, before long, unless there should be a marked change for the better in America, take some form of public action. It would, then, seem to be of material consequence that the government should be prepared to meet any possible emergency by a clear line of policy, taking into view all the eventualities of the struggle.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.

No. 191.]

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
London, July 18, 1862.

SIR: I have only time before the closing of the bag to transmit the copy of a note received last evening from Lord Russell on the subject of the slave trade treaty.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.

Earl Russell to Mr. Adams.

FOREIGN OFFICE, July, 1862.

SIR: I beg leave to request that you will submit the following matter for the consideration of the cabinet at Washington:

You are aware that the 6th article of the treaty concluded on the 7th of April last between this country and the United States, for the suppression of the slave trade, provides that British or American merchant vessels may be lawfully detained, and sent or brought before the mixed courts of justice, if, in their equipment, there should be found any of the things specified in the said article as usually forming part of the equipment of slave vessels. Among the things which would render a vessel liable to seizure may be mentioned a larger quantity of water than is requisite, under ordinary cir cumstances, for the consumption of a vessel as a merchant vessel; an extraordinary supply of provisions, or a boiler or other cooking apparatus of an unusual size, or capable of being made larger than requisite for the use of the vessel as a merchant vessel.

The 7th article of the treaty provides that if any of the things specified in the preceding article should be found on board a vessel that may have been detained, or should be proved to have been on board during the voyage on which she was captured, no compensation for losses or expenses consequent upon the detention of such vessel shall in any case be granted, even though she should not be condemned by the mixed court of justice. But as some of the things specified in article 6, particularly those I have mentioned, viz: unusual supplies of water and provisions, and a large cooking apparatus, may be found on board vessels legally employed on the African coast, it becomes important that such vessels should not be put to an unnecessary inconvenience or detention. For instance, it may so happen that an American vessel engaged in carrying liberated Africans to Liberia or any other part of Africa, may, on her voyage to or from the African coast, fall in with a British cruiser, and unless the commander of the British vessel were assured that the vessel was engaged on a legal voyage, she might suffer detention.

On the other hand, a British vessel engaged in transporting, or fitted for the conveyance of liberated Africans from Sierra Leone, or from St. Helena to another British colony, might suffer detention at the hands of the commander of an American cruiser, unless her commander were assured of the legality of the voyage of the British ship.

With the view, therefore, to provide for the exemption from seizure or detention of vessels legally fitted for the conveyance of Africans to or from

the African coast, it is the intention of her Majesty's government to cause British ships so employed to be furnished with a passport or "safe conduct," to be signed by one of her Majesty's secretaries of state, by the governor of the British colony from which such vessel may have sailed. The passport or "safe conduct" will state the name, tonnage, and description of the vessel, and the name of the commander, and the purpose of her voyage, and will be good only for the voyage on which the vessel may be chartered.

In acquainting your government with the course which her Majesty's government propose to pursue in this matter, I beg leave at the same time to request that you will have the goodness to suggest that American vessels which may be legally employed on the African coast, and whose equip ment may render them liable to seizure or detention under the terms of the treaty, may, on their part, be furnished with a similar passport or safe conduct, signed by a competent United States authority. Whilst her Majesty's government on their part guarantee that British cruisers should not molest American vessels provided with such passports, they would, of course, require that a similar guarantee should be given on the part of the United States government in regard to British vessels.

I should be glad to be made acquainted with the decision of your government in this matter with as little delay as possible.

I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

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SIR: The narrative of a conversation held between yourself and has been received with much interest by the President.

You rightly told him that the prospect of the export of cotton depends now mainly on the course of the war. But I think you overrated the importance, in that respect, of the operations before Richmond. For foreign and of course for commercial purposes the Union exists practically unimpaired by the safety with which the conspirators as yet hold their treasonable conclave in Richmond, at the head of the James river, just as much as the Union would, for all practical purposes, exist if this government should remove itself from Washington, at the head of the Potomac, to St. Paul, at the head of the Mississippi. What cotton has been already prepared for market is remaining now in the cotton-producing States. All or nearly all of them communicate with the exterior through the Mississippi river, either downward by New Orleans, or upward through the rivers, canals, lakes, and railroads of the north. The Mississippi has already been opened to commerce through its whole length, with the exception of the obstruction at Vicksburg, about 200 miles above New Orleans. All the rivers, canals, lakes, and railroads before mentioned are free from obstruction; Vicksburg is besieged and must soon fall; Mobile and Charleston will fall soon thereafter. The work of pacification in the region concerned is going on as successfully as could be expected. You hear of occasional guerilla raids, but these are only the after pangs of a revolution in that quarter which has

proved an abortion. The forces employed there have proved abundant for the purposes of the government; they have not been diminished, and they will be increased.

Want is pressing upon the owners and holders of the cotton, and want, daily increasing, will not be long in overcoming even faction and treason. All our information leads to the belief that the cotton which has been destroyed by the insurgent authorities has been destroyed, not by its producers or holders, but by the armed forces of the insurgents; that the quantity so destroyed has been greatly exaggerated, and that the work of destruction has ceased. If, therefore, the military condition of the region. concerned shall be improved continually as we expect, or even if it remain unchanged for the time, all the cotton which has been gathered will, in the course of a few months, under the protection of the government, find its way to the markets where it is so much wanted. I do not doubt that the quantity that can be exported exceeds half a million of bales; but upon this subject I write with caution, because a long period of non-intercourse has left us without special information from the Gulf States. Mr. a very intelligent loyal citizen of New Orleans, intimately acquainted with its commerce and with the commerce of the southern States, was despatched by this department to that city on the 24th of June to obtain and report all the information possible on the general subject of the cotton supply, and the prospect of its coming forward. His first communication is daily expected, and you shall have the results of his researches so soon as they shall have been received.

I may state, moreover, that we are meditating a further relaxation of the rigor of our blockade, so as to favor, in a special way, the export of cotton. I shall probably write more fully upon this point in my next despatches to Europe.

So much may be said on the subject of Mr. -'s conversation from the position which is held by the government of the United States; but the export of cotton to Europe depends, in no inconsiderable degree, on the action of the governments and peoples of that continent.

All our efforts are measurably counteracted by the attitude of those governments which recognize our internal enemy as a lawful public belligerent, and thereby are understood as encouraging it to hope for recognition and intervention. Those efforts are counteracted also by an illicit British trade which supplies that enemy with ships-of-war, arms, ammunition, supplies, and credit. And still more are they counteracted by the now conceded political sympathies of European masses and classes, who improve the civil war in this country and the distresses it works to the manufacturing and commercial interests of their own countries to raise against us there a prejudice which has the moral effect of sustaining and prolonging that civil

war.

It must not be forgotten that the mass of the American people, including as well disloyal as loyal citizens, receive their information concerning the relations between our country and foreign nations, not from the careful, measured, and deliberate diplomatic communications with which you and I are familiar, but from the language of the press which on either side of the Atlantic assumes to interpret those relations, and interprets them according to its own interests, impulses, and prejudices. Hence it has happened that in this country the public mind, feeding on the suggestions of the press, is rapidly accepting a conclusion that certain European powers, among which are Great Britain and France, are meditating and preparing an intervention, under the idea that they can oblige the United States to consent to a dissolution of the Union to avoid foreign conflict, and if that fail, then that

through such conflict they will open a passage for the free export of cotton from the insurgent States.

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It is easy to see how a European statesman, surrounded by the political influences of the governing classes, and listening naturally and loyally to the complaints of masses of men thrown out, or apprehensive of being thrown out, of their needful and customary employment, and at the same time looking no further than this, can suppose that such an appeal as is thus proposed may be made harmlessly, if not with some good effect. But the same statesman would probably take a very different view of the subject if he should extend his survey and take cognizance of the fact that the people of the United States have a sensibility on the subject of their sovereignty and na tional honor that no domestic disputes nor any foreign dangers have ever impaired; that they already feel that the foreign states concerned have acted injuriously towards them in a crisis when they expected respect and toleration, if not generous sympathy. Under these circumstances, the limits where the magnanimity of the United States in listening to the interested counsels of Europe must end are easily discerned. I do not indicate those limits. It is enough for me to say that this people have already risen above the level of the motives which would prompt the supposed appeal in Europe, and to which this appeal must be addressed bere. They are conscious that they are contending not about stocks or tariffs, or treasure or profits, or gains or losses, or prestige or power, but for sovereignty, for self-government, for freedom, and for humanity. If there be one American citizen, not already committed and sworn to the betrayal of his country, who would listen favorably to any foreign persuasion on these great questions, I have yet to see him and to learn his name. If European states want to shorten this war, as we know they ought and must, their course is clear and easy. Let them respect the authority and the national rights of the American people. The correspondence which has just taken place between the President of the United States and the representatives of the so-called border States is herewith transmitted. It will show you that the revolution is already successfully arrested by the separation of those States from the company of the so-called Confederate States. It needs only any real or seeming danger of foreign intervention in the conflict to revive and renew devotion to the Union, even with the sacrifice of slavery, throughout the whole United States. Europe will not intervene or appeal to us except for cotton. Cotton, perhaps, could be furnished in answer to such an appeal only by saving the existence of slavery here to produce it. Intervention will end the exportation of cotton by ex tinguishing the slavery which produces it.

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SIR: You are aware of the use which has been made of the port of Nas sau by the insurgents and their friends as a deposit for vessels and merchandise for the purpose of breaking the blockade. Some of the residents there, notoriously engaged in this business, recently complained, through Mr.

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