Foreign Office, May 6, 1861.
I cannot give you any official instructions by this mail, but the Law Officers are of opinion that we must consider the Civil War in America as regular war—justum bellum—and apply to it all the rules respecting blockade, letters of Marque which belong to neutrals during a war. They think moreover it would be very desirable if both parties would agree to accept the Declaration of Paris regarding the flag covering the goods and the prohibition of privateers.
You will of course inform our naval officers that they must conform to the rules respecting Blockade, of which they are I believe in possession. The matter is very serious and very unfortunate.
An important conversation took place on May 17, between Lord J. Russell and Mr. Adams, the new American Minister in London, in which the latter went so far as to state that Lord John Russell's language to his predecessor, Mr. Dallas, had been construed in an unfavourable light in the United States, and that he was afraid that his own mission might come to an end unless the unfavourable impression was corrected. He further complained of the recognition of the South as a belligerent. Lord John Russell in reply declined to give an undertaking that, apart from belligerent rights, England would never recognize the Southern States, but he endeavoured to make it clear that, if anything, popular sympathy in England was with the North, and that H.M. Government were only desirous of maintaining a strict neutrality. Any one reading the correspondence of the period cannot fail to realize that Lord John Russell was perfectly sincere in his expressed wish to preserve perfect impartiality, in spite of the querulous and acrimonious tone which occasionally characterized his communications.
Lord Lyons, on his side, was only too anxious to avoid the slightest semblance of anything which might cause offence to the United States Government. He was constantly impressing upon the various Consuls that, strict neutrality being the policy of H.M. Government, they must not be led away by their sympathies, but confine themselves to obeying orders. He vetoed the requests for warships, which they occasionally clamoured for, in the traditional consular spirit, and urged caution upon the British naval Commanders and the Canadian authorities. Fortunately, both Admiral Milne and Sir Edmund Head, the Governor-General of Canada, were prudent and tactful men, who ably co-operated with him. With both of these he corresponded confidentially, and made no secret of the apprehensions which he entertained.
Lord Lyons to Sir E. Head.
Washington, May 22, 1861.
You will perhaps consider the notion that the U.S. should at this moment provoke a war with a great Power as preposterous, and à priori it must seem incredible to any one. Nevertheless I am so seriously alarmed by what I see passing around me here and especially by the conduct of the Cabinet that I have thought it my duty to call the attention of our Government to the danger which I conceive to exist. To avert it is the main object of all I do here. I am afraid however that things are coming to a point at which my diplomacy will be completely at fault.
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I could write a great deal to explain my reasons for fearing that if a war be not imminent the risk is at any rate so great that it ought at once to be guarded against. My mind is almost unremittingly employed in devising means to maintain the peace. In this, even more than in ordinary cases, I think the best safeguard will be found in being evidently prepared for war. Nothing is so likely to prevent an attack as manifest readiness to prevent one. I have thought it right to state to H.M. Government my opinion that it is not even now too soon to put Canada into a complete state of defence and to provide both in the West Indies and on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts the means of resisting attack in case of war or of making our neutrality respected if peace can be maintained.
Canada is, as you know, looked upon here as our weak point. There are in the Cabinet men who are no doubt as ignorant of the state of feeling in Canada as they were of that in the Southern States and who believe that there is a strong American feeling in Canada. You will not have forgotten that Mr. Seward, during the Presidential canvass, publicly advocated the annexation of Canada as a compensation for any loss which might be occasioned by the disaffection of the South. The people calculate here (I am afraid not without reason) upon being effectively aided in an inroad upon Canada by the Irish Secret Societies which have been formed especially in the State of New York nominally for the purpose of invading Ireland.
I can hardly hope that you will not think the antecedent improbability of this country's rushing to its ruin by adding Foreign to Civil war so great as to prove that I must be led away by visionary apprehensions. However this may be, it may be convenient to you to know what my knowledge of men and things here has brought me to believe and what I have in consequence written home.
Our Government has taken the only position sanctioned by International law and by precedent. It observes absolute neutrality and impartiality between the contending parties, recognizing, as it is bound to do, both as invested with belligerent rights. No other course was open to it, except that of an offensive alliance with one side against the other. The North have certainly not asked for such an alliance and would doubtless reject an offer of it with disdain. And yet they choose to be in a fury because we do not try to occupy some untenable position as their partisans.
No one defines our position more clearly than their own great authority Wheaton.