In the course of its objurgations, the Times seeks to repel the parallel between the taking by Captain Wilkes and the taking of American citizens by British cruisers, and here it asserts:—
“In the current number of the Quarterly Review it is conclusively shown that only two men ‘claiming to be Americans’ were taken by our cruisers out of American ships in the year preceding the war of 1812.”[116]
“Only two men ‘claiming to be Americans’”! Lord Castlereagh, in the House of Commons, immediately after the breaking out of the war, admitted that there were in the British fleet three thousand five hundred men “who claimed to be American subjects.”[117] The Times perhaps intended “only two men” really American. But here is strange and total oblivion of the fact, that, in every case of taking, whether the victim was American or not, whether two or two hundred were seized, there was an exercise of the very prerogative it condemned in Captain Wilkes, although he had an excuse beyond that of any British cruiser.
This leader of the Times was followed by an article, dated at the Temple, January 28, from its famous correspondent “Historicus,” known to be Mr. Vernon Harcourt, a writer of admirable power on questions of International Law, and afterwards a distinguished member of Parliament. In this article the same spirit appeared, with the same personality, and the same hardihood of assertion. Beginning with elaborate flings at Mr. George Sumner, where the causticity is reinforced from Martin Chuzzlewit, he comes to the Senator, and, in the tone already adopted by the Times, refers to his reception in London: “It would be scarcely too much to say, that, for a single season, Mr. Charles Sumner enjoyed a social success almost equal to that of the ‘Black Sam’ himself. He was regarded as ‘a man and a brother,’ and he could not have been better treated, if he had had real black blood in his veins.” This is to prepare for what follows.
“It is impossible adequately to describe the ‘threat speech’ in the Senate, except by saying that Charles, if possible, out-Sumners George. The great object of this remarkable oration is to prove that the surrender of Messrs. Slidell and Mason is a great triumph for the American Government. There is, proverbially, no accounting for taste; and if the American people are of Mr. Sumner’s opinion, I do not see why we should complain of their contentment. Some people, like Uriah Heep, are ‘very ’umble,’ and their meekness is an edifying spectacle. We demanded the restoration of the prisoners, not in order to mortify the American people, but for the purpose of vindicating the honor of our flag and asserting the established principles of Maritime Law.”
In exposing Mr. Sumner’s misfeasance, the writer proceeds:—
“As if to make the absurdity of his position more conspicuous, Mr. Sumner invokes the sympathies of ‘Continental Governments’ for the doctrine of Mr. Seward’s despatch. He has even the incredible audacity (if it be not, indeed, an ignorance hardly less credible) to pledge the authority of M. Hautefeuille in support of the pretension to treat Messrs. Slidell and Mason as ‘contraband of war.’”
This is followed by an extract from M. Hautefeuille, declaring that a neutral ship, destined for a neutral port, is not subject to seizure.
This passage shows that the writer had in mind something very different from the speech he criticized. Mr. Sumner nowhere alludes to Mr. Seward’s despatch, much less does he invoke the sympathies of Continental Europe for its doctrines. Nor does he pledge the authority of M. Hautefeuille in support of the pretension to treat the Rebel agents as contraband of war; on the contrary, he mentioned M. Hautefeuille as having “entered into this debate with a direct proposition for the release of the emissaries as a testimony to the true interpretation of International Law,”[118] and himself insists upon the very doctrine of the French publicist. Plainly, therefore, the writer dealt hard words at Mr. Sumner, mistaking him for somebody else.
Then comes another misapprehension.