I have mentioned only one sally in this painful document; but the whole, besides its prevailing offensiveness, shows inconsistency with actual facts of my own knowledge, which is in entire harmony with the recklessness toward me, and attests the same spirit throughout. Thus, we have the positive allegation that the death of Lord Clarendon, June 27, 1870, “determined the time for inviting Mr. Motley to make place for a successor,”[99] when, in point of fact, some time before his Lordship’s illness even, the Secretary had invited me to go to London as Mr. Motley’s successor,—thus showing that the explanation of Lord Clarendon’s death was an after-thought, when it became important to divert attention from the obvious dependence of the removal upon the defeat of the San Domingo treaty.
A kindred inconsistency arrested the attention of the London “Times,” in its article of January 24, 1871, on the document signed by the Secretary. Here, according to this journal, the document supplied the means of correction, since it set forth that on the 25th June, two days before Lord Clarendon’s death, Mr. Motley’s coming removal was announced in a London journal. After stating the alleged dependence of the removal upon the death of Lord Clarendon, the journal, holding the scales, remarks: “And yet there is at least one circumstance, appearing, strange to say, in Mr. Fish’s own dispatch, which is not quite consistent with the explanation he sets up of Mr. Motley’s recall.” Then, after quoting from the document, and mentioning that its own correspondent at Philadelphia did on the 25th June “send us a message that Mr. Motley was about to be withdrawn,” the journal mildly concludes, that, “as this was two days before Lord Clarendon’s death, which was unforeseen here and could not have been expected in the States, it is difficult to connect the resolution to supersede the late American Minister with the change at our Foreign Office.” The difficulty of the “Times” is increased by the earlier incident with regard to myself.
Not content with making the removal depend upon the death of Lord Clarendon, when it was heralded abroad not only before the death of this minister had occurred, but while it was yet unforeseen, the document seeks to antedate the defeat of the San Domingo treaty, so as to interpose “weeks and months” between the latter event and the removal. The language is explicit. “The treaty,” says the document, “was admitted to be practically dead, and was waiting only the formal action of the Senate, for weeks and months before the decease of the illustrious statesman of Great Britain.”[100] Weeks and months! And yet during the last month, when the treaty “was admitted to be practically dead,” the Secretary who signed the document passed three hours at my house, pleading with me to withdraw my opposition, and finally wound up by tender to me of the English mission, with no other apparent object than simply to get me out of the way.
Then again we have the positive allegation that the President embraced an opportunity “to prevent any further misapprehension of his views through Mr. Motley by taking from him the right to discuss further the ‘Alabama claims’”;[101] whereas the Secretary in a letter to me at Boston, dated at Washington, October 9, 1869, informs me that the discussion of the question was withdrawn from London “because” (the Italics are the Secretary’s) “we think, that, when renewed, it can be carried on here with a better prospect of settlement than where the late attempt at a convention which resulted so disastrously and was conducted so strangely was had”; and what the Secretary thus wrote he repeated in conversation when we met, carefully making the transfer to Washington depend upon our advantage here from the presence of the Senate: thus showing that the pretext put forth to wound Mr. Motley was an after-thought.
Still further, the document signed by the Secretary alleges, by way of excuse for removing Mr. Motley, the “important public consideration of having a representative in sympathy with the President’s views”;[102] whereas, when the Secretary tendered the mission to me, no allusion was made to “sympathy with the President’s views,” while Mr. Motley, it appears, was charged with agreeing too much with me: all of which shows how little this matter had to do with the removal, and how much the San Domingo business at the time was above any question of conformity on other things.
In the amiable passage already quoted[103] there is a parenthesis which breathes the prevailing spirit. By way of aspersion on Mr. Motley and myself, the country is informed that he was indebted for his nomination to “influence and urgency” on my part. Of the influence I know nothing; but I deny positively any “urgency.” I spoke with the President on this subject once casually on the stairs of the Executive Mansion, and then again in a formal interview. And here, since the effort of the Secretary, I shall frankly state what I said and how it was introduced. I began by remarking, that, with the permission of the President, I should venture to suggest the expediency of continuing Mr. Marsh in Italy, Mr. Morris at Constantinople, and Mr. Bancroft at Berlin, as all these exerted a peculiar influence and did honor to our country. To this list I proposed to add Dr. Howe in Greece, believing that he, too, would do honor to our country, and also Mr. Motley in London, who, I suggested, would have an influence there beyond his official position. The President said that nobody should be sent to London who was not “right” on the Claims question, and he kindly explained to me what he meant by “right.” From this time I had no conversation with him about Mr. Motley, until after the latter had left for his post, when the President volunteered to express his great satisfaction in the appointment. Such was the extent of my “urgency.” Nor was I much in advance of the Secretary at that time; for he showed me what was called the “brief” at the State Department for the English mission, with Mr. Motley’s name at the head of the list.
Other allusions to myself would be cheerfully forgotten, if they were not made the pretext to assail Mr. Motley, who is held to severe account for supposed dependence on me. If this were crime, not the Minister, but the Secretary, should suffer; for it is the Secretary, and not the Minister, who appealed to me constantly for help, often desiring me to think for him, and more than once to hold the pen for him. But, forgetting his own relations with me, the Secretary turns upon Mr. Motley, who never asked me to think for him or to hold the pen for him. Other things the Secretary also forgot. He forgot that the blow he dealt, whether at Mr. Motley or myself, rudely tore the veil from the past, so far as its testimony might be needed in elucidation of the truth; that the document he signed was a challenge and provocation to meet him on the facts without reserve or concealment; that the wantonness of assault on Mr. Motley was so closely associated with that on me, that any explanation I might make must be a defence of him; that, even if duty to the Senate and myself did not require this explanation, there are other duties not to be disregarded, among which is duty to the absent, who cannot be permitted to suffer unjustly,—duty to a much-injured citizen of Massachusetts, who may properly look to a Senator of his State for protection against official wrong,—duty also to a public servant insulted beyond precedent, who, besides writing and speaking most effectively for the Republican party and for this Administration, has added to the renown of our country by unsurpassed success in literature, commending him to the gratitude and good-will of all. These things the Secretary strangely forgot, when he dealt the blow which tore the veil.
The crime of the Minister was dependence on me: so says the state-paper. A simple narrative will show who is the criminal. My early relations with the Secretary have already appeared, and how he began by asking me for help, practising constantly on this appeal. A few details will be enough. At once on his arrival to assume his new duties, he asked my counsel about appointing Mr. Bancroft Davis Assistant Secretary of State, and I advised the appointment,—without sufficient knowledge, I am inclined to believe now. Then followed the questions with Spain growing out of Cuba, which were the subject of constant conference, where he sought me repeatedly and kindly listened to my opinions. Then came the instructions for the English mission, known as the dispatch of May 15, 1869. At each stage of these instructions I was in the counsels of the Secretary. Following my suggestion, he authorized me to invite Mr. Motley in his name to prepare the “memoir” or essay on our claims, which, notwithstanding its entirely confidential character, he drags before the world, for purpose of assault, in a manner clearly unjustifiable. Then, as the dispatch was preparing, he asked my help especially in that part relating to the concession of belligerent rights. I have here the first draught of this important passage in pencil and in my own handwriting, varying in no essential respect from that adopted. Here will be found the distinction on which I have always insisted,—that, while other powers conceded belligerent rights to our Rebels, it was in England only that the concession was supplemented by acts causing direct damage to the United States. Not long afterward, in August, 1869, when the British storm had subsided, I advised that the discussion should be renewed by an elaborate communication, setting forth our case in length and breadth, but without any estimate of damages,—throwing upon England the opportunity, if not the duty, of making some practical proposition. Adopting this recommendation, the Secretary invited me to write the dispatch. I thought it better that it should be done by another, and I named for this purpose an accomplished gentleman whom I knew to be familiar with the question, and he wrote the dispatch. This paper, bearing date September 25, 1869, is unquestionably the ablest in the history of the present Administration, unless we except the last dispatch of Mr. Motley.
In a letter dated at Washington, October 15, 1869, and addressed to me at Boston, the Secretary describes this paper in the following terms:—