English indignation has omitted one side of the affair, I mean the conduct of the packet Trent. If, by chance, it should have violated the principles of neutrality, this question would wear quite a different aspect. This, doubtless, would not prevent the demand for reparation from being well founded; it would prevent the negotiations relating to it from assuming an air of harshness, which would suffice to render their success doubtful. Let us therefore examine the conduct of the Trent.
Some have thought to justify it, by observing that the vessel was going from America. What does this matter? Neutrals are bound to act as neutrals when they are going from a place as well as when they are coming towards it. They might as easily take sides with one of the belligerents by carrying despatches, for instance, designed to secure to it aid, as by bringing it other despatches announcing that this aid was forthcoming.
Others have based their arguments on the fact that the Trent had quitted a neutral port to repair to a neutral port. Again, a distinction which proclamations of neutrality have never admitted, and which no jurisprudence has endorsed to my knowledge. What does plain good sense tell us, in fact? That your departure from a neutral port and your destination to a neutral port do not hinder you in any way from serving the belligerent whose despatches you have received, especially if these despatches are on the way to solicit from a neutral country an alliance or supplies of munitions of war.
The rights of neutrals demand to be preserved, in my opinion, and France is interested in it more than any other nation. But these rights, let us not fear to acknowledge, have for their fundamental condition, a real neutrality. Now, you take it upon yourself, knowingly and willingly, to carry despatches destined for a country to which it is a notorious fact that one of the belligerents is looking for its only serious chances of success. These despatches are drawn up, it may be, in this wise: "Let vessels loaded with arms and ammunition leave Southampton or Liverpool as quickly as possible and come to Charleston, where the cruisers are now few in number; let expeditions be combined in such a manner as to force the blockade; we are in need of their arrival in order to push our army forward." Or else the despatches read: "Buy up the newspapers and work on public opinion in the manufacturing districts. Let maritime powers know that we will consent, if necessary, to cessions of territory or protectorates; that, in any case, we will grant them exceptional advantages if they protest against the blockade, if they disquiet our enemy, if they seek a quarrel with him and draw off his attention to fix it on, an eventual struggle with Europe. At the first step of this kind, we will attempt an offensive movement. The least menace against the blockade is worth as much to us as the despatch of an army." Is it not to mock at people, in the face of so new a position, of a war in which one of the parties, though he does not fail to boast of his strength and his resources, counts in fact, before every thing, upon European support, to propound fine theories in accordance with which the transportation of despatches sent from a neutral port and destined for a neutral country, would not be contrary to neutrality, because these despatches could not increase the military advantages of either of the belligerents?
It has been sought to assimilate mail packets to vessels of war, and consequently to except them from the exercise of the right of search. The pretence is so ill-founded that it falls to the ground upon examination. Who does not feel that the presence of a lieutenant of the royal navy or the color of a uniform is not sufficient to constitute a vessel of war or a transport?
It is asked whether other packets, which have carried ministers sent by the United States to Europe, have not also infringed the rules of neutrality? It is possible, but this does not concern us. Supposing that the mission of these ministers in Europe, where they are regularly accredited like their predecessors to the different governments, and where they have no support, no new act, no violation of the blockade to demand, may be assimilated to the mission of the Southern delegates; supposing that their letters of credit bear some analogy to the despatches intrusted to Messrs. Mason and Slidell, it belonged in any case to the Southern cruisers to stop and search the packets in which they had taken passage. The powerlessness of one of the belligerents could not impose on the other the duty of abstaining in like manner.
Resting next on the diplomatic quality of the Southern envoys, it has been attempted to insinuate that their mission was purely a civil one. Not only did the diplomatic character not exist, since it had had no recognition, but the Southern Commissioners were expressly charged with, procuring to the armies of slavery the most essential assistance which they could receive in view of military success and strategy. Their success, by ensuring the breaking of the blockade, would alone have been worth more to them than the winning of several battles. I say nothing, moreover, of the shipments of arms and ammunition which they would have doubtless organized in Europe.
Can it be that mail packets have the singular privilege of facilitating such operations without failing in the duties of neutrality? If this be true, it is worth while to have it understood, and so long as it is not understood, we must make some allowance for belligerents who do not consider it self-evident. It is clear that when the exercise of the right of search was defined by precedents and treaties, mail packets did not exist. Perhaps it would be well to lay down special regulations concerning them. This agreement might be profitably negotiated at present between the United States and the maritime powers of Europe. Why should not the conflict which occupies our attention, instead of ending in war, result in a useful negotiation? I have no doubt that the noble overtures, the initiative of which has just been taken by General Scott, would be approved by Mr. Lincoln. To enlarge the scope of the present question, by causing an international progress, an emancipation of the commerce of the world to grow out of it, would be somewhat better, it seems to me, than to cut each other's throats and to ensure the triumph in the middle of the nineteenth century of the most shameful revolt that has ever broken out on earth—a revolt in favor of slavery. England and America, these two great countries, are worthy of giving to the world the spectacle of a generous and fruitful mutual understanding in which a deplorable disagreement shall be swallowed up, as it were, and disappear. Who does not see that, combined with the promulgation of a more liberal regulation of the right of search, the satisfaction demanded of the United States would assume a new character, and would have many more chances of being accorded?
It is the less difficult for the English to take this ground, since the act of the San Jacinto, in which the design of offending England in particular might at first have been suspected, appears to-day under a very different aspect. In proportion as we learn all the exploits of this terrible vessel, its impartiality becomes less dubious. French, Danish, and other vessels were visited by it within a few days; it is certain that if the French instead of the English mail packet had been carrying the commissioners and their papers, the former would have been boarded by Captain Wilkes.
His mode of procedure was rough, and on this point apologies ought to be made. Not indeed that England, who has just sustained in Prussia the famous MacDonald negotiation, is in a very good position to show herself difficult in points of courtesy; nevertheless, the errors of Great Britain in Germany do not excuse those of the United States on the ocean. It appears that Captain Wilkes fired shot to enforce his first order to stop. The remainder was in keeping. Nevertheless, to give every one his due, it is just to remember that he offered to take on board the families of the commissioners and to give them his best cabins. It is just also to add that, after the arrest, the intercourse between the officers of the San Jacinto and the prisoners never ceased to be full of decorum and courtesy.