[204] For references to this whole matter of Schleiden's visit to Richmond see ante, p. 116, note 1.
[205] U.S. Messages and Documents, 1861-2, p. 82. This, and other despatches have been examined at length in the previous chapter in relation to the American protest on the Queen's Proclamation of Neutrality. In the present chapter they are merely noted again in their bearing on Seward's "foreign war policy."
[206] Quoted by Lutz, Am. Hist. Assn. Rep. 1915, p. 210.
[207] U.S. Messages and Documents, 1861-2, p. 80. This despatch was read by Seward on April 8 to W.H. Russell, correspondent of the Times, who commented that it contained some elements of danger to good relations, but it is difficult to see to what he could have had objection.--Russell, My Diary, I, p. 103.
[208] Russell Papers.
[209] Bancroft, Seward, II, p. 169.
[210] Yet at this very time Seward was suggesting, May 14, to Prussia, Great Britain, France, Russia and Holland a joint naval demonstration with America against Japan because of anti-foreign demonstrations in that country. This has been interpreted as an attempt to tie European powers to the United States in such a way as to hamper any friendly inclination they may have entertained toward the Confederacy (Treat, Japan and the United States, 1853-1921, pp. 49-50. Also Dennet, "Seward's Far Eastern Policy," in Am. Hist. Rev., Vol. XXVIII, No. 1. Dennet, however, also regards Seward's overture as in harmony with his determined policy in the Far East.) Like Seward's overture, made a few days before, to Great Britain for a convention to guarantee the independence of San Domingo (F.O., Am., Vol. 763, No. 196, Lyons to Russell, May 12, 1861) the proposal on Japan seems to me to have been an erratic feeling-out of international attitude while in the process of developing a really serious policy--the plunging of America into a foreign war.
[211] U.S. Messages and Documents, 1861-2, p. 88. The exact facts of Lincoln's alteration of Despatch No. 10, though soon known in diplomatic circles, were not published until the appearance in 1890 of Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln, where the text of a portion of the original draft, with Lincoln's changes were printed (IV, p. 270). Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy in Lincoln's Cabinet, published a short book in 1874, Lincoln and Seward, in which the story was told, but without dates and so vaguely that no attention was directed to it. Apparently the matter was not brought before the Cabinet and the contents of the despatch were known only to Lincoln, Seward, and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Sumner.
[212] C.F. Adams, "Seward and the Declaration of Paris," p. 21. Reprint from Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLVI, pp. 23-81.
[213] F.O., Am., Vol. 764, No. 206. Confidential.