[449] A Cycle of Adams' Letters, I, p. 87. Charles Francis Adams to his son, Dec. 20, 1861.
[450] The Times, Dec. 16, 1861.
[451] The Times twice printed the full text of the message, on December 16 and 17.
[452] Gladstone Papers. Milner-Gibson to Gladstone, Dec. 18, 1861.
[453] Maxwell, Clarendon, II, p. 225. Lewis to Clarendon, Dec. 18, 1861.
[454] Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence respecting the Trent." No 14. Russell to Lyons, Dec. 19, 1861. The Government did not make public Adams' confirmation of "no authorization of Wilkes." Possibly it saw no reason for doing so, since this had been established already by Wilkes' own statements. The point was later a matter of complaint by Americans, who regarded it as indicating a peevish and unfriendly attitude. (Willard, Letter to an English Friend on the Rebellion in the United States, p. 23. Boston, 1862.) Also by English friends; Cobden thought Palmerston had intentionally prolonged British feeling for political purposes. "Seward's despatch to Adams on the 19th December [communicated to Russell on the 19th]... virtually settled the matter. To keep alive the wicked passions in this country as Palmerston and his Post did, was like the man, and that is the worst that can be said of it." (Morley, Cobden, II, p. 389. To Mr. Paulton, Jan., 1862.)
[455] Davis to Adams. New York. Dec. 21, 1861. C.F. Adams, The Trent Affair, (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, p. 107.)
[456] There has crept into American historical writing of lesser authenticity a story that just at this juncture there appeared, in the harbours of New York and San Francisco, Russian fleets whose commanders let it be understood that they had come under "sealed orders" not to be opened except in a certain grave event and that their presence was, at least, not an unfriendly indication of Russian sentiment in the Trent crisis. This is asserted to have bolstered American courage and to give warrant for the argument that America finally yielded to Great Britain from no fear of consequences, but merely on a clearer recognition of the justice of the case. In fact the story is wholly a myth. The Russian fleets appeared two years later in the fall of 1863, not in 1861. Harris, The Trent Affair, pp. 208-10, is mainly responsible for this story, quoting the inaccurate memory of Thurlow Weed. (Autobiography, II, pp. 346-7.) Reliable historians like Rhodes make no mention of such an incident. The whole story of the Russian fleets with their exact instructions is told by F.A. Colder, "The Russian Fleet and the Civil War," Am. Hist. Rev., July, 1915.
[457] Weed, Autobiography, II, pp. 354-61.
[458] Ibid., p. 365. Peabody to Weed, Jan, 17, 1862.