Here then was a complete official negotiation with the Confederate States. Mr. Montagu Bernard, in his ingenious and learned work, The Neutrality of Great Britain during the American War, conceals the true character of the work in which the British Government had been engaged: "The history of an unofficial application made to the Confederate States on the same subject is told in the two following dispatches. It will be seen that the channel of communication was a private person instructed by the British and French consuls, who had been themselves instructed by the ministers of their respective governments at Washington." The presence of a private intermediary at one point cannot break the chain of official communication if the communications are themselves official. For certain purposes the governments of England and France consulted and determined upon a specific line of policy. That policy was communicated in regular official instructions to their minister in Washington. The Ministers were to select the instruments to carry it out, and the persons selected were the official consular representatives of France and England, who although residing at the South held their exequatures from the United-States Government. They were instructed to make a political application to the government of the Confederacy, and Lord John Russell could not disguise that government under the mask of "the persons exercising authority in the so-called Confederate States." Their application was received by the Confederate Government through their agent just as it would have been received through the mail addressed to the Secretary of State. Their application was officially acted upon by the Confederate Congress, and the result contained in an official document was transmitted to them, and forwarded by them to their immediate official superiors in Washington, who recognized it as a successful result of "a difficult and delicate negotiation." It was then sent to the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries, and the responsibility of the act was fully and finally assumed by those ministers.
Nor can it be justified as an application to a belligerent, informing him that in the exercise of belligerent rights England and France would expect a strict conformity to International Law. The four articles of the Treaty of Paris were not provisions of International Law. They were explicit modifications of that law as it had long existed, and the Declaration itself stated that it was not to bind any of the Powers which had not agreed expressly to accept it. It was therefore an invitation, not to a belligerent but to the Southern Confederacy, to accept and thus become a part to an international compact to which in the very nature of things there could be no parties save those whose acceptance constituted an international obligation. It has never yet been claimed that a mere insurgent belligerent, however strong, occupied such position. If instead of declaring by resolution that the second, third, and fourth articles of the Declaration of Paris were principles which by their own voluntary action they would adopt as rules for their own government, the Confederate States had, with an astute policy which the invitation itself seems intended to suggest, demanded that they should be allowed to accept the Declaration in the same method in which it had been accepted "by every other nation," it is difficult to see how their demand could have been refused; and if it has been admitted, what would have been wanting to perfect the recognition of the independence of the Southern Confederacy?
THE PARIS CONVENTION.
The motive of England and France in this extraordinary negotiation with the Confederacy is plain. The right of privateering was not left untouched except with deep design. By securing the assent of the Confederacy to the other three articles of the Paris Convention, safety was assured to British and French cargoes under the American flag, while every American cargo was at risk unless protected by a Foreign flag—generally the flag of England. It would have been impossible to invent a process more gainful to British commerce, more harmful to American commerce. While the British and French consuls were conducting this negotiation with the Confederate States, the British and French ministers were conducting another to the same purport with the United States. Finally Mr. Seward offered to waive the point made by Secretary Marcy many years before at the date of the Declaration, and to accept the four articles of the Paris Convention, pure and simple. But his could not be done, because the Confederate States had not accepted the first article abolishing privateering and her privateers must therefore be recognized. England and France used this fact as a pretext for absolutely declining to permit the accession of the United States, one of the great maritime powers of the world, to a treaty which was proclaimed to be a wise and humane improvement of the old and harsh law of nations, and to which in former years the United States had been most earnestly invited to give her assent. This course throws a flood of light on the clandestine correspondence with the Confederacy, and plainly exposes the reasons why it was desired that the right of privateering should be left open to the Confederates. Through that instrumentality great harm could be inflicted on the United States and at the same time England could be guarded against a cotton famine. To accomplish these ends she negotiated what was little less than a hostile treaty with an Insurgent Government. This action was initiated before a single battle was fought, and was evidently intended as encouragement and inspiration to the Confederates to persist in their revolutionary proceedings against the Government of the United States. Any reasonable man, looking at the condition of affairs, could not doubt that the public recognition of the independence of the Confederacy by England and France, was a foregone and rapidly approaching conclusion.
With this condition of affairs leading necessarily to a more pronounced unfriendliness, an incident occurred towards the close of the year which seriously threatened a final breach of amicable relations. On the 9th of November, 1861, Captain Wilkes of the United-States steamer San Jacinto, seized the persons of James M. Mason and John Slidell, ministers from the Southern Confederacy, and their secretaries, on board the British mail-steamer Trent on her way from Havana to Kingston. Messrs. Mason and Slidell were accredited by the Executive of the Southern Confederacy to the Governments of England and France. Their avowed object was to obtain the recognition by those governments of the independence of the new Southern Republic, and their success would have been a most dangerous if not a fatal blow to the cause of the Union. But they were not by any recognized principle of international law contraband of war, and they were proceeding from a neutral port to a neutral port in a neutral vessel. The action of the officer who seized them was not authorized by any instructions, and the seizure was itself in violation of those principles of maritime law for which the United States had steadily and consistently contended from the establishment of its national life. The difficulty of adjustment lay not in the temper or conviction of either government, but in the passionate and very natural excitement of popular feeling in both countries. In the United States there was universal and enthusiastic approval of the act of Captain Wilkes. In England there was an equally vehement demand for immediate and signal reparation.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND LORD LYONS.
Lord John Russell, after reciting the facts, instructed Lord Lyons in a dispatch of Nov. 30, 1861: "Her Majesty's Government therefore trust that when this matter shall have been brought under the consideration of the Government of the United States, that government will of its own accord offer to the British Government such redress as alone would satisfy the British nation; namely, the liberation of the four gentlemen and their delivery to your Lordship in order that they may again be placed under British protection, and a suitable apology for the aggression which has been committed. Should these terms not be offered by Mr. Seward you will propose them to him." In a dispatch of the same date Lord John Russell says to Lord Lyons: "In my previous dispatch of this date I have instructed you by command of Her Majesty to make certain demands of the Government of the United States. Should Mr. Seward ask for delay in order that this grave and painful matter should be deliberately considered, you will consent to a delay not exceeding seven days. If at the end of that time no answer is given, or if any other answer is given except that of compliance with the demands of Her Majesty's Government, your Lordship is instructed to leave Washington with all the members of your Legation, bringing with you the archives of the Legation, and to repair immediately to London. If however you should be of opinion that the requirements of Her Majesty's Government are substantially complied with you may report the facts to Her Majesty's Government for their consideration, and remain at your post until you receive further orders." The communication of this peremptory limitation of time for a reply would have been an offensive threat; but it was a private instruction to guide the discretion of the minister, not to be used if the condition of things upon its arrival promised an amicable solution. It must also in justice be remembered that excited feeling had been shown by different departments of our own Government as well as by the press and the people. The House of Representatives had unanimously adopted a resolution thanking Captain Wilkes "for his brave, adroit, and patriotic conduct;" and the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Gideon Welles, had publicly and officially approved his action.
The spirit in which Lord Lyons would receive his instructions was indicated in advance by his own dispatch to Lord John Russell of Nov. 19, 1861: "I have accordingly deemed it right to maintain the most complete reserve on the subject. To conceal the distress which I feel would be impossible, nor would it if possible be desirable; but I have expressed no opinion on the questions of international law involved; I have hazarded no conjecture as to the course which will be taken by Her Majesty's Government. On the one hand I dare not run the risk of compromising the honor and inviolability of the British flag by asking for a measure of reparation which may prove to be inadequate. On the other hand I am scarcely less unwilling to incur the danger of rendering a satisfactory settlement of the question more difficult by making a demand which may turn out to be unnecessarily great. In the present imperfect state of my information I feel that the only proper and prudent course is to wait for the orders which your Lordship will give, with a complete knowledge of the whole case. I am unwilling moreover to deprive any explanation or reparation which the United-States Government may think it right to offer, of the grace of being made spontaneously. I know too that a demand from me would very much increase the main difficulty which the government would feel in yielding to any disposition which they may have to make amends to Great Britain. The American people would more easily tolerate a spontaneous offer of reparation made by its government from a sense of justice than a compliance with a demand for satisfaction from a foreign minister."
In accordance with the sentiments thus expressed, Lord Lyons, interpreting his discretion liberally and even generously, called upon Mr. Seward on the 19th of December, 1861, and the following is his official account of the interview: "The Messenger Seymour delivered to me at half-past eleven o'clock last night your Lordship's dispatch of the 30th ultimo, specifying the reparation required by Her Majesty's Government for the seizure of Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell and their secretaries on board the royal mail-steamer Trent. I waited on Mr. Seward this afternoon at the State Department, and acquainted him in general terms with the tenor of that dispatch. I stated in particular, as nearly as possible in your Lordship's words, that the only redress which could satisfy Her Majesty's Government and Her Majesty's people would be the immediate delivery of the prisoners to me in order that they might be placed under British protection, and moreover a suitable apology for the aggression which had been committed. I added that Her Majesty's Government hoped that the Government of the United States would of its own accord offer this reparation; that it was in order to facilitate such an arrangement that I had come to him without any written demand, or even any written paper at all, in my hand; that if there was a prospect of attaining this object I was willing to be guided by him as to the conduct on my part which would render its attainment most easy. Mr. Seward received my communication seriously and with dignity, but without any manifestation of dissatisfaction. Some further conversation ensued in consequence of questions put by him with a view to ascertain the exact character of the dispatch. At the conclusion he asked me to give him to- morrow to consider the question and to communicate with the President. On the day after he should, he said, be ready to express an opinion with respect to the communication I had made. In the mean time he begged me to be assured that he was very sensible of the friendly and conciliatory manner in which I had made it."