Our efforts for the recognition of the Confederate States by the European powers, in 1861, served to make us better known abroad, to awaken a kindly feeling in our favor, and cause a respectful regard for the effort we were making to maintain the independence of the States which Great Britain had recognized, and her people knew to be our birthright.

On the 8th of November, 1861, an outrage was perpetrated by an armed vessel of the United States, in the forcible detention, on the high-seas, of a British mail steamer, making one of her regular trips from one British port to another, and the seizure, on that unarmed vessel, of our Commissioners, Mason and Slidell, who with their secretaries were bound for Europe on diplomatic service. The seizure was made by an armed force against the protest of the Captain of the vessel, and of Commander Williams, R.N., the latter speaking as the representative of her Majesty's Government. The Commissioners only yielded when force, which they could not resist, was used to remove them from the mail-steamer, and convey them to the United States vessel of war.

This outrage was the more marked because the United States had been foremost in resisting the right of "visit and search," and had made it the cause of the War of 1812 with Great Britain.

When intelligence of the event was received in England, it excited the greatest indignation among the people; and her Majesty's Government, by naval and other preparations, unmistakably exhibited the purpose to redress the wrong.

The Commissioners and their secretaries had been transported to the harbor of Boston, and imprisoned in its main fortress.

Diplomatic correspondence resulted from this event. The British Government demanded the immediate and unconditional release of the Commissioners, "in order that they may again be placed under British protection, and a suitable apology for the aggression which has been committed."

In the mean time, Captain Wilkes, commander of the vessel which had made the visit and search of the Trent, returned to the United States and was received with general plaudit, both by the people and the Government. The House of Representatives passed a vote of thanks, an honor not heretofore bestowed except for some deed deserving well of the country. In the midst of all this exultation at the seizure of our Commissioners on board of a British merchant-ship, came the indignant and stern demand for the restoration of those Commissioners to the British protection from which they had been taken, and an apology for the aggression. It was little to be expected, after such explicit commendation of the act, that the United States Government would accede to the demand; and therefore the War and Navy Departments of the British Government made active and extensive provision to enforce it. The haughty temper displayed toward four gentlemen arrested on an unarmed ship subsided in view of a demand to be enforced by the army and navy of Great Britain, and the United States Secretary of State, after a wordy and ingenious reply to the Minister of Great Britain at Washington City, wrote: "The four persons in question are now held in military custody at Fort Warren, in the State of Massachusetts. They will be cheerfully liberated. Your lordship will please indicate a time and place for receiving them."

There was a time when the Government and the people of the United States would not have sanctioned such aggression on the right of friendly ships to pass unquestioned on the high way of nations, and the right of a neutral flag to protect everything not contraband of war; but that was a time when arrogance and duplicity had not led them into false positions, and when the roar of the British lion could not make Americans retract what they had deliberately avowed.

Footnote 191:[ (return) ]

Thoroughfare Gap was the point at which the Commissary-General had placed a meat-packing establishment