Statements differ as to what was Mr. Seward's earliest opinion in the matter.[[170]] But all writers agree that Mr. Lincoln did not move with the current of triumph. He was scarcely even non-committal. On the contrary, he is said at once to have remarked that it did not look right to stop the vessel of a friendly power on the high seas and take passengers out of her; that he did not understand whence Captain Wilkes derived authority to turn his quarter-deck into a court of admiralty; that he was afraid the captives might prove to be white elephants on our hands; that we had fought Great Britain on the ground of like doings upon her part, and that now we must stick to American principles; that, if England insisted upon our surrendering the prisoners, we must do so, and must apologize, and so bind her over to keep the peace in relation to neutrals, and to admit that she had been wrong for sixty years.
The English demand came quickly, forcibly, and almost offensively. The news brought to England by the Trent set the whole nation in a blaze of fury,—and naturally enough, it must be admitted. The government sent out to the navy yards orders to make immediate preparations for war; the newspapers were filled with abuse and menace against the United States; the extravagance
of their language will not be imagined without actual reference to their pages. Lord Palmerston hastily sketched a dispatch to Lord Lyons, the British minister at Washington, demanding instant reparation, but couched in language so threatening and insolent as to make compliance scarcely possible. Fortunately, in like manner as Mr. Seward had taken to Mr. Lincoln his letter of instructions to Mr. Adams, so Lord Palmerston also felt obliged to lay his missive before the queen, and the results in both cases were alike; for once at least royalty did a good turn to the American republic. Prince Albert, ill with the disease which only a few days later carried him to his grave, labored hard over that important document, with the result that the royal desire to eliminate passion sufficiently to make a peaceable settlement possible was made unmistakably plain, and therefore the letter, as ultimately revised by Earl Russell, though still disagreeably peremptory in tone, left room for the United States to set itself right without loss of self-respect. The most annoying feature was that Great Britain insisted upon instant action; if Lord Lyons did not receive a favorable reply within seven days after formally preferring his demand for reparation, he was to call for his passports. In other words, delay by diplomatic correspondence and such ordinary shilly-shallying meant war. As the London "Times" expressed it, America was not to be allowed "to retain what she had taken
from us, at the cheap price of an interminable correspondence."
December 19 this dispatch reached Lord Lyons; he talked its contents over with Mr. Seward informally, and deferred the formal communication until the 23d. Mr. Lincoln drew up a proposal for submission to arbitration. But it could not be considered; the instructions to Lord Lyons gave no time and no discretion. It was aggravating to concede what was demanded under such pressure; but the President, as has been said, had already expressed his opinion upon the cardinal point,—that England had the strength of the case. Moreover he remarked, with good common sense, "One war at a time." So it was settled that the emissaries must be surrendered. The "prime minister of the Northern States of America," as the London "Times" insultingly called Mr. Seward, was wise enough to agree; for, under the circumstances, to allow discourtesy to induce war was unjustifiable. On December 25 a long cabinet council was held, and the draft of Seward's reply was accepted, though with sore reluctance. The necessity was cruel, but fortunately it was not humiliating; for the President had pointed to the road of honorable exit in those words which Mr. Lossing heard uttered by him on the very day that the news arrived. In 1812 the United States had fought with England because she had insisted, and they had denied, that she had the right to stop their vessels on the high seas, to search them, and to
take from them British subjects found on board them. Mr. Seward now said that the country still adhered to the ancient principle for which it had once fought, and was glad to find England renouncing her old-time error. Captain Wilkes, not acting under instructions, had made a mistake. If he had captured the Trent and brought her in for adjudication as prize in our admiralty courts, a case might have been maintained and the prisoners held. He had refrained from this course out of kindly consideration for the many innocent persons to whom it would have caused serious inconvenience; and, since England elected to stand upon the strict rights which his humane conduct gave to her, the United States must be bound by their own principles at any cost to themselves. Accordingly the "envoys" were handed over to the commander of the English gunboat Rinaldo, at Provincetown, on January 1, 1862.
The decision of the President and the secretary of state was thoroughly wise. Much hung upon it; "no one," says Arnold, "can calculate the results which would have followed upon a refusal to surrender these men." An almost certain result would have been a war with England; and a highly probable result would have been that erelong France also would find pretext for hostilities, since she was committed to friendship with England in this matter, and moreover the emperor seemed to have a restless desire to interfere against the North. What then would have been the likelihood
of ultimate success in that domestic struggle, which, by itself, though it did not exhaust, yet very severely taxed both Northern endurance and Northern resources? It is fair also to these two men to say that, in reaching their decision, instead of receiving aid or encouragement from outside, they had the reverse. Popular feeling may be estimated from the utterances which, even after there had been time for reflection, were made by men whose positions curbed them with the grave responsibilities of leadership. In the House of Representatives Owen Lovejoy pledged himself to "inextinguishable hatred" of Great Britain, and promised to bequeath it as a legacy to his children; and, while he was not engaging in the war for the integrity of his own country, he vowed that if a war with England should come, he would "carry a musket" in it. Senator Hale, in thunderous oratory, notified the members of the administration that if they would "not listen to the voice of the people, they would find themselves engulfed in a fire that would consume them like stubble; they would be helpless before a power that would hurl them from their places." The great majority at the North, though perhaps incapable of such felicity of expression, was undoubtedly not very much misrepresented by the vindictive representative and the exuberant senator. Yet a brief period, in which to consider the logic of the position, sufficed to bring nearly all to intelligent conclusions; and then it was seen that what
had been done had been rightly and wisely done. There was even a sense of pride in doing fairly and honestly, without the shuffling evasions of diplomacy, an act of strict right; and the harder the act the greater was the honor. The behavior of the people was generous and intelligent, and greatly strengthened the government in the eyes of foreigners. By the fullness and readiness of this reparation England was put under a moral obligation to treat the United States as honorably as the United States treated her. She did not do so, it is true; but in more ways than one she ultimately paid for not doing so. At any rate, for the time being, after this action it would have been nothing less than indecent for her to recognise the Confederacy at once; and a little later prudence had the like restraining effect. Yet though recognition and war were avoided they never entirely ceased to threaten, and Mr. Chittenden is perfectly correct in saying that "every act of our government was performed under the impending danger of a recognition of the Confederacy, a disregard of the blockade, and the actual intervention of Great Britain in our attempt to suppress an insurrection upon our own territory."
[168] Lord John Russell was raised to the peerage, as Earl Russell, just after this time, i.e., in July, 1861.