“In the event of an action with the enemy, in which it shall happen that any of their ships shall be in distress, by taking fire, or otherwise, and the brigs and tenders, or boats which are attached to their fleet, shall be employed in saving the lives of the crews of such distressed ships, they shall not be fired on, or interrupted in such duty. But as long as the battle shall continue, his Majesty’s ships are not to give up the pursuit of such, as have not surrendered, to attend to any other occasion, except it be to give their aid to his Majesty’s ships which may want it.”—Collingwood’s Letters, 235.
But the American war developed “grand moral ideas,” and Mr. Seward’s, about the drowning of prisoners, was one of them.
CHAPTER LV.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND THE BRITISH STEAM-YACHT DEERHOUND—MR. SEWARD’S DESPATCH, AND MR. LANCASTER’S LETTER TO THE “DAILY NEWS”—LORD RUSSELL’S REPLY TO MR. ADAMS ON THE SUBJECT OF HIS COMPLAINT AGAINST MR. LANCASTER—PRESENTATION OF A SWORD TO THE AUTHOR, BY THE CLUBS IN ENGLAND—PRESENTATION OF A FLAG BY A LADY.
The howl that went up against Mr. Lancaster, the owner of the Deerhound, for his humane exertions in saving my crew and myself from drowning, was almost as rabid as that which had been raised against myself. Statesmen, or those who should have been such, descended into the arena of coarse and vulgar abuse of a private English citizen, who had no connection with them or their war, and no sympathies that I know of, on the one side or the other. Mr. Welles, in one of those patriotic effusions, by which he sought to recommend himself to the extreme party of the North, declared among other things, that he was “not a gentleman!” Poor Mr. Lancaster, to have thy gentility questioned by so competent a judge, as Mr. Gideon Welles! If these gentlemen had confined themselves to mere abuse, the thing would not have been so bad, but they gave currency to malicious falsehoods concerning Mr. Lancaster, as truths. Paid spies in England reported these falsehoods at Washington, and the too eager Secretary of State embodied them in his despatches. Mr. Adams and Mr. Seward have, both, since ascertained that they were imposed upon, and yet no honorable retraxit has ever been made. The following is a portion of one of Mr. Seward’s characteristic despatches on this subject. It is addressed to Mr. Adams:—
“I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of the 21st of June, No. 724, which relates to the destruction of the pirate-ship Alabama, by the Kearsarge, off Cherbourg. This event has given great satisfaction to the Government, and it appreciates and commends the bravery and skill displayed by Captain Winslow, and the officers and crew under his command. Several incidents of the transaction seem to demand immediate attention. The first is, that this Government disapproves the proceedings of Captain Winslow, in paroling and discharging the pirates who fell into his hands, in that brilliant naval engagement, and in order to guard against injurious inferences which might result from that error, if it were overlooked, you are instructed to make the fact of this disapprobation and censure known to her Majesty’s Government, and to state, at the same time, that this Government, adhering to declarations heretofore made, does not recognize the Alabama as a ship of war of a lawful belligerent power.”
Mr. Seward, when this despatch was penned, had hopes that the “pirates” would be given up to him, and the caveat, which he enters, may give some indication of the course the Yankee Government intended to pursue toward the said “pirates,” when they should come into its possession. It did not occur to the wily Secretary, that, if we were “pirates,” it was as competent for Great Britain to deal with us as the United States; and that, on this very ground, his claim for extradition might be denied,—a pirate being hostis humani generis, and punishable by the first nation into whose power he falls. But these mistakes were common with Mr. Seward.
Laying aside, therefore, all his trash and nonsense about piracy, let us proceed with that part of his despatch which relates to Mr. Lancaster:—