Another operation of the adoption of Mr Seward’s fiction is seen in the case of the British Consul at Charleston. The British and French Governments agreed that it was expedient to communicate to the persons exercising authority in the Confederate States the desire of those Governments that certain articles of the Declaration of Paris should be observed by them in the prosecution of hostilities. Mr Seward remarks thereupon—

“It is enough to say that in our view the proper agents of the British Government to make known its interest here, are the diplomatic, not the consular agents of her Majesty; and that the only authority in this country to which any diplomatic communication whatever can be made is the Government of the United States itself.”

The articles to which France and England desired to call attention were those which relate to the capture of the property of neutrals at sea. It was very necessary to the protection of our commerce that they should be made known, and to do so was not in any way contrary to any of the pretensions of the Federal Government. Yet because the Powers had chosen the English Consul as their medium, instead of the Federal authorities, who did not acknowledge or maintain communications with the Southern Government, the Consul’s exequatur was withdrawn.

The case of the Trent is too well known, and that of the Alabama is too recent, to need recapitulation here. It is only necessary to remind the reader that in the late debate in Parliament it was shown that Mr Seward’s demands could only be complied with by passing a special law, having for its exclusive object to aid the Federal Government by stopping vessels, not on evidence, but on suspicion, that they were intended to become Confederate ships of war. In the case of the Emily St Pierre he expressly tells us his views. That vessel had been captured in attempting to run the blockade, and had then been recaptured from the prize-crew and brought into Liverpool. Whereupon the Federal authorities demanded that she should be restored to them by the British Government. Lord Russell replied that “neutral nations are not bound to punish their subjects for offences committed only against the laws of war as enforced by belligerents, nor to restore property rescued by their subjects from foreign captors.” When our Government communicated its decision declining to restore her, Mr Seward remarked—

“I think it proper to observe at present that the reasons seem to be limited to a want of power vested in the Government to restore, and do not bear at all on the justice or legality of the demand. Under such circumstances this Government has in more than one instance admitted the claim, and appealed to legislative authority for the power to satisfy it, and it has been promptly conferred and exercised.”

The American Minister was directed to press these demands for an alteration of the law. In reply, Lord John Russell, after adverting to the injury sustained by England in the blockade, says:—

“Yet Her Majesty’s Government have never sought to take advantage of the obvious imperfections of this blockade, in order to declare it ineffective. They have, to the loss and detriment of the British nation, scrupulously observed the duties of Great Britain towards a friendly State. But when Her Majesty’s Government are asked to go beyond this, and to overstep the existing powers given them by municipal and international law, for the purpose of imposing arbitrary restrictions on the trade of Her Majesty’s subjects, it is impossible to listen to such suggestions.... If, therefore, the United States consider it for their interest to inflict this great injury on other nations, the utmost they can expect is that European Powers shall respect those acts of the United States which are within the limits of the law. The United States Government cannot expect that Great Britain should frame new statutes to aid the Federal blockade, and to carry into effect the restrictions on commerce which the United States for their own purposes have thought fit to institute, and the application of which it is their duty to confine within the legitimate limits of international law.”

Mr Seward’s demand, that we should adopt his interpretation of the character of the war, would entail the consequences that we should ourselves enforce the Federal blockade; that we should refuse all Southern vessels admission to our ports, while allowing the freest use of them to the Federal ships; that we should stop all exports of commodities to the South, while granting fullest commercial intercourse with the North: and that we should alter our own laws for the purpose of making ourselves the agents of the belligerent interests of the Federal Government. His interpretation of neutrality in affording supplies to the belligerents is amusingly, though we daresay quite unintentionally, illustrated by himself in a couple of sentences. It will be recollected that, at the time of the Trent affair, Federal agents had bought up a great quantity of saltpetre here, and that, in expectation that this might be used against ourselves in case of war, the export of the article was prohibited by an Order in Council. This prohibition was withdrawn when the settlement of the Trent affair removed the apprehension of war. “It affords me pleasure,” says Mr Seward thereupon, “to know that the inhibition of saltpetre, which was so unnecessary, has been rescinded.”

“It has been only European sympathies and European aid,” he proceeds in the next sentence, “that have enabled our disloyal citizens to prolong the civil war.” The coupling of his pleasure at getting munitions of war from England with his complaint against European aid to the South, is too impudent not to be, we hope, accidental.

Now, does any foreign European statesman living think that it would be a light task to persuade England to restrain the liberty of her subjects, or to change her laws? Would any such statesman think that he was labouring for a practicable object, if he were to found his efforts on the assumption that such changes would be made at his suggestion? Would any European people, of whose Government he should be the agent, regard such efforts with other feelings than derision? Yet there are ministers of potent Governments who could show plausible reasons for expecting that their efforts might prevail, and who could urge their arguments with skill and eloquence. But even if, confident in their long experience and profound knowledge of diplomacy, they might venture on the experiment, is it possible to suppose that, when the failure should be manifest, they would, instead of abandoning the ground for surer footing, continue to build an entire policy on the shadowy foundation, though certain to see the baseless fabric sink as often as it should be raised? Yet such is the hopeless task in which the American Secretary persists with dreary pertinacity. Some malign spell seems to rule his course like that by which Michael Scott compelled the devil to make ropes of sand, and to bale out the sea with a limpet-shell. All his arguments, all his complaints, all his homilies, are based on the delusion that he can compel the British Government, by the marvellous force of his persuasive eloquence, to occupy with him a cloudland of his own creation; where a resolute people in arms is a dwindling faction; where a strife that drenches a continent in blood is a waning insurrection; where the victorious result always seems close, yet is always receding; where in the obstruction of a commercial system there is nothing which the partners in that system are entitled to take note of; where the Union, repelled at all points, and staggering under a load of debt, is said to exercise authority in all but a few rebellious spots, and to keep firm hold on the affections of all but a few misguided men; and where nefarious contracts, armies of mercenaries and deserters and plundering generals, are bright examples of the virtue and patriotism of a great people elicited in the hour of trial. All his instructions, all his remonstrances, all his prophecies, proceed upon the assumption that these delusions are facts. If it were not so, the vast volume of despatches would shrink to the size of a pamphlet; for every dispute, every argument, every feeling of injury, has its root in the shadowy standing-ground which he chooses to occupy. Of this he appears sensible himself when he says:—