Mr. Adams. I respectfully doubt your Lordship's information. It was surely an odd way of proceeding to furnish at once the warning in time to provide against its execution!
Mr. Adams. I deeply regret a painful necessity which compels me to make a representation touching the conduct of Consul Bunch at Charleston. A private and opened letter, intercepted on the person of a naturalized American citizen and colonel in the confederate army,—Robert Mure, bearer of dispatches to Great Britain,—disclosed these words: 'Mr. Bunch, on oath of secrecy, communicated to me that the first step to recognition was taken. So prepare for active business BY THE FIRST OF JANUARY.'
Lord Russell. I will without hesitation state to you that, in pursuance of an agreement between the British and French governments, Mr. Bunch was instructed to communicate to the persons exercising authority in the so-called confederate States, the desire of those governments that certain articles of the declaration of Paris should be observed by them in their hostilities(!) But regarding the [pg 207] other statement, I as frankly say, Her Majesty's government have not recognized, and are not prepared to recognize, the so-called confederate States as a separate and independent power.
Mr. Seward (aside to Mr. Adams). The President revokes the exequatur of Consul Bunch, who has not only been the bearer of communications between the insurgents and a foreign government in violation of our laws, but has abused equally the confidence of the two governments by reporting, without the authority of his government, and in violation of their own policy, as well as of our national rights, that the proceeding in which he was engaged was in the nature of a treaty with the insurgents, and the first step toward a recognition by Great Britain of their sovereignty. His whole conduct has been, not that of a friend to this government, nor of a neutral even, but of a partisan of faction and disunion.
Lord Lyons. My government are concerned to find that two British subjects, Mr. Patrick and Mr. Rahming, have been subjected to arbitrary arrest.
Mr. Seward. At the time of arrest it was not known they were British subjects. They have been released.
Lord Lyons. They applied for habeas corpus, and its exercise was refused. Congress has not suspended the writ. Our law officers say that the authority of Congress is necessary to justify this arrest and imprisonment.
Mr. Seward (with suavity, but profound dignity, as if the nation spoke). I have to regret that, after so long an official intercourse between the governments of the United States and Great Britain, it should be necessary now to inform her Majesty's ministers that all executive proceedings are of the President. Congress has no executive power or responsibility. The President constitutionally exercises the right of suspending the writ of habeas corpus. This government does not question the learning of the legal advisers of the British Crown, or the justice of the deference which her Majesty's government pays to them; nevertheless, the British government will hardly expect that the President will accept their explanation of the Constitution of the United States!