Long before the present communication can reach you, my instructions of August 17, No. 61, will have come to your hands. That paper directed you to ask Lord Russell to explain a passage in a note written to you, and then lying before me, in which he said: I need scarcely add that on the part of Great Britain the engagement (to be contained in the projected convention) will be prospective, and will not invalidate anything already done;" which explanation I stated would be expected as a preliminary before you could proceed further in the transaction.

You have thus been already prepared for the information that your resolution to await special instructions in the present emergency is approved. I feel myself at liberty, perhaps bound, to assume that Lord Russell's proposed declaration, which I have herein recited, will have been already regarded, as well by him as by yourself, as sufficiently answering the request for preliminary explanations which you were instructed to make.

I may, therefore, assume that the case is fully before me, and that the question whether this government will consent to enter into the projected treaty with Great Britain, subject to the condition of admitting the simultaneous declaration on her Majesty's part, proposed by Lord Russell, is ready to be decided.

I am instructed by the President to say that the proposed declaration is inadmissible.

It would be virtually a new and distinct article incorporated into the projected convention. To admit such a new article would, for the first time in the history of the United States, be to permit a foreign power to take cognizance of and adjust its relations upon assumed internal and purely domestic differences existing within our own country.

This broad consideration supersedes any necessity for considering in what manner or in what degree the projected convention, if completed either subject to the explanation proposed or not, would bear directly or indirectly on the internal differences which the British government assume to be prevailing in the United States.

I do not enlarge upon this branch of the subject. It is enough to say that the view thus adopted by the President seems to be in harmony equally with a prudent regard to the safety of the republic and a just sense of its honor and dignity.

The proposed declaration is inadmissible, among other reasons, because it is not mutual. It proposes a special rule by which her Majesty's obligations shall be meliorated in their bearing upon internal difficulties now prevailing in the United States, while the obligations to be assumed by the United States shall not be similarly meliorated or at all affected in their bearing on internal differences that may now be prevailing, or may hereafter arise and prevail, in Great Britain.

It is inadmissible, because it would be a substantial and even a radical departure from the declaration of the congress at Paris. That declaration makes no exception in favor of any of the parties to it in regard to the bearing of their obligations upon internal differences which may prevail in the territories or dominions of other parties.

The declaration of the congress of Paris is the joint act of forty-six great and enlightened powers, designing to alleviate the evils of maritime war, and promote the first interest of humanity, which is peace. The government of Great Britain will not, I am sure, expect us to accede to this noble act otherwise than upon the same equal footing upon which all the other parties to it are standing. We could not consent to accede to the declaration with a modification of its terms unless all the present parties to it should stipulate that the modification should be adopted as one of universal application. The British government cannot but know that there would be little pros

pect of an entire reformation of the declaration of Paris at the present time, and it has not even told us that it would accept the modification as a general one if it were proposed.

It results that the United States must accede to the declaration of the congress of Paris on the same terms with all the other parties to it, or that they do not accede to it at all.

You will present these considerations to Lord Russell, not as arguments why the British government ought to recede from the position it has assumed, but as the grounds upon which the United States decline to enter into the projected convention recognizing that exceptional position of her Majesty.

If, therefore, her Britannic Majesty's government shall adhere to the proposition thus disallowed, you will inform Lord Russell that the negotiation must for the present be suspended.

I forbear purposely from a review of the past correspondence, to ascertain the relative responsibilities of the parties for this failure of negotiations, from which I had hoped results would flow beneficial, not only to the two nations, but to the whole world-beneficial, not in the present age only, but in future ages.

It is my desire that we may withdraw from the subject carrying away no feelings of passion, prejudice, or jealousy, so that in some happier time it may be resumed, and the important objects of the proposed convention may be fully secured. I believe that that propitious time is even now not distant; and I will hope that when it comes Great Britain will not only willingly and unconditionally accept the adhesion of the United States to all the benignant articles of the declaration of the congress of Paris, but will even go further, and, relinquishing her present objections, consent, as the United States have so constantly invited, that the private property, not contraband, of citizens and subjects of nations in collision shall be exempted from confiscation equally in warfare waged on the land and in warfare waged upon the seas, which are the common highways of all nations.

Regarding this negotiation as at an end, the question arises, what, then, are to be the views and policy of the United States in regard to the rights of neutrals in maritime war in the present case. My previous despatches leave no uncertainty upon this point. We regard Great Britain as a friend. Her Majesty's flag, according to our traditional principles, covers enemy's goods not contraband of war. Goods of her Majesty's subjects, not contraband of war, are exempt from confiscation though found under a neutral or disloyal flag. No depredations shall be committed by our naval forces or by those of any of our citizens, so far as we can prevent it, upon the vessels or property of British subjects. Our blockade, being effective, must be respected.

The unfortunate failure of our negotiations to amend the law of nations in regard to maritime war does not make us enemies, although, if they had been successful, we should have perhaps been more assured friends.

Civil war is a calamity from which certainly no people or nation that has ever existed has been always exempt. It is one which probably no nation ever will escape. Perhaps its most injurious trait is its tendency to subvert the good understanding and break up the relations existing between the distracted state and friendly nations, and to involve them, sooner or later, in war. It is the desire of the United States that the internal differences existing in this country may be confined within our own borders. I do not suffer myself for a moment to doubt that Great Britain has a desire that we may be successful in attaining that object, and that she looks with dread upon the possibility of being herself drawn into this unhappy internal controversy of our own. I do not think it can be regarded as disrespectful if you should remind Lord Russell that when, in 1838, a civil war broke out in

Canada, a part of the British dominions adjacent to the United States, the Congress of the United States passed and the President executed a law which effectually prevented any intervention against the government of Great Britain in those internal differences by American citizens, whatever might be their motives, real or pretended, whether of interest or sympathy. I send you a copy of that enactment. The British government will judge for itself whether it is suggestive of any measures on the part of Great Britain that might tend to preserve the peace of the two countries, and. through that way, the peace of all nations.

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD

No. 39.]

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.
[Extracts.]

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
London, September 7, 1861.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of despatches from the department, numbered from 61 to 67, both inclusive.

Since the date of your No. 61, of the 17th of August, you will have learned ere this that the enigmatical extract from Lord Russell's note to me, of which you instructed me to ask an explanation, has taken a very distinct and unequivocal shape, superseding all necessity for further inquiry. I may take occasion to remark upon the similarity of some of the reasoning in your despatch with that which you will find already made use of in my letter to his lordship, of the 23d August, declining to conclude the negotiation. On the whole, it seems to me that it is perhaps as well to let it stay for the present in the situation in which her Majesty's ministers have placed it. But in this I remain to be directed at the pleasure of the President.

In this connexion I have the honor to transmit a copy of Lord Russell's note of the 28th of August, in reply to mine of the 23d of that month to him, already referred to in the preceding paragraph. I likewise send a copy of his instructions to Lord Lyons, which he seems to have furnished to me as an evidence of his good faith in the representation he made of them to me at the conference.

The undersigned, her Majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, has had the honor to receive the note, of the 23d instant, of Mr. Adams, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States.

Mr. Adams has accounted satisfactorily for the delay in answering the note of the undersigned of the 19th instant. Her Majesty's government in all these transactions has acted in concert with the government of the

Emperor of the French, and the undersigned cannot be surprised that Mr. Adams should wish to communicate with Mr. Dayton, at Paris, before replying to his note.

The undersigned is quite prepared, following Mr. Adams, to recapitulate the particulars of this negotiation, and he is happy to think that in matters of fact there is no ground for any controversy between them. He need only supply omissions.

Mr. Adams, at his first interview with the undersigned, on the 18th of May last, mentioned the subject of the declaration of Paris as one on which he had power to negotiate, and the undersigned then told him that the matter had been already committed to the care of Lord Lyons, at Washington, with authority to agree with the government of the United States on the basis of the adoption of three of the articles and the omission of the first, being that relating to privateering. So far, the statement of Mr. Adams agrees substantially with that which is here made. But the representation of the undersigned was strictly accurate, and in faith of it he subjoins the despatch by which Lord Lyons was authorized to negotiate on the basis of the three latter articles of the declaration of Paris. Lord Lyons, however, was not empowered to sign a convention, because that form had not been adopted by the powers who originally signed the declaration, nor by any of the numerous states which afterwards gave their adherence to its articles. At a later period, when Mr. Adams brought a copy of his full powers to the foreign office, the undersigned asked why the adherence of the United States should not be given in the same form as that of other powers, and he was told, in reply, that as the Constitution of the United States required the consent of the Senate to any agreement with foreign powers, that agreement must necessarily, or at least would most conveniently, be made in the shape of a convention.

The undersigned yielded to this argument, and proposed to the government of the Emperor of the French, with which her Majesty's government have been acting throughout in complete agreement, to concur likewise in this departure from the form in which the declaration of Paris had been adopted by the maritime powers of Europe.

But the British government could not sign the convention proposed by the United States as an act of Great Britain singly and alone, and they found to their surprise that in case of France and of some of the other European powers the addition of Mr. Marcy relating to private property at sea had been proposed by the ministers of the United States at the courts of those powers.

The undersigned concurs in the statement made by Mr. Adams respecting the transactions which followed. Her Majesty's government, like Mr. Adams, wished to establish a doctrine for all time, with a view to lessen the horrors of war all over the globe. The instructions sent to Lord Lyons prove the sincerity of their wish to give permanence and fixity of principles to this part of the law of nations.

The undersigned has now arrived at that part of the subject upon which the negotiation is interrupted.

The undersigned has notified Mr. Adams his intention to accompany his signature of the proposed convention with a declaration to the effect that her Majesty "does not intend thereby to undertake any engagement which shall have any bearing, direct or indirect, on the internal differences now prevailing in the United States."

The reasons for this course can be easily explained. On some recent occasions, as on the fulfilment of the treaty of 1846, respecting the boundary, and with respect to the treaty called by the name of the "Clayton-Bulwer

Ex. Doc. 1-10

treaty," serious differences have arisen with regard to the precise meaning of words, and the intention of those who framed them.

It was most desirable in framing a new agreement not to give rise to a fresh dispute.

But the different attitude of Great Britain and of the United States in regard to the internal dissensions now unhappily prevailing in the United States gave warning that such a dispute might arise out of the proposed convention.

Her Majesty's government, upon receiving intelligence that the President had declared by proclamation his intention to blockade the ports of nine of the States of the Union, and that Mr. Davis, speaking in the name of those nine States, had declared his intention to issue letters of marque and repri sals; and having also received certain information of the design of both sides to arm, had come to the conclusion that civil war existed in America, and her Majesty had thereupon proclaimed her neutrality in the approaching contest.

The government of the United States, on the other hand, spoke only of unlawful combinations, and designated those concerned in them as rebels and pirates. It would follow logically and consistently, from the attitude taken by her Majesty's government, that the so-called Confederate States, being acknowledged as a belligerent, might, by the law of nations, arm privateers, and that their privateers must be regarded as the armed vessels of a belligerent.

With equal logic and consistency it would follow, from the position taken by the United States, that the privateers of the southern States might be decreed to be pirates, and it might be further argued by the government of the United States that a European power signing a convention with the United States, declaring that privateering was and remains abolished, would be bound to treat the privateers of the so-called Confederate States as pirates.

Hence, instead of an agreement, charges of bad faith and violation of a convention might be brought in the United States against the power signing such a convention, and treating the privateers of the so-called Confederate States as those of a belligerent power.

The undersigned had at first intended to make verbally the declaration proposed. But he considered it would be more clear, more open, more fair to Mr. Adams to put the declaration in writing, and give notice of it to Mr. Adams before signing the convention.

The undersigned will not now reply to the reasons given by Mr. Adams for not signing the convention if accompanied by the proposed declaration. Her Majesty's government wish the question to be fairly weighed by the United States government. The undersigned, like Mr. Adams, wishes to maintain and perpetuate the most friendly relations between her Majesty's kingdom and the United States. It is in this spirit that her Majesty's government decline to bind themselves without a clear explanation on their part to a convention which, seemingly confined to an adoption of the declaration of Paris of 1856, might be construed as an engagement to interfere in the unhappy dissensions now prevailing in the United States--an interference which would be contrary to her Majesty's public declarations, and would be a reversal of the policy which her Majesty has deliberately sanctioned.

The undersigned requests Mr. Adams to accept the assurance of his highest consideration.

C. F. ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

RUSSELL.