ington. But in all of it not a word was said, nor was a hint given, about "sealed orders" or Russian aid to the American cause. Bergh, who was always one of the most outspoken of men, did indeed refer somewhat banteringly to some alleged current speculations in Europe upon a "mysterious alliance" between America and Russia; but he went on to treat such speculations with scorn, and to attribute the visit of the fleet not to Russia's wish to aid us, but simply to her intention not to interfere with our domestic affairs.

What, then, was the purpose of that brief and inconsequential visit? Or, rather, what was supposed to be its purpose, apart from simple friendship of a neutral sort between the two countries and the wish of the czar, who had just freed the serfs, to pay a compliment to the President, who had just freed the slaves? The answer is easily given. Russia had recently been beaten in war by France and England-chiefly by France, for the latter was the leader in the Crimean War-and she was eager for revenge. In 1863 a renewal of war between France and Russia appeared to be imminent. In such case Russia did not propose to have her fleet sealed up in her blockaded home harbors, as it was in the Crimean War. The example of the Confederate cruisers suggested to her what she might do to French commerce. So she sent her ships out to distant ports which were then friendly, and which in case of such war would be neutral; and she sent them to American ports, in order to be within easy striking distance of the French in Mexico. This was very largely the official and the popular view in America. Thus, on October 6, 1863, Charles Sumner-who, as chairman of the senate committee on foreign affairs, should have been well informed-wrote as follows to his friend, John Bright: "You will observe the hobnobbing at New York with the Russian admiral. Why is that fleet gathered there? My theory is that when it left the Baltic, war with France was regarded as quite possible, and it was determined not to be sealed up at Cronstadt; if at New York, they could take the French expedition at Vera Cruz."

Thus we get down to the facts of the case, namely: That a Russian fleet, which was not strong enough to do us much good if it had been needed, came hither at a time when it was not

VOL. II-4.

needed, and went away again long before our war was ended; and that on the Russian side there was no pretense, and on the American side there was no supposition, that it came hither to help us, but there was a widespread assumption that its errand, so far as we were concerned, was entirely neutral, and that if its aim was at all belligerent it was to strike at France for Russia's sake and not to defend New York for our sake.

There remains, however, just one possible ground for gratitude to Russia, namely, the one unrevealed detail of the "sealed. orders." It is possible that, despite the facts which I have here rehearsed, the ships did come hither with sealed orders which, in a certain emergency, would have put them at our disposal. If so, despite the untimeliness and futility of it all, we owe Russia sincere and profound gratitude for her good intention. But how are we to know that such was the case? There is no proof and no hint of it in the record thus far revealed to the world. Search has been made. Inquiry has been made. But nothing has been disclosed, either at Washington or at St. Petersburg. If any such "sealed orders" ever existed, their secret has been kept better than any other in the history of the world. In the absence of a single scintilla of proof that they ever existed, and in the presence of an overwhelming presumption that they never did, it is not difficult for impartial and judicious minds to form an opinion as to the facts in the case.

XXIII

SOME NORTH AMERICAN COMPLICATIONS

HE close of the Civil War produced a prompt and salu

TH

tary change in our European relations. The United States was freed from all menace of meddling in its affairs, and was confirmed in a more important place in the esteem of the world than ever before. The prestige of success in a great war, and the restoration of the Federal Union to integrity and assured perpetuity, profoundly impressed those nations, or those statesmen and rulers, who had been anticipating the dissolution of the republic. Those who had let the wish be father to the thought, and had given sympathy if not actual aid to the Confederacy, realized, in Lord Salisbury's contemptubus phrase, that they had been "backing the wrong horse," and made haste to repair their fault as far as possible by cultivating the favor of the winner.

Meantime there were innumerable odds and ends of foreign affairs which had perforce been neglected in the storm and stress of war, which now had to be taken up for settlement. The nation had suffered the unspeakable catastrophe of the loss of Lincoln, and there were those who feared that that loss would prove as serious in foreign as in domestic relations, and that, freed from that wise and prudent control, Seward, who remained secretary of state under President Johnson, would rush into some such vagaries as those which he had essayed at the beginning of his career in that office. Fortunately that proved to be conspicuously not the case. Apparently sobered by the tremendous experience of the war, and by the tragic removal of his great chief, Seward thenceforth displayed a conservatism as marked as his early radicalism had been, and conducted the diplomacy of the nation with unfailing tact and discretion. One of the first problems was that of Mexico. The tripartite intervention of France, Great Britain, and Spain, in 1861, for

the collection of just debts, had been transformed by the withdrawal of the latter two powers into a French campaign of conquest for the establishment of a new European sovereignty on North American soil. The French emperor profusely protested, of course, that he had no such ulterior designs. Nevertheless he had them, and he pursued them with the same persistence and perfidy which had marked his looting and overthrow of the second republic in France itself, only ten years before. He even sought to employ the same means, a spurious plebiscite. Mexico was at this time, as unhappily it has been throughout most of its independent career, distracted with intestine feuds. On one hand was the Clerical party, controlled by reactionary ecclesiastics, which favored the establishment of a monarchical government; and on the other was the Liberal or anti-Clerical party, devoted to maintenance of the republic. The actual government was republican in form, but it was weak and unstable, and in danger of being overturned any day by some successful revolutionist. Napoleon shrewdly addressed himself to the leaders of the Clerical party, himself professing to be the loyal son and foremost champion of the church. By means of bribes to some and threats to others, and working upon the real despair which some felt over the apparently hopeless task of developing true republicanism in Mexico, he induced them to seek a plebiscite on the question of establishing a monarchy and of calling some foreign prince to the throne as emperor.

He was well aware that under the Monroe Doctrine the United States would never permit any direct conquest of an American State by a European power. But he calculated upon two circumstances for the success of his villainous enterprise. One was, that if the change of government had the appearance of being effected by the Mexicans themselves by popular vote, American opposition would be disarmed, as the United States would of course concede the right of the Mexicans to choose their own form of government and their own ruler. The other was, that the United States was at the time engaged in a life or death struggle for its own existence and therefore would be physically unable to interfere effectively against French designs, no matter how flagrant these might be. He confidently counted on the disruption of the Union and the success of the Confed

eracy, in which case, of course, there would be no opposition to his conquest. But even if the Union should in the end be successful, before the close of the war his conquest of Mexico would be an accomplished fact, which it would be impossible for the United States to undo.

Seward perhaps accepted as true the early French disclaimers of any intention of conquest. At any rate he deemed it politic in the then existing circumstances to treat them as true. He therefore instructed Dayton, our minister to France, to say that they were so accepted, and that the United States did not challenge the right of France to collect just claims from Mexico, even at the cost of war; but to add that the United States had a right and interest to insist that France should not improve the opportunity afforded by the war to change the form of the Mexican government. This emboldened Napoleon to proceed with his conspiracy. The plebiscite was never taken, but on July 10, 1862, a convention of Clerical leaders, purporting to represent the Mexican people, was held, under the direction. and dictation of the commander of the French army, and at his orders it voted to establish an imperial form of government and to call to the throne the Archduke Maximilian, a younger brother of the reactionary and autocratic Emperor of Austria.

This was made known to Seward, with the intimation that it would be best for the United States to acquiesce in it, because the installation of Maximilian's government and recognition of it by this country would mean the prompt withdrawal of the French army from Mexico, which of course we were supposed greatly to desire; and because, also, any attempt by this country to prevent the seating of Maximilian would probably result in a war with France, which we might not be able at that time to maintain. Seward replied that the United States had no disposition to intervene in the domestic affairs of Mexico, but recognized the right of that country to choose and establish its own government, even though it should be monarchical in form. But the United States was firmly convinced that the Mexican people at heart desired a republican form of government, with a native president, rather than an empire with an exotic sovereign, and if France persisted in carrying out in Mexico a policy contrary to these views, there would be grave danger of an ultimate "col