CHAP. II. The final act of capture and removal was then carried out with formal stage solemnity.1 Report, Secretary of the Navy, Dec. 2, 1861. 1861. Captain Wilkes's first instruction to Lieutenant Fairfax was to seize the Trent as a prize, but, as he afterwards explained: "I forebore to seize her, however, in consequence of my being so reduced in officers and crew, and the derangement it would cause innocent persons, there being a large number of passengers, who would have been put to great loss and inconvenience as well as disappointment from the interruption it would have caused them in not being able to join the steamer from St. Thomas to Europe." The Trent was allowed to proceed on her voyage, while the San Jacinto steamed away for Boston, where she arrived on the 24th of November, and transferred her prisoners to Fort Warren. The whole country rang with exultation over the exploit. The feeling was greatly heightened by 1"When the marines and some armed men had been formed," reports Lieutenant Fairfax, "just outside of the main deck cabin, where these four gentlemen had gone to pack up their baggage, I renewed my efforts to induce them to accompany me on board, they still refusing to accompany me unless force was applied. I called in to my assistance four or five officers, and first taking hold of Mr. Mason's shoulder, with another officer on the opposite side, I went as far as the gangway of the steamer, and delivered him over to Lieutenant Greer, to be placed in the boat. I then returned for Mr. Slidell, who insisted that I must apply considerable force to get him to go with me. Calling in at last three officers, he also was taken in charge and handed over to Mr. Greer. Mr. McFarland and Mr. Eustis, after protesting, went quietly into the boat." "There was a great deal of excitement on board at this time," says another report, "and the officers and passengers of the steamer were addressing us by numerous opprobrious epithets, such as calling us pirates, villains, traitors, etc." The families of Slidell and Eustis had meanwhile been tendered the use of the cabin of the San Jacinto, if they preferred to accompany the prisoners; but they declined, and proceeded in the Trent. [Report, Secretary of the Navy, Dec. 2, 1861.] Welles, in "The Galaxy," May, 1873, p. 649. the general public indignation at the unfriendli- CHAP. II. ness England had so far manifested to the Union cause; but perhaps more especially because the two persons seized had been among the most bitter and active of the secession conspirators. The public press lauded Captain Wilkes, Boston gave him a banquet, and the Secretary of the Navy wrote him a letter of emphatic approval. He congratulated him "on the great public service" he had rendered in the capture, and expressed only the reservation that his conduct in omitting to capture the vessel must not be allowed to constitute a precedent. When Congress met on the 2d of December following, the House of Representatives immediately passed a resolution, without a dissenting voice, thanking Captain Wilkes for his "brave, adroit, and patriotic conduct"; while by other resolutions the President was requested to order the prisoners into close confinement, in retaliation for similar treatment by the rebels of certain prisoners of war. The strong current of public feeling approved the act without qualification, and manifested an instant and united readiness to defend it. President Lincoln's usual cool judgment at once recognized the dangers and complications that might grow out of the occurrence. A well-known writer has recorded what he said in a confidential interview on the day the news was received: "I fear the traitors will prove to be white elephants. We must stick to American principles concerning the rights of neutrals. We fought Great Britain for insisting, by theory and practice, on the right to do precisely what Captain Wilkes has done. If 1861. CHAP. II. Great Britain shall now protest against the act, and demand their release, we must give them up, apoloLossing, gize for the act as a violation of our doctrines, and thus forever bind her over to keep the peace in relation to neutrals, and so acknowledge that she has "Civil War in the United States." Vol. II., pp. 156, 157. been wrong for sixty years." 99 1 The Cabinet generally coincided in expressing gratification and approval. The international questions involved came upon them so suddenly that they were not ready with decided opinions concerning the law and policy of the case; besides, the true course obviously was to await the action of Great Britain. The passengers on board the Trent, as well as the reports of her officers, carried the news of the capture directly to England, where the incident raised a storm of public opinion even more violent than that in the United States, but very naturally on the opposite side. The Government of England relied for its information mainly upon the official report of the mail agent, Commander Williams, who had made himself so officious as the "Queen's representative," and who, true to the secession sympathies manifested by him on shipboard, gave his report a strong coloring of the same character. 1 Mr. Welles, Secretary of the Navy, corroborated the statement in "The Galaxy" for May, 1873, p. 647: "The President, with whom I had an interview immediately on receiving information that the emissaries were captured and on board the San Jacinto, before consultation with any other member of the Cabinet discussed with me some of the difficult points presented. His chief anxiety-for his attention had never been turned to admiralty law and naval captures— was as to the disposition of the prisoners, who, to use his own expression, would be elephants on our hands that we could not easily dispose of. Public indignation was so overwhelming against the chief conspirators that he feared it would be difficult to prevent severe and exemplary punishment, which he always deprecated." English public feeling, popular and official, smarted CHAP. II. under the idea that the United States had perpetrated a gross outrage, and the clamor for instant redress left no room for any calm consideration of the far-reaching questions of international law involved. There seemed little possibility that a war could be avoided, and England began immediate preparations for such an emergency. Some eight thousand troops were dispatched to Canada, ships were ordered to join the English squadrons in American waters, and the usual proclamation issued prohibiting the export of arms and certain war supplies. Two days after the receipt of the news Lord Palmerston, in a note to the Queen, formulated the substance of a demand to be sent to the United States. He wrote, November 29, 1861: The general outline and tenor which appeared to meet the opinions of the Cabinet would be, that the Washington Government should be told that what has been done is a violation of international law and of the rights of Great Britain, and that your Majesty's Government trust that the act will be disavowed, and the prisoners set free and restored to British protection; and that Lord Lyons should be instructed that, if this demand is refused, he should retire from the United States. On the following day the formal draft of the proposed dispatch to Lord Lyons was laid before the Queen, who, together with Prince Albert, examined it with unusual care. The critical character of the communication, and the imminent danger-the almost certainty of a rupture and war with America which it revealed, made a profound impression upon both. Prince Albert was already suffering from the illness which terminated his life T. Martin, "Life of Consort." the Prince Vol. V., p. 420. CHAP. II. two weeks afterwards. This new and grave political question gave him a sleepless night. "He could eat no breakfast," is the entry in her Majesty's diary, "and looked very wretched. But still he was well enough on getting up to make a draft for me to write to Lord Russell, in correction of his draft to Lord Lyons, sent me yesterday, which Albert did not approve." The Queen returns these important drafts, which upon the whole she approves; but she cannot help feeling that the main draft-that for communication to the American Government-is somewhat meager. She should have liked to have seen the expression of a hope that the American captain did not act under instructions, or, if he did, that he misapprehended them-that the United States Government must be fully aware that the British Government could not allow its flag to be insulted, and the security of her mail communications to be placed in jeopardy; and her Majesty's Government are unwilling to believe that the United States Government intended wantonly to put an insult upon this country, and to add to their many distressing complications by forcing a question of dispute upon us; and that we are therefore glad to believe that upon a full consideration of the circumstances of the undoubted breach of international law committed, "Life of they would spontaneously offer such redress as alone Consort." could satisfy this country, viz., the restoration of the Vol, P. unfortunate passengers and a suitable apology. Martin, the Prince 422. p. It proved to be the last political memorandum he ever wrote. The exact language of his correction, had it been sent, would not have been well calculated to soothe the irritated susceptibilities of Americans. To the charge of "violating international law," to which Palmerston's cold note confined itself, he added the accusation of "wanton insult," though disclaiming a belief that it was intended. But a kind and pacific spirit shines |