These iron-clad rams were formidable vessels of war, and had they got away they would undoubtedly have broken the blockade at Charleston and Wilmington; and as the blockade, constantly growing in efficiency, was a potent weapon on the Northern side, the harm would have been incalculable: the victories even of Gettysburg and Vicksburg might have been neutralized. Bulloch dreamed that "our iron-clads" might "sweep the blockading fleet from the sea front of every harbor," "ascend the Potomac," and "render Washington itself untenable," and lay Portsmouth (N. H.) and Philadelphia under contribution.2 From some such damage Earl Russell, by his careful and decisive action, saved the North, and thereby prevented a war between the United States and Great Britain, which the energy of Bulloch and the sympathy and cupidity of a firm of Birkenhead ship-builders came near bringing about. The seizure of the rams was a blow to the Confederate cause.4

The debate in the House of Commons, June 30, made it evident that England would not recognize, singly or jointly, the Southern Confederacy, or offer to mediate between the two belligerents; and the proceedings which I have just re

1 Through the kindness of Mr. Charles F. Adams and Mr. S. A. B. Abbott, I have received the following statement made in Jan., 1898, from Captain Page, who had been selected as the commander of these vessels: I never received from the Confederate government any instructions, written or of any other kind, as to the course I should pursue after taking command of the rams, but I had outlined in my own mind a plan of operations. My intention was to sail at once to Wilmington and to raise the blockade there and at Charleston. Having accomplished this, I intended to raise the blockade of the gulf ports and cut off all communications of the North by water with New Orleans. I had at the time perfect confidence in my ability to accomplish my purposes, and I now believe, in the light of what I have since learned, that if the rams had been permitted to leave England I would have been successful. I never had any intention of attacking New York, Boston, or Hampton Roads, or any Northern port, as I did not believe in that kind of warfare.

2 Bulloch to the Richmond Secretary of the Navy, July 9, Secret Service of the Confed. States, vol. i. p. 411.

3 See Spectator, Sept. 5, Saturday Review, Sept. 12.

4 Bulloch, vol. i. p. 414 et seq.

lated showed that the Confederates could no longer hope to build and get away from England vessels of war. The contrast of the action now, and that in regard to the Alabama was marked, especially as the case against the cruiser was the stronger of the two. Her depredations, the claims for damages, urged persistently by our government, the Proclamation of Emancipation, Gettysburg and Vicksburg, invigorated the friendship of Russell,1 and added to his supporters in the Cabinet.

As early as January, Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State, complained, when writing to Slidell, that Mason had "been discourteously treated by Earl Russell," in March, that "the irritation against Great Britain is fast increasing;' and in June he indulged in words almost abusive of the English government.2 August 4 he wrote Mason that the President was convinced, from the recent debates in Parliament, that England would not recognize the Confederacy, and he therefore instructed him to consider his mission at an end, and withdraw from London. Mason received this despatch September 14, and after waiting a week to consult with Slidell, notified Earl Russell that in accordance with his instructions he should terminate his mission. Jefferson Davis,

1 "I have generally had occasion to infer a favorable disposition on the part of Lord Russell. . . . In our personal relations we have been uniformly friendly but not intimate." — Adams to Seward, Sept. 24, MS. State Dep't Archives.

2 "The mutual relations of the United States and Great Britain . . . seem to have now become settled on the established basis of insulting aggression on the one side and tame submission on the other. . . . It is impossible not to admire the sagacity with which Mr. Seward penetrated into the secret feelings of the British Cabinet, and the success of his policy of intimidation which the world at large supposed would be met with prompt resentment, but which he with deeper insight into the real policy of that Cabinet foresaw would be followed by submissive acquiescence in his demands."

June 22, Confed. Dip. Corr., MS.

3 Ibid. A private letter sent at the same time advised Mason that he might exercise some discretion in carrying out this order.

4 Adams wrote Seward, Sept. 24: "The Times distinctly admits this to be a relief to the Government, though I confess myself at a loss to understand how he annoyed them. The selection of Mr. Mason to come here was an

in his message to his Congress in December, gave vent to his "dissatisfaction with the conduct of the British government," two of his many grievances being that they respected the Federal blockade, and had seized the iron-clad rams.1

While Seward's diplomacy after the Trent affair may, on the whole, be commended in the view of the results accomplished, there was in it so much of the "claim everything" principle that it is not extolled by adepts in international law. The course of Adams was well-nigh faultless. There being no Atlantic cable, it took from three weeks to a month to obtain instructions that he asked for. In an exigency therefore he could not wait for these, and was forced many times to act on his own judgment, with a result, since his knowledge was larger and his vision clearer than Seward's, that was beneficial to our cause. As I have told the story of the iron-clad rams, his language in the celebrated despatch of September 5 may seem more peremptory than the occasion required, but he must be judged in the light of the facts he himself knew. Applying that test, we perceive that his action, which showed both decision and reserve, denoted diplomatic ability of the highest order.

Russell lacked the force of Palmerston, the many-sidedness. and the promptitude of initiative of Gladstone; he belonged to that class of honorable gentlemen whose service to their country and their order is safe rather than impressive, and if his conduct be estimated, not by a hard and fast line which the historian with the knowledge of the after event may draw in his study, but with a due allowance for the difficulties which beset the path of a practical statesman, it may be

unfortunate one from the outset. I can scarcely imagine an agency to have been more barren of results. Mr. Mason's efforts have been of late to concentrate the attacks upon Lord Russell, as if he were the chief barrier to the rebel progress in the Cabinet."- MS. State Dep't Archives. Even had Mason possessed the peculiar ability needed for his position, the constant iteration that he was the author of the Fugitive Slave Law would have impaired his usefulness.

1 Moore's Reb. Rec., vol. viii. Docs. p. 265.

2 Touching the stopping of the iron-clad rams, Adams wrote Russell,

asserted, in spite of his deviations from a consistent course, that he deserved well of both English-speaking nations. While the course of England towards us was not as just as ours towards her during the Crimean War,1 it must be borne in mind that "our only well-wisher in Europe" was Russia,2 and that if a contrast be instituted with the policy of France, the action of the government of Great Britain will appear to border on friendliness.3 England, indeed, was the insurmountable obstacle to the recognition of the Southern Confederacy by France and other European nations.

While the

Oct. 12: "The President, not insensible of the difficulties in the way of the decision to which Her Majesty's Government . . . had arrived, is gratified in being able to regard it in the light of a sincere desire on just principles to maintain its friendly relations with the United States."- Brit. Case, p. 400.

1 Adams to Russell, Dec. 30, 1862, Dip. Corr., 1863, part i. p. 43. Forster and Palmer in the House of Commons, March 27, 1863, Hansard, 40, 53; Collier, Feb. 23, 1864, 1009; Saturday Review, March 28, 1863; Letters of Belmont, privately printed, p. 79. In making this statement, however, it is but fair to cite a defence made by Russell in a private letter, about July 23, to the Duchess of Argyll, who had transmitted to him some newspaper extracts sent to her by Sumner. "We do not fit out ships by the dozen.' ... One, two, three ships may have evaded our laws just as the Americans evaded the American laws during the Canadian contest. We are not in the habit of condemning and punishing without proof." - Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS.

2 This is on the authority of Motley, March 3, then at Vienna. — Letters, vol. ii. p. 119; see also Dip. Corr., 1863, part ii. p. 763. It is difficult to reconcile this with the statement G. W. Smalley makes regarding Bismarck, London Letters, vol. i. p. 27. Yet Motley's relations with Bismarck were intimate. But many of the German people were friendly to the North. "The German mind was obstinately bent against us [the South]."— De Leon to Benjamin, Feb. 23, 1863, Confed. Dip. Corr., MS. Bright declared, Dec. 18, 1862: "A German merchant in Manchester who had recently travelled all through Germany, said, 'I am so surprised I don't find one man in favor of the South."-Speeches, vol. i. p. 222. The purchase of our bonds by Germans is a well-known fact.

3 J. S. Mill wrote Motley, Sept. 17, 1862: "I believe that our Government has felt more rightly all through than a majority of the public [i. e. the voters]."-Motley's Letters, vol. ii. p. 92.、

4 This is a fact so well known, having appeared also in the course of the narrative, that it will be unnecessary to cite a mass of evidence to support it; but a reference to Cobden's opinion, Am. Hist. Rev., Jan. 1897, p. 313,

English Cabinet looked with regret on the operations of English merchants and ship-builders who, by selling arms, munitions, and vessels to the South, entangled Great Britain in its relations with the United States, Louis Napoleon instigated the Confederates to construct two iron-clads and four clipper corvettes in France, giving indirectly the assurance that they might be armed and equipped, and permitted upon a plausible pretext to leave his ports. While Russell declined to see Mason, subsequent to their first meeting, shortly after his arrival in February, 1862, and Palmerston saw him only once, at a time when all danger of foreign interference had passed, the Emperor accorded three interviews to Slidell, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and other members of the imperial ministry and household held with him unrestrained intercourse. Moreover, Louis Napoleon conquered Mexico, and placed a European monarch on her throne.2 Notwithstanding his designs were not so clear in 1863 as they are now, enough was known to arouse in the mind of the American public a suspicion that was undoubtedly shared by Seward, although the tone of his despatches to France, either

and to Bigelow, France and the Confed. Navy, p. 135, will be pertinent. I will quote three expressions of Benjamin: "Jan. 17. Both Mr. Slidell and Mr. Mason are entirely convinced of the hearty sympathy of the Emperor, and of his desire to give it active expression, as well of the opposite feeling and tendency in the Cabinet of St. James." "July 20. It has become perfectly plain to the whole world . . . that Great Britain stands the only real obstacle to our recognition." Aug. 17. The important fact ready and anxious for our

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has been saliently developed that France is recognition, and that England is opposed to it." Confed. Dip. Corr., MS. 1 Slidell to Benjamin, Jan. 11, March 4, Confed. Dip. Corr., MS. But they never got to sea as Confederate vessels. In November Louis Napoleon began to change his tune. For a history of this transaction, see Bigelow, France and the Confed. Navy; Bulloch, vol. ii.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. chap. x.

2 On Mexico, besides the article of Bancroft already cited, see Nicolay and Hay, vols. vi., vii.; H. H. Bancroft's Mexico, vol. vi.

3 Adams wrote Seward, Sept. 25: "I am sorry to be obliged to confess to a belief that there is more or less of duplicity in the policy of the Emperor of France towards the United States. Little as I am disposed to be satisfied with the action of the Ministry here, I prefer their rougher and colder truth to his more polished and courtly insincerity."-State Dep't Archives, MS.