nition of a state of war. Effect of recognounced that a proclamation would be issued, stating "the general effect of the common and statute law on the matter;" and on the 10th, Lord Granville' repeated the declaration in the House of Lords. In the discussion there it was assumed by all the speakers that the insurgent Government might lawfully issue letters of marque. It is believed by the United States that it was well known to Her Majesty's Government during all this time, that Mr. Adams was about to arrive with instructions from the new administration, and that he came possessed of its most confidential views on these important questions. On the 2d May Mr. Dallas wrote Mr. Seward thus: "The solicitude felt by Lord John Russell as to the effect of certain measures represented as likely to be adopted by the President, induced him to request me to call at his private residence yesterday. ** I informed him that Mr. Adams had apprised me of his intention to be on his way hither in the steamship Niagara which left Boston on the 1st May, and that he would probably arrive in less than two weeks, by the 12th or 15th instant. His Lordship acquiesced in the expediency of disregarding mere rumor, and waiting the full knowledge to be brought by my successor." The United States, for reasons already given, have no doubt that, before that interview, Her Majesty's Government had already decided upon their course of action. Mr. Adams did actually arrive in London on the evening of the 13th of May. The Queen's Proclamation of neutrality was issued on the morning of that day. A careful examination of the published correspondence and speeches of Lord John Russell shows that Her Majesty's Government was at that time by no means certain that there was a war in the United States. On the 1st of May,' he directs the Admiralty as to the course to be pursued with reference to the insurgent cruisers in the war which, he thinks, may "have already begun." On the 2d of May2 he asks the Law Officers of the Crown what course the Government shall pursue. On the 1st of June, however, he is in doubt on the subject, and he writes to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, informing them of the rules to be observed by the British naval forces "in the contest which appears to be imminent between the United States and the so-styled Confederate States of North America." It would seem, therefore, that on the 1st of June, 1861, Her Majesty's Government regarded only as "imminent" the hostilities which Her Majesty's Proclamation of the 13th of the previous May alleged had unhappily 2 Vol. IV, page 482. 3 Vol. I, page 335. 1 Vol. I, page 33. 3 Uncertainty of commenced between the United States of America Her Majesty's Government. and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States of America." In point of fact, Lord John Russell's dispatch of the 1st of June described with fidelity the condition of things so far as then known in London; for at that time the intelligence of the exhilarating effect of the Queen's Proclamation upon the insurgents, and its depressing effect upon the Government and loyal population of the United States, had not reached Europe. Effect of the Queen's Procla mation. Whatever Lord John Russell, and his colleagues in the Government, who decided to counsel Her Majesty to issue the Proclamation of May 13th, may have thought, the debates in Parliament removed any excuse for ignorance as to the effect of that instrument. As early as the 29th of April, in the House of Commons, an opposition member had said that "there could be no doubt that if the war should be continued in that country [the United States] there would be thousands of privateers hovering about those coasts;" to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gladstone) immediately replied: "All that relates to the dangers which may arise between British merchant-ships and American or other privateers ** I shall pretermit, not because I presume to say or think that they are Hansard's Debates, 3d series, Vol. CLXII, page 1276. insignificant, but because I feel it my duty to address myself to those points which touch more directly and more practically [the Budget] the matter in hand," 1 In a debate in the House of Lords, on the 10th of May, Lord Hardwicke said that he "was anxious that the House should not enter too strong a protest against that which was a natural consequence of war, namely, that vessels should be fitted out by private individuals under letters of marque. That was, no doubt, privateering, but it did not by any means follow that privateering was piracy. He believed that if privateering-ships were put in the hands of proper officers, they were not engaged in piracy any more than menof-war. He thought that a feeble State engaged in a war with a powerful one had a right to make use of its merchant-vessels for the purpose of carrying on the contest, and there was no violation of the law of nations in such a proceeding." In the more elaborate discussion which followed on the 16th of the same month in the House of Lords, the Lord Chancellor3 said: "If, after the publishing of the present Proclamation, any English subject were to enter into the service of either of the belligerents on the other side of the Atlantic, there could be no doubt that the 1 Hansard's Debates, 3d series, Vol. CLXII, page 1277. Effect of the Queen's Proclama 2 Vol. IV, page 486. 3 Vol. IV, Effect of the tion. Queen's Proclama person so acting would be liable to be punished for a violation of the laws of his own country, and would have no right to claim any interference on the part of his Government to shield him from any consequences which might arise. There could, however, at the same time, be no doubt that, although he would be guilty of a breach of the laws. of his own country, he ought not to be regarded as a pirate for acting under a commission from a State admitted to be entitled to the exercise of belligerent rights, and carrying on what might be called a justum bellum. Anybody dealing with a man under those circumstances as a pirate, and putting him to death, would, he contended, be guilty of murder." The distinguished jurist, who then sat upon the woolsack, described in that speech one legal effect of this hastily issued Proclamation with undoubted correctness. It relieved Englishmen or foreigners in England, and Englishmen on insurgent cruisers carrying on war against the United States, from the penalties of a high class of felonies. Lord Lyndhurst, one of the most eminent predecessors of Lord Campbell, in an opinion in the House of Lords in 1853, cited with respect by Sir George Cornwall Lewis, (himself one of Lord Palmerston's Cabinet,) said: "If a number of British subjects were to combine and conspire together to excite revolt among the inhabi |