Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-ninth Congress
Mr. Burnley to Mr. Seward
Sir: I have the honor to communicate to you, under the instructions which I have received from her Majesty’s principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, the enclosed copy of a despatch addressed to Lord Lyons relative to the intention of the United States government, in conformity with the treaty reservation right, to increase their naval armament upon the North American lakes.
I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, &c., &c., &c.
Earl Russell to Lord Lyons
My Lord: Your lordship, in your despatch of the 28th ultimo, has referred to the intention of the United States government to give notice to her Majesty’s government that, in conformity with the treaty reservation of the right to give such notice, the United States government will deem themselves at liberty, at the expiration of six months after the communication shall have been made, to increase their naval armament upon the North American lakes, if, in their judgment,, the condition of affairs should require it; and you have enclosed a copy of a despatch from Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, which, after referring to the case of the Chesapeake, and after relating various acts of aggression from Canada, namely, the seizure and destruction of the Philo Parsons and Island Queen on the lakes, and the attack upon the town of St. Albans, in Vermont, by a party of twenty-five men, issuing from the British territory, proceeds to lay down the following important propositions:
1. “The insufficiency of the British neutrality act, and of the warnings of the Queen’s proclamation to arrest the causes of the complaint referred to, were anticipated early in the existing struggle, and the British government was asked to apply a remedy by passing an act more stringent in its character, such as ours of the 10th of March, 1838, which was occasioned by a similar condition of affairs.” This request has not been complied with, though its reasonableness and necessity have been shown by subsequent acts.
2. “It is now my duty to instruct you to give notice to Earl Russell, in conformity with the treaty reservation of that right, that, at the expiration of six months after you shall have made this communication, the United States will deem themselves at liberty to increase the naval armaments upon the lakes, if, in their judgment, the condition of affairs in that quarter shall then require it.”
3. After again recurring to the measure of 1838, Mr. Seward says: “I should fail, however, to express a sincere conviction of this government if I should not repeat now, what I have heretofore so often had occasion to say, that practically the policy of neutrality which her Majesty has proclaimed has failed as well in the British home ports as in the British colonies, and especially in the latter, and that it must continue to fail more conspicuously every day so long as asylum is allowed there to active agents of thé enemies of the United States, and they are la any way able, by evasion or otherwise, to use the British ports and British borders as a base for felonious depredations against the citizens of the United States; nor are we able to conceive of any remedy adequate to the present exigency but the recognition by her Majesty’s government of the first and exclusive sovereignty of the United States in all the waters and territories legally subject to the jurisdiction of this government.”
On the 23d instant I received from Mr. Adams the note which I enclose, and the several documents annexed to it; but as they are the same in substance as the communication you have sent me, I think it will be more convenient to deal with the formal and authoritative despatch of the Secretary of State.
1. The reference to the act of March 10, 1838, (of which I enclose a copy,) will not have any application with respect to vessels leaving the shores of the United Kingdom. The difficulty in regard to vessels fitted out or equipped in our home ports has always consis:ed in proving that the vessel was “provided or prepared for any military expedition or enterprise against the territory or dominions of any foreign prince or state with whom her Majesty is at peace,” and a similar difficulty would be found in enacting a law exactly copied from the United States act of March 10,1838. With regard to “territories conterminous with the United States,” it might, indeed, more easily be proved, with respect to any military bodies assembled near the border that they were intended to cross the frontier in hostility to a state with whom her Majesty is at peace. On this part of the question I have to desire you to assure Mr. Seward that the subject is undergoing the most searching investigation by the law officers of the Crown, with a view to take the most effectual measures to prevent incursions from the bordering British provinces into the territory of the United States., In the mean time I have to observe that in the early part of the war, while active efforts were made to fit out, in British ports, ships intended to be completed in the waters of other neutral States, as ships-of-war, and thence to be employed as cruisers against the United States, but few, if any, attempts were made to disturb the frontier of Canada by military or naval expeditions. Hence the act of Congress of March, 1838, was not considered to be applicable to the existing state of affairs. I may also observe, that during the late insurrection in Poland, although the governments of Austria and Prussia were, from a regard to their own interests, unfavorable to that insurrection, and although their means of repression were much more available and much more energetic than ours ever can be, yet insurgent expeditions from Galicia and from the Duchy of Posen were of very frequent occurrence. The governor of Canada, it is admitted by the United States government, has done all that he could lawfully do, and if his efforts should fail and other measures of repression consistent with the nature of our government shall be found requisite, her Majesty’s government will not hesitate to propose them.
2. It is perfectly competent to the United States to give notice that at the end of six months that government will be at liberty to increase their naval force on the lakes. It is certainly true that while both nations are disarmed on the lakes, marauders or depredators may destroy or [Page 19] capture unarmed vessels belonging to either party. Her Majesty will, of course, be at liberty also to increase her naval force on the lakes at the expiration of the six months after notice, if she shall think fit so to do. But it is to be hoped that when peace is restored the former agreement, which was formed upon just and wise considerations, may be renewed, as one that must be advantageous to both parties.
3. The. next proposition of the Secretary of State declares the neutrality proclaimed by her Majesty to have failed, as well in the British home ports as in the colonies; that it must continue to fail so long as asylum is allowed there to active agents of the enemies of the United States, and so long as those persons are in any way able, by evasion or otherwise, to use the British ports and British borders as a base for felonious depredations; and the Secretary of State adds, that the only remedy which the government of the United States is able to conceive, is the “recognition by her Majesty’s government of the first and exclusive sovereignty of the United States in all the wafers and territories legally subject to the jurisdiction of this government.”
It appears to her Majesty’s government that this proposal amounts to nothing less than a demand that Great Britain should cease to acknowledge the belligerent character of the southern States, and treat the southern citizens as felons and pirates. In order to consider this matter fully, I find it necessary to recur to the events of the last three years.
President Lincoln, immediately after his accession to power in 1861, found himself face to face with a most formidable insurrection. In the month of April, 1861, he ordered a levy of seventy-five thousand men to meet the danger. Finding this number insufficient, armies of three, four, and even seven hundred thousand men have been raised, embodied, marched, exposed to battles and sieges, worn by fight and fever, exhausted, consumed, and replenished in this mighty contest. With similar purposes the President, in the same month of April, 1861, proclaimed the blockade of the coast of seven States, and the blockade of two other States was added immediately afterwards. A navy wag suddenly created, supposed to be adequate to the task of blockading three thousand miles of coast.
Her Majesty’s government could not, any more than the other powers of Europe, fail to recognize in the vast extent of the territories involved in hostilities, and in the fierce nature of the contest, a civil war of the most extraordinary character.
In proclaiming that both parties in this vast war were to be treated as belligerents, and in admitting the validity of a blockade of three thousand miles of coast, her Majesty’s government acknowledged an existing fact, and recognized the international law applicable to that fact. But her Majesty’s government could not disguise from themselves the difficulties which would beset, under any state of law, the task of preventing undue aid being given by individuals among the Queen’s subjects to one or the other of the belligerents. The identity of language, the increasing intercourse of trade, the immense extent of ship-building carried on in this country, and the ingenuity of speculators in defeating laws and proclamations, made it impossible that there should not be many escapes from the vigilance of the government, and many successful stratagems to disguise hostile proceedings.
Still her Majesty’s government counted on the fair consideration by the government of the United States of what was possible on their estimate of the honest intention of the British Executive, and their knowledge of the latitude, both of opinion and of action, prevailing among a people nurtured like that of the United States in free institutions.
Her Majesty’s government also thought that the United States must be aware that the law of nations and the circumstances of the war gave an immense advantage to the federalists against the confederates in obtaining warlike supplies. In confirmation of this remark, it may be reckoned that besides very many batteries of artillery, five hundred thousand rifles have been manufactured in this country and conveyed to the shores of the northern States, to be used by the federal troops in the war. It may safely be said, also, that many thousands of the Queen’s subjects have held these rifles against the hearts of men whom her Majesty does not regard as her enemies.
The supplies sent to the confederates are, on the other hand, very commonly intercepted and captured on the sea by federal ships-of-war. Her Majesty’s government, however, have put in force impartially the provisions of the law, and have prosecuted those persons, who, in apparent violation of that law, have fitted out vessels in our ports with the purpose, as it was believed, of aiding in hostilities against the United States, or who have been engaged in enlisting seamen or recruits in the service of either belligerent; and her Majesty’s government have succeeded in preventing the departure from the Clyde and the Mersey of several ships intended for the service of the confederates.
Such being the state of affairs, her Majesty’s government are not prepared either to deny to the southern States belligerent rights, or to propose to Parliament to make the laws of the United Kingdom generally more stringent.
To allow to the United States the belligerent rights of blockade and of search and detention to the widest extent, and to refuse them altogether to the other party in the civil war, who have possession of an extensive territory, who have all the forms of a regular government, framed on the mould of that of the United States, and who are wielding large regalar armies, would, her Majesty’s government presume to think, be as contrary to the practice of civilized nations as it would be to the rules of justice and of international law.
Neither can her Majesty’s government refuse an asylum to persons landing on our shores [Page 20] and conforming to our laws, merely because such persons may be or may bave been in hostility with a government or nation with whom her Majesty is at peace.
The Congress and President of the United States have thought themselves compelled, by the necessity of internal war, to restrict and curtail the liberties of the people of these States. Her Majesty’s government do not presume to judge of that necessity, but they cannot find in the hostilities which prevail on the continent of North America any justification for so altering the laws of the United Kingdom as to deprive the citizens of the southern States of America of that asylum which Great Britain has always afforded to men of all nations and of all political opinions.
But while the government of the United States complain that her Majesty’s policy of neutrality has failed, her Majesty’s government have had frequent occasion to complain that the United States have carried beyond all acknowledged limits the rights of belligerents. The crews of vessels seized as blockade-runners, who, by the law of nations, are only subject to detention till the case of the vessel in which they were found has been heard in a prize court, have been subjected to confinement for indefinite periods of time as prisoners of war, and her Majesty’s government have more than once felt it to be their duty to express their opinion that such proceedings are a plain and clear violation of neutral rights.
The United States government have also compelled British merchants trading between New York and a neutral port to give bonds for the conduct to be observed by them in that port, and for the direction of their future voyages, and this is against the plain tenor of the treaties subsisting between Great Britain and the United States.
The government of the United States have likewise permitted their subordinates and recruiting agents to enlist British subjects who had been drugged, and had not, when so enlisted, recovered from the effects of the treatment to which they had been subjected.
If her Majesty’s government have not resisted more strenuously than they have hitherto done these illegal and unfriendly proceedings, the cause is to be found in their belief that the passion and excitement of the contest have, for a time, obscured the sense of justice and respect for law, which usually distinguish the United States, and that with the close of the contest calm consideration will return, and a just view of these transactions will be taken.
The welfare and prosperity of the United States are earnestly desired by the government of her Majesty, and the necessity of securing peace and harmony on the borders between the British and the United States territory is fully acknowledged. With this disposition on both sides, her Majesty’s government cannot doubt that adequate means of repression will be found, and that signal failure will attend any wicked attempts which may be made to involve the two nations in the calamities of war.
It is a pleasure to me to conclude this despatch by noticing the handsome terms in which the Secretary of State declares himself not only able but obliged to acknowledge that the Canadian authority has in the last-mentioned instance “thus far co-operated with this government in faithful and diligent efforts to bring the disturbers of public peace to justice.” Her Majesty’s government trust such faithful co-operation in the performance of friendly offices may long on both sides continue.
I have to instruct you to give a copy of this despatch to the Secretary of State.
I am, &c,
Lord Lyons, G. C. B., &c.