Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

Great Britain desired to legalize privateering.

Negotiations at Richmond.

The arbitrators will thus perceive that Her Majesty's Government, having recognized the insurgents as belligerents, felt itself bound to receive. the assent of the United States to the declarations of the Congress of Paris only conditionally, so as to have no bearing upon letters of marque that might be issued by the insurgents. But they will also observe that the two steps of the recognition of belligerency and the invitations to assent to the second and third clauses in the declarations, were taken simultaneously, in accordance with a previous arrangement for joint action; and it is not impossible that they may come to the conclusion that Her Majesty's Government, when the insurgents were recognized as belligerents, contemplated that they would proceed to issue letters of marque, and intended to legalize those letters in the eye of British law, and to countenance the bearers of them in the destruction of American commerce.

Meanwhile Lord Lyons had not forgotten his instructions to secure the assent of Mr. Jefferson Davis to the second and third rules of the Declaration of Paris.

On the 5th of July he sent instructions to Mr. Bunch, British Consul at Charleston, to "obtain from the existing government in those [the insurgent] States securities concerning the proper treatment of neutrals." He inclosed a copy of

1 Vol. I, page 123.

Lord Russell's 136. He advised Mr. Bunch not

to go to Richmond, but to communicate through the governor of the State of South Carolina; and he accompanied this with "a long private letter on the same subject." "The nature of that private letter may be gathered from what Mr. Bunch did.

He put himself and his French colleague at once in communication with a gentleman who was well qualified to serve his purpose, but who was not the governor of South Carolina. They showed to this agent Lord John Russell's dispatch to Lord Lyons, and Lord Lyons's official and private letters to Mr. Bunch, and they told him that the step to be taken was one of "very great significance and importance." The agent asked them whether they "were prepared to receive an official act which should be based upon their request, thus giving to the Confederate Government the advantage before the world of such an implied recognition as this would afford." They replied that they "wished a spontaneous declaration;" "that to make this request the declared basis of the act would be to proclaim this negotiation, and the intense jealousy of the United States was such that this would be followed by the revocation of their exequaturs," which they wished to avoid; that "they could only look upon this step as the initiative toward a recognition, yet the object of their Government being to reach that

2 Manuscript in Department of State.

Negotiations at Richmond.

Richmond.

Negotiations at recognition gradually, so as not to give good ground for a breach, this indirect way was absolutely necessary." And they added, "All we have a right to ask is that you shall not give publicity to this negotiation; that we nor our Governments should be upon the record."

Their agent, being thus possessed of their views, went to Richmond, with Lord Lyons's letters and Lord Russell's dispatch, and while there he secured the passage, in the insurgent congress, of resolutions partially draughted by Mr. Jefferson Davis, which declared their purpose to observe principles towards neutrals similar to the second and third rules of the Declaration of Paris; that blockades to be binding must be effectual; and that they "maintained the right of privateering." In communicating this result to Lord Lyons, Mr. Bunch said, "The wishes of Her Majesty's Government would seem to have been fully met, for, as no proposal was made that the Confederate Government should abolish privateering, it could not be expected that they should do so of their own accord, particularly as it is the arm upon which they most rely for the injury of the extended commerce of their enemy. The United States think that the Tribunal of Arbitration will agree with Mr. Bunch, that it was.

113

1 Unpublished manuscript in the Department of State at Washing2 Vol. I, page 137.

ton.

3 Vol. I, page 136.

not expected that the insurgents would abolish privateering.

The Tribunal of Arbitration cannot fail to observe that the propositions which were made in these negotiations to the Government of the United States were communicated to the insurgents, while pains were taken to conceal from the United States the fact that negotiations were opened at Richmond; that Earl Russell refused to receive the assent of the United States to the Declaration of Paris, except upon conditions derogatory to their sovereignty; and that Lord Lyons was instructed to secure the assent of the Government of the United States to the four principles laid down by the Declaration of Paris, while he was instructed, as to the insurgents, to secure their assent only to the second, third, and fourth propositions; and had no instructions to take steps to prevent privateering or to induce the insurgents to accept the first rule in the Declaration of Paris, although it had been agreed that the rules should be maintained as a whole and indivisible, and that the Powers who might accede to them should accede to them as such. The practical effect of this diplomacy, had it been successful, would have been the destruction of the commerce of the United States, (or its transfer to the British flag,) and the disarming a principal weapon of the United

Negotiations at Richmond.

Negotiations at States upon the ocean, should a continuation of

Richmond.

Mr. Adams's comments.

this course of insincere neutrality unhappily force the United States into a war. Great Britain was thus to gain the benefit to its neutral commerce of the recognition of the second and third articles, the rebel privateer cruisers were to be protected, and their devastation legalized, while the United States were to be deprived of a dangerous weapon of assault upon Great Britain.

When the whole story of these negotiations was understood by Mr., Adams, he wrote to his Government as follows:1

"It now appears plainly enough that he wanted, from the first, to get the first article of the Declaration of Paris out of the negotiation altogether, if he could. But he did not say a word of this to me at the outset, neither was it consistent with the position heretofore taken respecting the neces-. sity of accepting the declaration 'pure and simple.' What I recollect him to have said on the 18th of May was, that it had been the disposition of his Government, as communicated to Lord Lyons, to agree upon almost any terms, respecting the first article, that might suit the Government of the United States. When reminded of this afterward, he modified the statement to mean that the article might be omitted altogether. It now

1 Vol. I, page 103.

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »