Great Britain and the American Civil War Part 12

CHAPTER V

THE DECLARATION OF PARIS NEGOTIATION

If regarded merely from the view-point of strict chronology there accompanied Seward's "foreign war" policy a negotiation with Great Britain which was of importance as the first effort of the American Secretary of State to bring European nations to a definite support of the Northern cause. It was also the first negotiation undertaken by Adams in London, and as a man new to the diplomatic service he attached to it an unusual importance, even, seemingly, to the extent of permitting personal chagrin at the ultimate failure of the negotiation to distort his usually cool and fair judgment. The matter in question was the offer of the United States to accede by a convention to the Declaration of Paris of 1856, establishing certain international rules for the conduct of maritime warfare.

This negotiation has received scant attention in history. It failed to result in a treaty, therefore it has appeared to be negligible. Yet it was at the time of very great importance in affecting the att.i.tude toward each other of Great Britain and the United States, and of the men who spoke for their respective countries. The bald facts of the negotiation appear with exactness in Moore's _Digest of International Law_[236], but without comment as to motives, and, more briefly, in Bernard's _Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War_[237], at the conclusion of which the author writes, with sarcasm, "I refrain from any comment on this negotiation[238]." Nicolay and Hay's _Lincoln_, and Rhodes' _United States_, give the matter but pa.s.sing and inadequate treatment. It was reviewed in some detail in the American argument before the Geneva court of arbitration in the case of the _Alabama_, but was there presented merely as a part of the general American complaint of British neutrality. In fact, but three historical students, so far as the present writer has been able to discover, have examined this negotiation in detail and presented their conclusions as to purposes and motives--so important to an understanding of British intentions at the moment when the flames of civil war were rapidly spreading in America.

These three, each with an established historical reputation, exhibit decided differences in interpretation of diplomatic incidents and doc.u.ments. The first careful a.n.a.lysis was presented by Henry Adams, son of the American Minister in London during the Civil War, and then acting as his private secretary, in his _Historical Essays_, published in 1891; the second study is by Bancroft, in his _Life of Seward_, 1900; while the third is by Charles Francis Adams (also son of the American Minister), who, in his _Life_ of his father, published 1900, gave a chapter to the subject and treated it on lines similar to those laid down by his brother Henry, but who, in 1912, came to the conclusion, through further study, that he had earlier been in error and developed a very different view in a monograph ent.i.tled, "Seward and the Declaration of Paris."

[Ill.u.s.tration: C.F. ADAMS (_From a photograph in the United States Emba.s.sy, London, by kind permission_)]

If these historiographic details seem unduly minute, partaking as they do of the nature of a foot-note, in a work otherwise general in treatment, the author's answer is that the personality of two of the writers mentioned and their intimate knowledge of the effect of the negotiation upon the mind of the American Minister in London are themselves important historical data; a further answer is the fact that the materials now available from the British Foreign Office archives throw much new light both on the course of the negotiation and on British purposes. It is here planned, therefore, first to review the main facts as previously known; second, to summarize the arguments and conclusions of the three historians; third, to re-examine the negotiation in the light of the new material; and, finally, to express an opinion on its conduct and conclusions as an evidence of British policy.

In 1854, during the Crimean War, Great Britain and France, the chief maritime belligerents engaged against Russia, voluntarily agreed to respect neutral commerce under either the neutral's or the enemy's flag.

This was a distinct step forward in the practice of maritime warfare, the accepted international rules of which had not been formally altered since the Napoleonic period. The action of Great Britain was due in part, according to a later statement in Parliament by Palmerston, March 18, 1862, to a fear that unless a greater respect were paid than formerly to neutral rights, the Allies would quickly win the ill-will of the United States, then the most powerful maritime neutral, and would run the danger of forcing that country into belligerent alliance with Russia[239]. No doubt there were other reasons, also, for the barbarous rules and practices of maritime warfare in earlier times were by now regarded as semi-civilized by the writers of all nations. Certainly the action of the belligerents in 1854 met with general approval and in the result was written into international law at the Congress of Paris in 1856, where, at the conclusion of the war, the belligerents and some leading neutrals were gathered.

The Declaration of Paris on maritime warfare covered four points:

"1. Privateering is, and remains, abolished.

"2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war.

"3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under enemy's flag.

"4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective; that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy[240]."

This agreement was adopted by Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia and Turkey, and it was further agreed that a general invitation to accede should be extended to all nations, but with the proviso "that the powers which shall have signed it, or which shall accede thereto, shall not in future enter into any arrangement, concerning the application of the law of neutrals in time of war, which does not rest altogether upon the four principles embodied in the said declaration[241]." In other words it must be accepted in whole, and not in part, and the powers acceding pledging themselves not to enter into any subsequent treaties or engagements on maritime law which did not stipulate observance of all four points. Within a short time nearly all the maritime nations of the world had given official adherence to the Declaration of Paris.

But the United States refused to do so. She had long stood in the advance guard of nations demanding respect for neutral rights. Little by little her avowed principles of international law as regards neutrals, first scoffed at, had crept into acceptance in treaty stipulations.

Secretary of State Marcy now declared, in July, 1856, that the United States would accede to the Declaration if a fifth article were added to it protecting all private property at sea, when not contraband. This covered not only cargo, but the vessel as well, and its effect would have been to exclude from belligerent operations non-contraband enemy's goods under the enemy's flag, if goods and ship were privately owned.

Maritime warfare on the high seas would have been limited to battles between governmentally operated war-ships. Unless this rule were adopted also, Secretary Marcy declared that "the United States could not forgo the right to send out privateers, which in the past had proved her most effective maritime weapon in time of war, and which, since she had no large navy, were essential to her fighting power."

"War on private property," said the Americans, "had been abolished on land; why should it not be abolished also on the sea?" The American proposal met with general support among the smaller maritime nations. It was believed that the one great obstacle to the adoption of Marcy's amendment lay in the naval supremacy of Great Britain, and that obstacle proved insurmountable. Thus the United States refused to accede to the Declaration, and there the matter rested until 1861. But on April 17 Jefferson Davis proclaimed for the Southern Confederacy the issue of privateers against Northern commerce. On April 24 Seward instructed representatives abroad, recounting the Marcy proposal and expressing the hope that it still might meet with a favourable reception, but authorizing them to enter into conventions for American adherence to the Declaration of 1856 on the four points alone. This instruction was sent to the Ministers in Great Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, Austria, Belgium, Italy, and Denmark; and on May 10 to the Netherlands.

Having received this instruction, Adams, at the close of his first meeting with Russell on May 18, after having developed at length the American position relative to the issue of the British Proclamation of Neutrality, briefly added that he was directed to offer adherence by means of a convention, to the Declaration of Paris. Russell replied that Great Britain was willing to negotiate, but "seemed to desire to leave the subject in the hands of Lord Lyons, to whom he intimated that he had already transmitted authority[242]...." Adams therefore did not press the matter, waiting further information and instruction from Washington.

Nearly two weeks earlier Russell had, in fact, approached the Government of France with a suggestion that the two leading maritime powers should propose to the American belligerents adherence to the second and third articles of the Declaration of Paris. France had agreed and the date of Russell's instruction to Lyons was May 18, the day of the interview with Adams. Confusion now arose in both London and Washington as to the place where the arrangement was to be concluded. The causes of this confusion will be considered later in this chapter; here it is sufficient to note that the negotiation was finally undertaken at London.

On July 18 Russell informed Adams that Great Britain was ready to enter into a convention with the United States, provided a similar convention was signed with France at the same time. This convention, as submitted by Adams, simply recorded an agreement by the two powers to abide by the four points of the Declaration of Paris, using the exact wording of that doc.u.ment[243]. Adams' draft had been communicated to Russell on July 13.

There then followed a delay required by the necessity of securing similar action by Dayton, the American Minister at Paris, but on July 29 Adams reported to Russell that this had been done and that he was ready to sign. Two days later, July 31, Russell replied that he, also, was ready, but concluded his letter, "I need scarcely add that on the part of Great Britain the engagement will be prospective, and will not invalidate anything already done[244]." It was not until August 8, however, that Cowley, the British Amba.s.sador to France, reported that Dayton had informed Thouvenel, French Foreign Minister, that he was ready to sign the similar convention with France[245]. With no understanding, apparently, of the causes of further delay, and professing complete ignorance of the meaning of Russell's phrase, just quoted[246], Adams waited the expected invitation to an official interview for the affixing of signatures. Since it was a condition of the negotiation that this should be done simultaneously in London and Paris, the further delay that now occurred caused him no misgivings.

On August 19 Russell requested Adams to name a convenient day "in the course of this week," and prefaced this request with the statement that he enclosed a copy of a Declaration which he proposed to make in writing, upon signing the convention. "You will observe," he wrote, "that it is intended to prevent any misconception as to the nature of the engagement to be taken by Her Majesty." The proposed Declaration read:

"In affixing his signature to the Convention of this day between Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and the United States of America, the Earl Russell declares, by order of Her Majesty, that Her Majesty does not intend thereby to undertake any engagement which shall have any bearing, direct or indirect, on the internal differences now prevailing in the United States[247]."

Under his instructions to negotiate a convention for a pure and simple adherence to the Declaration of Paris, Adams could not now go on to official signature. Nor was he inclined to do so. Sincerely believing, as he stated to Russell in a communication of August 23, that the United States was "acting with the single purpose of aiding to establish a permanent doctrine for all time," and with the object of "ameliorating the horrors of warfare all over the globe," he objected "to accompany the act with a proceeding somewhat novel and anomalous," which on the face of it seemed to imply a suspicion on the part of Great Britain that the United States was "desirous at this time to take a part in the Declaration [of Paris], not from any high purpose or durable policy, but with the view of securing some small temporary object in the unhappy struggle which is going on at home[248]." He also pointed out that Russell's proposed declaration either was or was not a part of the convention. If it was a part then the Senate of the United States must ratify it as well as the convention itself, and he would have gone beyond his instructions in submitting it. If not a part of the convention there could be no advantage in making the Declaration since, unratified by the Senate, it would have no force. Adams therefore declined to proceed further with the matter until he had received new instructions from Washington.

To this Russell answered, August 28, with a very explicit exposition of his reasons. Great Britain, he said, had declared her neutrality in the American conflict, thereby recognizing the belligerent rights of the South. It followed that the South "might by the law of nations arm privateers," and that these "must be regarded as the armed vessels of a belligerent." But the United States had refused to recognize the status of belligerency, and could therefore maintain that privateers issued by the Southern States were in fact pirates, and might argue that a European Power signing a convention with the United States, embodying the principles of the Declaration of Paris, "would be bound to treat the privateers of the so-called Confederate States as pirates." Hence Russell pointed out, the two countries, arguing from contradictory premises as to the status of the conflict in America, might become involved in charges of bad faith and of violation of the convention. He had therefore merely intended by his suggested declaration to prevent any misconception by the United States.

"It is in this spirit that Her Majesty's Government decline to bind themselves, without a clear explanation on their part, to a Convention which, seemingly confined to an adoption of the Declaration of Paris of 1856, might be construed as an engagement to interfere in the unhappy dissensions now prevailing in the United States; an interference which would be contrary to Her Majesty's public declarations, and would be a reversal of the policy which Her Majesty has deliberately sanctioned[249]."

Thus the negotiation closed. Seward in declining to accept the proposed declaration gave varying reasons in his instructions to Adams, in London, and to Dayton, in Paris, for an exactly similar declaration had been insisted upon by France, but he did not argue the question save in generalities. He told Dayton that the supposed possible "intervention"

which Great Britain and France seemed to fear they would be called upon to make was exactly the action which the United States desired to forestall, and he notified Adams that he could not consent since the proposed Declaration "would be virtually a new and distinct article incorporated into the projected convention[250]." The first formal negotiation of the United States during the Civil War, and of the new American Minister in London, had come to an inglorious conclusion.

Diplomats and Foreign Secretaries were, quite naturally, disturbed, and were even suspicious of each others' motives, but the public, not at the moment informed save on the American offer and the result, paid little attention to these "inner circle" controversies[251].

What then were the hidden purposes, if such existed, of the negotiating powers. The first answer in historical writing was that offered by Henry Adams[252], in an essay ent.i.tled "The Declaration of Paris, 1861," in the preparation of which the author studied with care all the diplomatic correspondence available in print[253]. His treatment presents Russell as engaged in a policy of deception with the view of obtaining an ultimate advantage to Great Britain in the field of commercial rivalry and maritime supremacy. Following Henry Adams' argument Russell, on May 9, brought to the attention of France a proposal for a joint request on the American belligerents to respect the second and third articles of the Declaration of Paris, and received an acquiescent reply. After some further exchanges of proposed terms of instructions to the British and French Ministers at Washington, Russell, on May 18, sent a despatch to Lyons with instructions for his action. On this same day Russell, in his first interview with Adams, "before these despatches [to Lyons] could have left the Foreign Office," and replying to Adams' proposal to negotiate on the Declaration of Paris as a _whole_--that is to say, on all four articles--intimated that instructions had already gone to Lyons, with directions to a.s.sent to any modification of the article on privateering that the United States might desire. Adams understood Russell to prefer that the negotiation (for such Adams thought it was to be) should take place in Washington, and did not press the matter.

This was deliberate deceit; first in a statement of fact since the interview with Adams took place at noon on May 18, at Russell's country house nine miles from London, and in all reasonable supposition the despatch to Lyons would not have been sent until the Foreign Secretary's return to his office; second because Lyons was not instructed to _negotiate_ on the Declaration. The interpretation is justified therefore that Russell "evaded the offer of the United States Government." The result of this evasion was delay, but when Seward learned from Lyons that he had no authority to negotiate a convention and Adams received renewed instructions to proceed, the latter "kept his temper, but the affair made a lasting impression on his mind, and shook his faith in the straightforwardness of the British Government." In renewing his overtures at London, Adams made explanations of the previous "misunderstanding" and to these Russell replied with further "inaccuracies" as to what had been said at the first interview.

Thus beginning his survey with an a.s.sertion of British deceit and evasion from the very outset, and incidentally remarking that Lyons, at Washington, "made little disguise of his leanings" toward the South, Henry Adams depicts Russell as leading France along a line of policy distinctly unfriendly to the North. Examining each point in the negotiation as already narrated, he summarized it as follows:

"The story has shown that Russell and his colleagues ...

induced the French Government to violate the pledge in the protocol of the Declaration of Paris in order to offer to both belligerents a partial adhesion, which must exclude the United States from a simple adhesion, to the Declaration of Paris, while it placed both belligerents on the same apparent footing. These steps were taken in haste before Adams could obtain an interview. When Adams by an effort unexpected to Russell obtained an interview at Pembroke Lodge at noon of Sat.u.r.day, May 18, and according to Russell's report of May 21, said that the United States were 'disposed to adhere to the Declaration of Paris,' Russell evaded the offer, saying that he had already sent sufficient instructions to Lyons, although the instructions were not sufficient, nor had they been sent. When this evasion was afterward brought to his notice by Adams, Russell, revising his report to Lyons, made such changes in it as should represent the first proposal as coming from himself, and the evasion to have come from Adams.

When at last obliged to read the American offer, Russell declared that he had never heard of it before, although he had himself reported it to Lyons and Lyons had reported it to him. When compelled to take the offer for consideration, Russell, though always professing to welcome adhesion pure and simple, required the co-operation of Dayton. When Adams overcame this last obstacle, Russell interposed a written proviso, which as he knew from Lyons would prevent ratification. When Adams paid no attention to the proviso but insisted on signature of the treaty, Russell at last wrote a declaration in the nature of an insult, which could not be disregarded[254]."

In this presentation of the case to the jury certain minor points are insisted upon to establish a ground for suspicion--as the question of who first made the proposal--that are not essential to Henry Adams'

conclusions. This conclusion is that "From the delays interposed by Russell, Adams must conclude that the British Cabinet was trying one device after another to evade the proposition; and finally, from the written declaration of August 19, he could draw no other inference than that Russell had resorted to the only defensive weapon left to him, in order to avoid the avowal of his true motives and policy[255]." The _motive_ of this tortuous proceeding, the author believed to have been a deep-laid scheme to revive, _after_ the American War was ended, the earlier international practice of Great Britain, in treating as subject to belligerent seizure enemy's goods under the neutral flag. It was the American stand, argues Henry Adams, that in 1854 had compelled Great Britain to renounce this practice. A complete American adherence, now, to the Declaration, would for ever tie Britain's hands, but if there were no such complete adherence and only temporary observation of the second article, after the war had resulted in the disruption of the United States, thus removing the chief supporter of that article, Great Britain would feel free to resume her old-time practice when she engaged in war. If Great Britain made a formal treaty with the United States she would feel bound to respect it; the Declaration of Paris as it stood const.i.tuted "a mere agreement, which was binding, as Lord Malmesbury declared, only so long as it was convenient to respect it[256]." Thus the second article of the Declaration of Paris, not the first on privateering, was in the eye of the British Cabinet in the negotiation of 1861. Henry Adams ends his essay: "After the manner in which Russell received the advances of President Lincoln, no American Minister in London could safely act on any other a.s.sumption than that the British Government meant, at the first convenient opportunity, to revive the belligerent pretensions dormant since the War of 1812[257]."

This a.n.a.lysis was published in 1891. Still more briefly summarized it depicts an unfriendly, almost hostile att.i.tude on the part of Russell and Lyons, deceit and evasion by the former, selfish British policy, and throughout a blind following on by France, yielding to Russell's leadership. The American proposal is regarded merely as a simple and sincere offer to join in supporting an improved international practice in war-times. But when Frederic Bancroft, the biographer of Seward, examined the negotiation he was compelled to ask himself whether this was all, indeed, that the American Secretary of State had in view.

Bancroft's a.n.a.lysis may be stated more briefly[258].

Seward's general instruction, Bancroft notes, bore date of April 24, nearly a month before any foreign Power had recognized Southern belligerent rights; it indicates "a plan by which he hoped to remove all excuse for such action." In despatches to Dayton, Seward a.s.serted a twofold motive: "a sincere desire to co-operate with other progressive nations in the melioration of the rigours of maritime war," and "to remove every cause that any foreign Power could have for the recognition of the insurgents as a belligerent Power[259]." This last result was not so clear to Dayton at Paris, nor was the mechanism of operation ever openly stated by Seward. But he did write, later, that the proposal of accession to the Declaration of Paris was tendered "as the act of this Federal Government, to be obligatory equally upon disloyal as upon loyal citizens." "It did not," writes Bancroft, "require the gift of prophecy to tell what would result in case the offer of accession on the part of the United States should be accepted[260]."

Seward's object was to place the European nations in a position where they, as well as the United States, would be forced to regard Southern privateers as pirates, and treat them as such. This was a conceivable result of the negotiation before European recognition of Southern belligerency, but even after that recognition and after Dayton had pointed out the impossibility of such a result, Seward pressed for the treaty and instructed Dayton not to raise the question with France. He still had in mind this main object. "If Seward," says Bancroft, "had not intended to use the adherence of the United States to the declaration as a lever to force the other Powers to treat the Confederates as pirates, or at least to cease regarding them as belligerents, he might easily and unofficially have removed all such suspicions[261]." In an interview with Lyons on July 6 Seward urged a quick conclusion of the treaty, arguing that its effect upon the revolted states could be determined afterwards. Naturally Lyons was alarmed and gave warning to Russell.

"Probably it was this advice that caused Russell to insist on the explanatory declaration[262]."

It would appear, then, that Seward much underestimated the acuteness of Russell and Thouvenel, and expected them "to walk into a trap." Nor could his claim "that there was no difference between a nation entirely at peace and one in circ.u.mstances like those of the United States at this time" be taken seriously. "He was furnishing his opponent with evidences of his lack of candour." This clouded the effect that would have followed "a wise and generous policy toward neutrals, which had doubtless been in Seward's mind from the beginning[263]." In the end he concluded the negotiation gracefully, writing to Adams a pledge of American respect for the second and third articles of the Declaration of Paris--exactly that which Lyons had originally been instructed by Russell to secure.

"We regard Great Britain as a friend. Her Majesty's flag, according to our traditional principles, covers enemy's goods not contraband of war. Goods of Her Majesty's subjects, not contraband of war, are exempt from confiscation, though found under a neutral or disloyal flag. No depredations shall be committed by our naval forces or by those of any of our citizens, so far as we can prevent it, upon the vessels or property of British subjects. Our blockade, being effective, must be respected[264]."

Thus Bancroft regards Seward's proposals of April 24 as in part the result of humanitarian motives and in part as having a concealed purpose of Northern advantage. This last he calls a "trap." And it is to be noted that in Seward's final pledge to Adams the phrase "those of any of our citizens" reserves, for the North, since the negotiation had failed, the right to issue privateers on her own account. But Russell also, says Bancroft, was not "altogether artless and frank." He had in view a British commercial advantage during the war, since if the United States respected the second and third articles of the Declaration of Paris, and "if Confederate privateers should roam the ocean and seize the ships and goods of citizens of the North, all the better for other commercial nations; for it would soon cause the commerce of the United States to be carried on under foreign flags, especially the British and French[265]."

Ulterior motive is, therefore, ascribed to both parties in the negotiation, and that of Seward is treated as conceived at the moment when a policy of seeking European friendship was dominant at Washington, but with the hope of securing at least negative European support.

Seward's persistence after European recognition of Southern belligerency is regarded as a characteristic obstinacy without a clear view of possible resulting dangerous complications.

This view discredits the ac.u.men of the American Secretary of State and it does not completely satisfy the third historian to examine the incident in detail. Nor does he agree on the basis of British policy.

Charles Francis Adams, in his "Life" of his father, writing in 1899, followed in the main the view of his brother, Henry Adams. But in 1912 he reviewed the negotiation at great length with different conclusions[266]. His thesis is that the Declaration of Paris negotiation was an essential part of Seward's "foreign war policy," in that in case a treaty was signed with Great Britain and France and then those Powers refused to aid in the suppression of Southern privateering, or at least permitted them access to British and French ports, a good ground of complaint leading to war would be established. _This_ was the ultimate ulterior purpose in Seward's mind; the negotiation was but a method of fixing a quarrel on some foreign Power in case the United States should seek, as Seward desired, a cementing of the rift at home by a foreign war.

In the details of the negotiation C.F. Adams agrees with Bancroft, but with this new interpretation. The opening misunderstanding he ascribed, as did Lyons, to the simple fact that Seward "had refused to see the despatch" in which Russell's proposals were made[267]. Seward's instructions of July 6, after the misunderstanding was made clear to him, pushing the negotiation, were drawn when he was "still riding a very high horse--the No. 10 charger, in fact, he had mounted on the 21st of the previous May[268]," and this warlike charger he continued to ride until the sobering Northern defeat at Bull Run, July 21, put an end to his folly. If that battle had been a Northern victory he would have gone on with his project. Now, with the end of a period of brain-storm and the emergence of sanity in foreign policy, "Secretary Seward in due time (September 7) p.r.o.nounced the proposed reservation [by Russell] quite 'inadmissible.' And here the curtain fell on this somewhat prolonged and not altogether creditable diplomatic farce[269]."

Incidentally C.F. Adams examined also British action and intention.

Lyons is wholly exonerated. "Of him it may be fairly said that his course throughout seems to furnish no ground for criticism[270]." And Lyons is quoted as having understood, in the end, the real purpose of Seward's policy in seeking embroilment with Europe. He wrote to Russell on December 6 upon the American publication of despatches, accompanying the President's annual message: "Little doubt can remain, after reading the papers, that the accession was offered solely with the view to the effect it would have on the privateering operations of the Southern States; and that a refusal on the part of England and France, after having accepted the accession, to treat the Southern privateers as pirates, would have been made a serious grievance, if not a ground of quarrel[271]...." As to Russell, combating Henry Adams' view, it is a.s.serted that it was the great good fortune of the United States that the British Foreign Secretary, having declared a policy of neutrality, was not to be driven from its honest application by irritations, nor seduced into a position where the continuation of that policy would be difficult.

Before entering upon an account of the bearing of the newly available British materials on the negotiation--materials which will in themselves offer sufficient comment on the theories of Henry Adams, and in less degree of Bancroft--it is best to note here the fallacy in C.F. Adams'

main thesis. If the a.n.a.lysis given in the preceding chapter of the initiation and duration of Seward's "foreign war policy" is correct, then the Declaration of Paris negotiation had no essential relation whatever to that policy. The instructions to Adams were sent to eight other Ministers. Is it conceivable that Seward desired a war with the whole maritime world? The date, April 24, antedates any deliberate proposal of a foreign war, whatever he may have been brooding, and in fact stamps the offer as part of that friendly policy toward Europe which Lincoln had insisted upon. Seward's frenzy for a foreign war did not come to a head until the news had been received of England's determination to recognize Southern belligerency. This was in the second week of May and on the twenty-first Despatch No. 10 marked the decline, not the beginning, of a belligerent policy, and by the President's orders. By May 24 probably, by the twenty-seventh certainly, Seward had yielded and was rapidly beginning to turn to expressions of friendship[272]. Yet it was only on May 18 that Russell's first instructions to Lyons were sent, and not until late in June that the "misunderstanding" cleared away, instructions were despatched by Seward to push the Declaration of Paris negotiations at London and Paris. The battle of Bull Run had nothing to do with a new policy. Thus chronology forbids the inclusion of this negotiation, either in its inception, progress, or conclusion, as an agency intended to make possible, on just grounds, a foreign war.

A mere chronological examination of doc.u.ments, both printed and in archives, permits a clearer view of British policy on the Declaration of Paris. Recalling the facts of the American situation known in London it will be remembered that on May 1 the British Government and Parliament became aware that a civil war was inevitable and that the South planned to issue privateers. On that day Russell asked the Admiralty to reinforce the British fleet in West Indian waters that British commerce might be adequately protected. Five days later, May 6, he announced in the Commons that Great Britain must be strictly neutral, and that a policy of close harmony with France was being matured; and on this day he proposed through Cowley, in Paris, that Great Britain and France each ask _both_ the contending parties in America to abide by the second and third articles of the Declaration of Paris[273]. If there was ulterior motive here it does not appear in any despatch either then or later, pa.s.sing between any of the British diplomats concerned--Russell, Cowley, and Lyons. The plain fact was that the United States was not an adherent to the Declaration, that the South had announced privateering, and the North a blockade, and that the only portions of the Declaration in regard to which the belligerents had as yet made no statement were the second and third articles.

It was, indeed, an anxious time for the British Government. On May 9 Forster asked in the Commons what would be the Government's att.i.tude toward a British subject serving on a Southern privateer[274]. The next day in the Lords there occurred a debate the general burden of which was that privateering was in fact piracy, but that under the conditions of the American previous stand, it could not be treated as such[275]. Both in the Commons and the Lords speakers were referred to the forthcoming Proclamation of Neutrality, but the uncertainty developed in both debates is very probably reflected in the new despatch now sent to Cowley, on May 11[276]. By that despatch France was asked to send an instruction to Mercier in Washington similar to a draft instruction intended for Lyons, a copy of which was enclosed to Cowley, the object being to secure from the American belligerents adherence to _all_ the articles, privateering included, of the Declaration of Paris[277].

Whatever Russell's purpose in thus altering his original suggestion, it met with a prompt check from France. On May 9 Thouvenel had agreed heartily to the proposal of May 6, adding the practical advice that the best method of approach to the Confederacy would be through the consuls in the South[278]. Now, on May 13, Russell was informed that Thouvenel feared that England and France would get into serious trouble if the North agreed to accede on privateering and the South did not. Cowley reported that he had argued with Thouvenel that privateers were pirates and ought to be treated as such, but that Thouvenel refused to do more than instruct Mercier on the second and third articles[279]. For the moment Russell appears to have yielded easily to this French advice. On May 13 he had that interview with the Southern commissioners in which he mentioned a communication about to be made to the South[280]; and on May 15 the London _Times_, presumably reflecting governmental decision, in commenting on the Proclamation of Neutrality, developed at some length the idea that British citizens, if they served on Southern privateers, could claim no protection from Great Britain if the North chose to treat them as pirates. May 16, Cowley reported that Thouvenel had written Mercier in the terms of Russell's draft to Lyons of the eleventh, but omitting the part about privateering[281], and on this same day Russell sent to Cowley a copy of a _new_ draft of instructions to Lyons, seemingly in exact accord with the French idea[282]. On the seventeenth, Cowley reported this as highly satisfactory to Thouvenel[283]. Finally on May 18 the completed instruction was despatched.