Great Britain and the American Civil War Part 45

"Memorial from Shipowners of Liverpool on Foreign Enlistment Act."]

[Footnote 1018: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 1019: _U.S. Diplomatic Correspondence_, 1863, Pt. I, pp.

308-10.]

[Footnote 1020: The despatch taken in its entirety save for a few vigorous sentences quite typical of Seward's phrase-making, is not at all warlike. Bancroft, II, 385 _seq_., makes Seward increasingly anxious from March to September, and concludes with a truly warlike despatch to Adams, September 5. This last was the result of Adams' misgivings reported in mid-August, and it is not until these were received (in my interpretation) that Seward really began to fear the "pledge" made in April would not be carried out. Adams himself, in 1864, read to Russell a communication from Seward denying that his July 11 despatch was intended as a threat or as in any sense unfriendly to Great Britain.

(F.O., Am., Vol. 939, No. 159. Russell to Lyons, April 3, 1864.)]

[Footnote 1021: _Parliamentary Papers_, 1864, _Commons_, LXII.

"Correspondence respecting iron-clad vessels building at Birkenhead."]

[Footnote 1022: See next chapter.]

[Footnote 1023: State Department, Eng., Vol. 83, No. 452, and No. 453 with enclosure. Adams to Seward, July 16, 1863.]

[Footnote 1024: Rhodes, IV, 381.]

[Footnote 1025: Many of these details were unknown at the time so that on the face of the doc.u.ments then available, and for long afterwards, there appeared ground for believing that Adams' final protests of September 3 and 5 had forced Russell to yield. Dudley, as late as 1893, thought that "at the crisis" in September, Palmerston, in the absence of Russell, had given the orders to stop the rams. (In _Penn. Magazine of History_, Vol. 17, pp. 34-54. "Diplomatic Relations with England during the Late War.")]

[Footnote 1026: Rhodes, IV, p. 382.]

[Footnote 1027: The _Times_, Sept. 7, 1863.]

[Footnote 1028: _Ibid._, Editorial, Sept. 16, 1863. The Governmental correspondence with Lairds was demanded by a motion in Parliament, Feb.

23, 1864, but the Government was supported in refusing it. A printed copy of this correspondence, issued privately, was placed in Adams'

hands by persons unnamed and sent to Seward on March 29, 1864. Seward thereupon had this printed in the _Diplomatic Correspondence_, 1864-5, Pt. I, No. 633.]

[Footnote 1029: State Department, Eng., Vol. 84, No. 492. Adams to Seward, Sept. 8, 1863.]

[Footnote 1030: _U.S. Diplomatic Correspondence_, 1863, Pt. I, p. 370.

To Seward, Sept. 10, 1863. Adams, looking at the whole matter of the Rams and the alleged "threat of war" of Sept. 5, from the point of view of his own anxiety at the time, was naturally inclined to magnify the effects of his own efforts and to regard the _crisis_ as occurring in September. His notes to Russell and his diary records were early the main basis of historical treatment. Rhodes, IV, 381-84, has disproved the accusation of Russell's yielding to a threat. Brooks Adams (Ma.s.s.

Hist. Soc. _Proceedings_, Vol. XLV, p. 293, _seq._) ignores Rhodes, harks back to the old argument and amplifies it with much new and interesting citation, but not to conviction. My interpretation is that the real crisis of Governmental decision to act came in April, and that events in September were but final applications of that decision.]

[Footnote 1031: Russell Papers. Monck to Stuart, Sept. 26, 1863. Copy in Stuart to Russell, Oct. 6, 1863.]

[Footnote 1032: _Ibid._, Lyons to Russell, Oct. 16, 1863.]

[Footnote 1033: Hammond wrote to Lyons, Oct. 17: "You will learn by the papers that we have at last seized the Iron Clads. Whether we shall be able to bring home to them legally that they were Confederate property is another matter. I think we can, but at all events no moral doubt can be entertained of the fact, and, therefore, we are under no anxiety whether as to the public or Parliamentary view of our proceeding. They would have played the devil with the American ships, for they are most formidable ships. I suppose the Yankees will sleep more comfortably in consequence." (Lyons Papers.) The Foreign Office thought that it had thwarted plans to seize violently the vessels and get them to sea.

(F.O., Am., Vol. 930. Inglefield to Grey, Oct. 25, and Romaine to Hammond, Oct. 26, 1863.).]

[Footnote 1034: F.O., Am., Vol. 929. Marked "September, 1863." The draft summarized the activities of Confederate ship-building and threatened Southern agents in England with "the penalities of the law...."]

[Footnote 1035: F.O., Am., Vol. 932, No. 1. F.O. to Consul-General Crawford, Dec. 16, 1863. The South, on October 7, 1863, had already "expelled" the British consuls. Crawford was to protest against this also. (_Ibid._, No. 4.)]

[Footnote 1036: Bonham. _British Consuls in the South_, p. 254.

(Columbia Univ. Studies, Vol. 43.)]

[Footnote 1037: Lyons Papers. Russell to Lyons, Dec. 5, 1863. Bullock, _Secret Service_, declares the British Government to have been neutral but with strong leaning toward the North.]

[Footnote 1038: Hansard, 3rd Ser., CLXXIII, pp. 430-41, 544-50, 955-1021. The Tory point of view is argued at length by Brooks Adams, _The Seizure of the Laird Rams_, pp. 312-324.]

[Footnote 1039: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXXIV, pp. 1862-1913. _The Index_, naturally vicious in comment on the question of the Rams, summed up its approval of Derby's contentions: "Europe and America alike will inevitably believe that it was the threat of Mr. Adams, and nothing else, which induced the Foreign Secretary to retract his letter of the 1st September, and they will draw the necessary conclusion that the way to extort concessions from England is by bl.u.s.ter and menace." (Feb. 18, 1864, p. 106.)]

[Footnote 1040: Lairds brought suit for damages, but the case never reached a decision, for the vessels were purchased by the Government.

This has been regarded as acknowledgment by the Government that it had no case. In my view the failure to push the case to a conclusion was due to the desire not to commit Great Britain on legal questions, in view of the claim for damages certain to be set up by the United States on account of the depredations of the _Alabama_.]

CHAPTER XIV

ROEBUCK'S MOTION

In the mid-period during which the British Government was seeking to fulfil its promise of an altered policy as regards ship-building and while the public was unaware that such a promise had been given, certain extreme friends of the South thought the time had come for renewed pressure upon the Government, looking toward recognition of the Confederacy. The _Alexandra_ had been seized in April, but the first trial, though appealed, had gone against the Government in June, and there was no knowledge that the Ministry was determined in its stand.

From January to the end of March, 1863, the public demonstrations in approval of the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation had somewhat checked expressions of Southern sympathy, but by the month of June old friends had recovered their courage and a new champion of the South came forward in the person of Roebuck.

Meanwhile the activities of Southern agents and Southern friends had not ceased even if they had, for a time, adopted a less vigorous tone. For four months after the British refusal of Napoleon's overtures on mediation, in November, 1862, the friends of the South were against "acting now," but this did not imply that they thought the cause lost or in any sense hopeless. Publicists either neutral in att.i.tude or even professedly sympathetic with the North could see no outcome of the Civil War save separation of North and South. Thus the historian Freeman in the preface to the first volume of his uncompleted _History of Federal Government_, published in 1863, carefully explained that his book did not have its origin in the struggle in America, and argued that the breaking up of the Union in no way proved any inherent weakness in a federal system, but took it for granted that American reunion was impossible. The novelist, Anthony Trollope, after a long tour of the North, beginning in September, 1861, published late in 1862 a two-volume work, _North America_, descriptive of a nation engaged in the business of war and wholly sympathetic with the Northern cause. Yet he, also, could see no hope of forcing the South back into the Union. "The North and South are virtually separated, and the day will come in which the West also will secede[1041]."

Such interpretations of conditions in America were not unusual; they were, rather, generally accepted. The Cabinet decision in November, 1862, was not regarded as final, though events were to prove it to be so for never again was there so near an approach to British intervention.

Mason's friend, Spence, early began to think that true Southern policy was now to make an appeal to the Tories against the Government. In January, 1863, he was planning a new move:

"I have written to urge Mr. Gregory to be here in time for a thorough organization so as to push the matter this time to a vote. I think the Conservatives may be got to move as a body and if so the result of a vote seems to me very certain. I have seen Mr. Horsfall and Mr. Laird here and will put myself in communication with Mr. Disraeli as the time approaches for action for this seems to me now our best card[1042]."

That some such effort was being thought of is evidenced by the att.i.tude of the _Index_ which all through the months from November, 1862, to the middle of January, 1863, had continued to harp on the subject of mediation as if still believing that something yet might be done by the existing Ministry, but which then apparently gave up hope of the Palmerstonian administration:

"But what the Government means is evident enough. It does not mean to intervene or to interfere. It will not mediate, if it can help it; it will not recognize the Confederate States, unless there should occur some of those 'circ.u.mstances over which they have no control,' which leave weak men and weak ministers no choice. They will not, if they are not forced to it, quarrel with Mr. Seward, or with Mr. Bright. They will let Lancashire starve; they will let British merchantmen be plundered off Na.s.sau and burnt off Cuba; they will submit to a blockade of Bermuda or of Liverpool; but they will do nothing which may tend to bring a supply of cotton from the South, or to cut off the supply of eggs and bacon from the North[1043]."

But this plan of 'turning to the Tories' received scant encouragement and was of no immediate promise, as soon appeared by the debate in Parliament on rea.s.sembling, February 5, 1863. Derby gave explicit approval of the Government's refusal to listen to Napoleon[1044]. By February, Russell, having recovered from the smart of defeat within the Cabinet, declared himself weary of the perpetual talk about mediation and wrote to Lyons, "... till both parties are heartily tired and sick of the business, I see no use in talking of good offices. When that time comes Mercier will probably have a hint; let him have all the honour and glory of being the first[1045]." For the time being Spence's idea was laid aside, Gregory writing in response to an inquiry from Mason:

"The House of Commons is opposed to taking any step at present, feeling rightly or wrongly that to do so would be useless to the South, and possibly embroil us with the North.

Any motion on the subject will be received with disfavour, consequently the way in which it will be treated will only make the North more elated, and will irritate the South against us. If I saw the slightest chance of a motion being received with any favour I would not let it go into other hands, but I find the most influential men of all Parties opposed to it[1046]."

Of like opinion was Slidell who, writing of the situation in France, reported that he had been informed by his "friend at the Foreign Office"

that "It is believed that every possible thing has been done here in your behalf--we must now await the action of England, and it is through that you must aim all your efforts in that direction[1047]."

With the failure, at least temporary, of Southern efforts to move the British Government or to stir Parliament, energies were now directed toward using financial methods of winning support for the Southern cause. The "Confederate Cotton Loan" was undertaken with the double object of providing funds for Southern agents in Europe and of creating an interested support of the South, which might, it was hoped, ultimately influence the British Government.

By 1863 it had become exceedingly difficult, owing to the blockade, for the Government at Richmond to transmit funds to its agents abroad.

Bullock, especially, required large amounts in furtherance of his ship-building contracts and was embarra.s.sed by the lack of business methods and the delays of the Government at home. The incompetence of the Confederacy in finance was a weakness that characterized all of its many operations whether at home or abroad[1048] and was made evident in England by the confusion in its efforts to establish credits there. At first the Confederate Government supplied its agents abroad with drafts upon the house of Fraser, Trenholm & Company, of Liverpool, a branch of the firm long established at Charleston, South Carolina, purchasing its bills of exchange with its own "home made" money. But as Confederate currency rapidly depreciated this method of transmitting funds became increasingly difficult and costly. The next step was to send to Spence, nominated by Mason as financial adviser in England, Confederate money bonds for sale on the British market, with authority to dispose of them as low as fifty cents on the dollar, but these found no takers[1049]. By September, 1862, Bullock's funds for ship-building were exhausted and some new method of supply was required. Temporary relief was found in adopting a suggestion from Lindsay whereby cotton was made the basis for an advance of 60,000, a form of cotton bond being devised which fixed the price of cotton at eightpence the pound. These bonds were not put on the market but were privately placed by Lindsay & Company with a few buyers for the entire sum, the transaction remaining secret[1050].

In the meantime this same recourse to cotton had occurred to the authorities at Richmond and a plan formulated by which cotton should be purchased by the Government, stored, and certificates issued to be sold abroad, the purchaser being a.s.sured of "all facilities of shipment."

Spence was to be the authorized agent for the sale of these "cotton certificates," but before any reached him various special agents of the Confederacy had arrived in England by December, 1862, with such certificates in their possession and had disposed of some of them, calling them "cotton warrants." The difficulties which might arise from separate action in the market were at once perceived and following a conference with Mason all cotton obligations were turned to Fraser, Trenholm & Company. Spence now had in his hands the "money bonds" but no further attempt was made to dispose of these since the "cotton warrants"

were considered a better means of raising funds.

It is no doubt true that since all of these efforts involved a governmental guarantee the various "certificates" or "warrants" partook of the nature of a government bond. Yet up to this point the Richmond authorities, after the first failure to sell "money bonds" abroad were not keen to attempt anything that could be stamped as a foreign "government loan." Their idea was rather that a certain part of the produce of the South was being set aside as the property of those who in England should extend credit to the South. The sole purpose of these earlier operations was to provide funds for Southern agents. By July, 1862, Bullock had exhausted his earlier credit of a million dollars. The 60,000 loan secured through Lindsay then tided over an emergency demand and this had been followed by a development on similar lines of the "cotton certificates" and "warrants" which by December, 1862, had secured, through Spence's agency, an additional million dollars or thereabouts. Mason was strongly recommending further expansion of this method and had the utmost confidence in Spence. Now, however, there was broached to the authorities in Richmond a proposal for the definite floating in Europe of a specified "cotton loan."

This proposal came through Slidell at Paris and was made by the well-established firm of Erlanger & Company. First approached by this company in September, 1862, Slidell consulted Mason but found the latter strongly committed to his own plans with Spence[1051]. But Slidell persisted and Mason gave way[1052]. Representatives of Erlanger proceeded to Richmond and proposed a loan of twenty-five million dollars; they were surprised to find the Confederate Government disinclined to the idea of a foreign loan, and the final agreement, cut to fifteen millions, was largely made because of the argument advanced that as a result powerful influences would thus be brought to the support of the South[1053]. The contract was signed at Richmond, January 28, 1863, and legalized by a secret act of Congress on the day following[1054]. But there was no Southern enthusiasm for the project.

Benjamin wrote to Mason that the Confederacy disclaimed the "desire or intention on our part to effect a loan in Europe ... during the war we want only such very moderate sums as are required abroad for the purchase of warlike supplies and for vessels, and even that is not required because of our want of funds, but because of the difficulties of remittance"; as for the Erlanger contract the Confederacy "would have declined it altogether but for the political considerations indicated by Mr. Slidell[1055]...."