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It was the policy of the insurgents to surprise the government by their invasion of the loyal States, and at the same time to raise the most sanguine expectations in foreign countries of its success. The manoeuvre was scarcely developed here before it was ostentatiously avowed that that success was expected to bring to pass the recognition of their sovereignty by European states. The President was therefore prepared for the information which your despatches and other correspondence give of the deep impressions which have, during the last month, been made in Europe in favor of the insurgents.

It is not, however, now doubted here that the battles of South Mountain and Antietam, followed by the retreat of the insurgents from Maryland, and by the President's proclamation of warning to the insurgent States, have well sustained the reaction abroad which has been already mentioned.

At the same time you will need to know the present military and political conditions of the country and the expectations of the President based upon them. I do not think that I can better describe these conditions than by saying, on the whole, that there has been only this change since the month of June last, namely, that whereas at that time it was believed here that the government had virtually suppressed the revolt, the reverses and successes of our arms within the period that has intervened have now brought about the conviction that the revolt, practically speaking, has failed. The battle of Corinth was a great conflict, and it has produced large results. It leaves us but little trouble to relieve the Mississippi river of insurgent forces, and we are rapidly preparing the land and naval expeditions necessary for that purpose.

The invasion of Kentucky seems to have virtually come to an end with the defeat of the insurgents at Corinth and at Perryville. They are leaving the State with as much haste as they rushed through it towards Louisville and Cincinnati. Their demonstrations against Missouri have been equally unsuccessful. General McClellan is being rapidly re-enforced, and reconnoissances which he has made truly indicate a new trial of strength between his army and that of Lee near Winchester. Only the impossibility of finding room for more workers upon our iron-clad navy delays the despatch of vessels of that class believed to be sufficient without the present navy to recover all the ports of the country which are yet remaining in the possession of the insurgents. Charleston and Mobile will be early visited with that view, and thus we may reasonably expect to relieve ourselves of the inconveniences which result to the national cause from the success of British built and equipped vessels in carrying arms and supplies to the insurgents, since we are compelled to despair of any other correction of that great wrong.

You are well aware how long political controversy has been wearing a gulf to divide opinion in our country on the subject of interference with slavery in the slaveholding States. You know how deep that gulf has become, and how confessedly impassable it is except under the pressure of absolute, immediate, and irretrievable danger to the Union itself. Notwithstanding many respected counsellors at home, and all our representatives abroad, have long and earnestly urged an earlier adoption of such a measure as the President has at last accepted, it was nevertheless wisely delayed until the necessity for it should become so manifest as to make it certain that, instead of dividing the loyal people of the Union into two parties, one for and the other against the prosecution of the war for the maintenance of the Union, it would be universally accepted and sustained. It is now apparent that the measure will be thus sustained.

The popular discussion which preceded the resolution, concurring with the spasmodic action of that portion of public opinion which, under the

influences of excitement, reasons to final results from ephemeral events, has somewhat disturbed the public mind during the last three months, and elicited in many quarters hasty and inconsiderate expressions which, doubtlessly, will be interpreted by our adversaries abroad as indicating a want of devotion to the war and of popular determination to give it success. Nothing, however, could be more erroneous than any such impressions, in whatsoever way produced. Virtually, the six hundred thousand men whom the government called for have come into the field as volunteers within the short space of ten weeks. I mention, by way of illustration, the fact that New York alone has sent into the field within that period eighty thousand men, and she is now sending in the balance of her quota, thirty-seven thousand. All the other States have done and are doing equally well. From one end of the loyal region to the other, including even the border States, and notwithstanding supposed disfavor resulting from the President's proclamation, there does not come up to the ear of the government a suggestion or a whisper of discontent with the determination it manifests to maintain and preserve the Union, at whatever cost, with whatever measures, and in whatever event.

On the other hand, there are manifest symptoms of not only exhaustion but of reaction in the insurrectionary region. The language of defiance there is hushed, while a desire for peace is very freely and generally expressed. It is manifest, from the tone of insurgent organs, that the proclamation of the President is filling the insurrectionary region with serious apprehensions, and this circumstance sufficiently indicates a failure of expectation of repelling the national arms from the home and haunts of African slavery. If we correctly understand the affairs of the insurgents, their last available forces are already in the field, and are very inferior to the Union armies in numbers and efficiency, while their leaders have not yet done, and are not able to do, anything to establish a system of revenue that could enable them to maintain the struggle in which they have already lavished so much of their wealth and strength. It would seem to result from this view that the crisis of the insurrection has come, and that its last hopes are staked upon foreign intervention.

Upon that point nothing has been left unsaid by this government. If there have been intimations from abroad of the possibility of such a course, they have been met with the reply that this nation will not consent to be divided, nor to recognize relations of friendship with any power that shall lend its aid to such a dangerous purpose. To this determination the President adheres. He feels confident that he is right in believing that even foreign intervention could not now endanger the Union that he is sworn to maintain and preserve.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

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SIR: Your despatch of October 3 (No. 230) has been received. Your proceeding in presenting to her Majesty's government a remonstrance against the practices of British subjects in arming and fitting out privateers to depredate on American commerce is approved by the President. The lan-

guage and the effect of your remonstrance are equally satisfactory. When at the close of the last session of Congress it was proposed here to issue letters of marque for the protection of our commerce against such depredations by the insurgents, the proposition was relinquished on the ground that they had no ports here within control from which piratical cruisers could be sent out, and it was not apprehended that the shores of Great Britain would be suffered to be used by them for a base of operations. Yet we now see a piratical vessel built, manned, armed, equipped, and despatched from a British port, and roaming at large on the seas,, without ever touching the American shores, destroying American merchantmen as if there were no treaties between Great Britain and the United States, while entrance into British ports for coals and other supplies is denied to our national armed vessels under a proclamation of neutrality. This is one of the lamentable fruits of the policy which Great Britain adopted at the beginning of the war, without previous consultation with the United States, and has persisted in ever since in opposition to their earnest and persevering remonstrances. Our agents are reporting to us new and larger military and naval preparations in British ports, and if they are to be allowed to go on to their conclusion, and to operate, as has been done in the case of the 290, will not the result be that, while Great Britain avows neutrality, her subjects are practically allies of the internal enemies of the United States? The President will not consent to believe that her Britannic Majesty's government would willingly allow a condition of affairs to occur which would seem to leave to the United States almost no hope of remaining at peace with Great Britain without sacrifices for which no peace could ever compensate.

The Secretary of the Navy is adopting all possible means to meet the new exigency which has occurred.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

No. 374.]

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, October 20, 1862.

SIR: With reference to the operations of the insurgent steamer 290, an extract from a letter of Mr. Dabney, United States consul at Teneriffe, to Mr. Perry, chargé d'affaires at Madrid, is herewith appended.

I am your obedient servant,

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The vessel referred to is probably the 290, a powerful vessel, which you are, of course, cognizant of, and an equally powerful steamer is necessary to overhaul her, which, perhaps, you may have the power to despatch after her. I would inform you that, about the 22d ultimo, two steamers and a ship, all showing the English flag, anchored at an out-of-the-way place, at

the island of Terceira, Azores, and were two days engaged in passing cargo from the ship to the steamers, of which this is probably one, and there may have been two fitted out at that time.

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SIR: I transmit herewith, for your information, a copy of an instruction of yesterday (No. 237) addressed to Mr. Dayton, in relation to alleged purposes of Great Britain and France to recognize the independence of the States in insurrection against this government. You may make any use of this despatch which you may deem advisable.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

[The instruction above referred to is placed according to date in the correspondence with France.]

No. 378.]

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, October 25, 1862.

SIR: Your despatch of October 10 (No. 238) has been received. Your reply to Earl Russell's note of the 4th instant on the subject of British outfits of British-built vessels from British ports, with British-shipped crews, to depredate on American commerce on the high seas, is approved by the President. I do not know how I could add a word to fortify or improve the clear, calm, and energetic protest which that paper contains.

I am sir, your obedient servant,

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SIR: Your despatch of October 10 (No. 237) has been received. It shows that the President's proclamation has produced in Great Britain an impression similar in nature, and differing only in degree, from the effect which it has had here. Although, for obvious reasons, little was said on the subject in the correspondence of this department in anticipation of the proclamation,

yet you must have well understood that the President did not adopt the sanguine expectations of those who assumed that it would instantaneously convert the foreign enemies of our country into friends. It is not now proposed to discuss with those persons the questions they so ingeniously raise, namely, whether the proclamation has not come too late, whether it has not come too early, or whether its effect will not be defeated by the fact that it is based upon military necessity, and not upon philanthropy. In regard to the first two points, they are raised by those for whom distasteful events are always unseasonable. In regard to the latter, it may be said that the Christian religion has proved none the less successful and beneficent to Europe, although it must be confessed that the mere charity inculcated by that religion was not the exclusive motive of Constantine in adopting and proclaiming it.

Time advances, and the national power will not lag behind it in bearing the proclamation into the homes which slavery has scourged with the crowning evils of civil war, and the most flagrant of political crimes-treason against the best constitution and the best government that has ever been established among men. There is reason to hope that the proceeding will divide and break the insurrection. The public mind has been disturbed, and the periodical occurrence of popular elections has been attended by extravagant expressions, as usual. But the policy of the administration will be practically acquiesced in and ultimately universally approved.

Your warning against hostile designs of a naval character have been submitted to the Secretary of the Navy. The delays of our new iron-clad vessels are painful and mortifying, but one cannot see where to charge fault; and we have some reason to hope that our energies, however unsatisfactory to ourselves, cannot be surpassed in effect by the enemies and their colaborers in Great Britain. We have now promises, which seem reliable, of all the vessels we need, within the period that is spent in a voyage across the ocean and back again.

Kentucky and Missouri, like Maryland, are free again. The war retires into Tennessee, as it has into Virginia. Expeditions up and down the Mississippi are nearly in readiness. General McClellan is preparing operations in Virginia, not so rapidly as our impatience demands, but, doubtless, with his customary care and comprehensiveness. General Mitchell will not long be idle before Charleston.

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SIR: I send herewith copies of papers which have just been received from James E. Harvey, esquire, our minister at Lisbon, touching the depredations of piratical vessels built, armed, manned, and equipped in British ports, and despatched from such ports upon the American merchant vessels on the high seas near the island of Flores.

The President desires that you lay copies, or the substance of them, before Earl Russell in such manner as shall seem best calculated to effect two important objects: first, due redress for the national and private injuries sus

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