Mr. Seward to Mr. King.

I

December 15, 1866. Your despatch of the 26th of November, which relates to the case of John H. Surratt, has been received. commend and thank you for the useful and very interesting details concerning the ways of that offender which you have given me. Among the papers which accompany the despatch is a memorandum, which is inscribed "A copy" and the text of which is as follows:

"About twelve months ago Surratt came to Rome, under the name of Watson. In Canada he procured letters from some priest to friends in England. Having left England for Rome, he got letters for some people here, among others for Rev. Dr. Neane, rector of the English college. Being detained for some days at Civita Vecchia, and having no money to pay expenses there, he wrote to Dr. Neane, from whom he received fifty (50) francs. On his arrival here he went to

the English college, where he lived for some time. After that he entered the Papal service."

ROME, November 25.

The paper bears no signature. The only information you give me from which to determine its authenticity is, that you have received it from good authority. I do not know that the statement thus recited would in any case have any value. Certainly, unauthenticated, it can be of no use other than to awaken curiosity. I think you ought to have given the authority to which you allude. I am aware that the person who imparted the information to you may probably have given it to you as confidential, and that he might even have declined to give it to you at all if you had not agreed to receive it under an injunction of secrecy. Such an injunction neither you nor I have in any case a right to accept. We are agents of the President, in whom the whole executive power of the United States is vested. Clearly the information contained in the paper was designed for him, and not for yourself or for me personally. No one can rightfully claim to impose upon us an injunction to conceal from the President facts which concern the public safety and welfare. I have acted upon the principle which I thus inculcate throughout all the excitement of a civil war. Better to reject all information whatever than to receive it with limitation inconsistent with official duty. What I have written is not to be taken, however, as conveying censure for the past, but rather as an instruction for the future.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

March 28, 1867.- I acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of the 8th of March, in which you give me, briefly, what is evidently very accurate, as it is important, information concerning the recent disturbances in Ireland. I avail myself of that information for the purpose of conferring with you informally and confidentially upon the condition of affairs between this government and that of Great Britain.

I think myself not only entitled to assume, but bound to assume, that a chronic sedition is existing in Ireland; that, as occasion shall offer, the late disturbances are not unlikely to be renewed, especially if there shall be a continued agitation of political questions in Great Britain. I assume it to be possible that somewhere and at some time a seditious party in Ireland may proclaim an organized insurrection with a show of delegated authority from some portions of the Irish people. Such a proceeding is intensely expected by many citizens of the United States. That expectation excites a profound sympathy among adopted citizens of Irish birth and their descendants. It is equally manifest that the sympathy of the whole American people goes with such movements, for the reason that there is a habitual jealousy of British proximity across our northern border, and especially for the reason that this nation indulges a profound sense that it sustained great injury from the sympathy extended in Great Britain to the rebels during our civil war. country has hoped and expected that in some way our complaints against Great Britain in that respect would be satisfactorily adjusted. It has been content to wait until now for that consummation.

The

But there are, on the other hand, important classes of our people whose patience in this respect is becoming exhausted. The House of Representatives, in the first session of the late Congress, with entire unanimity passed a bill to alter our neutrality laws so as to accommodate them to the standard of neutrality which they understood was maintained during our civil war by Great Britain. The senate did not concur, and so the bill failed. There are, however, unmistakable indications that the sentiments which controlled the action of the House of Representatives are now gaining favor in the other branch of Congress, as well as among the people.

It is to be expected that time will add to the strength of the interest which demands that projected modification of our neutrality laws; because, first, the sense of injury is intensified by the delay of negotiations; and because, secondly, many ship-builders and other merchants of the United States are now earnestly taking part in the question. I give you copies of certain resolutions just now adopted in the House of Representatives bearing upon our relations with Great Britain.

Lord Stanley proposes an arbitration of the Alabama claims, with a preliminary condition that technical definitions shall be first given to the questions to be submitted.

In that form his offer cannot be accepted, because it would permit a belief here that what are deemed just claims, absolutely entitled to redress, might be defeated by forms obstructive of a fair and full examination. On the other hand, what had been offered on our side is as fair and as liberal as Congress or the nation could be expected to sustain.

Time seems to me to have already become an important element in the question of adjustment. If delays are continued, it may perhaps pass beyond the reach of settlement by a friendly correspondence.

While writing this I am not to be understood as insisting that my views in regard to the situation in Great Britain are altogether correct. I may, indeed, entirely misunderstand the situation there. Nor am I unmindful of the critical nature of the political debates which are now occupying the attention of her Majesty's ministers. It is not the President's desire to do anything which would be or would even seem to be unfriendly to Great Britain. At the same time I think it important that the ministry shall understand the increasing delicacy of the question as it stands in the United States. Your excellent judgment will enable you to determine whether any and what part of what I have said can be made known to Lord Stanley, with a hope of good effect. If such a communication in any form shall be expedient, then the selection of the time and manner in which it shall be made is also left to your discretion. Will you take the matter in hand and act in regard to it as shall seem best, giving me at least the result of your reflections.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Campbell.

April 6, 1867.-The capture of the Prince Maximilian at Queretaro, by the republican armies of Mexico, seems probable. The reported severity practised upon the prisoners taken at Zacatecas excites apprehensions that similar severity may be practised in the case of the Prince and his alien troops. Such severities would be injurious to the national cause of Mexico, and to the republican system throughout the world.

You will communicate to President Juarez, promptly and by effectual means, the desire of this government, that in case of his capture the Prince and his supporters may receive the humane treatment accorded by civilized nations to prisoners of war.

The expense of making the communication to President Juarez will be defrayed by this Department.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Johnson.1

July 20, 1868. It is a truism that commercial and industrial interests continually exert a powerful influence in favor of peace and friendship between the government and people of the United States and Great Britain. Intimate consanguinity, together with a nearly entire community of language and a very considerable community of political and religious principles, ideas, and sentiments, work in the same direction. On all occasions when the moral sentiment of mankind is moved in favor of national regeneration or other political reform in any part of the world, a very cordial sympathy and regard to such advances in civilization is found to exist between the two countries. This mutual, friendly disposition between the two nations manifests itself more strongly now than at any former period. Nevertheless, there are some controversies which have heretofore unavoidably arisen out of difference of administration in the two governments — controversies which are of lasting importance, and which have become chronic in their character. An urgent necessity exists for the settlement of one or more of them. A reference to the records of the legation in London will disclose them, and explain the circumstances which have hitherto prevented their adjustment, notwithstanding the great zeal and efficiency with which your distinguished predecessor, Mr. Adams, has carried out the instructions of this Department.

1 Reverdy Johnson, U. S. Minister, etc.

The so-called naturalization question is the one which first and most urgently requires attention. The political institutions of the United States may in one sense be said to have for their foundation the principle of the right of individual men in any country, who are neither accused nor convicted of crime, to change their homes and allegiance according to the dictates of their own judgments and consciences and the inspiration of their individual desires for liberty and happiness.

On the contrary, the British government have always held in theory, and still adhere to the principle, that native allegiance to the British Crown is indefeasible without the express consent of the sovereign. A practical application of this ancient theory in cases of belligerent right of search was, as you are well aware, one of the principal causes of the war of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. Without reaching a formal decision in the treaty of peace, the question was suffered to fall into abeyance, and, until quite recently, it seemed to have become obsolete.

Chronic political disaffection in Ireland has survived all the pacifying efforts of administration in Great Britain, of whatever kind. It frequently manifests itself there in turbulence and insurrection. Recently those discontents have been so great that Parliament has made new penal enactments, and has kept the habeas corpus suspended in Ireland for a period which has now reached the duration of two years and five months. On the other hand, a great and continuous emigration, which has removed large masses of its population to the United States, has seemed to abate the forces of popular resistance to the authority of Great Britain in that country. The large masses of population thus received into the United States from Ireland, with their descendants, constitute no inconsiderable part of our own population in every State and Territory of the American Republic. Most of the Irish immigrants and their descendants have availed themselves of our naturalization laws, and have thus become citizens. While the new interests which they have thus acquired as citizens of the United States are paramount, they retain strong feelings and sentiments of attachment to their native country, or at least of sympathy in its interest and welfare so true it is that those who remove from one country to another do not, with a change of skies, altogether change their native dispositions. It happens, therefore, that every considerable surg of