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[From Sprague, consul, 29th, 3.30 p. m.]

Inform our government Kearsarge leaves to-morrow for the Azores in pursuit of Semmes, who has destroyed ten whalers. Have recommended Tuscarora, now at Cadiz, to follow her at once, and the Constellation to come down the Mediterranean.

Mr. ADAMS, American Minister, London.

No. 229.]

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
London, October 3, 1862.

SIR: Since the date of my last I have received despatches from the department numbered from 339 to 349, both inclusive.

The telegraph intelligence so far outstrips the ordinary course of communication that the accounts of the result of the invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania followed close upon the mention in your No. 349 of General McClellan's first success. As yet we are not in possession of the details, but the effect upon the popular mind of what is known has been already very considerable. So strong had the impression become that all power of further resistance by the government was for the moment destroyed, that many people confidently counted upon the possession of the national capital by the rebels as an event actually past. The surprise at this manifestation of promptness and vigor has been quite in proportion. The great stroke which was to finish the war, that had been early announced here as about to take place in September, seems to have failed, and to have left its projectors in a worse condition than ever. The prevalent notion of the superiority of military energy and skill on the part of the insurgents in the field has been weakened. As a consequence, less and less appears to be thought of mediation or intervention. All efforts to stir up popular discontent meet with little response. The newspapers of the day contain a report of a decided check just given to a movement of this kind at Staley Bridge, near Manchester. On the whole, I am inclined to believe that perhaps a majority of the poorer classes rather sympathize with us in our struggle, and it is only the aristocracy and the commercial body that are adverse. Perhaps it may be quite as well for us if this should be the case. For the present ministry sufficiently reflects the popular side to be in little danger of precipitation so long as no impulse from that quarter shall be manifested against us.

Great interest continues to be felt in the Italian question. There are symptoms of movement of some kind on the part of the Emperor of France, but nobody pretends to foretell what it will be. The position of Garibaldi rouses stronger interest now that he is in prison than it did whilst he was quietly at home. The difficulty of bringing him to trial, in the face of the popular sympathies of half of Europe, is very serious. On the other hand, religious feelings are strongly appealed to in behalf of the Pope. A serious riot took place in Hyde Park on Sunday last, where a meeting in favor of Garibaldi was attempted. All this contributes to divide the attention heretofre so much concentrated on America.

The distress in the manufacturing region rather increases in severity, but I am inclined to believe that the further closing of the mills is no longer made imperative by the diminution of the material. Large supplies of cot

ton of the old crop were received from India last week, and three hundred thousand bales are announced as far on their way. The new crop will soon follow. What remains is to adjust the proper relation between the prices of the raw material and the manufactured product, which, owing to the great previous excess of the latter, is yet unsettled. In the meantime much attention is given to the invention of substitutes, and some resort had to other materials. More industry is enlisted in the making of commodities from wool as well as flax. There is also a quickening of the products of which silk is a component part. All these things will, I hope, combine to reduce from this time forward the amount of distress in the indigent classes. I judge that the cotton famine has passed its minimum, and that unless the governments of England and France should be so infatuated as to interrupt the natural progress of events, the great risk to the civilized world of future dependence upon an imperious and false organization of society in America will have been permanently averted. In the midst of all this, I wish I could see at home any prospect of a termination of this deplorable struggle. But the infatuation of the dominant class in the south seems to have reached its highest pitch when it dreams of dictating its own terms in our capital cities. There is no dealing with such persons excepting with their own weapons. Here is the conflict of two ideas which cannot be harmonized by reasoning. Much as it may cost, the struggle must go on, and modern civilization triumph, or America will forfeit all further claim to be designated as the land of the free.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.

No. 230.]

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
London, October 3, 1862.

SIR: I regret to be obliged to state that accounts are coming in of the ravages committed by the gunboat 290, now called the Alabama, which has been cruising off the Azores. So long ago as the 5th of last month I felt it my duty to apprise the consul at Gibraltar of the position of that vessel, and to warn him, and through him the vessels on that station, to be on the alert. I now learn from him, as well as from Mr. Harvey, at Lisbon, that they have just sailed. The probability is that the Alabama will next turn up somewhere in the West Indies, or on the coast of South America.

There are rumors from Liverpool of the preparation of several steamers to sail as privateers. They find some corroboration from the report just received of the proceedings at Richmond in regard to letters of marque. There is no doubt that the presence of one or two fast United States steamers, commanded by efficient officers, would be of use in the European waters.

I transmit the copy of another note which I have addressed to Lord Russell upon my receiving from Mr. Dudley a fresh and strong deposition to add to those already accumulated in the case of the gunboat 290. It will

be a little difficult for this government to justify its want of energy in enforcing the provisions of the law in regard to that vessel.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.

[Enclosure ]

Mr. Adams to Lord Russell, with deposition, September 30, 1862.

Mr. Adams to Earl Russell.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
London, September 30, 1862.

MY LORD: I have the honor to submit to your consideration the copy of another deposition taken at Liverpool before the collector of the port, which, in connexion with the papers heretofore presented, goes to establish beyond reasonable doubt the fact that the insurgents in the United States and their coadjutors at that place have been engaged in fitting out vessels at that port to make war on the United States, in utter contempt of the law and of her Majesty's injunctions in her proclamation. I expect to be in possession of some stronger evidence of the same nature in relation to past transactions, which I hope to be able, likewise, to submit in a few days.

The injuries to which the people of the United States are subjected by the unfortunate delays experienced in the case of my remonstrance against the fitting out of the gunboat 290, now called the confederate steamer Alabama, are just beginning to be reported. I last night received intelligence from Gibraltar that this vessel has destroyed ten whaling ships in the course of a short time at the Azores.

I have strong reason to believe that still other enterprises of the same kind are in progress in the ports of Great Britain at this time. Indeed, they have attained so much notoriety as to be openly announced in the newspapers of Liverpool and London. In view of the very strong legal opinion which I had the honor to present to your lordship's consideration, it is impossible that all these things should not excite great attention in the United States. I very much fear they will impress the people and the government with a belief, however unfounded, that their just claims on the neutrality of Great Britain have not been sufficiently estimated. The extent to which her Majesty's flag and some of her ports have been used to the end of carrying on hostile operations is so universally understood that I deem it unnecessary further to dwell upon it. But in the spirit of friendliness with which I have ever been animated towards her Majesty's government, I feel it my duty to emit no opportunity of urging the manifestation of its well known energy in upholding those laws of neutrality upon which alone the reciprocal confidence of nations can find a permanent basis.

I pray your lordship to accept the assurances of the highest consideration with which I have the honor to be, my lord, your most obedient servant, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Right Hon. Earl RUSSELL, &c., &c., &c.

No. 362.]

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

DEPARTMENT OF State,
Washington, October 4, 1862.

SIR: Your despatch of the 18th of September has been received, and your proceedings in relation to the delivery of the autograph letter of the Presi dent to her Majesty therein mentioned are approved.

No marked event has occurred since the date of my last communications. The insurrectionary advances seem to have been arrested; our naval preparations are steadily proceeding. Our armies, which are being rapidly re-enforced, are preparing for new and energetic movements. The perturbation of the public mind abates, and cheerful views of the future are beginning to prevail. There are indications of returning loyalty in Louisiana and in North Carolina.

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SIR: Your despatch of September 26 (No. 227) has been received, and your proceedings in relation to the armament of the gunboat 290 in British waters, as there recited, are approved.

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SIR: Your despatch of the 25th of September (No. 226) has been received The President is gratified by the tribute you have paid to the prudence and fidelity of Mr. Dayton.

Mr. Dayton has given me an account of an informal and unofficial conversation with which he was lately favored by Mr. Thouvenel, which indicates a harmony between him and Mr. Mercier in despondency concerning the guccess of the Union arms, but not any sentiments of hostility or of unfriendliness to this government.

I learn, also, from Mr. Sanford that Baron Talleyrand, on his recent return from Paris to Brussels, informed Mr. Sanford that Mr. Thouvenel had said to him that business was suspended at Paris until the return of the Emperor from Biarritz, after which they should take up the Italian and the American questions.

This government has nothing to say concerning the first of these subjects. In regard to the latter, it is certain that the aspect of the case for the enemies of the Union, when the time for that consideration shall have come,

will be found to have changed much for the worse from what it was when Mr. Thouvenel was conversing with Baron Talleyrand. Recent events indicate a loss by the insurgents of even more than the prestige they won by their desperate attempt to invade and subjugate the loyal States of the republic. The Emperor of France is extensively regarded in European circles as an arbitrator among nations; but we are not aware that he has ever affected so important and hazardous a trust. We do him no such injustice as to suppose him hostile to the United States or disposed to do them a wrong. However the case may prove in this respect, we do no such injury to our cause and no such violence to our national self-respect as to apprehend that the Union is to be endangered by any foreign war that shall come upon us unprovoked and without excuse. However public opinion, either here or in foreign countries, may veer with the varying chances of war, it must be understood by all the representatives of the United States abroad that the President indulges no apprehensions of a failure of the people in their determined purpose of maintaining the federal Union.

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SIR: The last week has been marked by only two events of any particular importance.

The first of these was the reception of the news of the President's proclamation respecting the slaves. The effect of it has been only to draw the line with greater distinctness between those persons really friendly to the United States and the remainder of the community, and to test the extent of the genuine anti-slavery feeling left in this country.

The second is the appearance of Mr. Gladstone, the chancellor of the exchequer, once more in a popular address referring to the state of things in America. From the first there has been little doubt on which side his sympathy was. But the present is the first occasion upon which he has ventured to touch upon the slave portion of the controversy. His idea that the force of the slave tenure will be diminished by the withdrawal of that portion of the governing power which had heretofore been applied to sustain it in the free States is as ingenuous as it is sophistical.

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As this is just the season when public men are in the practice of making their addresses all over the country, it is probable that more or less of them will be appearing from day to day in the newspapers. I find reports of two in those of this morning. There is no mistaking the spirit they contain; and as both the members are of the so-called liberal or ministerial party, generally ranked as the least unfavorable of the two to the United States, it is not unfair to infer from them the tendency of opinion everywhere in the governing classes. I think that in this connexion the tone of Mr. Gladstone may be construed as indicating the course that may be taken by government as soon as Parliament meets, should the indications of public opinion be so marked as to make any step necessary. The only thing now likely further to retard it, in my opinion, is any serious change in the character of We are yet awaiting the issue of the grand plan of operations con

war.

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