thinks, be left to understand that there is no law in Great Britain which will be effective to preserve mutual relations of forbearance between the subjects of her Majesty and the government and people of the United States in the only point where they are exposed to infraction. The fitting out of the Alabama and the Florida, as well as of the Alexandra, will thus receive the sanction of the government, and the United States will be without any guarantee whatever against the indiscriminate and unlimited employment of capital, industry, and skill by British subjects, in building, arming, equipping, and sending forth ships-of-war from British ports to make war against the United States.

I may safely protest, in behalf of the United States, against the assumption of that position by the British nation, because this government, with a statute exactly similar to that of Great Britain, does constantly hold itself able and bound to prevent such injuries to Great Britain. The President thinks it not improper to suggest for the consideration of her Majesty's government the question whether, on appeal to be made by them, Parliament might not hink it just and expedient to amend the existing statute in such a vay as to effect what the two governments actually believe it ought ow to accomplish. In case of such an appeal the President would hesitate to apply to Congress for an equivalent amendment of laws of the United States if her Majesty's government should re such a proceeding, although here such an amendment is not med necessary.

the law of Great Britain must be left without amendment, and Deconstrued by the government in conformity with the rulings of the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, then there will be left for the United States no alternative but to protect themselves and their commerce against armed cruisers proceeding from British ports, as against the naval forces of a public enemy; and also to claim and insist upon indemnities for the injuries which all such expeditions have hitherto committed or shall hereafter commit against this government and the citizens of the United States. To this end this government is now preparing a naval force with the utmost vigor; and if the national navy, which it is rapidly creating, shall not be sufficient for the emergency, then the United States must bring into employment such private armed naval forces as the mercantile marine shall afford. British ports, domestic as well as colonial, are

now open, under certain restrictions, to the visits of piratical vessels, and not only furnish them coals, provisions, and repairs, but even receive their prisoners when the enemies of the United States come in to obtain such relief from voyages in which they have either burned ships they have captured, or have even manned and armed them as pirates and sent them abroad as auxiliaries in the work of destruction. Can it be an occasion for either surprise or complaint that if this condition of things is to remain and receive the deliberate sanction of the British government, the navy of the United States will receive instructions to pursue these enemies into the ports which thus, in violation of the law of nations and the obligations of neutrality, become harbors for the pirates? The President very distinctly perceives the risks and hazards which a naval conflict thus maintained will bring to the commerce and even to the peace of the two countries. But he is obliged to consider that in the case supposed the destruction of our commerce will probably amount to a naval war waged by a portion at least of the British nation against the government and people of the United States a war tolerated although not declared or avowed by the British government. If, through the necessary employment of a our means of national defence, such a partial war shall become general one between the two nations, the President thinks that responsibility for that painful result will not fall upon the Un States.

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In stating thus frankly the views of this government, it is for me to add that it is not the President's purpose to resort to extraordinary measures of defence to which I have referred, une they shall be rendered necessary by a final decision of the British government that it cannot and will not interfere to restrain the hostilities which are now apprehended; nor will I allow myself to suppose that her Majesty's government will for a moment conceive that anything I have written upon this point is written in a spirit of mere demonstration; on the contrary, while the pacific and friendly disposition of her Britannic Majesty's government is fully appreciated and relied upon, it is well understood that that government is the last one in the world to yield to vehemence what cannot be conceded in equity and justice. So, on the other hand, it ought to be understood that the United States, if they could ever be presumptuous, are sufficiently chastened already by the scourge of

civil war to seek peace and friendship with Great Britain and all other nations through any concession that is compatible with the permanent interests of national life and honor.

For your own information, and to enable you to maintain the national rights and interests with your accustomed firmness, I have the pleasure of stating that our naval force is steadily and rapidly increasing. The navy has already in actual service forty-four thou sand men. New, better, and more effective steamships, iron-clads, as well as others, are coming from the docks; and we do not distrust our ability to defend ourselves in our harbors and on the high seas, even if we must unhappily be precipitated, through injustice in Europe, into a foreign war.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Marsh.

July 29, 1863. — The statement you have given me of a decline of confidence in the success of this government in suppressing the insurrection, which is exhibited in Europe, has been carefully considered, in connection with similar information which was contained as well in a former despatch of your own as in the communications of others of our representatives on that continent. I freely confess that the fact is regarded with sincere and profound regret. It cannot be admitted, however, that this unfavorable opinion is sustained by the argument upon which, according to your statement, it is built; much less that it is sustainable independently of that reasoning. I think I have had occasion to say heretofore that insurrections are generally strong, vigorous, and energetic in their beginnings, while well-established governments may be expected to gain strength, vigor, and energy as the struggle for self-defence, to which they are summoned, advances.

Eight hundred days are not yet elapsed since this popular government, all unused to military action, and destitute of its machinery and appliances, was obliged to accept civil war on land and sea. An insurrection, occupying near half of the Union, seized upon the principal military force, the most important navy yards, forts, and arsenals, and employed their guns against the government itself. Every two days of the intervening period witnessed the bringing of a new and effective ship-of-war, with a hundred seamen and marines, into the naval service, as well as the gathering into camps of two thousand soldiers, practically, all of whom were volunteers.

The achievements of our land and naval forces have been equally brilliant and effective. Our marches and sieges have, I think, seldom been excelled. Certainly the area of the government's authority has been so continually enlarged, that the rebellion has retired within a compass altogether too small to maintain an independent state. We have regained the most important of our seaports, while we hold all others in close siege; and we are now traversing, unchecked, all the great rivers and lakes of the country from their outlets to their sources.

Now, at the close of two years of war, what are the respective conditions of the belligerent parties? We are bringing out new and effective ships, and increasing our naval marine, more rapidly than before, and we are gathering into camps a force adequate to repair all the waste of the war. Our national credit is stronger than it was when the war began, and is equal to that which almost any other government holds, though in a state of profound peace. Can those who forbode our downfall show us where the forces and the material and the credit of the insurgents lie concealed? To us, it seems as if they are nearing the point of exhaustion.

It is, under the circumstances, eminently to be desired that the confidence of foreign nations in the success of the government should not be lost. It is to be regretted that there may be nations whose forbearance from interfering with us would give way with. their respect for our strength and power. If, however, we are destined now to encounter foreign complications, let us be thankful that they have been delayed so long. We shall be found, when they come, with an army, a navy, and a treasury not only adequate, as we think, to self-defence, but also befitting the continent and the cause we shall then be defending against nations whom we have never wronged, and who are quite as deeply interested in our friendship, as we, unhappily, are in their forbearance towards ourselves.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

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July 30, 1863. The concurrence of many important incidents entitles us to regard the present hour as a crisis of our civil war. The campaign in Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, although it had been well matured, and was prosecuted with great assiduity and unsurpassed heroism, was, nevertheless, attended, until recently, by discouraging delays, reverses, and disasters. The

insurgents had gotten up with much skill and energy a loan abroad, based on an assumption of their eventual success, which seemed to promise them an available and durable credit in the European market. This achievement enabled them to employ, without stint, many artificers of Great Britain, and some other countries, in furnishing all the materials and machinery of land and naval warfare, while they threatened to constrain the world's manufactures into an advocacy of their sovereignty and independence. Successes like these procured for them political agencies in France and Great Britain, which, repressing the national sentiments of those countries, and stifling even their sympathies with the cause of progress and humanity in Europe as well as in America, made it seem for a time, at least, probable that the two powers, which are the most dominating and, therefore, the most interested in the stability of this nation with its free government and liberal institutions, would combine to overthrow, devastate and destroy whatever of government, commerce, and culture had been created on this continent. The conspiracy against our country, which thus flourished apparently unchecked in so many of the slave states, and which had effected ch startling combinations in Europe, borrowed aid which cannot condemned or deplored too much from interests in the loyal es that counselled the obtaining of peace, indolence, personal mptions and partisan advantages at the imminent hazard, if not he certain cost, of even a dissolution of the Union, and a surler as well of the liberties of the country as of its hitherto supd well assured and beneficent destiny. This concurrence of s, favorable to the success of the insurrection, raised the hopes ts authors to a state of presumption. They broke and trampled n the cartels of military exchanges, defied and despised wellpared assaults, set on foot invasions of the loyal states, and dended passage and admission for a representative, on equivocal etences, at Washington. Such audacity is of itself, for a season, d in favorable circumstances, no contemptible element of politial force.

But the imposing fabric of insurgent expectations has been sudenly shattered. The campaigns, so long unsuccessful, have culmiated in victories, which, as a whole, are as demonstrative and ruitful as, perhaps, ever attended any combination of military and aval movements when the theatre was a continent. The basis has