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Wilkes exercise the right of capturing the contraband in conformity with the law of nations?

"It is just here that the difficulties in the case begin. What is the manner which the law of nations prescribes for disposing of the contraband when you have found and seized it on board of the neutral vessel? The answer would be easily found if the question were what you shall do with the contraband vessel. You must take or send her into a convenient port, and subject her to a judicial prosecution there in admiralty, which will try and decide the questions of belligerency, neutrality, contraband, and capture. So, again, you would promptly find the same answer if the question were, what is the manner of proceeding prescribed by the law of nations in regard to the contraband, if it be property or things of material or pecuniary value?

"But the question here concerns the mode of procedure in regard, not to the vessel that was carrying the contraband, nor yet to contraband things which worked the forfeiture of the vessel, but to contraband persons."

"But only courts of admiralty have jurisdiction in maritime cases, and these courts have formulas to try only claims to contraband chattels, but none to try claims concerning contraband persons. The courts can entertain no proceedings and render no judgment in favor of or against the alleged contraband men.

"It was replied all this was true; but you can reach in those courts à decision which will have the moral weight of a judicial one by a circuitous proceeding. Convey the suspected men, together with the suspected vessel, into port, and try there the question whether the vessel is contraband. You can prove it to be so by proving the suspected men to be contraband, and the court must then determine the vessel to be contraband. If the men are not contraband the vessel will escape condemnation. Still, there is no judgment for or against the captured persons. But it was assumed that there would result from the determination of the court concerning the vessel a legal certainty concerning the character of the men."

"In the present case, Captain Wilkes, after capturing the contraband persons and making prize of the Trent in what seems to be a perfectly lawful manner, instead of sending her into port, released her from the capture, and

permitted her to proceed with her whole cargo upon her voyage. He thus effectually prevented the judicial examination which might otherwise have occurred."

"I have not been unaware that, in examining this question, I have fallen into an argument for what seems to be the British side of it against my own country. But I am relieved from all embarrassment on that subject. I had hardly fallen into that line of argument when I discovered that I was really defending and maintaining, not an exclusively British interest, but an old, honored, and cherished American cause, not upon British authorities, but upon principles that constitute a large portion of the distinctive policy by which the United States have developed the resources of a continent, and thus becoming a considerable maritime power, have won the respect and confidence of many nations. These principles were laid down for us in 1804, by James Madison, when Secretary of State in the administration of Thomas Jefferson, in instructions given to James Monroe, our minister to England. Although the case before him concerned a description of persons different from those who are incidentally the subjects of the present discussion, the ground he assumed then was the same I now occupy, and the arguments by which he sustained himself upon it have been an inspiration to me in preparing this reply."

"If I decide this case in favor of my own government, I must disavow its most cherished principles, and reverse and forever abandon its essential policy. The country cannot afford the sacrifice. If I maintain those principles, and adhere to that policy, I must surrender the case itself. It will be seen, therefore, that this government could not deny the justice of the claim presented to us in this respect upon its merits. We are asked to do to the British nation just what we have always insisted all nations ought to do to us.

"The claim of the British government is not made in a discourteous manner. This government, since its first organization, has never used more guarded language in a similar case.

"In coming to my conclusion I have not forgotten that if the safety of this Union required the detention of

the captured persons it would be the right and duty of this government to detain them. But the effectual check and waning proportions of the existing insurrection, as well as the comparative unimportance of the captured persons themselves, when dispassionately weighed, happily forbid me from resorting to that defence."

'Nor have I been tempted at all by suggestions that cases might be found in history where Great Britain refused to yield to other nations, and even to ourselves, claims like that which is now before us. It would tell little for our own claims to the character of a just and magnanimous people if we should so far consent to be guided by the law of retaliation as to lift up buried injuries from their graves to oppose against what national consistency and the national conscience compel us to regard as a claim intrinsically right.

"Putting behind me all suggestions of this kind, I prefer to express my satisfaction that, by the adjustment of the present case upon principles confessedly American, and yet, as I trust, mutually satisfactory to both of the nations concerned, a question is finally and rightly settled between them, which, heretofore exhausting not only all forms of peaceful discussion, but also the arbitrament of war itself, for more than half a century alienated the two countries from each other, and perplexed with fears and apprehensions all other nations.

"The four persons in question are now held in military custody at Fort Warren, in the state of Massachusetts. They will be cheerfully liberated. Your lordship will please indicate a time and place for receiving them."

This paper was highly characteristic of Seward. The opportunity to perform some great act that would save his country from grave calamity had come at last. He held the pen and he was master of the situation, as had often been the case in much less imposing circumstances in former years. This answer was written in that graceful, flowing, self-confident style peculiar to his ambitious efforts. It glided lightly over the difficult places, substituting for thorough argument here a plausible assumption, there a crafty implication. It élabo

rated and triumphantly dwelt upon the points that were most important to the special purposes. It fascinated and flattered the audience to whom it was chiefly addressed. To most Northerners-who could not judge whether his arguments were sound or fallacious-the idea that by surrendering the Confederates the United States were maintaining their consistency and catching Great Britain in a trap, and the sheer impudence of saying that they would be kept if it were a matter of importance to hold them-these points were greeted with merriment and self-congratulation, and were regarded by a great many as removing all question of fear or humiliation.

Those who had been as mad and reckless as anarchists and would have sacrificed the integrity of the nation to the stubborn resolve to retain the prisoners-and thereby increase their value to the Confederacy ten thousand-fold-soon forgot their folly and joined in the chorus in praise of Seward. The change that came over the learned international lawyer, R. H. Dana, illustrates the magic of Seward's art. In November Dana wrote to Adams, "Wilkes has done a noble thing and done it well"; but subsequently he said: "Mr. Seward is not only right, but sublime. It was a little too sublimated, dephlegmated, and defecated for common mortals, but I bow to it as to a superior intelligence." Robert C. Winthrop sent Seward his congratulations, remarking that if it required courage to hold Mason and Slidell in the face of overwhelming and threatening armaments, it required still more courage to give them up in persence of so many violent popular demonstrations on both sides of the Atlantic." The New York Tribune of December 30th said: "We believe the administration is stronger with the people to-day 1 2 Adams's Dana, 259, 261.

2 December 31st. Seward MSS.

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than if Mason and Slidell had never been captured or their surrender had been refused."

London became jubilant at the first rumor of a favorable settlement. Stocks went up and congratulations were general. Under date of January 10, 1862, Adams wrote: "The satisfaction expressed in this city everywhere, excepting among the small society of the Confederate emissaries and the party which habitually looks to war as an attractive pastime, stands in remarkable contrast with the feelings which animated almost everybody six weeks ago." On the receipt of Seward's reply, Russell promptly informed Lyons that it gave "her Majesty's government great satisfaction to be enabled to arrive at a conclusion favorable to the maintenance of the most friendly relations between the two nations."

Seward's comments on his own acts were always interesting. We have noticed how general had been the excitement and determination to keep the Confederate prisoners, regardless of all consequences. On the 27th the Secretary informed Adams that "the United States have maintained calmness, composure, and dignity during all the season while the British people have been so intensely excited, and that in this, as in every other case, they have vindicated not only their consistency but their principles and policy, while measuring out to Great Britain the justice which they have always claimed at her hands." To Weed he wrote the same day: "You will see what has been done. You will know who did it. You will hardly be more able to shield me from the reproaches for doing it than you have been to shield me in England from the reproaches of hostility to that country, and designs for war against it.". About a fortnight later a letter to Mrs. Seward contained these sen

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