STORY OF THE TRENT AFFAIR
CAPT. CHARLES WILKES, OF THE AMERICAN NAVY, TOOK FOUR CONFEDERATE
DIPLOMATIC AGENTS FROM A BRITISH SHIP BOUND ON A REGULAR VOYAGE
BETWEEN NEUTRAL PARTS, AND WITHOUT ANY JUDICIAL PROCEEDING CAST
THEM INTO A MILITARY PRISON--A CASE THAT CREATED GREAT EXCITEMENT
THROUGHOUT THE CIVILIZED WORLD--A SWIFT DEMAND, WITH A THREAT OF
WAR ADDED, MADE BY THE BRITISH--COMPARING THIS CASE WITH ANOTHER
OF LIKE NATURE--THE UNITED STATES ONCE WENT TO WAR TO ESTABLISH
THE PRINCIPLE WHICH CAPTAIN WILKES IGNORED--THE BRITISH OFFICIALLY
ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE AMERICANS WERE JUSTIFIED IN DECLARING WAR IN
1812.
This is to tell the story of what is known, in the history of the Civil
War, as the Trent affair. And it is worth saying in advance that few,
if any, events that have occurred on the high seas are of more interest
to the American patriot than this. For not only did it involve the
capture and subsequent release of two very important enemies of the
American government in time of war; it settled forever in our favor
the troublesome question that drove the American people into the War
of 1812. There was, indeed, what may rightly be called an official
declaration, on the part of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, that
the United States was entirely justified in that war.
[Illustration: James Murray Mason. John Slidell.
The two captured commissioners.]
On the 12th of October, 1861, Mr. James Mason, of Virginia, and Mr.
John Slidell, of Louisiana, with two other gentlemen, acting as their
secretaries, sailed from Charleston in the blockade-runner _Theodora_,
and, “unimpeded by the blockading ships,” arrived at Cardenas, Cuba,
whence they proceeded to Havana. Mr. Mason had, in former years, been
chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and American
Minister in Paris. Mr. Slidell had represented the United States at
the capital of Mexico. These two gentlemen had been chosen by the
Confederates to go to Europe as special representatives--Mr. Mason
to England and Mr. Slidell to Paris--to secure, if possible, the
recognition of the Confederate States as a nation. It is important
to note that these special envoys were sent because three others
previously sent had failed. “Lord Russell had received them (the three)
on the footing of private gentlemen and listened to what they had to
say, but had avoided correspondence, and remained immovable in his
refusal to enter into any official communication. At the French court
they had been equally unsuccessful,” and the Confederates hoped that
Messrs. Mason and Slidell would do better.
On the day that these Confederate envoys arrived in Havana the United
States cruiser _San Jacinto_, Capt. Charles Wilkes, was at Cienfuegos,
on the south side of Cuba, looking for the Confederate cruiser
_Sumter_--Wilkes, by the way, being the officer who conducted the
celebrated Wilkes expedition to the southern seas, of which mention is
made elsewhere.
[Illustration: Charles Wilkes.
_From an engraving by Dodson of the portrait by Sully._]
While at Cienfuegos, Wilkes heard of the arrival of the _Theodora_
on the north coast, and made haste ineffectually to reach Havana to
intercept her. But while he failed to catch the _Theodora_ he learned
at Havana that the Confederate envoys were to sail in the Royal mail
line steamer _Trent_ for the island of St. Thomas, where, in the
regular course of the line’s business, they would be transferred to a
steamer bound to England. Having failed to learn when the _Trent_ would
sail--failed because of “the notorious action of her British Majesty’s
subjects in doing everything to aid and abet the escape of these four
persons”--Wilkes went to “where the old Bahama Channel contracts to
the width of fifteen miles, some 240 miles from Havana, and in sight
of the Paredon del Grande lighthouse.” The _Trent_ must pass through
that neck of water, and “at 11.40 on the 8th her smoke was seen.” “We
were all prepared for her, beat to quarters, and orders were given to
Lieut. D. M. Fairfax to have two boats manned and armed to board her
and make Messrs. Slidell, Mason, Eustis, and McFarland prisoners, and
send them on board.” Eustis and McFarland were the secretaries. “The
steamer approached and hoisted English colors, our ensign was hoisted,
and a shot was fired across her bow; she maintained her speed and
showed no disposition to heave to; then a shell was fired across her
bow, which brought her to. I hailed that I intended to send a boat on
board, and Lieutenant Fairfax, with the second cutter of this ship, was
despatched.” The quotations are from official reports.
On arriving beside the _Trent_, Fairfax went on board alone, “leaving
two officers in the boat with orders to wait until it became necessary
to show some force.” He met the captain on the quarter-deck and asked
“to see the passenger list,” but “he declined letting me see it.”
Fairfax then said he had learned that the Confederate envoys were on
board, and should satisfy himself “whether they were on board before
allowing the steamer to proceed.”
“Mr. Slidell, evidently hearing his name mentioned, came up to me and
asked if I wanted to see him. Mr. Mason soon joined us, and then Mr.
Eustis and Mr. McFarland, when I made known the object of my visit.
The captain of the _Trent_ opposed anything like the search of his
vessel, nor would he consent to show papers or passenger list.” This
is from the report of Lieutenant Fairfax, and it adds that “there was
considerable noise among the passengers just about this time.” The
fact is the passengers were, to a man, in ardent sympathy with the
Confederates. “The passengers and ship’s officers were making all kinds
of disagreeable and contemptuous noises and remarks.” “Did you ever
hear of such an outrage?” and “Did you ever hear of such a piratical
act?” were two of the expressions that were heard by the officers
waiting in the boat. “Mr. Fairfax appeared to be having an altercation
with some one,” and at last one waiting officer “heard some one call
out, ‘Shoot him!’”
At this some armed marines were sent on board, and when they “advanced
the passengers fell back.” The most insolent of all on board was a
retired commander of the British navy, who was in charge of the mails.
According to Lieut. James A. Greer, “the mail agent, (a man in the
uniform of a commander in the royal navy, I think,) was very indignant
and talkative, and tried several times to get me into discussion
of the matter. I told him I was not there for that purpose. He was
very bitter; he told me that the English squadron would raise the
blockade in twenty days after his report of this outrage (I think he
said outrage) got home; that the northerners might as well give up
now,” etc., etc. The Confederate envoys, in their letter to Captain
Wilkes, say that “it must be added here, omitted in the course of the
narration, that before the party left the upper deck an officer of the
_Trent_, named Williams, in the naval uniform of Great Britain, and
known to the passengers as having charge of the mails and accompanying
them to England, said to the lieutenant that, as the only person
present directly representing his government, he felt called upon, in
language as strong and as emphatic as he could express, to denounce the
whole proceeding as a piratical act.”
Further than that, “nearly all the officers of the vessel showed
an undisguised hatred for the northern people, and a sympathy for
the Confederates. I will do the captain of the vessel the justice to
say that he acted differently from the rest, being, when I saw him,
very reserved and dignified. The officers and men of our party took
no apparent notice of the remarks that were made, and acted with the
greatest forbearance.”
However, in spite of the bluster and the determination of the envoys
to go only when compelled to do so by force, the four were taken on
board the American warship. The force used was not violence, of course.
“Three officers laid their hands on an envoy, after which the envoy
walked down a ladder to the boat.” It is conceded on all hands that
Lieutenant Fairfax and his men acted in a manner entirely becoming to
gentlemen of the navy.
Having taken the Confederate envoys, Captain Wilkes permitted the
_Trent_ to proceed on her voyage. He says:
“It was my determination to have taken possession of the _Trent_, and
sent her to Key West as a prize, for resisting the search and carrying
these passengers, whose character and objects were well known to the
captain; but the reduced number of my officers and crew, and the large
number of passengers on board, bound to Europe, who would be put to
great inconvenience, decided me to allow them to proceed.”
It is worth noting, as illustrating the character of Wilkes and his
officers, that they were absolutely certain that if they took the ship
to Key West she would be sold as a good prize for a sum that would have
given many thousand dollars to the _San Jacinto’s_ crew. But for the
sake of the convenience of the passengers, they allowed her to go on.
After the _Trent_ started on her way to St. Thomas, the _San Jacinto_
headed for Boston. “Why he did not go into New York or Hampton Roads,
where he could have communicated with the Government, is unexplained,
but the information of the capture was kept from the Department four
days longer than it should have been.”
But when at last he did reach port, and the news of the capture was
given to the reporters, the whole North went wild with joy, and the
rest of the civilized world, and especially Great Britain, was stirred
as rarely, if ever before, by the capture of an envoy. Even Secretary
of the Navy Welles lost his head and officially wrote to Wilkes: “Your
conduct in seizing these public enemies was marked by intelligence,
ability, decision, and firmness, and has the emphatic approval of this
department.” As for the people of Boston, it may be said that not in
all the years since the War of 1812 had they made such demonstrations
over a naval officer. Even Hull, with the _Guerrière_ crew on board the
_Constitution_, did not receive so much banqueting; and Congress passed
enthusiastically a resolution requesting the President to give Wilkes a
gold medal.
To the writer hereof it seems that the story of all this excitement is
worth careful consideration, not so much because it was incited by the
capture of two enemies of the flag, but because it was an expression of
feeling against the British. For the capture of Mason and Slidell could
not harm the Confederates greatly. There were other statesmen in the
South to take their place. But they had been taken from a British ship,
and the people at the North then believed that the British government,
while publicly professing friendship for their cause, was secretly
doing everything possible to aid the South. The enthusiasm over Wilkes
appears to have been in good part a protest against what was then
called British hypocrisy and enmity for the North. So great was this
enthusiasm, that for a man to openly express the opinion that a grave
mistake had been made was to incur the most rabid denunciations--to be
called a “copperhead” and a “traitor” and a “toady.”
Meantime the British were, as said, but little less excited than the
Americans, though for quite a different reason. A British packet ship
had been assaulted on the high seas while making her usual voyage
between neutral ports, and the people--especially the seafaring
people--wanted to know what their government was going to do about it.
As a matter of fact, they did not have to wait long to learn.
“Richard Williams, Commander R.N., and Admiralty agent in charge of
mails” on the _Trent_, made his report under date of November 9th, and
this in due time reached Lord Russell, the British Prime Minister. A
Cabinet meeting was called to consider the matter, and on November 30,
1861, Russell sent a despatch to Lord Lyons, the British Minister at
Washington, of which the following are the important paragraphs:
“It thus appears that certain individuals have been forcibly taken
from on board a British vessel, the ship of a neutral Power, while
such vessel was pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage, an act of
violence which was an affront to the British flag, and a violation of
international law.
“Her Majesty’s Government, bearing in mind the friendly relations which
have long subsisted between Great Britain and the United States, are
willing to believe that the United States’ naval officer who committed
this aggression was not acting in compliance with any authority from
his Government, or that, if he conceived himself to be so authorized,
he greatly misunderstood the instructions which he had received.
“For the Government of the United States must be fully aware that the
British Government could not allow such an affront to the national
honour to pass without full reparation, and Her Majesty’s Government
are unwilling to believe that it could be the deliberate intention
of the Government of the United States unnecessarily to force into
discussion between the two Governments a question of so grave a
character, and with regard to which the whole British nation would be
sure to entertain such unanimity of feeling.”
In another letter of the same date Lord Russell added the following,
setting a time limit with instructions in case the British demand was
not allowed:
“In my previous despatch of this date I have instructed you, by command
of Her Majesty, to make certain demands of the Government of the United
States.
“Should Mr. Seward ask for delay in order that this grave and painful
matter should be deliberately considered, you will consent to a delay
not exceeding seven days. If, at the end of that time, no answer is
given, or if any other answer is given except that of a compliance
with the demands of Her Majesty’s Government, your Lordship is
instructed to leave Washington with all the members of your Legation,
bringing with you the archives of the Legation, and to repair
immediately to London.”
These were the public official orders to Lord Lyons; but in order to
set forth accurately the condition of affairs, it is necessary to quote
from a letter of private instructions in which, as it now appears, Lord
Russell, while determined to enforce the British demand for reparation,
was anxious “to mitigate the effect of their peremptory demand.” He
said:
“The despatches which were agreed to at the Cabinet yesterday, and
which I have signed this morning, impose upon you a disagreeable task.
My wish would be that at your first interview with Mr. Seward you
should not take my despatch with you, but should prepare him for it,
and ask him to settle with the President and the Cabinet what course
they would propose.
“The next time you should bring my despatch and read it to him fully.
“If he asks what will be the consequence of his refusing compliance, I
think you should say that you wish to leave him and the President quite
free to take their own course, and that you desire to abstain from
anything like menace.”
Although, as said, the patriotic Americans, as a whole, were greatly
excited and incensed, there were many of them who did not share in
these feelings, and among these were Secretary of State Seward. To
set forth the reasons for this opposition to the opinions of their
countrymen more forcibly, the following incident of the history of the
Revolutionary War shall be told:
It appears that when that war was at its height “the colonial
government despatched as ambassador to Holland, then a neutral power,
Henry Laurens, a former President in the Congress of the country,
vested with power to secure from that Government a recognition of the
United Colonies as an independent nation--to conclude a treaty, and to
negotiate a loan. In 1780 he left Charleston, on board the brigantine
_Adriana_, bound to Martinique. From thence he took passage in a Dutch
packet, the _Mercury_, for Holland, and thus was on board a neutral
vessel, sailing between neutral ports.
“When three days out from Martinique, the _Mercury_ was overhauled by
the British frigate _Vestal_, Mr. Laurens, with his secretary, was
forcibly removed from on board the _Mercury_; his papers were seized;
they were taken in the _Vestal_ to St. Johns, Newfoundland, and
thence, by an order of the British admiralty, he, with his secretary,
was taken to England, and he was committed, as a prisoner, to the Tower
of London, on a charge of high treason. The British reverse at Yorktown
soon changed the character of his confinement to that of a prisoner
of war, and he was, not long thereafter, released, in exchange for
Lieutenant-general Lord Cornwallis.”
The quotation is from Upton’s “Maritime Warfare and Prize.” No one
familiar with this work will accuse Mr. Upton of lack of patriotism.
The fact is that the case of Laurens, from a legal point of view, was
precisely the case of Mason and Slidell. If the British were wrong in
taking the American from a Dutch ship and treating him as a criminal in
1780, the Americans were wrong in taking the Confederate envoys from
the British ship in 1861 and treating them as criminals.
[Illustration: William H. Seward.
_From a photograph._]
But that is by no means the end of the story of the _Trent_ affair. The
demand of Great Britain was officially communicated to Secretary of
State Seward on December 19th. On December 26th Mr. Seward delivered to
Lord Lyons a reply reviewing the entire case. The important points of
this reply are as follows:
The American government did not authorize the act of Captain Wilkes
and knew nothing about it until Captain Wilkes arrived and reported
it. Captain Wilkes believed that what he had done was “a simple legal
and customary belligerent proceeding to arrest and capture a neutral
vessel engaged in carrying contraband of war for the use and benefit
of the insurgents.” The “four persons taken from the _Trent_ by
Captain Wilkes, and their despatches, were contraband of war.” If the
envoys were contraband, Captain Wilkes had a right, under the law of
nations, to capture the _Trent_, but _the contraband_ “_has a right
to a fair trial of the accusation against him_.” “The neutral state
that has taken him under its flag is bound to protect him, if he is
not contraband, and is therefore entitled to be satisfied upon that
important question.” Both the accused and the neutral state have a
right to demand “a tribunal and a trial.” In the _Trent_ case there was
neither tribunal nor trial. Captain Wilkes constituted himself captor,
judge, and executioner. A very great wrong had been done. For this
wrong “the British Government has a right to expect the same reparation
that we, as an independent State, should expect from Great Britain or
any other friendly nation in a similar case.” “The four persons in
question are now held in military custody at Fort Warren in the State
of Massachusetts. They will be cheerfully liberated.”
The comment of Commodore Joseph Smith on Seward’s letter sums it up
admirably. In a letter to Flag Officer Foote he says, “It is ingenious,
_gassy_, too long, but able.”
It is to be observed that the letter of Mr. Seward did not contain the
word regret nor any form of apology. It stated the case and argued it,
and admitted that an error--“simply an inadvertency,” on the part of a
naval officer--had been made, and agreed to deliver up the prisoners.
Whether the Secretary should have expressed regret when he admitted
the wrong, the reader can judge for himself. What Lord Russell thought
about this point is not told in the documents, but what he said was
that “Her Majesty’s Government have arrived at the conclusion that they
(the matters in Mr. Seward’s letter) constitute the reparation which
Her Majesty and the British nation had a right to expect.”
Then, in another letter, he controverted Mr. Seward’s statements that
the Confederate envoys made the _Trent_ a good prize that might have
been lawfully condemned. Of course no settlement of this question
was reached, but whether Lord Russell or Mr. Seward was right, may
be, perhaps, decided by the reader. At this writing there is trouble
between Spain and the people of Cuba. If a Cuban agent escaped from
Cuba to the United States and sailed from New York in an American liner
for England, would the government of the United States permit a Spanish
warship to carry the Yankee liner to Spain and there have her condemned
as a prize? As this question must be answered in the negative, it
is impossible to resist saying that in the _Trent_ case the British
government, instead of showing a spirit hostile toward the American
government, was, in spite of the time limit, forbearing.
No direct reference to the British threat of war has been made so far,
nor has the policy of adding to one’s enemies, when one is already
full of trouble, been mentioned. It was a question of right and wrong.
If, on sober second thought, the whole American people had concluded
that they were right, or if it had been manifest that it was necessary
for the life of the nation to keep those Confederates, no threat of
war and no attack from any nation would have taken them from Fort
Warren. It is an idle speculation; but most writers on this subject
are sure that if Mason and Slidell had not been liberated the British
would have declared war against us and so have set up the Confederate
States as an independent government. But if the writer hereof may be
allowed to express an opinion, he must say that, in spite of the seven
days’ limit, England was not quite ready to declare war. And it is by
no means certain that if she had done so, the combination would have
resulted as predicted. For the people of the United States were not in
their last ditch, nor were they friendless in the world.
If one other point in this controversy be considered, the patriotic
American can look upon the _Trent_ case with unmixed pleasure. From
1783 until 1861--for seventy-eight weary years the American government
had vainly striven with all the arts of diplomacy, and even with the
argument of open war, to get from Great Britain a disavowal of her
assumed right to search a neutral ship in time of war and take from
it any persons whom one of her naval officers might decide to be
British subjects--a renunciation of what the Prince Regent (afterward
George IV) proclaimed at the palace of Westminster, in 1813, as the
“_undoubted_ and _hitherto undisputed_ right of searching merchant
vessels in time of war, and the impressment of British seamen when
found therein.”
It was, indeed, not a very lively strife in the later years of this
period, for Great Britain had abstained from exercising her “undoubted
and hitherto undisputed right” as against American ships. But on
November 8, 1861, an American captain, being not well informed in the
causes of America’s fights for life and liberty, undertook the very act
that, when done by Great Britain, led to the War of 1812. He stopped a
neutral ship on the high seas and took from her men whom he declared
to be American citizens, and without any form of trial haled them away
to a condition that was in law, if not in fact, exactly the condition
of the impressed American seamen before the War of 1812. Great Britain
had often taken advantage of such an act; she had in more than 6,000
cases, of which we have official knowledge, benefited by such doings on
the part of her naval officers. But she had never suffered from such
an aggression as that until November 8, 1861. There is no recorded
act nor official utterance of the government of Great Britain during
the first seventy-eight years of the existence of the United States
that can be construed as a renunciation of the right of taking British
subjects from neutral ships in time of war; but when an American naval
captain took an American subject from a British ship the British Prime
Minister, with swift indignation, declared it “an act of violence which
was an affront to the British flag and _a violation of international
law_.” And that was not all. “The British Government could not
allow such an affront to the national honour to pass without full
reparation.” Indeed, the affront was so great that the British Minister
was to consent, for the purpose of consideration and negotiation, “to a
delay not exceeding seven days.”
The outrages perpetrated on American seamen in the old days have
never been avenged; but because the British were at last willing to
acknowledge in the most emphatic of official documents that the United
States waged a just war in 1812, they may be forgiven.