“I thank you for your speech on Maritime Rights, just
received, and which I have carefully read. All my
assertions that the Trent affair would not lead to war were
received here with incredulity, by the Government, by my
colleagues, by all parties. It was a bitter disappointment
to some of the English here, and I doubt not in England,
that this matter has been settled without war. The London
_Times_, while criticizing your speech and denying its
conclusions, writhes under it, and its arguments are
a severer rebuke to England than any philippics or
denunciations could be.”
William S. Thayer, Consul-General at Alexandria, wrote from his
post:--
“I lent Mr. Buckle[121] the _Intelligencer_ with your
speech on the Trent affair, some points of which received
his emphatic indorsement.”
Hon. John Bigelow, Consul at Paris, and afterwards Minister
there, wrote from Paris:--
“It produced an excellent effect here, and still better in
England, if one may judge by the ill-humor in which it put
the _Times_. The impotent venom of that journal, under the
circumstances, was more complimentary than its praise could
have been.”
Henry Woods, the Parisian member of the American importing
house of Messrs. C. F. Hovey & Co., wrote from Paris:--
“I have to thank you for a copy of your very able speech
on the Trent affair, which has been very much read, and
in all quarters I hear it spoken of with admiration. It
is considered your greatest effort, and worthy of a great
occasion.”
Professor Charles D. Cleveland, author and Abolitionist, Consul
at Cardiff, Wales, wrote:--
“How my heart rejoices that the affair of the Trent is thus
amicably settled! but--and I _must_ say so--I have little
faith in the good feeling of the Government of England,
and the leading influences here, towards our country. How
indignant have I felt the last six weeks at the tone of
the leading papers towards our country! Nothing, hardly,
could exceed the bitterness of the _Times_, the _Post_, the
_Telegraph_, the _Saturday Review_, &c., &c. Even _Punch_
lent all his influence to the Rebels, and against us. The
very first number after the news of the Trent affair was
received had a full-length figure of Britannia standing
beside a cannon, with a match in her hand, looking across
the water, and underneath was written, ‘Waiting for an
Answer.’
“True, the religious public, or rather the Dissenters, have
shown right feelings; and I wrote letters of thanks to Dr.
Newman Hall and to Mr. Spurgeon for what they had done,
and received very kind answers; but very few of the Church
Establishment have shown right feelings.
“I was always the friend of England, and few have written
or spoken more in commendation of her; but I must in truth
say that my feelings have changed since I have been here.
England would rejoice to-day to see our country divided.
She sees our growing greatness, and envies and fears it.”
In close connection with letters from abroad is that of E.
Littell, founder and editor of the _Living Age_, close student
of the English press, and warmly attached to England, who wrote
from Boston:--
“Allow me to congratulate you upon the speech on the Trent
affair. ‘They of the contrary part,’ even, ‘cannot gainsay
it.’
“After feeling so deeply the almost unbroken attitude of
the London press as to be forced to think and say that I
must give up my love for England (which was a part of my
inmost heart), I have reverted to her again, pleading that
that press does not represent either her people or her
Government.”
Hon. Henry L. Dawes, the eminent Representative in Congress,
wrote:--
“I congratulate you on your great effort to-day. It was
worthy of you. I regret I could not hear it all. But I
shall have the greater pleasure in reading it.”
Hon. Hamilton Fish, afterwards Secretary of State, wrote from
New York:--
“_Exactly_ right; you have done justice to the question,
the country, its history, its policy, and its late action.
On such ground as you have placed the subject we stand
proudly before the world.…
“It should be circulated largely in England, among the
class who will read it. The British press will not publish
it in full, unless you can bring, through some of your
friends, an influence to bear. Cannot you do so?”
Hon. N. P. Talmadge, former Senator of the United States from
New York, wrote from Georgetown, District of Columbia:--
“I have just read with great pleasure your very able speech
in regard to Messrs. Mason and Slidell and the recent
affair of the Trent. Coming in support of the lucid and
able reply of Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons, it places the
matter before the American people and all Europe in a light
as clear as a sunbeam.
“It seems to me that England, in the excitement of the
moment, and with the sudden impulse of redressing a fancied
wrong, has not foreseen the inevitable result to which her
own action has brought her. She may attempt hereafter,
as occasion may require, to evade the consequences by
saying that the law officers of the crown decided that
the wrong consisted in not taking the Trent into port for
the adjudication of a Prize Court, and therefore that was
the only point involved. She will find, however, that not
only the United States, but France, and all Europe, will
hold her to the consequences which you have so clearly
demonstrated flow from her own action.
“Mr. Seward’s reply to Lord Lyons, and your speech, will
settle this whole question with the American people. If
their judgments are satisfied, they cheerfully acquiesce,
no matter how high their passions may have been wrought
against these Rebels, nor how strong their desire to
keep possession of them. I believe there is not a loyal
press that has not acquiesced in the decision of the
Administration. How proudly all this contrasts with the
predictions of Dr. Russell, the correspondent of the London
_Times_, that, if these men were given up, the Government
would be dissolved and destroyed by the mob! This will show
England that a British ministry have much more to fear from
her mobs than the Administration of this Government have to
fear from our people.”
Hon. Julius Rockwell, the Judge, and former Senator of the
United States, with lifelong experience, political and
judicial, wrote from Pittsfield, Massachusetts:--
“The public opinion, as far as I know it here, is in
accordance with the positions set forth in your speech,
and your speech will tend to illustrate and render it
more general. Still, some are unsatisfied, and there is
a general, I may say, almost universal, accession of
dissatisfaction with the conduct and character of England.
This feeling just now pervades our people, crops out in all
lectures, and in many sermons, and some prayers.”
Hon. Daniel Ullmann, prominent in the politics of New York, and
a General in the war, wrote from his head-quarters:--
“You will greatly oblige me by sending to my address a
pamphlet copy of your great speech on the ‘Trent affair.’ I
desire it in that form for preservation.”
Hon. James Duane Doty, Governor of Utah, and former
Representative in Congress, wrote from Salt Lake City:--
“Far, far from you, on the top of the Rocky Mountains, I
have just held communion with you by a perusal of your
able, eloquent, and conclusive speech on the Trent affair,
as reported in the _Herald_ of the 10th January, which
has just reached us. Surely no nation was ever put in a
more absurd position than you have placed England, and if
she is satisfied with the possession of the Rebels (whom,
I am glad to notice, you have not named), we ought to be
gratified; for it avoids a quarrel at an inconvenient time,
and allays public feeling, which was becoming much excited.
These two worthless Rebels could not have been put to a
better use.”
Hon. Wayne MacVeagh, afterwards Minister at Constantinople,
wrote from West Chester, Pennsylvania:--
“I cannot refrain from expressing to you the personal
obligation I feel for your last great speech. Its wise
candor and its steadfast adherence to the landmarks of
maritime freedom cannot fail to make a profound impression
upon the liberal minds of Europe; while disclaiming the
thought of her dishonor, you have lifted the Republic to
the heights of a beneficent victory.”
Hon. B. C. Clark, merchant, and Consul for Hayti, wrote from
Boston:--
“Your speech on the Mason and Slidell matter has won, most
justly, golden opinions from all sorts of people. The
affair has been put to rest, but simply on legal grounds.…
The Trent will tell more terribly upon England than the
ghost of Cæsar upon Brutus at Philippi.”
Hon. George T. Bigelow, Chief Justice of Massachusetts, wrote
from Boston:--
“I have read your speech on the Trent affair with very
great pleasure. It is an admirable exposition of the
doctrine which England has so long held on the subject of
neutral rights; and while it demonstrates that the act
of Captain Wilkes might have been justified on English
practice and precedents, it places in the most clear light
that it was inconsistent with the position which our
Government has always occupied on the subject of search and
seizure. The tone of the speech is so quiet and dignified,
that it will have the effect, I think, of a severe rebuke
on the hasty and unjustifiable conduct of the English
Cabinet in demanding a reparation and a surrender of the
captives with warlike menaces and preparations.
“The prevailing sentiment here, especially among those who
have not heretofore been inclined to speak your praise,
is one of commendation of your speech. I am rejoiced
that you have been able, while vindicating the course of
the Administration in making the surrender of Mason and
Slidell, to add so much to your reputation as a statesman.”
Hon. Theophilus Parsons, the eminent law-writer and
law-professor, wrote from Cambridge:--
“I have read and studied your speech, and am really
unwilling to repeat to you what I have said in commendation
of it to others.
“This question may be considered after the fashion of a
lawyer, or a politician, or a statesman.
“You have viewed it as a statesman, and, in my
understanding of the word, that includes the other two, and
elevates them both.
“The affair has given rise to no paper so entirely
satisfactory to me, nor to one calculated, in my judgment,
to be so truly and permanently useful.”
Hon. Emory Washburn, Professor at the Law School, and former
Governor of Massachusetts, wrote:--
“I cannot forbear expressing my satisfaction in reading
your speech in the Senate on the Trent affair. It seems
to me to place the matter on the true ground; and if the
English Government do not find, when they come to look
coolly at the matter, that in taking Mason and Slidell
they have caught two Tartars, I shall be greatly mistaken.
I think, moreover, you have spoken the sober, sound
thought of the country; and while they are indignant at
the inconsistent annoyance of the ministry and the press
of England, they feel that the course taken is not only
the wise and expedient one, but, on the whole, the most
consistent.”
Hon. John H. Clifford, former Attorney-General of
Massachusetts, and Governor, wrote from Boston:--
“I have read with unqualified approval and satisfaction
your admirable exposition of the interesting questions of
public law in your recent speech, growing out of the arrest
and rendition of the ‘two old men’ taken from the Trent. I
trust its treatment of the doctrine of Maritime Rights will
command on the other side of the water the respect to which
it is so justly entitled, and of which its reception by the
best minds at home gives a hopeful assurance.”
Hon. John C. Gray, a venerable and accomplished citizen, wrote
from Boston:--
“I return you my acknowledgments for your speech on the
Mason and Slidell affair. The more I have examined the
law,--and I regret that I did not do it earlier,--the more
I am satisfied that our civilians here were mistaken in
their first impressions.”