or to the Emperor, that if any mediation were at all admissible it would be his own that we should seek or accept.

On learning subsequently that the French Government were disposed to grant belligerent rights to the Confederate States, Mr. Seward wrote strongly to Mr. Dayton to the following effect :

It is erroneous, so far as foreign nations are concerned, to suppose that any war exists in the United States. Certainly there cannot be two belligerent powers where there is no war. There is here, as there has always been, one political power, namely, the United States of America, competent to make war and peace, and conduct commerce and alliances with all foreign nations. There is none other, either in fact, or recognized by foreign nations. There is, indeed, an armed sedition seeking to overthrow the Government, and the Government is employing military and naval forces to repress it. But these facts do not constitute a war presenting two belligerent powers, and modifying the national character, rights, and responsibilities, or the characters, rights, and responsibilities of foreign nations. It is true that insurrection may ripen into revolution, and that revolution, thus ripened, may extinguish a previously existing State, or divide it into one or more independent States, and that if such States continue their strife after such division, then there exists a state of war affecting the characters, rights, and duties of all parties concerned. But this only happens when the revolution has run its successful course. The French Government says, in the instruction which has been tendered to us, that certain facts which it assumes confer upon the insurgents of this country, in the eyes of foreign powers, all the appearance of a government de facto, wherefore, whatever may be its regrets, the French Government must consider the two contending parties as employing the forces at their disposal in conformity with the laws of war.

This statement assumes not only that the law of nations entitles any insurrectionary faction, when it establishes a de facto government, to be treated as a belligerent, but also that the fact of the attainment of this status is to be determined by the appearance of it in the eyes of foreign nations. If we should concede both of these positions, we should still insist that the existence of a de facto government, entitled to belligerent rights, is not established in the present case. We have already heard from most of the foreign nations. There are only two which seem so to construe appearances, and France is one of them. Are the judgments of these two to outweigh those of all other nations? Doubtless each nation may judge and act for itself, but it certainly cannot expect the United States to accept its decision upon a question vital to their national existence. The United States will not refine upon the question when and how new nations are born out of existing nations. They are well aware that the rights of the States involve their duties and their destinies, and they hold those rights to be absolute as against all foreign nations. These rights do not at all depend on the appearances which their condition may assume in the eyes of foreign nations, whether strangers, neutrals, friends, or even allies. The United States will maintain and defend their sovereignty throughout the bounds of the republic, and they deem all other nations bound to respect that sovereignty until, if ever, Providence shall consent that it shall be successfully overthrown. Any system of public law, or national morality, that conflicts with this would resolve society, first in this hemisphere and then in the other, into anarchy and chaos.

SPAIN.

In communicating the fact of the insurrection, Mr. Seward urged upon the American Minister to watch that the Spanish Government shall give no countenance to the so-called Confederated States. In July, 1861, Mr. Seward informed M. Tassara on the subject of certain vessels belonging to the citizens of the United States detained at the port of Cienfuegos, in the island of Cuba. It appears that a piratical steamer called Sumter, on the 6th July, entered that port with seven vessels belonging to citizens of the United States, which she had captured, with their officers, and also the officers and seamen of another such vessel, which she had captured and burned on the high seas. The Sumter was, on that occasion manned by a full complement of seamen, marines, officers, and firemen. She carried an armament of four or eight heavy guns; and thus manned and armed, the vessel was supplied with coal and water at Cienfuegos, and was allowed to depart on the same day to a destination unknown. Mr. Seward, therefore, instructed M. Tassara to demand the immediate release and discharge of the captured vessels and their cargoes. In consequence of this communication, M. Schurz, the American Minister, had a conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the subject, and that Minister made the following statement :

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Spain had followed, in relation to vessels coming from the ports of the so-called Southern Confederacy, the same rules of action which she had adopted in the case of vessels clearing from the ports of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies after the assumption of royal authority in that kingdom by King Victor Emmanuel. It was well known that Spain had not recognized the so-called kingdom of Italy, and that the consular agents of King Francis I. were still exercising their functions in the Spanish ports. Nevertheless, Spain did not oblige the masters of vessels arriving in Spanish ports from the ports of the kingdom of Naples to submit to the authority of the consuls of Francis I., but permitted them to address themselves either to these or to the consular officers of King Victor Emmanuel, as they saw fit. But this permission given to vessels coming from the Neapolitan ports to transact their business with the consuls of Victor Emmanuel was by no means intended to imply a recognition of the Italian kingdom; for Spain recognized in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies no other authority as lawful and legitimate than that of King Francis I.

In like manner, it was permitted to vessels coming from the ports now under the control of the so-called Confederate States, upon their arrival in Spanish ports, to address themselves to the consular authorities of the United States, if they saw fit to do so; but, as in the case of vessels coming from Neapolitan ports, Spain did not think proper to oblige them to do so. This practice, however, was by no means intended to imply, in any manner, a recognition of the so-called Confederated States as an independent nation. But in the case of these vessels the action of Spain was still more justifiable than in the case of the Neapolitan vessels. The Government of the United States was, with its naval forces, blockading the southern ports, and it was their business to see to it that no vessels should escape from the ports thus guarded. It could not be expected of Spain to supply the deficiencies of the maritime police of the United States, nor was it reasonable to expect that she should turn away from her ports vessels engaged in ordinary peaceful commerce, and which had not been able to

obtain regular papers even if they had wanted to do so. Nor could Spain oblige such vessels by force to submit to the authority of the consular officers of the United States. Spain was acting solely with a view to the protection of her commercial interests, and nothing else.

ROME.

Mr. Seward wrote to Mr. King at Rome, asking him to urge upon the Government of his Holiness to exercise its influence in favour of peace; in answer Mr. Stockton, the successor of Mr. King, wrote that his eminence the Secretary of State said that the Catholics of the United States, as Catholics, as a church, would take no part in the matter; it would not be proper for them to do so. As citizens he had no doubt they would all feel a great concern at our internal dissensions. He added, you are aware that the Government of his Holiness concerns itself mainly in spiritual matters, but we are the supporters of law and order everywhere. He said he regarded the United States as a great and free country, and he hoped that Mr. King would be assured that the kind sentiments of our Government to the Holy See were appreciated and reciprocated.

RUSSIA.

On the 6th May, 1861, Mr. Seward sent a despatch to Mr. Clay to the following effect:-Nations, like individuals, have three prominent wants; first, freedom; secondly, prosperity; thirdly, friends. The United States early secured the two first objects by the exercise of courage and enterprise. But, although they have always practiced singular moderation, they nevertheless have been slow in winning friends. Russia presents an exceptional case. That power was an early, and it has always been a constant friend. This relationship between two nations, so remote and so unlike, has excited much surprise, but the explanation is obvious. Russia, like the United States, is an improving and expanding empire. Its track is eastward, while that of the United States is westward. The two nations, therefore, never come into rivalry or conflict. Each carries civilization to the new regions it enters, and each finds itself occasionally resisted by States jealous of its prosperity, or alarmed by its aggrandizement. Russia and the United States may remain good friends until each having made a circuit of half the globe in opposite directions, they shall meet and greet each other in the region where civilization first began, and where, after so many ages, it has become now lethargic and helpless. It will be your pleasing duty to confirm and strengthen these traditional relations of amity and friendship. Assure his Imperial Majesty that the President and the people of the United States have observed with admiration and sympathy the great and humane efforts he has so recently made for the material and moral improvement of his empire by the extension of telegraphs and railroads, and by removing the disabilities of slavery. Make it your duty to inquire whether the sluggish course of commerce between the two nations cannot be quickened, and its volume increased. Russia is capable of receiving cotton and tobacco from us in much larger quantities than we now send. The former is not a staple of that country, and although it prodnces tobacco, yet not of so high a quality as that which we sent abroad, and of which Russia consumes more than any other nation. We can well receive from that country increased quantities of hemp and flax, tallow, and other productions in exchange. Russia is liberal to our inventors, engineers, and machinists; but vicious

adventurers too often abuse this generous encouragement by fraudulent practices. See if you can devise a plan for correcting this evil. I suggest that it might be done by effecting free interchange of newspapers and scientific journals. A Russian landing at New York can cross this western continent without once being required to exhibit a passport. Why will not Russia extend the same hospitality to us, and enable the American citizen, when he debarks at Revel, to cross the eastern continent in like manner unquestioned. The American abroad is not more than the Russian a propagandist, and while Russia pursues the general policy of the present reign it can have nothing to fear from American influences.

Mr. Seward then detailed the circumstances of the revolution and the unhappy effects it would have should it succeed. On the receipt of this despatch, Mr. Appleton had an interview with Prince Gortchacow, when he said that the question of recognizing the Confederated States was not then before the Emperor, and for the present he did not think it would be. On the 10th July Prince Gortchacow sent to Mr. de Stoeckl the following despatch :

From the beginning of the conflict which divides the United States of America you have been desired to make known to the Federal Government the deep interest with which our august master was observing the development of a crisis which puts in question the prosperity and even the existence of the Union.

The Emperor profoundly regrets to see that the hope of a peaceful solution is not realized, and that American citizens, already in arms against each other, are ready to let loose upon their country the most formidable of the scourges of political society-a civil war.

For the more than eighty years that it has existed, the American Union owes its independence, its towering rise, and its progress, to the concord of its members, consecrated, under the auspices of its illustrious founder, by institutions which have been able to reconcile union with liberty. This union has been fruitful. It has exhibited to the world the spectacle of a prosperity without example in the annals of history.

It would be deplorable that, after so conclusive an experience, the United States should be hurried into a breach of the solemn compact which, up to this time, has made their power.

In spite of the diversity of their constitutions and of their interests, and perhaps, even because of this diversity, Providence seems to urge them to draw closer the traditional bond which is the basis and the very condition of their political existence. In any event, the sacrifices which they might impose upon themselves to maintain it are beyond comparison with those which dissolution would bring after it. United, they perfect themselves; isolated, they are paralyzed.

The struggle which unhappily has just arisen can neither be indefinitely prolonged nor lead to the total destruction of one of the parties. Sooner or later it will be necessary to come to some settlement, whatsoever it may be, which may cause the divergent interests now actually in conflict to

co-exist.

The American nation would then give a proof of high political wisdom in seeking in common such a settlement before a useless effusion of blood, a barren squandering of strength and of public riches, and acts of violence and reciprocal reprisals shall have come to deepen an abyss between the two parties to the confederation, to end definitely in their mutual exhaus

tion, and in the ruin, perhaps irreparable, of their commercial and political power.

Our august master cannot resign himself to admit such deplorable anticipations. His Imperial Majesty still places his confidence in that practical good sense of the citizens of the Union, who appreciate so judiciously their true interests. His Majesty is happy to believe that the members of the Federal Government and the influential men of the two parties will seize all occasions, and will unite all their efforts to calm the effervescence of the passions. There are no interests so divergent that it may not be possible to reconcile them by labouring to that end with zeal and perseverance in a spirit of justice and moderation.

If, within the limits of your friendly relations, your language and your councils may contribute to this result, you will respond, sir, to the intentions of his Majesty the Emperor in devoting to this the personal influence which you may have been able to acquire during your long residence at Washington, and the consideration which belongs to your character as the representative of a sovereign animated by the most friendly sentiments towards the American Union. This Union is not simply, in our eyes, an element essential to the universal political equilibrium. It constitutes, besides, a nation to which our august master and all Russia have pledged the most friendly interest; for the two countries placed at the extremities of the two worlds, both in the ascending period of their development, appear called to a natural community of interests and of sympathies, of which they have already given mutual proofs to each other.

I do not wish here to approach any of the questions which divide the United States. We are not called upon to express ourselves in this contest. The preceding considerations have no other object than to attest the lively solicitude of the Emperor in presence of the dangers which menace the American Union, and the sincere wishes which his Majesty entertains for the maintenance of that great work, so laboriously raised, which appeared so rich in its future.

It is in this sense, sir, that I desire you to express yourself, as well to the members of the general Government as to influential persons whom you may meet, giving them the assurance that in every event the American nation may count upon the most cordial sympathy on the part of our august master during the important crisis which it is passing through at present.

Receive, sir, the expression of my very distinguished consideration. GORTCHACOW.

DENMARK.

On the 1st May, 1861, Mr. Seward wrote to Mr. Wood, the American Minister in Copenhagen, on the subject of the insurrection, and proposing to adhere to the declaration of the Congress of Paris. In answer to this, Mr. Wood wrote that Mr. Hall readily acceded to the doctrine of the Paris convention in regard to privateering, though it was reluctant, in the present state of European affairs, to adopt the demands of Mr. Marcy.

ITALY.

In his communication to Mr. Marsh, at Turin, Mr. Seward said :-The American revolution of 1776, with its benignant results, was due to the happy combination of three effective political ideas: First, that of emanci