Fifty years in Wall Street
Liverpool and Manchester were, not unnaturally, sentimentally against
the North, because it was, under the necessities of war, preventing the
South from shipping its produce to England or importing British goods.
That feeling of irritability against the North would have disappeared at
any time with the resumption of trade with the South; and it did
disappear as soon as the war ended and the Southern ports were reopened
to commerce.
England’s American trade up to that time had been very much larger with
the South than with the North, for cotton was much more truly “king”
then than it is now; and, apart from grain and provisions, the export
trade of the North was very small in comparison with its present great
extent. Moreover, the wealth of the United States was small in
proportion, and our social relations with England and the rest of Europe
were not nearly as intimate and extensive as they have since become. We
have learned to know each other much better in the interval.
We had not then begun to export beauty and fashion, largely in the shape
of American heiresses, for the delight and enrichment of the aristocracy
of the Old World, and we could boast of no such colossal individual
fortunes as we can now.
When, however, the British Government did, on one occasion, consider the
question of recognition of the South and intervention in the war, it was
solely on the proposition of the French Emperor, Napoleon the Third, who
wanted to break up our Union in order to promote his scheme for planting
the Latin race in America, by establishing, under French protection, an
empire in Mexico, with Maximilian on the throne. But his proposition was
at once unanimously, emphatically and unconditionally rejected by the
British Cabinet.
We have this on the highest official authority, that of Mr. Gladstone
himself, who, in a letter to me dated May 30th, 1889, speaks thus
positively on the subject:
26 JAMES’S STREET, May 30, 1889.
DEAR SIR:
Having expressed my interest in the portions of your work which
I read on the day of its arrival, I think it would be less than
ingenuous if I did not, after reading what relates to the
Cabinet of Lord Palmerston, on page 56 and in the following
chapter, make some reference to it.
Allow me to assure you that, so far as that Cabinet is
concerned, you have been entirely misled in regard to matters of
fact. As a member of it, and now nearly its sole surviving
member, I can state that it never at any time dealt with the
subject of recognizing the Southern States in your great civil
war, excepting when it learned that proposition of the Emperor
Napoleon Third, and declined to entertain that proposition
without qualification, hesitation, delay, or dissent.
In the debate which took place on Mr. Roebuck’s proposal for the
negotiation, Lord Russell took no part, and could take none, as
he was a member of the House of Lords. I spoke for the Cabinet.
You will, I am sure, be glad to learn that there is no
foundation for a charge which, had it been true, might have
aided in keeping alive angry sentiments happily gone by. You
are, of course, at liberty to publish this letter.
I remain, dear sir, your very faithful servant,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
HENRY CLEWS, Esq.
In this letter it will be seen, Mr. Gladstone, the Grand Old Man, as
England called him, a member of the British Cabinet during Lord
Palmerston’s administration, which extended from 1859 to 1865, more than
covering the period of the war for the Union, assured me that the
Cabinet never at any time dealt with the subject of recognizing the
Southern States, except to decline to entertain the proposition of
France, and this “without qualification, hesitation, delay, or dissent.”
What could be more positive and emphatic than this? What more
unequivocal, explicit and direct? It is an unqualified statement that
the British Government had never during the war in any way considered
the question of recognizing the Southern Confederacy, except on that one
occasion, and England was the first nation to which the French proposal
was made. Had England joined France when Napoleon made his proposition,
which she was the first to reject, that conspirator against us would
have tried hard to help the South to succeed in disrupting the Union,
for the purpose of regaining possession of Louisiana, and capturing as
much additional territory as possible in order to annex it to the empire
he expected to found in Mexico. He wanted a weak neighbor. We were saved
from his machinations, and this great danger, by the resolute course of
the British Government; and Napoleon thereafter sowed the wind to reap
the whirlwind in Mexico. He consigned poor Maximilian to disaster and an
inglorious death, after his empire had fallen like a house of cards when
the French troops, that had bolstered up his throne, were withdrawn.
This positive testimony from so high and competent an authority as Mr.
Gladstone ought to be conclusive in effectually disproving the unfounded
“cock and bull” story that England, at one time, contemplated the
recognition of the Southern Confederacy, and that she was prevented from
moving in that direction, and led to reverse her policy, and prevent the
escape of the Confederate cruisers from Laird’s shipyard at Birkenhead,
by the arrival at New York of Russian war-ships.
The fact that a Russian squadron, commanded by Admiral S. Lessoffsky on
his flagship “Alexander Nevsky,” did come to New York late in September,
1863, and that its officers were very hospitably received and
entertained, is the peg on which this story is made to hang. I have good
reasons for saying the ships came here with no such object, nor with
“sealed orders” to take an active part in the war, if required. New York
was merely a port of call for them, and no doubt their officers were
glad to get here and be fêted, as they were. They also, it is safe to
assume, appreciated the courtesy of William H. Seward, the Secretary of
State, who afterwards told me that, when he heard of their arrival in
American waters, he invited them to accept the hospitalities of the port
of New York. He, of course, foresaw that their coming here would, or at
least might, have a good moral and political effect in our favor both at
home and abroad, by depressing the South and encouraging the North, and
causing any foreign Powers that might have been considering the
advisability of recognizing the Southern Confederacy to postpone action
under the impression that we had, or might have, Russia for an ally.
He was astute enough to see that this visit of the Russian squadron
might seem to be what it was not, particularly to foreign eyes.
Appearances, we all know, are often deceptive, yet they sometimes exert
great influence. The visit of this squadron was a case in point. It was
a splendid “bluff,” at a very critical period in our history. Its coming
was all the more desired by Mr. Seward because, on the 3d of February,
1863, he had received a despatch from the Emperor Napoleon offering to
mediate between the United States and the Southern Confederacy, to which
he replied three days later, absolutely rejecting the offer, in very
positive terms. After that, early in July, the battle of Gettysburg had
been fought, and Northern prospects had brightened very materially.
Nevertheless, the coincidence of an arrival, about the same time as the
Atlantic Squadron came, of more Russian war-ships at San Francisco,
under the command of Admiral Popoff, added to Secretary Seward’s
gratification; and, when the Russian officers of the Atlantic Squadron
went on to Washington, he kept up the festivities to which they had been
accustomed in New York by giving them a grand dinner. He was a fitting
host, as he had originally invited them to come here.
The Grand-Duke Alexis when he came to New York, with another Russian
squadron, under another Admiral, in 1871, practically verified, in reply
to my inquiries in conversation while I was acting as one of the Russian
Reception Committee, what Secretary Seward had previously intimated to
me—namely, that there was no foundation for the story that the Russian
squadron of 1863 had come here to help us in warfare, if needed. Mr.
Seward told me this very definitely on one occasion when I met him at
Washington. But that its officers enjoyed themselves here very much
socially was evident from their profuse expression of thanks, and
acknowledgment of obligations for the favors received, before they took
their departure, and also from the fact that when they got back to
Russia, they called in a body, with the Emperor’s approval, on Mr.
Cassius M. Clay, the American Minister at St. Petersburg, to return
thanks more formally for the courtesies and kindness of which they had
been the recipients here.
Now, it is clearly to be inferred that, if they had come here to serve
us at a grave crisis, by offering to take part in our war, they would
not have felt themselves under such obligations to us; on the contrary,
we should have been under very great obligations to them, which would
have called for public acknowledgment. Moreover, if the Russians had
come on any such mission as naval co-operation in actual war, if needed,
it would not only have been a matter of official record in both
countries, but it would have immediately become known, not alone to the
public here, but to the world. It would have been simply impossible to
keep the news from the press; and the Government at Washington would
have had no object; no good purpose to serve, in concealing such an
alliance, for alliance it would have been of great international
importance, and one which would have tended, still more than the
activity of our own navy, to show Europe and the South the hopelessness
of the South’s struggle with the North. Russia was friendly to the
United States, of course; but this friendship between the two countries
was very different from an offer, or a willingness, to help us by armed
intervention in our favor. Russia has never intimated that she had any
such intention; and, indeed, such intervention on her part would have
been folly, as her navy was then very small after the destruction of the
Crimean War, and would have been powerless against England or France.
The conclusion is, therefore, that the sympathy with Russia in its
present war with Japan, which many in the United States are endeavoring
to stimulate on the strength of this Munchausen story of proffered
war-ships, is based on a mere assumption. Just as in the case of one of
Dickens’s characters, “Mrs. Harris,” there was “no such person,” so in
the case of this visit of Russian cruisers, there was no such offer of
these by Russia to the United States, nor any evidence of any intention
to offer them by Russia. On the contrary, Prince Gortchakoff, the
Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, repeatedly said to our Minister at
St. Petersburg and in despatches to the Russian Minister at Washington,
that Russia greatly favored peace, and wished for its speedy return; but
would never take sides in the controversy between North and South.
Finally, as to England, we have the word of William Ewart Gladstone that
the British Government was not unfriendly to us throughout our Civil
War, inasmuch as it was absolutely and entirely opposed to the
recognition of the Southern Confederacy, and instantly and effectually
checkmated the French Emperor when he tried to make it swerve from its