What Would He Say Of An English Statesman Who
Should Speak Of Putting Up The Union Jack On The State House In
Boston?
Such words tell for the moment on the hearers, and help to
gain some slight popularity; but they tell for more than a moment
on those who read them and remember them.
And then came the capture of Messrs. Slidell and Mason. I was at
Boston when those men were taken out of the "Trent" by the "San
Jacinto," and brought to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. Captain
Wilkes was the officer who had made the capture, and he immediately
was recognized as a hero. He was invited to banquets and feted.
Speeches were made to him as speeches are commonly made to high
officers who come home, after many perils, victorious from the
wars. His health was drunk with great applause, and thanks were
voted to him by one of the Houses of Congress. It was said that a
sword was to be given to him, but I do not think that the gift was
consummated. Should it not have been a policeman's truncheon? Had
he at the best done any thing beyond a policeman's work? Of
Captain Wilkes no one would complain for doing policeman's duty.
If his country were satisfied with the manner in which he did it,
England, if she quarreled at all, would not quarrel with him. It
may now and again become the duty of a brave officer to do work of
so low a caliber. It is a pity that an ambitious sailor should
find himself told off for so mean a task, but the world would know
that it is not his fault. No one could blame Captain Wilkes for
acting policeman on the seas. But who ever before heard of giving
a man glory for achievements so little glorious? How Captain
Wilkes must have blushed when those speeches were made to him, when
that talk about the sword came up, when the thanks arrived to him
from Congress! An officer receives his country's thanks when he
has been in great peril, and has borne himself gallantly through
his danger; when he has endured the brunt of war, and come through
it with victory; when he has exposed himself on behalf of his
country and singed his epaulets with an enemy's fire. Captain
Wilkes tapped a merchantman on the shoulder in the high seas, and
told him that his passengers were wanted. In doing this he showed
no lack of spirit, for it might be his duty; but where was his
spirit when he submitted to be thanked for such work?
And then there arose a clamor of justification among the lawyers;
judges and ex-judges flew to Wheaton, Phillimore, and Lord Stowell.
Before twenty-four hours were over, every man and every woman in
Boston were armed with precedents. Then there was the burning of
the "Caroline." England had improperly burned the "Caroline" on
Lake Erie, or rather in one of the American ports on Lake Erie, and
had then begged pardon. If the States had been wrong, they would
beg pardon; but whether wrong or right, they would not give up
Slidell and Mason. But the lawyers soon waxed stronger. The men
were manifestly ambassadors, and as such contraband of war. Wilkes
was quite right, only he should have seized the vessel also. He
was quite right, for though Slidell and Mason might not be
ambassadors, they were undoubtedly carrying dispatches. In a few
hours there began to be a doubt whether the men could be
ambassadors, because if called ambassadors, then the power that
sent the embassy must be presumed to be recognized. That Captain
Wilkes had taken no dispatches, was true; but the captain suggested
a way out of this difficulty by declaring that he had regarded the
two men themselves as an incarnated embodiment of dispatches. At
any rate, they were clearly contraband of war. They were going to
do an injury to the North. It was pretty to hear the charming
women of Boston, as they became learned in the law of nations:
"Wheaton is quite clear about it," one young girl said to me. It
was the first I had ever heard of Wheaton, and so far was obliged
to knock under. All the world, ladies and lawyers, expressed the
utmost confidence in the justice of the seizure; but it was clear
that all the world was in a state of the profoundest nervous
anxiety on the subject. To me it seemed to be the most suicidal
act that any party in a life-and-death struggle ever committed.
All Americans on both sides had felt, from the beginning of the
war, that any assistance given by England to one or the other would
turn the scale. The government of Mr. Lincoln must have learned by
this time that England was at least true in her neutrality; that no
desire for cotton would compel her to give aid to the South as long
as she herself was not ill treated by the North. But it seemed as
though Mr. Seward, the President's Prime Minister, had no better
work on hand than that of showing in every way his indifference as
to courtesy with England. Insults offered to England would, he
seemed to think, strengthen his hands. He would let England know
that he did not care for her. When our minister, Lord Lyons,
appealed to him regarding the suspension of the habeas corpus, Mr.
Seward not only answered him with insolence, but instantly
published his answer in the papers. He instituted a system of
passports, especially constructed so as to incommode Englishmen
proceeding from the States across the Atlantic. He resolved to
make every Englishman in America feel himself in some way punished,
because England had not assisted the North. And now came the
arrest of Slidell and Mason out of an English mail steamer, and Mr.
Seward took care to let it be understood that, happen what might,
those two men should not be given up.
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