The Fulfilment Of
That Obligation Must Be, However, As Your Lordship Cannot Fail To
Perceive At A Glance, The Essential And Paramount Condition Of The
Preservation Of The Compact.
Even were my Government to profess its
satisfaction with less, it must be apparent that by the very force of
circumstances peace could scarcely be expected to continue long in a
region where no adequate security should be afforded to the inhabitants
against mutual aggression and reprisal.
'Political agitation, terminating at times in civil strife, is shown by
experience to be incident to the lot of mankind, however combined in
society. Neither is an evil confined to any particular region or race.
It has happened heretofore in Canada, and what is now a scourge
afflicting the United States may be likely at some time or other to re-
visit her. In view of these very obvious possibilities, I am instructed
to submit to Her Majesty's Government the question whether it would not
be the part of wisdom to establish such a system of repression now as
might prove a rock of safety for the rapidly multiplying population of
both countries for all future time.
"'I pray, &c.,
"'(Signed) CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.'
"But the 'Alabama' correspondence was also going on, and a new Congress
had to sit in 1865. Was it then surprising that on the 17th March,
1865, notice to put an end to the treaty was given?
"But in July, 1865, a convention, already alluded to (see Mr. Bright's
letter), composed of delegates from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Cincinnati, St. Louis, Boston, Portland, and in fact from almost every
important town and district of the States north of Washington,
assembled at Detroit to consider the expiry of the treaty and the
question of its renewal.
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