Our advices from Charleston show progress, though slow. The
monitors perform well their part. Few casualties have occurred. We hear of a
sad one to-day however, in the death of George Rodgers,1 one of the
noblest spirits in the service. It is sad that among so many he, who has
perhaps no superior in the best qualities of the man, the sailor, and the
officer, should have been the victim. The President called on me in some
anxiety this morning, and was relieved when he learned it was not John Rodgers
of Atlantic fame. But without disparagement to bold John, no braver, purer
spirit than gallant, generous, Christian George could have been sacrificed, and
I so said to the President.
Am annoyed and vexed by a letter from Seward in relation to
the Mont Blanc. As usual, he has been meddlesome and has inconsiderately, I
ought to say heedlessly and unwittingly, done a silly thing. Finding himself in
difficulty, he tries to shift his errors on to the Navy Department. He assumes
to talk wise without knowledge and to exercise authority without power.
The history of this case exemplifies the management of Mr.
Seward. Collins in the captured the Mont Blanc on her way to Port Royal. The
capture took place near Sand Key, a shoal or spit of land over which the
English claim jurisdiction. I question their right to assume that these shoals,
or Cays, belong to England, and that her jurisdiction extends a marine league
from each, most of them being uninhabited, barren spots lying off our coast and
used to annoy and injure us. I suggested the propriety of denying, or refusing
to recognize, the British claim or title to the uninhabited spots; that the
opportunity should not pass unimproved to bring the subject to an issue. But
Mr. Seward flinched before Lord Lyons, and alarmed the President by representing
that I raised new issues, and without investigating the merits of the case of
the Mont Blanc, which was in the courts, he hastened to concede to the English
not only jurisdiction, but an apology and damages. It was one of those cases
alluded to by Sir Vernon Harcourt, when he admonished his government that “the
fear was not that Americans would yield too little, but that England would take
too much.” Seward yielded everything, — so much as to embarrass Lord Lyons, who
anticipated no such humiliation and concession on our part, and therefore asked
time. The subject hung along without being disposed of. Seward, being
occasionally pushed by Lord Lyons, would come to me. I therefore wrote him on
the 31st of July a letter which drew from him a singular communication of the
4th inst., to which I have prepared a reply that will be likely to remain
unanswered.
_______________
1 Commander George Washington Rodgers, who was killed in the
attack on Fort Wagner, August 17, 1863.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30,
1864, p. 415-7
