Abraham Hayward to Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bart., September 19, 1862

The Palace, Corfu,

Sept-19, 1862.

MY DEAR LEWIS,

I am here with Storks. The Ionians are now quiet, and only mutter discontent enough to keep up the steam. Not so the Greeks of actual Greece. Scarlett¹ told me they were ripe for a revolution, when their spirits were suddenly damped by Garibaldi’s failure. They dream of founding a Greek empire on the ruins of the Turkish, and have not industry or enterprise to make a railroad from the Piraeus, or a good road of any sort. The Acropolis is the most glorious of ruins, far, far beyond the Coliseum or anything in Rome. The modern Athens is a second-rate English watering-place.

At Constantinople I lived with the Bulwers,² and saw everything to the best advantage. All without in the way of view is splendid; all (or almost all) within is mean, tawdry, and dirty. Our loans and efforts to set up Turkish finance were the subject of ridicule to all. What signify the resources of a country, when indolence and corruption reign th[r]oughout? I rode round the Whole city outside the walls: not a sign of cultivation, dry plains and mountains covered with forests of tombs. Some individual Turks are men of talent and knowledge, but the Sultan is as absolute as at any period. His lightest caprice is law, and he must have some expensive caprices, for he spends on his establishments and himself two-and-a-half millions sterling a year.

I was very much struck with the Grand Vizier and Foreign Secretary, Fuad Pasha and Aali Pasha, who dined with us one day, and who drank wine, and talked (in perfect French) like cultivated Europeans. Fuad had a great deal of Palmerstonian fun, and came out capitally on the subject of marriage. The Sultanas’ reading is confined to French novels, and their morals must be odd. I do not know whether they are flung into the Bosphorus, but some of them do their best to merit it. One of them told Lady Bulwer she should take La Dame aux Camélias for her model, and on Lady Bulwer shaking her head, exclaimed, Quoi, elle non bonne femme?

Bulwer managed the Servian business with great ability, and does well a great deal of work. I do not believe a syllable of the stories that have reached England concerning him. He and his wife are on the best possible understanding — like Lord and Lady Palmerston, or you and Lady Theresa.

At Vienna I had also a long interview with Count Rechberg³ (Foreign Sec.), he expounded his views on all subjects, from Garibaldi to free trade. He struck me as a clear-headed man, with broad and just views. I also passed a day with the Motleys at their villa, and found him more unreasonable than ever, vowing that the restoration of the Union in its entirety was “as sure as the sun in Heaven.” On my way down the Danube I was in the thick of Wallachian and Moldavian Counts and Countesses returning from the German baths: most amusing companions, and very sociable. I was the only Englishman, and the conversation was a mixture of German, French, and Italian, to say nothing of Danubian and other dialects. I also struck up a friendship with a young and good-looking Russian couple — Prince and Princess Bagratien, on their way to their Georgian principality. They are coming to England next spring and will make a sensation: for she is pretty, and not more that nineteen or twenty ; he, young and very gentlemanlike. I shall certainly bring them to Kent House.

Eber is here, having been stopped by Omar Pacha on his way to Belgrade. Storks sent a yacht for him to the Albanian coast, and he is now going on to Constantinople. Omar handsomely offered to let him go on receiving a pledge, that nothing published in the Times should be used to the detriment of Turkey.

This is a charming place as regards climate and scenery. I shall go to Ancona next week, and home through Milan and Turin. I hope to be in London about the end of October. With best regards to Lady Theresa,

Ever faithfully yours,

A. HAYWARD.

_______________

¹ The Hon. Peter Campbell Scarlett was British Minister at Florence.

² Sir Henry Bulwer, afterwards Lord Dalling, was British Ambassador at Constantinople.

³ Count Rechberg was head of the Austrian Government. As the friend of Madame de Bury, he received Mr. Hayward with great cordiality and frankness.

SOURCE: Henry E. Carlisle, Editor, A Selection from the Correspondence of Abraham Hayward from 1834 to 1884, Volume 2, p. 81-3

Francis Lieber to Senator Charles Sumner, June 11, 1864

New York, June 11,1864.

A passing thought. You, my dear Sumner, have read Mr. Seward's communication on the globe-encircling telegraph, no doubt with the same reflections and feelings in every respect with which I perused it, the globe by my side. Do you remember that an agreement existed between the United States and Great Britain, when the Atlantic Cable was laying, that the Sub-Atlantic Telegraph should be protected, even in case of war between the two powers? It struck me as a noble item in the history of the Law of Nations. Could not the United States, Great Britain, and Russia agree upon something of the kind regarding the Pan-spheric Telegraph, or however the encircling wire may be called? Of course the interruption of messages cannot be prevented; but the destruction of the telegraph might be placed beyond the war, as the Greek communities swore by all the gods never to cut off each other's water-pipes — their Croton aqueducts — even should they go to war with one another. I write this on the supposition that Congress will readily respond to Mr. Seward's letter. It would be noble to do such work in the midst of a vast civil war. How is the telegraph to be preserved those many thousand miles in distant and semi-barbarous countries? I suppose, pretty much as ours to California. “Go ahead and trust,” does a good deal in bringing about the desired state of things. . . .

SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 347

Francis Lieber to Senator Chares Sumner, April 10, 1863

New York, April 10,1863.

. . . I do not think that your remarks concerning foreign ministers having intercourse with the opposition apply to the case of Lord Lyons. Would or would not the premier of England have sent word to a monarch that his minister was no longer agreeable to his majesty, if this minister in London, a century ago, had held covert intercourse with Scottish sympathizers or adherents of the Stuarts? I believe that a minister must be very circumspect in his intercourse with the opposition, — as opposition, and in excited times. Depend upon it, Pitt would not have allowed a foreign minister to be closeted with Fox and Sheridan, discussing high politics of England, without making complaint. I give you an anecdote which will be interesting to the chairman of Foreign Affairs. President King tells me that when his father, Rufus King, was American Minister in London, he paid a visit to Paris after the Peace of Amiens, when Fox likewise went. Fox went to see Consul Bonaparte. The latter desired that King would have himself presented, or the chief officers of the consul told King that they would gladly present him. King, who was then engaged in making a treaty with England, declined, because he knew that Bonaparte was very disagreeable to George III., and he thought he had no right to do anything that could interfere with his relation to the British court or ministry. When he returned to England and went to court, George III. went up to him and said: “Mr. King, I am very much obliged to you; you have treated me like a gentleman, which is more than I can say of all my subjects.” I give the words exactly as President King gave them to me, and he says that he gave the words to me as exactly as he could remember them, the anecdote being in lively remembrance in the family. He thinks he can now repeat the very words in which his father told the affair immediately after his return from court, and that they are the ipsissima verba of George III.

My belief is that, had we to consider nothing but diplomatic propriety, Lord Lyons's case is one which not only would authorize the President, but ought to cause him to declare to the Queen of England that Lord Lyons “was no longer agreeable to the American Government.” This occurrence belongs to the large class of facts which show, and have shown for the last two hundred and fifty years, that monarchies always treat republics as incomplete governments, unless guns and bayonets and commercial advantages prevent them from doing so. You remember the Netherlands? Lord Palmerston would not have spoken of a puny kingkin as he did of us in the recent Alabama discussion. Do you believe that the course of England toward us at present would have been anything like what it has been, and continues to be, had we had a monarch, though there had been an Anne or a Louis XV, or a Philip on our throne? Unfortunately, I must add that it is a psychological phenomenon which is not restricted to monarchists. The insolence of the South would have presented itself as rank rebellion to the grossest mind, had we had a monarch, or a president for life. Man is a very coarse creature. I can never forget that I found in Crabbe's “Dictionary of Synonyms,” that “properly speaking rebellion cannot be committed in republics, because there is no monarch to rebel against.” What does my senator and publicist think of this? A girl, “not of an age at which any respectable millinery establishment would be intrusted to her,”as Lord Brougham expressed it, is a more striking name, figure, sign, to swear allegiance to, than a country, a constitution, and their history, or the great continuous society to which men belong, let them be ever so old or glorious. Five hundred years hence it may be somewhat different. For the present, it is true that, could you extinguish the whole royal family in England, but keep the nation ignorant of the fact, and rule England by a ministry and parliament in the name of Peter or John, Bull would be far warmer in his allegiance than he would prove to the State, or Old England, or Great Britain. Observe how degrading for our species the beggarly appointment of a king of Greece is, — a Danish collateral prince! Our race worships as yet the Daimio as much as the Japanese do. Though a perfect Roi fainéant, it is a Roi, — an entity, a thing, and therefore better than an idea, however noble,— gross creatures that we are! . . .

SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 331-3

A French Mistake

The French journals and people are considerably confused and amused with the classic and ancient names of our Western towns – our “Memphises” and “Cairos,” and “Athenses” and Corinths.”  They have been having a small revolution in Greece, and a few days since a provincial journal published in the following lucid paragraph, headed: “The latest news from Greece.”  “At the moment of going to press we have received a telegraphic dispatch announcing that a battle took place at Corinth, and that the rebels had been crushed” and then adds the sapient journalist, “Thus, it may be hoped, is terminated the insurrection which for a moment menaced the throne of King Otho.”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, May 19, 1862, p. 2

The year 1861 was unlucky to the crowned heads . . .

. . . as Napoleon truly observed in his New Year’s day speech.  Prussia buried a King, the effete Sultan of Turkey sank into the grave, the Emperor of China was struck down, Portugal lost a youthful and noble sovereign.  The future historian of 1861 will not, as we hope, esteem it beneath his dignity to include a line of obituary for the dusky sovereigns of Dahomey and Madagascar.  An assassin’s had strove to take the life of the New King of Prussia and a crack brained Athenian enthusiast made an attempt of a similar nature upon the Queen of Greece.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 8, 1862, p. 2

Foreign News

NEW YORK, March 25. – The China arrived up this p. m.

The China’s news is two days later than that brought by the Hermann.

The China’s News is unimportant.

The proposed amendment of the Liberals in the French Legislature to a paragraph in the address relative to America had been withdrawn.

Liverpool, 14 – Flour declined 6d.  Wheat dull–1@2 lower.  Corn declined 6d.  Beef steady.  Pork steady.  Lard active and steady.  Sugar Dull.  Coffee firm.  Rice firm.

London – Breadstuffs declining.  Sugar quiet and steady.  Tea firm.  Coffee firm.

American securities active and advancing.

LATEST. – Liverpool 15. – Breadstuffs dull and unchanged.

Provisions quiet and steady.  Bacon firm.

London 15. – Consols 93 5/8@93¾ money.  I. C. Shares 43½@42½ discount.  Erie 32@33.

In  Parliament Lord Goodman, in reply to Gregory, stated that no information had been received by Government as to the proposed increase duties on imports into the United States, consequent upon such duties being paid in specie.

The Times says the occasion presented by the recent victories for concluding peace – that the Federals have it now in their power to retire from this unnatural strife, with something like honor.

The Daily News argues that by simply refusing any sort of participation in the slavery question the Federal Government will practically doom slavery.

The London Times speculates on the difficulties of settlement and points out public debt, tariff, taxation, slave law, &c., as rocks ahead and looks for the day which is to give two republics.

France is reported to have urgently called upon Spain at once to put an end to misunderstanding between Spanish and French Commanders at Vera Cruz.

It is asserted that the Greek insurrection is gaining ground.  The Government has called out thirty thousand men to complete the army.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 29, 1862, p. 3

Foreign News

(CONCLUDED.)

The smith laborers in Liverpool were making demonstrations but had been promptly dispersed by the police.

The Opinion Nationale says that a reactive movement is being reorganized at Trieste.  They will embark simultaneously at several points on the Neapolitan territory.

Treiste, Feb. 27. – The garrison of Tripoly is following the example of the garrison at Nappa and revolted.

Aloina and Aurom are preparing to return to Greece.

The number of insurgents will soon be considerably increased.

The insurrection is considered important as it might influence an alarming state of things in Turkey.

The iron-plated frigate, Warrior has arrived at Plymouth and it is reported that there is no leakage as first reported.

London, Feb. 28. – The Paris correspondent of the times says that the excitement consequent upon Prince Napoleon’s speech is increasing.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 15, 1862, p. 3

Foreign News

PORTLAND, March 31.

The Jura from Liverpool, 20^th, and Londonderry the 21^st, arrived here at 6 p. m.

GREAT BRITAIN.

President Lincoln’s emancipation message had attracted much attention in England.

The Liverpool Post says there can be no doubt, it will have an incalculable effect in Europe, and that effect will be most favorable to the Northern cause.

A London paper in an editorial on the subject, says it is the most important news since the split.  The President’s avowed object is to recover to the Union the Border States.  The position is important, not for its intrinsic likelihood of acceptance, but simply because it is a proposition, and is the first bid made towards putting an end to the war.  The North may gradually rise in its offers until something acceptable has been put forth.  The only reply of the south to President Lincoln has been a resolution of the Confederate House of Representatives, to burn all the cotton and tobacco that may be in danger of falling into the hands of the invaders.  In every point of view the proposal of the president gives great scope for speculation and perhaps some glimpse of hope, but it is for what it may herald, and not for what it is.

Russell’s correspondence of the Times is again dated at Washington, and comes down to March 3d.  He says the weather has prevented Gen. McClellan from advancing.  He praises the constancy and tenacity of the Confederacy.  He says the Northern troops were getting weary of war and clamorous for furloughs.

Gibraltar advices of the 14^th, says the Federal vessels Tuscarora, John and [Kearsarge] were at Algiers.

The Lieutenant of the Sumter, and ex-U. S. Consul at Cadiz, who were arrested at Tangiers, were transferred from the John to the Harvest Home, bound for Boston.  It is said they were put in irons.

At a general meeting of the Atlantic Telegraphic Company held in London on the 19^th.  The directors report was adopted.  Hopeful views were entertained.

The Marine statistics show that in 5 months ending January 31^st, about 36 vessels from America for England laden with flour and grain, were lost.  The total cargoes exceeded 700,000 bushels.

FRANCE.

Additional troops were being sent to Mexico and a new brigade was to leave Toulon on the following week.

AUSTRIA.

Great precautions were being taken by the Vepitian frontiers.  The advance posts had been doubled and the garrisons augmented.  Troops had been posted along the line of the river Po.

GREECE.

All the cannon of the insurgents have fallen into the hands of the Royal troops.

A small garrison at Syria was captured and order restored at that place.

The insurgents at Nauplia asked for an amnesty and an armistice for 24 hours, which was granted.

ROME.

The Pope has been ill the past week.  His strength has been much prostrated and he has suspended his audiences.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, April 2, 1862, p. 1

Additional Foreign News

The unemployed laborers in Liverpool were making demonstrations, but had been peaceably dispersed by the police.

The Opinione Nationale says that a re-actionary movement is being prepared in Southern Italy for next spring.  Re-actionary bands are now being organized at Trieste, Malta and Rome.  They will disembark simultaneously at several points on the Neapolitan territory.

TRIESTE, Feb. 27. – The Garrison at Tripolitz, following the example of the garrison at Nauppa, has revolted.  It is believed that the insurrectionists at Nauppa will hold out.

Many Greeks now staying at Geneva, Leghorn and Ancona, are preparing to turn to Greece.  The number of insurgents will soon be considerably increased.  The insurrection is considered important, as it might influence a new state of things in Turkey.

The iron frigate Warrior has arrived at Plymouth.  It is reported that she steers well, and has no leakage.

The Herald asserts that Sir Robert Peel and Hon. Wm. Cowper were about exchanging offices.

LONDON, Feb. 28. – The Paris correspondent of the Times says that the excitement consequent upon [Prince] Napoleon’s speech is increasing.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, March 13, 1862, p. 2

Arrival of the Canada

HALIFAX, March 5.

The Canada arrived here to-day with Liverpool dates of the 22d, via Queenstown 23d.  The Bavaria and Africa had arrived out.

LIVERPOOL. – Breadstuffs dull. Provisions downward.  Consuls 93 1-4 for money.

Lord Palmerston, in the House of Lords said that negotiations relative to the San Juan affair had been suspended, in consequence of the civil war in America, but a joint provisional occupation of the island had been arranged by both governments.

The British Government has refused to produce any information relative to British vessels running the American blockade.

It is reported Slidell has had several interviews with all the French ministers, but they were, of course, of an unofficial nature.

The Grecian insurrection continues, but is confined to Nauplia.

Washington’s birth-day was patriotically celebrated in the Freemason’s tavern, London, the Bishop of Ohio presiding.  Minister Adams responded to the toast, “Memory of Washington.”

GREAT BRITIAN. – In the House of Commons on 20^th inst., Mr. O’Donoghue moved for a return of the British vessels, of their captains and owners, that have succeeded in running the American blockade; also for similar returns of British vessels captured or destroyed in the attempt to break the blockade and returns of the number of British vessels that have put into Nassau and other colonial ports, with contraband of war and supplies for the Confederate States and that have been permitted to refit and supply themselves at those places, in contravention of the Queen’s proclamation of neutrality.  He strongly censured the government for not having taken active steps to prevent breaches of neutrality by British ships.

My. Ledyard said that it would be scarcely convenient that he should inter into discussion of the blockade, which would come on more regularly when there was a solution of it, of which notice had been moved.  He must decline therefore to consent to the returns for two reasons.  In the first place government had not yet got the information sought for and in the second place if they had, it would not be their office to furnish a list of wrong doers and violators of the law.

The papers relative to the blockade would probably be laid on the table on the 24^th or 25^th inst., and would contain a statement of the number of vessels which had broken the blockade, and perhaps their tonnage, and he hoped the information would satisfy O’Donoghue.

The Solicitor General explained the misapprehension of O’Donoghue, and that private vessels might carry contraband of war, but at their own risk, and if detected they must abide the consequences.

In Parliament, Mr. McGuire called the attention of the House to the serious distress at present existing in Ireland.

Sir Robt. Peel in reply refuted his assertions, and in the course of his remarks said that no more remarkable proof of the absence of grievances existed that that which occurred the other day.  When there was danger of a rupture with America Ireland was full of American emissaries trying to raise up the spirit of disloyalty.

Manchester advices are favorable, the demand for goods and yarns being quiet with an upward tendency.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, March 6, 1862, p. 1