John Lothrop Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, October 18, 1861

Paris, October 18, 1861.

My Dearest Mother:  . . . I have not had an opportunity of seeing the emperor, as he is at Compiegne. I saw the Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Thouvenel, the other day, and had a long talk. So far as words go, he is satisfactory enough.

You are annoyed with the English press, nevertheless it is right to discriminate. The press is not the government, and the present English government has thus far given us no just cause of offense. Moreover, although we have many bitter haters in England, we have many warm friends. I sent you by the last steamer a speech of my friend Mr. Forster to his constituents. No man in England more thoroughly understands American politics than he does. There are few like him. . . .

Good-by, and God bless you, my dear mother.

Ever your affectionate son,

J. L. M

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 207

John Lothrop Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, September 5, 1861

Wharfside, Yorkshire,

September 5, 1861.

My Dearest Mother: I have but time to write you a brief note. When I get to Vienna I mean to be a good correspondent. Until that time I shall be very much hurried. My voyage was a singularly pleasant one — no bad weather, smooth seas, and fair winds, the whole way. We reached Liverpool in exactly eleven days. I was obliged to stop all Sunday in that not very fascinating city. I parted from Mackintosh that evening, who went to Tenby in Pembrokeshire, and from Mr. Blake, who was to stop a few days in Liverpool. I found by telegram that Mary and Lily were staying with Mr. Monckton Millies in Yorkshire, so I went there, after passing one day in London. I afterward dined with the Adamses.

I do not think there is any present intention here of interfering with our blockade, or any wish, which is the same thing, of going to war in order to establish the Southern Confederacy and get their cotton crop. I think they will try to rub on through next year, unless the cotton famine should be very great, and the consequent disturbances very alarming.

I passed one day at Fryston Hall, Milnes's beautiful place in Yorkshire, where I had a delightful meeting with Mary and Lily. I have not yet seen dear little Susie, who is at Cromer with her governess, and you may be sure that I missed the dear face of my precious Mary. I hope she is enjoying herself, and that you will be as fond of her as you used to be. It was too bad that we should have missed each other by a single day.

We have been spending two or three days since leaving Fryston with Mr. Forster, M. P. for Bradford, a gentleman whom you have often heard me speak of as the warmest and most intelligent friend that America possesses in England. It is very agreeable for me to combine business with pleasure in my visit to him. He was to answer Gregory, the champion of the South, and will do so when the question of Southern recognition comes up, and my conversations with him have been very satisfactory. He disbelieves in any attempt to break the blockade, provided it is efficient.

We go to-morrow to our friends the De Greys for a week's visit. Lord de Grey is a warm friend of the North. During that week I expect to run up to Scotland for a day's visit to Lord John Russell. We shall then go to London.

I shall write another little note very soon. God bless you and preserve your health, my dearest mother. Give my love to my father and to my little Mary, and to all the family great and small.

Ever your affectionate son,

J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 202-4

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw, June 17, 1863

Camp Brightwood, June 17, 1863.

I wonder whether I shall ever be able to repay Cousin John in any way for his many kindnesses and for the many pleasant days and evenings I have passed at Milton and Naushon. Do you know that after Chancellorsville he wrote that he had more than half a mind to come home at once to help raise a new army, and, if necessary, to take a musket himself.¹ Perhaps one of these days I may have a chance to do something to gratify him. I wonder whether my theories about self-culture, &c., would ever have been modified so much, whether I should ever have seen what a necessary failure they lead to, had it not been for this war: now I feel every day more and more that a man has no right to himself at all, that indeed he can do nothing useful unless he recognize this clearly: nothing has helped me to see this last truth more than watching Mr. Forbes, — I think he is one of the most unselfish workers I ever knew of: it is painful here to see how sadly personal motives interfere with most of our officers' usefulness. After the war, how much there will be to do, —  and how little opportunity a fellow in the field has to prepare himself for the sort of doing that will be required: it makes me quite sad sometimes; but then I think of Cousin John and remember how much he always manages to do in every direction without any previous preparation, simply by pitching in honestly and entirely, — and I reflect that the great secret of doing, after all, is in seeing what is to be done. You know I’ll not be rash; but I wish I could feel as sure of doing my duty elsewhere as I am of doing it on the field of battle, — that is so little part of an officer's and patriot's duty now.

We are still at our old camp, and with less prospect of an immediate move than there was three days ago. Did I tell you poor Ruksh had been sent to a hospital in town, — to be turned out to pasture if he lives. I am going to town to pick out a Government horse to take his place as well as maybe.

_______________

¹ The subject of this letter's just praise was Mr. John Murray Forbes. He was not “Cousin John” to Lowell, but the bond of friendship and trust was so strong between the men that, as he was Miss Shaw's kinsman, Lowell liked to take advantage of the kinship, before his marriage should entitle him to it. Mr. Forbes was at this time in England, a private citizen sent by his government on a mission of vital importance. I copy from his Reminiscences, privately printed, the same story I have heard from his own lips: —

“All through the early months of 1863 the alarm in regard to the Laird ironclads had been increasing until, one Saturday morning in March, I received a telegram from Secretary Chase of the Treasury asking me to meet him the next morning, Sunday, in New York, where Secretary Welles of the Navy would also be. I was half ill, but could not refuse, and so met the two Secretaries and W. H. Aspinwall at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, as requested. They wished Aspinwall and me to go at once to England, and see what could be done in the way of selling United States bonds, and stopping the outfit of Confederate cruisers, and especially ironclads. We agreed to go, and we were asked to draw our own instructions, which we did, making them very general in their terms, the main features being a very wide discretion and the unrestricted use of ten million of 5-20s then just being prepared for issue to the public on this side, but not yet countersigned. It was thought necessary that I should embark by the Cunard steamer of Wednesday from Boston, and that Aspinwall should follow with the bonds in a week. I returned home that night, packed up my baggage, left my business, and started, as arranged on Wednesday, the 18th of March.  . . . Aspinwall agreed to bring one of his old steamship captains as an expert, to help us in our examination of the British shipyards, then reported to be swarming with the outfitting Rebel cruisers.” Mr. Forbes went to the Barings “and suggested, as a first want, that they should put at my disposal £500,000, for which they were to have perhaps $4,000,000 of 5-20S as security.” This required consideration. Mr. Joshua Bates, of the firm, “was the best of Americans, and he was always for the strongest measures. His consultation with Mr. Baring resulted in their handing me a bank-book with £500,000 at my credit, subject to cash draft; and so, when Aspinwall arrived, a week later, our finances were all right, and he deposited the 5-20S in Baring's vaults, part as security for the money, and the rest subject to our orders.” Mr. Forbes used every effort to show the English where “their sympathy was due, and that, as neutral, it was their duty to stop the sailing of the ironclads known to be built for the Confederacy.” The Society of Friends and the Peace Society were friendly, but cold; and, bad as things were, he wrote, “Bright, Cobden, W. E. Forster, the Duke of Argyle, and a few others were with us heartily and took bold ground in our cause; but, generally speaking, the aristocracy and the trading classes were solid against us. Gladstone . . . had not found out the merits of our cause, and Lord John Russell, called a liberal member of the Cabinet, was with official insolence sneering, even in a public speech, at what he called ‘the once United States.’” Mr. Forbes worked hard to quicken the sympathies of the Society of Friends. His coming was welcomed by our brave minister, Charles Francis Adams, whose task had become indeed anxious and heavy. The work of selling the 5-20s in England and on the Continent was pushed, the purchase of the most threatening ironclads, which had been contemplated, proved impracticable. Then Mr. Adams took the final step. On the 5th of September he wrote to Lord Russell: “At this moment, when one of the ironclad vessels is on the point of departure from this kingdom on a hostile errand against the United States, it would be superfluous for me to point out to your lordship that this is war.”

The answer (Sept. 8) was: “Instructions have been issued which will prevent the departure of these two ironclad vessels from Liverpool.”

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 258-60, 424-6

William E. Forster to John Lothrop Motley, March 30, 1861

Burnley, near Otley,

March 30, 1861.

My Dear Mr. Motley: I am very much obliged to you for both your letters, and can assure you that they, especially the longer one, will be of the greatest service to me if I take part in the debate on the 16th prox.

As I go up to London next Friday, and as I hope to see you and talk the matter over fully between then and the 16th, I will do little more now than thank you.

So far as I can judge from the newspapers, the chances of avoiding war increase. It seems to me Lincoln's policy is shaping itself into first attempting, by refraining from hostile measures, by keeping the door for return open on the one hand, and by making their exclusion on the other as uncomfortable as possible, to get the seceding States back; and, secondly, should this turn out to be impossible, to let them go peaceably, straining every nerve to keep the border States. My great fear still is, lest the Republicans should, in order to keep the border States, compromise principle; but as yet they have stood as firm as one can reasonably expect.

You must excuse my saying that I do not agree with you that supposing the Union patched up again, or the border slave States left with the North, you will even then get rid of the negro question. So long as the free States remain in union with slave States, that question will every day press more and more urgently for solution. Such union will be impossible without a fugitive-slave law, and any fugitive-slave law will become every day more and more impossible to execute; and, again, slave-holding in one State, with freedom of speech and pen in the next State, will become more and more untenable. I do not doubt, however, that the question will, in case of the border States being left by themselves with the North, be solved by their freeing themselves before long from their slave population, partly by sale and partly by emancipation. Did I not think so, I would wish them to join the South.

As it is, however, unless the North degrades and enslaves itself by concession of principle, the cause of freedom must gain by present events, either in case of the cotton States returning, as they would have to do on Northern terms, or in case of their going on by themselves, when they will be far less powerful for harm than they were while backed by the whole strength of the North. I am therefore most anxious that our government should not, as yet, recognize the South, not only because I think a premature recognition would be an interference in your affairs, and an interference most unjust and unfriendly to the old Union, our ally, but because I think it would strengthen the South, and so either tend to harden her against concession to the North, or give her a fairer chance, and therefore more power for evil, in a separate start. Such recognition would also, I fear, do harm by making it less unlikely for the seceding States to join the South. I thought I ought to write this much in order to show you why I feel so interested in this matter; but the best mode of meeting the debate in the House must be left for consideration nearer the time, when I hope to see you.

Yours most faithfully,

W. E. FORSTER

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 121-3