The reply of Earl Russell to Mr. Seward’s dispatch on the Trent affair, at the time of the rendition of Mason and Slidell, is published. It is quite long, and mostly taken up in noticing and replying to Mr. Seward’s hypothetical argument on the point whether the rebel ambassadors were contraband of war and as such liable to capture. Earl Russell argues that they were not and quotes largely from English authorities to prove the correctness of his position. He affirms that they were not contraband, both because they were public agents, and the voyage during which they were captured was strictly neutral. He also maintains, that although the rebel government has not been recognized its diplomatic agents were entitled to the same treatment and privileges as the regular ministers of organized governments whose agents are not officially recognized. As Mr. Seward only argued the case hypothetically, and as a deduction from the dicta of English jurists, it would seem that Earl Russell has been to the trouble of arguing down a principle which the United States has never asserted, but on the other hand has always maintained quite the contrary, and what Earl Russell now announces as the British doctrine. Henceforth both sides ought to be satisfied, and if both will live up to their principles, there will be but little danger of a collision. The other parts of Mr. Seward’s letter are touched on but lightly, with the exception of the assertion that the United States would have held on to Mason and Slidell if the safety of the Union had required it. Earl Russell calls this a “singular passage,” and informs Mr. Seward that Great Britain could not have submitted to the perpetration of such a wrong however flourishing might have been the insurrection in the South, and however important the captured persons might have been.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 22, 1862, p. 2
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