Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, December 27, 1864

Mr. Seward sends me a letter from the British Chargé, stating her Majesty's desire to confer the Order of the Bath on Lieutenant Pearson¹ and desiring my opinions. I am opposed to the whole thing, and regret that our Minister should have pressed our naval officers to take any part in the fight with the Japanese. It appears to me to have been unnecessary to say the least, and this English compliment is designed to fasten us more closely with the allies against a people who have manifested more friendly feelings towards us than any Christian power. Mr. Thurlow Weed and Mr. Pruyn may be benefited. They have the money of the Japanese in their pockets.

At Cabinet to-day Seward, Fessenden, and Stanton were absent, the three most important of all who should be present at these meetings. The President was very pleasant over a bit of news in the Richmond papers, stating the fleet appeared off Fort Fisher, one gunboat got aground and was blown up. He thinks it is the powder vessel which has made a sensation. It will not surprise me if this is the fact. I have at no time had confidence in the expedient. But though the powder-boat may fail, I hope the expedition will not. It is to be regretted that Butler went with the expedition, for though possessed of ability as a civilian he has shown no very great military capacity for work like this. But he has Weitzel and if he will rely on him all may be well. I am apprehensive from what I have heard that too large a portion of the troops are black or colored, but fear there are too few of either kind, and no first-rate military officers to command and direct them. The Navy will, I think, do well. It is a new field for Porter, who has been amply supplied with men and boats.

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¹ Lieut. Frederick Pearson, who commanded the United States ship in the fight of Sept. 5-8, 1864, with the Japanese.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 209-10

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, November 30, 1864

Have just finished and sent my report to the printer. It is long and has been a wearisome and laborious business. To weigh conflicting claims and opinions, to make needed suggestions of reform and improvement, without exciting hostility or committing error, to do justice to merit, to avoid the commission or omission of acts which provoke controversy, to speak of one's own acts without egotism and yet without want of manly self-respect, to condense much in little space, to narrate briefly the deeds of our naval men, to encourage and stimulate them in well-doing, with a multitude of detail, make the preparing of an annual report in a time like this very laborious. The reports of the Chiefs of Bureaus and of naval officers are to be scanned with care; the various briefs and suggestions submitted have to be canvassed and weighed, and the views, whether adopted or rejected, to be criticized. To get this off my hands is a great relief. What censures and complaints and criticisms, just and unjust, may follow for the next few days and weeks do not trouble me. I am only now glad that the labor is off my hands, and I dismiss it from my mind. If its suggestions and recommendations shall elicit investigation, inquiry, or action, I, conscious of right intentions, shall try to be prepared in the premises.

There are some singular movements in regard to our relations with Japan and certain transactions connected with that people that cause me annoyance. Some two years ago, or more, our Minister or Commissioner to Japan notified the State Department or the Secretary of State that the Japanese government wanted two or three of our vessels, and had placed in his hands, or would place in the hands of such persons as he, the Minister, might select, $600,000 for the purpose. Mr. Pruyn, the Minister, accepted the trust and appointed his brother-in-law, Lansing, and Thurlow Weed to execute it. Mr. Seward addressed a note to me on the subject, submitting the letter. I advised that the government in no way should become involved in the affair, and gave offense to Weed, who, not friendly before, has intrigued against me ever since. My advice would have been the same, had any other person than Weed been named. Without regarding my suggestions, the work went on. One of the vessels is finished. I know not whether more than one has been commenced. A difference has grown up between Japan and the European powers, and, under the direction of Mr. Pruyn, our Minister, we have joined in the fight, become involved in an English and French war with Japan, although the Japanese have no quarrel with us. Now comes an inquiry to me from persons sent here by Weed, to know if the Navy Department will not examine, approve, and take this vessel, which has been built and been paid for. I am not pleased with the management or proposed arrangement. This whole proceeding on the American side had appeared to me a fraud and swindle to enrich Weed & Co. It is wicked to prostitute the government to such a private purpose, and to impose upon the Japanese, who have trusted us. I am opposed to having the Navy Department mixed up in any manner with this scheme, and have let the President know what I think of it and Seward also. Weed does not approach me on the subject. He has not been able to use the Navy Department as he wishes, and, like John P. Hale, is at enmity with me because I will not consent to be used in swindling operations. New York party politics are always more or less personal. Party organizations are considered convincing contrivances to be used by leading managers for their benefit.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 187-9

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, December 3, 1864

The President read his message at a special Cabinet-meeting to-day and general criticism took place. His own portion has been much improved. The briefs submitted by the several members were incorporated pretty much in their own words. One paragraph proposing an Amendment to the Constitution recognizing the Deity in that instrument met with no favorable response from any one member of the Cabinet. The President, before reading it, expressed his own doubts in regard to it, but it had been urged by certain religionists.

I should have been glad, and so stated, had there been a more earnest appeal to the Southern people and to the States respectively to return to duty. I would have said to the people that their States are part of the Union; that they were not to be considered, not to be treated, as outlaws; that, by returning to their allegiance, their persons and property should be respected; and I would have invited State action.

Mr. Seward spoke to me before the message was taken up, respecting the Japanese vessel. He said it was desirable we should take it. I inquired if it would not involve us in difficulty with Japan, and whether we were really acting in good faith. "Oh,” he said, "the money should be returned to them whenever they made a demand, but if they got such a vessel they would begin to play the pirate and raise the devil.”

The President seemed disinclined to interest himself in the matter, indicating, I thought, that Seward had settled the question with him, and that my objections would not be likely to prevail. Fessenden made one inquiry, and Dennison another, each of a general character but indicating a concurrence with me, and Seward made haste to turn off and introduce another topic.

Thurlow Weed and Lansing, the brother-in-law of Pruyn, are awaiting the action of the government. They have, and for two years have had, $800,000 in gold belonging to the Japanese in their hands, and it is an important question to them.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 190-1

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, December 5, 1864

Congress convened. A quorum present in each house, but the President did not send in his message. I had calls from many Members. All in good spirits and hopeful.

Mr. Seward sent for my perusal a draught of an executive order forbidding the Japanese vessel from leaving, and authorizing the Navy Department to purchase. I dislike this thing in every aspect, and am not disposed to be mixed up with it. Some weeks since application was made for a survey and appraisal of this vessel. This was ordered, as is usual in all cases, and without any connection with the government or the Japanese. The Board valued her at $392,000, and at this price we, under direction of the President at the solicitation of Seward, agreed to take her. These late government movements make it embarrassing. I declined to give any opinion or make any suggestion in regard to the executive order, but said orally to the clerk

that our offer was still considered as good, irrespective of other matters. Two hundred thousand dollars in gold would purchase this vessel; in paper currency she is appraised at $392,000. It is easy to perceive that Mr. Weed and Mr. Pruyn will realize a clever sum for their labors. They have had for one or two years the use of $800,000 in gold. This vessel has not cost them over $200,000 in gold. The government takes it at $392,000 and must pay that sum in gold to Japan. Who pockets the $192,000? It cannot be otherwise than that this subject will be inquired into. It ought to be.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 191-2

Senator Salmon P. Chase to Edward S. Hamlin,* July 21, 1854

Washington, July 21, 1854,.

My Dear Hamlin: It was good to see your handwriting again. You had been so long silent that I almost began to think you had forgotten me, and did not know where to address a letter to jog your remembrance.

I share your disappointment in regard to the outcome of the Columbus Convention,¹ and thousands upon thousands throughout the country partake it also. But then, the question is, Can anything better be done than make the best of that? One thing is clear, the Convention have made an issue with the Slave Power, and the people will not let the politicians shirk it hereafter. The determination to restore the Mo. Restriction and the declared opposition to New Slave States will make it impossible to avoid it. We shall thus have free access to the people and all we have to do is to urge our larger and sounder views, and get the intelligent assent of the masses to them. Starting from the Anti-slavery point I do not fear that the new party will not be ultimately essentially democratic. But should it be otherwise one thing is clear—the Old Line Democracy will go beyond it, whenever once whipped into its traces (?) in respect to consistency, in Anti-slavery declarations; and thus furnish to Antislavery democrats a party to their kind. It shall not be my fault if the new party does not become essentially democratic; and you must help me. The day may come when I shall have it in my power to prove my sincere appreciation of your merits; or you may, which I would greatly prefer, be placed by the appreciation of the people, in a position where you can confer easier than receive favors.

It is true as alleged by some that the Antislavery Resolution of the Old Line Democracy is more comprehensively antislavery than the People's Platform at Columbus, but, then it has been neutralized by the endorsement of the Baltimore Platform and nullified by the acts of the Party which put it forth in electing such a President as Pierce and such a Senator as Pugh² and in sustaining such Covenant Breakers as Douglas. There is a good hope that the People's Platform will be stuck to, and a little truth honestly received and lived up to, is better than a great deal of disregarded profession.

You see that I mean to go along with the Antislavery movement, in the phase which it has now assumed; keeping a watchful eye upon it that the strength which our votes give it be not abused.

We have confirmed the Japan Treaty. It is a great thing for our reputation to have made the first Treaty with that isolated Empire. Its provisions are important to our Pacific Commerce.

The Reciprocity Treaty is under discussion. I think it will be confirmed.

What do you think of Hunter's substitute for the Homestead bill? I voted for it finally, after the Senate had abandoned the House Homestead Bill, as the best bill there was any hope of securing at this session. Keep me advised me where to write you.

Yours faithfully,

[SALMON P. CHASE.]

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* From the Pierce-Sumner Papers.

¹ The first State Convention of the Anti-Nebraska men, July 13,1854. Cf. note in Schuckers's Chase, p. 165.

² George E. Pugh succeeded Chase as Senator from Ohio. Chase's term expired March 3,1855.

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 262-3

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, January 21, 1863

The furious storm of last night and to-day fills us with apprehensions for the two ironclads, Nahant and Weehawken. It is hoped they put in to the Breakwater. Wrote Seward, who makes inquiry respecting the construction of vessels for the Japanese, advising that the Government should have nothing to do with them, that Pruyn, the commissioner, ought not to commit or in any way implicate the Government.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 225

Emancipation of Slaves in the Dutch Colonies

By our last arrivals we have learned the final action of the Dutch Government in respect to the abolition of Slavery in its colonies.  No further importation of slaves is to be allowed at Japan and the neighboring islands. – Those already there are being nearly freed under progressive emancipation.  In the West Indies similar steps have been taken.  A Surinam paper says that all the slaves in the Dutch American possessions are to be free on the 1st of July 1863, on the following conditions:

1st.  An indemnity to be paid to the proprietors of each slave man, woman or child, of three hundred guilders, or about one hundred and twenty dollars United States money.

2d.  The slaves are to be subjected to a system of apprenticeship on the plantations for three years, and received for their labor a certain amount of wages; one-half of which is to be paid to the Government.

The Dutch possessions in America are Guinea, St. Eustatius, Curacoa, St. Martin and Saba.

Guinea contains a free population of fifteen thousand souls and thirty seven thousand five hundred blacks.  St. Eustatius, a Leeward island, has five thousand whites and twenty thousand blacks, and has been in the undisturbed possession of the Dutch since 1814.

Of the number of the slaves in the other colonies we have no account.  It is well know however, Curacua once carried on every extensive slave trade from the port of St. Barbara.

Thus steadily does the work of emancipation proceed throughout the world, to be followed up, beyond all question in some philanthropic and satisfactory form, by a similar movement in this country. – {N. Y. Post.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, June 7, 1862, p. 1

One of the Japanese No-Kamis Disembowels Himself in a Marble Bath

Paris Correspondence of the London Court Journal.

* * * The Japanese Ambassadors left us yesterday to proceed to London.  The last days of their stay at the Hotel du Louvre were marked by a most extraordinary and impressive concurrence.  One of the officers belonging to the suite of Envoys received the order which had been dispatched almost immediately after his departure from Japan, to commit the act of suicide, or self-execution, known as the hari, described by Bayard Taylor and other travelers in Japan as the only method of avoiding the disgrace and torture accompanying a public execution.  What the offence committed by the miserable man before his departure from Japan was, or what the means whereby it was discovered must forever remain a secret.  But what is certain is the fact of the act of suicide having been faithfully performed by the victim, and, according to official form, in presence of the representative of the spiritual majesty of Japan, and by stabbing himself in the bowels with the broad yataghan which every Japanese officer of distinction wears upon his bosom, suspended by a thick gold chain round his neck.  It appears that it has been the custom daily of an afternoon for the four-and-twenty chief officers of the expedition to take their bath in a large marble basin which has been expressly fitted up for the purpose on the first floor of the hotel.  In this, the water being let off and renewed at pleasure it was easy to accomplish the work of vengeance; and here, alone with the minister of Imperial wrath, the shadow appointed to watch every movement of his companions and report every action to his sovereign, did a miserable being put an end to his existence, at the word of command issued from the other side of the globe.  The bath waiters of the hotel had reported on the suspicious appearance of the water which remained at the bottom of the bath on a certain day, and the evident attempts which had been made to cleanse the floor with unusual care.  But so strange are considered the customs of these people, and so utterly impossible has it been found to understand their language, in spite of the numerous savans [sic] in Paris paid by the government not only to learn but to teach it, but who, although proclaimed perfectly conversant with all its dialects until the ambassadors arrived, seemed suddenly so struck with awe, perhaps at the sight of their Excellencies, that they lost their memory entirely, and could neither understand nor utter a single word, - that it was deemed by the persons consulted on the subject that the disorder must have been created by some religious or superstitious custom, and no further inquiry was therefore deemed necessary.  After the lapse of a day or two, however, it was observed that one of the officers was missing; the waiters noticed moreover, that the room occupied by one of them remained undisturbed, although his vestments of ceremony remained extended on his bed; and at last many little circumstances and sundry religious observances which seemed to have no adequate explanation, occasioned an inquiry to be insisted on.  The result of this inquiry seems to have been the discovery of the corpse of the victim, rudely embalmed and placed with great care in a large wooden chest, all ready packed to convey it away.  The embalmment merely consisted of the most careful bandaging in silken wrappers, tightly compressed by leather thongs.  As far as gesture and intonation can convey the impressions of the mind, it soon became easy to perceive that no concealment was sought, and that the occurrence was greatly regretted by the victim’s companions, although regarded as a stern necessity of duty.  The discovery, of course, created the greatest embarrassment to the government, and M. Thouvenel, after consultation with the Emperor, sent down a message to the ambassadors as representatives both of the temporal and spiritual sovereigns of their country, declaring his great astonishment and disapproval at what had taken place.  Intimation was given at the same time that such barbarous customs being totally at variance with the laws and institutions of the country, any repetition of the same occurrence would be followed by expulsion! – The body of the unfortunate man, being but imperfectly embalmed, was conveyed away, upon an order issued from the Ministers des Affaires Estranges to the Minister of Police, at 6 o’clock in the morning to the cemetery of Mont Parnassee, where it has been temporarily deposited to await the return of the Ambassadors, who on pain of the same order of hari are bound to lay it as piece de conviction at the feet of their Emperor.  This is the story whispered about in Paris, and unfortunately confirmed by the only possible proof – that of the absence of one of the suite on the departure of the Embassy, which was ascertained beyond a doubt by those who, roused by the interest excited by the tale which has been suffered to get abroad, had the curiosity to assist at their departure yesterday evening, in order to compare their number with the photographic sketch executed on their arrival.  This proved, not the truth of the story here related, but that of its foundation – the absence of one of the most conspicuous of the group.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 3