Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

[245] enough. If, said he, Captain Wilkes had taken the Trent into port, for adjudication, instead of letting her go, his justification would be complete, and there would be no apology to make. Adjudication presupposes something to adjudicate; but if there was no contraband of war, on board the Trent, what was there to adjudicate? The British Government did not complain, that the question had not been presented for adjudication to the proper prize tribunals, but that their vessel had been boarded, and outraged, without there being any grounds for adjudication, at all. If the Trent had been taken into port, a prize-court must have liberated the prisoners. It would then, if not before, have been apparent, that there was no ground for the seizure. The act still remaining to be atoned for, what was there to be gained, by sending the vessel in? It is not denied that, as a rule, neutrals are entitled to have their vessels, when captured, sent in for adjudication, but Mr. Seward knew, very well, that no question of this nature had arisen, between the British Government and himself, and he was only trifling with the common sense of mankind, when he endeavored to turn the issue in this direction.

One cannot help sympathizing with a diplomatist, who being required to eat a certain amount of dirt, gags at it, so painfully, and yet pretends, all the while, that he really likes it, as Mr. Seward does in the following paragraph:—

‘I have not been unaware that, in examining this question, I have fallen into an argument, for what seems to be the British side of it, against my own country [what a deal of humiliation it would have saved his country, if he had fallen into this train of argument, before the dirt-pie had been presented to him]. But I am relieved from all embarrassment, on that subject. I had hardly fallen into that line of argument, when I discovered, that I was really defending and maintaining, not an exclusively British interest, but an old, honored, and cherished American cause, not upon British authorities, but upon principles that constitute a large portion of the distinctive policy, by which the United States have developed the resources of a continent, and thus becoming a considerable maritime power, have won the respect and confidence of many nations.’

Like an adroit circus-man, the venerable Federal Secretary of State has now gotten upon the backs of two ponies. He continues:—