Adam Badeau, Grant in peace: from Appomattox to Mount McGregor, a personal memoir

[218] and peremptorily removed in December, and in January the Senate called for the entire correspondence on the subject. In this correspondence Motley had, with very bad taste, referred to the rumor that he had been removed because of Sumner's opposition to the St. Domingo scheme, and Fish replied with some severe strictures, which, however, in no way reflected on Sumner. The Senator, nevertheless, at once resented them for his friend; he refused at a dinner at General Schenck's house to speak to Mr. Fish, and afterward announced in the Senate that he had ‘cut the Secretary of State.’

At that very time negotiations for the Treaty of Washington had begun. Sir John Rose had been sent out from England to prepare the way for the Joint High Commission that followed. Mr. Fish, a night or two before, in spite of all that had occurred, had visited Sumner and consulted him in regard to the Treaty, which of course must go to the Senate for confirmation. Sumner had, however, stipulated for some provisions that would have put a stop to all negotiations whatever with England. He sent Fish a written memorandum in which he declared that ‘the withdrawal of the British flag from this hemisphere—including the provinces and islands’—--must be a ‘condition preliminary’ to any settlement. This preposterous proposition was of course never entertained for a moment by the Administration, for no statesman on either side of the Atlantic could conceive of its acceptance by England. Before Mr. . Fish could reply to the note, however, the dinner occurred at which Sumner declined the acquaintance of the Secretary. Sir John Rose was present at the dinner, which, as I have said, was given by General Schenck, then recently appointed Minister to England; so that in the midst of the negotiation on so grave a question, on which he was himself officially to act, Sumner refused to associate with the principal representative and spokesman of his own Government.