London, November 28
The conflict of the English mail ship Trent with the North American warship San Jacinto in the narrow passage of the Old Bahama Channel is the lion among the events of the day. In the afternoon of November 27 the mail ship La Plata brought the news of the incident to Southampton, whence the electric telegraph at once flashed it to all parts of Great Britain. The same evening the London Stock Exchange was the stage of stormy scenes similar to those at the time of the announcement of the Italian war. Quotations for government stock sank [3]/(1) to 1 per cent. The wildest rumours circulated in London. The American Ambassador, Adams, was said to have been given his passports, an embargo to have been imposed on all American ships in the Thames, etc. At the same time a protest meeting of merchants was held at the Stock Exchange in Liverpool, to demand measures from the British Government for the satisfaction of the violated honour of the British flag. Every sound-minded Englishman went to bed with the conviction that he would go to sleep in a state of peace but wake up in a state of war.
Nevertheless, the fact is well-nigh categorically established that the conflict between the Trent and the San Jacinto brings no war in its train. The semi-official press, like The Times and The Morning Post, strikes a peaceful note and pours juridically cool deductions on the flickerings of passion.[3] Papers like the Daily Telegraph, which at the faintest mot d'ordre(2) roar for the British lion, are true models of moderation. Only the Tory opposition press, The Morning Herald and The Standard, hits out. These facts force every expert to conclude that the ministry has already decided not to make a casus belli out of the "untoward event".(3)
It must be added that the event, if not the details of its enactment, was anticipated. On October 12, Messrs. Slidell, Confederacy emissary to France, and Mason, Confederacy emis-sary to England, together with their secretaries Eustis and MacFarland, had run the blockade of Charleston on the steamship Theodora and sailed for Havana, there to seek the opportunity of a passage to Europe under the British flag. In England their arrival was expected daily. North American warships had set out from Liverpool to intercept the gentlemen, with their dispatches, on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. The British ministry had already submitted the question whether the North Americans were entitled to take such a step to its official jurisconsults for their opinion. Their answer is said to have been in the affirmative.
The legal question turns in a narrow circle. Since the foundation of the United States, North America has adopted British maritime law in all its rigour. A major principle of this maritime law is that all neutral merchantmen are subject to search by the belligerent parties.
"This right," said Lord Stowell in a judgment which has become famous, "offers the sole security that no contraband is carried on neutral ships." (4)
The greatest American authority, Kent, states in the same sense:
"The right of self-preservation gives belligerent nations this right. The doctrine of the English admiralty on the right of visitation and search ... has been recognised in its fullest extent by the courts of justice in this country."(5)
It was not opposition to the right of search, as is sometimes erroneously suggested, that brought about the Anglo-American War of 1812 to 1814.[107] Rather, America declared war because England unlawfully presumed to search even American warships, on the pretext of catching deserters from the British Navy.
The San Jacinto, therefore, had the right to search the Trent and to confiscate any contraband stowed aboard her. That dispatches in the possession of Mason, Slidell and Co. come under the category of contraband even The Times, The Morning Post, etc., admit. There remains the question whether Messrs. Mason, Slidell and Co. were themselves contraband and might consequently be confiscated! The point is a ticklish one and differences of opinion prevail among the doctors of law. Pratt, the most distinguished British authority on "Contraband", in the section "Quasi-Contraband—Dispatches, Passengers" specifically refers to "communication of information and orders from a belligerent government to its officers abroad, or the conveyance of military passengers".(6) Messrs. Mason and Slidell, if not officers, were just as little ambassadors, since their governments are recognised neither by Britain nor by France. What are they, then? In justification of the very broad conceptions of contraband asserted by Britain in the Anglo-French wars,[108] Jefferson already remarks in his memoirs that contraband, by its nature, precludes any exhaustive definition and necessarily leaves great scope for arbitrariness.(7) In any event, however, one sees that from the standpoint of English law the legal question dwindles to a Duns Scotus controversy,[109] the explosive force of which will not go beyond exchange of diplomatic notes.
The political aspect of the North American procedure was estimated quite correctly by The Times in these words:
"Even Mr. Seward himself must know that the voices of the Southern commissioners, sounding from their captivity, are a thousand times more eloquent in London and in Paris than they would have been if they had been heard in St. James's and the Tuileries."(8)
And is not the Confederacy already represented in London by Messrs. Yancey and Mann?
We regard this latest operation of Mr. Seward as a characteristic act of tactlessness by self-conscious weakness simulating strength. If the naval incident hastens Seward's removal from the Washington Cabinet, the United States will have no reason to record it as an "untoward event" in the annals of its Civil War.
Endnotes
[1] Marx and Engels began to contribute to the New-York Daily Tribune in 1851 (see Vol. 11, Note 2). 1861 and 1862 were the last two years of their work for the Tribune. With the outbreak of the US Civil War interest in European affairs in America declined. The Tribune cancelled its contracts with all its European correspondents except Marx, who was asked to reduce the number of his contributions from two to one a week. Between February 1861 and March 1862 the paper published ten items by Marx and one by Engels. One appeared as a leading article, nine were marked "From an Occasional Correspondent" and one was marked "From Our Own Correspondent". Marx's final break with the newspaper occurred in the spring of 1862 (see Vol. 12, Note 1 and Vol. 39, Note 4). The theme and basic content of this article were suggested to Engels by Marx, who in a letter dated January 22, 1861 (Vol. 41 of the present edition) asked Engels to write on the Schleswig-Holstein question for the NYDT. Engels wrote the article on January 23. On the following day Marx sent it to New York by the steamer Anglo-Saxon.
[107] 07 The Anglo-US war, started in 1812, was caused by Britain's refusal to recognise the United States' sovereignty and by its attempts to re-establish its domination in North America. The US was provoked to declare war on Britain by the latter's unlawful seizures of US ships and seamen. The American armed forces had the support of the people, who saw Britain poised to restore the colonial system, and regarded this struggle as another war of independence. The land fighting in 1812-14 developed unfavourably to the Americans. Their naval operations were somewhat more successful. Considerable damage was caused to the British by the numerous US privateers. The US was also benefiting by Britain's involvement in the war against Napoleonic France. Despite the temporary capture of Washington in August 1814, Britain was forced, in December of that year, to conclude the Ghent peace treaty predicated on recognition of the prewar state of affairs. News of the peace reached the troops with considerable delay. Meanwhile they continued to fight. The hostilities ceased in January 1815, after the US forces had inflicted a devastating defeat on the British at New Orleans.
[108] 08 This refers to France's wars against the various European coalitions between 1792 and 1815, when Britain and France were involved in a bitter struggle for political and economic supremacy in Europe. In retaliation against Napoleon's Continental System (1806) which prohibited European countries from trading with Britain, the latter imposed its control over the maritime trade of the neutral states. Britain also had recourse to contraband trade and made a practice of seizing the ships of France and other countries on the high seas.
[109] 09 Duns Scotus controversy—a method of pleading a case in scholastic disputes by juxtaposing a series of contradictory arguments ("pro et contra") which was widely applied by the mediaeval Scottish Nominalist philosopher Duns Scotus.
[3] Construction of the Suez Canal was begun in 1859 and completed in 1869. The Fortress of Gae'ta, the last stronghold of Francis II, King of the Two Sicilies (the Kingdom of Naples), was seized by the Piedmont troops on February 12, 1861, as a result of which the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies became part of the united Kingdom of Italy.