A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [65]
Seward had also learned from Dallas that Lord John Russell had met the Southern envoys. Whether his reaction was driven by fear or embarrassment, it was nevertheless a gross miscalculation with regard to his own standing with Lincoln as well as his future relations with Britain. On May 21, 1861, he composed an insolent and threatening dispatch for Adams to read to Lord Russell, which stated there would be war if England had any dealings with the Confederacy or its envoys. This infamous letter came to be known by its number in the sequence of dispatches: Dispatch No. 10. Lincoln was no more inclined to declare war on England in May than he had been in April. According to Charles Sumner, the president showed him Seward’s dispatch and asked for his opinion. Seward’s blunder was Sumner’s opportunity to ingratiate himself with the White House. Sumner encouraged Lincoln to make drastic changes to the document. The more offensive phrases were removed, the threats toned down. Adams was no longer ordered to present the dispatch to Russell; it was simply for his own guidance.
Washington gossip related that Sumner paid an unscheduled visit to Seward and lectured him on the danger of misusing his powers.42 Already furious at having his dispatch amended, Seward allegedly lost control and kicked his desk, shouting, “God damn them, I’ll give them hell,” referring to Britain and France. “I’m no more afraid of them than I am of Robert Toombs [the Confederate secretary of state].” It was a delicious victory, made sweeter for Sumner when he recounted the interview to Lincoln. “You must watch him and overrule him,” he urged the president.
Map.6 London
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Seward asserted his independence by reversing some of Lincoln’s changes before the dispatch was sent. He also preserved the original document in the State Department’s files so that when the annual compilation was published, it was his letter rather than the amended dispatch that appeared.43 But he could not erase the perception among the diplomatic community in Washington that Charles Sumner was the more reasonable and better statesman of the two.44 All the foreign ministers heard the gossip about Dispatch No. 10, including Lyons, who was able to give Lord Russell a fair indication of its contents before the letter reached London. Seward accused Britain of deliberately ruining his plan to quarantine the South by encouraging the Confederates to believe that full recognition was imminent. Britain had acted precipitously and maliciously in declaring neutrality, he argued, since the president had only announced his intention to declare a blockade.
Seward was ignoring such inconvenient facts as the four British merchant ships that were seized by U.S. Navy blockaders when they tried to sail from Southern ports.45 He was also discounting the desire of neutral countries to have their legal rights as neutrals acknowledged. Earlier in the month, the State Department had been misinformed about a Canadian steamer named the Peerless that was alleged to have been purchased by the Confederacy. In fact, it was Federal agents who had purchased the ship, but this had not been communicated to Seward. Seward threatened to send the U.S. Navy into Canadian waters to seize the Peerless unless Britain voluntarily handed over the vessel. “I said,” Lyons informed Lord Russell, “that even if the Peerless should in fact be sold to the Seceded States, she could never cause the United States anything like the inconvenience which would follow a deliberate violation of neutral rights.”46
The longer Seward reflected on the belligerency issue, the more he portrayed himself—and by extension the North