The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-30 00:00:00

Mg SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 30, 1861.

the President seems to be in harmony equally with
a prudent regard to the safety of the Republic
and a just sense of its honour and dignity.
" The proposed declaration is inadmissible,
among other reasons, because it is not mutual. It
proposes a special rule by which her Majesty's obli-
gations shall be meliorated in the bearing upon
internal difficulties now prevailing in the United
States, while the obligations to be assumed by the
United States shall not be similarly meliorated or
at all affected in their bearing on internal diffe-
rences that may now be prevailing, or may here-
after arise and prevail, in Great Britain.
"It is inadmissible, because it would be a sub-
stantial and even a radical departure from the de-
claration of the Congress at Paris. That declration
makes no exception in favour of any of the par-
ties to it in regard to the bearing of their obliga-
tions upon internal differences which may prevail
in the territories or dominions of the parties.
"The declaration of the Congress of Paris is the
joint act of 46 great and enlightened Powers, de-
signing to alleviate the evils of maritime war, and
promote the first interest of humanity, which is
peace. The Government of Great Britain will not,
I am sure, expect us to accede to this noble act
otherwise than upon the same equal footing upon
which all the other parties to it are standing. We
could not consent to accede to the declaration with
a modification of its terms unless all the present
parties to it should stipulate that the modification
should be adopted as one of universal application.
The British Government cannot but know that there
would be little prospect of an entire reformation of
the. declaration of Paris at the present time, and it
has not even told us that it would accept the modi-
fication as a general one if it were proposed.

"It results that the United States must accede to
the declaration of the Congress of Paris on the same
terms with all the other parties to it, or that they
do not accede to it at all.

" You will present these considerations to Lord
Russell, not as arguments why the British Govern-
ment ought to recede from the position it has as
Burned, but as the grounds upon which the United
States decline to enter into the projected conven-
tion recognising that exceptional position of her
Majesty.
" If, therefore, her Britannic Majesty's Govern-
ment shall adhero to tae proposition thus disallowed,
you will inform Lord Russell that the negotiation
must for the present be suspended.
q I forbear purposely from a review of the past
correspondence, to ascertain the relative responsibi-
lities of the parties for this failure of negotiation,
from which I had hoped results would flow bene-
ficial, not only to those two nations but to the
whole world—beneficial, not in the present age
only, but in future ages.
" It is my desire that we may withdraw from the
subject, carrying away no feelings of passion, pre-
judice, or jealousy, so that in some happier time it
may be resumed, and the important objects of the
proposed convention may be fully secured. I be-
lieve that the propitious time is even now not dis-
tant; and I will hope that when it comes Great
Britain will not only willingly and uncanditionally
accept the adhesion of the United States to all the
benignant articles of the declaration of the Congress
at Paris, but will even go further, and, relinquish-
ing her present objections, consent, as the United
States have so constantly invited, that the private
property, not contraband, of citizens and subjects
of nations in collision shall be exempted from con-
fiscation equally in warfare waged on the land and
in warfare waged upon the seas, which are the com-
mon highways of all nations.
" Regarding this negotiation as at an end, the
question arises, What, then, aro to be the views and
policy of the United States in regard to the rights
of neutrals in maritime war in the present case?
My previous despatches leave no uncertainty on this
point. We regard Great Britain as a friend. Her
Majesty's flag, according to our traditional princi-
ples, covers enemy's goods not contraband of
war. Goods of her Majesty's subjects, not
contraband of war, are exempt from confis-
cation though found under a neutral or
disloyal flag. No depredations shall be committed
by our naval forces or by those of any of our citizens
so far as we can prevent it, upon the vessels or pro-
perty of British subjects. Our blockade being
effective, must be respected.
"The unfortunate failure of our negotiations to
amend the law of nations in regard to maritime war
does not make us enemies, although, if they had
been successful, we should have perhaps been more
assured friends.

" Civil war is a calamity from which certainly no
people or nation that has ever existed has been
always exempt. It is one which probably no nation
ever will escape. Perhaps its most injurious trait
is its tendency to subvert the good understanding
and break up the relations existing between the
distracted State and friendly nations, and to involve
them sooner or later in war. It is the desire of the
United States that the internal differences existing
in this country may be confined within our own
borders. Ido not suffer myself for a moment to
doubt that Great Britain has a desire that we may
be successful in attaining that object, and that she
looks with dread upon the possibility of being herself
drawn into this unhappy internal controversy of
our own. Ido not think it can be regarded as dis-
respectful if you should remind Lord Russell that
when, in 1838, a civil war broke out in Canada, a
part of the British dominions adjacent to the United
States, the Congress of the United States passed,
and the President executed, a law which effectually
prevented any intervention against the Government
of Great Britain in those internal differences by
American citizens, whatever might be their motives,
real or pretended, whether of interest or sympathy.
I send you a copy of that enactment. The British
Government will judge for itself whether it is sug-
gestive of any measures on the part of Great Britain
that might teed to preserve the peace of the two
countries, and, through that way, the peace of all
nations.—l am, Sir, respectfully, your obedient
servant, " WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
" Charles Francis Adams, E,q., &c."

"EARL RUSSELL'S EXPOSITION OF THE ACTION OF
THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT.

" Foreign-office, Aug. 28.

" The undersigned, her Majesty's Principal Secre-
tary of State for Foreign Affairs, has had the honour
to receive the note of the 23d inst. of Mr. Adams,
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary
of the United States.

"Mr. Adams has accounted satisfactorily for the
delay in answering the note of the undersigned of
the 19th inst. Her Majesty's Government in all
these transactions has acted in concert with the Go.
vernment of the Emperor of the French, and the
undersigned cannot be surprised that Mr. Adams
should wish to communicate with Mr. Dayton at
Paris before replying to his note.
" Tho undersigned is quite prepared, following
Mr. Adams, to recapitulate the particulars of this
negotiation, and ho is happy to think that in mat-
ters of fact there is no ground for any controversy
between them. He need only supply omissions.
"Mr. Adams at his first interview with the under-
signed, on the 18th of May last, mentioned the sub-
ject of the Declaration of Paris as one on which he
had power to negotiate, and the undersigned then
told him that the matter had already been commit-
ted to the care of Lord Lyons at Washington, with
authority to agree with the Gsvernment of the
United States on the basis of the adoption of three
of the articles, and the omission of the first, being
that relating to privateering. So far, the statement
of Mr. Adams agrees substantially with that here
made. But the representation of the undersigned
was strictly accurate, and in faith of it he subjoins
the despatch by which Lord Lyons was authorised
to negotiate on the basis of the three latter articles
of the Declaration of Paris. Lord Lyons, however,
was not empowered to sign a convention, because
that form had not been adopted by the Powers who
originally signed the Declaration, nor by any of the
numerous States which afterwards gave their adher-
ence to its articles.

" At a later period, when Mr. Adams brought
a copy of his full powers to the Foreign-office,
the undersigned ask,ed why the adherence of the
United States should not be given to the same
form as that of other Powers, and he was told,
in reply, that as the constitution of the United States

required the consent of the Senate to any agreement
with foreign Powers, that agreement must neces-
sarily, or at least would most conveniently be made
in the shape of a convention.
" The undersigned yielded to this argument, and
proposed to the Government of the Emperor of the
French, with which her Majesty's Government have
been acting throughout in complete agreement, to
concur likewise in his departure from the form in
which the Declaration of Paris had been adopted
by the maritime Powers of Europe.
" But the British Government could not sign the
convention proposed by the United States as an act
of Great Britain singly and alone, and they found
to their surprise that in case of France and of some
of the other European Powers, the addition of Mr.
Marcy, relating to private property at sea, had been
proposed by the Ministers of the United States at
the Courts of those Powers.

"The undersigned concurs in the statement made
by Mr. Adams respecting the transactions which
followed. Her Majesty's Government, like Mr.
Adams, wished to establish a doctrine for all time,
with a view to lessen the horrors of war all over the
globe. The instructions sent to Lord Lyons prove
the sincerity of their wish to give permanence and
fixity of principles to this part of the law of nations.
" The undersigned has now arrived at that part
of the subject upon which the negotiation is inter-
rupted.
" The undersigned has notified Mr. Adams his
intention to accompany his signature of the pro-
posed convention with a declaration to the effect
that her Majesty does not intend thereby to under-
take any engagement which shall have any bearing,
direct or indirect, on the internal differences now
prevailing in the United States.'
" The reasons for this course can be easily ex-
plained. On some recent occasion, as on the ful-
filment of the treaty of 1846, respecting the boun-
dary, and with respect to the treaty called by the
name of the Clayton-Bulwer. Treaty, serious diffe-
rences have arisen with regard to the precise mean-
ing of words and the intention of those who framed
them.

"It was most desirable in framing a new agree-
ment not to give rise to a fresh dispute.

"But the different attitude of Great Britain and
of the United States in regard to the internal dis-
sensions now unhappily prevailing in the United
States gave warning that such a dispute might
arise out of the proposed convention.
" Her Majesty's Government, upon receiving in-
telligence that the President had declared, by pro-
clamation, his intention to blockade the ports of
nine of the States of the Union, and that Mr. Davis,
speaking in the name of those nine States, had de-
clared his intention to issue letters of marque and
reprisals; and also having received certain infor-
mation of the design of both sides to arm, had
come to the conclusion that civil war existed in
America, and her Majesty thereupon proclaimed
her neutrality in the approaching contest.

" The Government of the United States, on the
other hand, spoke only of unlawful combinations,
and designated those concerned in them as rebels
and pirates. It would follow, logically and consis-
tently, from the attitude taken by her Majesty's
Government, that the so-called Confederate States,
being acknowledged as a belligerent, might by the
law of 'nations arm privateers, and that their pri-
vateers must be regarded as the armed vessels of a
belligerent.

"With equal logic and consistency it would fol-
low, from the position taken by the United States,
that the privateers of the Southern States might be
decreed to be pirates, and it might be further
argued by the Government of the United States
that a European Power signing a convention with
the United States, declaring that privateering was
and remains abolished, would be bound to treat the
privateers of the so-called Confederate States as
pirates.

" Hence, instead of an agreement, charges of bad
faith and violation of a convention might be brought
in the United States against the Power signing
such a convention, and treating the privateers of
the so-called Confederate States as those of a belli-
gerent Power.
"The undersigned had at first intended to make
verbally the declaration proposed; but he considered
it would be more clear, more open, more fair
to Mr. Adams, to put the declaration in
writing, and give notice of it to Mr. Adams before
signing the convention.
" The undersigned will not now reply to the rea-
sons given by Mr. Adams for not signing the con-
vention if accompanied by the proposed declaration.
Her Majesty's Government wish the question to be
fairly weighed by the United States Government.
The undersigned, like Mr. Adams, wishes to main-
tain and perpetuate the most friendly relations be-
tween her Majesty's kingdom and the United States.
It is in this spirit that her Majesty's Government
decline to bind themselves without a clear explana-
tion on their part to a convention which, seemingly
confined to an adoption of the declaration of Paris
of 1856, might be construed as an engagement to
interfere in the unhappy dissensions now prevailing
in the United States—an interference which would
be contrary to her Majesty's public declarations,
and would be a reversal of the policy which her
Majesty has deliberately sanctioned.
"The undersigned requests Mr. Adams to accept
the assurance of his highest consideration.
" C. F. Adams, Esq., &c." " RUSSELL.

Should the difficulties between the two nations be
satisfactorily arranged, British shipping, though
still prohibited from trading to Southern American
ports, will be able to carry cargoes at the usual
risks only, thereby neutralising the advantages
which foreigners would otherwise possess. In the
event of the Federal Government continuing its
hitherto unsuccessful efforts for the subjugation of
the South, and the war promising to be prolonged
to an indefinite period, to the vital injury of the
trade of foreign nations, the Anglo-French Govern-
ments may feel themselves called upon to interfere
with a strong hand, and by an official recognition
of the South as a Power, compel the cessation of
hostilities; but with such uncertainties before us at
this particular crisis, and in the absence of definite
advices, we regret we cannot but take a somewhat
unfavourable view of the prospects of shipping for
the ensuing year."