Under
these circumstances, Great Britain is called upon to intervene, and give
it body and independence by resisting our measures of suppression.
British recognition would be British intervention to create within our
own territory a hostile state by overthrowing this republic itself." In
Mr. Seward's draft a menacing sentence followed these words, but Mr.
Lincoln drew his pen through it.
Mr. Adams was to say that the treatment of insurgent privateers was "a
question exclusively our own," and that we intended to treat them as
pirates.[169] If Great Britain should recognize them as lawful
belligerents and give them shelter, "the laws of nations afford an
adequate and proper remedy;"--"_and we shall avail ourselves of it_,"
added Mr. Seward; but again Mr. Lincoln's prudent pen went through these
words of provocation.
Finally Mr. Adams was instructed to offer the adhesion of the United
States to the famous Declaration of the Congress of Paris, of 1856,
which concerned sundry matters of neutrality.
The letter ended with two paragraphs of that patriotic rodomontade which
seems eminently adapted to domestic consumption in the United States,
but which, if it ever came beneath the eye of the British minister,
probably produced an effect very different from that which was aimed at.
Mr. Lincoln had the good taste to write on the margin: "Drop all from
this line to the end;" but later he was induced to permit the nonsense
to stand, since it was really harmless.
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