It
called for some nerve on the part of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward suddenly
to plunge them into a chilling bath of disappointment.
Statements differ as to what was Mr. Seward's earliest opinion in the
matter.[170] But all writers agree that Mr. Lincoln did not move with
the current of triumph. He was scarcely even non-committal. On the
contrary, he is said at once to have remarked that it did not look right
to stop the vessel of a friendly power on the high seas and take
passengers out of her; that he did not understand whence Captain Wilkes
derived authority to turn his quarter-deck into a court of admiralty;
that he was afraid the captives might prove to be white elephants on our
hands; that we had fought Great Britain on the ground of like doings
upon her part, and that now we must stick to American principles; that,
if England insisted upon our surrendering the prisoners, we must do so,
and must apologize, and so bind her over to keep the peace in relation
to neutrals, and to admit that she had been wrong for sixty years.
The English demand came quickly, forcibly, and almost offensively. The
news brought to England by the Trent set the whole nation in a blaze of
fury,--and naturally enough, it must be admitted. The government sent
out to the navy yards orders to make immediate preparations for war; the
newspapers were filled with abuse and menace against the United States;
the extravagance of their language will not be imagined without actual
reference to their pages.
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