Mr. Seward now said that the
country still adhered to the ancient principle for which it had once
fought, and was glad to find England renouncing her old-time error.
Captain Wilkes, not acting under instructions, had made a mistake. If he
had captured the Trent and brought her in for adjudication as prize in
our admiralty courts, a case might have been maintained and the
prisoners held. He had refrained from this course out of kindly
consideration for the many innocent persons to whom it would have caused
serious inconvenience; and, since England elected to stand upon the
strict rights which his humane conduct gave to her, the United States
must be bound by their own principles at any cost to themselves.
Accordingly the "envoys" were handed over to the commander of the
English gunboat Rinaldo, at Provincetown, on January 1, 1862.
The decision of the President and the secretary of state was thoroughly
wise. Much hung upon it; "no one," says Arnold, "can calculate the
results which would have followed upon a refusal to surrender these
men." An almost certain result would have been a war with England; and a
highly probable result would have been that erelong France also would
find pretext for hostilities, since she was committed to friendship with
England in this matter, and moreover the emperor seemed to have a
restless desire to interfere against the North. What then would have
been the likelihood of ultimate success in that domestic struggle,
which, by itself, though it did not exhaust, yet very severely taxed
both Northern endurance and Northern resources? It is fair also to these
two men to say that, in reaching their decision, instead of receiving
aid or encouragement from outside, they had the reverse.
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