After vain attempts to press the chairmanship on Mr. Cunard, the owner of the Cunard steamships plying between Liverpool and New York, and other high trade officials, a young merchant named Spence, notorious for a work he wrote in support of the slave republic, took the chair. Contrary to the rules of English meetings, he, the chairman, himself proposed the motion to call on "the government to preserve the dignity of the British flag by demanding prompt satisfaction for this affront." Tremendous applause, clapping and cheers upon cheers! The main argument of the opening speaker for the slave republic was that slave ships had hitherto been protected by the American flag from the right of search claimed by Britain. And then this philanthropist launched a furious attack on the slave trade! He admitted that England had brought about the war of 1812-14 with the United States by insisting on searching for deserters from the British Navy on Union warships.
"But," he continued with wonderful dialectic, "but there is a difference between the right of search to recover deserters from the British Navy and the right to seize passengers, like Mr. Mason and Mr.
Slidell, men of the highest respectability, regardless of the fact that they were protected by the British flag!"He played his highest trump, however, at the close of his diatribe.
"The other day," he bellowed, "while I was on the European Continent, I heard an observation made as to the course of our conduct in regard to the United States, and I was unable to reply to the allusion without a blush -- that the feeling of every intelligent man upon the Continent was that we would submit to any outrage and suffer every indignity offered to us by the Government of the United States. But the pitcher goes so often to the well that it is broken at last. Our patience had been exercised long enough! At last we have arrived at facts: this is a very hard and startling fact [!] and it is the duty of every Englishman to apprise the Government of how strong and unanimous is the feeling of this great community of the outrage offered to our flag."This senseless rigamarole was greeted with a peal of applause. Opposing voices were howled down and hissed down and stamped down. To the remark of a Mr. Campbell that the whole meeting was irregular, the inexorable Spence replied: "I perfectly agree with you that it is a little irregular but at the same time the fact that we have met to consider is rather an irregular fact." To the proposal of a Mr. Turner to adjourn the meeting to the following day, in order that "the city of Liverpool can have its say and not a clique of cotton brokers usurp its name", cries of "Collar him, throw him out!" resounded from all sides. Unperturbed, Mr. Turner repeated his motion, which, however, was not put to the vote, again contrary to all the rules of English meetings. Spence triumphed. But, as a matter of fact, nothing has done more to cool London's temper than the news of Mr. Spence's triumph.
Controversy Over the Trent Case Karl Marx Controversy Over the Trent Case London, December 7, 1861The Palmerston press (and on another occasion I will show that in foreign affairs Palmerston's control over nine-tenths of the English press is just as absolute as Louis Bonaparte's over nine-tenths of the French press) -- the Palmerston press fells that it works among "pleasing hindrances".
On the one hand, it admits that the law officers of the Crown have reduced the accusation against the United States to a mere mistake in procedure , to a technical error . On the other hand, it boasts that on the basis of such a legal quibble a haughty ultimatum has been presented to the United States such as can only be justified by a gross violation of law, but not by a formal error in the exercise of a recognised right. Accordingly, the Palmerston press now pleads the material legal question again.
The great importance of the case appears to demand a brief examination of the material legal question.
By way of introduction, it may be observed that not a single English paper ventures to reproach the San Jacinto for the visitation and search of the Trent . This point, therefore, falls outside the controversy.
First, we again call to mind the relevant passage in Victoria's proclamation of neutrality of May 13, 1861. The passage reads:
"Victoria R."
Whereas we are at peace with the United States ... we do hereby strictly charge ... all our loving subjects ... to abstain from contravening ... our Royal Proclamation ... by breaking ... any blockade lawfully ... established ... or by carrying officers ... dispatches ... or any article or articles considered contraband of war.... All persons so offending will be liable ... to the several penalties and penal consequences by the said Statute or by the law of nations in that behalf imposed....
And ... persons who may misconduct themselves ... will do so at their peril ... and ... will ... incur our high displeasure by such misconduct.
This proclamation of Queen Victoria, therefore, in the first place declared dispatches to be contraband and make the ship that carries such contraband liable to the "penalties of the law of the nations". What are these penalties?
Wheaton , an American writer on international law whose authority is recognised on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean alike, says in his Elements of International Law , p. 565"The fraudulent carrying of dispatches of the enemy will also subject the neutral vessel in which they are transported to capture and confiscation . The consequences of such a service are indefinite, infinitely beyond the effect of any contraband that can be conveyed. 'The carrying of two or three cargoes of military stores,'
says Sir W. Scott [the judge], 'is necessarily an assistance of limited nature; but in the transmission of dispatches may be conveyed the entire plan of a campaign, that may defeat all the plans of the other belligerent....