December 20th.–I went down to the Senate, as it was expected at the Legation and elsewhere the President would send a special message to the Senate on the Trent affair; but, instead, there was merely a long speech from a senator, to show the South did not like democratic institutions. Lord Lyons called on Mr. Seward yesterday to read Lord Russell’s dispatch to him, and to give time for a reply; but Mr. Seward was out, and Mr. Sumner told me the Minister was down with the Committee of Foreign Relations, where there is a serious business in reference to the State of Mexico and certain European Powers under discussion, when the British Minister went to the State Department.
Next day Lord Lyons had two interviews with Mr. Seward, read the despatch, which simply asks for surrender of Mason and Slidell and reparation, without any specific act named, but he received no indication from Mr. Seward of the course he would pursue. Mr. Lincoln has “put down his foot” on no surrender. “Sir!” exclaimed the President, to an old Treasury official the other day, “I would sooner die than give them up.” “Mr. President,” was the reply, “your death would be a great loss, but the destruction of the United States would be a still more deplorable event.” Mr. Seward will, however, control the situation, as the Cabinet will very probably support his views; and Americans will comfort themselves, in case the captives are surrendered, with a promise of future revenge, and with the reflection that they have avoided a very disagreeable intervention between their march of conquest and the Southern Confederacy. The general belief of the diplomatists is that the prisoners will not be given up, and in that case Lord Lyons and the Legation will retire from Washington for the time, probably to Halifax, leaving Mr. Monson to wind up affairs and clear out the archives. But it is understood that there is no ultimatum, and that Lord Lyons is not to indicate any course of action, should Mr. Seward inform him the United States Government refuses to comply with the demands of Great Britain.
Any humiliation which may be attached to concession will be caused by the language of the Americans themselves, who have given in their press, in public meetings, in the Lower House, in the Cabinet, and in the conduct of the President, a complete ratification of the act of Captain Wilkes, not to speak of the opinions of the lawyers, and the speeches of their orators, who declare “they will face any alternative, but that they will never surrender.” The friendly relations which existed between ourselves and many excellent Americans are now rendered somewhat constrained by the prospect of a great national difference.