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 1864] The Niagara intrigue. 577 and anything will be received and carefully considered by him when offered by any influential person or persons in terms not assuming the independence of the so-called Confederate States." Several other incidents of this nature occurred in the summer of 1864. In July of that year an adventurer named Jewett so worked upon the confidence of Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, as to induce him to believe that there were certain Confederate agents in Canada "with full and complete powers for a peace"; and Greeley in a credulous and pleading letter urged the President to invite "those now at Niagara to exhibit their credentials and submit their ultimatum." While Lincoln utterly disbelieved the good faith or authority of the pretended emissaries, he felt it necessary to convince Greeley, and immediately answered him on July 9 : "If you can find any person, anywhere, professing to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis in writing, for peace, embracing the restoration of the Union, and abandon- ment of slavery, whatever else it embraces, say to him he may come to me with you, and that if he really brings such proposition he shall at least have safe-conduct with the paper (and without publicity, if he chooses) to the point where you shall have met him. The same if there be two or more persons." Greeley interposed certain trivial objections to taking part him- self; but the President again telegraphed and wrote to him emphatically: " I was not expecting you to send me a letter, but to bring me a man, or men.... I not only intend a sincere effort for peace, but I intend that you shall be a personal witness that it is made." Finally to leave no room for equivocation or delay, he sent Major John Hay with the following paper in his own handwriting, which Major Hay delivered into the hand of one of the Confederate emissaries on the Canada side of Niagara Falls. "EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, July 18, 1864. To whom it may concern : Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the Executive Government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points ; and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe- conduct both ways. ABRAHAM LINCOLN." If the Confederate agents did not devise, they at least countenanced the imposture by which the adventurer Jewett drew Greeley, and sought to draw the President, into a negotiation which on their part was all pretence. They were compelled to admit that they possessed no powers, and could only allege that they were acquainted with the views of their government. With this avowal of course all negotiation was summarily ended. Mr Greeley left Niagara abruptly; and the C. M. H. VII. CH. XVIII. 37