Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/470

 464 Southern Historical Society Papers.

prevent the transfer of the ships to the purchasers, but a moment's reflection satisfied me that such a course could not restore the ships to us ; at least it was manifest that they could not be reclaimed for use during the war. The proclamation of neutrality issued by the Emperor of the French on the loth of June, 1861, contained a spe- cific prohibition against any aid whatever being given by a French subject to either belligerent, and if the government had determined to enforce that prohibition strictly and literally, no effective resistance could be offered, and no plausible evasion could be attempted.

In England, where in theory the law is paramount, and members of the government had often declared that they neither could, nor would, exceed the restrictions as prescribed by statute, we found that pressure could, and did, overcome ministerial scruples, and that the law might be, and was not only "strained," but that the judgment of a court could be made inoperative by the interference of a Secre- tary of State. In France, the neutrality laws were in themselves more specific than the corresponding English act, but the power of the executive government to modify or to enlarge the legal prohi- bitions was far greater than in England, and while the permission or the connivance of a Minister of State would condone any apparent contravention of the law, his official prohibition would render an appeal to it worse than useless.

When Captain Tessier brought me the unwelcome and discour- aging report of the forced sale of our French ships, I was so fully occupied with pressing affairs in England that it was impossible for me to go to France at once, but I sent him immediately back with a letter to Mr. Slidell, and with instructions to arrange with M. Arman to meet me in Paris, and followed in a few days. A consultation with Mr. Slidell resulted in nothing but the conviction that the Impe- rial government had changed the views which had been previously expressed, and that it would be impossible to retain possession of the ships, or to prevent their delivery to the purchasers by any process of law. It was manifest that the builders of the ships were as much surprised and disappointed by the action of the government as we were. They would not have undertaken the transaction unless they had been impressed with the belief that the supreme government fully understood and approved what they were doing, and they were ready and willing to comply with their engagements, and to assume any reasonable responsibility in the effort to fulfil them.

The course of the civil war about this time took an unfavorable