[Footnote 471:  Bancroft, Seward, II, p. 234.  Adams’ letter of December 3 was received on December 21; Dayton’s of December 3, on the 24th.]

[Footnote 472:  Much ink has flowed to prove that Lincoln’s was the wise view, seeing from the first the necessity of giving up Mason and Slidell, and that he overrode Seward, e.g., Welles, Lincoln and Seward, and Harris, The Trent Affair.  Rhodes, III, pp. 522-24, and Bancroft, Seward, II, pp. 232-37, disprove this.  Yet the general contemporary suspicion of Seward’s “anti-British policy,” even in Washington, is shown by a despatch sent by Schleiden to the Senate of Bremen.  On December 23 he wrote that letters from Cobden and Lyndhurst had been seen by Lincoln.

“Both letters have been submitted to the President.  He returned them with the remark that ’peace will not be broken if England is not bent on war.’  At the same time the President has assured my informant that he would examine the answer of his Secretary of State, word for word, in order that no expression should remain which could create bad blood anew, because the strong language which Mr. Seward had used in some of his former despatches seems to have irritated and insulted England” (Schleiden Papers).  No doubt Sumner was Schleiden’s informant.  At first glance Lincoln’s reported language would seem to imply that he was putting pressure on Seward to release the prisoners and Schleiden apparently so interpreted them.  But the fact was that at the date when this was written Lincoln had not yet committed himself to accepting Seward’s view.  He told Seward, “You will go on, of course, preparing your answer, which, as I understood it, will state the reasons why they ought to be given up.  Now, I have a mind to try my hand at stating the reasons why they ought not to be given up.  We will compare the points on each side.”  Lincoln’s idea was, in short, to return an answer to Great Britain, proposing arbitration (Bancroft, Seward, II, 234).]

[Footnote 473:  Mass.  Hist.  Soc. Proceedings, XLV, 155.  Bright to Sumner, Dec. 14, 1861.  The letters to Sumner on the Trent are all printed in this volume of the Proceedings.  The originals are in the Sumner Papers in the library of Harvard University.]

[Footnote 474:  Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol.  XXV.  “Correspondence respecting the Trent.”  No. 24.  Lyons to Russell, Dec. 27, 1861.]

[Footnote 475:  F.O., Am., Vol. 777.  No. 807.  Lyons to Russell, Dec. 31, 1861.  But he transmitted a few days later, a “shocking prayer” in the Senate on December 30, by the Rev. Dr. Sutherland, which showed a bitter feeling.  “O Thou, just Ruler of the world ... we ask help of Thee for our rulers and our people, that we may patiently, resolutely, and with one heart abide our time; for it is indeed a day of darkness and reproach—­a day when the high principle of human equity constrained by the remorseless sweep of physical and armed force, must for the moment, succumb under the plastic forms of soft diplomacy” (Russell Papers.  Lyons to Russell, Jan. 3, 1862).]