It is very easy to see that if U.S.
privateers were allowed to capture British merchant vessels on charges of breach of blockade or carrying contraband of war, the vexations would have soon become intolerable to our commerce, and a quarrel must have ensued."] [Footnote 1017: _Parliamentary Papers_, 1863, _Commons_, LXXII.
"Memorial from Shipowners of Liverpool on Foreign Enlistment Act."] [Footnote 1018: _Ibid._] [Footnote 1019: _U.S.Diplomatic Correspondence_, 1863, Pt.

I, pp.
308-10.] [Footnote 1020: The despatch taken in its entirety save for a few vigorous sentences quite typical of Seward's phrase-making, is not at all warlike.

Bancroft, II, 385 _seq_., makes Seward increasingly anxious from March to September, and concludes with a truly warlike despatch to Adams, September 5.

This last was the result of Adams' misgivings reported in mid-August, and it is not until these were received (in my interpretation) that Seward really began to fear the "pledge" made in April would not be carried out.

Adams himself, in 1864, read to Russell a communication from Seward denying that his July 11 despatch was intended as a threat or as in any sense unfriendly to Great Britain.
(F.O., Am., Vol.