Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[318] to war about the Trent matter they would have to ask the same courtesy of our government to get their troops into Canada, unless they forced their way over our territory, and that was a game at which two could play.

It is almost a ludicrous event that, in fact, England was forced to ask our consent in this case, that her troops might pass over our territory, landing them at Portland, to fight us upon their arrival on her own ground, and that our government consented, which was a poignant sarcasm upon the use the troops would be to her in Canada.

Gen. Caleb Cushing was the ablest international lawyer of this country, and he had the reputation in Europe of being the ablest in any country. He was with me at that time, and I could have had his services as brigadier-general in the expedition to New Orleans, had not his appointment by the President been rejected by the Senate. This was done because Wilson, who was chairman of the Military Committee of the Senate, was afraid of Andrew, and Andrew had demanded the rejection of Cushing because he was not a “one-idea'd Abolitionist” as Andrew was.

General Cushing examined with me the questions of law and precedents involved in the Trent affair; and we came to the conclusion, as did the Secretary of State after reading that paper (I do not say because of), that against England there could be no doubt what the law of nations in such cases was, if she would take her own interpretation.

I need not pause to give more than a single English precedent:--

Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, a delegate to the first Congress and a prominent patriot, accepted the mission from our Revolutionary Government in 1778, of minister to the Hague, got on board a [French neutral vessel, and proceeded on his mission. He was captured by an English frigate and carried to England. His papers were taken from him, and he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for three years, not being allowed to communicate with his family or his country. He was exposed to every indignity, and regained his liberty only when the War of the Revolution ceased after the signing of the treaty of peace between England and her former rebels. More than that, England declared war on Holland on the ground of the papers her officers took from Laurens.