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which I certainly and readily assented, without however understanding that I was placing my duties on him, or doing else than assent to his doing what from the source or manner of the suggestion I supposed he was desirous of undertaking.1
Motley prepared the paper, and
Mr. Fish after receiving it sent it to
Sumner.
2 It was laid aside without adverse comment by
Mr. Fish on its substance, or objection by
Sumner or feeling by
Motley; and it seemed to play no part in the business until it was revived the next year by controversy.
Sumner thought well of it, regarding it afterwards as followed in substance by
Mr. Fish's letter to
Motley of Sept. 25, 1869;
3 but he and
Mr. Fish had no difference as to the propriety of laying it aside.
4 The latter wrote to the senator, July 19, 1870:—
I enclose the copy of Motley's memoir.
Until Sunday last it had not been out of the drawer in which I deposited it a year ago last May or June.
You may remember my comment upon it, in which you partially, if not wholly, joined.
The President's earnest interest in Cuban belligerency, and his purpose to avoid the statement of any principle adverse to its recognition, compelled
Mr. Fish to exclude from his first draft of the instructions to
Motley, altogether or substantially, the proclamation of belligerency as a point of our case against
England.
When the draft was submitted to
Sumner he took strong ground against its waiver of the position on this point which our government had all along steadily held.
Anxious, however, to keep the Administration from a fatal step, he submitted a sketch of a statement less distinct and positive than he wished.
This, after reflection and a conference with
Cushing (the two being in agreement on the question of belligerency), he recalled, withdrawing it May 17, as inadequate and doing injustice to the national cause, and wishing to keep himself free on a question which must necessarily come before Congress.
He did not mean, if he could help it, that the greatest international controversy in our history—with its issue altogether in obscurity—should be
