879
MB. BRIGHT OF THE WAR.
Xxxiv.} TO ME.

Adams to give any notice of leaving his post even if the
ronclads are permitted, on the plea of legality, to leave our
ports, Nor will he meddle with Mexican politics, whatever
may happen, whilst Jeff Davis is in the field. In all this he
shows a strong common sense much to be commended.
“ Mr. Whiting tells me that Mr. Adams bad no assurance
ap to the last from our Government that the Rams would
ot leave, and even when our semi-official papers were
announcing that they had been arrested, he gave expression
bo a fear that he might get up any morning and find the
ships had escaped. Now that I see by yesterday's paper
that the broad arrow has been put upon the Rams, I
suppose the matter is settled.”
“ Midhurst, Oct. 17,1863. ( ,, )—T return Aspinall’s
end Chase's letters. I was pleased with Chase when I saw
him in Ohio, where he was governor of the State in 1859.
He is in his physical and mental traits not unlike Sumner—
a massy, stately-principled man, but more practical and
less of the rhetorician than his Massachusetts colleague.
He is altogether a different type to Seward.
«1 have a letter from Evarts by the last mail. He seems
well pleased at the detention of the Rams. He has a
passage in his letter which seems rather to corroborate
your information about Lord Russell. He says, ‘ From information
 which I have of the severity and uncertainty of
the final struggle with your ministry, Earl Russell was discreditably
 slow and unsteady in coming to the right decision.
 I am sure that when the communications of proofs
as to the destination of these ships of war made to your
government are made public, common sense on both sides
of the water will be shocked at the stumbling hesitancy of
the ministerial council in face of the facts, and at the narrow
escape the two nations have had from at least partial
hostilities.’ **

1863.
AT, 62,