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Chapter 4: The Contrabands Question
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39 Lyons met Hodge’s exuberance over Lincoln’s answer with characteristic cynicism. As he complained to Russell, Lincoln had a habit “of approving papers submitted by subordinates, without coming to an understanding with his Cabinet.” He sent Hodge to New York to locate Usher. Humbled by Lincoln’s order, the secretary conceded “that as the President had given his sanction he was agreeable to it.” Lyons deemed Hodge’s “progress” sufficient to authorize the long-awaited port proclamation and requested Seward’s prompt assent in order to send word to Seymour “by a vessel which is on the point of sailing.”1 The contrabands issue, long dormant and seemingly appeased by limiting canvassers to northern ports, suddenly reemerged as a source of diplomatic worry. Lyons privately told Russell that he “should very much like to get as many ‘Contrabands’ as possible safe out of this Country,” fearing for their welfare in a postwar United States. “The question is too large a one for me to pretend to settle,” given its political implications for Britain’s position on the war. Thus, Lyons requested direction from London before permitting Hodge to canvass from this class of people. Russell found himself “disposed to agree” with Lyons’s apprehension and halted the proclamation of the ports, even if the Americans acceded to the plan.2 The Foreign Office’s retraction ignited an internal war of words with the Colonial Office, which considered the issue settled and instructed Hodge to negotiate around that assumption, provided he confine recruitment to northern cities. Hodge has “overcome all difficulties of detail,” complained one Colonial Office letter to Russell’s secretary, only to have “found himself at the last moment debarred.” Hodge protested the decision to Lyons as well, stating that Lincoln intended the inclusion of contrabands in his order. He solicited and obtained a clarification from Mitchell as to whether the order’s wording, “free persons of color,” included contrabands. Attorney Chapter 4 The Contrabands Question 40 Colonization after Emancipation General Bates advised that “there is no distinction in law it is only in time,” indicating the contrabands could be included.3 Frustrated by the latest legal hurdle and content to allow its resolution through the Colonial and Foreign Office bureaucracies, Hodge sailed for Belize on July 11. He informed Lyons of his intent to “wait until I hear all obstructions to the emigration have been removed” and return at a more opportune time in the future. The BHC encountered some difficulty recruiting laborers from the free black population of the North, as the wages most received in the United States exceeded what the BHC could offer. Hodge nonetheless reported finding a “general belief” among the black population “that the whites intend to separate the races after the war now raging.” Many are now “ascertain[ing] the best places for future homes,” a decision that the BHC hoped to encourage with the speedy resolution of the contrabands issue.4 The Colonial Office lodged a vigorous objection with Russell over the exclusion of the contrabands. With another growing season slipping by, Newcastle saw the urgent need for agricultural laborers in the West Indies. One letter complained that the entire emigration policy’s success depended upon the contrabands, the largest intended group of recruits. It was “certainly assumed on both sides that such an emigration was not objectionable in principle, provided it was confined to northern ports.”5 Newcastle found the Foreign Office’s reasons for caution unconvincing, particularly given the Confederacy’s growing military troubles. “There is no United States law to prevent these persons from leaving New York or Boston, there is no colonial law to prevent their arrival at Belize.” As his assistant secretary contended, It would seem to be a question whether Her Majesty’s Government are bound contrary to the desire of the United States Government to exercise a superintendence over British emigrant ships in United States ports, and to examine into the previous history of the emigrants , in order to ascertain that none of them are refugees from the Confederate States. And it would appear to be a sufficient answer to any representation on the subject from the authorities of those states, that the emigration was conducted from Federal ports by private individuals, and that Her Majesty’s Government interfered in the matter no further than to secure the proper treatment of the emigrants without considering themselves bound to enquire whether they had or had not escaped, or been driven by necessity from...