British authorities had
permitted the escape of ship 290, subsequently known as the Confederate
commerce-destroyer, Alabama. The authorities did not wish to allow a
repetition of the incident. But could it be shown that the Laird
ships were not really for a French purchaser? It was in the course
of diplomatic conversations that Mr. Adams, speaking of the possible
sailing of the ships, made a remark destined to become famous: "It would
be superfluous in me to point out to your lordship that this is war." At
jest, the authorities were satisfied. The ships were seized and in the
end bought for the British Navy.

Again Napoleon stood alone. Not only had he failed to obtain aid
from abroad, but in France itself his Mexican schemes were widely and
bitterly condemned. Yet he had gone too far to recede, and what he
had been aiming at all along was now revealed. An assembly of Mexican
notables, convened by the general of the invaders, voted to set up an
imperial government and offered the crown to Napoleon's nominee, the
Archduke Maximilian of Austria.

And now the Government at Washington was faced with a complicated
problem. What about the Monroe Doctrine? Did the Union dare risk war
with France? Did it dare pass over without protest the establishment
of monarchy on American soil by foreign arms? Between these horns of
a dilemma, the Government maintained its precarious position during
another year. Seward's correspondence with Paris was a masterpiece of
evasion. He neither protested against the intervention of Napoleon
nor acknowledged the authority of Maximilian. Apparently, both he
and Lincoln were divided between fear of a French alliance with the
Confederacy and fear of premature action in the North that would render
Napoleon desperate. Just how far they comprehended Napoleon and his
problems is an open question.

Whether really comprehending or merely trusting to its instinct,
Congress took a bolder course. Two men prove the antagonists of a
parliamentary duel--Charles Sumner, chairman of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations, and Henry Winter Davis, chairman of the corresponding
committee of the House. Sumner played the hand of the Administration.
Fiery resolutions demanding the evacuation of Mexico or an American
declaration of war were skillfully buried in the silence of Sumner's
committee. But there was nevertheless one resolution that affected
history: it was a ringing condemnation of the attempt to establish