be so tempting to the Lairds
as to make refusal unlikely. Two men, Forbes and Aspinwall, were sent to
England with funds and much embarrassed Adams to whom they discreetly
refrained from stating details, but yet permitted him to guess their
object. The plan of buying ran wholly counter to Adams' diplomatic
protests on England's duty in international law and the agents
themselves soon saw the folly of it. Fox, Assistant Secretary of the
Navy, wrote to Dupont, March 26, 1863: "The Confederate ironclads in
England, I think, will be taken care of." (Correspondence, I, 196.)
Thurlow Weed wrote to Bigelow, April 16, of the purpose of the visit of
Forbes and Aspinwall. (Bigelow, _Retrospections_, I, 632.) Forbes
reported as early as April 18 virtually against going on with the plan.
"We must keep cool here, and prepare the way; we have put new fire into
Mr. Dudley by furnishing _fuel_, and he is hard at it getting
evidence.... My opinion _to-day_ is that we can and shall stop by legal
process and by the British Government the sailing of ironclads and other
war-ships." (Forbes MS. To Fox.) That this was wholly a Navy Department
plan and was disliked by State Department representatives is shown by
Dudley's complaints (Forbes MS.). The whole incident has been adequately
discussed by C.F. Adams, though without reference to the preceding
citations, in his _Studies Military and Diplomatic_, Ch. IX. "An
Historical Residuum," in effect a refutation of an article by Chittenden
written in 1890, in which bad memory and misunderstanding played sad
havoc with historical truth.]

[Footnote 994: _U.S. Diplomatic Correspondence_, 1863, Pt. I, p. 157. To
Seward, March 24, 1863.]

[Footnote 995: _Ibid._, p. 160. To Seward, March 27, 1863.]

[Footnote 996: State Department, Eng., Vol. 82, No. 356. Adams to
Seward, March 27, 1863.]

[Footnote 997: Palmerston MS. Russell to Palmerston, March 27, 1863.]

[Footnote 998: Rhodes, IV, p. 369, _notes_, April 4, 1863. Bright was
made very anxious as to Government intentions by this debate.]

[Footnote 999: This topic will be treated at length in Chapter XVIII. It
is here cited merely in relation to its effect on the Government at
the moment.]

[Footnote 1000: Trevelyan, _John Bright_, 307-8.]

[Footnote 1001: Hansard, 3rd Series, CLXX, 33-71, for entire debate.]

[Footnote 1002: _U.S. Diplomatic Correspondence_, 1863, Pt. I, p. 164.
Adams to Seward, March 28, 1863.]

[Footnote 1003: Rhodes, I