Mr. Seward instructs Mr. Adams that the United States must
have the cotton that reached England in the Prioleau, and which Vice-Chancellor Stuart adjudged to belong to the United States Government, but on principles, which, as we pointed out at the -time, would also make the United States responsible for the Con- federate debt. We have little doubt that those principles are very un- sound, but this declaration of English law has irritated Mr. Seward somewhat naturally, and he declares the United States Govern- ment will not be responsible for the Confederate debt, as no one {but Vice-Chancellor Stuart perhaps) ever dreamtthey would be. He adds that the United States never regarded the Confederate Govern- ment as a de facto Government. This is absurd. If so, they had no " belligerent rights" against neutrals at all. Any power that can so carry on war as to give its opponent belligerent rights' must be a de facto Government. Mr. Seward insists on profiting by both the alternatives of the dilemma—which we call logical rapacity. Either he had no international enemy, in which ease our merchants have a right to compensation for all they lost by the blockade,—or he had an international enemy, and that enemy a de facto Government.
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