1894

7. The Trent Affair

“By the fall of 1861,” continued the major, “the federal blockade of southern ports was seriously hurting the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, attempted to send commissioners to England and France to seek naval aid in breaking the blockade. The agent to London was Mr. James M. Mason, and the man headed for Paris was Mr. John Slidell. The Americans boarded a British Royal Mail packet in Havana, the Trent, under Captain Moir. At noon, November 8, 1861, one day out of Havana, the Trent was stopped in Bahama Channel by the San Jacinto, a screw sloop of the federal navy. American marines forcibly removed Mason and Slidell.” He stopped for a moment and we both held to the side straps as the carriage bounced over a cluster of potholes.

“Dates,” said the major as he caught his breath, “now become important. After a fair voyage of nineteen days, the Trent reached London. You hadn’t been born yet, Wells, and I was just a lad of ten, but I remember it vividly. I remember the mobs in the streets, the spontaneous parades, the scenes in front of the American Embassy. The Times rushed extra editions to the streets every few hours, and finally brought out an edition with just one word on the front page, in big black letters: WAR. Eight thousand troops were called up and loaded onto ships for Canada. Lord Russell, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, urged that war be declared immediately. He prepared an appropriate message for the prime minister to present to parliament and to the queen. On this same day Prince Albert was moved from his apartment in the castle to the Blue Room. He was dying, and the Blue Room was the proper room to die in. George Fourth and William Fourth had died there. And so the prince died, December 1, 1861.

“As you probably know, the queen customarily consulted the prince on all matters of state, but now, in his present condition this was no longer possible. So when Prime Minister Palmerston brought her Russell’s proposed note, she had only the judgment of her ministers to guide her, and the consequences were catastrophic. Russell’s note was an ultimatum. It demanded the release of the two commissioners and an immediate apology. The wording was so insulting that no nation could, in honour, answer it. It was delivered December 18 in Washington to Lord Lyons, the British ambassador there, and he immediately passed it on to Secretary of State Seward. Lincoln and his cabinet considered it a few days later. It was of course never answered. Parliament duly declared war, and the Great Intervention was on. In sixty-two the British navy broke the federal blockade, and Lee beat McClellan at Antietam, and the next year he took Washington.

“But while we were busy getting entangled in the American war, the French had not been idle. They supported the uprising in Quebec and made a colony of Mexico.” He sighed. “All for cotton, Wells. Our entire Industrial Revolution was based on cotton, grown and picked by slaves in Mississippi, and Louisiana, and Alabama, and Georgia. In 1860 we imported over one billion pounds of American cotton into Liverpool. Directly or indirectly, our Lancashire mills supported hundreds of thousands of millhands, shipbuilders, sailors, and clerks—workers in a dazzling occupational array, and their families. If we lost our supply of cheap cotton, we all knew the mills would close and the government would fall. Today we look at it differently, of course. Today Indian cotton is both better and cheaper than Confederate cotton, and our entire textile trade accounts for less than 10 percent of our gross national product. Looking back, we can see that the Intervention was a ghastly error.”

He seemed to have all the facts at his fingertips. But what was he adding that couldn’t be found in the history books? I said, “And you believe that if the prince had lived, he could have prevented the Intervention?”

“Yes.”

“So that’s the real reason for all this?”

“From my viewpoint, again, yes.”

I thought about that. We weren’t going to restore Albert to the Widow, but perhaps we could restore honour to old England. No more textiles from slave-grown cotton.

But I had another question. “Did they know Albert had typhoid?”

“They knew.”

“Surely there was some sort of treatment available?”

He smiled grimly. “That brings us to the question of Dr. James Clark, the palace physician.”

“Clark…? He wasn’t mentioned back at the conference?”

“No. And with good reason. The queen insisted that he and he alone attend the prince. The modem medical profession, including Dr. Wright, has tactfully refrained from questioning her judgment, at least within her presence.”

“He was a quack?”

“No, Wells, he was not a quack. He was actually quite skilled. Indeed, he was thoroughly familiar with the accepted treatment of typhoid.”

“Which was?”

“With no treatment, the fever rises quickly, to 104°, and stays there. In eight days, more or less, the patient dies. Treatment is simple: keep the fever down with cold baths. Dr. Clark didn’t do that. Save for a daily visit to the patient and periodic assurances to the queen, he did nothing.”

“But he knew? You said he knew?”

“He knew. He knew several things, Wells. Probably the thing uppermost in his mind during the critical period of November-December 1861 was the fact that in ’59 and ’60 he had invested heavily in half a dozen mills in Lancashire. He had done this with borrowed money. If cotton was cut off he would be ruined. He might even have to call on the queen to save him from debtor’s prison. He knew the prince hated slavery. He knew that if the prince got into the act, Britain would remain neutral.”

“But… no… surely…?” I understood what the major was telling me. I just couldn’t bring myself to put it in words.

He laughed his bitter humorless bark. “You’re looking for a nice word, Wells? Something like ‘negligent homicide’? Or ‘reckless manslaughter’? You don’t like ‘murder premeditated’?”

I had no ready answer.

He said, “Calm yourself. Shortly after Albert’s death she knighted James Clark, and he died within the year. Her carriage was first in line at his funeral, and she wept.”

“As well she should have,” I muttered.

“De mortuis, Wells,” he chided. “I mention this to fill you in on the situation, and to explain why you can expect no cooperation from Dr. Clark. Avoid him if you can. Ah, here we are. We’ll go on up.”