“ This act was applauded by the people of the North, and by many of the political leaders, including the Secretary of the Navy; but President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward recognized the impropriety of the act and strongly disapproved it, and when a formal demand was made by the British Minister for the surrender of the commissioners it was speedily complied with and an apology tendered, on the ground that the commissioners had been forcibly taken from a neutral vessel on the high seas and in the prosecution of a voyage from one neutral point to another. ”