contested territorial jurisdiction, hunted on the high seas as lawful prize, and be at the mercy of any arbitrary arrest.

I did not take passage on board the Greyhound out of the port of Wilmington, until I had ascertained to my satisfaction. that she was a bona-fide British vessel, having undertaken the single voyage in which she was captured, under a charter party, and entitled to carry the British flag, at least so far as to protect passengers, subject only to the risk of capture within the territorial limit asserted by the United States. I trust that my circumspection in this matter has not been without avail, and that, having sought the protection of the British flag, in good faith, and with an innocent purpose, I may speedily realize it through the offices of your Lordship.

I have the honor to renew my respects.

Your obedient servant,

LORD LYONS, Envoy Extraordinary, &c., for Her Britannic Majesty, near Washington, United States.

MY LORD: I am now held as prisoner on board the British steamer Greyhound, which is claimed as a prize by the U. S. Steamship Connecticut, and is ordered, as I am informed, to the port of Boston, where proceedings will be taken for her condemnation. The circumstances under which the Greyhound was captured are peculiar, and involve a question of the most obvious interest and gravest import to Her Majesty's Government, and to the right of property in her subjects.

The Greyhound was, in good faith, and in all respects, a British vessel, and had been chartered at Bermuda to take out from the port of Wilmington certain private cotton purchased and paid for by subjects of Great Britain, and held exclusively on their own account. Not one pound of this cotton belonged to any citizen of the Confederate States; nor did any such citizen have any interest whatever in the vessel or her venture. Your Lordship will be easily able to determine from the ship's papers, and all other circumstances, that the nationality of the Greyhound was not a disguise-an adopted convenience for

running the blockade-but was in all respects a true and unaffected claim on the part of her owners.

At the time of the capture of the Greyhound, on the 10th instant, she was in lat. 33 degs., 10 min., 15 sec., and long. 75 degs., 47 min., 45 sec. West, one hundred and twenty-five miles from the nearest land, flying the British ensign. She had passed out to sea from the port of Wilmington without seeing a Federal cruiser, and without any visible evidence of a blockade. But even if that blockade had existed, and was something more than a vicious fiction, by which Federal cruisers, instead of picketing the coast, are permitted to take easy prizes on the high seas, I submit to your Lordship that the Greyhound, having once passed out the territorial limit, and flying the British flag, not for the purposes of concealment, but by clear title of right, could not be outlawed on the high seas, and took the risks of blockade only within the territorial jurisdiction claimed by the United States. Any other rule would extend the jurisdiction of the United States over the high seas, and the flag of Her Majesty's Government carried there by a clear title in the vessel to fly it, would afford no protection.

As another circumstance of illegality in the capture of the Greyhound—indeed, I may say as one of wholly unnecessary indignity-I have further to state to your Lordship, that when the vessel had been brought to Newport News, the Commodore present, the senior officer commanding the Federal squadron, commanded the British flag on my vessel to be hauled down, and the Federal flag to be hoisted in its place. There is certainly no shadow of right for such a proceeding, until the vessel is condemned in due course of law; and of the spirit of an act, where the law and the rule of propriety which it equally offends are both so plain, your Lordship will doubtless have no difficulty in judging.

Trusting that the rights of the owners of the Greyhound, which I am left for the present to represent, will receive the attention of your Lordship, and having every confidence in your Lordship's sensibility to whatever touches the rights and honor of Her Majesty's Government,

I have the honor, &c., your obedient servant,

GEORGE HENRY, Master of the Greyhound.

IV.

BRITISH LEGATION, WASHINGTON, D. C., May 20, 1864.

SIR: It is the usual and correct practice that the master and one or more of the other persons taken on board a neutral vessel captured for breach of blockade, should be sent in the vessel to a port of the captor, in order that their evidence may be taken in the case; but if such persons be neutral, they ought to be released as soon as they have given their evidence, and their evidence ought to be taken without unnecessary delay.

I have written to the Secretary of State of the United States to express my hope that you will be set free immediately after your evidence has been taken; and I beg of you to lose no time in informing me, if this be not done.

I have also applied to the Secretary of State of the United States for the release of those of the officers and crew of the Greyhound, who were taken out of the vessel, and who have, I am sorry to say, been detained as prisoners at Camp Hamilton, near Fortress Monroe.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

LORD LYONS, Envoy Extraordinary, &c., for Her Britannic Majesty, near Washington, United States:

MY LORD: I have been detained here as a prisoner one week to-day; notwithstanding the notification, under date of 20th instant, with which your Lordship obliged me, to the effect that you had applied to the Secretary of State of the United States for my release.

There are two points in my case, which I beg to bring to your attention again in a precise and brief recapitulation.

1. The Greyhound had passed out of the port of Wilmington, without sight of a blockading vessel, and was taken by a cruiser about one hundred and fifty miles out at sea. I desire

to put the question to your Lordship, if the government at Washington can so change its tactics of blockade as to omit an efficient guard of the coast, and take up vessels which have come out of Confederate ports by fast-sailing cruisers on the ocean highway; for such I was informed, by an officer of the U. S. steamer Connecticut, was the recently adopted and easy plan of taking prizes, the fruits of which your Lordship may have observed in the capture of four vessels as prizes in a single week, each taken far out on the high seas.*

2. The Greyhound was thoroughly a British vessel; the British flag she carried was not a decoy, and that flag covered me, after I had passed out of the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and, even in case it did not protect vessel or cargo (granting, for argument, these to be of an illicit character) protected me as an innocent passenger; else, having no other egress from the Confederate States, the passenger would be the viction of his necessity; and, else again, if a citizen of the Confederate States, not contraband, could be outlawed on the high seas, under that flag, flying on a bona fide British vessel, why not a subject or citizen of any other Government? If the flag was a reality at all it certainly should give protection on the ocean highway to a passenger who was pursuing objects of private convenience, and certainly was not amenable to any military penalties of the government at Washington.

Begging that your Lordship will acquit me of the charge of importunity in a matter the importance of which is by no means altogether personal to myself, I have the honor, &c., Your obedient servant,

EDW. A. POLLARD.

P. S. I telegraphed your Lordship on the 24th instant to obtain liberty for me to see you in Washington, in the interest of the Greyhound, but have received no reply; hence these lines.

* Another circumstance: It is true that if the blockade-runner be seen in flagrante delicto passing the territorial lines, she may be pursued and taken on the high seas. But the Greyhound was not pursued, she was waylaid on the highway of the seas. Such a practice would convert the blockade into a system of roving commissions, and might as well be predicated of the coast of Bermuda as of that of the Confederate States.

VI.

BRITISH LEGATION, WASHINGTON, D. C., May 28, 1864. SIR: I have received your letter of the day before yesterday.

On receiving your telegram of the 24th instant, stating that you were charged to represent to me the facts of the case of the Greyhound and the interests of the owners, I sent by telegraph instructions to Her Majesty's consul at Boston to ask you to communicate on these matters with him for my information. I have to-day received from him an account of an interview which he had with you the day before yesterday.

I will request the consul to see that any British subjects interested in the Greyhound have proper facilities for defending their interests before the Prize Court. This is all I can do at present. I have referred the case to Her Majesty's Government, and I deem it right to wait for instructions from them before taking further steps.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

LYONS.

EDWARD A. POLLARD, Esq.

VII.

FORT WARREN, Boston Harbor, July 2 [should be June 2], 1864. LORD LYONS, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary for Her Britannic Majesty, near Washington:

MY LORD: I have been honored by your attention in two letters, which, I beg leave to state very respectfully, have left me in some confusion of mind as to your Lordship's views and intentions with reference to my case. On the 20th ultimo, you write that you had "expressed your hope" to the Secretary of State of the United States that I should be "set free immediately," &c.; and on the 28th ultimo, you do not say what has been the issue of that hope, and while referring to the prize proceedings against the Greyhound, you make no reference whatever to my personal claims of protection by the British