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imposed upon him by the law of nations to submit to come in for inquiry as to the property of the ship or cargo; and if he violates that obligation by a recurrence to force, the consequence will undoubtedly reach the property of his owner; and it would, I think, extend also to the confiscation of the whole cargo intrusted to his care, and thus fraudulently attempted to be withdrawn from the rights of war."

If this be admitted to be a correct version of the law of the case, as recognized by Great Britain, then little room appears to be left for doubt that the neutral master of the Emily St. Pierre has brought himself within the scope of the condemnation expressed in these words of Lord Stowell, for the facts, as substantially presented by me, do not seem to be disputed.

But I further understand that the grounds upon which your lordship declines to interfere on behalf of the United States do not in any way touch the merits of the case. They are, so far as I can perceive, purely technical. Your lordship remarks that her Majesty's government have no jurisdiction or legal power whatever to take or acquire possession of the vessel, or to interfere with her owners, in relation to their property in her. And, further, that "acts of forcible resistance to the rights of belligerents, when lawfully exercised over neutral merchant ships on the high seas, such, for instance, as rescue from capture, however cognizable or punishable as offences against international law in the prize courts of the captor administering such law, are not cognizable by the municipal law of England, and cannot, by that law, be punished either by confiscation of the ship or by any other penalty; and her Majesty's government cannot raise, in an English court, the question of the validity of the capture of the Emily St. Pierre, or of the subsequent rescue and recapture of that vessel, for such recapture is not an offence against the municipal law of this country."

I cannot restrain the expression of my profound regret to your lordship that by reason of the absence of a just and necessary power in her Majesty's government this wrongdoer should thus have the opportunity of escaping with impunity from suffering the proper penalty for his fraudulent attempts. I am the more deeply sensible of my disappointment from the fact that I had been led to hope for an opposite result from the language of her Majesty's proclamation issued on the 13th day of May last, and evidently intended to apply to precisely the class of cases to which this of the Emily St. Pierre appears to belong. The closing paragraph of that paper expressly warns all her Majesty's subjects, and all persons whatsoever entitled to her protection, that if any of them shall presume, "in contempt of that, her royal proclamation, and of her high displeasure, to do any acts in derogation of their duty, as subjects of a neutral sovereign, in the said contest, or in violation or contravention of the law of nations in that behalf, as, for example, by breaking, or endeavoring to break, any blockade lawfully and actually established by or on behalf of either of the said contending parties, all parties so offending will incur and be liable to the several penalties and penal consequences of the said statute, or by the law of nations in that behalf imposed or denounced."

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If it be not implied by the language to which I have taken the liberty to call your lordship's attention that there is a jurisdiction existing in Great Britain capable of taking cognizance of cases arising under the law of nations, and beyond the range of the municipal law, then does it appear, at least to my judgment, that the proclamation has been most unfortunately worded, for it can scarcely be denied that the government of the United States, which it was certainly intended in part to protect, had a just right to infer from it the power as well as the will of her Majesty's government to shelter it against such wrongful and fraudulent acts of her ill-intentioned subjects as have been committed in the case of the ship Emily St. Pierre.

Praying your lordship's pardon for the trouble I have given you in this case, and trusting I may find justification for my very natural mistake, I beg to renew to your lordship the assurance of the highest consideration with which I have the honor to be, my lord, your most obedient servant, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Right Hon. EARL RUSSELL, &c., &c.

Earl Russell to Mr. Adams.

FOREIGN OFFICE, May 10, 1862.

SIR: In the letter I had the honor to receive from you yesterday you appear to have confounded two things totally distinct.

The foreign enlistment act is intended to prevent the subjects of the crown from going to war when the sovereign is not at war. Thus private persons are prohibited from fitting out a ship-of-war in our ports, or from enlisting in the service of a foreign state at war with another state, or in the service of insurgents against a foreign sovereign or state. In these cases the persons so acting would carry on war, and thus might engage the name of their sovereign and of their nation in belligerent operations. But owners and masters of merchant ships carrying warlike stores do nothing of the kind. If captured for breaking a blockade or carrying contraband of war to the enemy of the captor, they submit to capture, are tried, and condemned to lose their cargo. This is the penalty which the law of nations has affixed to such an offence, and in calling upon her Majesty's government to prohibit such adventurers you in effect call upon her Majesty's government to do that which it belongs to the cruisers and the courts of the United states to do for themselves.

There can be only one plea for asking Great Britain thus to interpose. That plea is, that the blockade is in reality ineffective, and that merchant ships can enter with impunity the blockaded ports. But this is a plea which I presume you will not urge. Her Majesty's government have considered the blockade as an effective blockade, and have submitted to all its inconveniences as such.

They can only hope that, if resistance should prove to be hopeless, the confederate States will not continue the struggle; that if, on the other hand, the restoration of the Union should appear to be impossible, the work of devastation now going on will cease.

Her Majesty's government can only desire the prosperity of the inhabitants of the United States, whatever may be the event of the present civil

war.

I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

RUSSELL.

Mr. Adams to Earl Russell.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
London, May 12, 1862.

MY LORD: I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of your note of the 10th instant. From the purport of it I am led to fear that I may have been unfortunate heretofore in my attempts to express my own meaning.

If I have appeared to your lordship to confound two things so very dissimilar as the penalties of the enlistment act and the liabilities which follow from the attempt to break a blockade, I can only say that the fault must be laid to my want of ability to use words properly to express my thoughts.

The position which I did mean to take was this: that the intent of the enlistment act, as explained by the words of its preamble, was to prevent the unauthorized action of subjects of Great Britain, disposed to embark in the contests of foreign nations, from involving the country in the risk of a war with these countries. This view of the law does not seem to be materially varied by your lordship; when speaking of the same thing you say that the law applies to cases where "private persons so acting would carry on, and thus might engage the name of their sovereign and of their nation in belligerent operations." It is further shown by that preamble that that act was an additional act of prevention, made necessary by experience of the inefficiency of former acts passed to effect the same object.

But it is now made plain that whatever may have been the skill with which this latest act was drawn, it does not completely fulfil its intent, because it is very certain that many British subjects are now engaged in undertakings of a hostile character to a foreign state which, though not technically within the strict letter of the enlistment act, are as much contrary to its spirit as if they levied war directly. Their measures embrace all of the operations preliminary to openly carrying on war-the supply of men, and ships, and arms, and money to one party in order that they may be the better enabled to overcome the other, which other is in this case a nation with which Great Britain is now under treaty obligations of the most solemn nature to maintain a lasting peace and friendship. The government of the United States having, in the course of its hostile operations, had occasion to experience the injurious effects of this virtual levying of war against itself from the ports of a friendly power, and seeing the obstacle in the way of the removal of them to be alleged to be the inefficiency of a statute intended to effect that object, does not regard it as asking anything unreasonable, or more than it would in like case be willing itself to grant, if it solicits some action to render effective the spirit as well of the law as of her Majesty's enunciation of the national will.

I perceive that your lordship appears to be of opinion that, in this proceeding, the government of the United States is asking more than is reasonable. It is, in your view, sufficient to declare that owners and masters of merchant ships, fitted out with intent to break a blockade or carry contraband of war to one of two parties engaged in war, are subject to capture, trial, and condemnation, if caught by the offended party. And hence, in this case, that the government of the United States, in calling upon her Majesty's government to prohibit such adventures, is in effect calling upon it to do that which it ought to do, and fails to be able to do for itself. The only valid plea, your lordship remarks, for asking interposition, is, that the blockade is in reality ineffective; and this, you very justly presume, I shall not be disposed to urge.

But I pray your lordship's pardon if I submit that you appear to have entirely overlooked another plea, which I am confident enough to imagine of no inconsiderable weight. That plea is that the kingdom of Great Britain endeavor in spirit as well as in letter to preserve the principle of neutrality, if not of friendship, towards a foreign power in amity with it to which it has pledged itself. The precise mode in which that shall be done, it does not presume to prescribe. That the toleration of such conduct in subjects of Great Britain, as I have had the pain heretofore to expose, is surely in violation of that neutrality, is justly to be inferred from the very language of her Majesty's proclamation. For it is therein declared that precisely

such acts of theirs as I have been compelled to complain of are done "in derogation of their duty to her as a neutral sovereign, and incur her high displeasure." If such, then, be the true character of the proceedings to which I have heretofore called your lordship's attention, they surely merit something more of notice from her Majesty's ministers than an intimation that they will be suffered to pass unreproved unless the punishment shall be inflicted by the nation whom they are designed to injure. The object of the government of the United States has not been to relieve itself of the duty of vigilance to capture offenders against the law. It has rather been to avoid the necessity of applying additional stringent measures for their own security against British subjects found to be engaged in such illicit enterprises, made imperative by the conviction that no preventive co-operation. whatever can be expected from her Majesty's government. It has rather been to avoid the risk of confounding the innocent with the guilty, because all happen to be involved in a general suspicion. And, lastly, it has rather been to remove, at as early a day as may be, consistently with its own safety, the restrictions on the trade with foreign countries, which these evildoers are laboring with so much industry to force it to protract. Your lordship's language leaves me little hope of any co-operation of her Majesty's government to these ends. Nevertheless, I trust I may be permitted to indulge the belief that the time is not now far distant when the difficulties thus interposed in the way of its progress will have been so far removed by its own unassisted action as to relieve both countries from the painful necessity of further continuing the discussion.

Renewing to your lordship the assurances of my highest consideration, I have the honor to be, my lord, your most obedient servant,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Right Hon. EARL RUSSELL, &c., &c.

No. 253.]

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, May 19, 1862.

SIR: Your despatch of May 2 (No. 150) has been received. The principal military event of the past week has been the recovery of the important port and town of Pensacola.

Of our seaports there yet remain in the occupation of the insurgents only Wilmington, in North Carolina, Charleston, in South Carolina, Mobile, in Alabama, Galveston, in Texas-all of which are, nevertheless, very effectually blockaded.

Preparations are made for their immediate recovery. Thus we expect that, within the next four weeks, the authority of the Union will be entirely restored along the whole Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the country. Trade resuming its legitimate character will begin anew on the first of June at the several ports of Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans, and we shall not be slow in extending the same benefits to other ports. The temptations to contraband trade are rapidly passing away, and it is to be hoped that that great and disturbing annoyance will speedily cease to irritate at home and abroad.

The conflict henceforth will be between land forces in the interior of the country, and perhaps the battles impending at Richmond and Corinth may close the unnatural war. It would be idle to speculate of the probabilities of the results of those combats. They are imminent. I will say only that

our armies are as strong, vigorous, and enthusiastic, as they are well appointed. Their supplies, also, are adequate, and are not in any case likely to fail. Every day exhausts the insurgents, and deprives them of needful resources and facilities for military operations.

I send for your information a copy of a circular which has been addressed by this department to the consuls of the United States upon the subject of licenses for trade at the several ports where the blockade is to be relaxed from and after the first of June next by effect of the President's proclamation.

I observe that speculations concerning foreign intervention were again rising in Europe at the date of our last advices thence, and certain remarks made by one of the ministry at Manchester have been thought here indicative of a disposition of that kind growing up in Great Britain. It is regretted that such incidents should occur just at the moment when this country is so manifestly about to return to a condition of repose and peace. Nevertheless they may exert a salutary influence, by inducing Congress to put the land and naval forces of the country upon a footing which will not permit it to be agitated again by intrigues to introduce foreign enemies to settle domestic strifes.

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SIR: With reference to the case of the Labuan, which is the subject of your despatch, No. 151, of the 2d instant, I have to remark that when it was first presented to the department by Lord Lyons my impression was that the capture was illegal. My opinion, however, was that there was probable cause enough for the capture to warrant a judicial investigation of the case, at least for the purpose of assessing the damages which might be due to the claimants. This opinion was soon after confirmed by a letter from the United States consul at Matamoras to the department, which represented that at the time of the capture the Matamoras custom-house was at Brownsville, and that the cotton which was on board the Labuan at the time of the capture proceeded from the latter place in a steamer belonging there.

The attorney of the United States at New York was instructed to endeavor to have the case disposed of as soon as might be practicable, and the department is in daily expectation of receiving from him the result of the proceedings.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

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