steamer "290," or "Alabama." It is to be apprehended that attempts by the same and similar vessels to repeat the same injuries will ultimately require a more deliberate consideration of the subject than the government now seems willing to accord. I am, sir, your obedient servant, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., Sr., &c., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. No. 399.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 14, 1862. SIR: Your despatch of October 28 (No. 250) has been received. The President is gratified with the indications of the appearances of a less intolerant opinion in the political circles of Great Britain, to which you have directed his attention. It is surely quite time that there should be a change. Think, for a moment, of the singular transaction in which this government is now actually engaged, namely, the fortifying of New York harbor to resist a piratical expedition coming from Liverpool-Liverpool, a chief port of a great nation with whom we are at peace, to whose capitalists we are sending gold, and whose sufferings we are supplying with bread. It seems too strange to believe, and yet what menace of this kind can we discredit after the experience of our merchantmen destroyed on the high seas by the Alabama. Lord Lyons has arrived and he has been received as he deserves, with a friendly and cordial welcome. I am, sir, your obedient servant, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. No. 403.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 18, 1862. SIR: The European mail comes in at the moment of the sealing the outgoing despatches. The military movements, though important, are not striking. Major General Burnside, now in command of the army of the Potomac, has put it in motion, and events of some significance may be expected within a few days. A part of Major General Banks' expedition is already afloat, and the whole will probably reach the important destination within a week. Some successful movements have been made in North Carolina and in Louisiana. Major General Grant is advancing with apparent success in Mississippi, and additional columns to move by land and water are proceeding towards the Gulf from Cairo and St. Louis. General Rosecrans is advancing towards the enemy in East Tennessee. A general conviction that the war is moving on towards an early and successful conclusion is taking possession of the popular mind. It is based as much upon the evidences of exhaustion of the insurgents as upon our own military movements. Mr. Ericsson seems to be successful in giving new and wonderful efficiency to the iron-clad steamer, and we begin to expect that the power which we have been so long preparing in that form will be in readiness for the piratical navy which, we are warned, is coming from the British shore to the rescue of the insurrection. The blockading squadron seems to have of late been very effective. Its captures have been so many and important as to excite a hope that the contraband trade will fall into discouragement. SIR: Your despatch of October 30th (No. 253) has been received. Your proceedings in submitting to Earl Russell the proposition of this government in regard to the voluntary colonization of Americans of African descent in the British colonies are approved. The question of an ultimate disposition of this portion of our population has been abruptly forced into discussion by the civil war. If events occurring at home had left us at liberty to overlook it, the suggestions which have been made to us on the subject, directly as well as indirectly, from foreign countries, could not wisely be treated with neglect. Under these circumstances the President has thought it judicious to hear and to consider carefully the various projects which are offered, and to afford facilities for experimental trial of these projects, so far as can be done consistently with sound policy and with the promotion of justice and humanity. While some of them are thus ascertained to be impracticable, it may be hoped, nevertheless, that we are drawing near to the discovery of a feasible policy which will solve, perhaps, the most difficult political problem that has occurred in the progress of civilization on the American continent. It may be well for you to state to Earl Russell that this government entertains no sentiment of dissatisfaction with his declination of our proposition. I am, sir, your obedient servant, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., sv., sv., sv. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward. No. 257.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: From representations made by Mr. Dudley, the consul at Liverpool, which lead to the belief that the pirate 290 is about to return to its old cruising ground off the western islands, I have been induced once more to call the attention of the officers of the Tuscarora and Kearsarge to the necessity of protect ing the trade from India. I fear that neither of them separately, nor indeed both together, are any match for the shrewdness and enterprise of Captain Semmes, who has a vessel very capable of escaping from every risk of encounter. The exploits of this vessel by no means give rise to a feeling of entire satisfaction on this side of the water. A strong proof of this is to be found in the proceedings of the Chamber of Commerce at Liverpool, where is the greatest sympathy with the rebellion. Mr. Dudley will undoubtedly furnish you with a copy of them. The leading newspapers in London have discussed the subject. according to their biases; but not without betraying a good deal of misgiving as to the position of their government in respect to it, although they are evidently without the knowledge of all the facts. I am told, though not by authority, that some parties who yet hold an interest in her, from not having been paid, have taken advice as to the extent of their responsibility in case of reclamations being made. Having myself considered from the outset such a proceeding probable, I have shaped my course in my correspondence with Lord Russell mainly to the preparation of a record to sustain it. The activity in forwarding supplies of all sorts to the British islands continues unabated. I learn that orders from Charleston to procure Armstrong and Whitworth guns, at any cost, are in process of execution in anticipation of an expected attack on that point. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, ADA CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. No. 408.]. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 21, 1862. SIR: Your despatch of November 6 (No. 257) has been received, and the measure you adopted of directing the attention of the commanders of the Tuscarora and Kearsarge to the new piratical proceedings threatened by the 290 is approved. I have already communicated the information which your despatch. brings to the Secretary of the Navy. Our consul at Quebec writes that the British war steamer Ariadne has been sent from that place by Rear Admiral Milne to cruise for the same offender. Having accepted this information as true, it excites some surprise to find that the purpose of the British government in this respect has not been made known to you in London. I am, sir, your obedient servant, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, December 3, 1861. MY LORD: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your lordship's note of the 30th November last, in which you review the explanations of the Secretary of the Navy which I have submitted to you concerning the cases of two seamen of the British schooner Revere, and two other seamen of the British schooner Louisa Agnes, which two schooners were captured, though at different times, in attempts to break the blockade of the ports held by the insurgents. I have read your objections to these explanations with great care, and, as I trust, with candor, inspired by a sincere desire to concede to the complainants whom you represent any redress to which they might be found entitled, and to preserve the best possible understanding with the government of Great Britain. The Secretary's explanations do, in fact, show, as you have assumed that the two seamen of the schooner Revere were confined for two or three days in single irons in the day time, and in double irons during the night, and that after the period thus passed they were left at liberty during the greater part of the day but confined at night. I cannot admit, however, that you are perfectly just in calling this confinement hard treatment. You notice the explanation, that confinement of the seamen with irons to the extent practiced was resorted to in order to prevent their rising and retaking the vessel; but you object that no information is given from which an opinion can be formed as to the reasonableness of the precaution, and that no evidence is adduced of there having been ground for suspecting the men of a design to retake the vessel, or for apprehending that they had the means of executing such a design. Whether the restraints practiced upon the two seamen in question were "hard treatment" and a severe measure, as you have characterized them, or whether it was proper treatment, of course depends altogether, as you seem to admit, upon the circumstance whether those restraints exceeded the rigor which reasonable prudence required for the security of the capturing vessel and her prize on their way to port for adjudication. You seem to have assumed that any confinement of the seamen, especially in irons, in such a case must by law be presumed to be unnecessary, and therefore unreasonable and severe, and that consequently it devolves upon the officer who makes the capture to exculpate himself from the general charge of hardness or severity by showing that the rigor practiced was necessary in the act complained of. I submit, on the contrary, that in these as in all other cases it rests with the complainant to show in his statement the facts and circumstances which constitute the grievance, before the accused party can be called upon to deny, or at least justify, the conduct alleged against him. I proceed to examine the case of the two seamen of the Revere in the light of this rule. On the 6th of October your lordship addressed me a note, in which you stated that you therewith handed to me a copy of a despatch as well as a copy of a letter and an attested copy of an affidavit. You added that you desired to re commend to my favorable consideration the request to which those papers referred, that the mate of the British schooner Revere, who appeared to be detained at Fortress Monroe, might appear at Boston as a witness for the defence of the vessel before the prize court at that city. You added that you desired also to direct my attention to the unusual manner in which the master and crew of the Revere appeared to have been treated, and especially to the fact of two of the crew having been kept (as it would seem very unjustly) in irons. You closed with requesting me to return the attested copy of the affidavit to you. Your request that the captain might be allowed to appear at the prize court was promptly granted. The attested copy of an affidavit was returned to you as requested, without a copy of it having been taken in this department, as it was not then supposed that you thought it would be useful beyond the purpose of showing that you had grounds for calling my attention to the subject of the confinement of the seamen. It is necessary to state that the despatch was silent upon the subject of the confinement of the seamen. A copy of your note, together with a copy of the despatch annexed to it, was, on the 7th day of October, the very day of their receipt, by me submitted to the Secretary of the Navy with a request in general terms for the information necessary to enable me to reply to the note. On the 11th of November I had the honor to receive from your lordship a second note bearing date on the 7th of that month, in which you recited that on the 10th of October (meaning the 6th) you had directed my attention to the unusual manner in which the master and crew of the British schooner Revere appeared to have been treated after the capture of their vessel by the United States ship Cambridge, and especially to the fact that two of the crew had been kept in irons. You then proceeded to lay before me another and kindred complaint about the rigor practiced, as you assumed, upon two seamen of another and different vessel. But you gave me no information whatever concerning the two seamen of the Revere A copy of this last paper was transmitted by me to the Secretary of the Navy on the 12th day of November. The Secretary of the Navy having called Flag-Officer Goldsborough's attention to the two complaints as thus submitted to me in very general terms, that officer reported to the Secretary of the Navy by sending him the papers, copies of which were transmitted to you, and which you have found so unsatisfactory. These papers show that the irons which were used had been placed on board for the protection of the prize master, and to be used by him when deemed necessary. I am informed that irons are always provided and kept on board blockading vessels as a necessary precaution. So customary is this that a naval officer who, being charged with the maintaining of a blockade, should lose his own vessel, or even a prize, for want of this precaution, would justly incur punishment at the hands. of his government. The papers show that Lieutenant Gwin, the executive officer of the Cambridge, certainly had injunctions from the commander that the crews were to have every indulgence their case would admit of, and that they should be made as comfortable as possible. Upon the capture of the Revere he put the prize master on board of her, with the irons, with instructions to use them if he should deem it necessary. The prize master, going with probably only two or three loyal seamen spared from the Cambridge, it appears, did deem it necessary at first to put the two captured seamen in irons until their dispositions should be ascertained. When it is considered that these seamen were strangers to him, captured, disappointed in the objects of their voyage, and conveyed, against their wishes and will, to a distant and, to them, foreign port, by an authority in the exercise of a belligerent power, I think that it might have been reasonably apprehended by the prize master that if left from the first entirely free they might attempt the life of the prize master, or at least the deliverance of the prize. Using the same form of illustration as before, I think that the prize master, who having irons put into his hands for his own safety and the security of the prize vessel, should nevertheless have lost the prize by its being recaptured by captives whom he had not confined, would justly be dismissed from the naval service. Whether the prize master might not with safety have released the two seamen from their confinement in irons, at an earlier day or hour, remains uncertain. It should seem right if he has exercised his best discretion in a case in which his discretion was necessarily the rule of his conduct, unless, indeed, it shall be affirmatively shown that he wilfully or negligently abused his power over the unwilling and reluctant seamen. That he did not so abuse his power seems to me to be clearly proved by the fact that all of the |