Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.
My Lord: I Lave 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 recommend 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 [Page 239] 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 [Page 240] officers of the Cambridge testified that the seamen made no complaints on leaving the Cambridge, and, on the contrary, spoke in good terms of their treatment, and that the commander of the Cambridge declares that he is astonished at the complaint of ill treatment, and, with the best sources of information open to him, denies those assertions altogether.
It remains to say that the government, having no sufficient ground, cannot agree that the two seamen in question in the present case were hardly treated or made to suffer unnecessary hardship. For this reason I cannot admit, what your lordship seems to claim, that the Secretary of the Navy ought to have expressed his disapproval of the proceedings of the officers of the Cambridge, or that he ought, in view of the whole case, to have expressed an intention to take means to secure considerate treatment in future to British seamen in similar circumstances. At the same time this government means and intends to conduct its operations upon the highest principles of humanity known in maritime proceedings, and especially with a view to the exercise of justice and moderation, so far as these proceedings affect Great Britain and other friendly powers, and, therefore, a copy of these papers will be addressed to the flag-officers of the blockading squadrons, accompanied by an instruction from the Secretary of the Navy to use irons only when and so long as necessary, and in all cases to practice the utmost kindness consistent with the safety of captives and prizes towards seamen captured in attempting to break the blockade.
I avail myself of the opportunity to renew to your lordship the assurance of my high consideration.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Right Hon. Lord Lyons, &c., &c., &c.