No. 158.]
Legation of the United States,
London,
May 9, 1862.
I have this moment returned from my conference with his lordship. I read
to him the greater part of your despatch No. 228. The conversation that
followed was interesting”, though brief. It was shortened by the
circumstance that the hour previously fixed for the reception of the
Japanese commissioners had arrived. As there is not time to prepare a
report by this steamer, I shall be compelled to defer it until next
week.
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
Earl Russell to Mr. Adams.
Foreign Office,
May 7, 1862.
Sir: In your letter of the 24th of April
you call my attention to the case of the British vessel Emily St.
Pierre, which, having been captured by a cruiser of the United
States for an attempt to break the blockade of Charleston, was, on
her voyage to Philadelphia for the purpose of being proceeded
against in the admiralty court, retaken from the prize crew by the
master, and some of her own crew left on board her, and brought into
Liverpool; and you request that suitable directions may be given to
restore the vessel at an early day to the authority from which she
has been violently taken.
I have consulted the law advisers of the crown on this matter; and,
in conformity with their opinion, I have now the honor to state to
you that her Majesty’s government are unable to comply with your
request for the restoration of the Emily St. Pierre, inasmuch as
they have no jurisdiction or legal power whatever to take or to
acquire possession of her, or to interfere with her owners in
relation to their property in her.
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 have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your
most obedient, humble servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.
