Lord Lyons to Mr. Seward.
Sir: Since issuing the orders on which the note which I had the honor to address to you on the 9th of last month was founded, her Majesty’s government has received an official report of a statement made to Mr. Crawford, her Majesty’s acting consul general at Havana, by Mr. Clements, the British subject who was carried off by the United States ship Montgomery, when the steamer Blanche was destroyed by fire on the coast of Cuba.
It appears that Mr. Clements informed Mr. Crawford that, on his arrival at Pensacola on board the Montgomery, he was repeatedly examined, and Was questioned, on several consecutive days, with regard to the affair of the Blanche, the chief object of these examinations being to get him to say that he thought that the Blanche had been set fire to by her own crew; and, further, that as he declined making any such statement, inasmuch as he did not know who had [Page 488] set the ship on fire, he was detained as a prisoner by Commander Hunter until he signed a declaration to the desired effect.
It appears, moreover, that Mr. Clements assured Mr. Crawford that he affixed his signature to the declaration in order to obtain his freedom; that the signature was obtained from him by Commander Hunter in a secret and surreptitious manner, and that he considered the declaration thus extorted from him as void and of no effect whatever; and the more so, because, during the time the Montgomery’s men were on board the Blanche, he was on the after part of the upper deck, guarded by a file of armed men, and, consequently, could not possibly know by whom the ship was set on fire.
In the note to which I have referred, I had the honor to inform you that her Majesty’s government were confident that full compensation would be made for the detention of Mr. Clements. I am now directed by her Majesty’s government to ask, also, for an apology from the government of the United States for the compulsion exercised upon Mr. Clements to induce him to sign at Pensacola a false statement of the circumstances relating to the destruction of the Blanche.
I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, &c., &c., &c.