1. By No. 386, I am to protest against the construction of war vessels
for the use of the rebels in the ports of this kingdom.
2. By No. 383, to present a copy of the resolutions of the Chamber of
Commerce of New York on the depredations committed by the pirate 290 on
American shipping.
3. By No. 384, to bring to its notice the conduct of the commander of her
Majesty’s gunboat Bull Dog, as described in a letter of Rear Admiral
Charles Wilkes to the Secretary of the Navy.
Being engaged at this moment in the preparation of a note to Lord
Russell, in execution of your prior instructions contained in despatch
No. 381, and intended to present the whole case of the government in
respect to the action of No. 290, which, on account of its great
importance, I have taken time to mature, I rather incline to postpone
action on the other topics for a little while. I am led to do this, not
simply because it does not seem to me the most propitious moment to
multiply causes of offence with this court, but because there are
accidental obstacles to my action in some of the despatches
themselves.
For the various reasons thus enumerated, I shall venture to postpone, at
least for the present, any particular remonstrance based on these later
despatches. Much of the general subject will indeed be covered by the
note to which I have alluded as already prepared.
The telegraphic despatch by the Edinburgh, which appears in all the
morning newspapers, contains a report of the substance of a letter
addressed by you to the Chamber of Commerce of New York on the
depredations of No. 290, which announces that the minister at London had
been directed to make reclamations of the British government. This
intelligence has had a little effect in commercial circles here, it
being charitably construed as symptomatic of a desire to create
difficulties with England to counteract the tendency of the elections at
home. For this reason I am glad that a sense of the importance of the
proceeding has happened to delay my preparation of the note I propose to
present until after this news was received. That note was finished
yesterday, and is now in the hands of the secretary who is preparing a
fair copy for my signature. A copy will likewise accompany this
despatch. Lord Russell is not altogether unprepared for the reception of
something of the kind, as in the last conference which I had with him,
on Saturday, I apprised him that I had received a mass of testimony,
upon which I was instructed to make a further representation on the
subject. The labor of copying all the papers, with the present abridged
force in the legation, has also contributed to the delay.
In the precise conjuncture of affairs in Europe it is a little
unfortunate that [Page 7] this difficulty
should interpose itself between Great Britain and the United States. I
am rather inclined to treat it as a question of right and wrong, to be
settled after amicable discussion at a convenient time hereafter, and
not as a cause of immediate and pressing urgency. * * * *
The publication of the notes of the three powers on the question proposed
by France seems to have had an important influence upon opinion all over
Europe. * * * As a consequence, there has been a slight tendency to
reaction towards the cause of the United States. This has likewise been,
to some extent, re-enforced by an active revival of the anti-slavery
feeling among the people at large. I am particularly anxious at this
time to avoid action which should have the smallest effect to modify
this current.
Mr. Adams to Earl Russell.
Legation of the United
States, London,
November 20, 1862.
My Lord: It is with very great regret that
I find myself once more under the necessity of calling your
lordship’s attention to the painful situation in which the
government of the United States is placed by the successive reports
received of the depredations committed on the high seas upon
merchant vessels by the gunboat known in this country as No. 290,
touching the construction and outfit of which in the port of
Liverpool for the above purpose I had the honor of heretofore
presenting evidence of the most positive character.
It is my duty now to submit to your consideration copies of a large
number of papers received from Washington as well as from the consul
at Liverpool, all of which concur in establishing the truth of the
allegations made by me of the intentions of that vessel prior to her
departure from the ports of this kingdom. I then averred that the
purpose was to make war upon the people of the United States, a
nation with which Great Britain has now been for half a century, and
still is, on a footing of the most friendly alliance, by the force
of treaties which have received the solemn sanction of all the
authorities regarded among men as necessary to guarantee the mutual
obligations of nations. That I made no mistake in that averment is
now fully proved by the hostile proceedings of that vessel since the
day she sailed from the place in this kingdom where she was prepared
for that end.
It now appears from a survey of all the evidence—first, that this
vessel was built in a dock-yard belonging to a commercial house in
Liverpool, of which the chief member, down to October of last year,
is a member of the House of Commons; secondly, that, from the manner
of her construction and her peculiar adaptation to war purposes,
there could have been no doubt by those engaged in the work, and
familiar with such details, that she was intended for other purposes
than those of legitimate trade; and thirdly, that during the whole
process and outfit in the port of Liverpool, the direction of the
details, and the engagement of persons to be employed in her, were,
more or less, in hands known to be connected with the insurgents in
the United States. It further appears that since her departure from
Liverpool, which she was suffered to leave without any of the
customary evidence at the custom-house to designate her ownership,
she has been supplied with her armament, with coals and stores and
men by vessels known to be fitted out and despatched for the purpose
from the same port, and [Page 8] that,
although commanded by Americans in her navigation of the ocean, she
is manned almost entirely by English seamen, engaged and forwarded
from that port by persons in league with her commander. Furthermore,
it is shown that this commander, claiming to be an officer acting
under legitimate authority, yet is in the constant practice of
raising the flag of Great Britain, in order the better to execute
his system of ravage and depredation on the high seas. And lastly,
it is made clear that he pays no regard whatever to the recognized
law of capture of merchant vessels on the high seas, which requires
the action of some judicial tribunal to confirm the rightfulness of
the proceeding; but, on the contrary, that he resorts to the
piratical system of taking, plundering, and burning private property
without regard to consequences or responsibility to any legitimate
authority whatever.
Such being the admitted state of the facts, the case evidently opens
a series of novel questions of the gravest character to the
consideration of all civilized countries. It is obviously impossible
to reconcile the toleration by any one nation of similar
undertakings in its own ports, to the injury of another nation with
which it is at peace, with any known theory of moral or political
obligation. It is equally clear that the reciprocation of such
practices could only lead in the end to the utter subversion to all
security to private property upon the ocean. In the case of
countries geographically approximated to one another, the
preservation of peace between them for any length of time would be
rendered by it almost impossible. It would be, in short, permitting
any or all irresponsible parties to prepare and fit out in any
country just what armed enterprises against the property of their
neighbors they might think fit to devise, without the possibility of
recovering a control over their acts the moment after they might
succeed in escaping from the particular local jurisdiction into the
high seas.
It is by no means my desire to imply an intention on the part of her
Majesty’s government to countenance any such idea. I am fully aware
of the fact that at a very early date, more than one month before
the escape of the vessel, on my presenting evidence of the nature
and purposes of the nameless vessel, together with the decided
opinion of eminent counsel that a gross violation of the law of the
land, as well as a breach of the law of nations, was in process of
perpetration, an investigation was entered into by the law officers
of the crown, which resulted in an acknowledgment of the justice of
the remonstrance. In consequence of this, I am led to infer, from
the language of your lordship’s note of the 22d of September,
explaining the facts of the case, that an order to detain the vessel
at Liverpool was about to issue on the 29th of July last, when a
telegraphic message was forwarded to you from that port to the
effect that the vessel had escaped that very morning. Your lordship
further adds that instructions were then immediately sent to Ireland
to stop her should she put into Queenstown, and similar instructions
were forwarded to the port of Nassau. But it has turned out that
nothing has been heard of her at either place.
It thus appears that her Majesty’s government had, from the evidence
which I had had the honor to submit to your lordship’s
consideration, and from other inquiry, become so far convinced of
the true nature of the enterprise in agitation at Liverpool as to
have determined on detaining the vessel. So far as this action went,
it seems to have admitted the existence of a case of violation of
the law of neutrality in one of her Majesty’s ports of which the
government of the United States had a right to complain. The
question will then remain, how far the failure of the proceedings,
thus admitted to have been instituted by her Majesty’s government to
prevent the departure of this vessel, affects the right of
reclamation of the government of the United States for the grievous
damage done to the property of their citizens in permitting the
escape of this lawless pirate from its jurisdiction.
And here it may not be without its use to call to your lordship’s
recollection for a moment the fact that this question, like almost
all others connected with [Page 9] the
duty of neutrals in time of war on the high seas, has been much
agitated in the discussions heretofore held between the authorities
of the two countries. During the latter part of the last century it
fell to the lot of her Majesty’s government to make the strongest
remonstrances against the fitting out in the ports of the United
States of vessels with an intent to prey upon British commerce— not,
however, in the barbarous and illegal manner shown to have been
practiced by No. 290, but subject to the forms of ultimate
adjudication equally recognized by all civilized nations. And they
went the further length of urging the acknowledgment of the
principle of compensation in damages for the consequences of not
preventing the departure of such vessels. That principle was
formally recognized as valid by both parties in the 7th article of
the treaty of the 19th November, 1794; and, accordingly, all cases
of damage previously done by capture of British vessels or
merchandise by vessels originally fitted out in the ports of the
United States were therein agreed to be referred to a commission
provided for by that treaty to award the necessary sums for full
compensation.
I am well aware that the provisions of that treaty are no longer in
force; and that even if they were, they bound only, the United
States to make good the damage done in the precise contingency then
occurring. But I cannot for a moment permit myself to suppose that
her Majesty’s government, by the very act of pressing for the
recognition of the principle in a treaty, when it applied for its
own benefit, did not mean to be understood as equally ready to
sustain it, at any and all times, when it might be justly applied to
the omission to prevent similar action of British subjects within
its own jurisdiction towards the people of the United States.
But I would beg further to call your lordship’s attention to the
circumstance that there is the strongest reason to believe that the
claim for compensation in cases of this kind was not pressed by her
Majesty’s government merely in connexion with the obtaining a formal
recognition of the principle in an express contract. This seems to
have been but a later step, and one growing out of a previous
advance of a similar demand, based only on general principles of
equity, that should prevail at all times between nations. Here again
it appears that the government of the United States, having admitted
a failure down to a certain date in taking efficient steps to
prevent the outfit in their ports of cruisers against the vessels of
Great Britain, with whom they were at peace, recognized the validity
of the claim advanced by Mr. Hammond, his Majesty’s minister
plenipotentiary at Philadelphia, for captures of British vessels
subsequently made by those cruisers even on the
high seas. This principle will be found acknowledged in its
full length in the reply of Mr. Jefferson, then Secretary of State
of the United States, dated 5th September, 1793, to a letter from
Mr. Hammond of the 30th August preceding—a copy of which is
unfortunately not in my possession—but which, from the tenor of the
answer, I must presume to have itself distinctly presented the
admitted ground of the claim.
Armed by the authority of such a precedent, having done all in my
power to apprise her Majesty’s government of the illegal enterprise
in ample season for effecting its prevention, and being now enabled
to show the injurious consequences to innocent parties relying upon
the security of their commerce from any danger through British
sources ensuing from the omission of her Majesty’s government,
however little designed, to apply the proper prevention in due
season, I have the honor to inform your lordship of the directions
which I have received from my government to solicit redress for the
national and private injuries already thus sustained, as well as a
more effective prevention of any repetition of such lawless and
injurious proceedings in her Majesty’s ports hereafter.
I pray your lordship to receive the assurances of the very high
consideration with which I remain your most obedient servant,
Right Honorable Earl Russell, &c., &c., &c.
[Page 10]
[Enclosures.]
1. Letter of Captains Osborne, Allen, and Smith, to Mr. Dabney,
13th September, 1862.
2. Consular Agent Mackay to Mr. Dabney, 16th September, reporting
destruction of vessels by the “290” at Flores.
3. Deposition of Captaine Doane, of the Starlight.
4. Deposition of Mr. Luce, of the ship Ocmulgee.
5. Memorandum by Mr. Dabney.
6. Mr. Dudley to Mr. Adams, 30th October.
7. Statement of Captain Julius, of the ship Tonawanda.
8. Deposition of Captain Harmon, of the bark Wave Crest.
9. Deposition of Captain Johnson, of the brig Dunkirk.
10. Deposition of Captain Simes, of the ship Emily Farnum,
describing his capture and the burning of the ship
Brilliant.
