Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.
My Lord: In a conversation which was held between us at this department, on the 7th instant, you represented to me, by direction of your government, that “there is an impression in England, in regard to the recent cases of wrong on the part of American authorities, which is still more serious than the wrongs themselves. It is an impression, widely spread and deeply felt, that it is the intention of the American government, by captures without cause, by delays of adjudication, by wanton imprisonment of the masters and part of the crews of captured vessels, to put a stop to the British trade to Matamoras altogether.” You further represented to me, as the views of your government, that the trade to Matamoras is a perfectly legitimate trade; that it is carried on from New York as it is from London and Liverpool; that to pretend that some goods carried to Matamoras may be afterwards transported across the frontier to Texas, does not vitiate the legitimate character of that trade. You asked how it is possible to say beforehand that certain goods will be consumed in Mexico, and certain other goods will be carried into the so-called Confederate States. You argued that it might happen that all the goods carried from London might be used in Mexico, and all the goods sent from New York might be transported by land to Texas, and this is a matter beyond the scope and destination of the sea voyage. You added, that if, therefore, it should appear that, from jealousy of trade, or unjust suspicion of contraband, or any other motive, the British trade were deliberately and systematically made subject to vexatious capture and arbitrary interference, it is obvious that Great Britain must interfere to protect her flag; and you closed with saying that while submitting to the most severe interpretation of the law of nations, she could not allow that, under presence of that law, hostilities should be carried on against a lawful branch of commerce.
It was not possible for me to reply at once to a representation so entirely new, so comprehensive, and yet so elaborate, and I contented myself with promising you that it should receive, at an early day, the serious consideration to which it is entitled.
I do not in the least doubt that the impression which you have thus described does exist in England, and I am not prepared to question the fact that it is as deeply and widely prevalent as you have described. I can well enough understand, I think, that pains have been taken to produce that impression by many persons there, some of them being your countrymen, and more of them [Page 598] being mine, to whom the preservation of peace between the United States and Great Britain is a subject of less concern than mercantile speculations, or sinister political designs of their own. And I think I can understand how such persons may, for a time, by extravagant and concerted statements, mislead the public mind of a country even so enlightened and considerate as Great Britain. I must, at the same time, be allowed to say, that as no facts are given in support of this impression, so, I think, it has been produced in the absence of any occurrence sufficient for its justification.
It is only very recently that this especially enlarged Matamoras trade has come to our notice. Suddenly and quietly as palaces, cities, states, and empires rise in the tales of the Arabian Nights under the waving of a wand or the utterance of a spell, that trade rose from a petty barter to a commerce that engaged the mercantile activity of Liverpool and London. Simultaneously roads across the interior of Texas were covered with caravans, the cotton of disloyal citizens in the insurrectionary region became, all at once, the property of the treasonable conspiracy against the Union, and it was hypothecated, by its agents, for a foreign loan to satisfy obligations contracted by them in the fitting out, and equipping and clearing from British ports, naval expeditions to destroy the commerce of the United States. The Peterhoff was about the first discovered of the vessels engaged in this expanded trade. Unusual arts and devices were alleged, with much probability, to have been used by her owners to secure for her immunity as a trader bound to Matamoras with a lawful cargo, when, in fact, she was designed not to reach, or even seek, that port at all, but to discharge her freight into rebel lighters, at the mouth of the Rio Grande, at the order of pretended consignees, who were her passengers, to be conveyed at once to the possession of the insurgents on American, not Mexican soil. She was indicated, moreover, as a forerunner of other fraudulent craft of the same character, organized with regularity, so as to constitute a contraband packetline. She was searched, and, upon probable grounds, was seized and sent into the nearest available port for adjudication. The court at Key West having temporarily risen, she was, in compliance with the wishes of the British authorities, as well as of the owners, sent at once to New York. Investigation was promptly instituted there. It has been prosecuted with as much diligence and regularity as were ever practiced in any prize court in any country; and no unredressed complaint has yet been made to this government of any error or abuse which has occurred in the proceedings. But that investigation had only commenced there when the impression was suddenly made in England to which your lordship has called my attention, and that impression was made in advance, and with the tendency, if not the purpose, to discredit the tribunal by anticipating its judgment, and to prevent the exercise, by this government, of all legal right to arrest the new contraband trade. It would be neither possible nor becoming for me, on behalf of the government, to resort to specific explanations, designed to furnish you means for correcting the erroneous and unjust impression which you have brought to my notice, without indicating, on your part, any illegal or unfair act of this government or its agents which could have been concerned in producing that impression. I must be content, therefore, with a denial in the general and in the particular of every one of the designs or dispositions attributed to this government by those persons in England who have made or received the impression which you have described. No other proof need be offered to show that the impression is groundless and erroneous, than the correspondence which has taken place between this department and the British office for foreign affairs, touching the cases of seizure which have occurred throughout the whole war, including the cases of the Dolphin and the Peterhoff, ex parte statements of which in England would seem to have had effect in producing the erroneous impression complained of. Thus referring, confidently, to that correspondence, I have now to inform your lordship that [Page 599] every seizure which has been made since the last autumn, was made under the just and fair and unquestionably legal instructions of the Secretary of the Navy, which were announced to you by me in my note of the 8th of August last, and that no other or different instructions, open or secret, have been given by this government. As it cannot be assumed by the United States, nor conceded by Great Britain, that all the vessels ostensibly trading between a British port and Matamoras are unlawfully engaged, so it cannot be claimed by Great Britain, nor conceded by us, that some British vessels may not be fradulently engaged in that ostensible trade in conveying supplies to the insurgents of the United States. This government puts forth its best efforts, in all cases, to prevent abuses of the right or of the power of search, and if these efforts sometimes fail, through the incompetency or misjudgment of an agent, it hastens to correct the involuntary error. It refers the trial of every fact, and of every question of law, to a court recognized by the law of nations, no one of whose judgments has yet been complained of by the British government, and which, therefore, justly lies under no suspicion of either want of intelligence or want of impartiality.
Happily, the operations of the army and the navy on the Mississippi seem now to be likely to break up the inland way, over which the unlawful trade, in question, was intended to be carried, and to remove the remunerative temptations to a continuance of that injurious and forbidden commerce. Renewed instructions have been given to the commanders of the blockading fleet to practice caution and conform strictly to the principles of maritime law, in conducting searches and seizures. The admiralty is likely soon to pronounce upon the legality of the seizure of the Peterhoff, and, in other cases, which are in preparation for adjudication.
If, therefore, as the British government assures us, with entire frankness and sincerity, as we believe, that government is content to abide by the rules and principles of the law of nations, I see no reason to doubt that the painful impression, to which have you called my attention, will give way to sentiments more accordant with the intentions of the two governments, and more conducive to the preservation of harmony and friendly intercourse between them.
I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to your lordship the assurance of my high consideration.
Right Hon. Lord Lyons, &c., &c., &c.