Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-eighth Congress, Part I

Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.

Department of State, Washington June 24, 1863.

My Lord: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 13th instant, accompanied by a letter to you from Governor Bayley, at Nassau, and by a report to him, by Mr. T. B. Burnside, relative to the case of the schooner Hanover, of Boston, captured by the insurgent privateer Retribution, and taken to Long cay, one of the Bahamas.

The information thus communicated is acceptable so far as it goes, but is not deemed altogether conclusive. There still remains a painful doubt in the mind of this government whether the authorities and others at Long cay were, as Mr. Burnside thinks, ignorant that the Hanover was a prize to the Retribution.

I shall be happy if the inquiry shall be prosecuted so far as may be necessary to show these the understood first intentions of her Majesty’s government have been strictly observed.

I have the honor to be your very obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

Right Hon. Lord Lyons, &c., &c., &c.