Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.
My Lord: I have had the honor of receiving your lordship’s note of the 15th instant, in which you inform me that her Majesty’s government have had under consideration the note which I addressed to your lordship on the 13th of May last, respecting the claim for reparation for alleged injuries caused by the imprisonment of Mr. Redgate and Mr. Ellsworth, two of the passengers captured on board the Peterhoff, and that her Majesty’s government are not prepared to accept my proposition that this matter should be referred to the prize court. You further inform me that your government assume, in the first place, that the question is one which a prize court is not ordinarily competent to entertain; and, secondly, that her Majesty’s government regard the case as one in which, assuming the truth of the story, immediate redress should be granted by the executive government of the United States. You further state that it is the opinion of her Majesty’s government that the captain had no right to treat Mr. Ellsworth and Mr. Redgate, the subjects of a neutral state, on board a neutral vessel, as prisoners of war, and that, on the contrary, the captor’s right is confined to detaining, not as prisoners of war, but as necessary witnesses, such of the crew (usually the master and two of the seamen) as may be required to make depositions as to the circumstances of the case; that Mr. Redgate and Mr. Ellsworth formed no part of the crew of the Peterhoff, and that they do not appear to her Majesty’s government to have been detained as witnesses, but rather to have been treated as subjects of a belligerent at war with the United States.
Upon a careful re-examination of this subject, I think your lordship will perceive that the spirit of my note to you of the 13th of May has been misapprehended, as well as the ground which it assumes. In that note I informed your lordship that I had applied to the Secretary of the Navy for such information as he might be able to give, concerning the transactions affecting the claim of Messrs. Galbraith & Company, of London and Glasgow, for compensation for losses which they allege that they have received by reason of the capture of the Peterhoff, and the subsequent confinement of Mr. Redgate and Mr. Ellsworth, and that, by a note just then received from the Secretary of the Navy, I learned that he had no information beyond the general report which had been made to him of the seizure of that vessel. I added that, as the affair then stood, the claim seemed to me to be one incidental to that seizure, and chiefly, if not wholly, involved in the juridical investigation concerning it, which was then going on in the prize court at New York. I observed, further, that if it should [Page 672] appear that the claim, when duly submitted to the court, is unjustly disregarded or is disallowed, because, although just in itself, yet it is found not to be within the competency of the court to grant any redress to which the claimants might be entitled, it would then, unquestionably, present a case for examination by the executive department of the government, and I respectfully submitted, for your lordship’s consideration, the question whether any reference of the claimants to the court was proper or necessary on the part of her Majesty’s government.
Your lordship will perceive that the question which I had before me, in writing this note, was not any individual claims of Mr. Redgate and Mr. Ellsworth respecting redress and compensation or damages for an alleged unlawful imprisonment, but the claims of Messrs. Galbraith & Co., of London and Glasgow, for damages which they, as owners of the Peterhoff, represented that they had incurred by reason of the capture of the vessel and the subsequent confinement of Mr. Redgate and Mr. Ellsworth, who were alleged to have been passengers in the Peterhoff when she was captured. I have not had, and have not now, any hesitation in admitting that if these persons are indeed neutral British subjects, and if they were lawfully on board the Peterhoff, and, further, if they were indeed unlawfully captured and unlawfully imprisoned by the naval officers of the United States, then they severally have a just claim upon this government for redress and satisfaction; and I freely admit, also, that in that case the British government may lawfully claim that that redress and satisfaction shall be awarded to them by the executive government of the United States, and that this claim is certainly one which does not fall within, the ordinary province of a prize court. But it was not such claims, on their behalf, that were understood to be before me when writing my note of May 13, but, on the contrary, it was a further independent and consequential claim of Galbraith & Co. for damages, which they alleged they, as owners of the Peterhoff, had suffered by reason of the same transaction in which the supposed claims of Messrs. Redgate and Ellsworth arose. I will not argue against what would seem to be the opinion of her Majesty’s government, that this latter claim of Messrs. Galbraith & Co. is not cognizable before the prize court, although candor seemed to oblige me to submit the question, in my former note, for the consideration of Earl Russell.
I beg leave to add, that it seems to me that the special claims of Messrs. Redgate and Ellsworth, as they are presented, I think, for the first time in your last note are two several undeniably personal claims not assigned, nor even assignable to Messrs. Galbraith & Co., nor are they of a nature to become assets or effects of the firm of Galbraith & Co., even if Redgate and Ellsworth are partners of that firm. Viewing them in this new light, I very cheerfully add that I am directed, by the President, to ask from the Secretary of the Navy for an investigation of the facts presented by her Majesty’s government in support of them; that I cannot admit these facts to be true, upon the ex parte statements which have thus far been submitted to this government, because they are opposed by counter-statements which have been submitted to this government, tending to show that at least one of the two persons is, and perhaps both are, American citizens; that they were not passengers, but were interested owners of the Peterhoff or cargo, actually concerned in, and, therefore, having knowledge of, the fraudulent purpose of carrying contraband of war directly into a blockaded port of the United States; that they were lawfully detained, when found in the captured vessel, not as prisoners of war, but as witnesses, to prove the lawfulness of the seizure, and to secure the condemnation of the vessel and cargo; and that one of them, Mr. Redgate, has actually been examined as a witness, and has declared himself to be, not a British subject, but a citizen of the United States.
I expected, when I wrote my note of May 13, that the trial, then imminent in the prize court, would throw some light upon the conflicting statements to which I have referred, and help me to ascertain the true merits of the complaint of [Page 673] Messrs. Galbraith & Co. I still expect that light from the trial which, as I understand, draws near its close. With the aid of that light, and such other as may be obtained through the investigation which the Navy Department will make, I shall be happy to resume the consideration of the subject, and, as soon as may be, take the instructions of the President in regard to the claims, as I now understand them, to be presented by her Majesty’s government. I hardly need to add that this government does not claim, but, on the contrary, freely disclaims, any such principle as that neutrals captured in neutral vessels violating the blockade may be treated, in any case, as prisoners of war. The Secretary of the Navy has specially instructed the naval officers, maintaining the blockade, to the contrary of any such practice; but, with an earnest desire to avoid all possible conflicts with neutrals, he will now cheerfully renew the instruction, and such officers will be held to a rigid responsibility for obedience to it.
I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to your lordship the assurance of my high consideration.
Right Hon. Lord Lyons, &c., &c., &c.