Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.
My Lord: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your lordship’s note of the 21st of November instant, by which I am informed of the views of her Majesty’s government on the proceeding of the United States district attorney at New York in procuring additional evidence concerning the amount of damages in the prize case of the steamer Labuan.
Her Majesty’s government already understand that damages, in the case of the Labuan, can only be paid by the executive department of this government when an appropriation shall have been made for that purpose by Congress. They have also been informed of the grounds on which the Executive deems it important to have an assessment of the damages made by the prize court in New York, to aid in forming the Executive judgment as to the amount which Congress shall be asked to appropriate. I am not able to agree with her Majesty’s government in the apprehension that injustice is likely to result from the admission of such additional evidence as the district attorney proposes to obtain. But it does not belong to me to determine now what evidence the district attorney shall offer or shall withhold from the prize court when it comes to assess the damages, although, on a review of the assessment, I think it will be pertinent for me, under the President’s directions, to scrutinize the evidence on either side, and upon every possible suspicion favorable to the administration of equal and exact justice. For the present I can do no more than to submit the objections of her Majesty’s government to the consideration of the prize court itself, so that they may have their just weight in the judicial tribunal. Having done this, I shall reserve special consideration of them, on my own part, until the prize court shall have rendered its decision upon the damages in question. I cannot willingly believe that this course will prove unsatisfactory to her Majesty’s government.
I have the honor to be, with high consideration, your lordship’s obedient servant,
Right Hon. Lord Lyons, &c., &c., &c.