Mr. Mason to Earl Russell.—(Received July 21.).
My Lord: I have the honor to inform your lordship that I have received to-day a despatch from the secretary of state at Richmond, dated the 12th of June ultimo, in which I am advised that the government of the Confederate States has been informed by Mr. Moore, late her Majesty’s consul at Richmond, of the receipt by him of despatches from your lordship stating that the prisoner Hester, charged with murder at Gibraltar, on board the confederate steamer Sumter, had been sent on board her Majesty’s ship Shannon, leaving Gibraltar on the 6th of May last, to Bermuda.
That the consent of the United States government would be asked for the passage through the blockade of the ship having the prisoner on board; and asking that arrangements should be made by the confederate authorities to receive him at whatever port the ship conveying him might arrive.
I am instructed by the secretary of state to inform your lordship that the government of the Confederate States would be prepared to receive the prisoner at any port of the confederacy where he may be delivered up; and that in the event of a refusal on the part of the United States to consent to the passage of the Shannon through the blockade, a naval officer of the confederacy would be sent to Bermuda, with authority to receive the prisoner, and to bring him into one of its ports in a vessel of the confederate government.
I am further instructed to renew to your lordship, as her Majesty’s secretary of state for foreign affairs, the expression of the thanks of the confederate government for your lordship’s considerate attention in the matter.
I avail myself of the occasion to inform your lordship that I have received, at the same time with the foregoing, the despatch of the 6th of June ultimo, of which I had the honor recently since to transmit to your lordship an unofficial printed copy; and also a further despatch, dated on the 11th of June ultimo, concerning the case of Mr. Cridland, representing himself as “acting English consul” at Mobile, Alabama; of which, together with that of the 6th of June, I am instructed to communicate copies to your lordship, which I shall do as soon as the copies can be prepared.
I have, &c.,