Earl Russell to Mr. Mason.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 21st instant, in which you inform me with reference to the case of the officer charged with murder on board the Sumter, at Gibraltar, that the confederate government would be prepared to receive the prisoner at any one of the southern ports where he might be delivered up, and that in the event of a refusal on the part of the United States government 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 have the honor to state to you, in reply, that her Majesty’s minister at Washington was not able to obtain the consent of the United States government to the passage of the Shannon through the blockade for the purpose above mentioned, and that her Majesty’s government, having been advised by the law officers of the crown that the prisoner was a person over whom no British court had jurisdiction, came reluctantly to the conclusion that he ought not to be detained in custody by any British authority longer than might be necessary for the purpose of disposing of him on shore.
Orders were accordingly, about a fortnight back, given to that effect to the governor of Bermuda, and to the British admiral on the North American station, and Mr. Consul Moore would have been instructed in due course to [Page 806] communicate this result to the authorities at Richmond had he not been obliged to quit that city under the circumstances to which you refer in the concluding portion of your letter.
I am, &c.,