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

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

No. 810.]

Department of State, Washington, January 12, 1864.

Sir: I have received, and have submitted to the President, your despatch of December 4, No. 550, which is accompanied by a copy of a note addressed to you by Earl Russell, in reply to the representation you have made concerning a contract by insurgents with British subjects, in which Bermuda was designated as a place for the receipt of contraband merchandise, to be shipped to the insurgents.

While I admit that the evidence, to which reference is made, is attended by the uncertainty and want of directness which his lordship indicates, I cannot but think that it is sufficient to justify the United States in expecting her Majesty’s government to institute precautionary measures against the execution of a purpose, in the island of Bermuda, so manifestly injurious to this country, and derogating from the impartial neutrality which Great Britain has proclaimed. It is hardly to be expected that the United States could procure direct and conclusive evidences of frauds and combinations plotted by its enemies living under the protection of British laws.

I shall continue to furnish you with such circumstantial proofs upon the point involved as fall into my hands. Of this class is the accompanying extract from the Morning Telegraph, a newspaper printed at St. John’s, New Brunswick, on the 5th instant.

Of the same class is the fact that Lieutenant Rooke, of her Majesty’s army, was detected carrying a contraband mail to Bermuda, to be delivered to insurgent agents there.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

Charles F. Adams, Esq., &c.,&c., &c.

[Special correspondence of the Morning Telegraph.]

Letter from Halifax.

Halifax, December 31.

The Bermuda packet, arrived to-day, brings absolutely nothing of interest from the Confederate States. There are two passengers through from Wilmington, 12th instant. I have one solitary paper of that date. The Flora is the only blockade steamer out since the last moon, a month ago. One schooner came through from Wilmington, successfully, and another schooner had got in. The Don and Hansa had been captured by the federals off Charleston, and the Beauregard and Ceres run ashore near Wilmington and destroyed. The Ceres is the only steamer of all blockade runners that has not paid for herself; it was her first trip. The Beauregard had a very valuable cargo. Steamers continue to arrive at Nassau and Bermuda, to take the places of those destroyed. The number is increased rather than diminished. This business is reduced to a mathematical nicety, and the chances of profit and loss are fully computed. No vessel is expected to have nine lives, although a half dozen or so are reckoned upon.