Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: Your despatch of the 4th of August, No. 758, has been received.
The representation you have made to Earl Russell concerning the Georgia is approved. I trust that you have succeeded in impressing her Majesty’s government with a sense of the importance of the subject you have thus brought to their notice.
There is reason to believe that British subjects, hostile to the United States have only changed their form of proceeding in sending out armed vessels to make war against the United States. The Tallahassee is said to have been built and to have come out in the character of a merchant vessel, but to have been furnished with an armament in Liverpool. She appears on our coasts a pirate, and she is received at Halifax. Her master is reported as saying that she is only one of several very fast steamers of the same character, which have been built at Liverpool, with armaments prepared in the same way. Bermuda and Halifax are to be bases of operations. I refrain from comment until there shall have been time for Earl Russell to have replied to your note concerning the Georgia, and in the expectation of more definite information in regard to the Tallahassee.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.