Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: This government has learned with regret that Daniel Hurley, Bryan Sheely, and James Nowlan, three pardoned criminals, have been sent by the government of Newfoundland to the United States, and that other persons of the same character had been previously sent.
It appears from the despatch of Mr. Leach, our consul at St. John, of the 4th of June last, that these criminals had been sent by the colonial government of Newfoundland to the city of Boston, by the British brig Arthur, of which the collector of customs at Boston was duly notified.
On the 27th of the same month Mr. Leach was requested by the Assistant Secretary of State to transmit to the department such proofs as he might be able to obtain in the case.
On the 5th day of July last a copy of Mr. Leach’s despatch was transmitted to Lord Lyons, with a note requesting him to cause an inquiry in the matter to be made, for the information of the department, to which his lordship replied, in a note of the Sth of the same month, that he had requested the governor of Newfoundland to enable him to furnish the desired information.
On the 26th of July Mr. Leach, by despatch No. 51, made a report in the case, from which it appears that on the day of the sailing of the Arthur, her owner informed him that the colonial government had engaged passage for the three men; that the chief of police of St. John on the same day acknowledged the above fact, but requested him not to say anything about it; that it was by the consent of the three men that they were sent; that a sergeant of police furnished him the names of the three criminals. After the sailing of the vessel, her owner informed him the men had been sent off.
[Page 319]The court record shows that Bryan Sheely was tried and convicted of larceny, and sentenced on the 27th of April last to imprisonment at hard labor for nine months in St. John jail; that James Nowlan was tried and convicted of burglary, and sentenced on the 10th of May last to imprisonment for the term of nine months in said jail, and that Daniel Hurley was also tried and convicted of robbery in the spring of 1864.
Mr. Leach is of the opinion that Hurley’s term of sentence had not half expired at the time he was sent away. He also states that after the shipment of these criminals, the colonial government have sent two others of bad repute to Boston, by the American schooner Caspian, of New York. Their names are Devorux and Leaman. The former was sentenced last May to imprisonment for six months. The latter was a disorderly person, but under no sentence at the time he was sent away.
Mr. Leach further says, he was informed by a former agent of a line of packets between St. John and Boston that he has known the colonial government to send as many as twenty pardoned criminals to the United States at a time.
On the 22d ultimo Lord Lyons transmitted to the department a copy of a despatch which he had received from the governor of Newfoundland, and of its enclosures, from which it appears that the governor regrets that Mr. Leach had not communicated the facts to him, or to the government, previously to writing to the Secretary of State upon the subject. One of the enclosures is a letter from the attorney general, Mr. H. W. Hoyles, the law adviser of the crown at St. John, relative to Mr. Leach’s report. He admits the principal facts set forth therein, stating, however, that banishment formed no part of the sentence of these convicts, and that the governor has been in the practice, for some time past, of commuting sentences of the courts, on petition, to make such commutation conditional that the criminal shall leave the province, without designating any particular place or country for that purpose. That the colonial government have allowed their convicts to select their places of destination, and that the granting of passages to such convicts by the colonial government has been of common occurrence, some of them going to Canada and other provinces, some to the United States, and some to the United Kingdom—the passage money frequently being less than the cost of their support—but that he had no authority to send the three convicts in question to the United States. It is alleged that the convicts selected the United States as their place of destination, and refused to be carried to any other.
From this statement of facts, it will be seen that the provincial authorities were active in transporting pardoned criminals to the United States, but we are willing to believe their proceedings inadvertent, and at the same time hope that her Britannic Majesty’s government will caution her Majesty’s provincial authorities against the practice in future.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, &c., &c., &c.