Lord Lyons to Mr. Seward.
Sir: Her Majesty’s government have considered the note which you did me the honor to address to me on the 4th of August last,* respecting the case of the Blanche, and they have instructed me to express to you their regret that they cannot accept that note as a satisfactory answer to the representation which I had the honor to make to you by their order, on the 1st of the same month.†
Your note states that Commander Hunter has been visited with the censure of the United States government for having intentionally violated the maritime jurisdiction of Spain, but it alleges that this outrageous and indefensible proceeding on the part of a United States officer imposes no obligations on the government of the United States to indemnify those upon whom that officer, acting in the name and under the flag and authority of his government, has inflicted a very grievous injury.
[Page 392]To this her Majesty’s government feel bound to reply, that the censure of Commander Hunter, or even his dismissal from the United States navy, for a gross and deliberate violation of international law, can constitute no substantial redress to the owners of the Blanche and of her cargo; and that the proposition that the United States government is under no obligations to indemnify those whom that officer has injured is one which no neutral state, sensible of the duty of protecting its subjects, can be expected to admit.
As to the actual burning of the Blanche, and the other facts in the case, an attentive consideration of your note has not changed the views of her Majesty’s government. They have already fully expressed their opinion with regard to this part of the subject, and to that opinion they adhere.
Her Majesty’s government observe that it was from the first obvious that there would be conflicting statements as to who the persons were who actually set fire to the vessel, but they maintain that the true cause of the vessel being set on fire, whoever did that act, was the unlawful aggression of Captain Hunter, and for that act, and its consequences, they but regard the United States government as responsible. They consider that, independently of all other evidence, the original protest made before the British consul at the Havana, on the 10th of October, 1862, though it does not state who set fire to the Blanche, ought, in the peculiar circumstances of this case, to satisfy the United States government that the burning of the ship was either the act of the wrong-doer himself or the consequence of his aggression.
With respect to the suggestion that they ought to have produced before the court-martial evidence rebutting Captain Hunter’s statements, her Majesty’s government observe that it is obvious that they could not, with any regard to the Queen’s dignity or to international usage, have taken part in the proceedings of the court-martial holden by the United States government upon the conduct of its own officer.
But the second position upon which your note rests the refusal to indemnify the victims of this outrage involves considerations which are, in the opinion of her Majesty’s government, of the most serious and important character. That position appears indeed to her Majesty’s government to be partly and ostensibly one of fact, but to be principally and in truth one of law. It is maintained in your note that the government of the United States is entitled to treat the Blanche either as a United States ship or as a confederate vessel, never validly transferred to any British owner. The words are: “The General Rusk was notoriously an American vessel, and it is not satisfactorily shown in the case that the title in her has ever been in good faith and lawfully vested in any subject of Great Britain;” and further on it is stated, “that the judge of the United States for the southern district of Florida has recently decided in two cases very similar in their circumstances, namely, that of the Emma and her cargo, and that of the Florida, that such a transfer, though apparently regular, is, in point of fact, collusive, and therefore a fraud upon the belligerent right of this government under the law of nations.”
Her Majesty’s government find it difficult to suppose that the judgments in the cases mentioned can affect the demand made by them for compensation to the owners of the Blanche and her cargo. In those cases the question of title was, her Majesty’s government presume, raised before prize courts, competent to adjudicate thereon according to the rules of prize law applicable to the case of ships captured on the high seas, and claimed against the captors on the ground of transfers from belligerents to neutrals. Such transfers during war are not generally unlawful, though prize courts are entitled to require strict evidence of their bona fides in all respects. But her Majesty’s government cannot look upon the present case of the Blanche as one of lawful capture or destruction, nor as one in which the United States government is entitled to throw upon the registered British owners the burden of establishing, by any evidence beyond and in [Page 393] addition to the documents which have been produced, the validity of his title. Her Majesty’s government consider that no American prize court has any jurisdiction in this case, and that even if the Blanche were the property of the enemies of the United States, it would be the duty of the Spanish government, in the due observance of the obligations of neutrality, to protect her owners from the loss consequent upon the unlawful attack upon her within Spanish waters, and her Majesty’s government are of opinion that it would be no answer to the demand of the Spanish government for redress to say that, if she had been captured beyond those waters, she might have been condemned as good prize.
In point of fact, however, the attack was made upon the Blanche while she was sailing under the British flag and with a lawful British register, and the title of her British owners is, and according to law ought to be, recognized of her Majesty’s government as valid. Her Majesty’s government observe, moreover, that no evidence whatever has been produced on the part of the United States government to throw the slightest doubt upon the title, and her Majesty’s government consider that it is for the government of the United States to displace, if it can, by sufficient evidence, the title of the registered owner, which is valid according to English law, and which, till displaced, gives that owner, a right to British protection, the attack upon the ship having been confessedly unlawful, to whomsoever she might belong. Her Majesty’s government cannot, therefore, admit that it is incumbent on them to trace the earlier history of the title to this ship, or to produce the sentence of any confederate prize court by which she was condemned, though there probably might be no difficulty in doing so, if the General Busk was in fact a federal vessel captured by the so-styled confederates.
It is true that no such “sentence or judgment has been thus far shown to have been passed, and no such court has been shown to exist;” but neither has it been shown that this vessel ever belonged to any citizen of the States adhering to the United States government, or to any other person than Mr. W. L. Smith, of Galveston, by whom she was transferred on the 31st of aJuly, 1862, by regular bills of sale, to Mr. Wigg, her British owner. “Notoriety,” whatever meaning that word may be held to convey, cannot be accepted by her Majesty’s government in lieu of proof, and her Majesty’s government maintain that it is not for them, but for the government of the United States, to lay the ground, by proof of the necessary matters of fact, for the discussion in this case of the question of the validity of a sentence of condemnation by a confederate prize court, if it be really intended to raise that question.
Her Majesty’s government cannot, however, but remember that while it is observed in your note that no such facts at present appear in this case, and that it is not necessary to decide the question, which it is erroneously said that her Majesty’s government have indicated as arising in it, yet it is plainly enough intimated that the government of the United States is prepared, if necessary, to maintain the position that the United States are entitled to deny the competency of all confederate prize courts, and the validity of all their sentences in all questions as to title to ships arising between the United States and any neutral government.
Stripped of all ambiguous and superfluous language, the position thus assumed appears to her Majesty’s government to be truly and simply this, namely: That the United States government having demanded and obtained for itself and incident only to a belligerent, and having exercised these rights to the from all neutral states the peculiar rights accruing only during a state of war, great annoyance and distress of neutral commerce, now declares that it will not discharge the corresponding duties of a belligerent; now denies that its enemy has any right to establish a prize court, and announces its determination not to respect any title to property condemned by such court, though such a title be one which is universally recognized by civilized states, and though neutral [Page 394] states have a right to insist that such a court shall be established in the territory de facto occupied by the so-styled Confederate States. Upon these principles it is, in the opinion of her Majesty’s government, manifest that the maintenance of a blockade, the search, visit, detention, and condemnation of neutral ships, put in practice by the United States, instead of being lawful acts, would be so many acts of unjustifiable violence, insult, and wrong.
In the event of such a position being seriously maintained by the United States government, her Majesty’s government will feel bound to address to that government a further and fuller remonstrance on the subject. They have, in the mean time, instructed me to ask your attention to the arguments and considerations set forth in the present note.
I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, &c., &c.,&c.