Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.
My Lord: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your lordship’s communication of the 24th instant, respecting the detention at Fort Warren of Mr. Corey, the master, Mr. Ferries, the chief officer, and three of the seamen of the British steam vessel Don, and reminding me that yon are positively instructed to press in the strongest manner upon the attention of the government of the United States the rule that neutrals found on board neutral vessels captured for breach of blockade are not in the category of prisoners of war; that the au-thority of the belligerent over them extends only to the detention of the witnesses necessary to establish the case; and that it is the duty of the belligerent to afford every reasonable facility for their early release.
I have the honor to inform your lordship that I have transmitted a copy of your note and of its accompaniment to the Secretary of the Navy, with a view to an investigation of the particular cases to which they relate.
In regard to the same general subject, I have to state that this government has always admitted the principle on which her Majesty’s government insists. The only difficulty lies in applying it. While insurgents are permitted to build and buy blockade-running vessels in British ports, and to man them with insurgent Americans as well as British subjects promiscuously, and such vessels so owned and manned by the insurgents are allowed to proceed to and from her Majesty’s colonial as well as home ports, by a fraudulent assumption of the British flag, this government in the case of capture must insist on having in every case satisfactory evidence that the vessel captured does in fact belong to British or other neutrals, and not to insurgents, and that the persons navigating them are neutrals and not insurgents, before it releases them from custody. Every neutral person captured on board a neutral blockade-running vessel has been released just so soon as the fact of his neutrality and that of the vessel could be satisfactorily established, Blockade runners throw away their papers, similate flags, and commit frauds and perjuries, and these circumstances unhappily render necessary the vigilance which this government is exercising.
1 have the honor to be, with high consideration, my lord, your obedient servant,
Right Hon. Lord Lyons, &c., &c., &c.