Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.
My Lord: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your lordship’s note of the 30th of May, in which, after referring to the case of the British subjects who were taken on board the Don, in their attempt to run the blockade, and were detained in custody until, upon adequate examination, the neutrality of the vessel was ascertained, your lordship renews a remonstrance against the detention and imprisonment of her Majesty’s subjects when captured on board of neutral vessels.
Her Majesty’s government certainly misunderstood the case if they supposed that the United States government has adopted either a rule or a practice which is opposed to the principle upon which her Majesty’s government insists. Unhappily there are two classes of vessels engaged in supplying the insurgents by sea with supplies; vessels of each of these classes are liable to be captured, and frequently are captured, by the United States naval forces. The first class consists of vessels owned by insurgent American citizens, and the second are neutral vessels, I regret to say, chiefly owned by British subjects. Again, there are found on board the vessels of both persons of two descriptions, namely, the first, insurgent American citizens; the second, subjects of neutral powers, and, I regret to say, chiefly British subjects.
Blockade runners, of either description and of either class of vessels, generally resort to every possible artifice and fraud which promises to conceal their true nationality, the unlawful character of their voyage, and the nationality of their vessels. They simulate flags, they erase names, they throw papers overboard or burn them, they state falsehoods, and they equivocate under oath; whether neutrals or insurgents, when captured, they lay claim to the character of innocent traders and of neutrals, and, I regret to say, they generally lay claim to the rights of British subjects. It was only the other day that the editor of the Richmond Examiner invoked your lordship’s protection by an open letter sent to your hands through this department. Whenever a vessel which is captured is ascertained to belong to subjects of a neutral power, and the persons found on board of her are ascertained to belong to a neutral nation, they are released, after their testimony is taken in preparatorio, as speedily as possible. Whenever there is good reason to believe that the vessel belongs to insurgent citizens of the United States, the persons found on board of her are detained to answer before the proper tribunals. If occasionally British subjects, engaging in this unlawful trade, which they divide with the insurgents, are detained for a more thorough investigation of the nationality of the vessel in which they are captured, their misfortune results unavoidably from some fraudulent or suspicious conduct of their own, which is equally in violation of the laws of their own government and the law of nations. Their detention, however, is in such cases continued only so long as is required to make the [Page 622] necessary examination, with the care and diligence which the ends of justice require.
I have the honor to be, with high consideration, my lord, your obedient servant,
Right Hon. Lord Lyons, &c., &c., &c.