Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.
My Lord: I have the honor now to submit a reply to your lordship’s note, of the 21st of May last, concerning the capture of the Sylvanus. In that [Page 633] communication you state that, although her Majesty’s government have not yet received from the government of the United States any explanation of the circumstances under which that capture took place, yet her Majesty’s government cannot refrain from expressing at once the opinion, that if the vessel was fired into and sunk in the first instance, without being properly summoned to lie to, and without any special and extraordinary necessity, the act was illegal, and would warrant “per se” a very grave remonstrance.
The representations which you thus made were improved on my part by calling on the Secretary of the Navy, especially for such information as he possessed, in regard to the manner and circumstances of the capture. I now learn from him, in reply to my inquiries, that the commander of the capturing vessel, the Huron, reported the capture as follows :
At 10 o’clock in the afternoon of the 2d of January last, the weather being cloudy and somewhat hazy, a suspicious sail was discovered apparently three-quarters of a mile distant from the Huron, heading up to Doboy sound, with a light breeze from north-northeast, and a strong flood tide. The Huron went to quarters, slipped her cable, got under way, and fired a shell from the twenty-pound Parrott rifle, a little wild of the strange sail, to bring her to. She persisted in her course, paying no attention to the gun, and then the Huron fired several shots in succession directly at the stranger, one of which passed through and through, coming out of the starboard side, below the water-line. A light was then shown upon the strange sail, and shouts were heard from the quarter in which she had been seen, whereupon the firing ceased. A boat was sent to her, and she proved to be the Sylvanus, aground, and rapidly filling. After the water had risen above her decks, an anchor was let go, and the boat’s crew returned to the Huron. A board of survey pronounced her unseaworthy, but stated that, with proper workmen and materials, she might be made useful, and a part of the cargo might be saved with a favorable tide.
The case has not been brought into court, and the Navy Department has never received any further information concerning the vessel. Under these circumstances it is inferred that it was found necessary to abandon both the vessel and the cargo. It thus appears that the Sylvanus was attempting to run the blockade at night, with the elements favoring her design. She was properly summoned to lie to, although by using the darkness of the night and hazy weather, to run the blockade, she forfeited her claim to the courtesies of the sea. The shell was fired instead of a blank cartridge, because our blockading forces are required, under the circumstances which attended the proceeding, to be ready for emergencies; but the shell was fired wild of the Sylvanus, so as, while the discharge would be effectual as a summons, it should not injure the crew, the vessel, or her cargo. She refused the summons, and persisted in her unlawful voyage, and thus rendered it necessary to use force. The firing ceased with the first indication of an intention of the Sylvanus to heave to. The omission, on a former occasion, to give you this account of the manner and circumstances of the capture of the Sylvanus resulted from the fact that the Secretary of the Navy inadvertently overlooked the request for explanations on that point in my communication to him.
With reference to the detention of the crew of the Sylvanus, I trust it is only necessary to recall to your recollection the state of affairs that existed when the capture occurred. Disloyal and insurgent citizens, combining with aliens, were making a base of British provinces, north and south, and even using the immunities of neutral blockade-running vessels to steal aboard unarmed American merchant and passage steamers, and when such vessels should reach the high seas, then to rise upon the crew, to seize them by acts of open piracy and murder, and then, arming the vessel captured, to extend their system of piracy over the ocean. It became necessary, under these circumstances, to establish for the immediate emergency a strict surveillance over all persons who [Page 634] were captured in running the blockade, while we earnestly remonstrated with the British government against the conduct of British subjects who were found engaged in these unlawful and hostile proceedings, and demanded their delivery to us, under our extradition treaty, that they might be punished.
While the court of the province of New Brunswick, and the court of Queen’s Bench in England, have overruled thus far, with the tacit concurrence of her Majesty’s government, these demands, and we have therefore been left without protection in that quarter, our own vigilance has in a degree been successful in arresting the enterprises of which we have complained, and now persons captured in violating the blockade are released as soon as their neutrality is satisfactorily established. If it be true that the crew of the Sylvanus were treated with unnecessary hardship, that treatment has been in violation of instructions given by the government of the United States, and it will be condemned. Our naval officers are instructed not to place captured persons in irons, unless it shall be necessary for the safety of the captors and the public authorities. In the present case the severity complained of occurred, if at all, in carrying the captured crew overland from Philadelphia to Fort Lafayette. Inquiries concerning the subject have been instituted, and I shall with pleasure revert to it when answers to these inquiries shall have been received.
I have the honor to be, with high consideration, my lord, your obedient servant,
Right Hon. Lord Lyons, &c., &c., &c.