Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.
My Lord: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your lordship’s note of the 29th of October last, together with a copy of a communication which has been addressed to you by his excellency Lord Monck, the governor general of Canada, in which he asks an explanation or a disavowal of what is set forth in an article in the New York Evening Post, on the subject of the crimes of robbery and murder recently committed at St. Albans by persons who came from Canada to that place, and retired again to Canada for refuge from capture and punishment.
On the 24th day of October last I addressed a note to Mr. Adams concerning the transactions referred to, in which I fully explained the views and sentiments of this government in regard to the unhappy condition of affairs on the British American borders, its causes, probable consequences, and its needful remedy. Indignant complaints by newspapers, which are entirely independent of the government, as well as spirited, hasty, popular proceedings for self-defence and retaliation, are among the consequences which must be expected to occur, when unprovoked aggressions from Canada no longer allow our citizens to navigate the intervening waters with safety, or to rest at home with confidence of security for their property and their lives. With a sincere conviction that Earl Monck is governed by the highest sense of honor and justice, I must, nevertheless, be allowed to say that I do not think the matter which he has submitted, when duly weighed, is sufficient to call for any enlargement or modification of the views I have already submitted through Mr. Adams to her Majesty’s government [Page 761] While the government has been engaged in considering Earl Monck’s request, our requisitions for the offenders whose crimes committed on Lake Erie, and for the burglars and murderers who invaded Vermont, remain unanswered. We hear of a new border assault at Castine, in the State of Maine, and we are warned that plots are formed at Montreal to fire the principal cities of the Union. It is not the government nor is it the people of the United States that are delinquent in the fulfilment of fraternal national obligations.
I have honor to be, with the highest consideration, my lord, your obedient servant
Right Hon. Lord Lyons, &c., &c., &c.