[Extracts.]
Mr. Adams to Mr.
Seward
No. 1082.]
Legation of the United States,
London,
November 10, 1865.
Sir: At about one. o’clock on Monday, the 6th
instant, I received from Mr. Wilding, the vice-consul at Liverpool, a
telegram announcing the fact that the steamer Shenandoah was then coming
tip the Mersey to Liverpool.
At three o’clock of the same day I repaired to the foreign office for the
purpose explained in my despatch No. 1080, of this date. When my turn
came to meet Lord Clarendon, almost the first thing he said to me was to
mention that such a story had just come to him from the admiralty. He
seemed to be utterly incredulous. I replied that I had received
precisely the same intelligence with that which he had described. I had
only been waiting for a complete confirmation of it in a formal letter
from the consul, to make it the basis for a note which I should draw up
and transmit to him on the next day. He replied, that in case the
statement should prove true, he should be prepared to receive and
consider the communication which I might send. With a few more informal
comments-upon the nature of this news, the conversation dropped.
Subsequently, I received aprivate note from his lordship confirming the
account, and adding that the steamer had been taken possession of by her
Majesty’s steamer Donegal.
Having received the desired report from the vice-Consul, I addressed on
the next day a note to Lord Clarendon, a copy of which is herewith
transmitted.
I took for my basis the substance of the doctrine contained in your
despatch to Sir Frederick Bruce of the 19th June, 1865, adapting it, so
far as I could, to the immediate circumstances.
* * * * *
Since the preceding lines were written I have received an official note
from Lord Clarendon confirming the substance of his private note. A copy
is herewith transmitted. Thus the matter stands yet between us.
Yet I yesterday received from Mr. Wilding, the vice-consul at Liverpool,
a telegraphic despatch stating that he had received by an officer of her
Majesty’s steamer Donegal, a note from Captain Paynter to the following
effect:
“In compliance with instructions received from the Secretary of State for
the home department of her Majesty’s government, I am, in conjunction
with the collector of her Majesty’s customs, directed to deliver over to
you the Shenandoah (late confederate cruiser) with all stores, &c.,
as surrendered by Captain Waddell, her late commander. I beg to inform
you that she is ready to be transferred to your charge, and request you
will be pleased to take possession of her.”
Mr. Wilding asked me to instruct him what to reply to this note.
Inasmuch as no response had been made from the Foreign Office to my
request, other than a formal one, and no grounds assigned for the
delivery, this step, evidently
[Page 651]
coming from another department of the government, seemed to me a little
precipitate; yet as I saw no valid reason for declining the tender, I
directed Mr. Wilding to accept the vessel when delivered, and take
charge of her at least until further instructions.
I have just received from Mr. Dudley, who has arrived at Liverpool,
notice that the vessel is now in his charge.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington D. C.
[Delivered at the Foreign Office
at 2.40 p. m., November 7, 1865.]
Mr. Adams to Earl Clarendon
Legation of the United
States,
London,
November 7, 1865.
My Lord: I have the honor to submit to your
consideration the copy of a letter received by me from the
vice-consul of the United States at Liverpool touching the arrival
yesterday of the vessel known as the Shenandoah at that port.
Although necessarily without instructions relative to this case, I do
not hesitate to assume the responsibility of respectfully requesting
of her Majesty’s government to take possession of the said vessel
with a view to deliver it into the hands of my government in order
that it may be properly secured against any renewal of the audacious
and lawless proceedings which have hitherto distinguished its
career.
I perceive by the terms of the vice-consul’s letter that some of the
chronometers saved from the vessels which have fallen a prey to this
corsair are stated to be now on board. I pray your lordship that
proper measures may be taken to secure them in such manner that they
may be returned on claim of the owners to whom they justly
belong.
Inasmuch as the royages of this vessel appear to have continued long
after she ceased to have a belligerent character, even in the eyes
of her Majesty’s government, it may become a question in what light
the persons on board and engaged in them are to be viewed before the
law.
The fact that several of them are British subjects is quite certain.
Whilst I do not feel myself prepared at this moment, under imperfect
information, to suggest the adoption of any course in regard to
them, I trust I may venture to hope that her Majesty’s government
will be induced voluntarily to adopt that which may most satisfy my
countrymen, who have been such severe sufferers, of its disposition
to do everything in its power to mark, its high sense of the
flagrant nature of their offences.
I pray your lordship to accept the assurances of the highest
consideration with which I have the honor to be, my lord, your
lordship’s most obedient servant,
Right Hon. Earl of Clarendon, &c.,&c.,&c.,
Mr. Wilding to Mr. Adams
United States Consulate,
Liverpool,
November 6, 1865.
Sir: I beg to inform you of the arrival at
this port, this morning, of the pirate steamer Shenandoah. She is
now anchored in the sloyne in the river Mersey. She arrived with the
confederate flag flying, but lowered it soon after entering the
river. She has a crew of 138 men, as near as I have been able to
learn, and has on board a number of the chronometers taken from
vessels destroyed. I shall be glad to receive your instructions
concerning her.
I am, sir, very respectiully, your obedient servant,
His Excellency Charles Francis Adams,
&c.,&c.,&c.
[Received at 3.45 p. m., November 8,
1865.]
Earl Clarendon to Mr. Adams
Foreign Office,
November 7, 1865.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of your letter of this day, having reference to the arrival
at Liverpool of the late confederate steamer Shenandoah, and I lose
no time in confirming to you officially what I stated to you
yesterday evening privately, that
[Page 652]
the Shenandoah was yesterday given up by her
commander to her Majesty’s authorities at Liverpool, and that she is
now in the custody of her Majesty’s naval force at that port.
I have to add that the other points adverted to in your letter will
receive immediate attention, and I hope shortly to be able to
communicate further with you on the subject.
I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your
most obedient, humble servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c.,&c.,&c.
[From the
London Times of November 8,
1865.]
[Untitled]
The reappearance of the Shenandoah in British waters at the
present juncture is an untoward and unwelcome event. When we
last heard of this notorious cruiser she was engaged in a
pitiless raid upon American whalers in the north Pacific, and
several war steamers of the United States were stated to be in
pursuit of her. It was also reported, though somewhat vaguely,
that our own naval commander on that station had offered any
assistance in his power, and little doubt was entertained of her
speedy capture. The next thing that we learn is that she has
entered the Mersey under the confederate flag; that she is
alongside and in charge of her Majesty’s ship Donegal, and that
Captain Waddell has forwarded a letter to Lord Russell. Whatever
be the contents of that letter, this act is obviously equivalent
to a surrender of the vessel to the government of Great Britain,
as the Stonewall was surrendered: to the Spanish authorities at
Havana. The time which has elapsed, however, since the
termination of the war, and the conduct of Captain Waddell
during this interval, constitute very material points of
difference between the two cases, and render it necessary to
consider that of the Shenandoah exclusively on its own
merits.
It is fortunate that in this instance nothing practically turns
on the original equipment of the ship thus placed in our hands.
In a certain sense it is doubtless true that the Shenandoah was
built and manned in fraud of our neutrality, for those who gave
the order for her construction and engaged her crew must have
been well aware of her real destination. But it is also true, as
Lord Russell pointed out in one of his letters to Mr. Adams,
that when she cleared for China as a merchant ship, under the
name of the Sea King, not a tittle of evidence was offered on
behalf of the United States or any other party to justify her
detention. Arms were afterwards sent out in a French vessel to a
rendezvous at sea, and the Sea King assumed the character of a
confederate man-of-war; but it is far from certain that, even if
all that is known now had been known then, a conviction could
have been obtained against her under our own or the American
foreign enlistment act. At all events, she has since been
received as a public ship of the Confederate States in one, at
least, of our colonies; and although this circumstance would not
avail to screen any individuals who may have conspired to
violate our law in respect of her, it would be too late to
discuss the validity of her claim to shelter during the war. Had
the Shenandoah arrived at Liverpool at the beginning of this
year, it must be assumed that she would have been entitled to
the benefit of the regulations then in force as to the reception
of belligerent vessels. According to these she would have been
required to depart within twenty-four hours, unless either
stress of weather or the want of immediate supplies should have
made a longer stay absolutely needful, but no federal
ship-of-war would have been allowed to start in pursuit of her
within twenty-four hours.
It is, of course, self-evident that she now presents herself
under wholly different conditions. Not only has she lost the
character of a lawful cruiser by the collapse of the power by
which she was commissioned, but she has forfeited the temporary
privileges reserved to vessels in the confederate service by
Lord Russell’s notice of the 2d of June.
At any time within a month after the receipt of that despatch in
any colonial port, it would have been competent for Captain
Waddell to invoke the benefit of it, “divesting his vessel of
her warlike character, and, after disarming her, remaining
without a confederate flag within British waters,” subject,
however, to all legal risks, one of which would have been a
claim of ownership on the part of the United States government.
As it is, the month of grace has long since expired, and the
Shenandoah stands in the same position as if it had never been
granted. What, then, is this position, and what consequences
does the fact of their haying carried on war for months after
the fall of the confederacy entail upon Captain Waddell and his
associates ? These are two very different questions, and
questions of very unequal difficulty. It is much to be regretted
that either of them has been raised in this country instead of
in America, and that no federal man-of-war succeeded in
capturing the Shenandoah before she cast herself, as it were,
upon our mercy. Having been raisedhowever, both issues must be
honestly faced, and we may be sure that, whatever it may
involve, strict justice will be done by the government and
tribunals of England.
With regard to the Shenandoah herself, we apprehend that little
hesitation can be felt. On every principle of law she belongs to
that government which has succeeded to all the rights and all
the property of the de facto confederate
government. This doctrine is laid down very clearly by
Vice-Chancellor Page Wood in the decision which has been so much
criticised of late in America; but in truth it is scarcely more
than a rule of common sense. Lord Russell did not affect to
override it by the provision in his despatch for the disarming
of
[Page 653]
confederate vessels
in our ports, but, on the contrary, facilitated the application
of it through a resort to the proper civil tribunals. The
captain general of Cuba doubtless acted on the same view when he
delivered over the Stonewall to the agents of the United States;
nor, indeed, is it easy to imagine on whose behalf any counter
claim could be preferred. What may be the technical formalities
to be observed in the transfer is a matter of very little
importance. Whether we ought to wait for a demand, or to make
oyer the ship unasked, we hold it in trust for the United States
to all intents and purposes.
It is only when we come to the personal liability of Captain
Waddell and the crew that we are met by perplexing
circumstances. It is now more than half a year since the
American war virtually terminated, and the ravages of the
Shenandoah have been infinitely more destructive during this
period than before. The statement of losses contained in Mr.
Adams’s letter of April 7 is as nothing compared with those that
have since reached us from Behring’s straits and the adjoining
coasts. Nearly forty whalers are said to have been among her
victims in those seas, and the price of sperm oil has already
been raised very largely by her depredations. Now it appears
that Captain Waddell professes to have had no authentic
information about the close of the war until he fell in with her
Majesty’s ship Barracouta on the 30th of August, when he
immediately consigned his guns to the hold and altered his
course for Liverpool. We have no wish to prejudge a case which
must become the subject of a legal inquiry, but it is impossible
to let such a statement pass unchallenged. It is expressly
negatived by our accounts from California, derived from the
testimony of persons belonging to the ships which he had
destroyed. We have their positive assurance that Captain Waddell
was told of all that had happened by some of his prisoners, but
refused to credit it because it was based on northern authority.
How it could otherwise have been brought to his knowledge, or
how he could expect to receive an intimation of it from an
office which, if it were true, no longer existed, it is for him
to explain, for by refusing to accept such notice he certainly
took upon himself all the responsibility of his subsequent acts.
Why did he not at least run into the nearest neutral harbor to
verify a report which, unless false, so gravely compromised his
further proceedings? It is possible that a good answer may be
given to these questions, but we must repeat that the onus probandi lies entirely on Captain
Waddell’s side. All the world knew and believed the news which
he rejected, and which was not so improbable in itself as by any
means to justify his obstinate scepticism. There is an old
saying about none being so blind as those who won’t see, and the
facts here suggest an almost irresistible suspicion that Captain
Waddell was determined not to be arrested in his destroying
career till he had done his old enemies the utmost possible
mischief. Nor would it tend to remove this impression if it
should prove to be correct that on the pilot coming on board he
asked innocently whether the war was over or not.
It would have been a great relief to ourselves, though little to
the advantage of the United States, had the Shenandoah been
simply excluded from the Mersey and left to rove the seas till
she should fall into the hands of her pursuers. As it is, there
seems hardly any legitimate alternative but one. Captain Waddell
and his 130 men cannot be handed over as prisoners of war upon
any hypothesis consistent with that of the war being at an end.
Nor under any circumstances can they be given over to the United
States. They might possibly be prosecuted under the foreign
enlistment act, but experience has shown the extreme difficulty
of establishing offences of that nature. The crime of which they
really stand accused—supposing them to have wilfully ignored the
termination of hostilities—is that of piracy, and on this charge
it is possible that they may be apprehended and tried before an
English court of justice.
