Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams
Sir. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of the 26th of January, which is accompanied by a copy of a note that Earl Russell wrote to you on the 21st of January last, in regard to the affair of the Roanoke at Bermuda. Earl Russell is content in that paper with assuring us that our consul had not sufficient evidence to justify a conviction of the parties who were engaged in that port in enlisting seamen for the piratevessel, and that her Majesty’s government recognized the insurgents of the United States as a belligerent.
His lordship has not controverted the facts upon which our complaint in the matter of the Roanoke was based. I shall not, therefore, take pains now to restate [Page 165] them. They show that Bermuda has been made a base of hostilities against the United States, and in this respect that island is in the same situation Canada has occupied. Her Majesty’s government have very promptly taken extraordinary means to secure the maintenance of neutrality in that province. In a practical sense, Bermuda is as much a border province in regard to the United States as Canada is, yet it now appears that her Majesty’s governments do not think themselves called upon to exercise the same vigilance and diligence in Bermuda which are exercised in Canada. It seems, therefore, to result that, in order to secure its just rights, this government is left to discriminate in its con-” duct between Bermuda and Canada; to the prejudice of the latter. We await, for this reason, with new solicitude the further progress of events in the two provinces, respectively.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams. Esq.,&c., &c., &c. London.