Mr. Seward to Mr. Burnley
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 9 th of March, with its accompaniment, namely, a copy of a letter addressed to you on the 18th of February last by the private secretary of his excellency the governor of the province of Nova Scotia.
[Page 96]A word of explanation will clear up the difficulty to which the governor refers. Our consuls in the provinces have no political functions. A proper deference to the authority of the imperial government forbids any direct correspondence between even this government and the local authorities in the provinces, much more does it prohibit voluntary correspondence between our consuls and those authorities. Hence the circuitousness of our habitual mode of communication. The consul at Halifax addresses the department, I address you, and you, under the leave of your home government, communicate with the governor of Nova Scotia at Halifax. It is, however, competent for her Majesty’s government to assent to modification of the prevailing forms cinder special circumstances, and I clearly see that these circumstances now exist in regard to the designs and operations of disloyal citizens and their abettors to imperil the peace of the two nations. I shall, therefore, in compliance with your expressed wish, instruct the consul at Halifax that, for the present, he will in all cases promptly and frankly make known to the governor general whatever he may learn that shall be important to be known by him in preventing hostile proceedings in the province of Nova Scotia against the United States.
I refer briefly to another subject mentioned by the governor. He thinks that Nova Scotia is in a different case from Canada with reference to the United. States, and, therefore, that there is no need in the former province for such legislative action, with a view to the maintenance of neutrality, as has been so promptly and honorably taken in the province of Canada. It is true that hostile raids, like that of St. Albans, have not been and are not likely to be made into our country from Nova Scotia. But, on the other hand, Halifax has been for more than one year, and yet is, a naval station for vessels which, running the blockade, furnish supplies and munitions of war to our enemy, and it has been made a rendezvous for those piratkal cruisers which come out from Liverpool and Glasgow, to destroy our commerce on the high seas, and even to cany war into the ports of the United States. Halifax is a postal and despatch station in the correspondence between the rebels at Richmond and their emissaries in Europe. Halifax merchants are known to have surreptitiously imported provisions, arms, and ammunition from our seaports, and then transshipped them to the rebels. The governor of Nova Scotia has been neutral, just, and friendly: so were the judges of the province who presided on the trial of the Chesapeake. But then it is understood that, on the other hand, merchant shippers of Halifax, and many of the people of Halifax, are willing agents and abettors of the enemies of the United States, and their hostility has proved not merely offensive but deeply injurious. When Nova Scotia ceases to abet our enemies, she will find that we cherish no memory of her past injuries. But, on the other hand, merchants of the United States must be allowed to navigate the seas in security, and our citizens at home must be allowed to pursue their avocations without interference from the port of Halifax, before this government can be reasonably expected to favor trade and intercourse with the people of Nova Scotia.
I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
J. Hume Burnley, Esq., &c., &c., &c.