Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-ninth Congress

Mr. Perry to Mr. Seward

No. 162.]

Legation oF the United States, Madrid, February 4, 1865.

Sir: I received last night a telegram from our consul at Vigo informing me that a confederate pirate steamer had entered the port of Oorunna for repairs. He gives the vessel’s name Stonewall, but I received also a private advice late last night that the ship is the Shenandoah. Copies of these documents go enclosed, as well as another from the consular agent at Corunna, which I at first supposed to refer to some blockade runner, and treated accordingly.

Before daylight to-day the enclosed telegrams had been sent to the consul at Vigo, to the consular agent at Corunna, to the minister of the United States at London, to the chargé d’affaires at Paris, to the minister at Lisbon, and to the consuls at Cadiz and Gibraltar. I trust that from some one of these points a government cruiser can be notified in time to block the egress of the pirate from the bay.

I have also written the note to Mr. Benavides, of which a copy goes enclosed, and as soon as the hour permitted this morning, sought him at his own house, and placed the note in his hands. I showed him also the account given by our consul at Teneriffe on the 29th October last, of the operation effected between the Laurel and the Sea King, since Shenandoah or Stonewall, and the royal decree of June 17,1861, and copies of the telegrams I had sent to our consuls. And I said, also, that I had not wished to indicate in my note any step to be taken by her Majesty’s government in preference to another, but I had made a statement of the facts as I understood them, and preferred to leave to the spontaneous action of her Majesty’s government the proper remedy. I did not, however, myself see how Spain could ever permit that vessel to leave her ports again as a privateer. The article first of the royal decree of June 17th could have but one meaning, and though my government had made no reclamation against Spain for the first arming and equipping of this pirate in her waters unbeknown to her authorities, yet, now that the vessel had come again within her jurisdiction, and within the power of her authorities, if she were again allowed to depart, it could not fail to be the motive of grave reclamations from the government at Washington.

Mr. Benavides said, what you wish, then, is that we should disarm the corsair? I said, what would you do if an armed force engaged in insurrection in France should pass the Spanish frontier? Mr. Benavides replied, we should take away their arms.

I then asked if there was any motive why this corsair should be treated otherwise? Mr. Benavides said, in his own opinion, there was not; and, besides, this particular ship seemed to be doubly guilty.

I added, that, in my opinon, she must at least be disarmed completely, both under the dictates of international law and the provisions of the municipal law of Spain.

Mr. Benavides took my note and said that he would attend to the affair immediately, and have it set right this day.

I shall advise you hereafter what course is taken by this government. With the highest respect, sir, your obedient servant,

The vessel which is now within the jurisdiction of her Catholic Majesty was armed as a privateer in the waters of the Canary islands, in mockery of the royal decree of June 17, 1861. According to the information on file in this legation this vessel, which was called the Sea King, sailed from London with a cargo of coals ostensibly for Bombay. At the same time another steamer, the Laurel, sailed from the port of Liverpool with heavy cannon and carriages in her hold, and a great number of seamen as passengers for Teneriffe, in the Canaries. The two vessels met at a retired anchorage in those islands, and the transhipment of the cannon and war material with the seamen took place from the Laurel to the Sea King, which then hoisted the flag, not recognized, of the insurgents of my country, and started in search of prizes, while the Laurel entered the port of Teneriffe with the old crew of the Sea King, and set them on shore. These men returned to England in the mail steamer Calabar, and as soon as they arrived the captain was arrested by the English government at the instance of the representative of the United States, the rest of the crew showing their ignorance of the project which the captain had executed, and that they had refused to serve aboard the Sea King as soon as they learned her true character.

This vessel, taking another name, began her depredations, and I have news of three ships of the United States with their cargoes burned and destroyed by this vessel on the high seas without the formality of a condemnation as good prize by any tribunal, legitimate or simulated. The nature of such proceedings, even supposing that the flag was that of some known government, is well known to your excellency. And this pirate takes refuge now in the waters of the Spanish jurisdiction, asking to repair his damages after having violated the terms of the royal decree of June 1.7, 1861.

Although that decree wounded the rights and sovereignty of the United States in declaring belligerents in an international sense the insurgents who fight under an unknown flag against their own government, which is at peace with Spain, and although the term neutrality in the sense of abstention by any nation from a war waged between other known powers has not been well applied in this decree, still, as it shows patent in its text the desire and resolution of her Majesty’s government not to take any part in that intestine conflict of the United States, and not to permit any one within the Spanish jurisdiction to aid those insurgents, I have no difficulty in citing it as a Spanish law which this corsair has violated. And this vessel being now within the power of her Majesty’s government, the undersigned mentions these facts in the firm conviction that your excellency will not fail to take, as promptly as the case requires, those measures which the government of her Majesty may think most proper to vindicate its own dignity and outraged sovereignty, and which will he suggested by the friendship and good dispositions it cherishes towards that of the United States.

I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to your excellency the assurance of my most distinguished consideration.

HORATIO J PERRY.

His Excellency Minister of State.