Mr. Seward to Sir F. Bruce
Sir: It is understood that Robert B. Lynch and John McMahon have been recently convicted in a colonial court of Canada, and sentenced to death, upon a charge that, being citizens of the United States, they were actors in the assault made in the month of June last at Fort Erie, in that colony. It can hardly be necessary to direct your attention to the fact that the government of the United States is required, by the highest considerations of national dignity, duty, and honor, to inquire into the legality, justice, and regularity of the judicial proceedings which have thus taken place; and that, after making such a careful scrutiny, we shall expect to make known to her Majesty’s government such opinions as the President, upon due consideration, shall adopt.
With this view the United States consul at Toronto is this day instructed to procure, for the information of this department, a copy of the record of the trial and conviction of Lynch and McMahon, and also of all further trials and convictions of a similar character which shall take place in Canada.
While no unnecessary delay in the examination of the cases which are thus expected to come before this government is intended, it may nevertheless happen hereafter that delays unavoidably result from past incidents, or from future events which cannot now be foreseen.
I have now the honor to request you to take such proceedings as you may think proper, to the end that such applications of the consul shall be promptly granted.
The President directs me to assure you of his confident hope that her Majesty’s government will not only cheerfully comply with the request I have thus made, but that they will think it proper also to examine the judicial proceedings aforesaid with a careful regard to the rights of the United States, and to the maintenance of good relations between the two countries. Such relations are always difficult and delicate in states that are adjacent to each other, without being separated by impassable borders. For this reason it would be very [Page 261] gratifying to the President if you should be able to give me an assurance that the execution of the sentences pronounced upon convicted persons will be suspended if occasion for delay shall arise, in the manner before mentioned, to make it desirable. Finally, I deem it proper to say that the offences involved in these trials are in their nature eminently political.
It is the opinion of this government that sound policy coincides with the best impulses of a benevolent nature in recommending tenderness, amnesty, and for-givenness in such cases.
This suggestion is made with freedom and earnestness, because the same opinions were proposed to us in our recent civil war by all the governments and publicists of Europe, and by none of them with greater frankness and kindness than by the government and statesmen of Great Britain. I am very sure that you will find that these recommendations of a policy of clemency and forgiveness, in the case of the parties concerned, are in entire harmony with all the suggestions and representations which this government has made to her Majesty’s government in regard to the border aggressions which have been made on the Canadian frontier, and that they are also in harmony with the proceedings which this government has thought it just, wise, and prudent hitherto to pursue in regard to the violation of its own neutrality laws, which was involved in those aggressions.
I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your obedient
The Hon. Sir Frederick W. A. Bruce, &c., &c., &c.