General Salgar to Mr. Seward
Sir: I had the honor to receive your excellency’s note of 27th October last, in answer to mine of 17th of same month, in which I requested the delivery of the seaman of the American war steamer James Adger, convicted of the offence of homicide on the person of an English subject, George Holmes.
Doing justice to what is right, your excellency placed beyond question the jurisdiction of the courts of Colombia to take cognizance of the case, and made manifest that the government of the United States does not approve the omission to deliver him, when he was demanded from the respective American agents by [Page 819] the competent authorities of Colon (Aspinwall,) immediately after the offence charged upon him Was committed. But judging, nevertheless, from the note of your excellency, that the question is not yet solved which I agitated, and enclosed with my note of the 17th, already cited, which is the extradition of the seaman, founded on the documents sent through the American legation at Bogota to the Department of State, I find myself under the painful necessity of drawing again the attention of your excellency to this affair, insisting, as I do insist in said application, that things be placed back in the state they were in at the time when the wrong was done by the said agents of the United States in that omission, which the government of the United States has disapproved. The fact -that the accused is employed in the public service of the country; the refusal of the consul and of the captain of the vessel to deliver him Up by receiving him on board, whence he could not be taken because he was outside of Colombian sovereignty, whose authority had at all events to respect the flag of the vessel, and the prerogatives inherent to its extraterritoriality; all this, and the anticipation of some feeling avderse to the gratuitous permission which is held to be allowed to those employed in the American navy to do certain services for their own benefit in Colombian territory, are, in my opinion, circumstances which make the present case of extradition not a common one, and give strong moral support to the request of the government of the United States of Colombia.
With my government the investigation made by the naval court held at Aspinwall is regarded with all respect; of the result of that investigation you were pleased to inform me, and that induces the belief that the final decision of the court would have been absolutory; but notable as may be its moral force, as in fact it is, the condition of legality does not attach to it, because that could not be the court called to determine a criminal act committed in a foreign country.
I submit to your excellency the examination of the foregoing considerations, and it will be very pleasing to me should they be sufficient to serve as an excuse for this persistence, and that they may contribute to draw to a satisfactory conclusion my application to which reference is made.
I avail of this occasion to renew to your excellency the assurance of the high esteem with which I subscribe myself, your very respectful and obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, &c., &c., &c.