Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, December 5, 1870

No. 157.

Mr. Bancroft to Mr. Fish.

No. 130.]

American Legation, Berlin, September 1, 1870. (Received September 20.)

Sir: By the inclosed letter from the consular agent at Königsberg, it would appear that the French blockade of the Prussian ports on the Baltic is not an effective one. So far as I know, no ship of our European fleet has appeared in the Baltic, or off the blockaded Prussian ports in the North Sea. It is to be hoped that the rapid events of the war will soon put an end to the blockade.

GEO. BANCROFT.

P. S.—September 5, 1870.—I learn that the United States ship Juniata, Commander Luce, has arrived off Helgoland. It is reported by telegraph that “an American corvette of twelve guns started, on the 2d, from Helgoland, with a pilot for the Elbe, but was turned back by the French fleet.” Whether this has actually happened will be known from the report of the commander of the corvette.

G. B.

Extract of a letter from J. H. Brockmann, United States consular agent at Königsberg, to George Bancroft.

Königsberg, August 31, 1870.

Sir: * * * * * * * * All North German harbors of the Baltic are declared blockaded, although no effective blockade has till now been executed by the French fleet. The newspapers, indeed, brought some time ago the intelligence that the whole German Baltic has been blockaded since the 18th instant, but neither our authorities here nor those of Pillau have published a legal notification of the blockade, and they could not do so because they themselves have not received such from the French vice-admiral. That a mere notification of the blockade at Swinemünde resp. Lübeck for the whole Baltic cannot be considered effective, when no ship is stationed in the neighborhood of the different other harbors, is an unquestionable matter. But it may be, upon the whole, doubted whether a blockade notification at only one port is legally sufficient to put a stop to all other ports.

All consuls of this place are of opinion that, under said circumstances, the Baltic is not yet blockaded; but, nevertheless, they cannot advise captains to leave the harbor from fear their ships may be captured on the open sea.