Mr. Dupuy de Lôme to Mr. Sherman.

[Translation.]

Mr. Secretary: I have had the honor to receive your courteous note No. 322 of yesterday informing me that the district attorney of Wilmington does not deem sufficient the evidence which he possesses in [Page 539] order to proceed against the schooner Silver Heels, which has applied for clearance for the Barbados Islands with a cargo of lumber.

I do not know what evidence has been obtained by the said attorney, but I can assure your excellency that Alfred Thompson, of St. George, Me., second officer on board the Silver Heels on her last voyage with an expedition, has publicly declared in Wilmington and is ready, as he says, to testify that the said schooner took on board on the 15th of October last a cargo of coal at Port Liberty; that on the Saturday following, in tow of the tug P. H. Wise, she went to the pier in the East River, of which your Department already has knowledge, where she shipped the cargo of which this legation has spoken in former communications; that the Silver Heels was towed by the said P. H. Wise to the Highlands, where a steamer, the name of which he says he does not know, delivered to her four boats to assist in discharging her cargo and seven Cubans, and that she remained there until the afternoon of that day, to wit, the 17th of October, when the P. H. Wise returned and took the schooner in tow and continued to tow her until the 19th.

Only after that date did the Silver Heels proceed under sail, doing so during some fifteen days, going to Ascension Island, and a week later the Dauntless arrived there, having on board Captain O’Brien and three or four of the Cubans who had embarked in New York, giving instructions to the schooner to go to a point outside of Orange Key, 16 miles east-southeast, and to anchor there until she should return.

From Ascension Island to the new anchorage took the schooner some five days, and they remained there, at the end of which time the Dauntless arrived again with the same Captain O’Brien and some 50 Cubans. They transshipped to the Dauntless the boats and the cargo, which latter the said Thompson declares contained cartridges, and the Dauntless set out for Cuba, as the captain of the steamer stated to the said Thompson. They likewise stated to him that the Dauntless had been to Key West and Jacksonville, where she had her bottom cleaned.

After this the Silver Heels undertook her return voyage to New York, but the bad weather obliged her to put in to Wilmington, N. C, with all her cargo of coal less some 8 or 10 tons, which she gave to the Dauntless at Orange Key.

The foregoing statements, which can assuredly be amplified by interrogating Alfred Thompson, appear to me to be more than sufficient for a serious investigation, and for proceeding not only against the Silver Heels but also against the Dauntless.

If your excellency will cause the dates to be compared with the entries of the aforesaid Dauntless upon voyages which she has not explained, and will be pleased to recall the note from this legation of the 11th of November last in which you were informed that the Dauntless had just arrived at Jacksonville with Captain O’Brien onboard, you will be convinced of the certainty of my statements, and that the said vessel for more than a year past has not performed a single legitimate service, having been solely employed in carrying arms, munitions, and men to the Cuban insurgents.

I now permit myself to very seriously call your excellency’s attention to the fact that at the very time that the Silver Heels asks a clearance for Barbados the Dauntless has completed the repairs which are being made upon her, and is preparing for another expedition, which there is reason to believe will be in concert with the schooner already so many times mentioned.

I avail myself, etc.,

E. Dupuy de Lôme.