File No. 763.72111Ap4/126
The British Ambassador (Spring Rice) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 13.]
Dear Mr. Secretary: Referring to your letter of the 4th in regard to the Appam, I understand that the matter being now in suit, you do not wish to determine the question whether the presence of the Appam in American waters “in the circumstances constitutes a violation of the neutrality of the United States.”
My letter did not intend to ask a decision of the Department on this question, the rights of my Government in the matter having already been placed before you in an official communication and the rights of the private owners being before the court.
My object was to ascertain whether the Department of State were willing to suggest to the court that the United States adhere to the general maritime rule that prizes of war were only to be allowed to enter neutral ports in case of stress of weather, want of fuel or provisions, or under necessity of repairs, and must leave as soon as the cause of their entry has been removed. It seems important to avoid any possible inference that the Department deemed it lawful for prizes to be given asylum in United States ports except under the circumstances above mentioned. Should the captors urge that whatever the law, the Executive had, by permitting the vessel to remain, or by not expressly requiring her to depart, precluded the courts from considering the question, it should be possible to show that the Government of the United States never intended that its ports should be used to give asylum to prizes pending condemnation or sequestration, or during the period of the war.
A suggestion from the State Department that they so understood the law and that no action of theirs was to be construed as having in any way waived the neutral rights of the United States under such law, would leave the court free to determine whether, upon the facts of the case, the law had been violated. Such action on your part would merely make it clear that the court was to be left entirely free to determine the question as a justiciable one. I assume that a judicial ruling on the question would be agreeable to the Department, and if so, it would appear that such a suggestion would tend to assure that result.
I am [etc.]