811.114 Median/7
The British Ambassador ( Howard ) to the Secretary of State
Sir: With reference to your note of March 6th last68 and to previous correspondence regarding the detention and search by the United States Revenue authorities of British vessels in Delaware Bay and the Delaware river, I have the honour, under instructions from His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to inform you that the allegations regarding the illicit activities of British vessels made in Mr. Olds’ note to me of February 8th, is ot borne out by the information at the disposal of His Majesty’s Consul-General at Philadelphia.
Sir Austen Chamberlain presumes that as it is only comparatively recently that the United States Preventive forces have interfered with British shipping in the waters abovementioned, the expression “past practice” in paragraph 5 of Mr. Olds’ note of the 8th of February can only be held to refer to alleged liquor smuggling activities in Delaware Bay or river within the last two or three years at the most. In this connection His Majesty’s Consul-General in Philadelphia has reported that no specific instance of British vessels having discharged liquor into small boats after entering Delaware Bay and during the voyage up the river has come to his notice in the past four years.
[Page 996]I have been instructed to request, therefore, that you may be so good as to furnish me for the information of His Majesty’s Government, with full particulars of those cases in which it is known that liquor has been illegally discharged from the British Merchant vessels in Delaware Bay and the Delaware river, in order that the matter may be taken up with the owners of the ships in question.
I have [etc.]
- Not printed.↩