DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS. 



311 



the transshipment of the cargo and men from 

 the Laurel to the other, thus fitting out, equip- 

 ping, and manning her as a rebel cruiser, in 

 which character she was used to depredate on 

 American commerce, afforded grounds for a 

 continuance of the correspondence between the 

 representatives of the two Governments upon 

 this violation of neutrality, and the claim of the 

 United States for indemnity for losses sustained 

 from vessels so furnished and fitted out. Under 

 date of October 21, 1865, Mr. Adams addressed 

 Earl Russell as follows : 



LEGATION OP THE UNITED STATES, ( 

 LONDON, October 21, 1865. ) 



Mr LORD : Under instructions from my Govern- 

 ment, I have the honor to submit to your considera- 

 tion copies of certain papers relative to the destruc- 

 tion of the whaling barque William C. Nye by the 

 vessel known under the name of the Shenandoah. 



I am further directed to state, that in view of the 

 origin, equipment, and manning of that vessel, my 

 Government claims to look to that of Great Britain 

 for indemnification for this and other losses that have 

 been occasioned by her depredations. 



In order that the facts attending this particular case 

 may be fully laid before you, I pray your Lordship's 

 attention to the series of papers herewith transmit- 

 ted, which relate to a very material portion of this 

 vessel's career. 



In the statement of this case I shall endeavor to 

 confine myself to a recapitulation of the principal 

 facts. To this end it will be necessary for me to re- 

 call your attention to certain portions of the corre- 

 spondence which I have heretofore had the honor to 

 hold with your Lordship. 



In the letter which I was directed to address to 

 your Lordship on the 6th of September, 1864, when 

 I was under the painful necessity of remonstrating 

 against the conduct of the commander of the yacht 

 Deerhound in rescuing from the hands of the victor 

 in the strife many of the crew of the Alabama, I re- 

 ceived orders to submit to your consideration four 

 propositions, two of which were in the following 

 words : 



8. That the continuance of these persons to receive from 

 any British authorities or subjects pecuniary assistance or 

 supplies, or the regular payment of wages, for the purpose 

 of more effectually carrying on hostile intentions from this 

 kingdom as a base, is a grievance against which it is my 

 duty to remonstrate, and for which I ask a remedy in their 

 conviction and punishment. 



4. The occasion has been thought to warrant a direction to 

 me to ask with earnestness of her Majesty's Government 

 that it should adopt such measures as may be effective to 

 prevent the preparation, equipment, and outfit of any further 

 naval expedition from British shores to make war against 

 the United States. 



To these propositions your Lordship was pleased 

 to reply on the 26th of September, by stating that 

 the rescue of these people from the sea, and from 

 their captors, was regarded by you as a praiseworthy 

 act of humanity, and that after their escape into this 

 kingdom as a refuge any attempt to restore them 

 could be viewed by you only as a violation of hospi- 

 tality. No action whatever, so far as I have had an 

 opportunity of knowing, has followed upon either of 

 these requests. 



On the 10th of November following I took the lib- 

 erty of calling your Lordship's attention to the fact, 

 that these refugees, who had been enjoying the hos- 

 pitality of a neutral kingdom, were in reality persons 

 most of them British subjects, originally enlisted 

 within this kingdom for an unlawful purpose, actu- 

 ally still engaged in the same business, and held to- 

 gether with a view of making a part of another en- 

 terprise of the same sort with that of the Alabama, 

 conceived and executed in all its parts by agents of 



the rebels residing all the time under the protection 

 of her Majesty's neutral territory at Liverpool. 



The result, as displayed in the papers now submit- 

 ted, shows conclusively that the "refuge "spoken of 

 by your Lordship has been turned into a den of rob- 

 bers; and that the humanity so freely commended 

 has in its consequences been productive of wide- 

 spread suffering to many industrious and innocent 

 men. 



On the 18th of November, 1864, I had the honor to 

 transmit to your Lordship certain evidence which 

 went to show that on the 8th of October preceding a 

 steamer had been despatched under the British flag 

 from London, called the Sea King, with a view to 

 meet another steamer, called the Laurel, likewise 

 bearing that flag, despatched from Liverpool on the 

 9th of the same month, at some point near the Island 

 of Madeira. These vessels were at the time of sail- 

 ing equipped and manned by British subjects, yet 

 they were sent out with arms, munitions of war, sup- 

 p_lies, officers and enlisted men, for the purpose of ini- 

 tiating a hostile enterprise to the people of the United 

 States, with whom Great Britain was at the time 

 under solemn obligations to preserve the peace. 



It further appears that on or about the 18th of the 

 same month these vessels met at the place agreed 

 upon, and there the British commander of the Sea 

 King made a formal transfer of the vessel to a person 

 of whom he then declared to the crew his knowledge 

 that he was about to embark on an expedition of the 

 kind described. Thus knowing its nature, he, never- 

 theless, went on to urge these seamen, being British 

 subjects themselves, to enlist as members of it. 



It is also clear that a transfer then took place from 

 the British steamer Laurel to the Sea King of the 

 arms of every kind with which she was laden for this 

 same object; and, lastly, of a number of persons, 

 some calling themselves officers, who had been 

 brought from Liverpool expressly to take part in the 

 enterprise. Of these last a considerable portion 

 consisted of the very same persons, many of them 

 British subjects, who had been rescued from the 

 waves by British intervention at the moment when 

 they had surrendered from the sinking Alabama, the 

 previous history of which is but too well known to 

 your Lordship. 



Thus equipped, fitted out, and manned Irom Great 

 Britain, this successor to the destroyed cursair, now 

 assuming the name of the Shenandoah, though in no 

 other respect changing its British character, address- 

 ed itself at once to the work for which it had been 

 destined. At no time in her later career has she ever 

 reached a port of the country which her commander 

 has pretended to represent. At no instant has she 

 earned any national characteristic other than that 

 with which she started from Great Britain. She has 

 thus far roamed over the ocean receiving her sole 

 protection against the consequences of the most 

 piratical acts from the gift of a nominal title which 

 Great Britain first bestowed upon her contrivers, 

 and then recognized as legitimatizing their success- 

 ful fraud. 



I am not unmindful of the grounds which have 

 been heretofore assigned by your Lordship as re- 

 leasing her Majesty's Government from responsi- 

 bility for the flagrant conduct of this vessel. It ia 

 urged that there is no power to prevent vessels bear- 

 ing the semblance of merchant ships from leaving the 

 ports of this kingdom and meeting each other at some 

 p_lace on the ocean far beyond her Majesty's jurisdic- 

 tion for the execution of a purpose like that now in 

 question. The parties to it violate no law of the 

 land, provided they commit no offence against the 

 neutrality of the kingdom within its territorial limits. 

 While I cannot myself quite appreciate the force of 

 this reasoning, so far as it may be applied to absolve 

 one nation from its international obligations with an- 

 other merely on account of the skill of its subjects in 

 evading the local law. I am at the same time not dis- 

 posed to underrate the difficulties which the beat- 



