314 



DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS. 



of her Majesty have gone from this country to the 

 United States, and have there, during the present 

 war, entered into the military service of the United 

 States, and fought against the armies of the Confed- 

 erates, contrary to her Majesty's proclamation. 



Such occurrences as these the law of England (and, 

 her Majesty's Government believe, the Yaw of the 

 United States) cannot prevent, and has very rarely 

 the power to punish. It is obvious (as you indeed 

 admit) that the law which prohibits the 'equipment 

 of vessels destined to make war on States with which 

 her Majesty is at peace may, like most other human 

 laws, be evaded.' No human means can in all cases 

 effectually prevent individuals from purchasing or 

 otherwise acquiring a vessel with the secret intention 

 of arming her beyond the territorial limits of the 

 country, and then cruising against a State with which 

 her Majesty is at peace, or from successfully exe- 

 cuting that intention. It is distinctly denied that the 

 Government of any State is, upon any recognized 

 principle of international law, responsible for such 

 an event. 



Feeling, as it would seem, that for the equipment 

 and armament of the Sbenandqah no original re- 

 sponsibility can reasonably be cast on her Majesty's 

 Government, you represent, as the main substance 

 of this part of your complaint, that this vessel, after 

 she had been equipped and commissioned was recog- 

 nized by her Majesty's Government as a public ship 

 of war of a lawful belligerent, and was admitted as 

 such into British ports. 



This is in truth nothing more than the often re- 

 peated objection to the course adopted by her Majes- 

 ty's Government in recognizing both parties in the 

 late war as belligerents, and (if belligerents at all) 

 then as belligerents wherever they were found actu- 

 ally carrying on war, whether by sea or by land. 

 You are of course aware that the Sea King was trans- 

 ferred, when beyond the territory of her Majesty, to 

 the agents of the Confederate States, and from them 

 (while still beyond her Majesty's territory) received 

 a commission as a ship of war under the name of the 

 Shenandoah. It was a necessary consequence of the 

 principle of neutrality, and of the recognition of the 

 state of war ( by virtue of which alone the blockade was 

 enforced with so much severity against neutrals by 

 the United States), that the validity, for the purposes 

 of the war, of such a commission should be recognized 

 by the Government of this country. 



The supplies given to this vessel, and the hospital- 

 ity afforded to her in a British port during the con- 

 tinuance of the war, were merely the same which 

 were always afforded to the vessels of war of the 

 United States ; to refuse them in such a case would 

 have been not to vindicate, but to depart from the 

 neutrality declared by her Majesty. If the fact were 

 (as you suggest) that the supplies so afforded had 

 the effect of enabling the Shenandoah to continue 

 hostilities after the Confederate States had ceased to 

 be belligerents, it is obvious that such an occurrence 

 might equally take place in any other case in which 

 a ship of war" of any belligerent nation, having taken 

 in ordinary supplies at a neutral port, might con- 

 tinue hostilities after the restoration of peace, either 

 through ignorance of that fact, or from any less ex- 

 cusable motive. 



So far, then, as your objection to the enjoyment 

 of belligerent rights by the Shenandouh in the ports 

 of Great Britain is founded on the allegation of her 

 original illegal equipment, I have already sufficiently 

 pointed out that the circumstances of her equipment 

 were not such as in the eve of the English law, or 

 consequently in the view of the English Government, 

 could be regarded as illegal. She was, therefore, as 

 long as the war subsisted, naturally treated on the 

 same footing as any other vessel of a recognized bel- 

 ligerent power. 



But even had the case been otherwise, and had her 

 equipment and origin been undoubtedly illegal, I 

 should have experienced hardly less surprise at the 



claim put forward on behalf of the United States in 

 the following sentence of your despatch : 



In consenting to receive the vessel alter the facts of Its 

 illegal origin and outfit had been satisfactorily established. I 

 cannot resist the conviction that her Majesty's Government 

 assumed a responsibility for all the damage -which it has 

 done. 



If I needed (which in this case I do not) to find an 

 answer to a claim founded upon such principles, I 

 should have to seek no further than the records of 

 recent American law and the practice of modern 

 American statesmen. In that chapter of American 

 history which has lately become familiar in these dis- 

 cussions, relating to the transactions which arose 

 out of the revolt of the South American Republics, 

 will be found a complete refutation from American, 

 authorities of the doctrine on which you now appear 

 to insist. 



As you are well aware, numerous vessels of war 

 were fitted and refitted under the commission of the 

 revolted States in the ports of the United States to 

 cruise against the commerce of Spain and Portugal. 

 These vessels started on their original voyage, 

 manned and armed in the ports and by the subjects 

 of the United States, and returned" to the same 

 ports over and over again after repeated cruises. 

 Though the fact of the filegal origin and equipment 

 of such vessels was established, not by vague sur- 

 mise or exparte statement, but (in several instances) 

 by judicial proof adduced in suits instituted for the 

 restoration of their prizes when brought within the 

 neutral jurisdiction, the Government of the United 

 States does not appear ever to have taken any step 

 for the purpose or excluding any of those vessels 

 from the full and unrestricted enjoyment, within 

 their own ports or elsewhere, of the same rights (with 

 the single exception of the right to retain prizes 

 brought in) which it accorded to any other ships of 

 war of a belligerent power. 



Nevertheless, so far from admitting that by such 

 conduct, as you now contend, they " assumed a re- 

 sponsibility for all the damage done " by such ves- 

 sels, your Government distinctly repudiated any such 

 responsibility when urged upon them by arguments 

 almost identical with those on which you now rely. 



While admitting that several prosecutions have 

 been instituted by ner Majesty's Government against 

 persons amenable to British law who had been shown 

 by probable evidence to have been guilty of violating 

 the Foreign Enlistment Act (Capt. Corbett, of the 

 Sea King, to whom you refer as having never been 

 brought to trial, is awaiting his trial at the present 

 moment), you make it, nevertheless, matter of com- 

 plaint that no legal proceedings have been taken 

 against any of the Confederate agents in this country, 

 under whose direction and management various oper- 

 ations, in abuse of her Majesty's neutrality, are said 

 to have been conducted. 



But no information supported by evidence on 

 which a prosecution could be judiciously instituted 

 or successfully maintained has ever been had before 

 her Majesty's Government for the purpose of showing 

 that the laws of this country were, in fact, so violated 

 by any of those persons. 



You are well aware of the extent to which not only 

 municipal, but also international law, permits either 

 of two belligerents to avail themselves of the re- 

 sources of a neutral country, by mercantile agencies, 

 by loans of money, and by the purchase and ship- 

 ment of every kind of munitions of war, without 

 giving to the o'ther belligerent any cause of complaint 

 against the country where such operations are carried 

 on. Full advantage has been taken of this state of 

 international law ty the United States themselves 

 during the recent contest. 



If, in addition to operations of this nature, the 

 Confederate agents in this country superintended or 

 directed other designs involving the violation of our 

 laws, they were careful (as it might be expected they 

 would be) to keep their participation in any such ille- 



