C. R. Nesbitt to J. Hume Burnley, December 8, 1864

Governor Nesbitt to Mr. Burnley

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt, on the 3d instant, of your despatch dated Washington, the 8th of October last, with copy of a note of the 6th of that month, received by you from the Secretary of State of the United States, requesting you to invite the attention of the authorities of this colony to the proceedings of insurgent agents engaged in fitting out vessels at Nassau, New Providence, with a view to piratical operations against the commerce of the United States.

I now forward to you the copy of a communication which, on the receipt of your despatch, I at once made to the receiver general of this colony, together with a copy of that officer’s report, by which latter document you will perceive that the receiver general remarks that on the first arrival of several steamers reports were circulated without the slightest foundation as to their ultimate conversion or appropriation for warlike purposes, such, for instance, as the steamer Hope, referred to in Mr. Seward’s note to you, and which steamer has since been captured off Wilmington, with a general cargo on board, by the blockading squadron of the United States, thus effectually disposing of the question of her having been fitted out here as a privateer.

You will perceive in the postscript to my communication to the receiver general of the 3d instant, that I especially called his attention to the steamer Mary, late Alexandra, now in the port of Nassau, with the view of his reporting on the character of that vessel, and, as far as practicable, preventing any violation of her Majesty’s proclamation of neutrality.

In concert with the attorney general, I have had the case of the Mary, late Alexandra, under consideration, and it forms the subject of correspondence at present between the United States consul of this port and myself, copies of which correspondence will be forwarded to the secretary of state for the colonies for the information of her Majesty’s government.

I have, &c., &c.,