Charles Francis Adams to Right Hon. Earl Russell, December 23, 1863

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My Lord: I have the honor to submit to your consideration a copy of a letter received from Mr. Morse, the consul of the United States at this port, together with copies of seven depositions of persons who testify to the proceedings connected with the outfit and departure of the steamer Scylla, Victor, or Rappahannock, from Sheerness, and her later condition at Calais.

It is with the most profound regret that I am forced to the conclusion that the entire movement has been conducted with the connivance and direct aid of many of her Majesty’s officers stationed within the royal dockyard at Sheerness. The testimony in regard to the masts furnished from the Cumberland, the supply of water and some other stores, the aid of a government pilot, and the privity of many of the officers of the yard to the employment of the hands, appears to be very conclusive.

The agency of Mr. Coleman, a British subject, and the apparent owner of a vessel now pretending to claim the protection of the French government as a belligerent ship-of-war, seems also to require notice. Mr. Coleman is thus presented as a person carrying on war with the United States; or else he is making himself a party to a gross fraud upon the government of France, with the intent to violate the neutrality enjoined upon him by her Majesty’s proclamation.

I have felt it my painful duty to bring to your lordship’s notice these particulars of this most extraordinary case, not from any doubt of the determination of her Majesty’s government, already signified to me, to do justice in the matter, but from a sense of an obligation to do everything within my power to contribute to the exposure of the offenders.

I pray your lordship to accept the assurances of the highest consideration with which I have the honor to be, my lord, your most obedient servant,