Charles Watters to Arthur H. Gordon, February 8, 1865

Solicitor General to the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick,

May it please your excellency, in obedience to your excellency’s instructions I beg herewith to enclose the draught of a warrant against the parties therein named, under the imperial extradition act, 6 and 7 Vict., cap. 76. This warrant I have framed upon the requisition of the Hon. William H. Seward, addressed to the British chargé d’affaires at Washington, of date December 39, 1864, a copy of which your excellency submitted to me for my guidance. I must, however, inform your excellency that the requisition is defective in some important particulars, inasmuch as it does not name or specify any person or persons upon whom the crimes charged in the requisition, or any of them, have been committed, and also omits to mention the time of the commission of any of the said crimes; and, therefore, no complete offence is charged upon which a valid warrant can be based. For these reasons I am of opinion that no legal arrest of any of the parties named, for the causes alleged, can be made upon the papers as now submitted by the American authorities.