John Welsh to the Marquis of Salisbury, July 29, 1879

Mr. Welsh to the Marquis of Salisbury.

My Lord: I have the honor to inform you that the Secretary of State of the United States has recently received from A. C. Littlefield, Esq., the consul-general of the United States at Calcutta, a dispatch in relation to the case of one John Anderson, an ordinary seaman on hoard the American hark C. O. Whitmore, who, it appears, stabbed and killed the first officer of the ship on the 31st of January last, while that vessel was on her way from New York to Calcutta, sixteen days from her port of departure, and on the high seas, in latitude 25° 35′ north, and longitude 35° 50′ west.

It also appears that the consul-general invoked the aid of the local police authorities in securing the safe custody of the accused, who was a prisoner of the United States, until he could complete the necessary arrangements for sending him for trial to that country against whose municipal laws only he was accused of having offended.

It further appears that while he was thus in the temporary custody of the local police the colonial authorities took judicial cognizance of the matter, claiming, under the advice of the advocate-general of the colony, that under the colonial statute which confers upon the courts of the colony jurisdiction of crimes committed by a British subject on the high seas, even though such crime be committed on the ship of a foreign nation, Anderson’s case came under the jurisdiction of those colonial courts.

It is to be remembered in this connection that the prisoner appeared on the ship’s articles under the name of John Anderson, a subject of Sweden, and the only evidence that he was a British subject seems to have been his own declaration that his real name was Alfred Hussey, and that he was a native of Liverpool.

It is believed that the matter has now reached that point in the judicial proceedings when effective measures for asserting the jurisdictional rights of the United States would be unavailable in this particular case, and whilst Mr. Evarts entertains no doubt that the accused will receive a trial in the high court of Calcutta, where, it is understood, he is to be tried, as he would in the circuit court of the United States, in which tribunal he would be arraigned were he sent to the United States for trial, Mr. Evarts deems it proper at the same time to instruct me to bring the question to the attention of Her Majesty’s Government, in order to have it distinctly understood that this case cannot be admitted by the Government of the United States as a precedent for any similar cases that may arise in the future.

No principle of public law is better understood nor more universally recognized than that merchant vessels on the high seas are under the jurisdiction of the nation to which they belong, and that as to common crimes committed on such vessels while on the high seas the competent tribunals of the vessel’s nation have exclusive jurisdiction of the questions of trial and punishment of any person thus accused of the commission of a crime against its municipal laws.

The nationality of the accused can have no more to do with the question of jurisdiction than it would had he committed the same crime within the geographical territorial limits of the nation against whose municipal laws he offends.

The merchant ship, while on the high seas, is, as the ship of war is everywhere, a part of the territory of the nation to which she belongs.

Mr. Evarts further states that he passes over the apparent breach of comity in the proceedings of the colonial officials as being the result of inadvertence and possible misconception on the part of the government law officer of the colony, rather than of any design to question the sovereignty of the United States in this or cases of a similar nature.

I am instructed to take an early occasion to present these views to Her Majesty’s Government.

I have, &c.,