MILNE, Vice-Admiral, and Commander-in-Chief to Lyons , J. C. B, December 16, 1862

Vice-Admiral Milne to Lord Lyons.

My Lord: I have the honor to transmit to your excellency the following extract of a letter, received from Commander Malcolm, of her Majesty’s ship Barracouta, dated the 24th ultimo, who has been the senior officer at Nassau since October last:

“On the 20th instant two United States men-of-war were perceived to the westward, steaming along close to the shore of New Providence. As they neared we observed one was a screw bark-rigged vessel, bearing a rear-admiral’s flag, and the other a paddle-wheel vessel. The former carried the flag of Rear-Admiral Wilkes, and, I believe, was the Wachusetts.

“A boat from this ship, with her ensign up, was sent out to board her. Lieutenant Cochrane tells me that when the boat got about one hundred yards off, though there were a number of officers on the poop, or stern gratings, looking at the boat, they steamed quietly to the eastward, within half a mile of Hog island, with just sufficient steam to allow the boat to keep up to them, and then made sail and stood away to the northward.

“The vessel was boarded by a pilot from this place, named Lloyd, who informed me that the flag-officer was Rear-Admiral Wilkes, and that the admiral had asked him to land a Bahama pilot, whom they had on board. This information was given to the governor in my presence.”

This want of the usual courtesy on the part of an officer in command of a foreign ship-of-war, in refusing communication with a boat of a British ship-of-war, close to the entrance of a British port, is so unusual, and so entirely at variance with the custom in such cases, that I feel it to be my duty to submit it to your excellency’s consideration whether the subject should not be brought to the notice of the higher authorities of the United States government. Such a proceeding on the part of any officer under my command, of refusing to communicate with the boat having her colors flying of a ship-of-war of the nation off whose port the ship may have been then passing, would receive my severe censure.