MORSE, Consul to C. F. Adams , United States, December 23, 1863

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Sir: I herewith enclose affidavits of Enoch Cohen, George Hill, James Munn, Charles Newton, James Maloney, William O’Kelly, and George Bailey, in the case of the privateer Victor, Scylla, or Rappahannock.

Permit me to call your attention to the date of the advance note given to Charles Bull, a seaman, and which was, some days after, paid by Robert Gordon Coleman, No. 28 Clement’s lane, London, who appears by the record evidence to be the lawful owner of the privateer Rappahannock, now under the confederate flag. The Victor, or Scylla, escaped from Sheerness on the evening of the 24th of November. The note was given when the man Bull was shipped, on the 25th of November, and was paid by Coleman on the 11th of December. So far as any recorded evidence shows ownership, the legal title to the rebel privateer Rappahannock is still in R. G. Coleman, a London merchant. The papers herewith and previously sent to you prove that he has interested himself in supplying his corsair, now under the confederate flag, since she left Sheerness, and since she hoisted that flag, with a large number of seamen. Mr. Coleman’s connexion with the purchase, fitting, and manning of the Rappahannock is too clearly established to be called in question.

Should it be urged, as a reason for not making any effort to reclaim the Rappahannock as a piratical British ship under a foreign flag, or to prevent her from proceeding to sea as a privateer, that an English ship can be sold to foreigners without a cancelling of her register in this country, and that Mr. Coleman may have sold her since she left this country, we reply that so far as is known he is still the owner; that the legal record of ownership shows her to-day to be an English ship, and that it is incumbent on the authorities here to prevent her from piratical acts, or to show that all title to her has legally passed from citizens of this country to foreigners, and that she is now lawfully held by such foreigners.

It is a question of some interest to know how, in the present state of European law in reference to privateers, a rebel cruiser can commence her piratical career, from a European port, with papers that will be respected, or rather that ought to be respected, by the maritime powers of Europe. Who has authority to issue such papers, and to claim for them the acknowledgment and respect of maritime states?

I would also respectfully ask your attention to the date of the engagement with the boiler-makers, at the Sheerness dockyard, by Engineer Rumble, and Mr. Bagshaw, a foreman in the boiler department, in which transaction Mr. Greathead, a chief engineer in the royal navy, also participated, as paymaster to the families of the men at Sheerness, in the absence of Mr. Rumble. The engagement of these boiler-makers, to go to Calais to repair the boilers of the privateer Rappahannock, was five or six days after that steamer left Sheerness, and some four days after her arrival at the port of Calais, in France, under the rebel flag, and after she had been announced in the newspapers of England as a rebel privateer escaped from an English port.

Very sincerely, your obedient servant,