Pinckney Walker to By the President: J. P. Benjamin, October 15, 1863

Acting Consul Walker to Mr. Benjamin.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt on this day of your despatch to me of the 8th instant, conveying to me the orders of the president that I promptly withdraw from the confederacy, and in the mean time cease to exercise any consular functions within its limits.

Your despatch encloses to me another addressed by you to her Britannic Majesty’s acting consul at Savannah, to which I am referred for the reasons which have induced the orders for my withdrawal which you have conveyed to me.

I have accordingly examined that despatch, and I have the honor to represent that justice to myself, and my duty to her Majesty’s government, require that I should, without any hesitation, point out to you how very serious are the mistakes you have fallen into.

However correct your premises may be, you are exceedingly unfortunate in the conclusions you have arrived at. You conclude that “the consular agents of the British government have been instructed not to confine themselves to an appeal for redress, either to the courts of justice or to your government whenever they may conceive that grounds for complaint exist against the confederate authorities in their treatment of British subjects.” The fact is not so, and I am sorry to be obliged to say you are entirely mistaken.

You next conclude and assert that her Majesty’s consular Agents “assume the power of determining for themselves whether enlisted soldiers of the confederacy are properly bound to its service.”

To this assertion, so far as it refers to this consulate, I claim the right to give the most unqualified denial, and I challenge the proof of any action that has been taken, or any advice or countenance that has at any time been given by me to any enlisted man; and with like emphasis do I utterly deny that I have ever arrogated the right to interfere directly or indirectly with the execution of confederate laws, or extended any advice whatever to any of the soldiers of its armies upon any topic whatsoever.

Therefore, in further denial of your assertions, unfounded so far as they are applied to me, it becomes my turn to draw some conclusions; and they are that I have not, as you allege, assumed any undue jurisdiction within the territory of the confederacy nor in any way encroached upon its sovereignty. In short, the only assertion made in your despatch in which I can concur is that in which you say no appeal has been made to you without receiving just consideration. I have pleasure in admitting the truth of this statement, and on proper occasion it lias given me pleasure to announce to her Majesty’s government the satisfactory manner in which my appeals have been received.

But I have now to complain that you have done to me both personally and officially, and also to her Majesty’s government, very great injustice by publishing throughout the southern States, as applicable to myself and to this consulate, conclusions which are utterly without foundation.

And I submit, therefore, to your just consideration that the injustice complained of can only be removed by your giving to this despatch the same publicity that you have been pleased to give to the charges you have preferred.

I have the honor to request that such orders may be given as will enable me to hold communication with any of her Majesty’s ships that may visit the coast of this consular district.

I have, &c.,