William. H. Seward to Charles Francis Adams, February 25, 1865

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams

Sir: You may well be weary of the task of presenting complaints to her Majesty’s government, as the ministry is of receiving them. Nevertheless, the rights of the United States and their dignity must be maintained, nor can the just sensibilities of the people be wisely treated with neglect.

I give you herewith a copy of a correspondence. between Thomas Kirkpatrick, esq., United States consul at Nassau, and his excellency the governor of that province, and I have to request that you will bring the case which it presents to the notice of Earl Russell.

One of the United States steamships of war, the San Jacinto, was wrecked upon a desolate bay of the Bahamas, and her officers and crew, except such of the latter as deserted their flag and found shelter in the port of Nassau, provided for themselves as well as they could until relief was sent them from the United States. The wreckers recovered from the ill-fated vessel certain movables, and presented their claims for salvage. They required, as they lawfully might, coin in payment of that salvage. Nassau was considered the most convenient port for procuring it. The Honduras proceeded thither to procure the coin. The United States consul, in compliance with the requirement of the Queen’s proclamation, asked permission for her to enter. The governor denied permission, declaring that the proclamation forbade the entrance of United States ships-of-war, except in cases of grave emergency and of real necessity and distress.

It is true that the Honduras was not in distress, but she was on an errand consequent upon a case of actual distress, and to make to British subjects the remuneration due to them for the practice of humanity in that case of distress. Not only was the permission refused, but the governor, with manifest want of kindness and of consideration to the United States, broke out into remonstrances with the officers of the United States for having landed upon the colonial shore on the occasion.

Earl Russell knows human nature too well to be surprised when I state that the Naval Department has brought this severity of the governor towards the United States agents into contrast with the treatment accorded to rebels against the United States, engaged in trade at the Bahamas, in violation of the Queen’s proclamation. There was no day, during the month in which this incident happened, that thirty-five blockade-runners were not seen flaunting their con traband flags in the port of Nassau, nor has the hospitality of that port been restricted to contraband merchant vessels. The Chameleon, formerly the Tal lahassee, a Liverpool pirate, was lying at that very time in the port, relieved, indeed, of her guns, as well as of her infamous name, but yet still possessing attributes of a pirate. Only a few days earlier the Laurel, a merchant vessel then in the very process of being converted into a pirate, under her new bap tismal name of the Confederate States, was harbored in that very port, after having carried from Liverpool to the Sea King the armament, upon receiving which she become the pirate ship Shenandoah. Nor is it forgotten that the Oreto found shelter in Nassau when undergoing a sea change into a pirate shin-of-war, under the name of Florida.

I desire it to be understood that this government does not adopt this painful view of the proceedings of the governor of Nassau, nor does it believe that her Majesty’s ministers would have authorized or justified the illiberal proceeding of the governor in the case of the Honduras. On the contrary, it is believed that the case in question was unforeseen when the regulations under which the governor is acting were made. Nevertheless, these reservations can neither be known nor felt by the nation whose sensibilities have been wounded in these transactions.

It ought to be unnecessary to expostulate in our communications with the enlightened government of Great Britain upon the evil fruits of petty irritations on border lines and in colonial ports. The unhappy state of things that has arisen in Canada is quite enough of experience of that sort for the instruction of both nations. Just now such vexatious incidents in the British West Indies are of special importance. Only one considerable seaport town in the region of the insurrection remains in rebel possession; all the rest of the ports have been wrested from them, and that one, as well as every inferior harbor, is hermetically sealed against foreign commerce by blockade. The occasion for which the British policy of recognizing the insurgents as a naval belligerent was adopted has passed away, and it even now operates only to favor the piratical vessels of the Mersey and the Clyde, whose business, like that of the Canadian raiders, it is to make, if possible, an incurable breach between the United States and Great Britain. I pray Earl Russell to consider seriously whether the time has not come for a revision of the maritime policy of Great Britain towards the United States.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,