under another and more offensive form. Whether the present ministry will go the full length of the doctrines asserted in Lord Palmerston's note is to be seen. No answer has yet been given to my note to Lord Aberdeen. I presume one may soon be expected.

[Enclosure ]

Lord Palmerston to Mr. Stevenson.

FOREIGN OFFICE, August 27, 1841.

The undersigned, her Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the note from Mr. Stevenson, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from the United States at this court, dated the 14th August, 1840, in reply to the note of the undersigned, dated the 23d April, 1840, on the subject of a complaint made by the American government against the officer in command of her Majesty's brig "Grecian," for having boarded the American merchant ship "Susan," when off the light of Cape Frio, in the month of April, 1839.

The undersigned begs leave to state to Mr. Stevenson, in reply to the remarks contained in his last note, that her Majesty's government do not pretend that her Majesty's naval officers have any right to search American merchantmen met with in time of peace at sea; and if, in some few cases, such merchantmen have been searched when suspected of being engaged in slave trade, this has been done solely because the British officer who made the search imagined that he was acting in conformity with the wishes of the United States government, in endeavoring to hand over to the United States tribunals ships and citizens of the Union found engaged in a flagrant violation of the law of the Union. Such things, however, will not happen again, because orders have been given which will prevent their recurrence.

But there is an essential and fundamental difference between searching a vessel and examining her papers to see whether she is legally provided with documents entitling her to the protection of any country, and especially of the country whose flag she may have hoisted at the time; for, though, by common parlance, the word "flag" is used to express the test of nationality, and though, according to that acceptation of the word, her Majesty's government admit that British cruisers are not entitled in time of peace to search merchant vessels sailing under the American flag, yet her Majesty's government do not mean thereby to say that a merchantman can exempt himself from search by merely hoisting a piece of bunting with the United States emblems and colors upon it. That which her Majesty's government mean is, that the rights of the United States flag exempt a vessel from search when that vessel is provided with papers entitling her to wear that flag, and proving her to be United States prop. perty, and navigated according to law.

But this fact cannot be ascertained unless an officer of the cruiser, whose duty it is to ascertain this fact, shall board the vessel, or unless the master of the merchantman shall bring his papers on board the cruiser; and this examination of papers of merchantmen suspected of being engaged in

1

slave trade, even though they may hoist a United States flag, is a proceeding which it is absolutely necessary that British cruisers, employed in the suppression of the slave trade, should continue to practise, and to which her Majesty's government are fully persuaded that the United States government cannot, upon consideration, object; because, what would be the consequence of a contrary practice?

What would be the consequence if a vessel, engaged in the slave trade, could protect herself from search by merely hoisting a United States flag? Why, it is plain that in such case every slave-trading pirate, whether Spanish, Portuguese, or Brazilian, or English, or French, or of whatever nation he might be, would immediately sail under the colors of the United States; every criminal could do that, though he could not procure genuine American papers; and thus all the treaties concluded among the Christian powers for the suppression of slave trade would be rendered a dead letter even the laws of England might be set at defiance by her own subjects, and the slave trade would be invested with complete impunity. Her Majesty's government are persuaded that the United Sates government cannot maintain a doctrine which would necessarily lead to such monstrous consequences; but the undersigned is bound in duty frankly to declare to Mr. Stevenson, that to such a doctrine the British government never could or would subscribe. The cruisers employed by her Majesty's government for the suppression of slave trade must ascertain, by inspection of papers, the nationality of vessels met with by them under circumstances which justify a suspicion that such vessels are engaged in slave trade, in order that, if such vessels are found to belong to a country which has conceded to Great Britain the mutual right of search, they may be searched accordingly; and if they be found to belong to a country which, like the United States, has not conceded that mutual right, they may be allowed to pass on free, and unexamined, to consummate their intended iniquity. Her Majesty's government feels convinced that the United States government will see the necessity of this course of proceeding.

But her Majesty's government would fain hope that the day is not far distant when the government of the United States will cease to confound two things which are in their nature entirely different-will look to things and not to words; and, perceiving the wide and entire distinction between that right of search which has heretofore been a subject of discussion between the two countries and that right of search which almost all other Christian nations have mutually given each other for the suppression of the slave trade, will join the Christian league, and will no longer permit the ships and subjects of the Union to be engaged in undertakings which the law of the Union punishes as piracy.

The undersigned avails himself of this occasion to renew to Mr. Stevenson the assurance of his distinguished consideration. PALMERSTON.

A. STEVENSON, Esq., &c. &c. &c.

[Enclosure.]

Lord Palmerston to Mr. Stevenson.

FOREIGN OFFICE, August 27, 1841. The undersigned, her Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has had under his consideration the note which Mr. Stevenson, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States, did him the honor to address to him under date of the 15th May, 1840, complaining of the detention of a brig, under American colors, called the "Mary," by her Majesty's ship "Forester."

In this note Mr. Stevenson, assuming the information furnished to the United States government by Mr. Trist, their consul at the Havana, to be complete and correct, prefers a claim for indemnity to the owners of the "Mary," and asks for the exemplary punishment of the commander of the "Forester," and those concerned in the proceedings taken by that officer against the "Mary;" proceedings which, in Mr. Stevenson's opinion, seem to want nothing to give them the character of a most flagrant and daring outrage, and very little, if any thing, to sink them into an act of open and direct piracy.

The undersigned has now the honor to inform Mr. Stevenson that the more particular information which has been furnished to her Majesty's government as to this vessel places the question in a very different light from that in which it has been presented to the government of the United States; and the undersigned trusts that the following statement will satisfy Mr. Stevenson that although the vessel herself, being ill-built, might not have been intended actually to convey negroes from the coast of Africa, yet she was in reality the property of a Spanish slave dealer, and was employed by him for the purposes of slave trade.

The papers found on board this vessel by the commander of the "Forester" showed that on the 24th January, 1839, a bill of sale was prepared at the Havana by Mr. J. A. Smith, the vice-consul of the United States at that port, setting forth that a permanent American register, No. 48, had been granted to the brig "Mary," of Philadelphia, on the 17th June, 1837, and that the brig was at that time owned by Joseph J. Snowden, of Philadelphia, and was commanded by J. H. Haven.

Joseph J. Snowden, the original owner, then gave a power of attorney and substitution to Charles Snowden, who again nominated Pedro Manegat, the notorious slave dealer, but who was described in that document merely as a merchant at the Havana, to sell and transfer the "Mary."

Eight days afterwards, Pedro Manegat professedly sold the "Mary" to a person named Pedro Sabate, of New Orleans, who, on the 2d May, appointed as her master Charles Snowden, the same person who three months before had named Pedro Manegat as his agent to sell the "Mary;" and on the 18th June Pedro Sabate replaced Snowden, by appointing David Tomlinson to the command.

This Pedro Manegat, the pretended seller but real purchaser of the "Mary," is the same individual who, in like manner, owned the following nominally American vessels, namely, the "Hyperion," which left the Havana in December, 1838, as an American vessel, and was afterwards condemned as the Spanish schooner "Isabel;" the schooner "Hazard," which was detained and erroneously released in February, 1839, under

circumstances similar to those which mark the case of the "Mary ;" and the "Octavia," also condemned as Spanish property; which last nained vessel Pedro Manegat had only employed, as he did the "Mary," namely, to carry goods, for the purchase of slaves, to agents on the coast.

The Spanish master, Thomas Escheverria, and a Spanish crew, were shipped on board the "Mary" as passengers; among them were several individuals who were recognised as having been formerly captured in slave vessels-Escheverria himself having been master of the Spanish schooner "Norma," when that vessel was captured with 234 slaves on board.

The ship's articles set forth that the crew was engaged to navigate the "Mary" from the port of Havana to the Gallinas, or wherever else the master may direct.

In two of three papers which the master, David Tomlinson, produced, to prove his American citizenship, he is styled Pils B. Tomlimerty, and in the third P. B. Tomlinson, while in the log enclosed in Mr. Stevenson's note he is called Captain Thomason.

The clearance and bills of lading showed that the owners of the cargo were Blanco and Carvalho; Pedro Martinez and Company; Pedro Manegat and Thomas Escheverria, the Spanish captain-all well known slave traders; and the consignees, Thomas Rodriguez Buron, Ignacio P. Rolo, and Theodore Canot, of the Gallinas, long and well known to the naval officers employed in suppressing the slave trade on the coast as factors for the purchase and shipment of slaves.

Thus the papers produced to the captain of the "Forester," by Tomlinson, were of themselves sufficient to show that this was one of the then frequent cases in which the flag of the United States had been fraudulently assumed, and all doubt was removed as to the real character of the undertaking on which the vessel was employed; when, on further search, there were found on board of her slave coppers, two bags of shackles, large water-leaguers, and a slave deck; the latter being noted as shipped under the denomination of 500 feet of lumber.

Under these circumstances, the undersigned is of opinion that the commander of her Majesty's ship "Forester" was fully justified in considering the "Mary" to be a Spanish vessel, and consequently in taking her before the British and Spanish court; and, accordingly, when the British commissioners reported to her Majesty's government that the judges had refused to allow the "Mary" to be libelled in that court, under the impression that the mere fact of having the American flag hoisted should have protected her from visitation and search by a British cruiser, the British commissioners were told that there was, in the opinion of her Majesty's government, reason to suppose that the "Mary" was a Spanish and not an American vessel, and that the judges ought, therefore, to have allowed her to be libelled in the British and Spanish court; for, that although British ships of war are not authorized to visit and search American vessels on the high seas, yet if a vessel which there is good reason to suppose is in reality Spanish property, is captured and brought into a port in which a mixed British and Spanish court is sitting, the commissioners may properly investigate the case; and, upon sufficient proof being adduced of the Spanish character of the vessel, and of her having been guilty of a breach of the treaty between Great Britain and Spain for the suppression of the slave trade, the court may condemn her, notwith

standing that she was sailing under the American flag and had American papers on board.

With respect to the general question of the search of vessels under the American flag by British cruisers, the undersigned begs to refer Mr. Stevenson to his other note, of this day's date, relative to the case of the "Susan," in which the undersigned has fully, and he hopes satisfactorily, replied to the representations made by Mr. Stevenson on that subject.

The undersigned begs to return to Mr. Stevenson the log kept by John Hutton, while acting as mate on board the "Mary," and avails himself, &c.

32 UFPER GROSVENOR ST., September 10, 1841.

The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from the United States, has the honor to acquaint the Earl of Aberdeen, her Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that he has had the honor to receive the two communications addressed to him by Lord Viscount Palmerston, her Majesty's late principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, under date of the 27th ultimo, upon the subject of the improper and harassing conduct of British cruisers towards the vessels and flag of the United States in the African seas. In communicating the decision of her Majesty's government upon the claims submitted to its consideration, it would have given the undersigned great satisfaction to have represented that decision as one calculated to do justice to the individual claimants and in accordance with the just rights and interests of his country. He had indulged a confident hope that the complaints which had been made upon the subject would have been followed, not only by suitable atonement and reparation, but by an immediate abandonment of the system of wrong and violence to which the vessels and commerce of the United States had been so long exposed, through the misconduct of British cruisers in the African seas.

This course he had expected, not less from the justice of her Majesty's government than the friendly relations subsisting between the two countries. It is, therefore, with painful surprise and regret that the undersigned now learns from Lord Palmerston's communications that these proceedings of her Majesty's cruisers have not only been approved and justified, and the injuries which ensued to remain unredressed, but that a right is now asserted by her Majesty's government over the vessels and flag of the United States, involving high questions of national honor and interest, of public law and individual rights. Having heretofore, in his correspondence with Lord Palmerston, discussed the merits of these claims and the principles involved in them, and presented the views and expectations of his government upon the subject, the undersigned does not feel it incumbent upon him, at this time, to open again the general discussion, or recapitulate the particular circumstances by which these