Navy Department,
13 April, 1863.
Sir,
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your
communication of the 11th inst., enclosing a note of Lord Lyons and
correspondence relative to the mail of the Peterhoff.
His Lordship complains that the Peterhoff's mails were dealt
with, “both at Key West and at New York in a manner which is not in
accordance with the views of the Government of the United States, as stated in
your letter to the Secretary of the Navy, of the 31st Oct. last.”
Acting Rear Admiral Bailey, an extract from whose letter is
enclosed, in the correspondence transmitted on the 14th ulto., gave Her
Majesty's Consul at Key West an authenticated copy of the law of the United
States, and of the instructions based thereon, on the subject of papers which
strictly belong to the captured vessels and the mails.
By special direction of the President, unusual courtesy and
concession were made to neutrals in the instructions of the 18th August last to
Naval Officers, who themselves were restricted and prohibited from examining or
breaking the seals of the mail bags, parcels, &c. which they might find on
board of captured vessels, under any pretext, but were authorized at their
discretion to deliver them to the Consul, commanding naval officer, or the
legation of the foreign government to be opened, upon the understanding that
whatever is contraband, or important as evidence concerning the character of a
captured vessel, will be remitted to the prize court, &c.
On the 31st of October last, I had the honor to receive from
you a note suggesting the expediency of instructing naval officers that, in
case of capture of merchant vessels suspected or found to be vessels of
insurgents, or contraband, the public mails of every friendly or neutral power,
duly certified or authenticated as such, shall not be searched or opened, but
be put as speedily as may be convenient on the way to their designated
destination. As I did not concur in the propriety or “expediency” of issuing
instructions so manifestly in conflict with all usage and practice, and the law
itself, and so detrimental to the legal rights of captors, who would thereby be
frequently deprived of the best, if not the only, evidence that would insure
condemnation of the captured vessel, no action was taken on the suggestions of
the letter of the 31st October, as Lord Lyons seems erroneously to have
supposed.
In the only brief conversation that I ever remember to have
had with you, I expressed my opinion that we had in the instructions of the
18th of August gone to the utmost justifiable limit on this subject. The idea
that our Naval officers should be compelled to forward the mails found on board
the vessels of the insurgents — that foreign officials would have the sanction
of this government in confiding their mails to blockade runners and vessels
contraband, and that without judicial or other investigation, the officers of
our service should hasten such mails, without examination, to their
destination, was so repugnant to my own convictions that I came to the
conclusion it was only a passing suggestion, and the subject was therefore
dropped. Until the receipt of your note of Saturday, I was not aware that Lord
Lyons was cognizant such a note had been written.
Acting Rear Admiral Bailey has acted strictly in accordance
with the law and his instructions in the matter of the Peterhoff’s mail. The
dispatch of Lord Lyons is herewith returned.
I am, respectfully,
Your Obd't Serv't,
Gideon Welles,
Secty. of Navy.
Hon. Wm. H. Seward,
Secty. of State.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30,
1864, p. 270-2
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