CORRESPONDENCE RESPECTING THE SHENANDOAH.

No. 1.

Mr. Adams to Earl Russell.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

London, April 7, 1865. (Received April 8.)

MY LORD: I have the honor to transmit to you a copy of a letter addressed to the Secretary of State at Washington by the consul of the United States at Rio Janeiro, Mr. Monroe, making a report of the depredations committed upon the commerce of the United States by the vessel known in the port of London as the Sea King, but since transformed into the Shenandoah by a process already fully explained in a note which I had the honor to address to your lordship on the 18th November last.

I regret to be obliged to add that this same vessel has been, since the date of Mr. Monroe's letter, heard of at Melbourne, from which place further details of similar outrages have been received. The particulars have been communicated to my Government, but there has not yet been sufficient time for me to obtain its instructions in regard to them. I cannot doubt, however, that they will be the same in substance as those embraced in the last dispatch.

Were there any reasons to believe that the operations carried on in the ports of Her Majesty's kingdom and its dependencies to maintain and extend this systematic depredation upon the commerce of a friendly people had been materially relaxed or prevented, I should not be under the painful necessity of announcing to your lordship the fact that my Government cannot avoid entailing upon the government of Great Britain the responsibility for this damage. It is impossible to be insensible to the injury that may yet be impending from the part which the British steamer City of Richmond has had in being suffered to transport with impunity from the port of London men and supplies, to place them on board of the French-built steam-ram Olinthe, alias Stoerkodder, alias Stonewall, which has through a continuously fraudulent process succeeded in deluding several governments of Europe, and in escaping from this hemisphere on its errand of mischief in the other.

I am by no means insensible to the efforts which have already been made, and are yet making, by Her Majesty's government to put a stop to such outrages in this kingdom and its dependencies. Neither can I permit myself to doubt the favorable disposition of her ministers to maintain amicable relations with the Government which I represent.

While perfectly ready to bear testimony to the promptness with which all the numerous remonstrances and representations which it has been my painful duty heretofore to submit have been met and attended to by your lordship, it is, at the same time, impossible for me to dispute the fact that the hostile policy which it is the object of all this labor to prevent has not only not been checked, but is even now going into execution with more and more complete success.

That policy, I trust I need not point out to your lordship, is substantially the destruction of the whole mercantile navigation belonging to the people of the United States. The nature of the process by which this is coming about may readily be appreciated by a brief examination of the returns of the registered tonnage of Her Majesty's kingdom for the last six years. I have the honor to append to this note a tabular statement of the number of merchant-ships built, and of the tonnage owned in the United States, which have been transferred to British owners in the successive years beginning with 1858 and ending in 1864, so far as the materials at hand from the official reports. of the two governments can supply the information.

I trust that it will be needless for me to do more than to point out to your lordship the inference deducible from this statement, to wit, [2] that the United States commerce is *rapidly vanishing from the

face of the ocean, and that that of Great Britain is multiplying in nearly the same ratio. Furthermore, it is my painful duty to suggest that this process is going on by reason of the action of British subjects, in co-operation with emissaries of the insurgents, who have supplied from the ports of Her Majesty's kingdom all the materials, such as vessels, armament, supplies, and men, indispensable to the effective prosecution of this result on the ocean. So far as I am aware, not a single vessel has been engaged in these depredations excepting such as have been so furnished; unless, indeed, I might except one or two passenger-steamers belonging to persons in New York, forcibly taken possession of while at Charleston in the beginning of the war, feebly armed and very quickly rendered useless for any aggressive purpose. It may then, on the face of this evidence, be fairly assumed as true that Great Britain, as a national power, is in point of fact fast acquiring the entire maritime commerce of the United States by reason of the acts of a portion of Her Majesty's subjects engaged in carrying on war against them on the ocean during a time of peace between the two countries. I deeply regret to be constrained to add that every well-meant effort of Her Majesty's government to put a stop to this extraordinary state of things down to this time has proved almost entirely fruitless.

I would most respectfully invite your lordship to produce in the history of the world a parallel case to this of endurance of one nation of injury done to it by another, without bringing on the gravest of complications. That in this case no such event has followed, has been owing, in the main, to a full conviction that Her Majesty's government has never been animated by any aggressive disposition toward the United States; but, on the contrary, that it has steadily endeavored to discountenance and, in a measure, to check the injurious and malevolent operations of many of her subjects. But while anxious to do full justice to the amicable intentions of Her Majesty's ministers, and on that account to forbear from recourse to any but the most friendly and earnest appeals to reason and to their sense of justice for the rectification of these wrongs, it is impossible to resist the conviction that heretofore their measures, however well intended, have never proved effective to remedy the evil complained of. Prompt to acquit them of any design, I am reluctantly compelled to acknowledge the belief that practically this evil had its origin in the first step taken, which never can be regarded by my Government in any other light than as precipitate, of acknowledging persons as a belligerent power on the ocean before they had a single vessel of their own to show floating upon it. The result of that proceeding has been that the power in question, so far as it can be entitled to the name of a belligerent on the ocean at all, was actually created in conse

quence of the recognition, and not before; and all that it has subsequently attained of such a position has been through the labor of the subjects of the very country which gave it the shelter of that title in advance. Neither is the whole case stated even now. The results equally show that the ability to continue these operations with success during the whole term of four years that the war has continued, has been exclusively owing to the opportunity to make use of this granted right of a belligerent in the courts and the ports and harbors of the very power that furnished the elements of its existence in the outset. In other words, the kingdom of Great Britain cannot but be regarded by the Government I have the honor to represent as not only having given birth to this naval belligerent, but also as having nursed and maintained it to the present hour.

In view of all these circumstances, I am instructed, while insisting on the protest heretofore solemnly entered against that proceeding, further respectfully to represent to your lordship that, in the opinion of my Government, the grounds on which Her Majesty's government have rested their defense against the responsibility incurred in the manner hereinbefore stated, for the evils that have followed, however strong they might have heretofore been considered, have now failed by a practical reduction of all the ports heretofore temporarily held by the insurgents. Hence the President looks with confidence to Her Majesty's government for an early and an effectual removal of all existing causes of complaint on this score, whereby the foreign commerce of the United States may be again placed in a situation to enjoy the rights to which it is entitled on the ocean in peace and safety, free from annoyance from the injurious acts of any of Her Majesty's subjects, perpetrated under the semblance of belligerent rights.

I am further instructed to invite the attention of your lordship to another subject in this immediate connection. From the beginning of this war the armed vessels of Her Majesty have continued to enjoy full and free pratique in the waters of the United States. They have been welcomed in just the same friendly manner as has been heretofore customary when there was no exclusion of the same class of ships of the United States from the waters of Great Britain. It is the opinion of the President that the time has come when it may be asked, not only with strict right, but also with entire comity, when the reciprocity in

these hospitalities is to be restored. It is the expectation that the [3] naval force of the United States in European waters will be augmented on or about the beginning of next month, when this question may become one of some interest. I am therefore directed to solicit information from your lordship as to the reception which those vessels may expect in the ports of this kingdom.

I pray, &c.,
(Signed)

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

[Inclosure 1 in No. 1.]

Mr. Monroe to Mr. Seward.

CONSULATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Rio de Janeiro, November 29, 1864.

SIR: I am pained to be compelled to report to the Department that a new piratical steamer called the Shenandoah, commanded by James W. Waddell, is engaged in destroying our merchant-vessels near the equator, on the highway of communication

between the United States and the ports of South America. The facts presented below were obtained in part from protests recorded at this office by the masters of the Alina and the D. Godfroy, and in part from statements published in the Brazilian newspapers, and believed to be reliable.

.

The bark Alina, Staples master, of 573 tons burden, sailed from Newport, England, on the 6th October, with a cargo of railroad-iron, bound for Buenos Ayres. Having reached latitude 16° 40′ north and longitude 26° 45′ west, she was captured and sunk on the 29th October by the Shenandoah. The schooner Charter Oak, from Boston, bound for San Francisco, was captured and destroyed by the same pirate on the 5th of November in latitude 7° north, longitude 27° 3' west.

On the 7th November the bark D. Godfroy, Hallett master, from Boston, of 300 tons burden, bound for Valparaiso with general cargo, was captured and burnt by the Shenandoah in latitude 6° 25' north and longitude 27° 15' west. On the 10th of November, in latitude 4o 30' north and longitude 26° 40′ west, the brig Susan of New York, bound from Cardiff to Rio Grande, was also destroyed by the same steamer.

On the 12th November the Shenandoah captured the ship Kate Prince, of 995 tons burden, Libbey master. The Kate Prince belongs in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and was on her passage from Cardiff to Bahia with a cargo of coal. She was captured in latitude 2° 30′ north and longitude 28° 30′ west, and having been compelled to give bonds in the sum of $40,000 was allowed to continue her voyage. These five vessels were all American. The officers and crews were at first transferred to the Shenandoah ; afterward, as opportunity offered, a part were sent to Bahia on the Kate Prince, a part to this port on the Danish brig Anna Jans, from New York, and the rest, so far as heard from, had been retained on the Shenandoah; of these last, some by threat and promises had been induced to engage in the piratical service.

In another instance a vessel not under our flag narrowly escaped destruction. The Argentine bark Adelaide, Williams master, bound from Baltimore to this city, was boarded by officers of the Shenandoah on the 12th November in latitude 1° 46′ and longitude 29° west. The Adelaide was consigned to Phipps, Brothers & Co., of this city. It was at first decided to burn her, and straw and tar had been brought for this object; this purpose, however, was finally abandoned, and the pirates, after having opened letters, destroyed furniture, and committed other outrages, retired on board the Shenandoah, carrying a part of the provisions of the bark with them. Captain Williams states that the commander of the Shenandoah declared he would hereafter burn all cargoes belonging to American owners, by whatever flag they might be covered. The following statement in regard to the Shenandoah is made by ship-masters who have been prisoners on board of her:

"The Shenandoah is a steamship of 1,100 tons burden, and 250 horse-power. She carries a battery of four 68-pounders and two 12-pounders, all smooth-bore, and two 32-pounders, rifled.

"She was formerly called the Sea King, and belonged to the steam company trading between London and Bombay and Calcutta. She was built by Stevens & Sons of Glasgow, in 1863, and makes eleven miles an hour. She has forty-three men, nearly all English, besides the officers. She cleared from London for Bombay in September of this year."

On the 27th instant the Anna Jans brought into this port the following officers [4] *and seamen of the Alina and D. Godfroy, who, being in a very destitute condition, applied to this consulate for assistance:

From the Alina-Everett Staples, master; J. F. Peterson, first officer; M. H. Staples, second officer: G. A. Stinson, seaman.

From the D. Godfroy-Samuel W. Hallett, master; R. L. Taylor, first officer; Charles F. Brown, second officer; Joseph James, seaman.

I offered assistance to the officers simply as seamen, in accordance with section 211 of my instructions.

As this dispatch will be retained until the sailing of the English packet on the 9th of December, it will be supplemented by any further information which I may obtain in regard to the movements of the Shenandoah.

I have, &c.,

(Signed)

JAMES MONROE.

P. S.-December 8.--I have no further information in regard to the Shenandoah.

J. M.

[Inclosure 2 in No. 1.]

Statement of American vessels sold to British subjects, from 1858 to 1864, inclusive.

SIR: I have had the honor to receive your note of the 7th of April, forwarding a copy of a letter addressed by the consul of the United States at Rio de Janeiro to his Government, upon the proceedings of a vessel called the Sea King, or Shenandoah, which vessel you state has since been heard of at Melbourne, whence details have been received of outrages committed by her on the commerce of the United States. You then proceed to say, "Were there any reasons to believe that the operations carried on in the ports of Her Majesty's kingdom and its dependencies to maintain and extend this systematic depredation upon the commerce of a friendly people had been materially relaxed or prevented," you would not have had to announce to me "the fact that your Government cannot avoid entailing upon the government of Great Britain the responsibility for this damage."

 British steamer, the City of Richmond, is next alluded to as having been allowed to take supplies from the port of London, and to place them on board a French-built steam-ram, known as the Stonewall, and you found, upon the circumstances to which you have thus alluded, a charge against Great Britain, of not only not checking improper depredations on United States commerce, but of aiming at the destruction of the whole mercantile navigation belonging to the people of the United [5] States; and while giving credit to Her Majesty's government *for endeavoring to check illicit proceedings of British subjects, you allege that the measures adopted in this respect by Her Majesty's government have never proved effèctive, and that the evil of which you complain has its origin in the fact that Her Majesty's government recognized the persons in arms against the United States as belligerents, and thereby improperly gave them a status which has led to a long continuance of hostilities; but as the ports held by them have fallen into the