I respectfully
request that you will cause these men to be delivered to me, and to
disembarrass this demand of any difficulty that may seem to attend it,
permit me to make the following observations:--[6]
* * * * *
3. It has been, and is, the uniform custom of all nations to arrest and
hand over to their proper officers, deserters from ships of war; and
this without stopping to inquire as to the nationality of the deserter.
[Footnote 6: The paragraphs omitted, contain merely a recapitulation of
the claim of the Confederate States to full belligerent rights.]
4. If this is the practice in peace, how much more necessary does such a
practice become in war; since, otherwise, the operations of war--remote,
it is true--but still the operations of war, would be tolerated in a
neutral territory.
5. Without a violation of neutrality, an enemy's consul in a neutral
territory, cannot be permitted to entice any seamen from a ship of the
opposite belligerents, or to shelter or protect the same; for, if he is
permitted to do this, then his domicile becomes an enemy's camp in a
neutral territory.
6. With reference to the question in hand, I respectfully submit that
the only facts which your Excellency can take cognizance of, are, that
these deserters entered the waters of Spain under my flag, and that they
formed a part of my crew. The inquiry cannot pass a step beyond, and
Spain cannot undertake to inquire, as between the United States Consul
and myself, to which of us the deserters in question more properly
belong.
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