of Mr.
by backtorin Melunccy, an officer under Command. If the course Consul Heenan it was neither necessary nor becoming for me to express approbation or disapprobation, the dividing a question in an entirely different department of the Government.
the promptitude with which Your Excellency has made further inquiry into this matter, in deference to my representation, is very gratifying, forming your desire to understand its merits, and to promote the amicable relations existing between the two Countries.
Your Excellency very truly remarks that the fundamental principle upon which this matter hinges, depends upon a question of International Law, and upon the view taken by you.
I leave to form one. I can find nothing in the correspondence between our respective ministers of 32 July 1815, and 6 August 1827, referred to by Your Excellency, bearing upon the subject, or at all militating against the position I have taken. Mr. Webster, in the letter to Lord Ashburton, in the cause of the Creole, August 1, 1842, holds this language: "But, my Lord, the rule of Law and the practice and comity of nations, go so far as to allow even a private vessel, coming into an open port of another country voluntarily, for the purposes of lawful trade, to bring with her, and keep over her, to a very considerable extent, the jurisdiction and authority of the law of her own country, excluding to this extent consequently the jurisdiction...
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