5. The Treaty between Great Britain and Portugal, as Your Excellency will observe, only goes to the extent of requiring each of the High Contracting Parties not to employ any deserters from the Naval and Military services of either Country, and if they are found to be in such service, on application, they shall be respectively discharged. And by the third Clause of the same article (No. 16) it is enacted that deserters from a vessel lying within any port in the territory of either party shall be given up.
It is, therefore, evident that no provision having been made for delivering up the deserters, except those who have escaped from a ship in harbours, such a course of action as that now suggested was never contemplated.
7. Finding then no power given to me under the Treaty to comply with your request, I turned my attention to the local laws, but I have been unable to discover any enactment whatsoever which would allow me to order the arrest and rendition of those men for whom Your Excellency applies.