PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.
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885
10PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
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Spanish Government. When the Spanish Government in the autumn of last year announced to neutral governments their intention to put the Dominican coast under blockade, they virtually asserted, by that very act, the existence of such a state of war, and while claiming its rights, they bound themselves to fulfil its obligations. A blockade, as we observed in our Report of the 17th of June, cannot exist without a war. Her Majesty's Government, in the course of the subsequent correspondence, never disputed the right of the Spanish Government to establish and maintain such a blockade, but only insisted that it must be a real and effective and not a mere paper blockade. When the Spanish Government had given sufficient assurances (whether they were fulfilled in act or not is another question) that an adequate force was actually employed in maintaining that blockade then, and not till then, a public notifi- cation to that effect was inserted in the "London Gazette." But all this was nugatory and merely misleading if Her Majesty's Government did not intend to recognise the existence of any state of war between the contending parties. If nothing more was nieant or understood than that the Government of Spain prohibited and would prevent by force the entrance of any neutral vessels into certain waters belonging to her own territory and recognised by Her Majesty's Government as being still de facto and de jure within her municipal jurisdiction the use of the term "blockade " improper, the notification in the Gazette was improper, the establishment or main- tenance of a de facto real blockade by any naval force whatever was wholly un- necessary, and it would of course follow that any seizure of vessels, if made within the interdicted waters, would be cognisable, not by prize courts nor according to the rules of prize law, but according to the ordinary rules and principles either of martial law by land or of the municipal law of Spain.
Was
The inconveniences which flow from such an anomalous (not to say absolutely illegal) state of things as a blockade recognised by a neutral state which at the same time only recognises one belligerent, being so very great, we respectfully advise that Her Majesty's Government should not make any distinction, as to belligerent rights, between the Spanish Government and the Dominican insurgents but that both should be recognised as equally entitled to exercise those rights as long as circumstances continue from which the continued existence of a state of war between them may be properly inferred.
In connexion with this subject, we must observe that the acts and language of the Spanish authorities at Sto. Domingo since the views of Admiral Hope were communi- cated to them, are not entirely reconcileable with any distinct and consistent view of their own position. While (apparently) acquiescing in the proposed limitation of their rights of search, &c. to the territorial waters of the coast occupied by the insurgents they advanced the preposterous claim to extend those waters to a distance of six miles from the land, a claim which (we need hardly say) Her Majesty's Government cannot in the absence of any new convention upon that subject admit; the old distance of three miles, as we have already more than once had the honour to report, must be adhered to, until some new limit is arrived at by international agreement. On the other hand, the proceedings against the captured vessels seems to have been conducted (in form if not in substance) upon the principles of prize law, and in the majority of the cases of captured British vessels referred to in the papers before us, the justifica- tion of the capture seems to rest essentially upon the existence and maintenance of a legal blockade as to which the materials are not even yet sufficient to enable us to form a decisive opinion whether it has been, or is, effectually maintained according to the Declaration of Paris or not.
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Your Lordship's instructions, addressed to Her Majesty's Minister at Madid, appear to us to have been proper and judicious. With respect to the particular cases of British ships captured it does not seem to us that any of them require at the present time any further immediate action on the part of Her Majesty's Government; one of them, the “ President," has been released; two others, the "Pioneer" and the Forward," appear to have been captured beyond the limits of Spanish or Dominican territorial waters, and the justification of the capture of these vessels probably depends upon the existence of a legal blockade, and of sufficient evidence of an intention to violate it. All the other vessels seem to have been taken within Dominican waters, one of them, the "Julia," seems clearly to have been engaged in supplying the in- Burgents with contraband of war, the rest appear to be charged only with entrance into blockaded or interdicted ports. The explanations of General Villar (No. 2 in Governor Eyre's Despatch, No. 47) and the information obtained by Captain Lambert, go far to show that these captures generally were justifiable if there was a legal blockade.
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The principal ground, speaking generally, for complaint and remonstrance, arises from the imprisonment (which as we understand has now ceased) and the ill-treatment of the crews of these vessels. Sir J. Crampton appears to have distinctly announced to the Spanish authorities, that Her Majesty's Government will not allow British subjects taken on board vessels seized for breach of blockade to be either imprisoned or ill-treated. It may be added in any further communication, that those of the crew who are, and ought to be, examined by the captors as necessary witnesses may be detained for the purpose of this examination, but not put in irons, imprisoned, or treated in any way as prisoners of war.
The particular case of the unfortunate man William Abbott calls for the most stringent investigation; and if it be true that he was shot in the barbarous and illegal way described in these papers, the person or persons who caused his execution ought to be tried without delay for wilful murder. This matter appears to have been pro- perly pressed upon the Spanish Government by Sir J. Crampton, whose demand does not at present appear to have received any satisfactory answer. We have, &c. (Signed) ROUNDELL PALMER. ROBERT P. COLLIER. ROBERT PHILLIMORE.
The Eari Russell,
&c. &c.