may be of small consequence to a power whose whole career and existence is marked by cruelty and the sacrifice of human life, but I am of some value to my family, and I trust my rights and liberty are worthy the protection of the American government. I have the honor to remain, sir, your obedient servant, Hon. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, WM. J. NAGLE. United States Minister. *To the honorable members of the United States Congress in session assembled : The humble petition of John Warren, now a "convict" in Kilmainham jail, county Dublin, Ireland: GENTLEMEN: I, a citizen of the United States by adoption, respectfully submit the following: I am an Irishman by birth; by adoption an American citizen. Partly in pursuit of my avocation as a member of the American press, and on private business, to see old friends and relations, I arrived in Ireland in the latter end of May, 1867. Immediately after landing, on the 1st of June, I was arrested, cast into a dungeon, and kept closely confined in silence and solitude for nearly five months, without any charge having been preferred against me and without obtaining a hearing of any kind. On the 10th of October I was summarily ordered before a magistrate, and evidence sworn against me by a witness classed and known as an informer. I was committed on his evidence, indicted on the 25th of October, tried, and I stand now a convicted and sentenced felon for fifteen years' penal servitude on the uncorroborated testimony of the notorious and infamous perjurer and informer Corydon, who swore he knew me to belong to the Fenian confederacy in America in the year 1863. The indictment charged me with the overt act of the 5th of March in the county of Dublin, Ireland, although the Crown lawyers admit I was not bodily present, but was then in the city of New York. The British law claims me to be a British subject, ignores my United States citizenship, and consequently your right to confer it. The Crown lawyers further hold all members of the so-called Fenian confederation guilty of the overt act of the 5th of March in the county of Dublin, Ireland. Corydon swears I was a member of the above-named confederation in America in 1863. England, claiming me as her subject, consequently indicts, arraigns, tries, convicts, and sentences me for an act committed in Ireland when I was in the city of New York, United States of America, and I am this moment a first-class convict in a British bastile, clothed in a suit of convict gray. Gentlemen, my case is very plain. The English law under which I am claimed, as quoted by the judges who sat in my case, reads: "A British subject who reinoves to France or America owes the same allegiance to the Queen there as at home, twenty years hence as well as now. For it is a principle of universal law that the natural-born subject of one prince cannot by any act of his own, no, not by swearing allegiance to another, put off or discharge his natural allegiance to the former, for his natural allegiance was intrinsic and primitive and antecedent to the other, and cannot be divested without the concurrent act of that prince to whom it was due." Gentlemen, this law existed when the United States, on my forswearing all allegiance to all "foreign princes and potentates, more especially the Queen of England," conferred on me the rights of citizenship. If America acknowledged that law, she has perpetrated on me the most unjust, the most fraudulent injury. If she did not acknowledge it then, why does she now? England has, by indieting, arraigning, trying, convicting, and sentencing me on the uncorroborated evidence of a perjured informer for an act claimed to have been committed in America, which act as represented was being a member of an Irish national organization in the United States of America in 1863, ignored my previous citizenship, the right of the United States to confer it, and consequently has defiantly enforced this law, and the government of the United States, as represented by Mr. Johnson, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Adams, apparently coincide in this enforcement. If not, why were not some steps taken to defer action till your honorable body had an opportunity of adjudicating on so important a question? I ask you, gentlemen, as I lie to-night in my lonely dungeon, cut away from mother, wife, sisters, children, and friends, immured in a living tomb now for the last six months, what feeling must I have towards my government as represented in this matter? Why should it permit for an hour a citizen to stand convicted of treason-felony in Ireland on the ground of his being a member of an Irish national organization in America, and that, too, on the evidence of a perjured spy and informer? Which of the two governments up to the present is to me the more treacherous: the government which invites me to renounce all former allegiance whatsoever, confers upon me the full rights (on paper) of American citizenship, affixes its official seal to the act, and extracts a fee for so doing, and, when this citizenship is contemptuously and defiantly repudiated by the government whose allegiance I renounced, tolerates and abandons me to my fate, or the government from which I expect nothing, my natural enemy, the enemy of every aspirant for freedom, the enemy of my very existence, of the existence of my race, and of my adopted country? Observe to what an extent run the claims of the British government. England claims, in the enforcement of what she calls a right, that several millions of the citizens of the United States are her subjects, and defiantly in proof of this has convicted me, with others, to the doom of penal servitude, after coquetting with Mr. Johnson, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Adams for five months about my release, for an occurrence which took place in Ireland when I was in America; thereby enforcing her claim on my allegiance to the letter. I cannot but admire England's independence. Has the chivalry of America departed? And yet, gentlemen, England goes still further in her claims. I find there is yet another of her laws which even claims the children and grandchildren of British subjects born in America as subjects. An eminent commentator on this law says: "But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still further taken off, so that all children born out of the King's ligeance, whose fathers or grandfathers by the father's side were natural-born subjects, are now deemed to be natural subjects themselves to all intents and purposes, unless their said ancestors were attainted beyond the seas for high treason." I admit that England does not presume to enforce this last-quoted statute at present, but should she be permitted to enforce the first with impunity, the assertion or nonassertion of the other will be with her a question of policy, not of principle, and she may at any time claim half the population of the United States as her subjects. Now, gentlemen, as I have before mentioned, my case is plain. I have quoted the law under which as a British subject I stand convicted for "treason-felony" on the evidence of a spy and perjured informer, and for being a member of an Irish national organization in America, as sworn, in 1863. You know also, gentlemen, the rights guaranteed to me by the Constitution of the United States and the naturalization laws. Am I under those laws a citizen of the United States and entitled to her full protection, or am I under the English statutes a British subject and amenable to English laws in America? I will state, gentlemen, in conclusion, that even as a British subject I have violated no British law. My name is connected with an alleged expedition, but there is not one iota of corroborative evidence to identify me in connection with it, as your honorable body may have learned from the published evidence long before you received this communication; and even if it did exist, the very evidence produced, purchased and perjured as it was, proved that if a hostile design ever existed it was abandoned, and that the parties were thrown on the shore by stress of weather and starvation. The only case they have established against me was that I landed in Ireland from a fishing boat, which fishing boat took me off a vessel out at sea. No documents, no arms; I attempted no disguise; had no connection with any person or persons in Ireland. I again, gentlemen, repeat that I am suffering in an English bastile the most excruciating, degrading, and servile tortures, for no other proven offense, before my God, than that the paid informer Corydon swore that he knew me in America to belong to an Irish national organization in America. Gentlemen, in the name of our common country, in the name of freedom, in the name of God, I ask of you to take hold of this matter vigorously, and compel England to expunge from her law-books every presumption bearing on the rights of the American citizen. If she does not do it, wipe her from the face of the earth, and God will bless you. KILMAINHAM JAIL, November 28, 1867. JOHN WARREN. Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward. No. 1488.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I have the honor to transmit a document published for the use of Parliament, containing the latest portion of the correspondence relative to the questions in dispute between the two countries. From the tone of the reply of Lord Stanley, in connection with your dispatch, just received, No. 2093, of the 16th of November, it seems plain that nothing more can be expected from this negotiation. I shall, therefore, in accordance with your desire, give it out hereafter as so understood. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. NORTH AMERICA, NO. 2, (1867.) FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE RESPECTING BRITISH AND AMERICAN CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF THE LATE CIVIL WAR IN THE UNITED STATES. No. 1. Lord Stanley to Sir F. Wright Bruce. FOREIGN OFFICE, September 10, 1867. SIR: The minister of the United States called upon me to-day and communicated to me a dispatch, of which, however, he was not authorized to give me a copy, from Mr. Seward, dated the 12th of August, in reply to my dispatch to you of the 24th of May, respecting the mutual claims of the two countries on each other arising out of the late civil war. By this dispatch Mr. Adams is authorized to assure me that Mr. Seward did not understand my previous offer of arbitration to apply only to claims arising out of the depredations of the Alabama, to the exclusion of those arising out of the depredations of vessels of the like character, but, on the contrary, understood the offer to apply equally to all such claims. The President, Mr. Seward says, considers the terms of the offer of the British government to go to arbitration upon the question whether, in the matters connected with all those vessels out of whose depredations the claims of American citizens have arisen, the course pursued by the British government and those who acted upon its authority was such as would involve a moral responsibility to make good, either in whole or in part, the losses of American citizens, to be at once comprehensive and sufficiently precise to include all the claims of American citizens for depredations on their commerce during the late rebellion, which have been the subject of complaint on the part of the government of the United States. But Mr. Seward goes on to say that the government of the United States would deem itself at liberty to insist before the arbiter that the actual proceedings and relations of the British government, its officers, agents, and subjects, towards the United States in regard to the rebellion and the rebels, as they occurred during that rebellion, are among the matters which are connected with the vessels whose depredations are complained of; just as in the case of general claims, alluded to in my dispatch, the actual proceedings and relations of her Majesty's government, its officers, agents, and subjects, in regard to the United States in regard to the rebellion and the rebels, are necessarily connected with the transactions out of which those general claims arose. Mr. Seward further observes that my plan seems to be to constitute two descriptions of tribunals: one an arbiter to determine the question of the moral responsibility of the British government in regard to the vessels of the Alabama class; and the other a mixed commission, to adjudicate the so-called general claims of both sides; and a contingent reference to the same or other mixed commissions, to ascertain and determine the amount of damages for indemnity to be awarded in the cases examined by the first tribunal in the event of a decision of moral responsibility in favor of the United States. But Mr. Seward says that the government of the United States do not consider any distinction as to principle between the two tribunals to be necessary, and that in every case they agree only to unrestricted arbitration. It may be convenient, indeed, that the claims should be distributed between the two tribunals, both of which, however, the government of the United States consider should proceed upon the same principle and be clothed with the same powers. Mr. Seward concludes his dispatch by saying that the President will be gratified if the explanations contained in it should conduce to the removal of the difficulties which have heretofore prevented the two governments from coming to an amicable and friendly understanding and arrangement. I reserve for a future occasion any observations that I may have to offer on Mr. Seward's dispatch. I am, &c., No. 2. STANLEY. Lord Stanley to Mr. Ford. FOREIGN OFFICE, November 16, 1867. SIR: In my dispatch to Sir F. Bruce of the 10th September, I confined myself to a mere statement of the substance of a dispatch from Mr. Seward which Mr. Adams had communicated to me in reply to my dispatch of the 24th of May respecting the claims arising on either side out of the events of the late civil war in the United States. Her Majesty's government having, since the date of my dispatch, fully considered the terms of Mr. Seward's dispatch, I will no longer delay acquainting you, for communication to that minister, with the impression which it has made upon them. Her Majesty's government observe that the President of the United States considers the terms used in my dispatch with reference to the so-called Alabama claims to be at once comprehensive and sufficiently precise to include all the claims of American citizens for depredations upon their commerce during the late rebellion, which have been the subject of complaint upon the part of the government of the United States; those terms being, to quote the precise words of my dispatch of the 24th of May, applicable to this class of claims, and which, in substance, repeats those used by me in my dispatch of the 9th of March, that the question on which Great Britain was ready to go to arbitration was, "whether in the matters connected with the vessels out of whose depredations the claims of American citizens have arisen, the course pursued by the British government and by those who acted upon its authority was such as would involve a moral responsibility on the part of the British government to make good, either in whole or in part, the losses of American citizens.' In the same and in previous dispatches it will be found that, whilst agreeing to this limited reference as regards the so-called Alabama claims, I have repeatedly stated that her Majesty's government could not consent to refer to a foreign power to determine whether the policy of her Majesty's government in recognizing the Confederate States as belligerents was or was not suitable to the circumstances of the time when the negotiation took place. After referring, however, to the terms of my dispatch of the 24th of May, Mr. Seward goes on to say that, in the view taken by the United States government, that government would deem itself at liberty to insist before the arbiter that the actual proceedings and relations of the British government, its officers, agents, and subjects, towards the United States in regard to the rebellion and the rebels as they occurred during that rebellion, are among the matters which are connected with the vessels whose depredations are complained of; just as, in the case of the general claims alluded to by me, the actual proceedings and relations of her Majesty's government, its officers, agents, and subjects, in regard to the United States in regard to the rebellion and the rebels, are necessarily connected with the transactions out of which those general claims arise. The language thus used by Mr. Seward appears to her Majesty's government to be open to the construction that it is the desire of the United States government that any tribunal to be agreed upon in dealing either with the so-called Alabama claims or with the "general claims" might enter into the question whether the act of policy of her Majesty's government in recognizing the Confederate States as a belligerent power was or was not suitable to the circumstances of the time when the recognition was made; a construction which, after the distinct and repeated avowal of her Majesty's government that they could not consent to a reference of such a question, her Majesty's government can hardly suppose that it was intended by Mr. Seward that the passage in his dispatch should bear. But to prevent any misapprehension on this subject, her Majesty's government think it necessary distinctly to say, both as regards the so-called Alabama claims brought forward by citizens of the United States and as regards the general claims, that they cannot depart, directly or indirectly, from their refusal to "refer to a foreign power to determine whether the policy of recognizing the Confederate States as a belligerent power was or was not suitable to the circumstances of the time when the negotiation was made." As regards the so-called Alabama claims, the only point which her Majesty's government can consent to refer to the decision of an arbiter is the question of the moral responsibility of her Majesty's government, on the assumption that an actual state of war existed between the government of the United States and the Confederate States; and on that assumption it would be for the arbiter to determine whether there had been any such failure on the part of the British government as a neutral in the observance, legally or morally, of any duties or relations towards the government of the United States as could be deemed to involve a moral responsibility on the part of the British government to make good losses of American citizens caused by the Alabama and other Vessels of the same class. As regards the general claims, the question of moral responsibility on the part of her Majesty's government does not, and cannot, come into dispute at all. Mr. Seward rightly supposes that her Majesty's government contemplated two tribunals for the adjudication, one of the Alabama claims, the other of the general claims; the one being, in the first instance, at all events, the tribunal of an arbiter, who would be called upon to pronounce on the principles of the moral responsibility of the British government, and on the nature of whose decision would depend the question of the appointment of a mixed commision for the examination in detail of the several claims of citizens of the United States to which that decision applied, namely, those arising ont of the depredations of the Alabama and other similar vessels, and the adjudication of the sums payable in each case; the other, in its commencement and to its close a purely mixed commission, for the examination of the general claims of the subjects and citizens of both countries arising out of the war, and the adjudication of the sums payable by either country in each case. The distinction between the two classes of claims is clear: the one may never come before a mixed commission, and therefore may not require the assistance of an arbiter to decide differences of detail arising between the commissioners; the other, though originally brought before a mixed commission, may possibly require the intervention of an arbiter in case of a difference of opinion among the members of the commission which could not be otherwise reconciled, and for which case provision would be made in the ordinary way in the convention for the settlement of the mixed claims by the insertion of articles in regard to the selection of an arbiter. The functions of such an arbiter, as well as of an arbiter for a like purpose in the other mixed commission, for which provision would have to be made to meet the contingency of the so-called Alabama claims coming eventually under the cognizance of a mixed commission, would have nothing in common with the functions of the arbiter, to whom the question of principle involved in the last-mentioned class of claims would be referred. Her Majesty's government cannot but apprehend that, if Mr. Seward really requires unrestricted arbitration as applicable to both classes of claims, and that the tribunal in both classes of cases should proceed upon the same principles and be clothed with the same powers, he has not fully considered the wide and inevitable distinction which exists between the classes; and in directing you to submit to the consideration of Mr. Seward the explanations and observations contained in this dispatch, I have to instruct you to express the earnest hope of her Majesty's government that the government of the United States will, on further reflection, accept without hesitation the proposal made in my dispatches to Sir F. Bruce of the 9th of March, and of the 24th of May, both of this year, namely, "limited reference to arbitration in regard to the so-called Alabama claims," and "adjudication by means of a mixed commission of general claims." You will furnish Mr. Seward with a copy of this dispatch. Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward. STANLEY. No. 1489.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I obtained an interview on Tuesday last with Lord Stanley for the purpose of renewing the representations as directed in your dispatch No. 2087, of the 5th of November, respecting the difficulties growing out of the state of things in Ireland. I explained the precise nature of the question as applicable to naturalized American citizens. I read to him the chief passages of your dispatch, and concluded by asking him to reconsider the former decision of the government so far as it relates to supplying better security to our citizens in that island. His lordship asked me if I had any special measure to suggest. I said, nothing beyond that already specified in your dispatch No. 2049, of August last, and the later one already referred to. He said that passports had long since proved to be of little avail. Unless the descriptions were very accurate, they were easily transferred from hand to hand; besides which, they had become rather obsolete here. At any rate, it seemed to him that whatever evidence was necessary to identify citizens was a thing to be supplied in America, and therefore should be suggested from there. He asked me some questions about the forms of naturalization. I said that they always involved the issue of formal certificates in the last stage of the process. Why, he asked, would not that do? I said it might, in most cases, provided it was given to be understood that they were essential as a protection. But, in course of time, many were lost by neglect to preserve them, or other accident, and it was a long process from here to procure official copies. There was also a class of cases of children under age at the time of naturalization |