The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-13 00:00:00

cerned. It could not desire that the San Jacinto,
her officers, and crew-should be exposed to danger
and loss by weakening their number to detach a
prize crew to go on board the Trent. Still less
could it disavow the humane motive of preventing
inconveniences, losses, and, perhaps, disaster to the
several hundred innocent passengers found on board
the prize vessel.
Nor could this Government perceive any ground
for questioning the fact that these reasons, though
apparently incongruous, did operate in the mind of
Captain Wilkes, and determinen him to release
the Trent. Human actions generally proceed
upon mingled and sometimes conflicting
motives. He measured the sacrifices which this
decision would cot. It manifestly, however, did
not occur him that beyond the sacrifice of the pri-
vate interests (as he calls them) of his officers and
crew, there might also possibly be a sacrifice even of
the chief and public object of his capture—namely,
the right of his Government to the custody and
disposition of the captured persons.

This Government cannot censure him for this
oversight. It confesses that the whole subject
came unforeseen upon the Government, as doubt-
less, it did upon him. Its present convictions on
the point in question are the results of deliberate
examination and deductions now made, and not of
any impressions previously formed.
Nevertheless, the question now is, not whether
Captain Wilkes is justified in what he did, but
what is the present view of the Government as to
the effect of what he has done. Assuming now, for
argument's sake only, that the release of the Trent,
if voluntary, involved a waiver of the claim of the
Government to hold the captured persons, the
United States could in that case have no hesitation
in saying that the act which has thus already been
approved by the Government must be allowed to
draw its legal consequences after it.
It is of the very nature of a gift or a charity that
the giver cannot, after the exercise of his benevo-
lence is past, recall or modify its benefits.
We are thus brought directly to the question
whether we are entitled to regard the release of the
Trent as involuntary, or whether we are obliged to
consider that it was voluntary. Clearly, the release
would have been involuntary had it been made
solely upon the first ground assigned for it by Cap-
tain Wilkes—namely, a want of sufficient force
to send the prize vessel into port for adjudication.
It is not the duty of a captor to hazard his own
vessel in order to secure a judicial examination to
the captured party. No large prize crew, however,
is legally necessary, for it is the duty of the cap-
tured party to acquiesce and go willingly before the
tribunal to whose jurisdiction it appeals.
If the captured party indicated proposes to em-
ploy means of resistance which the captor cannot
with probable safety to himself overcome, he may
properly leave the vessel to go forward, and neither
she nor the State she represents can ever afterwards
justly object that the captor deprived her of the
judicial remedy to which she was entitled.
But the second reason assigned by Capt. Wilkes
for releasing the Trent differs from the first. At
best, therefore, it must be held that Capt. Wilkes,
as he explains himself, acted from combined senti-
ments of prudence and generosity, and so that the
release of the prize vessel was not strictly necessary
or involuntary.

Secondly. How ought we to expect these ex-
planations by Capt. Wilkes of his own reasons for
leaving the capture incomplete to affect the action
of the British Government ? The observation upon
this point which first occurs is, that Capt. Wilkes's
explanations were not made to the authorities of the
captured vessel.
If made known to them, they might have ap-
proved and taken the release, upon the condition of
waiving a judicial investigation of' the whole trans-
action, or they might have refused to accept the re-
lease upon that condition.

But the case is one not with them but with the
British Government. If we c!aim that Great Bri-
tain ought not to insist that a judicial trial has been
lost bccause we voluntarily released the offending
vessel out of consideration for her innocent passen-
gers, I do not see how she is to be bound to acquiese
in the dccision which was thus made by us without
necessity on onr part, and without knowledge of
conditions or consent on her own.

The question between Great Britain and ourselves
thus stated, would be a question, not of right and
of law, but of favour to be conceded by her to us in
return for favours shown by us to her, of the value
of which favours on both sides we ourselves shall be
the judge.
Of course the United States could have no thought
of raising such a question in any case.

I trust I have shown to the satisfaction of the
British Government, by a very simple and natural
statement of the facts and analysis of the law ap-
plicable to them, that this Government has neither
meditated, nor practised, nor approved any deli-
berate wrong in the transaction to which they have
called its attention ; and, on the contrary, that what
has happened has been simply an inadvertency,
consisting in a departure by the naval officer, free
from any wrongful motive, from a rule uncertainly
established, and probably by the several parties
concerned either imperfectly understood or entirely
unknown.

For this error the British Government has a right
to expect the same reparation that we, as an inde-
pendent State, should expect from Great Britain,
or from any other friendly nation in a similar case.
I have not been unaware that in examining this
question I have fallen into an argument for what
seems to be the British side of it against my own
country. But lam relieved from all embarrass-
ment on that subject.
I had hardly fallen into that line of argument,
when I discovered that I was really defending and
maintaining not an exclusive] British interest,
but an old, honoured, and cherished American
cause, not upon British authorities, but upon prin-
ciples that constitute a large port-ion of the distinc-
tive policy by which the United States have deve-
loped the resources of a continent, and thus becom-
ing a considerable maritime Power, have won the
respect and confidence of many nations.
Those principles were laid down for us in 1804,
by James Madison, when Secretary of State in
the Administration of Thomas Jefferson, in instruc-
tions given to James Monroe, our Minister to Eng-
land.

Although the case before him concerned a descrip-
tion of persons different from those who are inci-
dentally subjects of the present discussion, the
ground he assumed then is the same I now occupy,
and the arguments by which he sustained himself
uponit have been an inspiration to me in preparing
this reply.

" Wherever," he says, "property found in a
neutral is supposed to be liable, on any ground, to
capture and condemnation, the rule in all cases is
that the question shall not be decided by the cap-
tor, but be carried before a legal tribunal, where a
regular trial may be had, and where the captor him-
self is liable to damages for an abuse of his power."
Can it be reasonable then, or just, that a belli-
gerent commander who is thus restricted and thus
responsible in a case of mere property of trivial
amount, should be permitted without recurring to
any tribunal whatever, to examine the crew of a
neutral vessel, to decide the important question of
their respective allegiances, and to carry that deci-
sion into execution by forcing every individual he
may choose into a service abhorrent to his feelings,
cutting him off from his most tender connexions, ex-
posing his mind and his person to the most humilia-
ting:discipline, and his life itself to the greatest
danger? Reason, justice, and humanity unite in
protesting against so extravagant a proceeding.
If I decide this case in favour of my own Govern-
ment I must disallow its most cherished principles,
and reverse and abandon for ever its essential policy.
The country cannot afford the sacrifice.
If I maintain those principles and adhere to that
policy, I must surrender the case itself.
It will be seen, therefore, that this Government
could not deny the justice of the claim presented to
us in this respect.

We are asked to do to the British nation just what
we have always insisted all nations ought to do to

The claim of the British Government is not made
in A discourteous manner. This goyernme at, since