The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-28 00:00:00

affairs making the return of the America to the northward
clearly unnecessary, you are to remain on the coast of Chili
and Peru, for the protection of British interests, until further
orders.

" Given on board her Majesty's ship, Collingwood, Valpa-
paraiso, this 13th of February, 1846.
" GroF. SEYMOUR,
" Rear• Admiral and Commander-in-Chief.
" To the Hon. John Gordon, Captain of her
Majesty's ship, America."
The following letter was next read by the Deputy-
Judge-Advocate; it was addressed by Captain Gordon
to the Secretary of the Admiralty, and dated—
" Her Majesty's ship America. Spithead, Aug. 19, 1846.
" I have had the honour to receive your letter of the Bth
of July, informing me that my conduct in proceeding to
England, as stated in my letter to Sir G. F. Seymour of the
22d of April, appeared to their Lordships to be so reprehen-
sible that they had determined on investigating it by a
court-martial. I had hoped that the reasons assigned in my
letter to the Admiralty, and the explanations given therein,
would have proved sufficient to justify in the sight of their
Lordships the step I had taken. I need not say with what
deep concern I find that this is not the case, and that my
conduct on this occasion has been such as to bring me under
the displeasure of their Lordships. Under these circum-
stances I feel hound to admit that I have judged erroneously,
but I beg most respectfully to assure their Lordships that I
have not been influenced by any unworthy motives. I acted
on a full consideration of what appeared to me at the time
to be the best; if I have erred, it has not been from any
undue regard to personal advantage, and still less with any
desire to deprive a brother officer of what might justly be his
due. I beg now to mention that as soon as I became in-
formed, on my arrival here, of the opinion entertained by
their Lordships of this matter, I have at once, and without
any hesitation, taken measures for reserving, to be transferred
to the agent of Captain Onslow, of the Daphne, or any other
officer who may have sufferel pecuniary loss by any error in
my judgment on the occasion, the whole amount of whatever
may be derived from this conveyance to England. I beg to
call to the attention of their Lordships that in none of the
orders from Sir G. F. Seymour did I receive any instructions
for the diposal of the freight on my arrival at Valparaiso
further than to embark such specie as the merchants in
Mexico wished to send to Mexico or to England, or in the
orders left for me at Valparaiso. Deeply suffering under a
sense of their Lordship? displeasure, I cannot conclude with-
out humbly expressing a hope that, under all the circum-
stances of the case, their Lordships may be disposed to take
a less unfavourable view of my conduct than they announced
in your letter of the Bth of July."
The foregoing letter enclosed all Sir G. F. Seymour's
orders ; the only relevant one not above given was the
following :
"By Sir George Francis Seymour, C. 8., G.C.H., Rear-
Admiral of the Blue, and Commander-in-Chief of her
Majesty's ships and vessels employed and to be employed
in the Pacific Ocean.

" You are hereby required and directed, on the arrival of
the America at this anchorage, to embark the stores and pro-
visions intended for her, at present in the store-houses of
Messrs. Rhodes and Co., of Honolulu ; and having so done,
you are, as soon as your ship is ready for sea, to proceed to
complete her water, either at Hilo in Owyhee, or at Hanalai
in Atooi, as you may deem most desirable. Having com-
pleted your water, you are to proceed to San Bias, unless you
shall have become apprised of circumstances which shall in-
duce you to consider that it will be for the advantage of her
Majesty's service that you should return previously to the
coast of Upper Californa, in which case you are to proceed
there in the first instance, and to be guided by circumstances
as to your stay. On the arrival of the America at San Bias,
you will put yourself in immediate communication with her
Majesty's Consul at Tepic, and learn from him the present
political relations between Great Britain and the United
States, as far as they are known, and those also between the
United States and Mexico; and you will direct your sub-
sequent conduct in the manner most calculated to afford pro-
tection and confidence to her Majesty's subjects in the latter
republic. If you have good reason for believing that friendly
relations between Great Britain and the United States are
likely to be preserved, and there is no necessity for your con-
tinued stay on the coast of Mexico to protect the commerce
of British subjects, you are, after embarking on board such
specie as the merchants wish to send to Valparaiso or to
England, to leave the coast of Mexico the end of January,*
and to proceed to Valparaiso, where you will receive further
orders. If, on the contrary, you shall have reason to believe
that an accommodation of the questions between Great Bri-
tain and the United States is unlikely or uncertain, you are
instead of leaving the northern part of the Pacific, in the
America, at the time specified, to send the Frolic or Modeste,
to Valparaiso, with the freight then collected. You are also
to consider those sloops under your orders until they receive
other directions from me, observing that you will probably
find the first upon the coast of Mexico, to which she is about to
proceed, and the latter is directed to return to Woahoo when
she has executed the service on which she is at present em-
ployed on the north-west coast. You will afford the mer-
chants every assistance, consistant with your instructions, in
embarking treasure, either on board the America or one of
the sloops under your orders, during your continuance on the
coast, at the usual shipping porta. I enclose you a copy of
an order I had sent forward by the Modeste to the Sandwich.
Islands, directing you to proceed to Monterey and San Fran-
cisco, had the America arrived here previous to the Coiling-
wood. I wish the principle of these orders still to guide your
conduct, in case of your proceeding to that quarter, as far as
they are consistent with what you have learned, from good
authority in Mexico, to be the present policy of her Majesty's
Government ; but instead of proceeding there immediately,
as directed at the commencement of the said order, you are
to be guided by your own discretion, founded on the informa-
tion you have received relative to that province, whether
and when you shall proceed there. You are, as directed on a
previous occasion, to open dispatches which may arrive in
Mexico bearing my address ; and should any of these orders
or letters be confidential, you will see the necessity of observ-
ing the greatest reserve on the subjects to which they relate,
and to cause copies or extracts to be made thereof for my in-
formation, should you have an opportunity of communicating
with me ; but you are to leave the public letters from Eng-
land still in the care of her Majesty's Consul, as there will
be probably duplicates thereof sent to Valparaiso by Panama,
and it is desirable that if circumstances should call me to Safi
Blas, I should find there the public communications sent to
me by that route.

' Gillen on board of her Majesty's ship Collingwood, llono-
lulu, this 10th October, 1845.

"G. F. SEYAIOUR,
" Rear Admiral and Commander-in-Chief.
To the Hon. John Gordon, Captain of
her Majesty's ship America."
Another letter from Captain Gordon to the Secretary
of the Admiralty was next read ; it was dated Aueust
20, 1846, and ran thus :
" With reference to my letter of yesterday's date, I omitted
to forward, ;for the information of their Lordships, the en-
closed extract from the orders of Sir G. F. Seymour, under
which Captain Onslow, of the Daphne, was acting, by which
it appears that the amount of specie expected from Mexico
was inconsiderable; but having, under the alarm of hostili-
ties between Mexico and the United States, shipped a large
amount of treasure, with a strong requisition from the ship-
pers who bad effected their insurances in this ship, together
with the urgent request from her Majesty's Consul, induced
me, after mature consideration, to accede to their solicita-
tions, and not to tranship it into a vessel of such an inferior
force."
The extract from the orders to Captain Onslow was
as follows :
" Should the amount of treasure expected from Mexico
not be such as to fully justify the employment of a ship of
war for its conveyance, and the Salamander should be re-
turned from the islands, you are to tranship itinto her instead
of conveying it in the Daphne, and you are to remain on the
coast of Chili and Peru until further orders. You are to con-
duct the duties which may be required on this coast for the
protection of British trade and the furtherance of the public
service, to cause or apply for the transfer of the specie ex-
pected from Mexico to the ship you command, and proceed
with the same to Spithead, reporting your arrival to the
Secretary to the Admiralty."
With this paper the statement of the Judge-Advocate
concluded, and the Court Was cleared for a short time.
On our re. admission, this officer stated to the Court
that Captain Gordon requested that "his friend" might
be allowed to attend him.
Leave being granted, the barrier was opened to admit
Mr. Hoskins, the respectable solicitor, who is the Mayor
of Portsmouth. Courts. martial scarcely recognizing a
lawyer, the accused is obliged to resort to a fiction, and
call his attorney " his friend."
Captain Gordon was then allowed a seat, and
r,aorders muefrel
February
of
JUDGE-ADVOCATE called evidence in support of
theirF. ym
charge.
se It
uuconsisted
fthe
Ip3r. oldBu4c6ti,onanodf
Sir
October 10, 1845, with the log-book of the America, and
the letters of Captain Gordon.
Mr. HosiiiNs then proceeded to read Captain Gor-
don's defence, as follows:
Mr. President and Gentlemen of this Honourable
Court;—lt is with feelings of painful emotion that lam
called upon to defend myself before this honourable tri-
bunal, against the charge of disobedience to the orders of
my Commander-in-Chief. My answer to that charge,
however, 'shall consist of a plain and unvarnished state-
ment of facts as they occurred, comprising, as it neces-
sarily must, the order which I received from Rear-Ad-
miral Sir George Francis Seymour on the 10th of Octo-
ber, 1845 ; the course I adopted in obeying it ; the
circumstances in which I was placed by carrying that
order into execution ; the discretion necessary to be
exercised when placed in those circumstances; and the
determination at which, after mature deliberation, I
arrived. And I cannot fail to hope that, after having
made that statement, this Honourable Court will feel
satisfied that I have not been guilty even of an error in
judgment, but that I hay: exercised a sound discretion,
and that, impelled by a sense of duty alone, I have
adopted the only proper course which the position in
which I was placed had left open for my adoption. On the
arrival of the America at Honolulu, on the 21st of Oc-
tober, 1845, I received from the Commander-in-Chief
the order bearing date the 10th day of the same month,
which is already before the Court. In pursuance of this
order I sailed in the America from Honolulu on the 2d
of November, 1845, and reached San Blas on the 10th of
December following, when we proceeded, on the 17th of
December, to Mazatlan, which we reached on the 22d of
that month, and continued there till the end of February,
1846. It will be seen by this order that a discretion
was vested in me by the Commander-in-Chief, as to the
course of my proceedings, depending on the information
I should obtain as to the continuance of friendly rela-
tions between Great Britain and the United States of
America. My continued and anxious attention, there-
fore, was devoted to the procuring of such information
on this subject as I could obtain ; and with this view,
pursuant to the order which has been read, I put myself
in immediate communication with the British Consul at
Tepia on that subject, and continued to communicate
with him during the whole time of our stay at Mazatlan.
I here take the liberty of putting before the Court the
information which I received, both from the Commander-

in-Chief and from the British Consul at Tepic, on the
subject which so much engaged my attention. The ori-
ginal letters will be handed.in to the Court, but as they
contain references to other matters, I have extracted
such parts as relate only to the point in question, and
which are as follow:

" FROM TIIE COMMANDER• IN• CHIEF.,

" llonolulu, Oct. 10, 1845.
"I have no word of Oregon, or probable war, since the
letter of 'March, which you saw in duplicate at Tepic, and I
am not in possession of the news of our Government relative
to California, and I am therefore less inclined to fetter you
about that country while you remain in charge of the north
coast; the Columbus is again expected in this quarter, but I
aminclined to think the Oregon matter will be settled."

* If no ship should have arrived to relieve you at the end
of January, you are at liberty *.o prolong your departure from
the coast of Mexico to the end of February, if you 81141 think
fit.—G. F. S.