This being the nature of my title, the reasons should be very urgent which should justify my being forcibly dispossessed of it.  But there are no such reasons apparent.  It is not contended that there was any misconduct on the part of the Tuscaloosa, unless her entry into a British port as a Confederate cruiser be deemed misconduct.  As stated in the beginning of this letter, she had no intention of violating any order of the Queen.  Her error, therefore, if it were an error, is entitled to be considered with gentleness and not with hardship.  Her error was the error of yourself and his Excellency the Governor, as well as myself.  We all agreed, I believe, that she was a lawfully commissioned ship, and that her commission estopped all further enquiry.  In the meantime, she proceeds to sea thus endorsed, as it were, by the Colonial authorities; your Home Government overrules your decision; the Tuscaloosa returns in good faith to your port to seek renewed hospitality under your orders of neutrality.  And what happens?  An English officer, armed with your order, proceeds on board of her, turns her commander and officers out of her, and assumes possession on the ground that she has violated the Queen’s orders; and this without any warning to depart or any other notice whatever.  In the name of all open and fair dealing—­in the name of frankness, candour, and good faith, I most respectfully enter my protest against such an extreme, uncalled-for, and apparently unfriendly course.

But the most extraordinary part of the proceeding has yet to be stated.  You not only divest me of my title to my prize, but you tell me that you are about to hand her over to the enemy!  On what principle this can be done I am utterly at a loss to conceive.  Although it may be competent to a Government, in an extreme case, to confiscate to the Exchequer a prize, there is but one possible contingency in which the prize can be restored to the opposite belligerent, and that is the one already mentioned of a capture within neutral jurisdiction.  And this is done on the ground of the nullity of the original capture.  The prize is pronounced not to have been lawfully made, and this being the case, and the vessel being within the jurisdiction of the neutral whose waters have been violated, there is but one course to pursue.  The vessel does not belong to the captor, and as she does not belong to the neutral, as a matter of course she belongs to the opposite belligerent, and must be delivered up to him.  But there is no analogy between that case and the one we are considering.  My capture cannot be declared a nullity.  My title is as good against the enemy as though condemnation had passed.  The vessel either belongs to me or to the British Government.  If she belongs to me, justice requires that she should be delivered up to me.  If she belongs (by way of confiscation) to the British Government, why should that Government make a gratuitous present of her to one of the belligerents rather than the other?