That after they left the Oreto they went on board the Prince Alfred; that the Oreto then hoisted anchor and got under way, and when about 100 or 200 yards from them, she hoisted the flag known as the flag of the Confederate States of America; that her crew manned the rigging and gave three cheers, and she sailed out of sight. That they sailed in the Prince Alfred on the following day, and went from Green Cay to Ragged Island, being twelve days on the passage; that when they arrived there Captain Morseman, of the Prince Alfred, told them that Captain Mathit had directed him to find them a passage to Nassau; that they asked the said Morseman what about*{the $2 a day Captain Maffit had promised them, and he said he knew nothing about it. [86] That the said Morseman paid their passage to Nassau in the sloop Maria, and that they arrived at the said port of Nassau on Sunday, the 31st day of August. (Signed) PETER CRAWLEY. JAMES LOCKYER. ANDREW A. HAGAN. All which matters and things were declared, alleged, and affirmed, as before is set forth in the presence of the said notary, and therefore I have subscribed my name and affixed my notarial seal, being requested to testify and certify the premises. This done at the city of Nassau, in the island of New Providence, the day and year first above written. (Signed) T. WILLIAM HENRY DILLET, Notary Public, Bahamas. BAHAMA ISLANDS, New Providence. On this 25th day of February, A. D. 1865, before me, Ormond Drimmie Malcolm, notary public for the said Bahama Islands, personally appeared Thomas William Henry Dillet, esq., now acting as assistant justice of Her Majesty's general court of the said Bahama Islands, who declared that the foregoing declaration was taken by and before him, and is a true copy of the original, as recorded in his register of notarial acts, marked A, at pages 91, 92, 93, 94, and 95. And I do further certify and attest that I saw and examined the said original dec laration in the book aforesaid, from whence the foregoing copy was extracted, and that I found the same to be a true and faithful copy thereof. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my naine and notarial seal this 25th day of February, A. D. 1865. (Signed) ORMOND D. MALCOLM, [Inclosure 6 in No. 47.] The attorney general, Nassau, to Governor Rawson. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, SIR: I have this moment received the inclosed communication from the United States consul, which, your excellency will remark, bears date the 24th instant. I shall abstain from offering any remarks upon the tone of the consul's letter and the charges therein impliedly made against the Government. With respect, however, to the faccusation made against myself, I beg to state that Mr. Jackson, the agent for American underwriters, did mention to me, on the forenoon of the 23d, that there were two seamen then in Nassau who could prove that Captain fitted out the Oreto at Green Cay; in reply to which I remarked that it appeared a stale charge, and that it would require very clear and positive testimony to be adduced before I should, as law-officer, feel justified at this late period in initiating criminal proceedings against Captain Mafit. There the matter dropped, and I heard nothing further until I received your excellency's note on the morning of the 24th. when I immediately applied officially to the consul for his proofs. I have, &c., 1862, G. C. ANDERSON. [Inclosure 7 in No. 47.] COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE, SIR: I am directed by his excellency the governor to acknowledge your letter of the 23d ultimo. calling his attention to a violation of the laws on the part of Captain Maffit, by the enlistment of men within this colony. Your letter reached his excellency at a late hour of the night of the 23d, after Captain Maffit had actually left the port. He lost no time on the following morning in placing it in the hands of the attorney general. [87] *This officer has since submitted to his excellency your reply to his inquiries. Upon this it is only necessary to inform you that the document which you have supplied dated as far back as September, 1862, furnishes no evidence of any enlistment of men by Captain Maffit. With regard to the other information contained in this document, and in your letter to the attorney general, his excellency will take such steps as may appear to him to be fitting. Among these will be the transmission of the correspondence to Her Majesty's government, whose attention he will call to the irrelevant and unjustifiable accusations brought against this government in your recent letters both to the attorney general and myself, SIR: I have the honor to inform your excellency that I have good authority for stating that the schooner Prince Alfred, of Nassau, took the Oreto's armament from this port and discharged the same on board that steamer at Green Cay, one of the Bahamas. That the Oreto afterward left Green Cay with the secession flag flying at her peak. That the Prince Alfred has returned to this port, and now lies at Cochrane's Anchorage, and I am credibly informed that her captain is again shipping men to be sent to the Oreto in direct contravention of the foreign-enlistment act. I earnestly urge upon your excellency the propriety of instituting some inquiry into these matters, and of preventing acts so prejudicial to the interests of the friendly Government which I have the honor to represent. I have, &c., SAMUEL WHITING. [Inclosure 9 in No. 47.] Mr. Nesbitt to Mr. Whiting. COLONIAL OFFICE, Nassau, September 9, 1862. SIR: In reply to your letter of the 8th instant, directed to the governor, I am instructed by his excellency to inform you that if you feel assured that you have sufficient credible evidence to substantiate your allegation, and will put your evidence into the hands of the attorney general, his excellency will direct a prosecution against the captain of the Prince Alfred, or others who may have been guilty of violating the foreign-enlistment act. But his excellency has no authority to take any steps against the Oreto which is out of his excellency's jurisdiction. I have, &c., (Signed) C. R. NESBITT, [Inclosure 10 in No. 47.] Memorandum by the attorney general of his interview with Mr. Jackson. On the afternoon of the 23d February Mr. Jackson, agent for the New York underwriters, came into my office and, addressing me, asked whether I remembered a rumor which had been in existence two or three years back of the armament for Oreto, afterward the Florida, having been carried from Nassan in a schooner called the Prince Alfred, and, on my replying in the affirmative, said, "Well, Maflit is now here, and there are two men also here who can prove that the Oreto was fitted out at Green H. Ex. 282- -21 [88] Cay," or words to the like effect. I virtually replied, using, as nearly as I can remember, the following words: "That is an old (or stale) story; tell me of some intended breach of the law on the part of Maffit or any one else, and I will endeavor to stop it at once, but I won't act in this matter unless you bring very distinct and positive evidence before me." He then said something about Mr. Dillet having taken the evidence at the time, and that I might get it from him, to which I remarked that, if the United States authorities had had evidence taken at the time, it should at once have been laid before the local government, in order that its weight might have been judged of and the course of government decided on. Here the conversation ended; and, after speaking about some other matters, he left, having been with me altogether not more than ten minutes. Whether Mr. Jackson came to my office merely for the purpose of making the communication referred to I cannot say; but I think it probable that that was the object of his visit. He has, however, within the last three months, been in the habit of frequently calling and conversing with me at my office, first, chiefly with reference to a criminal prosecution pending against a man of the name of Savage for an alleged complicity in a case of collusive wrecking, and more recently in reference to the case of Verdon Locke, against whom he, as agent for the New York underwriters, laid the original charge. In this latter case he had been in daily communication with me since the arrest of Locke on the 20th; and in such conversations had repeatedly spoken of Maffit, who was in command of the Owl, from on board of which vessel Locke was taken, without hinting the existence of any charge against him; and when he suddenly mentioned it on the 23d, Maffit having been then in port here for some time, I certainly viewed it as a stale charge brought forward at the eleventh hour, and one which I was not called on to notice in an unofficial manner, without any details to warrant me in initiating criminal proceedings, and paid no attention to it. I would remark, however, that before Captain Maffit could have been in due course of law arrested to answer the charge, a regular information on oath must have been laid before a justice of the peace, or such distinct and positive testimony should have been laid before me as would have satisfied me, as attorney general, not only that a violation of law had taken place, but as would enable me to name the witnesses and the precise nature of their testimony; in which case, acting under a local law, I might have issued a precept to a magistrate to inquire, sending him at the same time the names of the witnesses to support the charge. Up to this moment I am without the latter, as although I have written to Mr. Jackson for the names of the men alleged to have been here, he has, up to this moment, been unable to give them to me, and has only given me, as a means of getting hold of them, the probable place in which one of them is to be found. This was given to me on Saturday, and the police are now in search of them. You say, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of this day's date. "That if I have any evidence tending to show that any violation of the municipal law has taken place in regard to the steamer Mary, late Alexandra, and will submit to me your proofs for consideration, prompt measures will be taken to vindicate the law should such proofs be of a nature to justify the adoption of proceedings either for the arrest of the vessel or for the prosecution of any party or parties who may be indicated by you.” I thank your excellency for the offer made; and if you would indicate what additional evidence is required I would respectfully consider what my duty would be in regard to it. I have no power to compel the attendance of witnesses to give evidence, even if it were possible for me to do so; my information comes to me in most cases strictly confidential, or from parties who, if known, would be ruined in their business, some of whom may be getting their livelihood from parties interested in these very violations spoken of. Should I be called upon to furnish proofs of the violation of the municipal laws of this colony? Should it not rather be the duty of some one in some department of government to obtain information as to the vindication of their [89] own laws? Nevertheless, if such officer as you may indicate will call upon me I will furnish him the names of parties, confidentially, who may be able to put the officers in possession of information. But I still think that sufficient evidence will be furnished by the search, if completed, of the vessel to more than sustain what the law-officer, the honorable attorney general, thought to be sufficient, taken in connection with the known character and purposes of the vessel in question. I have, &c., THOMAS KIRKPATRICK. [Inclosure 12 in No. 47 Mr. Kirkpatrick to Mr. Nesbitt. UNITED STATES CONSULATE, SIR: I had the honor to receive yesterday afternoon your communication of the 4th instant. I do not intend to enter into any discussion as to whether it was or was not a violation of Her Majesty's proclamation for a boat to land from a ship belonging to the Government of the United States cruising in the offing, or whether it was a violation of the laws of this colony regarding quarantine regulations, nor will I discuss why vessels belonging to other governments, or pretended governments, have been permitted to enter the harbor, or leave it without let, or hinderance, or complaint, as far as I am aware; but I must be permitted to say that I am surprised at the tone of your letter, insisting that Captain Harris was aware that he was committing a violation of those laws, when taken in connection with the conversation had with his excellency the governor, the afternoon when Captain Harris and myself had the honor to converse with him in regard to his (Captain Harris's) errand to Nassau, and the reasons for desiring to anchor inside the bar. I shall give the details of that conversation, and the facts necessary to a full understanding of the subject, to the Department of State of the United States of America, and leave further discussion concerning it where it inore properly belongs. I have, &c., (Signed) THOMAS KIRKPATRICK. [Inclosure 13 in No. 47.] Governor Rawson to Mr. Cardwell, GOVERNMENT HOUSE, Nassau, March 13, 1865. SIR: In continuation of my report contained in dispatch of the 10th instant, upon the subject of the charges brought by the United States consul against Captain Mathit, I inclose for your information a copy of two letters from the attorney general, reporting the result of his inquiries after and from the several persons named by the cousul. I have, &c., (Signed) RAWSON W. RAWSON. [Inclosure 14 in No. 47.] The attorney general, Nassau, to Governor Rawson. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, SIR: In obedience to the instructions received from your excellency, I addressed a letter to Captain Chadbourne, the person named in the United States consul's letter to me as having a knowledge of certain intended piratical acts on the part of persons in the interest of the southern confederacy, and requested from him information in reference to the matter. Captain Chadbourne had, however, left this port on his return to the United States; but the consignee of his vessel waited on me, and stated that he heard Captain Chadbourne mention a rumor to the effect stated, but that he did not believe that Captain Chadbourne was in possession of any evidence in support of it, and that he, the consignee, did not place the slightest credence in it. 2. I have also to report to your excellency that, through the instrumentality [90] of the police, I have had Patrick Crawley, one of the persons named as witnesses against Captain Maffit, brought to my office, when he made a statement to me, substantially the same as made by him in 1862 before Mr. Dillet, as a notary public, with the difference that he now says that the Oreto was equipped at an island to the northward of New Providence; whereas Green Cay, the island originally designated, lies to the southward. He also gives the name of the place as Green Turtle Cay, which does lie to the northward of this, but which could not have been the place, as it is a thickly populated settlement, and therefore does not answer to his further description of the locality, to the effect that there were no inhabitants there. 3. If the Oreto was equipped, as described, within the limits of this government. there can, I apprehend, be little doubt that the transaction took place at or near Green Cay, to the southward of this, and Crawley's present evidence as to another locality must be erroneous. 4. The other man, said to be here, has not as yet been brought to me. Crawley promised to bring him, but as yet has failed to do so. I have, &c., G. C. ANDERSON. [Inclosure 15 in No. 47.j The attorney general, Nassau, to Governor Rawson. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, SIR: In reference to my letter to your excellency of the 9th instant I have to report that, in compliance with your excellency's instructions. I have made every exertion to find the person therein referred to, as a witness to the equipment of the Oreto. In this search I have been aided by the police and the man Crawley, but as yet without effect. Should I be able to see him before the closing of the mail I will at once send your excellency a memorandum of his evidence. SIR: In connection with my dispatches of the 10th and 13th instant I have the honor to inclose a copy of a letter which I have just received from Mr. Consul General Bunch, at Havana, expressing his opinion of the rumor brought to my notice by the United States consul at the port, and reporting the steps that he had taken, in concert with the United States consul at Havana, and the Spanish authorities there, to prevent any piratical attempts being carried out at that port. I have, &c., RAWSON W. RAWSON. [Inclosure 17 in No. 47.] Consul General Bunch to Governor Rawson. HAVANA, March 9, 1865. SIR: In reply to your excellency's letter of the 3d instant respecting a possible fitting out in this port of some vessel under American colors for the purpose of preying upon British commerce, I beg to say that I agree with you in attaching no importance to the rumor that such is likely to be the case. It is, however, not impossible that some of the fast steamers which have, until lately, been engaged in the running of blockades from Havana, mostly under British colors, may be equipped as privateers to cruise against American trade, although this could not be done easily. I have deemed it right to put myself in communication with my col league of the United States in the matter, and we have concerted such measures [91] with the Spanish authorities as will, we believe, effectually prevent such an attempt from being successfully carried out. I am indebted to your excellency for your letter, and have the honor, &c., (Signed) ROBERT BUNCH. |