cerely desirous to keep them upon a most friendly footing. Mr. Crampton's withdrawal was asked for, expressly upon the ground that "his connection with that affair (raising recruits in this country for the Brit

ish service) has rendered him an unacceptable representative of [575] Her Britannic *Majesty near this Government." For the same reason the withdrawal of the three British cousuls was also requested. These officers were, as this Government confidently believes, deeply implicated in proceedings contrary to the law and sovereign rights of the United States, and contrary, as it now appears, to the intentions and reiterated instructions of their own government. It was their personal acts, certainly not the less objectionable for having been done coutrary to the direction of Her Majesty's ministers, which rendered them, in their official characters and positions, unacceptable to this Government, and induced the President, for that cause, to solicit their recall, believing that by this course he was contributing to the common interest and harmony of the two governments. He has not, after the most mature deliberation, been able to change his view of their conduct, and cannot, therefore, change his purpose in relation to them. Though their conduct related to, and in fact originated, a difficulty which disturbed the cordial harmony and good understanding between the two countries, it constituted a decided objection to them, of a personal character. [576] which loses none of its force by the satisfactory adjustment of that difficulty.

The only embarrassment which attends the case is the differnce of opinion between the two governments as to the complicity of these officers in illegal proceedings within the United States. In reviewing this subject the President was disposed to avail himself of any reasonable doubts which could be raised in his mind, in order to bring his opinion in this respect into conformity with that of Her Majesty's government; but after a careful reconsideration of the case he has been unable to change the conclusion to which he had previously arrived.

This difference of opinion may be, in some degree, ascribed to the difference in the views of the two governments in respect to the neutrality law and the sovereign rights of this country.

It is not proposed, however, to continue the discussion upon that sabject. The conclusions of the President, stated in my dispatch of the 28th of December to your predecessor, in regard to the construction of that law and the character and extent of those rights, remain unghanged, and he cannot forego the duty of using all proper means to [577] sustain *and vindicate them.

The main cause of this difference of opinion is the different appreciation of the proofs by which the charges against Her Majesty's diplomatic representative and consul are sustained.

Lord Clarendon asks this Government to regard the bare declarations of these officers as of sufficient weight to countervail the evidence against them. Their denials, as presented in his dispatch of the 30th of April-and that is all which has been communicated to this Govern ment on the subject-seem to be special, and do not traverse all the allegations against them. They deny that they have infringed our nen trality law by enlisting persons within the United States for the British service, or hiring or retaining persons to leave the United States for the purpose of being enlisted in that service. The charges against them are much broader, and embrace the offense of violating the laws and sovereign rights of the United States by setting in operation, within our territory, and conducting an extensive system of recruiting, which was not and could not be carried into effect without infringing

[578] our laws and rights, by employing numerous agents to engage persons, for pecuniary or other considerations, to leave the United States for the express purpose of entering into the British army, and by keeping these agents in this employment after it was well known that they were constantly infringing our laws.

The denial of the implicated officers only covers a part of the delinquencies imputed to them; but, confining their exculpatory declaration to the simple charge of having violated the provisions of our neutrality act, it does not merit the consideration which Lord Clarendon has ascribed to it. By adopting Lord Clarendon's construction of our neutrality law, contained in his note of the 16th of November, which renders it almost nugatory, and is contrary to that of this Government and of its judicial tribunals, these officers have not probably found much embarrassment in meeting the charges with a general denial.

But, giving to the declaration of Mr. Crampton and the consuls all the consideration which can be fairly claimed for it under the circumstances of the case, it cannot counterbalance the unimpeached and

well-sustained evidence which establishes the charges against [579] *these officers of having infringed the laws and sovereign rights of the United States.

Lord Clarendon's note to you of the 30th of April conveys the impression that th evidence by which these officers are implicated is derived from one or two witnesses whose credibility has been assailed. This, however, is not a correct view of the facts.

By the examination of my dispatch of the 28th of December it will be perceived that these witnesses were strongly corroborated, and that there are proofs, wholly independent of their testimony, abundantly sufficient to establish the complicity of Mr. Crampton and the consuls in the infringement in the laws and sovereign rights of the United States. I trust it will not be questioned that it belongs exclusively to this Government and its judicial tribunals to give a construction to its municipal laws, and to determine what acts done within its jurisdiction are infringements of those laws. This is a matter which concerns its internal administration, and it cannot allow the agents of any foreign power to controvert that construction and justify their conduct by a different interpretation of our laws, which virtually renders them inef fective for the purposes intended.

[580] The Earl of Clarendon informs you, in his note of the 30th of April, that Mr. Crampton positively denies the charge of complicity in any of the acts of illegal enlistment in the United States, and that the three consuls inculpated do the same. He assumes that the charge against them is sustained mainly by the evidence of two persons, Strobel and Hertz, whom he conceives to be unworthy of credit; and he appeals to the American Government to accept, as conclusive, the declarations of the minister and consuls. I am instructed to say that these considerations do not relieve the President's mind of the unfavorable impressions produced by the conduct of those gentlemen in relation to foreign recruitment in the United States.

It will be seen, by referring to my dispatch of the 28th of December, in which the grounds of charge against Mr. Crampton were fully stated, that the testimony of Strobel and Hertz was quite a secondary and an unimportant part of the evidence adduced; the charge being supported, independantly of their testimony, by other witnesses, by original letters of Mr. Crampton and others, and by undenied and undeniable acts of Mr. Crampton.

As to Strobel and Hertz, however, it may be observed that the

[581] documents transmitted by Lord Clarendon, as proving those persons unworthy of credit, are entitled to but little weight, consisting, as they do, chiefly of ex parte affidavits, detailing matters mostly of mere hearsay. And whatever may have been the character of those persons, it by no means follows that they did not testify to the truth. They were agents selected and trusted by Mr. Crampton himself, and to them he committed most important concerns. Such an indorsement should countervail the impeachment of their veracity founded on loose hearsay reports. Nor does it seem to be a thing of much moment in relation to the present question, that Strobel, in consequence of imputed misconduct, was dismissed from employment by the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, and afterward endeavored to obtain money from Mr. Crampton. The fact remains, that he held a commission in the British foreign legion, and that, as it is clearly proved and not denied, he maintained as a recruiting officer, and for a considerable period of time, association, personally or by correspondence, with Mr. Crampton. The employment of Strobel by Mr. Crampton, their long association in the

joint work of recruiting in the United States for the foreign legion, [582] the distinction of her Majesty's commission of captain in that corps conferred on Strobel, would seem at least to deprive Mr. Crampton of the right to array his credibility as a witness. But there is a larger and more comprehensive class of considerations applicable to the particular question.

For a period of nearly five months, that is, from about the middle of March, 1855, to the 5th of August, 1855, the peace and order of this country were disturbed, especially in the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati, by the unlawful acts of numerous persons engaged in raising recruits, or in being recruited for the British foreign legion. They were supplied with ample funds by British agents. They obstinately resisted and set at naught all the efforts of the local authori ties of the United States to put a stop to their proceedings; nor did they desist until they received orders to that effect from the British government in the month of August. The recruits thus unlawfully raised in the United States during all that time were conveyed by

British agents to Halifax, and there enrolled in the foreign legion. [583] All these acts, as well as their illegality, *were notorious. Long

before the trial of Hertz in September, and of Wagner in October, they must have been brought to the particular notice of Mr. Crampton, the British consuls, and other agents, by preliminary judicial inquiries which took place both at New York and Philadelphia.

In consequence of the steps to that effect taken by me on the 22d of March, the proper instructions were issued on the 23d, and prosecntions commenced in Philadelphia on the 30th of March, and in New York on the 5th of April.

As example of the character of these proceedings, their notoriety and their conclusive legal effect, which occurred in May, deserves particular notice.

At New York on the 14th of May, a number of persons, namely, Godfried Wachter, Wilhelm Schumacher, Julius Parkus, Oscar Cromey, and Andrew Lutz were examined before Commissioner Betts on the charge of recruitment for the service of Great Britain. Eminent counsel were employed by the parties accused, who argued that no offense had been

committed, because it did not appear that any valid contract of [584] enlistment had been consummated. *But this ground of defense was overruled by the commissioner, who, though he discharged

Wachter for defective evidence, committed Lutz, Schumacher, Cromey, and Parkus.

At Philadelphia, on the 25th of May, three persons, Hertz, Perkins, and Bucknall, having been arrested on the charge of illegal recruiting in the service of Great Britain, applied to the circuit court of the United States, by habeas corpus, to be discharged from custody. The presiding judge, the Hon. John K. Kane, on examination of the evidence taken in the case before a commissioner, found that the proofs were sufficient to bring the acts of Hertz and Perkins within the condition of the law, but not so as to Bucknall. Accordingly, the latter was discharged, but the two former were committed for trial.

Thus, so early as May, it was judicially shown that what was doing in this respect was unlawful. Mr. Crampton was acquainted with these proceedings, and was thus sufficiently admonished that the acts of recruitment carried on under his authority did, in fact, whatever may have been his intention, constitute a violation of the municipal law of the United States. This had been decided by the courts of the United

States, and was publicly and extensively made known. It is not [585] controverted, *indeed it is admitted, that he had the recruiting business in his charge and under his control, yet he permitted it to be continued, although judicially determined to be unlawful, through the months of May, June, July, into August.

Now this long series of acts, unlawful and otherwise prejudicial to the good name and the tranquility of this country, were performed by persons who were liberally paid by British officers, and many of whom actually entered the military service of Great Britain. That was incontestably proved on the trial of Hertz and Wagner by evidence which has not been, and cannot be, impeached; and, although the evidence adduced on these trials does not need corroboration, still it may not be amiss to add that much other evidence to the same effect is in the possession of this Government, some of which is annexed to this dispatch in the form of documents responsive to those accompanying the letter of the Earl of Clarendon.

Who is to be held accountable for these unlawful acts? Were they all performed by volunteer and irresponsible persons, as argued in the Earl of Clarendon's dispatch of the 16th of July? That cannot be [586] admitted, for the conclusive reason that they received pay *from British officers, and of course were employed by some responsible

agents of the British government.

The Earl of Clarendon, in behalf of Her Majesty's government, disclaims all intention to violate the laws, compromise the neutrality, or disrespect the sovereignty of the United States by enlisting troops within their territory. The President unreservedly accepts, and is fully satisfied, with this disclaimer. Of course the unlawful acts in question were not authorized by the British government; but the fact is, nevertheless, well established that they were done, and done in the name and at the expense of the British government. Who, then, is responsible for those acts? Were there no direct proof-though there is much of that character-the inference would be irresistible that, not being authorized by the British government itself, they were the unauthorized acts of British agents in the United States. Such agents, having acted in willful disregard of the orders of their government in thus infringing our laws, may have failed to inform their government that what they

had undertaken to do could not be done without infringing those [587] laws; or by mismanagement, indiscretion, or over *zeal, they may have participated in such infringement, though well know

ing it was contrary to the wishes and the express orders of their gov ernment. However this may be, it is certain that agents existed, because their acts appear. Who were those agents?

Of this we are not left in doubt. In the documents on the subject recently laid before Parliament, it is distinctly stated that the enlistments in the United States did not stop until Mr. Crampton gave orders for their cessation on the 5th of August. He had power to stop the acts of enlistment; he knew the proceedings were, from the commencement, exceedingly offensive to this Government, and that it was devoting its active energies to arrest them; he was bound to know, he could not but know, what was notorious to all the world, that through the months of April, May, June, and July, the recruiting agents in various parts of the United States, and conspicuously in Boston, New York, Philadel phia, and Cincinnati, were keeping up a most unseemly contest with the law officers of the United States, and that at least as early as May the

illegality of the proceedings had been pronounced by the federal [588] courts in New York and Philadelphia; and yet, notwithstand

ing this, he permitted the unlawful acts in question to go on without check until the month of August. For thus giving countenance to these illegal proceedings he is distinctly responsible.

But his accountability extends yet further; for the same documents show that the official suggestion to the British government of the untoward scheme of obtaining recruits in the United States came from the correspondence of Mr. Crampton, and of the consuls at New York. Philadelphia, and Cincinnati; and that to Mr. Crampton were the superintendence and execution of the scheme committed. And thus it is that he who directed had the power to stop the proceeding; and thus. from early in March until August, he is found busily occupied in superintending enlistments, partly in the United States and partly in Canada and Nova Scotia, and in issuing instructions to the agents engaged in that enterprise.

It does not suffice for Mr. Crampton now to say that he did not intend to commit, or participate in the commission of, any infringement 1589] of the laws of the United States. He was the directing head

of long-continued infringements of the law; it was under supe rior authority from him that acts of continuous violation of law were perpetrated by the inferior agents; some of those agents are proved. by his own letters, to have held direct intercourse with him; and at every stage of inquiry, in numerous cases investigated by the American Government, there is reference, by letter and oral declaration, to the general superintendence of Mr. Crampton.

His moral and his legal responsibility are thus demonstrated. With full information of the stringency of the laws of the United States against foreign recruiting, with distinct perception of its being all but impossible to raise recruits here without infringing the laws, and with knowledge of the condemnatory judicial proceedings of April and May at New York and Philadelphia, yet he persisted in carrying on the scheme until August, when its obstinate prosecution had at length brought on a most unpleasant controversy between the United States and Great Britain. And it is not the least of the causes of complaint

against Mr. Crampton, that by his acts of commission in this 1590] business, or in *failing to advise his government of the impracti

cability of the undertaking in which he was embarked, and the series of illegal acts which it involved, and in neglecting to observe the general orders of his government, and to stop the recruiting here the moment its illegality was pronounced by the proper legal authorities of