fourth articles of the declaration of Parish should be observed by the States in the prosecution of the hostilities in which they were engaged. The undersigned regrets to be obliged to submit to his lordship's consideration the fact that Mr. Bunch received from the Government of the United States a recognition exclusively confined to the performance of consular duties and that inproceeding to execute others which very nearly apporach if they do not absolutely belong to those of diplomatic agents only he seems to them to have transcended the just limits of any authority which they had ever consented to vest in him.

Well aware of the great difficulties necessarily in the way of an intimate acquaintance with the laws of a foreign State the undersigned will not pretend to claim of Her Majesty's Government that it should be familiar with those of the United Staes; but it becomes his duty to point out the fact that Mr. Bunch in accepting the post which he did under Her Majesty's authority voluntarily made himself amenable at least during the period of his residence to the authority of those laws. When therefore he received a direction from the foreign department to do an act which was not known by it to be a violation of one of those laws but which he was bound to know to be such his duty clearly should have been instead of proceeding at once in contravention of the law to apprise his Government of the position he was placed in and to await their decision after a full consideration of the question penalty any persion not specially appointed or duly authoirized or recognized by the Presidnet, whether citizen or denizen, privileged or unprivileged, from counseling, advising, aiding or assisting in any political correspondence with the Government of any foreign State whatever with an intent to influence the measure of any foreign Government or of any officeof in relation to any disputes or controversies withthe United States or to defeat the measures of their Government.

Neither is the undersigned so fortunate as to see in this proceeding of Mr. Bunch thus shown to be on his part a wanton violation of the law of the United States a sufficient justification or excuse in the consideration that Great Britain is deeply interested in the maintenance of the articles which provide that the flag covers the goods, and that the goods of a neutral taken on board a belligerent ship are not liable to confiscation. It is enough to say on this subject that in the view of nearly all civilized nations the proper agents to make known such wishes are the diplomatic, not the consular agents of a Government, and that the only authority in the United States to which any diplomatic communication whatever can be made is the Government of the United States itself. The undersigned is too confident of the soundness of the principles which have ever actuated the Government of Great Britain in all its relations with foreign countries not to affirm that it would never given countenance for a single moment to the application of any other doctrine than this to the management of its own affairs.

Least of all will the undersigned be permitted to admit that communication by Mr. Bunch while exercising consular privileges granted to him with the consent of the United States with insurgents endeavoring to overthrow the Government can be justified by the declaration of Her Majesty's ministers that they have already recognized the belligerent character of those insurgents and will continue so to consider them. It is indeed true that Her Majesty's proclamation has been issued for the regulation of all her own subjects and that it has