I have to request you to speak to Mr. Shaver in the sense of this dispatch and to inform me of the decision he comes to. With regard to the assurance of a responsible person that Mr. Shaver will abide by the engagement Mr. Seward informs me that no more will re required than a statement by some known person of respectability that to the best of his belief Mr. Shaver will do so. Of course your own assurance to this effect if you felt satisfied in giving it would be all that could be desired.

I am, &c.,

LYONS.

BOSTON, January 7, 1862.

Right Honorable Lord LYONS, &c., Washington, D. C.

MY LORD: I have the honor to report that Mr. Shaver was released from Fort Warren yesterday afternoon and left at 5 p. m. for Canada. Inclosed is a copy of the engagement he signed with the U. S. authorities. He called to thank me for my exertions in his behalf and expressed a grateful sense of your lordship's protection.

I have, &c.,

FRANCIS LOUSADA.

[Inclosure.]

I. J. G. Shaver, prisoner in confinement at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, do solemnly swear that I will neither enter into any of the States in insurrection against the authority of the United States Government nor hold any correspondence whatsover with persons residing in those States without permission from the Secretary of State; and also that I will not do anything hostile to the United States during the present insurrection, saving my allegiance to the Crown of Great Britain with which nothing in the above obligations is to be understood to conflict.

J. G. SHAVER.

Sworn to a subscribed before me this 6th day of January, 1862.

J. DIMICK,

Colonel First Artillery and Brevet Colonel, Commanding Post.

WASHINGTON, January 9, 1862. (Received 23d.)

[Earl RUSSELL, London.]

MY LORD: * * * I have the honor to transmit* to your lordship copies of further correspondence relative to the oath required of Mr. Shaver as a condition of his release from Fort Warren. Mr. Shaver hh with the addition of a clause saving his allegiance to the Crown of Great Britain and has in consequence been set free. How far it may be right for a Government to exact such an oath from a foreigner whom it has imprisoned without legal process I do not pretend to determine; but as the oath with the addition of the saving clause did not appear to me to impose any obligations wrong per se I felt it to be my duty to leave it to Mr. Shaver to decide for himself

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* See preceding correspondence.

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63 R R-SERIES II, VOL II