allegiance to the United States "for the reasn that the police authorities who had induced his arrest had not then shown any sufficient cause for it; " that Mr. Shaver declined to take this oath but that before that fact became known to you information had been received of the grounds of his arrest, upon considering which you decided that his release at present would not be compatible with the public safety.

Her Majesty's Government perceive that those grounds are stated in the letter to Colonel Dimick, of which a copy was inclosed in the note which you did me the ehonor to address to me on the 23rd of December last. In that letter it is said that the Government of the United States has satisfactory evidence that he (Mr. Shaver) was engaged in affording aid and comfort to the insurrectionsists both by his conversation and by his acts; that he willingly suffered himself to be made a medium of communication between them and their agents in Canada and Europe and that he conveyed to them revolvers and other articles contraband of war and in violation of the law of the United States.

This is the only statement which Her Majesty's Government find in the papers before them of the cause of the treatment to which Mr. Shaver was subjected, while the first and only occasion upon which Mr. Shaver appears to have been hif the precise nature of the charges against him would seem tho have been at Fort Warren in December last when Colonel Dimick showed him a paper, a copy of which was refused him, but which he says recapitulated a number of charges against him most of them indefinite and all of which he solemnly declares to be untrue. Indeed Mr. Shaver has from the first denied that there was any truth in the charges made against him or the slightest foundation for them.

Considering that Mr. Shaver has lost his emplyment and that he has suffered severely from the treatment he received Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that a prima facie case has been made out for compensation, and they have accordingly directed me to inquire what proof exists of the asserted complicity of Mr. Shaver with the so-called Confederates. If no sufficient proof exists and if the charges be admitted to be unfounded Her Majesty's Government will feel bound to ask for a reasonable conpensation in behalf of Mr. Shaver.

I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient servant humble servant,

LYONS.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, April 28, 1862.

Right Honorable Lord LYONS, &c.

MY LORD: I have received your note of the 26th instant relative to the case of John G. Shaver and have laid it before the President who has directed me to make such an inquiry into the representations which it contains as may lead to an ascertainment of the truth. It will then be me duty to address you more at large upon the subject.

I avail myself of the occasion to offer to you a renewed assurance of my very high consideration.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, April 28, 1862.

Right Honorable Lord LYONS, &c.

MY LORD: In your note of the 26th instant relative to the case of John G. Shaver there is the following passage; "He was finally