right to have an djudication of the lawfulness of every capture is indispensable to the safety and honor of all nations. Without it pecase cannot be long maintained with neutral powers. Let us not then try to campel our Government to do the impossible. It is clear that they cannot determine between themselves and England the lawfulness of this capture. If we can show a valid excuse for the absence of an adjudication or can now make a voluntary tribunal by accepting or proposing an arbitrator our interest and honor and good name will all be saved.

G. T. C.

[Inclosure No. 2.]

EDITOR OF THE BOSTON COURIER:

There is no room to doubt that the San Jacinto had a right to search the Trent. The refusal of tis master to exhibit its passenger list was improper and would have been of considerable weight to say the least upon the question of condemnation if the Trent had been brought into port for condemnation. The English theory now is that Mason and Slidell were American citizens traveling for private purposes in no way connected with any hostile enterprise advedrse to the United States; that the search of the ship failed to disclose any cause of seizure and therefore the commander of the San Jacinto had no authority to take Mason and Slidell from an English vessel.

Assume this to be a correst statement, which cannot be conceded, the course of Commander Wilkes is not without precedent. The Romeo, Cowan master, on the 29th of October, 1806, was before the admiralty court of Great Britain as a case of prize (6 Robinson's Reports,351). In the course of the hearing a letter applicable to the Romeo was produced and received in evidence which was not found on board the Romeo.

This letter was taken out of an American vessel, the Mary, by Lieutenant Rigby of His Majesty's gun-boat Urgent who had stopped the Mary and had examined her papers and finding a letter which purported to disclose the real state of a transaction which had been fraudulently concealed had sent the paper in question to the King's proctor officially without detaining the ship in which it was found. This case shows that a captor may introduce proof not found on board a vessel seized and carried in as a prize.

It also shws that an armed ship of Great Britain took from an American ship a paper and did not carry the ship so arrested into port for adjudication.

C. B. G.

PHILADELPHIA, December 20, 1861/

Honorable W. H. SEWARD.

MY DEAR SIR: I suppose the terms of the Queen's proclamation made at the beginning of the Russian war could scarcely have failed to attract your attention in its bearing upon the question which now agitates the country, yet as it is possible that with your attention drawn to other views this one may not have been adverted to I take the liberty of inclosing the following allusions to it from a Nova Scotia paper.

I have the honor to be, with high respect, your obedient servant,

M. RUSSELL THAYER.