Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session Thirty-eighth Congress, Part I
Lieutenant Governor Gordon to the Duke of Newcastle.—(Received March 1, 1864.)
My Lord Duke: I have the honor to enclose, for your grace’s information, an account of the proceedings which have taken place before the police magistrate at St. John, since the date of my last despatch, connected with the seizure of the steamer Chesapeake.
Your grace will perceive that this protracted examination is not even yet concluded.
I have, &c.,
ARTHUR H. GORDON.
[Page 539]Examination of the Confederates.
Owing to the presence at the police court of several gentlemen belonging to the Confederate States who were expected to give evidence for the defence in the Chesapeake case, the court on Saturday was crowded to excess with a most respectable audience, and the greatest interest was manifested in the proceedings. The first witness examined was Dr. Luke P. Blackburn, of Natchez, State of Mississippi, a person whose bearing bespoke the true gentleman. The doctor had filled the office of medical director of Mississippi, and was intimately acquainted with President Davis and his handwriting, and with the seal of the southern confederacy. He identified the signature and seal on Captain Parker’s commission, placed in his hands by Mr. Gray. He also testified to the confederacy issuing letters of marque in 1862. The next witness was Mr. Alonzo G. Coleman, a native of Alabama, whose father owned plantations in that State previous to the war, but the son (the witness) nevertheless took his place as a private in the ranks. In answer to Mr. Gray, he said it was a recognized practice of the confederate service for officers appointed to a certain duty to delegate their authority to others, even to privates, and that such acts were recognized by their commanding officers of all grades and by the enemy. The persons thus delegated would, if captured by the federals, be treated as prisoners of war. Captain Thomas Herbert Davis was the third witness from the confederacy. He had served under Generals Beauregard, Joseph Johnston, and Lee. His last corps general was Longstreet. He had entered Fort Moultrie as a volunteer when the Star of the West attempted to succor Fort Sumter at the opening of hostilities and had fought his way up to a captaincy, which position he held when wounded and captured at Gettysburg by the federals. He had been confined with other confederates at Johnson’s island, from which he escaped on New Year’s night, walking some 120 miles to Canada. He also testified to the practice among officers of delegating authority to their subordinates to perform certain duties, and said he had exercised such authority himself. Mr. Ephraim Tom Osburn, a young man of probably twenty-seven years, of Kentucky, a non-commissioned officer under the celebrated General John H.Morgan, and who had also escaped from a federal prison, Camp Douglass, in December, corroborated the testimony of previous witnesses respecting the delegation of authority. All of these southerners gave their evidence with marked precision and in the frankest manner, furnishing a remarkable contrast in style and manners to some of the witnesses for the prosecution.
A fourth witness was Mr. Eben Locke, brother of Vernon G Locke, better known as Captain John Parker, who ordered the seizure of the Chesapeake. He is a native of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, but now resides to the eastward of Halifax. He saw his brother in Nassau in May last, in command of the confederate privateer Retribution, and his brother there showed him his commission. He saw him again at Sambro, after the recapture of the Chesapeake, and took him up to Halifax where he again was shown the commission by his brother. The witness identified the commission produced by Mr. Gray as the one he had seen and handled and examined at Nassau and Halifax. He remembered “the writing on the back” distinctly—an indorsement, we believe, from one Power to Locke or Parker. The witness said he believed his brother changed his name when he took command of the Retribution, he supposed for the purpose of deceiving the enemy.
Mr. Gray tendered in evidence a copy of a commission sent out to this province by Lord Bathurst for establishing a court for the trial of cases of piracy, [Page 540] and also the Royal Gazette containing a copy of the Queen’s neutrality proc lamation of May 18, 1863, in which the Confederate States are recognized as belligerents.
Yesterday the police court was again crowded with spectators who expected to hear the testimony of another “distinguished southerner” whom Mr. Gray was to have on hand. But the gentleman did not make his appearance, and the court adjourned until Saturday, with the understanding that a further adjournment would then be granted until Wednesday next. In the mean time the leading counsel on both sides have court business which takes them to Frederickton for a week or more.
Examination of the Confederates.
In the police court yesterday morning the business was confined to proving the authenticity of certain papers under whose authority the captors of the Chesapeake profess to have acted in making the seizure. The first of these was Parker’s order to Braine to take the vessel; the second, Parker’s order to Collins making him second lieutenant in the confederate service; and the third, the order of transfer of the Confederate States privateer Retribution from Captain Power, her former commander, to the command of Captain Parker. As respects the two first, Captain Driscoll being sworn, deposed that he knew Parker’s handwriting, and had once seen him write, and that the signatures appended to the documents in question were his, to the best of his knowledge and belief. Mr. Watson, clerk to W. & R. Wright, was examined. The register, or certificate of transfer, of the confederate schooner Kate Hale to British ownership, drawn in the spring of 1862, to which the name of W. F. Colcock, collector of the port of Charleston, South Carolina, was appended as a witness, was produced, in order to compare that signature with a similar one attached to the order of transfer of the Retribution from Power to Parker. Witness believed the former to be genuine, inasmuch as the certificate of registry was an official document, received and recognized as such by the custom-house officers at this port; and although he could not swear to the handwriting of Collector Colcott, the two signatures were obviously written by the same person, and to the best of his belief were Colcock’s. Counsel for prosecution demurred at accepting this testimony, but it was finally received by the presiding magistrate.
The court adjourned to Monday next, with the understanding that the lawyers would then commence their arguments on the case. Mr. Weldon thought another witness for the defence might be on hand by that time. If the witness arrives, his evidence will be received.