No. 161.
Mr. Hale to Mr. Holt.
Washington, June 29, 1872.
Sir: Your brief telegrams, under date of 20th and 21st instant, came duly to hand; the former received on the evening of the 20th. On the morning of the 21st a telegram was addressed to you in the following terms: “Report full particulars of the schooner James Bliss.” Soon after the dispatch of this telegram, yours of the 21st was received, and on the 22d a report at length was received from you by telegraph, purporting to describe all the circumstances of the case, and announcing the departure of the vessel from the harbor of Gaspé.
Your written dispatch, not numbered, under date of the 20th, has since come to hand. Your proceedings in taking note of the circumstances which you have reported, and in bringing them to the attention of the proper Canadian authorities to whom you had access, are approved. Nothing whatever could be done at the moment other than what you did, namely, to call attention in the proper quarter to the apparent indecorum exhibited by the officer who made the seizure. You deemed yourself authorized to do this without special instructions, and it would have been strange had you deemed otherwise.
The circumstance mentioned in your written dispatch, but omitted in your telegraphic reports, that you were indebted to Colonel McNiell, aid-de-camp of the Governor-General of Canada, for pointing out to you “in the most friendly way” the act of the officer making the seizure, and that Colonel McNiell expressed “his regrets that the Canadians should act in such an unbecoming manner and evince such bad taste,” [Page 205] is deemed material to a fair statement of the case, as this circumstance goes far to prove that the incident was the unauthorized act of a subordinate official, and was of such character as to be disavowed, in advance of any complaint on our part, by a gentleman holding a high position in connection with the administration of the Dominion government.
I am, &c,
Acting Secretary.