h was done immediately.

I am directed by the Governor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
of this date, inclosing two affidavits relative to the Sea Bride, and to
state that his Excellency is not prepared to admit that the fact of that
vessel having been brought by the prize crew within one and a half miles
of the Green Point Lighthouse "was a violation of the neutrality as much
as if the capture had taken place at the same distance from land,"
although both the belligerents are prohibited from bringing their prizes
into British ports.

The Governor does not feel warranted in taking steps for the removal of
the prize crew from the Sea Bride.

_Mr. Bawson to Mr. Graham. August_ 8, 1863.

With reference to the correspondence that has passed relative to the
capture by the Confederate States steamer Alabama, of the barque Sea
Bride, I am directed by the Governor to acquaint you that, on the best
information he has been enabled to procure, he has come to the
conclusion that the capture cannot be held to be illegal, or in
violation of the neutrality of the British Government, by reason of the
distance from land at which it took place.

His Excellency will, by next mail, make a full report of the case to Her
Majesty's Government.

_Mr. Graham to Sir P. Wodehouse. August_ 10, 1863.

Your decision in the case of the Sea Bride was duly received at four
o'clock p. M. on Saturday. In communicating that decision you simply
announce that the vessel was, in your opinion, and according to evidence
before you, a legal prize to the Alabama; but you omit to state the
principle of international law that governed your decision, and neglect
to furnish me with the evidence relied upon by you.

Under these circumstances I can neither have the evidence verified or
rebutted here, nor am I enabled to transmit it as it stands to the
American Minister at London, nor to the United States Government at
Washington. An invitation to be present when the _ex parte_ testimony
was taken was not extended to me, and I am therefore ignorant of the
tenor of it, and cannot distinguish the portion thrown out from that
which was accepted. If your decision is that the neutral waters of this
colony only extend a distance of three miles from land, the character of
that decision would have been aptly illustrated to the people of Cape
Town had an American war-vessel appeared on the scene, and engaged the
Alabama in battle. In such a contest with cannon