consequences that must ensue if, besides the injury already inflicted
upon Mr. McLeod of a vexatious and unjust imprisonment, any further harm
should be done to him in the progress of this extraordinary proceeding.

I have lost no time in forwarding to Her Majesty's Government in England
the correspondence that has taken place, and I shall await the further
orders of Her Majesty's Government with respect to the important
question which that correspondence involves.

But I feel it my duty not to close this communication without
likewise testifying my vast regret and surprise at the expressions which
I find repeated in your letter with reference to the destruction of the
steamboat _Caroline_. I had confidently hoped that the first erroneous
impression of the character of that event, imposed upon the mind of the
United States Government by partial and exaggerated representations,
would long since have been effaced by a more strict and accurate
examination of the facts. Such an investigation must even yet,
I am willing to believe, lead the United States Government to the
same conviction with which Her Majesty's authorities on the spot
were impressed--that the act was one, in the strictest sense, of
self-defense, rendered absolutely necessary by the circumstances of the
occasion for the safety and protection of Her Majesty's subjects, and
justified by the same motives and principles which upon similar and
well-known occasions have governed the conduct of illustrious officers
of the United States. The steamboat _Caroline_ was a hostile vessel
engaged in piratical war against Her Majesty's people, hired from
her owners for that express purpose, and known to be so beyond the
possibility of doubt. The place where the vessel was destroyed was
nominally, it is true, within the territory of a friendly power, but the
friendly power had been deprived through overbearing piratical violence
of the use of its proper authority over that portion of territory. The
authorities of New York had not even been able to prevent the artillery
of the State from being carried off publicly at midday to be used as
instruments of war against Her Majesty's subjects. It was under such
circumstances, which it is to be hoped will never recur, that the
vessel was attacked by a party of Her Majesty's people, captured, and
destroyed. A remonstrance against the act in question has been addressed
by the United States to Her Majesty's Government in England. I am