Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.
My Lord: Having obtained from the district court of the United States for the southern district of New York the proceedings and proofs on file in that court in the case of the British brig “Isabella Thompson,” I have now the honor to recur to your lordship’s note of the 31st of December last in relation to that case.
It appears by the proceedings before mentioned that an appeal from the decree against which her Majesty’s government complains has been taken by the claimants and is now pending in the Supreme Court of the United States. This appeal is perfectly regular and in accordance with the rules and principles of universal admiralty law. Every question which is raised in your note, whether of law or of fact, is a proper one for examination on the appeal, and the appellate tribunal is competent to decide it. In theory that tribunal is more competent to investigate these questions than the executive department of the government, and I think it quite certain that her Majesty’s government would be of that opinion if the President, attempting to withdraw the case from the judiciary, should decide it against, instead of in favor of, the claimants. If he should so withdraw the case and then decide it in their favor, there is still no law of the United States under which the money needful to pay the damages and costs he might award could be drawn from the treasury, and it might well be apprehended that Congress would require better reasons than any the President could give, in that case, for having arbitrarily attempted to charge the United States with a liability which the prize court has pronounced to be without any [Page 497] legal or just foundation. It seems to me, therefore, that the case must be allowed to remain, at least for the present, with the eminent tribunal in whoso care it has so properly been placed.
I have the honor to be, with high consideration, your lordship’s obedient servant,
Right Hon. Lord Lyons, &c., &c., &c.