No. GS.j Mr. Hale to Mr. Seward. AGENCY AND CONSULATE GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SIR: On the 29th ultimo John Harrison Surratt was transferred, under a sufficient guard, from the quarantine grounds to the government prison, where he remains in safe confinement. He maintains his demeanor of reticence. I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, CHARLES HALE Secretary of State. [Extract and accompaniment.] Mr. Dudley to Mr. Seward. UNITED STATES CONSULATE, SIR: I enclose you, marked No. 1, a slip from the Times of to-day, upon the arrest of John Surratt, one of the assassins of President Lincoln, and the extradition treaty between England and the United States. * * * Events have just occurred which will revive the tragical story of President Lincoln's death, and at the same time reopen questions connected with that most embarrassing subject-the extradition of suspected criminals. Among the persons charged with complicity in the assassination was an American named Surratt, whose mother, indeed, actually suffered the last penalty of the law for her share in the crime. Surratt himself, however, effected his escape, and was lost sight of for some time. It now appears that about the beginning of the present year he enlisted in the Papal army, under the assumed name of Watson, and remained in that service undiscovered till midsummer last. At that time he was suddenly recognized by a countryman also serving under the Papal colors, who presently communicated the information to General King, the American minister at Rome. The general, it seems, did not venture to act in the matter without reference to his government, but having at length received directions to arrest the fugitive, he applied to Cardinal Antonelli for the requisite authority. The cardinal replied that his Holiness must be consulted on such a question, but that the Ponincal government would have no desire to screen a murderer from justice. A day or two afterwards his eminence gave orders for the arrest of Surratt, who was actually apprehended, but contrived to escape from his captors, and to get safe across the frontier into Neapolitan territory. On this, General King put himself in communication with the government of Fiorence, and after some delay again obtained an order for the arrest, II. Ex. Doc. 25-2 though only on condition, it is said, that the life of the prisoner should be spared. On Sunday, however, the 18th of last month, the American consul at Naples received definite instructions by telegraph to apprehend the fugitive, but it was too late, Surratt had just left Naples by the Tripoli, a Liverpool steamer, bound for Malta and Alexandria. Hereupon the telegraph was again set at work, and the consul general of the United States at Malta was directed to apprehend Surratt while the Tripoli was in harbor. Accordingly, this officer applied to the Maltese government for the necessary powers, but was informed that there was no sufficient authority for the suggested action. Immediately afterwards the Tripoli left for Alexandria, and there, as we are now apprised, Surratt has been actually seized and detained. In the present state of our information on the subject, it is impossible to pass any opinion on the conduct of our authorities at Malta, though it is obvious to conjecture that the conditions required by law for the arrest and extradition of a fugitive could not have been so completely satisfied by a telegraphic message as to justify action at a moment's notice. If, however, it should be anywhere assumed that we, either through negligence or indifference, lost an opportunity of doing what the Egyptians have done, the conclusion would assuredly be wrong. The law of extradition is full of difficulties at the best, but it is perfectly clear that the evidence and authority required for the arrest of a fugitive would be the same in all cases, whatever might be the nature of the crime imputed. As good reason must be shown for apprehending a murderer as for apprehending a fraudulent bankrupt, we could not strain the law in Surratt's case, whatever might be our detestation of the crime laid to his charge. If the man has met in Egypt the fate which he escaped in Malta, that must be either because the Egyptian authorities required less proof than we do, or because greater proof was forthcoming. Not in the whole of this kingdom would there have been any party found to sympathize with an assassin. At the same time it need not be disguised that certain subtle questions might possibly have been raised if the extradition of Surratt had come in regular and formal shape before our government. In point of fact, it was actually asked, in the recent debates upon the extradition treaty with France, whether the murder of President Lincoln was or was not a "political" crime-the object of the question being to represent by such illustration the embarrassments by which the proposed convention might be attended. In compacts of this nature, it would be universally admitted that murder is a crime unworthy of asylum, and yet universally required that political refugees should be sheltered. What, then, was to be done with a political murderer? What was to be the treatment of a man whose offence was murder, but whose offending, nevertheless, was in its origin and circumstances entirely and purely political? Nobody would deny that the motives of Booth and his accomplices, in concerting and perpetrating this horrible crime, were political exclusively. The assassination was an incident of the great rebellion, plotted and committed in the cause of the confederate insurgents, by them regarded as patriotic, and not suggested by any of the ordinary incentives to such atrocious deeds. Was the crime, therefore, thus originating, a political crime, and, as such, to be brought within the limits of international protection? We answer without hesitation that it would have deserved no such shelter. Political offences may be clothed with a character of their own, and yet it is certainly not every offence which can be extenuated by a political motive. There are things which are not to be done in any cause, and murder is one of them. Assassins, masked as patriots, have never found favor in this country. With us murder is murder, and cannot be mitigated by any explanatory epithet. We have lately been discussing and analyzing this most heinous of crimes, and seem actually to have arrived at some discriminations in the degrees of guilt involved; but we have never recognized such a definition as political murder. We have always acted, too, on the principle that a murder committed with political views deserved hanging as much as any other murder. For instance, the Cato-street conspiracy was concocted with political motives, but the conspirators were promptly executed; and even in the present day, with all our leniency, nothing would save such ruffians from the gallows, except, perhaps, the fact that their designs were not actually consummated by bloodshed. Take, again, the case of the Fenians. A more absurd and hopeless plot than theirs was never conceived, and yet, though its explosion might have been attended by the most shocking scenes, the conspirators did get the benefit of their political character. Even in Canada, where loss of life actually ensued from an outbreak, the criminals, though captured and sentenced, will probably be saved from the scaffold. But suppose half a dozen Fenians had deliberately planned and executed a murder for the sake of promoting their cause, would there be any chance of their escaping the gallows? The crime might be designated as " political," but would the Canadian authorities have any hesitation in dealing with the criminals, or would any party, either in England or America, intercede for them? Take, again, the policy and conduct of the Americans themselves in their civil war. They have drawn the line between what may and what may not be done in a political cause without the utmost distinctness. They have not put to death one single person for the crime of treason or rebellion. They hung a confederate officer who was convicted of horrible and murderous misusage of federal prisoners; and they executed the accomplices of Booth in the murder of the President, Mrs. Surratt included. It was said to be the first time, at any rate for very many years, that a white woman had thus suffered death in the United States, but justice took its course, and nobody accused the American' government of violating the laws of modern civilization. These laws do, indeed, condemn the punishment of death for political offences, but political offences must not take the form of murder. The questions involved in any law of extradition are, and, we fear, always must be, both numerous and perplexing; and for this reason: that the contracting governments have to consider not only abstract offences, but national laws. It would be easy enough to come to an agreement upon the particular crimes to be exempted from the right of asylum; nor do we, indeed, imagine that the introduction even of "political" definitions could give much trouble to practical statesmen. But law can only be enforced by legal procedure, and legal procedure differs widely in different countries. The French think we are trifling with them in exacting the evidence which our magistrates require before surrendering a fugitive; and at this minute a case is before the public in which it is made a grave charge against the Canadian authorities that they deprived an offender of the privileges which our usages might have been held to give him. But as regards such crimes as the murder of Mr. Lincoln, the Americans may assure themselves that no party of Englishmen would wish either to palliate the deed or shield the assassin. Common sense and natural instinct teach us what to feel in a case like that; and though we, like all other free nations, have always gloried in the asylum which we could secure to fugitives, we should never desire to extend our protection to the perpetrators of crimes which no motives could excuse. Mr. Averill to Mr. Seward. UNITED STATES CONSULATE GENERAL, B. N. A. P., SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your telegraphic despatch of the 5th instant, requesting that copies of Mr. Potter's despatches, Nos. 236 and 237, and also of his telegram of the 23d October, respecting John H. Surratt, be furnished you without delay, and in compliance with that request to transmit herewith copies of despatches Nos. 236 and 237. There is no record of the telegram of which a copy is desired in this consulate general, but I am informed by the vice-consul general that the facts it contained are all included in despatch No. 236. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, SIR: I beg to forward the enclosed correspondence which has recently taken place between the consul general in Egypt and myself respecting the prisoner Surratt, as it contains some information which will be of interest for the department to know. I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servant, Hon. F. W. SEWARD, WM. WINTHROP, Consul. Acting Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. CONSUL GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Alexandria, Egypt, November 27, 1866. SIR: In consequence of your letter and of a telegram received from Mr. King, United States minister at Rome, I have this day arrested the man dressed in the uniform of a zouave, calling himself Walters, who came hither in the steamer Tripoli from Naples. There can be no doubt of his identity with John Harrison Surratt, one of the conspirators for the assassination of President Lincoln, and it is probable that he is a deserter from the Papal army. I refer you for further information to the enclosed copy of my despatch to the Secretary of State. I gratefully accept your offer to telegraph for an American man-of-war to come here to receive the prisoner. Respectfully, your obedient servant, WILLIAM WINTHROP, Esq, U. S. Consul. Malta. CHARLES HALE. UNITED STATES CONSULALE, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication, as also copy of a despatch to the Hon. Secretary of State, both dated November 27, which reached me by the last mail from Egypt, on December 1, 1866. Learning by these official documents that you had fortunately succeeded in arresting Surratt, I immediately sent telegrams containing this important information to the American minister in London, and to the consuls at Mahon and Gibraltar. I have since written officially on the subject to the United States consuls in Naples, Marseilles, Leghorn, and Spezzia, as also to the minister in Rome. I do not know where Admiral Goldsborough is at the present time, but I think, from the various official measures I have adopted, that the admiral will soon hear from me asking for a ship-of-war to be immediately sent to Alexandria, as you have requested, and to stop here for information, when on her way to Egypt. The passenger on board the steamer Tripoli dressed as a zouave declared himself an American. I cannot understand by what lawful right the representative of any foreign power in Egypt, or the Egyptian government, could claim him, if even so disposed. Had he been arrested here, there might have been a temporary detention, for Surratt called himself a Canadian; but such is not the case with you. Being fully satisfied, as my previous correspondence will show, that the person you now hold in arrest is John Harrison Surratt, I earnestly hope you will keep him safely under guard until the ship-of-war arrives to receive him, which you may shortly expect. You mention that the individual when arrested displayed "neither surprise nor irritation," which I think may be easily accounted for. Having been examined at this island on board of the Tripoli, when giving the name of John Agostine, and stating he was from Canada, he saw very clearly that something was wrong, and in my opinion prepared himself to meet any emergency which might arise on his arrival in Egypt; hence his coolness. In continuation I would beg to inform you that on Sunday, December 2, 1866, at four p. m., I received a telegram from the American minister at Rome, written in Florence, which may be thus literally translated: "Surratt arrested in Egypt, A. Hale to guard him until my letters." RUFUS KING." This doubtless means until you hear from him. At nine a. m. on Wednes-· day, December 5, 1866, I received the following telegram from the American minister in London : "The government will bring Surratt home by ship-of-war." "C. F. ADAMS." From the information I am induced to believe that there has been some telegraphic communication between the honorable Secretary of State at Washington and the American minister in London with reference to Surratt, of which I may hear more certainly when the mail from England arrives. It remains only for me to add at the moment, that whenever I receive any further information it will be transmitted to you by the first opportunity. I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servant, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Alexandria, Egypt, December 8, 1866. SIR: Your telegram in answer to mine of the 27th ultimo was received last evening, the circuit of twelve thousand miles having been completed in ten days, notwithstanding the break in the wire between this place and Malta, which re |