File No. 17753/3.
The Acting Secretary of State to Ambassador Dudley.
Washington, November 4, 1909.
Sir: I transmit herewith for your information a copy of dispatch,1 No. 138, of December 28, 1908, from the American consul general at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, concerning the arrest and imprisonment by the police authorities at that place of two American seamen, Otto Andersen and A. Erikson, on account of a minor offense committed by them on the American vessel Margaret Thomas, at that port on December 25, 1908. It appears that the arrest of the seamen was made at the instance of a Brazilian revenue officer who was on board the vessel at the time and who did not approve the action of the captain of the vessel in placing in irons one of the seamen who was in such a state of intoxication as to be dangerous. The men were, however, subsequently released at the request of the consul general.
No treaty or agreement of any character appears to have been entered into by the United States and Brazil governing the matter of the jurisdiction over offenses committed on board a vessel of either country in a port of the other, and the question, therefore, seems to be a much disputed one. A decree of November 8, 1851, as cited in Moore’s International Law Digest, regulates the jurisdictional rights of consuls in Brazil and concedes to them cognizance in certain civil and criminal matters arising between members of the [Page 42] crews of vessels of their respective countries, provided that (Art. 15)—
When a foreign merchant vessel shall be lying within any of the ports of Brazil the criminal and police jurisdiction of the respective consular agents shall not extend to high crimes or to those that may in any manner disturb public tranquility or particularly affect any inhabitant of the country.
Whether this concession might be construed as a partial or complete surrender of jurisdiction to consular officers by the local authorities seems not to be well settled, but when the seamen mentioned herein were turned over to the consul general upon his demand that they be released the local officers appear to have recognized the authority of the consular officer in such cases, in accordance with the decree hereinbefore cited. The consul general’s action, therefore, appears to have been proper under the circumstances.
It is desired that this matter be brought to the attention of the Brazilian foreign office, in order that an undesirable precedent may not be claimed for the arbitrary act of the revenue officer in forbidding the captain of the vessel to place the dangerous seaman in irons. There appears not to have been any pretense of exercise of local jurisdiction. The seamen were arbitrarily taken from the captain’s jurisdiction by the police on the revenue officer’s order, without judicial process, and were promptly returned to the ship when the circumstances were made known to the competent authorities. The department considers that this was sufficient amends and you are further requested to advise the Brazilian Government that it is so accepted, but that the arbitrary interference of the revenue and police authorities with the internal discipline of a vessel and with the rights of the master thereof, as generally recognized by international law and usage, having been disavowed and corrected by the return of the men to the captain’s jurisdiction, the incident is satisfactorily ended, and the case can not, from any point of view, be deemed to create a precedent for similar unwarranted interference in the future.
I am, etc.,
- Not printed.↩