[Hanse Towns.]
James Terry having applied to Colonel Hodges for exemption from service in the civil guard, in 1851, Lord Palmerston furnished Colonel Hodges with the following instructions:
2 “It appears that James Terry, the person whose case you quote, was born in Hamburg, and must therefore be considered, while within the State of Hamburg, as a Hamburg subject: and it appears, moreover, that his father was admitted a citizen before the son attained his twelfth year, and that by the law of Hamburg the son would, on that account, also be deemed a Hamburg subject. Under those circumstances there can be no reason to question the liability of James Terry to serve in the civic guard, or in the federal contingent, precisely the same as any other native of Hamburg.
“With respect to the general liability of British subjects resident in Hamburg to perform either or both of these kinds of service, I have to authorize you to give way to the liability of British subjects to serve in the civic guard for the protection of the city in which they reside, if you should find it necessary to do so; but you should strenuously resist any pretension to require British-born subjects, whether admitted or not to the rights of citizenship, to serve in the Hamburg contingent, because that contingent is not a force, raised and embodied for the maintenance of order within the city and state of Hamburg, nor even solely for the defense of the Hamburg state, but is a portion of the army of Germany, and is organized for the purposes of foreign war, beyond and out of the Hamburg territory, to be waged not merely for the Hamburg interests, but possibly for the interests of any one of the other states of Germany; and the making of such a war would not depend upon the will and decision of the government of Hamburg, but upon the will and decision of the central diet.
“It thus might happen not only that British subjects might be brought without, and even against their will, into conflict with the troops of states in amity or alliance with England, but that they might actually be compelled to take the field against the troops of their own country and sovereign.”
A similar case occurred in 1863.
3 Mr. Charles James Bosdet claimed exemption from military service as a British subject.
4 He was the eldest son of a Mr. Bosdet, a British subject, who caused himself to be made a citizen of Hamburg in 1843, who had ever since resided there and was then residing there with all his family but his eldest son. Mr. C. J. Bosdet was born in Hamburg and resided there till he was twenty-two years of age.
Mr. C. J. Bosdet having quitted Hamburg, the senate published his name in the list of deserters, thereby subjecting him to certain penal consequences should he return within the Hamburg territory.
It was decided that the enforcement of the decree of the senate within their jurisdiction, should Mr. Bosdet place himself within it, would not constitute any ground for the official interference of Her Majesty’s government, and instructions in this sense were accordingly furnished to Her Majesty’s chargé d’affaires.
5 Another case occurred in 1866, in which Mr. C. Dodgshun, born in Hamburg, of a British father, who had become a burgher of that city, claimed exemption from the conscription as a British subject.
It was decided “that Her Majesty’s government cannot gainsay the right of the Hamburg authorities to treat him, so far as their jurisdiction is concerned, as a citizen, or to sequestrate his property in Hamburg, though they can have no right to touch the property of his brother and sister.”
In August, 1866, another of the Bosdet family appeared as a claimant to British protection.
[Page 1339]In this instance, the applicant, A. Bosdet, had been born in Jersey, and was resident in Scotland.
1 Mr. Ward was instructed “that Alfred Bosdet seems to be the son of a native citizen of Hamburg, now a domiciled merchant in that town. The municipal laws of Hamburg treat the son of such a citizen as a subject, and place him, so far their jurisdiction extends, under the obligations of a citizen, one of which is to serve in the Hamburg military force. The fact that Alfred Bosdet was born in England confers on him, according to the law of this country, the character of an English subject; and there arises, or may arise, in these cases a conflict of jurisdiction; but as the law of England also considers the son of a native subject, wherever he is born, as an English citizen, the English government cannot fairly complain of the law of Hamburg, which in this respect is the same; nor can it interfere with the execution of that law within the town of Hamburg. You may accordingly represent to the Hamburg authorities that Alfred Bosdet has become an English subject, and ask, as a matter of comity, that his name may therefore be taken off the military list. Mr. Ward cannot be properly instructed to insist, as a matter of right, upon this being done.”