Mr. Bayard to Mr. Soteldo.
Washington, July 24, 1885.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 21st instant, informing me that your Government issued on the 7th instant a decree—
Declaring pirates two steam vessels now respectively named Justicia Nacional and El Torito, the latter having been formerly called Annette, which vessels have been armed by unauthorized persons for the ostensible purpose of arousing to insurrection the coasts and ports of Venezuela, but which do not belong to the registry of any Government, nor have been manned in any legal form, nor are other than a danger to commerce and to the security of those seas and coasts when they begin as revolutionists, and will end by doing injuries of every kind, not only to Venezuela and her citizens, but to foreign commerce and to all those who cultivate commercial relations with the country.
Under these circumstances, at the instance of your Government, you request that the naval authorities of the United States will consider these vessels—
Beyond the pale of the law, in conformity with the terms of the aforesaid decree, and will not permit them to be supplied with fuel or provisions, but will rather cause them to be subjected to the procedure of the competent authorities because of the irregularities, the criminal purposes and acts of those who man them, and other circumstances pertinent to the case, if they should, in fact, arrive at any points within the jurisdiction of the United States.
In reply I have the honor to inform you that, while it is entirely foreign to the purpose of the United States to give aid or comfort to the enemies of Venezuela, this Government cannot admit the international effect of the Venezuelan decree declaring certain vessels in the service of insurrectionists to be pirates. The position which this Government has taken in respect to this question is so fully set forth in recent correspondence with the Colombian legation at this capital that I feel that I cannot better acquaint you with what are conceived to be the international obligations of the United States in the premises than by in closing to you, which I now have the honor of doing, a copy of that correspondence.*
In addition to the authorities therein cited, I would invite your attention to the general principle touching this subject as laid down in a treatise on international law by the eminent English barrister, William Edward Hall, which is as follows:
By the municipal law of many countries acts are deemed piratical, and are punished as such, which are not reckoned piratical by international law. Thus the slave trade is piratical in England and the United States, and in France the crew of an armed vessel navigating in time of peace with irregular papers become pirates upon the mere fact of irregularity, without the commission of any act of violence. It is scarcely necessary to point out that municipal laws extending piracy beyond the limits assigned to it by international custom effect only the subjects of the state enacting them and foreigners doing the forbidden acts within its jurisdiction.
It does not follow, however, that because this government declines to regard the vessels to which you refer as pirates they will be received into the ports of the United States with the same privileges that are accorded to vessels bearing the flags of recognized Governments. Such vessels cannot receive in our ports those immunities to which they would be entitled upon an exhibition of proper papers. While taking this position, however, I wish to be understood that it is here assumed with the usual qualification that gives to vessels coming to our ports in distress, even though they be without regular papers, such hospitality as is approved by the law of nations.
Accept, &c.,