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Since, at the same time, I was present on official business, I issued orders for the detention of the schooner and the arrest of the commander and the crew and for a preliminary interrogation. The interrogation disclosed that the Letters were issued for a different captain than the one who now commanded the schooner and that the outfitting roll was false, but not that this schooner had perpetrated any violence or injury against Danish shipping. Had not a circumstance occurred, which I shall most humbly report below, this matter would have caused me some embarrassment, as, on the one hand, I very much wished I could detain and condemn the schooner in order to make the insurgents more wary of approaching our coasts and thereby avoid the perennial complaints from the Spaniards. On the other hand, I did not consider it in accordance with the basic principles of international law or politically correct to interfere in the dispute between the Spanish colonies and the motherland, which I would be doing if I detained the schooner Conejon for condemnation solely because it carried a flag not recognized by the powers. However, it was further discovered that the schooner Conejon belonged to a Bernard, who commands a different insurgent privateer named Conejo (the Rabbit) and while the interrogation was in progress, I received a deposition from the captain and crew of a Danish vessel which, between Crab Eyland and St. Croix was plundered by Bernard in the schooner Conejo. Now, I issued orders to detain, for condemnation, the schooner Conejon in response to the robbery perpetrated by its owner and to let the captain and the crew, as not guilty of any crime against Your Majesty’s territories or subjects, go away as opportunity arose to send them away, wherewith I did, however, require the commandant to send them all the way to North America, but under no circumstances to St. Domingo or other places from where they would again be given the opportunity to cruise against the Spanish.
In the execution of this order, as it pertains to the condemnation of the schooner, a procedural difficulty is encountered regarding which I have this date made a presentation to Your Royal Majesty’s Danish Council, in order, |