anchored near us. Sent a Lieutenant on board to
make the usual complimentary call. Awaiting the arrival of a vessel with
coal, consigned to Mr. Joyce, who promises to supply us. My coxswain ran
off to-day, and I was pulled off by a drunken crew.

_Sunday, February 9th._--Did not go to church, but remained on board to
be present at muster. Eleven of my vagabonds still on shore. Some of
these, we learn, have gone to the United States Consul, and claimed his
protection. This official has been seducing them off by an emissary.
Wrote to the Governor charging this on the Consul, and wrote also to
Captain Warden, asking to be supplied with coal from the Government
dockyard.

C.S. Steamer Sumter, Bay of Gibraltar,
Feb. 10, 1862.

Sir,--I have the honour to state for the information of his Excellency
the Governor of Gibraltar, that I am informed and believe that the
United States Consul, at this place, has, by means of his emissaries,
tampered with, and seduced from their allegiance, several of the crew of
my ship who have visited the shore on liberty. The impropriety and
illegality of such conduct is so manifest that I take it for granted his
Excellency will interpose his authority for my protection. Great
Britain, having proclaimed a strict neutrality in the war now pending
between the United States and Confederate States, is under the
obligation, I respectfully suggest, not only to abstain herself, from
any un-neutral conduct, but to see that all persons whatsoever within
her dominions so abstain. No act of war, proximate or remote, should be
tolerated in her waters by the one belligerent against the other, or by
any citizen or resident against either belligerent. His Excellency will
doubtless concur with me in the justice and propriety of the rule thus
stated. To apply this rule to the present case. Being prompted by
motives of humanity to send my crew on shore, in small detachments, for
exercise and recreation, after a long confinement on shipboard, my
enemy, the United States Consul, sends his agents among them, and by
specious pretences persuades them to desert their ship, and take refuge
under his Consular flag. This Has been done in the case of the following
seamen:--Everett Salmon, John G. Jenkins, Thomas F. Kenny, and perhaps
others. Here is an act of war perpetrated against me in neutral
territory, and the consular residence, or office, has become _quoad hoc_
a hostile camp. And this conduct is the more obj