examination of witnesses, has given evidence of unmistakeable partiality for the cause of Möller, and has actually declared to one of the parties examined, that the only good that might result from the production of witnesses would be an abatement of punishment; thus assuming, before the trial, that the parties accused are guilty; adding, that the English could not bring an action against Möller, who, as a representative of the Crown, can only be called to account by his superiors. Under these circumstances, and with a view to elicit the truth, I have to request your Excellency to urge the immediate transmission of orders to Boun, that the witnesses against Möller be sworn, and their evidence taken in open court, and not in private, as I understand is the intention of the judges. A refusal of the Prussian Government to allow the testimony of witnesses to be given in public, cannot fail to be considered by the Queen's Government as a denial of justice to Her Majesty's subjects. I have, &c. Baron Schleinitz. BLOOMFIELD. No. 11.-Lord Bloomfield to Baron Schleinitz. M. LE BARON, Berlin, October 3, 1860. I DIRECTED Her Majesty's Consul at Cologne, some days ago, to employ a confidential person to make notes of the proceedings about to take place in the law court at Bonn against some of the English residents there, who are accused of libel; and I have just learned, with regret, from Mr. Crossthwaite, that he has reason to fear such person will not be permitted to do so, unless authority is previously obtained from here. I shall, therefore, be much obliged to your Excellency to procure the authority that seems to be required in this case. Baron Schleinitz. I avail, &c. No. 12.-Lord Bloomfield to Lord J. Russell.-(Rec. at Coburg, Oct.5.) WHEN I was with Baron Schleinitz to day, we had some conversation respecting the late imprisonment of Captain Macdonald; but I could not discover that the Prussian Government have taken any decision as to the degree of blame to be attached to the proceedings of the State Prosecutor Möller. His Excellency seemed, I regret to say, more disposed than before to place the conduct of that officer beyond legal censure, and said, with reference to the severe blame to which I declared his refusal of the bail offered by the Consul exposed him, that it must not be forgotten M. Möller was directing a prosecution against a man whose punishment, if the charge were proved, might amount to two years' imprisonment, while he seemed desirous to pass over the more gross acts of brutality and persecution which had been perpetrated against this English gentleman from the moment that he fell into the hands of the police, and to forget altogether the insult offered to the British nation by M. Möller in his speech on opening the prosecution, and which, moreover, was pronounced in the presence of Her Majesty's Consul. I reminded his Excellency of all this, when he said that M. Simons, the Minister of Justice, still considered a reprimand would be sufficient punishment, but that the approaching trial for libel might throw more light on the case, and that if proof could be brought that M. Möller's conduct was legally wrong, that proof would, of course, receive full consideration. I told his Excellency that he had seen the instructions with which your Lordship had honoured me, and I could add that I had no reason to believe that Her Majesty's Government would be satisfied with so small an amount of punishment, and that they expected to obtain reparation for the wrongs inflicted on Captain Macdonald by the punishment of Hoffman, the railway inspector, and by that of M. Möller, for the unnecessary severity he had displayed in exercising his authority, and for the gross expressions on the character of English travellers to which he had given utterance in a public Court of Justice. I have, &c. BLOOMFIELD. Lord J. Russell. No. 13.-The Rev. J. Anderson and others to Lord J. Russell. (Received at Coburg, October 5.) MY LORD, 8, Baumschüler Allée, Bonn, October 2, 1860. WE, the Undersigned, being at this time English residents in Bonn, beg to address your Lordship on a subject closely connected indeed with another which has already been brought under your Lordship's notice (viz., the outrage recently committed at Bonn against Captain Macdonald), but which at present only concerns ourselves, and that most seriously. Upon the trial of Captain Macdonald, a gross and deliberate insult was cast, in public court, upon the whole British nation, by Möller, the King's Prosecutor, charging the " English travellers upon the Continent with being notorious for rudeness, impudence, and blackguardism." We could not but feel an indignant sense of the public wrong thus publicly done; and if further aggravation were needed, it is found in the painful conviction forced upon us of the unfair prejudices which had already been exhibited by this same Möller against the English before the trial; by his peremptory refusal of bail, and by expressing that refusal in terms most insult ing to the British Consul who offered it, and to the whole nation of which the Consul was the representative. We immediately, therefore, drew up, signed and published, a protest, of which I herewith send a copy to your Lordship. ** For this act, a State Prosecution has been commenced against us for libel; and the 3 passages on which the charge of libel is attempted to be fixed, are underlined in the inclosed copy.* We were each examined separately by the Untersuchungs-Richter upon this charge; no other person but his Secretary and an interpreter being allowed to be present. We declared ourselves "not guilty" of the charge, and our readiness not only to prove the fact of the utterance of the scandalous words of Möller, but also to justify each and all of the passages in question, if the witnesses whom we are prepared to bring forward might be allowed to give their testimony freely. The examination of the witnesses before the UntersuchungsRichter begins, we believe, to-morrow or Thursday; but of the day appointed for our trial we have not yet heard any tidings. Full particulars of all that has occurred as yet upon this subject have been forwarded to Lord Bloomfield at Berlin; but we are now advised formally to acquaint your Lordship with the present state of things. In doing so, we beg respectfully to say, that the act for which we are now prosecuted was one which, as Englishmen residing in a foreign country, we all felt bound to do; that the offence having been publicly committed, demanded not only a public but prompt exposure; that delay of any kind would have diminished the effect of our remonstrance; that our "protest," although questions of criticism may be raised upon this or that passage, was substantially true; and that we are prepared to prove to the very letter, the truth of the alleged libellous passages. We have done, in fact, no more than your Lordship, by virtue of your present high office, would have felt it your duty to have done (however different may have been the form of doing it), as soon as you had become cognizant of the facts, viz., to strive and vindicate the British name and character from reproach. Yet, for doing this, we are instantly brought under the rigour of a penal statute. The Prussian Government, we are assured, has directed an inquiry into the conduct of Möller; and although we have reason to believe that the inquiry has not been conducted so far in any way calculated to attain the ends of justice, yet, before the inquiry is closed, and before a witness upon our side has been examined upon oath, the Government, whose officer Möller still is, calls us to account for daring to complain. * The passages are printed in italics. We regret to be obliged to trouble your Lordship with the notice of such a matter at this moment, but the urgency of the case admits of no other course. We shrink not for a moment, any one of us, from the position in which we stand, and are preparing to defend ourselves as we best can from the consequences which may follow. Meanwhile, we believe it to be our duty to bring our position immediately under your Lordship's notice, and call upon you, as Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to take such steps as you may think fit to stay the progress of the State Prosecution which has been instituted against us. Lord J. Russell. We have, &c. J. S. M. ANDERSON, British Chaplain at Bonn. P. J. H. BADDELEY. E. RAPP. G. M. CUMBERLAND, Major. C. J. OLDFIELD, Lieutenant-Colonel.* C. T. THURSTON. G. WILLIAMS (not now in Bonn). (Inclosure.)—Protest of English Residents at Bonn. WE, the undersigned English inhabitants of Bonn, beg to protest against the assertion made by the Staats-Procurator Möller, on Tuesday, the 18th instant, during the public sitting of the Correctional Police Court, that "the English residing and travelling on the Continent, were notorious for their rudeness, impudence, and backguardism of their conduct" ("Anmassung, Unverschämtheit und Lümmelei"). We may not have reached the height of refinement and proper feeling on which the Staats-Procurator stands (we are but Englishmen), but we cannot understand how a representative of the Prussian Crown could be so far carried away by his private feelings of hatred as to insult a whole nation, to which the Consort of the CrownPrince belongs. Our Royal Princess is "an Englishwoman residing on the Continent." Our Queen will soon be "an Englishwoman travelling on the Continent!" Must, they, too, quietly allow themselves to be dragged out of a railway carriage by the railway servants, called "dummes Volk und Flegel" by Orthopädic Physicians; or, if they defend themselves, be thrust into a dirty jail for a week, and Not yet examined, on account of illness.-J. S. M. A. be then brought out to be told that they are "rude and impudent blackguards" by the Attorney-General of Crown? Is the conduct of the many respectable English families, who live in Bonn as peaceably as the bad feeling which the Staats-Procurator tries to rouse against them will allow, of such a kind as to deserve so uncalled for and cowardly an attack on the whole British nation? What would be thought of an English Attorney-General of the Crown, who should stand up in Court and denounce all the German residents in London and Manchester as "rude and impudent blackguards ?" J. S. M. ANDERSON, British Chaplain. P. J. H. BADDELEY. E. RAPP. G. M. CUMBERLAND, Major. C. J. OLDFIELD, Lieut.-Colonel. FRANCIS P. WASHINGTON. G. C. E. ROCHFORT. GEORGE WILLIAMS. C. T. THURSTON. No. 14.-Lord J. Russell to the Rev. J. Anderson and others. GENTLEMEN, Coburg, October 5, 1860. YOUR letter of the 2nd only reached me this morning. Its contents will engage my earnest attention; but it is, as you must know, difficult to do more than require that the Prussian law should be fairly and impartially administered. Lord Bloomfield will watch closely the proceedings on the trial. I am, &c. The Rev. J. Anderson and others. J. RUSSELL. No. 17.-Baron Schleinitz to Lord Bloomfield. MILORD, Berlin, le 9 Octobre, 1860. J'ETAIS sur le point de communiquer à M. le Ministre de la Justice la lettre que vous m'avez fait l'honneur de m'adresser le 21 du mois passé sur l'affaire de M. le Capitaine Macdonald lorsque je reçus de la part de M. Simons deux rapports que a lui adressés dans cette affaire le Procureur du Roi à Bonn. Ces pièces ne m'ayant pas encore suffi pour porter un jugement exact sur la réclamation de M. Macdonald, j'ai cru devoir demander de plus amples informations à M. le Ministre de la Justice, et c'est aujourd'hui seulement que je me trouve en mesure de me prononcer sur cette affaire. Voici d'abord un exposé des faits, tels qu'ils résultent du premier des dits rapports: |