No. 33

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch No 19 of the
12th of April 1860, forwarding Copy of a letter which you had
received from the office of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty,
upon the subject of my not furnishing Rear Admiral Baynes with a Copy
of Your Grace's Despatch relative to the joint Military occupation of
the Island of San Juan.

2. Your Grace regrets I should have felt any doubt about
communicating to the Admiral your instructions in a matter of so much
importance, and Your Grace instructs me to communicate with him
unreservedly upon all matters requiring the co-operation of the Force
under his orders.

3. I can assure Your Grace that it has been my constant desire to
establish the most frank and unreserved communication between Admiral Baynes and myself, and I have always endeavoured to furnish him with
every information he could desire to assist him in the discharge of
his duties and to relieve him from apprehended responsibility; for
instance, when General Scott visited this part of the world I
instantly communicated with Admiral Baynes, and kept him supplied, as
it occurred, with copies of all the correspondence that took place.

4. I observe that the correspondence between the Admiral and myself
was furnished to Your Grace by the Admiralty. Your Grace would
doubtless notice the manner in which the request was preferred to me,
and gather from my reply the principal reason which induced me to
decline compliance with it. Your Grace would also notice that in my
first letter I make no requisition for Troops
to be landed upon San Juan, but merely requested the Admiral to
concert measures with me to that end; and when I saw him I
unhesitatingly placed Your Grace's Despatch in his hands; and had he
asked me for a Copy either for reference, or to preserve as an
official Record I should not have hesitated to supply him.
Afterwards, when matters were more matured, I, in making requisition
upon Admiral Baynes to
land the Troops upon the Island, furnished him with a Copy of the instructions I had received from Your Grace; and in the whole
affair, I really do not think the Admiral has any reasonable ground
for complaint.

5. I would further mention incidentally that although Admiral Baynes received instructions respecting San Juan from Lord John Russell, as
I gather from his letter to me of the 23rd of January, yet neither
directly, nor indirectly, had I any knowledge of that fact until I
received that letter; and up to this moment I am not aware of the
nature of those instructions.