U.S.  GRANT.

WASHINGTON, January 5, 1874.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

In my annual message of December last I gave reason to expect that when the full and accurate text of the correspondence relating to the steamer Virginius, which had been telegraphed in cipher, should be received the papers concerning the capture of the vessel, the execution of a part of its passengers and crew, and the restoration of the ship and the survivors would be transmitted to Congress.

In compliance with the expectations then held out, I now transmit the papers and correspondence on that subject.

On the 26th day of September, 1870, the Virginius was registered in the custom-house at New York as the property of a citizen of the United States, he having first made oath, as required by law, that he was “the true and only owner of the said vessel, and that there was no subject or citizen of any foreign prince or state, directly or indirectly, by way of trust, confidence, or otherwise, interested therein.”

Having complied with the requisites of the statute in that behalf, she cleared in the usual way for the port of Curacoa, and on or about the 4th day of October, 1870, sailed for that port.  It is not disputed that she made the voyage according to her clearance, nor that from that day to this she has not returned within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.  It is also understood that she preserved her American papers, and that when within foreign ports she made the practice of putting forth a claim to American nationality, which was recognized by the authorities at such ports.

When, therefore, she left the port of Kingston, in October last, under the flag of the United States, she would appear to have had, as against all powers except the United States, the right to fly that flag and to claim its protection, as enjoyed by all regularly documented vessels registered as part of our commercial marine.

No state of war existed conferring upon a maritime power the right to molest and detain upon the high seas a documented vessel, and it can not be pretended that the Virginius had placed herself without the pale of all law by acts of piracy against the human race.

If her papers were irregular or fraudulent, the offense was one against the laws of the United States, justiciable only in their tribunals.

When, therefore, it became known that the Virginius had been captured on the high seas by a Spanish man-of-war; that the American flag had been hauled down by the captors; that the vessel had been carried to a Spanish port, and that Spanish tribunals were taking jurisdiction over the persons of those found on her, and exercising that jurisdiction upon American citizens, not only in violation of the rules of international law, but in contravention of the provisions of the treaty of 1795, I directed a demand to be made upon Spain for the restoration of the vessel and for the return of the survivors to the protection of the United States, for a salute to the flag, and for the punishment of the offending parties.